Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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periaswamy
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by periaswamy »

AnupMisra: To effectively and permanently blockade CPEC and make it financially unviable, India should think along the lines of "Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan". More importantly, Balochistan. The "road corridor" and the "port" make SeePak strategically valuable to the chinese.
Anupji, yes, most definitely. CPEC needs to be targeted and blockaded so that China does not have access to the Indian Ocean/Arabian Sea via land. it is also easier to block China in CPEC than it is to do so at sea, which requires working with allies, and India's official position is that the IOR is a "commons" access, so it cannot really stop China from using it, at least not at the current level of Naval Power India has.

The road-port connection is definitely not for commercial purposes, but it does allow them to proliferate nuclear weapons or otherwise use it for military purposes -- that has to be the primary purpose of CPEC given that the volume of trade that can be supported by CPEC is not significant. That also means, targeting CPEC is a must and the sooner china is prevented from using the CPEC, the lesser chance it creating more military and strategic threats for India.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Indo-Pacific ties in the time of Trump - G.Parthasarathy, Business Line
The past month has seen hectic diplomatic activity having a crucial bearing on India’s ‘Act East’ policies of increasing strategic interaction and involvement across its eastern neighbourhood, from the Bay of Bengal to the South China Sea.

An assertive China has violated international laws and conventions by seizing control of a number of islands by force, from neighbours such as Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. The world also witnessed some clumsy American diplomacy involving military exercises off the shores of ally South Korea in a melodramatic but futile bid to coerce North Korea to desist from developing its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons capabilities.

Opportunistic

On his first long tour abroad, President Donald Trump visited Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. He was in Hanoi and Manila primarily for multilateral meetings of APEC and the Asean-centric East Asia Summit. The Manila visit also provided an opportunity for a useful bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who reached out significantly to his Asean hosts by inviting them all for a summit-level get-together in Delhi on Republic Day, 2018.

Modi’s initiative was timely, as Asean itself is undergoing strains and differences, on how to deal with a growingly assertive China, which is providing Asean members with huge opportunities for investment and trade. This, at a time when Trump, with his emphasis on ‘America First’ policies, withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, throwing to the winds prospects for meaningful increases in economic cooperation and integration with Asean while opening the doors for a China-centric order in the region.

The Manila summit coincided with an official-level meeting between India, Japan, Australia and the US (popularly known as the Quad), to develop a new basis for maritime and regional economic cooperation across what is now described as the Indo-Pacific Region, extending from the Gulf of Aden, where China has a full-fledged military base in Djibouti, to the South China Sea, an important trade route.

Even as China started voicing concern about the Quad, there was no joint statement after the meeting. It was, however, clear that the four countries shared similar views on issues like connectivity, respect for international conventions, maritime security and freedom of navigation and regional connectivity. There was a desire to move ahead collectively in balancing Chinese assertiveness and disregard for international laws and conventions on issues of freedom of navigation, over-flights and maritime boundaries, while avoiding references specifically targeting China. Australia and the US were, however, more direct than India and Japan in pointing fingers at China. Despite these subtleties, the Chinese will have no doubt that beginnings have been made by the four countries involved to balance Beijing’s growing, territorial and geopolitical ambitions.

Crude behaviour

We should be clear: the Trump administration behaves in manner that is often crude and counter-productive, even with close allies such as South Korea. On the eve of Trump’s visit to South Korea and despite the display of crude military power by the US, South Korea buckled under Chinese pressure and dropped a deal for acquiring more American missile defences. This followed the imposition of tight Chinese economic sanctions, lasting over 16 months, which caused widespread dislocation and loss of billions of dollars for Seoul’s largest companies, and an estimated loss of tourism revenues of over $15 billion following Beijing’s ban on Chinese tourists visiting South Korea.

Worse still, Trump’s war rhetoric holding out the threat of military conflict, caused virtual panic in South Korea, which would suffer the loss of thousands of lives if tensions with the North led to conflict across the border.

While Trump was fulsome in his praise for President Xi Jinping, the Chinese have made it abundantly clear that they have no intention of fulfilling his demands for isolating Pyongyang and imposing crippling sanctions on North Korea. Pyongyang, after all, fulfils China’s ambitions of dominating the Korean peninsula. Moreover, while pleasantries were exchanged with the Philippines president, the blunt-spoken Rodrigo Duterte has decided to play along with the Americans while avoiding any action that could provoke China.

Within Asean, countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia are too closely linked economically with China to speak out strongly on China’s extravagant claims about its maritime boundaries. The Quad will have to work out carefully crafted policies that ensure that countries like Vietnam and Indonesia stand firm on issues affecting their maritime security. New Delhi will face continuing inconsistencies and brash rhetoric in the policies and statements of Trump and his administration on issues ranging from China and North Korea, to the Lashkar-e-Taiba as it works in the Quad to balance Chinese economic and military power.

Crucial issue

Maritime security is set to become a crucial issue affecting our strategic perceptions in coming years. With a full-fledged military base in Djibouti, virtual control of Gwadar where Pakistan has abdicated any pretence of sovereign control, a significant stake in Hambantota and a growing economic presence in the port of Kyaukpyu which it is developing in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, China is set to develop what was years ago described as a “string of pearls” across the Indian Ocean.

At the same time, there are growing voices of dissent in a number of countries discovering that China’s much touted One Belt One Road project is really meant to use China’s surplus construction and infrastructure capacities to promote Beijing’s global geopolitical ambitions, by setting terms which force recipients to hand over crucial sectors of their economy and territory to Chinese control. Even a supplicant for Chinese assistance like Pakistan is realising that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will lead to Chinese control over both agriculture and industry, apart from mortgaging the strategic port of Gwadar virtually in perpetuity, while accepting the yuan as a parallel currency in the country. But, with its army now seeking a say in the financial administration of the country, Pakistan is set to be ruled by a military elite with little sense of national self-respect, as long as it can foster terrorism across its immediate neighbourhood.

The writer is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan
(This article was published on November 29, 2017)
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Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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China hints at maintaining sizeable presence of troops near Doklam in winter

BEIJING: The Chinese military on Thursday hinted at maintaining sizable presence of its troops near the area of Doklam standoff during winter, asserting that the region is in Chinese territory.

India and China resolved the 73-day tense standoff on August 28 at Doklam area after the People's Liberation Army (PLA) stopped building a strategic road close to India's narrow Chicken Neck area connecting to North-Eastern states. Bhutan also claims the Doklam area to be its part.

India objected to the road building by the PLA, saying that it endangered the security of the narrow corridor.

According to official accounts, both China and India in the past used to withdraw troops from the advanced regions of that area during the winter which is harsh.

"Donglong (Doklam) is Chinese territory," Col Wu Qian, spokesman of the Chinese ministry of defence said today when asked about reports that PLA continue to maintain sizable number of troops close to the Doklam standoff area and doing away with the practice of vacating the place during winter.

"Based on this principle we will decide on the deployment of troops on our own," he said without elaborating.

The continued presence of Chinese troops near Yatung close to Doklam reportedly prompted India too to maintain its troops presence there.

