Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (09-08-2014)

[Schmidt]

GOI cannot impose a boycott, or other significantly reduce the trade deficit without incurring wrath of WTO (schemes to say let's break the law now, the police won't send us to jail for another 5 years don't impress me much).
Citizen boycott suffers no such issues. We buy what we like, we don't buy what we don't like. And right now, its the Chinese' govt's fault that we don't like them.
.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Govt can impose a variety of NON Tariff barriers to curb imports and promote desi industry- all this without incurring any WTO sanctions

Exporters would know how difficult it is to export a range of stuff to other countries
Most Asian countries ( Taiwan , Japan , even Vietnam have a plethora of certifications to be obtained before you are allowed to import )

This could be in the form of inspections , standards , certfication processes , even labelling ,

Govt can also say designate a particularly slow port for Chini imports ( cite security reasons ) and hold up import shipments for months

All measures designed to frustrate and delay , and make it expensive to import

Another measure is to simply deny forex to traders to import stuff

Plenty of measures available to reduce imports and grow domestic industry without resorting to tariff based measures


I think in India , we have made it very easy to import rather than produce locally . This must stop.
I don't think the Chini and other country exporters are making any great efforts to sell to us. Rather it is our own importer lobby that goes and camps in China and brings in the stuff with their own effort.

Also , BJP / RSS can mobilise protesters to march up to the Chini embassy holding placards and generally create a ruckus and raise awareness levels of their perfidy

[shiv]

A perusal of the news shows plenty of stories of people rebranding Chinese fireworks to avoid losing money on stuff they already imported, too.

The Diwali fireworks market has bought into China made fireworks on a large scale. And Hindu jingoism about not having diyas but fireworks plays into Chinese hands. And on the diyas side - the Chinese are flooding the market with button cell operated plastic diyas.

Supporting China is an indirect consequence of Hindu nationalism when a hore of uptight Hindus blindly demand firecrackers and pay lakhs of crores to china via Sivakasi

[nandakumar]

Up until the 9Os and even early 2000 we had three companies in the private sector making Penicillin G. SPIC was one, JK was the other. I forget the third one. But the point is we were 100% self sufficient in Pen G. But one by one they shuttered because they couldn' t match Chinese on price. Some capacity can come on line at a short notice. But there is no getting away from Chinese bulk drugs.

[shiv]

Up until the 9Os and even early 2000 we had three companies in the private sector making Penicillin G. SPIC was one, JK was the other. I forget the third one. But the point is we were 100% self sufficient in Pen G. But one by one they shuttered because they couldn' t match Chinese on price. Some capacity can come on line at a short notice. But there is no getting away from Chinese bulk drugs.

My own education was paid for by dint of my father working in one of those companies - Hindustan Antibiotics Limited, Pune. Now a sick company occupying prime industrial space in Pimpri-Chinchwad

[shiv]

Green imported Chinese fuse on firecrackers


Standard grey gunpowder fuse made in India

[Dileep]

According to the report by MIT, the highest % import is "broadcast equipment". That is the millions of satellite dishes and Cable/DSL modems. My own KB imports them rather than making them, because there is no way we can meet the price. Instead we build stuff that pays better using the mfg capacity. We really don't need to go for these high volume low value things.

Instead, we must:

1. Build the next Mediatek here. Design to fab. Then raise tariff barrier for Integrated phone chips and imported phones.
2. Invite the ceramic companies to build passive chip lines here. Then raise tariff barriers for all passives.
3. Set up easy credit for electronic products value chain. Push the carrying cost all the way to the retailer. That will level the playing ground a lot.

[yensoy]

Another good one from Ata Hasnain
http://www.apnlive.com/opinion-and-anal ... -war-23445
WAR BUT NO WAR

Brilliant summation, as always, by Gen Hasnain.

[niran]

Niran boss , I never asked for GoI to ask for a boycott . In fact I didn't ask for anyone to boycott . My position is that GoI should apply punitive duties on Chinese imports, couched in whatever language lets us get away with it, or maximizes the delay in arguing it out at WTO . And direct that money to build up out Sino-Indian border, and fund Tibetan govt in exile . All this talk about boycott is other people's arguments . In my opinion boycotts take too much time and energy and don't work . Duties can be imposed, augmented or re targeted out of FinMin collaborating with EAM.

the point sir, you are taking it wrong, India do not need money from trade barrier tariff to fund border security or sponsor Patanjali herbal Hakka noodal stall in sanghai trade fair India has more than enough the only thing lacking was

will to do

the current has the will and building it too, Nitin Fatcurry budgeted 3 times the annual budget of Sanghai just for border transportation infrastructure. and they are working on war footing as if shooting has started last year not in future.
Dooties can be imposed by Jim I monkey of NoKo or dictatorships, not even cheen oirope amirkhan or anyone else can arbitarly impose barrier tarriff.
that leaves Indian national to boycott, this way it is 100% legal

[TKiran]

As the discussion is about reducing the trade deficit, it's all UPA's fault.

The BJP minister gali Janardhan Reddy, during the UPA time used to export iron ore to China thus reducing the trade deficit during the UPA time, but namo stopped it, now in 3years, the trade deficit has been tripled. All UPA's fault only.

