Besides, no matter how economically and militarily strong you are, China needs to understand that antagonising the whole world less North Korea and Pakistan (whom China nuclearised) can backfire

China says her policy of peace and cooperation, akin to her biang biang noodles, is based on happiness of her neighbours but beneath this facade of peaceful homilies, China does the exact opposite. Her propagandists say she does not claim South China Sea but the South China Sea happens to fall within a line drawn by the Chinese Government in 1947 (a regime she overthrew and does not recognise) linking certain undersea islands/atolls. China is raining biang biang noodles upon neighbours (India, Bhutan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines and Japan etc) with scant regard to international law and territorial sensitivities.

Law of the Seas permits ‘innocent passage’ of foreign military aircraft and vessels through the EEZ but China defies the same, inebriated as she is gets with growing comprehensive national power. China ‘warns’ India for assisting Vietnam in oil exploration in the South China Sea on the plea that it is ‘disputed’ territory but herself occupies over 6,000 square kilometres of Indian territory (Shaksgam Valley) in PoK since 1963 and, is doing several projects in PoK besides iilegally occupying 38,000 square kilometres of Aksai Chin. She has deployed numerous lethal conventional and strategic military assets in Tibet including the recent deployments of DF-21 and staging forward of airborne units and assists insurgencies in india. She claims Arunachal Pradesh (90,000 square kilometres) on basis of exploits of Genghis Khan, a Mongol forgetting in 6th century Tibet was a bigger kingdom than China and in the 7th century Tibet had even captured the then capital of China. Akin to her bot armies invading global cyber space, China has been investing her manpower abroad, surreptitiously employing the PLA in garb of construction workers and businesses, particularly in countries surrounding India, Indian Ocean region, Afghanistan, Central Asian Republics and the like. While the US was invading Afghanistan, China had already inducted some 15,000 ‘construction workers’ – read part PLA into Afghanistan in 2001. Some two million Chinese are present in Myanmar today, 11,000 in PoK/Pakistan and similar manpower investments/innocent PLA intrusions have been done in Nepal, Bangladesh, Seychelles, Fiji and even in Hambantota Port of Sri Lanka. While China preaches peace, the PLA’s biang biang noodles quietly spread their strategic web. China would do well to reflect what will happen if the PLA goes out of hand like the Pakistani Military/ISI. Besides, no matter how economically and militarily strong you are, China needs to understand that antagonising the whole world less North Korea and Pakistan (whom China nuclearised) can backfire. In 2005, a Deputy Political Commissar of PLAAF had said, “When a nation grows strong enough, it practises hegemony. The sole purpose of power is to pursue power... Geography is destiny… When a country begins to rise, it shall first sets itself in an invincible position”.

China would do well to examine whether she has actually set herself in ‘invincible position’. Implosions have occurred/are occurring world over when you suppress your own population and practise ruthlessness under pretext of development. Besides, Chinese economy is inexorably linked to the world economy – holding more than a trillion dollars of US debt (which may even go up) is just one example. Practising the traditional Chinese “Tian Xia” concept which views “all territories” under the skies (heaven) as belonging to the Chinese, may not be practical in the 21st century, especially through the gun barrel. China has too many fault-lines to persist with its bullying stance. The world may just choose to exploit them.

The views expressed herein are the personal views of the author.