While it is not clear whether the issue figured in the 10th round of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) talks between India and China here on November 17, officials said the meeting reviewed the situation in all sectors of India-China border and exchanged views on enhancing Confidence Building Measures (CBMS) and military contacts.

It was the first meeting after the Doklam standoff.

Asked whether the two sides made progress to establish hotlines between the two militaries to avert crisis like Doklam, Wu said both sides are in touch on this issue.

He, however, clarified that the hotline can't be between the two military headquarters as China no longer has a military central office after the recent reforms.

At the WMCC meeting, the two sides discussed maintaining peace and stability and border exchanges, Wu said, adding that both sides will keep in contact with each other.

Cheers Image
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Maldives-China FTA could plunge Maldives into political crisis - Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury, Economic Times
Neighbouring Maldives could plunge into a fresh crisis with the main Opposition Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) led by former President Nasheed raising red flag over Maldives-China FTA that was rushed through Parliament on Wednesday in a record one hour without any debate.

Sino-Maldivian trade balance remains considerably in favour of China, and there are concerns that the FTA will further increase the deficit and push Maldives towards a debt trap like Sri Lanka -- an issue that has alarmed Delhi amid apprehensions of neighbourhood plunging into economic crisis in future.

China is eyeing naval base in Maldives much to India's discomfort. The Maldives has also agreed to become a partner in China's maritime silk route and the Chinese government pledged $100 million as grant aid for a bridge connecting Male and the reclaimed island Hulhumale.

ET has learnt that the Speaker of Maldivian Parliament called for an emergency sitting on late Wednesday evening to pass the FTA with China. The Agreement was sent to the Parliamentary oversight committee on national security affairs within three minutes of submission to the floor. The Committee vetting the 1000 plus pages Agreement took less than 10 minutes. The Committee was conducted against Parliamentary procedures and norms, with deliberations closed off for the public and to the media, according to Opposition leaders who refused to be identified.

Despite requests, the MPs were not given access to the document in order to review it before passing. The Government allowed for less than one hour for the entire Parliamentary process to approve the 1000 plus page document. "The Agreement contained a number of technical details that should have been thoroughly reviewed and required consultation with the business community. The Agreement was approved with just 30 votes, in another late evening session of the Parliament," sources in MDP told ET.

"The MDP is deeply alarmed that the Yameen Government is entering a trade deal that will have immense economic repercussions on the Maldivian economy... Trade balance remains considerably in favour of China, and the MDP is therefore concerned that the FTA will further increase the deficit. We are also deeply concerned that further entrenchment of the country into a Chinese debt trap will result in additional stress on strategic national assets and increasing instability in the Indian Ocean region," one of senior MDP functionaries told ET.

The FTA is expected to exempt over 95 percent of bilateral trade flows from tariffs while enhancing cooperation in areas including finance, medicine, tourism, and fishing. But the MDP-led Opposition claims that the agreement places Maldives in a geopolitically vulnerable position. The Maldives has so far only signed the regional South Asian Free Trade Area agreement and FTA with China is its first country-specific FTA.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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By some estimates in c. 2017, over 70% of Maldives’ external debts is to China alone.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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India kickstarts process to build 6 nuclear-powered attack submarines - PTI
India has kick-started an ambitious project to build six nuclear-powered attack submarines that is expected to boost the Navy's overall strike capabilities in the face of China's naval build-up and increasing military manoeuvring in the Indo-Pacific region.

Confirming the launch of the mega project, Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba also gave a clear indication that Indian Navy was ready to play a bigger role including under the proposed quadrilateral coalition among India, the US, Australia and Japan.


In a press conference on the eve of Navy Day, Admiral Lanba also touched on a range of key issues confronting the Navy including acquisition of a range of submarines, warships and weapons systems, asserting that it was ready to face any traditional and non-traditional threats.

"It has kicked off and I will leave it at that. It is a classified project. The process has started. I will not comment further," Admiral Lanba said, replying to a question on the project.

On the evolving security scenario in the maritime sphere around India, he said it was odd for China to deploy submarines for anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean region and that a threat assessment is being carried out by the Indian Navy on it.

"We are all aware of the prevailing security scenario in our maritime domain. The continued presence of both traditional and non-traditional threats in the maritime domain demand constant attention and robust mitigating measures," he said.

He also spoke about possible security challenges in case of presence of Chinese warships in the strategically-important Gwadar port in Pakistan which is being developed by China.

"It will be a security challenge. We will have to look at it and mitigate," he said.

The Navy Chief said eight ships of Chinese PLA Navy were deployed in the Indian Ocean region at any point of time and that there was a unique situation in August when the numbers had gone up to 14.

Additional deployment of Chinese warships and submarines were reported during the over two month-long standoff between Indian and Chinese armies in Dokalam.

On expanding the Indian Navy's presence in critical sea lanes, Admiral Lanba said it was gradually increasing its deployment in Andaman seas, Malacca Strait, Gulf of Oman, Persian Gulf, North Arabian and Sunda and Lumbok.

"In short, our ships and aircraft are deployed from the Gulf of Aden to the Western Pacific on an almost 24x7 basis," he said.

Referring to the bilateral naval agreement between India and Singapore providing for deeper cooperation including logistics support, he said similar agreements are being negotiated with a number of countries.

"We are negotiating similar pacts with a number of other countries," he said adding the Navy has activated the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) with the US by taking fuel at sea from the US three months ago.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by chola »

Dangerous development in the gray zone. They can park themselves in areas where others can’t maintain a presence because of logistics and then stake their claim.

The most dangerous threat from the PRC is not war (they can’t fight their way out of a paper bag.) But their mercantile costs-benefits approach to their military during peacetime. A military can’t pay for itself fighting a war — but it can when used to appropriate assets without actually fighting (and therefore not incurring losses.)

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/11/c ... -2020.html
China completing small floating and submersible nuclear reactors around 2020

China is starting construction on a marine nuclear power platform which is designed to supply power for the country’s offshore oil drilling platforms and islands.

The platforms have two modes – floating and submersible, and the first will be commissioned before 2020.

The platforms will focus on solving power supply issues in the Xisha Islands and other islands in the South China Sea where infrastructure construction is underway.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by sanjaykumar »

Shades of Russia’s Project Iceberg.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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sanjaykumar wrote:Shades of Russia’s Project Iceberg.

Yes. The Russians planted a titanium flag under the polar ice cap. “We can get here and stay so we’re staking our claims.”

There are vast expanses of water out there without even islands that can sustain human presence. Eventually those nations that can produce the machines to sustain presense will claim jurisdiction.

This will happen in the polar regions, the oceans and the Moon in our lifetime IMHO. Later, Mars and the other planets. Nations will always compete for resources. No United Nations kumbaya notion of humanity exploring and consuming things together.

It will boil down to the MIC. The portable nuke plants will allow the lizard to plant his scaly presence everywhere.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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chola: No United Nations kumbaya notion of humanity exploring and consuming things together.
Exactly. UN is just a platform for whining by weaker countries without the capabilities to do complex and expensive tasks on their own. There is a reason why the UN is impotent to actually resolve any of the world's problems, even as countries like India waste their energies and time sending their peoples to work under the UN flag. Pointless and wasteful charade which only exists because if it was destroyed, it will be replaced by another organization identical to it and just as worthless.