[Singha]

mumbai has a lot of these shuttered industries or parts of such industrial groups sitting on prime property.
some have converted these spaces into function halls or some like godrej/ITC have ventured into real estate and hotels in JV.

[Singha]

As the discussion is about reducing the trade deficit, it's all UPA's fault.

The BJP minister gali Janardhan Reddy, during the UPA time used to export iron ore to China thus reducing the trade deficit during the UPA time, but namo stopped it, now in 3years, the trade deficit has been tripled. All UPA's fault only.

i assume you have toured ballari and explored the way some of the smaller mining & steel ops run wrt to the environment and labour ... i unfortunately was fed into a detour in ballari town outskirts due to a truck accident and it was a eye opener for me.

its better we follow better norms and make steel here for export of high value finished product. the chinese / soko / japan will buy ore and export it right back to us

about the only tfta op there is the JSW steel township, which is a smaller variant of jamshedpur.

[g.sarkar]

India has a robust bulk drug manufacturing capability, but a huge population and price competition may be driving imports from China. China has a bad reputation in terms of drug quality - and the discussion here has suddenly opened my eyes. A concerned colleague recently spoke to me about a patient who had been taking a particular drug for a while but tests appeared like she had received no drug. The first thought that came to mind was spurious medicine.

Dr. Shiv,
I went to India after 8 years after retirement in 2016 for 4 months. I led a very stressful life due to my profession and suffer from many chronic conditions. I was out of my meds after 2 months and had to find Indian equivalents of the brands that I use in USA. Unfortunately, many of them were not effective at all. For example they would not reduce my blood pressure or sugar levels etc. One Dr. I knew told me to get them from more reputable pharma stores due to Jaali maal in the market.
Gautam

[hanumadu]

I think the govt is remiss in ensuring substandard and spurious goods from china do not get imported.

I thought India was the leader in generic drugs and a lot of African countries depend on India for their medicines. When did china steal a march over us that too in India?

[g.sarkar]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 963606.cms
China bid to play on Nepal fears on Indian aggression
TNN | Updated: Aug 8, 2017, 06:57 AM IST
NEW DELHI: China's courting of Nepal over the Doklam issue has added another dimension to what is the most serious Sino-Indian border stalemate in decades.
Beijing is seeking to play on Nepal's fears of Indian aggression in the disputed Kalapani area which is home to India-China-Nepal trijunction. As first reported by TOI on Sunday, China has reached out to the Nepal government on the Doklam issue here in Delhi and also in Beijing and Kathmandu.
Beijing is also said to have briefed former Nepal PM and one its most influential supporters in the country, K P Sharma Oli, over the issue.Vice Premier Wang Yang, who will visit Kathmandu next week, is expected to further discuss the issue with Nepal leaders.
......

Gautam

[Suraj]

the point sir, you are taking it wrong, India do not need money from trade barrier tariff to fund border security or sponsor Patanjali herbal Hakka noodal stall in sanghai trade fair India has more than enough the only thing lacking was will to do
the current has the will and building it too, Nitin Fatcurry budgeted 3 times the annual budget of Sanghai just for border transportation infrastructure. and they are working on war footing as if shooting has started last year not in future.
Dooties can be imposed by Jim I monkey of NoKo or dictatorships, not even cheen oirope amirkhan or anyone else can arbitarly impose barrier tarriff.
that leaves Indian national to boycott, this way it is 100% legal

Who cares if we need it or not . This isn't about need . Its about openly squeezing them at the place where they've been gaining at our expense and funding our own response with the cash we extracted from them. And doing so in a way that lets us lie, deceive or mislead any effort by them to use 'rules' to stop us. As in Judo, use their strength against them .

[Singha]

I think the govt is remiss in ensuring substandard and spurious goods from china do not get imported.

I thought India was the leader in generic drugs and a lot of African countries depend on India for their medicines. When did china steal a march over us that too in India?

even reputed manufacturers of drugs could be getting conned. it is not possible to test every few gms of material. and the cheaters will masters of how to pass QC yet still partially ship chalk powder.

in matters like this the Govt needs to step in. FDA sends inspectors worldwide to anyone who supplies pharma to US market and india should do likewise and make it incumbent upon our pharma sector either to manufacture locally or source it from their captives or reliable places abroad

[Javee]

^^If they follow due procedures, no one can be conned. With the new serialization initiatives across the globe, these issues will be solved in due course.

[g.sarkar]

even reputed manufacturers of drugs could be getting conned. it is not possible to test every few gms of material. and the cheaters will masters of how to pass QC yet still partially ship chalk powder.
in matters like this the Govt needs to step in. FDA sends inspectors worldwide to anyone who supplies pharma to US market and india should do likewise and make it incumbent upon our pharma sector either to manufacture locally or source it from their captives or reliable places abroad

Chinese companies do not have any scruples at all. If they can adulterate baby formula, they can adulterate any food/medicine for profit. If the imported bulk materials are bad, Indian made medicine made from these imports would also be below acceptable standards. Only FDA type of authority can catch them and shut them down.
Gautam

[asgkhan]

Melamine episode anyone ? These commie ba$tards did not even spare formula food chasing profits. On youtube we can see food adulteration videos ranging from fake eggs, vegetable oils. Uncivlised sickos.

[shiv]

even reputed manufacturers of drugs could be getting conned. it is not possible to test every few gms of material. and the cheaters will masters of how to pass QC yet still partially ship chalk powder.

It could be worse than that. Chinese drugs may be exported to Europe, repackaged in Euro label and then exported to India to be sold as "Europe origin"

[Singha]

And conversely india could get rapped by eu or fda for using bulk cheen materials in exported meds . Already lot of adverse fda reports are there with per case fines some could be due to this

For all their nationalism the chinese middle and rich class are terrified of their own baby food and prefer to buy imported

[g.sarkar]

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countr ... er-dispute
Border Control in the Himalayas
The stalemate over road construction is the latest flare-up between the two Asian rivals.
The current standoff between Indian and Chinese troops on a remote plateau in the Himalayas is placing renewed attention on the long-running history of border disputes between the two nuclear-armed Asian rivals. The stalemate is taking place on a small patch of land in Bhutan, and is the first time soldiers from China and India have confronted each other in a third country.
Actual fighting between Chinese and Indian troops has not broken out, but there has been jostling, even wrestling between the soldiers. Leaked video footage has shown soldiers from both sides awkwardly shoving their bodies against each other on a grassy field, underscoring what is being called the worst armed dispute in decades between the two countries. The standoff shows the growing ambitions of both countries and also is a reminder of South Asia's potential for volatility, observers say.
...
China's moves to extend a road on the Himalayan plateau, added in with its increased assertiveness in the East China Sea and South China Sea, are part of what leaders in Beijing proclaim is a "period of strategic opportunity" to increase the country's power on the global stage, says Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute of China and the United States.
Such bold moves are in part an attempt to erase painful memories of a period Beijing calls the "Century of Humiliation," a time stretching from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, when the nation was subject to imperialist interventions from European countries and Japan.

Gautam

[Javee]

Something is off, for the last 1 week, been posting some comments on the global times and people's daily English edition. There will be so many 50 centers commenting back in no time and for the last 12 hours there have been no replies

Edited: just realized that the lizards figured out its difficult to reply and started deleting them or marking it as spam

[Pulikeshi]

Another good one from Ata Hasnain
http://www.apnlive.com/opinion-and-anal ... -war-23445

WAR BUT NO WAR

It perhaps did not think through to the last order implications that an extended Indian resistance and acceptance of mutual withdrawal would amount to a strategic Indian victory.

Simply stated fact!
India comes out humble and well prepared. The quiet Indian?

[g.sarkar]

Another good one from Ata Hasnain
http://www.apnlive.com/opinion-and-anal ... -war-23445

It perhaps did not think through to the last order implications that an extended Indian resistance and acceptance of mutual withdrawal would amount to a strategic Indian victory.

Simply stated fact!
India comes out humble and well prepared. The quiet Indian?

Seeing pictures of chikna Chinese soldiers brings back the memory of an old anecdote. Chou-en-Lai had visited the Cheena Bhabhan in Visvabharati, which was then the center of China Studies those days (50s?).There he told the journalists that before the revolution he worked in the Chinese theater and mostly played woman's roles. He said that the Chinese are uniquely suited for this type of gender switch as the women do not have tits and the men do not have beards.
Gautam

[KLNMurthy]

KLNMurthy: I don't disagree that public opinion matters . I think that is so self evident that it does not need mentioning . But, public opinion on foreign policy is not and has never been 'vernacular' . In moments of crisis it clearly galvanizes the government .

But the problem is that Chinese actions far, far outnumber public galvanization . The one notable example provided is firecrackers for an annual festival . A perusal of the news shows plenty of stories of people rebranding Chinese fireworks to avoid losing money on stuff they already imported, too.

The public cannot respond to every act of Chinese aggression . They cannot be expected to be . They often don't even know what's happening . And if we depend on their response , by direct corollary it means the situation has already gotten that bad, which means GoI hasn't been able to counter and deter the Chinese enough .

That just proves my point - GoI should have its own levers of punitive retaliation . By the time public responds its already quite grave and their response is invariant of the situation . For example, the public reacted with great gusto in 1962 even when Banditji and co demonstrated they couldn't even find their own mush with both hands and an illustrated guide available .

Perhaps what is missing in this discussion is a recognition of the capacity of a concerted public sacrifice (which is what it would be to stay away from cheaper Chinese alternatives) to fire the imagination of a nation. As persons of business, engineering and so forth, we take a much too prosaic approach, asking for the exact projected impact in rupees and paisa figures or square kilometers of territory., or in terms of size of divisions etc.

Obviously these things are key to any conflict, but they need will to drive them. And imagination is what ignites the will.

I have grown up surrounded by inspiring tales of non-cooperation, burning of imported sarees (bought with extremely scarce cash) etc. so have many of my and previous generations. My grown-up self understands that the actual material effect of the swadeshi movement on the British economy was marginal at best. And surely the British didn't run away from India just because my grandmother burned a few yards of British made fabric, even though they happened to be her favorite sarees.