The only thing useful about it, and that too only to countries that project power, is veto power in the UNSC to stop the UN from interfering with the veto holder's foreign policy, as used by China regularly these days.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by KLNMurthy »

SSridhar wrote:By some estimates in c. 2017, over 70% of Maldives’ external debts is to China alone.
I wish we could just invade and occupy Maldives before China turns it into a naval base.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by periaswamy »

I wish we could just invade and occupy Maldives before China turns it into a naval base.
China has basically bought an Island in the maldives in the past year (though the maldives govt. claims that is not true even after their legislature approved it). The Chinese engineered a coup in the maldives and threw out the pro-India president. India just sat on its hands throwing dossiers in "international courts" and getting kicked in the face by a puny maldives.

link
The location of the island is significant for India which never tires of describing itself as "net security provider" for Maldives. "This island sits at the entrance to the one-and-a-half degree channel which is a major international shipping passage that crosses the Maldives," said Naseem.
Naseem is a senior member of incarcerated former president Mohamed Nasheed's Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).
You would think the Indian govt. would have humint to detect such political rumblings ahead of time and stop it, but apparently not.

But hey, India and Maldives are going work together to eradicate TB from Bangladesh, so that's just great.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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X-posted from the Rohingya thread
China draws Myanmar closer as the world turns away - Straits Times
For the second time in a week, one of Myanmar's top leaders is visiting Beijing, as international criticism over the brutal purge of Rohingya Muslims is bringing the neighbouring countries together.

Casting aside past misgivings about China's one-party system, Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto civilian leader of Myanmar and a Nobel Peace laureate, arrived Thursday (Nov 30) to attend a conference for international political parties hosted by China's Communist Party.

After a month of uncomfortable meetings with Western officials including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Pope Francis, and having her Freedom of Oxford award stripped for her failure to criticise the military, she is sure to find a warmer welcome in Beijing.

Preceding her, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the architect of Myanmar's scorched-earth military campaign to eject the Rohingya, met China's president Xi Jinping last week. In a show of mutual admiration, Xi described Chinese-Myanmar military relations as the "best" ever.

As Washington begins to pursue sanctions against Myanmar's army for what U.S. and United Nations officials call a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Rohingya Muslim minority, China is taking advantage and filling the gap.

Already spending billions of dollars on infrastructure projects in Myanmar, China is now also assisting its neighbour in diplomatic efforts to try and help burnish the country's image in the face of widespread criticism.

Though China has usually been reluctant to become involved in mediation, it has offered to broker talks between Myanmar and Bangladesh, now the host of more than 600,000 Rohingya who fled the military campaign of systematic rape, massacre and arson in Myanmar.

As China moves more aggressively to build a sphere of influence in South-east Asia, Myanmar is a prime asset, a border state with a long coastline that offers a strategic outlet to the Indian Ocean.

The predominantly Buddhist country has been an elusive catch for China. Anti-Chinese sentiment pervades Myanmar's population, and there has been suspicion that China's infrastructure projects are intended to help China more than Myanmar.

With the military in the ascendancy again and Suu Kyi sidelined and frustrated with the United States' denunciation of the Rohingya crackdown, an increasingly isolated Myanmar is accepting China's courtship.

"Myanmar values China's understanding of the Rakhine issue, which is complicated and delicate," Suu Kyi said during a recent visit by the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, to Myanmar.

Suu Kyi refuses to use the word Rohingya and instead refers to Rakhine, the state where most of the Rohingya live among a Buddhist majority. She has declined to condemn the actions of the Myanmar military.

At the United Nations, China blocked efforts to organise a resolution against Myanmar, and stopped language to ensure that the Rohingya have the right of return to the country.

The crisis over the Rohingya gives China an opportunity to build a reputation as a peace builder, Chinese analysts say. China is already involved in brokering peace talks between warring ethnic groups in Myanmar's northern region, which is adjacent to the Chinese border.

"China's broad objective is to let the world see it as the new power broker that can get things, like peace building and political settlements, done," said Zhang Baohui, professor of international relations at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

As he starts his second term as president, Xi is intent on projecting China's "great power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics," and an effort to help facilitate the return of the Rohingya would earn China some credit, Zhang said.

A three-point mediation plan offered by Wang, the Chinese foreign minister, does not specifically mention the plight of the Rohingya, hundreds of thousands of whom are now living in squalid refugee camps in Bangladesh just over the border from Myanmar.

Myanmar and Bangladesh have held talks about what to do about the refugees, but no Rohingya have been present. It is not clear whether Chinese envoys were present.

"The plan doesn't commit China to very much in the way of mediation," said Mary P. Callahan, associate professor of international studies at the University of Washington.

Wang's proposal called for a cease-fire without a definition of who should stop what activities.

The foreign minister asked for a strengthening of relations between Myanmar and Bangladesh, and said China would pursue economic development in Rakhine, the poorest area of Myanmar and the center of the military's purge of the Rohingya.

China is calling for an economic corridor linking India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and China that would run through Rakhine. {China is hell bent on somehow reaching India and is willing to use all ruses and excuses}

One of China's major construction companies is scheduled to start building a US$7.3 billion deep-sea port next year at Kyaukpyu, a port town in Rakhine on the Indian Ocean. Pipelines from the port carry gas and oil through Rakhine to southern China.

The visit of Min Aung Hlaing to Beijing earlier this month invigorated a relationship between the Myanmar military and Beijing that had been languishing, said Maung Aung Myoe, professor of international affairs at the International University of Japan and an expert on the Myanmar military.

As the possibility of any military ties with the United States disappears, the Myanmar general can now look more easily to the People's Liberation Army of China for support {India should step in here} , Maung Aung Myoe said.

The United States maintained sanctions against the military junta that ruled Myanmar for decades. But the Obama administration relaxed many of those penalties the year after Suu Kyi won the 2015 elections. There were even plans to invite some Myanmar military officers to the United States for training as a way to counter China's long-standing ties with the army.

Since the expulsion of the Rohingya, Washington has stopped contacts with the military, and Congress is considering new sanctions.

China had been a major provider of military equipment to Myanmar, but those ties frayed after Beijing sold inferior fighter jets to the air force in the late 1990s, Maung Aung Myoe said. Since 2001, Myanmar was buying more from Russia and Israel, he said. Now, China might return as a provider of military equipment.

Both armies, he said, were sympathetic to each other's problems with Muslim minorities. The Chinese military faced what it considered a Muslim insurgency in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, and now the Myanmar army had expelled the Rohingya.

"China wants to help Myanmar by lessening the international pressure on it," he said.

For that, he said, Myanmar's military was no doubt appreciative.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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X-posted from India-Japan thread.

Scripting another Asian narrative - Pallavi Aiyar, The Hindu
Japan has long been an anomaly: an economic powerhouse within a geostrategic pygmy. But China’s muscular ascent combined with the capriciousness of a Trump-led U.S. is causing Tokyo to slough off its diplomatic slumber and rethink its role in Asia. From proposing new security dialogues, to taking the lead in developing multilateral trade agreements, it is beginning to pick up some of the slack left by the U.S.’s “America First”-influenced withdrawal from leadership in Asia.