Yet I can't deny the impact of even hearing those accounts in shaping my outlook, two generations later. I can only imagine how empowering it must have been for my parents' and grandparents' generation.

It's my contention that an empowered and hostile Indian public is a necessary and sufficient condition (given our military and other capabilities) to prevail over China, to dissuade them forever from "staring us in the face" as Mr. Modi once put it.

[shyamal]

KLNM +100
you have said it so well

[Atulya P]

But if at all there is a war as political objective i would love if we can punch thru POK/COK territory in a way that we can create a land link to afghanistan and cutoff CPEC. this has to be in an area which we can ideally hold forever (maybe 50kms wide) and this should be achievable in 2-4 weeks ?

Its not doable. Just getting from Kargil to the N35 highway means advancing 200 km up the Astore valley road over hellish terrain, endless number of choke-points, half a dozen towns and two infantry brigades. Cutting off the northern route to the Karakorum pass would require going a further 50 km and the taking the city of Gilgit (pop: 250,000).

...

A ground offensive in PoK is tactically and logistically untenable. Forget a military assault, if you wanted to trek that distance on foot it would take you two weeks minimum.

To open a route to Afg, why would we be constrained by IB and restrict ops to POK? If it comes to war, Kabul will be a long day's drive away from Jammu through Pindi and Peshawar forever thereafter.

[pankajs]

About 3 months old. And this is now but as India continues to grow we will have greater and greater say in future trade/security deals. The only option for China is to hog tie India into a iron-clad deal .. like yesterday. BRI was a missed opportunity for China. No wonder their extreme effort to co-opt India.

Not to say that we can't break out later but given out misguided understanding of what is *dharmic* will ensure that we will follow to the letter our part of such a deal. Just look at what the India boxer did after winning.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/07/ind ... ambitions/
India Stands in the Way of China’s Free Trade Ambitions

India’s refusal to open its markets is dashing China’s hopes to dominate trade in Asia.

A China-backed trade deal meant to cement the Beijing’s dominance in Asia has veered off course because India is hesitant to open its borders to cheap Chinese goods.

Without the participation of India, the third-largest Asian economy, the free-trade zone China hoped to create might still happen, but it won’t carry the same economic heft, depriving Beijing of the chance to set the trade rules for the region.

The missed opportunity puts China on much the same footing as the United States, as Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump continue their first face-to-face meeting Friday at Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla. club, where the trade tensions between their two countries will be a major point of discussion. Trump withdrew from the sprawling Trans Pacific Partnership with 11 other countries as one of his first acts in office, squandering a chance for the United States to steer trade in Asia. Now China looks like it may lose its chance as well, over Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s refusal to open its borders.

“India is reasons one, two and three why the deal might not get done,” said Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former adviser to Taiwan on trade. “There’s a strongly-held belief that this will bring in unwanted competition.”

The China-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is currently being negotiated between the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), plus six other Asian nations — Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. If approved, it would cover 46 percent of the world’s population and 24 percent of global GDP. It would also leave the United States on the sidelines, as Washington is not a signatory on the deal.

India, though it is participating in the trade talks, is balking at opening its market to Chinese products. Like the United States, India’s trade deficit with China is big: $52 billion. Modi doesn’t want lower cost imports to compete with ones made in India even if it means opening foreign markets to Indian companies.

“The Modi government — one of the most pro-business in India’s history — is not necessarily pro-trade,” Rick Rossow, the Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said. “He’s still very uncomfortable with really deep trade integration.“

The Indian prime minister has made growing his country’s manufacturing sector a priority. In September 2014, he launched the “Make in India” initiative in an effort to expand manufacturing after growth there fell to its lowest level in a decade. The goal is to make the sector more efficient and attractive for foreign investment.

And it appears to be working. GE, Siemens, HTC, Toshiba, and Boeing have either established or are in process of setting up manufacturing operations in India, according to the Indian Brand Equity Foundation. Modi’s hope is to grow manufacturing to represent 25 percent of Indian GDP by 2025. Right now, it accounts for 16 percent.

Still, the RCEP is likely to be agreed to in some forms, multiple trade experts said. ASEAN, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, has pledged to finalize the deal before the end of the year to mark the occasion. The next round of negotiations are set to take place in the Philippines in May.

“RCEP is a diplomatic exercise,” said Derek Scissors, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who studies the Indian and Chinese economies. “It’’s gotten more attention since TPP died, but diplomatically it’s important” to agree to something by the end of the year.

Any deal will be a watered-down version of the original plan to create a free-trade zone, which is something India would never agree to, Ross said. The current deal also lacks the protections for labor, human rights and the environment that were contained in the TPP.

“It’s a low grade deal as it is,” said Andrew Small, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund. “Whatever results form this is not going to be a free trade agreement that we would have seen with TPP. For India to agree, there would have to be even a lower bar than there is right now.”

Edmund Sim, a trade lawyer who has worked throughout Asia, said it’s misleading to compare the two deals because the regulatory, environmental, and worker standards were so much tougher in the TPP.