Japan is in a potentially explosive neighbourhood, and it no longer believes that a wholescale reliance on the U.S. for a defence umbrella is sufficient to secure its best interests. Foreign Minister Tarō Konō said in October: “We are in an era when Japan has to exert itself diplomatically by drawing a big strategic picture.”

Military normalisation is one prong of Japan’s new foreign policy, but even if a controversial revision of Japan’s pacifist Constitution, as proposed by newly re-elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe goes through, the archipelago’s armed forces will remain under strong, self-imposed constraints. The constitutional revision would merely recognise the legality of Japan’s long extant Self-Defense Forces (SDF). Offensive weapons and preemptive strikes would remain outlawed.

Countering China

His nationalist leanings notwithstanding, even Mr. Abe realises that remilitarising alone will not provide Japan with an effective solution to its diplomatic dilemmas. What Tokyo needs to prevent the region from succumbing to a Pax Sinica is to use its strengths, its capital, its technological know-how and its democratic credentials to win friends and influence countries across the region and beyond. It needs to beat infrastructure sugar daddy China at its own game.

A large part of China’s rise has to do with its indispensability to global trade. But Japan is a trading heavyweight too, and is attempting to stake leadership on the regional platform with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). With the U.S.’s departure from trade negotiations, Japan has become the principal driving force keeping the deal alive. At November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam, Japan got the 11 countries still involved to agree on the “core elements” of a deal. It wants to lead rule-making on trade in the Asia Pacific, rather than let China set the agenda with alternatives to TPP such as the Beijing-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

At the same time, Japan is stepping up aid and investment in Southeast Asia. A train line near Manila, a seaport in Cambodia, and assistance in the reconstruction of Marawi City in the Philippines are some examples. As the top source of development aid to Vietnam, it has helped construct a new airport terminal in Hanoi as well as the first subway line in Ho Chi Minh City.

Mr. Abe recently committed 1 trillion yen ($8.7 billion) to the Philippines over the next five years, with a continued focus on infrastructure development. Japanese investment in major Southeast Asian countries is estimated to have averaged $20 billion per year, from 2011 to 2016, more than double the average annual flows between 2006 and 2010.

Japanese sales pitches to countries in the region always have one eye on China, emphasising advantages in areas where Beijing is vulnerable such as safety, reliability and solutions that deliver benefits to local populations.

Looking to India

China’s $900 billion, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure building campaign across Eurasia is a gauntlet that Japan has picked up by turning to the only country in the region with the heft to match China, India.

Japan and India have announced an Asia-Africa Growth Corridor, aimed at creating sea corridors linking the countries of the Indo-Pacific to Africa. In addition, Japan is cooperating with India in third country infrastructure projects such as Iran’s Chabahar Port, Sri Lanka’s Trincomalee port, and the possible joint development of the Dawei port along the Thai-Myanmar border.

Japan has bagged the $17 billion contract to build India’s first high speed railway line, linking Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Tokyo is also investing in development projects in the Northeast and the Andaman and Nicobar islands. And Japan’s Diet gave the go ahead to a Japan-India civil nuclear energy deal earlier this year. The possibility of purchasing Japanese submarines and search-and-rescue planes to help the Indian Navy is being discussed.

Creating a ‘Quad’

A free and open Indo-Pacific, a phrasing that places India as a major actor in the Pacific, is an idea being proselytised by Japan in conjunction with the U.S. This is a response to concerns over the expansion of the Chinese navy and Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, waters through which a huge majority of Japanese energy supplies transit.

It is against this background that Tokyo’s championing of the Quadrilateral dialogue with the U.S., India and Australia aimed at creating a community of democratically oriented interests in the region must be understood.

Tokyo wants to use the bilateral ties it is developing to create a multilateral architecture in the region. Like Germany in post-World War II Europe, Japan is aware that unilateral moves by it invariably conjure up images of militarism and expansionism. However, without making genuine amendments for its past aggressions, an idea that Mr. Abe does not seem interested in, Japan’s attempts to shape the future of the region will remain constrained.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by panduranghari »

srinebula wrote:
panduranghari wrote: Just for example, within 3 years Modi has done structural changes in the bureaucratic machinery..
Sir, can you give some examples of this?
Saar,
2 examples are GST and re-capitalisation of banks through demonetisation.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by panduranghari »

Alright. I got another way of looking at this issue.

Xi wants to be reelected in 2022. This means he wants a healthy and prosperous economy by 2021. As things stand, the Chinese deficit is 14% of their GDP. Its high and no wonder why the world is still cruising along so nicely. Now that Xi is elected, he would want a correction to eliminate the deficits and get the economic balance which will permit the expansionary policy in 2021 which will make Chinese feel more prosperous by 2022. While you might say not possible to turn around the ship in 1 year. Yeah true, but not for a command economy like China where they will just spend spend. No one to ask questions.

China has had a massive internal infrastructure boom. This is funded by the expansionary monetary policy.

Xi's flagship project is OBOR, and he will do everything to make it successful. It's possible to make this successful by expansionary fiscal policy.

No one can in the long term do expansionary monetary and fiscal policies. It causes failure like in Weimar Republic in 1923.

PBoC will thus induce a sharp correction in 2018-2019 period internally to balance its books. But at the same time they will increase fiscal spending externally on OBOR. This has happened before when West and East Germany reunited- where US had a sharply contracting internal monetary policy and expansionary external fiscal policy.

Remember 2021-22 has to be made a rocking success as its the 100th anniversary of the communist party. THE YEAR HAS TO BE A ROCKING SUCCESS.


Now the reason why we are seeing more accomodative policy by the Chinese in expecting Indians to join OBOR is because we have the ability to disrupt this well thought out (?) plan. Without Indian backing OBOR can fail, and we must in the next year or two make a serious effort to reclaim PoJ&K. With internal turmoil, Chinese hands will be tied to really push us on this. Doklam showed we have buried the ghost of 1962 FOREVER.

If we want the Chinese control over Tibet to weakened, we must fund insurgents in the periphery of China. Japan shedding its pacifist constitution and accepting the potential loss of one of its cities to a NoKo nuclear bomb will lead to loss of leverage of Chinese.

Time to turn on the screws.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SSridhar »

Xi backs China-Myanmar corridor - Atul Aneja, The Hindu
Beijing and Naypyidaw have moved a step closer to negotiating the China-Myanmar economic corridor, an initiative being given high priority on account of the stalled Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) connectivity proposal.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday advocated that Beijing and Naypyidaw should “nurture new growth points, such as discussing the construction of China-Myanmar economic corridor, so as to advance bilateral ties,” Xinhua reported.

Mr. Xi made these remarks during a meeting with visiting State Counsellor from Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi. On her part, Ms. Suu Kyi “agreed with China’s proposal of building the Myanmar-China economic corridor,” the report said.


President Xi’s backing for the corridor followed last month’s announcement of the plan in Myanmar by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. During his visit to Myanmar, Mr. Wang said the Y-shaped corridor could start from China’s Yunnan province and head towards Mandalay in Myanmar. From there, it could extend towards the east and west to Yangon New City and Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone in the Rakhine province.