“RCEP had lower ambitions. Completing it will be less of a milestone that TPP would have been,” Sim, who is a partner at the Washington law firm Appleton Luff, said.

[g.sarkar]

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/07/who ... r-of-2020/
Who Will Win the Great China-India Naval War of 2020?
As the two giants stare each other down in the Himalayas, the real conflict may erupt at sea.
Right now China and India are glaring at each other across Doklam, the contested ground along the Sino-Indian frontier high in the Himalayas. It was the Himalayan border that prompted their last serious fight, when China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) dealt the Indians a short, sharp defeat in 1962. But any future war might not be fought on the high mountains, but the high seas.
A Sino-Indian naval war seems improbable, for sure — but so do most wars, before they happen. It’s certainly not unthinkable, and so it behooves Asia-watchers to lay out the odds now rather than be guilty of a failure of imagination should the worst transpire.
Bottom line: Don’t be taken in by numbers indicating that China would steamroll India in a sea fight. Martial enterprises are seldom that neat.
China has settled its border disputes with most in the region — but it prefers to leave the contest with some of its neighbors simmering, especially India. A spokesman for China’s defense ministry, Col. Wu Qian, warned Indians not to “push your luck” in the Doklam dispute. For good measure Wu added that the Indian Army would find it “easier to shake a mountain than to shake the PLA.” Beyond the present conflict, Chinese and Indian media have a long history of competing to see who can shout “By jingo!” in the other’s direction the loudest.
History shows that rancor on land or in the air can easily sprawl out to sea. Or a saltwater conflict could ensue independently of events ashore. Both contestants take a proprietary view of waters off their coasts. China thinks about the South China Sea as a zone of “indisputable” or “irrefutable” sovereignty where Beijing ought to make the rules and others ought to obey. In a similar vein, India models its foreign policy and strategy in part on the Monroe Doctrine, and thus regards the Indian Ocean as an Indian preserve.
...
Which brings us to geography. India is blessed by favorable nautical geography. The subcontinent juts into the Indian Ocean, adjoining potential battlegrounds in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. Its geographical layout amplifies the advantages of the interior lines. Furthermore, New Delhi is sovereign over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an island chain athwart the western approaches to the Strait of Malacca. Suitably fortified with missiles, aircraft, and ships, the island chain would constitute a barrier to east-west Chinese maritime movement — enfeebling any force that ventures onto India’s turf.
Chinese strategists are acutely conscious of the potential of island-chain warfare. It confronts them every day in East Asia, where U.S. allies occupy the “first island chain” paralleling China’s coastline. Back in 1987, Adm. Liu Huaqing, the modern PLA navy’s founding father, gave an address likening the first island chain to a “metal chain” barring China’s access to the Western Pacific. Small wonder Chinese strategists have taken to describing the Andamans and the Nicobars as a metal chain inhibiting China’s access to the Indian Ocean. The same logic holds.
Geography, then, could represent India’s great equalizer against a more numerous Chinese navy. New Delhi can stage an anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy of its own, harnessing geographic features for strategic gain.
Competing strategic imperatives will encumber PLA navy operations in the Indian Ocean. The overwhelming advantage on paper is misleading. The Indian navy will never feel the full weight of those numbers. PLA navy commanders cannot simply designate the entire battle fleet as an expeditionary force and send it sailing to the Indian Ocean to do battle. Doing so would expose the homeland to a formidable U.S.-Japanese fleet poised at China’s door.
.....

Gautam

[pankajs]

http://www.abplive.in/india-news/china- ... ply-562410
China's Fact Sheet on Doklam standoff: India's point wise reply {This is by a former Ambassador to China Saurabh Kumar}

He said that the Fact Sheet is in furtherance of the false narrative of Indian intrusion into Chinese territory that has been projected in the Chinese media in a bid to divert public attention away from the real issue, which is, China's attempt to unilaterally alter the position on the ground in the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction area, in brazen violation of accords reached with it by India and Bhutan (separately) not to change the status quo in areas of dispute pending a final agreement to the mutual satisfaction of both parties.

"There are written understandings to this effect, not to unilaterally change the status quo on the boundary on the ground, between China and India (1993 Agreement on Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity on the Border), on the one hand, and between China and Bhutan (of 1988 and 1998, on the other, as mentioned by Bhutan in its June 29th, 2017 Press Release on the matter."

"As such, it (the Fact Sheet) does not call for any refutation or 'response', beyond the clarification regarding the origin of, and the facts relating to, the military stand-off already made by the Ministry of External Affairs on June 30, 2017", he added.

Last week, India had issued a one line statement negating the claim in this 15 page Chinese document about the reduction of Indian troops at Doklam amidst the standoff: "India considers that peace and tranquillity in the IndiaChina border areas is an important prerequisite for smooth development of our bilateral relations with China."