Mr. Wang had also proposed a three-point plan to resolve the Rohingya refugee crisis, for which Ms. Suu Kyi has been widely criticised in the West.

Ethnic Rohingya have flooded into neighbouring Bangladesh amid allegations of human rights abuses by Myanmar’s military.

Mr. Wang had advocated a ceasefire, followed by the repatriation of refugees, followed by a long-term plan with international support for the economic development of Myanmar’s affected Rakhine State.

The state-run Global Times reported that Bangladesh-China-Myanmar cooperation would be given first priority given “India’s reluctance to participate in the BCIM cooperation.”

Kolkata link

Negotiations for the formation of the BCIM corridor, which would link Kolkata with the Chinese city of Kunming, have virtually stalled after Beijing went ahead with its plans to establish the China-Pakistan economic corridor.

The daily said the China-Myanmar corridor would connect Beijing with the Indian Ocean.

Transfer of industries

“The China-Myanmar corridor will enhance connectivity between the two countries. The existing highways, oil and gas pipelines, as well as the railroads and expressways under construction will give China the best access to the Indian Ocean,” the daily observed.

“The corridor will also accelerate the transfer of China’s industries to Myanmar. Due to the rising cost of labour, overcapacity and industrial development, China has begun to transfer some of its industries abroad. In this aspect, the corridor will also help turn Myanmar into an important destination for China and other East Asian countries, and will help create more jobs and bolster development locally,” the write-up noted.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by schinnas »

If China can make its currency a global benchmark.like and the default reserve currency like the US dollar in next 15 years, they can continue to print money and sustain an expansionary fiscal policy.

That explains why Xi wants China to become a developed nation by 2030 (one of 2.true superpowers) and the sole superpower by 2050. To be a superpower.means one should have military power projection, sufficiently strong and independent banking systems and get rest of the world to buy into your systems and currency.

With all the OBOR stuff, China wants to get more countries integrated into its systems and accept Chinese hegemony.

India is smart in not letting BCIM happen.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Hari Seldon »

Meanwhile, China expert shri Mohan Malik writes so:
Mohan Malik 马立克 实事求是‏ @jmohanmalik

“The Sōryū is a so stealthy that the highly skilled Japanese anti-sub forces can find only 5% of them when under way..as retd CHN Gen Liu Yazhou, an adamant Japanophobe has warned, in case of naval conflict, Japan’s subs could sink the entire CHN East Sea fleet in 4 or so hours”
https://twitter.com/jmohanmalik/status/ ... 0393411585

Well, time we considered acquiring a few Soryu class subs then. If Scorpeones then why not Soryus, hain ji?
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by sum »

Iirc the Soryu was not even offered to bid for our tenders as GoJ found it fit not to offer it to India. So there is no question of buying them
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SSridhar »

^ Yes, true. In January 2015, India also asked Japan whether it was interested in building its Soryu-class submarines in India for the Indian Navy’s Rs 50,000 crore project to build six stealth submarines (Project 75I). However, Japan, which relaxed its defence and defence export policies only in c. 2014, is reluctant to share its most sensitive submarine technology, apart from the fact that the ‘Make in India’ requirement comes in the way as the two Japanese submarine builders Mitsubishi & Kawasaki felt that ‘quality’ could be compromised.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Kashi »

SSridhar wrote: Mitsubishi & Kawasaki felt that ‘quality’ could be compromised.
That attitude among others cost them the Aussie bid and it will cost them a chance to export to India.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by periaswamy »

If the soryu class sub is that silent, then the japanese are probably more worried about such tech leaking to the chinese. That would make chinese subs truly lethal, and the chinese navy that much more formidable.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by panduranghari »

The Big Bet at the Heart of Xi Jinping’s “New Deal”
It’s often been said, including by my colleague Damien Ma in an excellent 2013 book, that China’s Communist Party has offered “prosperity without freedom” during the era of economic reform. To put this a bit differently, China’s people have been permitted by their Leninist rulers to grow rich and pursue material gains—so long as they accept the Party’s writ and forego organized challenges to its rule.

But if this does accurately describe China’s post-1978 grand bargain, then last month’s 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party makes clear that it no longer holds.

Hundreds of millions have grown prosperous during 39 years of economic reform. For these teeming millions, prosperity alone is, quite clearly, no longer sufficient. Their expectations now transcend wealth and economic mobility. Increasingly, they demand not just material gains but social ones too—equitable life chances, better welfare protections, safer food, drinkable water, cleaner air, and more responsive (if still unrepresentative and undemocratic) government.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Congress’ underlying political message was unmistakable: “north, south, east, west, and at the center, the Party leads everything.” Party supremos aimed to project the image of a confident, unified, strengthening elite, pursuing the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” while assuring control and molding social and economic institutions in the Party’s preferred image.

But what exactly does it mean for the Party to “lead everything” when those who are being led—Chinese citizens—expect something different from what the Party has hitherto provided to them?

Party leaders appear to be asking themselves this question. And so it’s important to recognize how much fragility and uncertainty about the non-material aspects of governance and development lies behind the Leninist triumphalism.

Xi’s cohort seems to understand that China’s prevailing social and political contract has frayed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE “PRINCIPAL CONTRADICTION”

Surely, this is why Xi launched his second five-year term at the Congress by endorsing a major doctrinal change—one that implicitly recognizes the fraught circumstances of China’s economic reality and the growing expectations for change of an increasingly demanding citizenry.

Chinese Marxists have long stressed the need to think in terms of “contradictions”—the dialectical opposition of different forces or influences. Mao Zedong, the Party’s longtime chairman, made an intellectual career out of emphasizing the various “contradictions” and these formed the central thesis of one of his most famous essays, a 1937 piece titled “On Contradiction.”

When constructing their post-1978 reform edifice, Mao’s successors moved away from the chaos he had unleashed by defining their own so-called “principal contradiction” to guide the Party’s future work. The principal contradiction, they decreed, would be the gap between “the ever-growing material and cultural needs of the people and backward social production.”

In simplest terms, this meant that China’s new leaders sought to focus on modernizing the economy, lifting living standards and meeting material needs. This, they hoped, might also let pressure out of the political “balloon” that, in the aftermath of the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and the stasis of the mid-1970s, threatened further political fragmentation and perhaps could bring down the Party itself.

Enter Xi Jinping.

At the 19th Congress, Xi’s team changed the “principal contradiction.”

Instead of continuing to focus on the gap between people’s needs and backward economic production, the Party has now declared that it will focus on social needs and demands for welfare and equity. Indeed, Xi put this point rather bluntly in his speech: “What we now face,” Xi declared, “is the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life.”

Put differently, Xi pitched a sort of “new deal” for China—one that moves beyond delivering prosperity to delivering improved governance and greater welfare gains. And while this is mostly rhetoric for now—with execution still to come—it is, in a sense, both an accurate assessment and formal recognition of the massive changes in Chinese society.

Bluntly put, the Party had dropped the ball in dealing with citizens’ new demands.

And that is probably why someone who is said to be “the chairman of everything” and “China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong” is now spending at least some of his time on matters as mundane as launching a “toilet revolution” aimed at “improving [the] people’s life quality.” Want to know what Xi Jinping is giving speeches about this week? Toilets.

CHINA’S THREE NEW CONTRACTS — SOCIAL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC

But here’s the problem:

If one looks at how the Party is pursuing its efforts to address the new principal contradiction—if one looks, in other words, at where the Party actually appears to be taking China—then it’s clear that the story is not so straightforward as a simple effort to deliver “a better life” to the Chinese people.

Xi’s team means to meet heightened public expectations at the same time that it attempts to rearrange China’s three prevailing public “contracts”— elements of its social contract, political contract, and economic contract—all of which are fraying.

---------------------------------------
The “Social Contract”

The prevailing social contract is, in a sense, the “grand bargain” described above—an exchange between Party and public of economic opportunity for acceptance of constricted political space.

But the Party is moving away from this grand bargain not only because of pressure to deliver something more than merely material gains. It also faces threats from social dislocation, rising popular discontent, and slowing growth.

Many of the economic and structural reforms necessary to address these problems were shelved during Xi’s first term. So the Party’s challenge of meeting social, as opposed to just material, expectations has grown tougher because it now has to bridge a significant credibility gap with the Chinese public.

The “Political Contract”

China’s political contract, meanwhile, is also coming apart. The country’s post-1978 leaders, led by Deng Xiaoping, promised responsive, but not representative, government. The Party rejected demands for direct representation, much less democracy, by arguing that those things were unnecessary to meet public expectations and governance needs.

And yet much like the “social” contract, which has frayed in the face of rising expectations, this “political” contract has also frayed.

That is because China’s prevailing governance model is failing—badly—to deliver sufficient social services and other needs.

An unrepresentative government that China’s leaders claimed could nonetheless manage to be “responsive” just doesn’t look too responsive anymore, either.

This has happened, in part because Beijing has failed to replace the old system of welfare guarantees with a new one. In the past, China’s unrepresentative but ostensibly “responsive” state provided virtually all aspects of job security, social security, and retirement security, usually delegated through state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and other work units. That changed in the 1990s when SOEs were forced to dramatically curtail these functions and shed many of their welfare obligations.

The problems this introduced for millions of ordinary Chinese have finally caught up with Beijing. Many Chinese people now view the lack of a new system as an example of unresponsiveness, and even indifference, from their government.

The “Economic Contract”

And that brings us to the economic contract.

When the state began to retreat in the 1990s, it permitted China’s private sector to grow and pick up some of the slack. People could try to meet their needs through the most basic private function—precautionary savings of their money. But they could also pick up slack by increasing their incomes via activities in private firms, private smallholdings, private exchanges of goods and services, and other forms of private transactions.

The state insisted that it continue to control the commanding heights of the economy—entrenching state-led oligopolies in resource sectors (such as oil and minerals), key services sectors (including banking, telecoms and insurance), natural monopolies (such as public utilities), and strategic sectors (such as defense production). But it left many other sectors to private players—for example most of agriculture and much of China’s manufacturing sector.

Xi’s team is now corroding this contract as a deliberate strategy—viewing a stronger state role in the economy as a means to deal with social and political challenges.

This means that, where Xi’s predecessors opened up space for the private sector and even brought private entrepreneurs into the Party, his team is doing much the opposite—pushing Party cadres back into private firms, taking public stakes in private companies, imposing new regulations on the private sector, and closely monitoring and cracking down on the business activities of private oligarchs.

In short, an economic contract that had seemed to be bifurcating and segmenting the public and private spheres in China is being corroded in new ways. The public role has begun to expand in fresh directions.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Kashi »

periaswamy wrote:If the soryu class sub is that silent, then the japanese are probably more worried about such tech leaking to the chinese. That would make chinese subs truly lethal, and the chinese navy that much more formidable.
Yet they seemingly had no concerns pitching their subs to Aussies, who would have not only leaked but transferred all the blue prints to the Chinese en masse.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by periaswamy »

Kashi: Yet they seemingly had no concerns pitching their subs to Aussies, who would have not only leaked but transferred all the blue prints to the Chinese en masse.
Pardon my french, but it seems to me that the japanese are a bunch of stupid mothe*****ers, Their own technology will be used against them by the Chinese. Their worst enemies.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SSridhar »

Kashi wrote:
periaswamy wrote:If the soryu class sub is that silent, then the japanese are probably more worried about such tech leaking to the chinese. That would make chinese subs truly lethal, and the chinese navy that much more formidable.
Yet they seemingly had no concerns pitching their subs to Aussies, who would have not only leaked but transferred all the blue prints to the Chinese en masse.
Kashi, this is tangential here but let me state the following.

It is indeed the Japanese investment in technology in China in the 90s that is a primary reason for the Chinese industrial advancement (apart from of course the Americans). Of course, the Chinese, for their part, have been very diligent in reverse engineering from various sources, industrial espionage etc . Both the Japanese and the Americans learnt a lesson from their rush to China to court it and are employing these lessons now in their developing proximity with other nations. The near-comical Japanese rush to establish diplomatic relationship with China by Japan, after the Americans pulled the rug from under the Japanese feet in 1972 by opening up to China without informing the Japanese ally at all, is a case in point.

The Japanese have not exported any defence-related items in the last seventy years after their surrender. Heck, they could not even manufacture much of these during this time, much less market them. So, they are diffident for multiple reasons. In the case of Oz too, the Japanese were to build these submarines only in Japanese yards, not in Australia, which was one of the major reasons for DCNS to eventually get the deal.

If the Soryu deal had happened, then of course, there would have been conditions like what the Russians have on India for their equipment, for example or the EUA that the US has on items it sells. Of course, there is a disproportionate Chinese influence on the Australian polity & economics, but it is questionable to say that the Soryu technologies would have been compromised willingly by the Australian government. The US also sells high technology defence items to the Aussies and stations many assets on the Aussie soil.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SSridhar »

China FTA undermines Maldives' sovereignty, bad for region: Former Prez Nasheed - Sachin Parashar, ToI
With Maldives and China entering into a Free Trade Agreement, the nitty-gritty of which is yet to be made public, there's a mounting concern that the strategically located archipelago could be the next country to walk into a Beijing debt trap, a situation that has serious strategic ramifications for India.

In an exclusive interaction with TOI, former Maldivian president and leader of main opposition party MDP, Mohamed Nasheed, slammed the agreement saying it wasn't just against Maldivian national interest but something which will upset 'traditional allies' of the country causing further tension in the Indian Ocean region.

India and the US, the two "democratic stalwarts" in the Indo-Pacific, have repeatedly called for responsible debt financing practices as they have looked to undercut China's policy to provide easy access to capital abroad in the name of improving connectivity. With the trade balance already favouring China, there's a fear that the FTA will further increase the deficit.

Developments in Maldives since the ouster of Nasheed in 2012 have worried India as the islands have been roiled by internal power plays and the growing shadow of China's economic and military presence in the IOR along with signs that radical influences are also taking root in the nation with a population a large majority of which practices Sunni Islam.

"This disgraceful agreement- rushed through parliament in under an hour, while opposition MPs were conveniently summoned to appear in Court- is not in the Maldivian national interest," said Nasheed, who lives in exile in London.