Ambassador Saurabh Kumar, who speaks Chinese, having begun his diplomatic career in Hong Kong and Beijing in the mid-seventies (when Chinese politics was yet in the throes of the tumultuous upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, with Mao and Zhou arbiting the charged debates from their deathbeds, as it were) under late President K. R. Narayanan, who was then the Ambassador to China, gave a point-wise reply to questions on the Chinese Fact Sheet, as follows:

(i) The claim that Doklam is, or has been, undisputed Chinese territory is completely false. The Doklam plateau is one of the many areas claimed by both Bhutan and China (and remains unoccupied and demilitarised in consequence by common consent, with only graziers and military patrols visiting the plateau periodically). {Undefined/Contested LAC will have regular military patrols from both parties. I would expect both Bhutan and China to send in regular patrols into the area. Same was the case with Barahoti} The Bhutanese Government has reported these disputes to its National Assembly on a number of occasions. [This has appears to have been made to justify the PLA's attempt to effect a major shift in the status quo on the ground, cheek by jowl with two neighbouring countries, as 'normal road building activity' in its own territory, well within the sovereign right of a State.]

(ii) The claim that there was an 'international boundary' between China and India in Sikkim which Indian troops had crossed is, likewise utterly false. No 'international boundary' exists between China and India, in Sikkim or anywhere along their 3500 km. long border. [This claim appears to have been made in order to be able to hurl the charge of violation of international law and norms of conduct of interstate relations, including the UN Charter, by India in a bid to cover up China's own culpability of seeking to change the status quo on the ground in violation of recent written agreements with both India and Bhutan. And to prepare the ground for military action against India in the future, i.e. seek 'to teach it a lesson', as the Chinese are wont to do all over their neighbourhood.] The citing of the 1890 Convention between the UK and Qing China on Sikkim and Tibet by the Chinese in a bid to shore up their false narrative is disingenuous. That Convention is pertinent only in a bilateral India-China context, not in relation to the tri-junction area (which naturally involves Bhutan too, which was not a party to the Convention, as well). The India- Bhutan-China tri-junction would have to be agreed upon by India and China with Bhutan, so the Sikkim sector of the (India-China) boundary can hardly be described truthfully as "settled". There are issues there that the three countries would have to resolve together, not the least of which is the fact that some provisions of the 1890 Convention, and its follow-up, are contradictory when it comes to the tri-junction area.

(iii) The fact that the Chinese cannot deny - and are therefore silent on in all their propaganda blasts - is that the Indian action was a defensive one, triggered entirely by China's aggressive posturing in the sensitive tri-junction area overlooking the Siliguri corridor, which is land-locked Bhutan's life-line. China had to be stopped from going ahead with construction of the road on the Doklam plateau before it became a fait accompli, as a new 'fact on the ground' (as happened in the South China Sea in recent times, much to the consternation of the international community).

(iv) The intensity of the Chinese propaganda media blasts, and shrillness of tone, suggest anxiety at not being able to explain the miscalculation on the part of their military to their public. (PLA-Party relations are an extremely sensitive matter in China, with no good mechanisms to ensure observance of the desideratum-dictum 'The Party commands the gun".)

(v) A scenario in which the PLA might have thought it could get away with this 'advance' in the tri-junction area against a usually vacillating India and fearful Bhutan, on the one hand, and a Party leadership in Beijing preoccupied with an unprecedented topmost (Politburo) level purge (that took place at about the same time as when the Doklam stand-off was unfolding), on the other, cannot be ruled out. What level the decision to go ahead with construction of the road in what is perhaps the most sensitive area of the India-China border was taken is difficult to say, obviously. While a purely local level initiative is unlikely, a senior (Theatre Command) level PLA calculation, and move, to present the Party leadership in Beijing with a fait accompli on the eve of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the PLA (August 1st) is certainly not implausible.

Talking about Indian public opinion on the Doklam Standoff, Ambassador Saurabh, who served as Ambassador to Austria, IAEA & UNIDO (2007- 2009), Ireland (2003- 2007) and Vietnam (2000-2003), and also held other senior appointments in the Cabinet Secretariat and Ministry of External Affairs, said, "the Indian press has, like the Government of India, shown considerable maturity in not getting provoked unduly by the aggressive Chinese posturing. It would do well to continue to 'guard against the anger of the moment (going overboard at the Chinese miscalculation), while preserving the wrath to fight against injustice (of Chinese unreasonableness and aggressiveness)', as a Confucian insight exhorts, in case that becomes necessary on account of any Chinese adventure stemming from pique at not being allowed by India to lord it over Bhutan in this first round of test of nerves at Doklam."

"It is important that the latest Chinese Fact Sheet be seen for what it is - an element in the service of the coercive Chinese diplomacy in India's neighbourhood and strategy of pushing for advantage on the border, not a 'media information activity' common in free press societies/polities by any stretch. It is an exercise in obfuscation, not clarification, that does not merit serious consideration," said Ambassador Kumar.(ANI)

[chola]

Everything is in place:

http://www.newsweek.com/china-military- ... sis-647576

CHINA'S MILITARY LAUNCHES WAR GAMES AS WARNING TO U.S., NORTH KOREA AMID NUCLEAR MISSILE CRISIS
BY TOM O'CONNOR ON 8/7/17 AT 2:42 PM

[chola]

Trouble on the Taiwan Strait as well (notice how there is not a single PLAAF aircraft spotted along our borders while their air force tries to intimidate elsewhere -- shows a lack of ability to project on our borders despite all its stupid threats):


Picture released by Taiwanese military: ROCAF's FCK1 intercepts Lizard H-6 bomber.