"It will deepen the debt trap to China- already more than 70% of our foreign debt is owed to Beijing {He has confirmed what was posted here before}, which gives Beijing huge leverage over us, undermining Maldivian sovereignty and independence," he added. Recent examples such as Sri Lanka's decision to allow Chinese control of Hambantota port as part of a debt swap have sharpened India's concerns too.

The Maldivian opposition believes India has continued to mollycoddle the Abdulla Yameen government in the fond hope that it will, even as it encourages Chinese investment, do nothing to hurt India's security interest. In August this year, the Maldives, which PM Narendra Modi has avoided visiting so far, was said to have allowed three Chinese warships to dock at the Male harbour.

"Aside from China, President Yameen doesn't have a friend left in the world. And so when China orders him to pass this agreement, Yameen obediently complies," said Nasheed {China cleverly exploits such situations. Pakistan, North Korea, Myanmar now, Mahinda Rajapakse earlier et al} , the first democratically elected president who was ousted in a 'coup' in 2012.

Maldives, with a population of only 425,000, has a tiny economy and, as strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney said, this FTA made sense only when seen through the geostrategic prism.

"Indeed, the FTA is an example of how China is using geoeconomic initiatives to push geostrategic interests and the classic example of that strategy, of course, is the "One Belt, One Road" project," said Chellaney.

India has seen its influence erode steadily in the Maldives since Nasheed's ouster. "The lurch toward authoritarianism under the present pro-Islamist government headed by Abdulla Yameen has been accompanied by Maldives' increasingly cosy ties with two major autocracies, China and Saudi Arabia. India has been the loser," said Chellaney, adding that, as the erosion of its influence in Nepal also illustrated vividly, India had failed to effectively meet the China challenge in its own backyard.

What has alarmed the authorities here is the manner in which the FTA was rushed through the Parliamentary process after Yameen signed it on Wednesday. The details of the agreement are yet to be shared with the opposition and even the public. As Nasheed said, the government allowed for less than 1 hour for the entire Parliamentary process to approve the 1000-page document.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SSridhar »

The Brahmaputra conundrum - Sonali Mitra, The Hindu

This is the second article on Brahmaputra and the Chinese intervention in this river within the last week in The Hindu group of publications. Both these articles are from members of the Observer Research Foundation. A few days back, there was an article in Business Line, China Cannot Rob us of Brahmaputra. The thrust of that article was that Brahmaputra would have enough water even if Yarlang Tsangpo went dry at the India border ! In other words, the audacity of China for doing things against the interests of the lower riparian states and with scant regard for any communication with them, thus violating all international conventions, was not even questioned. It seemed to poke at Brahma Chellaney's thesis of Chinese water terrorism.

And, now, this article which is peppered with statements like [the diversion] is 'hardly surprising’, the Chinese project was conceived ‘in the 1950s', 'India tends to play the lower riparian card to gain sympathy', Pakistan & Bangladesh(BD) see India as a 'bully’ in water-sharing and India uses 'China threat' to mask its own dam-building activities etc. Most shocking is the advice to 'de-emphasise China’s role for the time being'. This last one is simply disingenuous and dangerous therefore. If India turns blind to Chinese activities, then the projects would be completed and would then be a fait-accompli.

What is ORF's agenda? Why are these articles appearing in quick succession in The Hindu?
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Philip »

With the Maldives dictatorship signing on to an FTA with China disregarding their own people,,the stakes are v.high for India ,an exceptionally dangerous moment has arrived.Expect a large number of Chinese "nationals" to v.quickly descend upon the Maldivian atolls,effectively turning the country into a Chin military/naval base. With China already having secured a strong foothold in Sri Lanka,thanks to our asinine MEA of yesteryear,during the era of Snake-Oil Singh and co.,we will be effectively surrounded by China in the event of a crisis.What secret clauses the GOSL and Maldivians have made with China is unknown.Remember that despite their extremely close friendship,Sri Lanka allowed Paki aircraft to fly to E.Pak via Colombo.That it also helped us monitor the flights is another matter! In Sri Lanka at least,we are on the verge of close=ing some deals reg. the H'tota intl. airport and revamping the Trino Oil Tank Farm in JVs with the GOSL.These must be relentlessly pursued and clinched within the next few months as a series of elections in the island will take place with a strong anti-incumbency factor at play as there is strong suspicion that the prev. regime is being protected for their vast and manifold sins by the current pres. himself.

Milwise,it is inevitable that the budget for the IN be hugely enhanced as advocated by V.Adm. AK Singh in the post in the IN N-sub td. The IN will have a huge task in the IOR itself apart from patrols in the ICS monitoring events in the Chinese backyard,and will require large numbers of subs and warships,LRMP aircraft too,to do the biz.

The latest news and opening of the Chahbahar port in Iran is the most positive development that India has taken on the dpl. front that we've seen for years. The further expansion of the port and quietly getting Iranian consent for use of the port for refuelling,etc. by the IN-just as e've just signed on with SPore-with reciprocal facilities for the Iranians,will enable us to protect our shipping to CB and the Gulf and keeping the sea-land-rail route open to Afghn.,the C.Asian states and eventually onto Russia.This route will effectively give us and others an alternative route,far safer than any route transiting Pak,esp. through Baluchistan,where we must accelerate both through overt and covert means its liberation.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SSridhar »

Chahbahar port opening is a great development, no doubt. But, we have to quickly lay the Chahbahar-Zahedan railway as well and complete the other terminal as well in which Japan wants to invest. At Zahedan, it would meet with the Iranian railway lines. This will revolutionize the connectivity from India to Afghanistan and CAR countries. We must partner with Japan in as many projects as possible in Iran because of the fear of US pressure on us if their relationships deteriorate further.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

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Two China banks refuse loan to Adani’s mine project in Australia, says report - The Hindu
Indian energy giant Adani’s controversy-hit Carmichael coal mine project in Australia has hit another road-block after China’s two major state-run banks said they have no plans to finance the venture, media reports said on Monday.

The $ 16.5 billion Carmichael coal mine project, one of the world’s largest, will start construction after being given the green light by the federal and Queensland state governments.

Adani is seeking a finance of Australian $ 2 billion by March 2018 for the first stage of its proposed mine project in Queensland.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), in a statement, clarified that it had no intention of funding Adani’s proposed mine in Queensland, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

“ICBC has not been, and does not intend to be, engaged in arranging financing for this project,” ICBC said in a statement on its website.

“ICBC attaches great importance to its social responsibilities and keenly promotes green financing. {Look who is talking! China will apply pressure on us in every possible way. Unless we have a hoslistic approach to China, we will face enormous problems. With Pakistan, we have had a 'piecemeal' approach so far but because of sheer overwhelming power, we largely escaped unscathed. With China, such thoughtless approaches would be disastrous.}

While not mentioning coal, ICBC said it had provided finance in Australia “for a series of renewable energy projects,” the report said.

Earlier, China Construction Bank had also refused financing the project, saying it “is not involved with, nor considering involvement with, the Adani Carmichael Mine project”, the report said.


There was no immediate response from the Adani group regarding the latest media report.

Last month, the Labour party-led Queensland government had said it will exercise its veto to not support the financial assistance to the project, which has been opposed by environmentalists and indigenous groups.

The Adani group had applied for Northern Australia Infrastructure facility loan (NAIF) worth 900 million dollars for building a train line to connect its mine to the coast.

The anti-Adani lobby has hailed the rejection by two of China’s major banks as a significant development in blocking the construction of the mine, the report said.

The Carmichael project, expected to create hundreds of jobs in Australia, has been facing opposition from environmentalists and indigenous groups.

The Indian energy giant has for more than five years battled the opposition to any expansion of the Abbot Point port, saying it will cut into the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

The Adani group entered Australia in 2010 with the purchase of the greenfield Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland, and the Abbot Point port near Bowen in the north.

Meanwhile, an expert said that arranging finance from China was one of Adani group’s last remaining hopes after major Australian banks and also Queensland government refused to finance the project on concerns about its financial viability and the push towards renewable energy sources.

“Having failed to secure finance from banks in the US, Europe and Australia, Adani has now seen the world’s largest and second largest banks by assets rule out support for its massive proposed coal mine,” Market Forces executive director Julien Vincent was quoted as saying in the report.

“This leaves their attempts to open up Australia’s largest coal mine in tatters, and increasingly reliant on public funding,” he said.


He said that the Indian conglomerate has been working to contract the China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CEMC) into the Carmichael mine and rail project.

However, the CEMC would potentially need to source credit and support from Chinese banks to participate in the Adani project.


Adani has, on numerous occasions, pushed back the start date for the mine, the report said.
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by panduranghari »

SSridhar wrote:
What is ORF's agenda? Why are these articles appearing in quick succession in The Hindu?
Are the authors of these 'hit-jobs' the same?
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SSridhar »

^ Authors are different but the organization and the agenda are the same
Hari Seldon
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Hari Seldon »

Hopefully the Japanese can step in with some long termloans at way better rates than the chinese offer, for Adani's project.

Heck, isn't the KV Kamath-led BRICS bank also around for stuff like this, or maybe that's only for public projects?
SSridhar
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SSridhar »

CPC ideologue, Yechury exchange ‘friendly fire’ - Atul Aneja, The Hindu

Our comrades engaging with their Chinese mentors even as China is encircling us, acting completely inimical towards us and trying to shackle our rise. :twisted:
A lively back-and-forth between two communist veterans — Wang Huning, the acknowledged “deep thinker” of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and Sitaram Yechury {Wang Huning, is a professional and has worked with Jiang, Hu and Xi. He has complete trust of Xi in him and Wang Huning has formulated the ideological framework for Xi. } , General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), enlivened a week-end interaction on the sidelines of a conference of political parties in Beijing.

The animated discussion with Mr. Yechury took place, when Mr. Wang — recently elevated to the apex seven-member standing committee of the CPC Politburo — pulled aside representatives of 26 communist party leaders for a separate no-holds-barred meeting of comrades at the conference.

Apart from Mr. Wang, five others including Mr. Yechury spoke on the occasion. The rest were communist party leaders from Cuba, South Africa, Russia and Britain.

A source privy to the meeting told The Hindu that Mr. Yechury sought clarity on how the Community of common future, proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, would be different from the “interdependent and interconnected world” proposed in 1987 by former and last Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Mikhail Gorbachev.

Within four years of the Gorbachev’s utopian prognosis, the Soviet Union had collapsed.

Flawed formulations

Mr. Wang reassured his Indian guest that the CPC was acutely conscious of the flawed formulations of the Gorbachev era, especially the former Soviet leader’s inability to grasp the “contradictions” in the Soviet Union, which needed to be resolved, before a new path could be excavated.

During the 19th Party Congress of the CPC in October, Chinese President, Xi Jinping recognised that the “principal contradiction” in the new era in China was “between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life.”

Marxists have concluded that contradictions are ‘dynamic opposing forces’ prevailing in society. By identifying and solving the “principal contradiction,” society develops peacefully. Left unsolved, it can lead to chaos and eventually revolution.

Mr. Yechury also probed deeper into the CPC’s perception of a “multipolar world,” in view of relentless pursuit by the United States towards concentration of global power. The discussion also covered other big questions facing humanity: international terrorism and engendering a conflict-free world.

Analysts say Mr. Wang has acquired a high profile on President Xi’s watch.

The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported earlier that Mr. Wang’s rise “reflected the pressing need for [President] Xi to have someone at the top to provide ideological backing for his ambitious reform programmes.”
vijaykarthik
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by vijaykarthik »

INSTC to be operationalised mid-2018. It was about a decade and a half in the making - much older than the OBOR/SREB renamed as BRI.
hnair
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by hnair »

khan views about a matter close by:

Why does India want to buy the world’s emptiest airport?
This is where the world’s emptiest airport comes in. India is proposing to spend around US$300 million to buy out Sri Lanka’s debt to China in return for a 40-year lease over Hambantota airport. But India’s future plans for the airport are hazy. Maybe a flight school? A new destination for Indian weddings? There seems little chance that it will turn a profit.

That is not the point of the deal. A key element in any overseas naval base, and even a logistics facility, is easy access by air for people and supplies. A naval base also requires maritime air surveillance capabilities. Control over Hambantota airport will give India considerable control over how the port is used. It is difficult to conceive of the Chinese navy developing a significant facility at Hambantota without also controlling the airport. In short, India is spending US$300 million buying an airport to block a Chinese naval base.
Hambantota needs to be made commercially nonviable and Colombo port should not get prime role in Indian transshipment, except in a spillover capacity
Prem
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Prem »

SSridhar
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Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SSridhar »

China, India vow to protect globalisation - Atul Aneja, The Hindu
In the first major follow-up to the September talks in Xiamen between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, top economic planners of India and China on Tuesday set the goal of leading a new wave of globalisation by synchronising their emerging economies.

NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar and his Chinese counterpart Li Wei, president of the Development Research Council (DRC) — the Chinese Cabinet’s top official think tank — began talks based on a firm common understanding. They agreed that the two countries must work together to rescue globalisation from neo-protectionist tendencies in the U.S., Europe or anywhere else in the world.

Mr. Kumar said an open, liberal and rule-based globalisation, wherein India and China could play a defining role, was necessary for prosperity and global political stability. “I think we need to work together to make sure that the globalised world that has benefited everybody should continue to benefit the peoples of Asia as we go forward.”

He underscored the urgency of India-China partnership because of rising protectionism.

“I think therefore India and China must work together as they must work together in environment and climate change… [so] that the liberal multilateral trading and economic order remains in place and protectionism is pushed back whether it rises in the U.S. or in Europe or anywhere else.”

He said Chinese investment in manufacturing could generate large-scale employment in India. Besides, India could benefit from Chinese experience gained from innovation-based “fourth industrial revolution” that focussed on advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and internet-of-things. {It is a shame that an India that had a huge lead over China in Computing could not formulate policies and implement them to thrust the country into the forefront in AI, Robotics & IoT. Today, we want to learn from China!} India could learn from China’s rich experience in developing infrastructure.

The two sides also discussed the latest innovations in electric vehicles, clean energy, higher education and Special Economic Zones.
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