I wrote months ago that we need a plan for our borders when a chini dust-up happens with the USN In the SCS. That situation is close to happening now all along the chini seaboard. A perfect time to punch the idiot in the back of the head when he is baring his gecko fangs everywhere.

Our advantage as opposed to the lizard's enemies to its east is that the lizard's rump is scrawny and has no teeth. It is noxious and smelly though.

[shiv]

Without the participation of India, the third-largest Asian economy, the free-trade zone China hoped to create might still happen, but it won’t carry the same economic heft, depriving Beijing of the chance to set the trade rules for the region.

The missed opportunity puts China on much the same footing as the United States, as Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump continue their first face-to-face meeting Friday at Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla. club, where the trade tensions between their two countries will be a major point of discussion. Trump withdrew from the sprawling Trans Pacific Partnership with 11 other countries as one of his first acts in office, squandering a chance for the United States to steer trade in Asia. Now China looks like it may lose its chance as well, over Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s refusal to open its borders.

“India is reasons one, two and three why the deal might not get done,” said Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former adviser to Taiwan on trade. “There’s a strongly-held belief that this will bring in unwanted competition.”

Too much hoopla about India not joining - and it suggests to me a level of international dhoti shivering about China. India has done nothing unusual - something so boring and routine that it does not merit any remark.

What has India done? India has merely acted in its own interest. The fact that this may go against Chinese interest is hardly remarkable. Obviously - you have two countries at logger heads. One is a totalitarian oligarchy that supports terrorist states and boasts of its own status. The other is a big country with power that China cannot push over by boasting and shouting.

So what's the big deal? Why does it evoke so much interest on the lines of Malaika Arora still seeing her ex husband Arbaaz Khan? Countries regularly refuse to allow other nations to walk roughshod over them so nothing much to write home about.

[UlanBatori]

1-wold Lesponse to 15-page Chinese Menu:

RIALS!!

[Yusuf]

Most articles that I see have no clue where the action is taking place.

Incidentally I got an excited call from YusufDFI yesterday, He had just attended a NIAS meeting and it was about Dokala. They started with my video apparently. Only Yusuf knew..

I was excited to see your work being sourced by them. The video was used by a retired general who was formerly in the national security council to explain the situation. I told Nitin Pai later that this video was made by Shiv.

[pankajs]

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinio ... g-4786837/
Raja Mandala: Doklam’s unintended consequence

If China makes no room for compromise, India will be forced to think about coping with its power, burying illusions of Asian solidarity

Whatever the eventual outcome in Doklam, the current stand-off is bound to significantly alter Indian perceptions of China. For one, the political goodwill in India towards China that was constructed over the last three decades will be increasingly difficult to sustain in the coming years. For another, India, which long resisted the idea of balancing China, is likely to move inevitably in that direction.

It took a lot of bold moves, including those by Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the foreign minister in the late 1970s and Rajiv Gandhi as the prime minister in the late 1980s, for the Indian elite to overcome the sense of Chinese betrayal in 1962. While leaders like Vajpayee and Rajiv Gandhi understood the imperatives of normalising relations with China, there was entrenched resistance in the political class and in the bureaucracy, armed forces and the security agencies that would take many years to overcome. Indian business too has been deeply fearful of engaging China.

The slow but definitive normalisation of relations was aided immensely by the pragmatism in Beijing, especially that of Deng Xiaoping, whose emphasis was on creating a peaceful external environment for the economic modernisation of China. But as China’s power grew rapidly, Deng’s successors have abandoned that pragmatism in favour of assertiveness. The current generation of leaders in Beijing believes China can now shape its external environment rather than merely adapt to it. As the newly predominant power in Asia, China may now see no reason to defer to Indian sensitivities.

The signals of China’s new approach to India were evident since 2008 when China opposed the nuclear exemption for India at the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Thanks to strong support to India from then-US President George W. Bush, China backed off. Meanwhile, tensions on the border began to rise as the PLA improved the military logistics in Tibet. China’s embrace with Pakistan has grown tighter and Beijing’s penetration of South Asia deeper over the last decade.

On its part, the UPA government in Delhi downplayed the differences with Beijing and underlined the prospects for collaboration with China in the quest for a multipolar world. The Narendra Modi government had a taste of Chinese pressures in September 2014 when PLA’s incursions into Ladakh coincided with President Xi’s visit to India. Modi’s followed his success in defusing this crisis by a strong effort to expand economic ties on a practical basis. But the Chinese actions — brazen opposition to India’s membership to the NSG, the reluctance to support international sanctions against known terrorists in Pakistan, and most recently the aggressive posture in the Doklam crisis — have dashed hopes for a positive turn in bilateral ties.

If Modi, as the strongest leader since Rajiv Gandhi, presented a rare opportunity to reconstruct Sino-Indian relations, Xi seems utterly uninterested. Sensible statecraft must, however, try and temper the pessimism of analytics with optimism about political agency. Hence , the unprecedented restraint in Delhi’s language and its patient calls for a dialogue to resolve the Doklam crisis in the face of Chinese threats and demands for unilateral Indian concessions.

India sees no reason to pick up a needless quarrel with a neighbour and rising power like China. But Beijing might be terribly wrong in presuming that Delhi would simply fold up under pressure. Pushed to a corner, India has every incentive to simply dig in. If China sees itself as an irresistible force today, India could well turn out to be that immovable object. There will be no happy ending for this confrontation.

China appears to have been carried away by the success of its recent coercive diplomacy in East Asia and the South China Sea. Unlike China’s East Asian neighbours, India has the capacity to absorb pressures from Beijing. With limited economic interdependence with China, Delhi can bear the costs of a severed commercial relationship. If India could turn its back on the dominant powers of the West for many decades during the Cold War, it could do that with China again.

China is also wrong to believe that asymmetry in power potential will automatically lead to surrender. China could learn from Pakistan’s refusal to submit to the widening strategic gap with India. Beijing’s haughty and unpleasant diplomacy in the current crisis will eventually lead to the conviction in Delhi that strategic defiance of China must prevail over the temptations for appeasement.

One of the consequences of power asymmetry is the pressure on the weaker power to turn to balancing strategies. Until now, India has deeply resisted walking down that road in the expectation that a reasonable accommodation of interests with China is possible. If China makes it clear there is no room for compromises, India will have to turn to both internal and external balancing of China.

One of the unintended consequences for China from the Doklam crisis would be an India that is forced to think far more strategically about coping with China’s power. For nearly a century, sentimentalism in Delhi about Asian solidarity and anti imperialism masked the more structural contradictions with China. Beijing’s approach to the Doklam crisis could well help bury those illusions.

[Suraj]

Perhaps what is missing in this discussion is a recognition of the capacity of a concerted public sacrifice (which is what it would be to stay away from cheaper Chinese alternatives) to fire the imagination of a nation. As persons of business, engineering and so forth, we take a much too prosaic approach, asking for the exact projected impact in rupees and paisa figures or square kilometers of territory., or in terms of size of divisions etc.

Obviously these things are key to any conflict, but they need will to drive them. And imagination is what ignites the will.

In my opinion, this is overly romanticized view. I'd rather ask - how many episodes of Chinese aggression against Indian interests have there been, and how many times has the public response been passionate ? Let's be realistic. Most of the time, the public does not even know. Often when they know, they don't care. Once in a while they get mad and can't take it any more.

Any time the issue is sufficiently high profile for the public to respond, they can be expected to respond with great patriotism. That's all fine. But on a day to day basis, the government gets no feedback from public on foreign policy. It's never been the case, not in India, not anywhere. The public, if anything, responds with 'Please keep us safe. I don't care if you punish TSP/PRC or not. Just keep us safe here'. That's why they voted INC in 2009 despite Mumbai 2008. After that trauma they didn't have the appetite for a shooting war as well. This is not wrong of them. It's their job to say what they think serves their self interest.

My fundamental point remains - the government MUST respond to *every* Chinese action. The nature of their actions demand that. They are probing - the lack of a response guarantees further probing. In any given year, the Chinese act dozens of times. That requires that the Government assiduously develop levers of response, that can be applied repeatedly at will. Further, actions must be focused on the Chinese, not the Indian populace.

Duties are charged on the Chinese seller. Of course, by consequence the supply goes down and Indian buyer buys less Chinese, which is also desirable. Boycotts switch the task to primarily talking to the domestic population. That is bad politics. The government should demand things of the Chinese in response to Chinese actions. Not from its own people in response to Chinese actions. Is that nuance not meaningful ? Why's everyone so intent on passionate responses ? It really is not feasible or sustainable - they'll have to respond approximately twice a month.

By all means develop a culture of social boycotting of Chinese goods. But there's far more to be done than that. There's a way to literally make them pay in response to their actions, at will. It doesn't even require a mass of people to act - it can be accomplished overnight out of FinMin, and the functional effect is the same as a boycott, because supply is restricted and the gains go directly to help arm us further against them .

[Philip]

China must realise that it would be better for it to "have India inside the tent pissing out,rather than outside pissing in"

[KLNMurthy]

China must realise that it would be better for it to "have India inside the tent pissing out,rather than outside pissing in"

OT but "...must realize " is copyright by TFTA paki jernails in RAPE media, and sir, I request you to respect that.

I don't think India has any interest in "pissing" at China or anyone, at a deep cultural level, as Suraj has been pointing out (despite our superficial disagreement over the merits of a boycott, he is clearly right in this).

It is a testament to the deep-seated cultural foolishness of China and Chinese that they are throwing away so casually what would be a relationship of goodwill and friendship.

I heartily endorse shiv's disdain for the Indian, and even the American belief about the Chinese wisdom --that they are so deeply imbued with suntzukungfuzu, play 20-dimensional golabazi instead of plain old chess, and can jump and kick from 20 ft height slithering up sheer glass walls.

It is complete BS. In things that matter, the Chinese are idiots. So they won't "realize" anything.