{"id":139365,"date":"2019-08-05T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=139365"},"modified":"2019-08-12T10:45:25","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T09:45:25","slug":"china-sees-new-era-of-shared-destiny-with-us-no-longer-in-the-driving-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/08\/china-sees-new-era-of-shared-destiny-with-us-no-longer-in-the-driving-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"China Sees New Era of \u2018Shared Destiny\u2019 with US No Longer in the Driving Seat"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

A J-10 fighter jet of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s August 1st aerobatics team.
\u00a0\u00a9 Global Look Press \/ Xinhua \/ Yu Yongde<\/p><\/div>\n

1 Aug 2019 – <\/em>The release of China\u2019s white paper on defense demonstrates to the world an increasingly confident and more assertive China, actively preparing for major shifts on a predominantly US-led global chessboard.<\/p>\n

As well as the US, other crucial players on the world stage also have their eyes on China\u2019s military posture.<\/p>\n

One such country is India. Cutting straight to the chase, the white paper\u2019s most obvious and arguably most relevant reference to India is a sentence that states the People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) will \u201ctake effective measures to create favourable conditions for the peaceful resolution of the Donglang (Doklam) standoff<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those with difficulty recalling, in August 2017 India and China engaged in<\/a>\u00a0a brief skirmish in Doklam, on the Indo-Tibetan border. While seriously underreported by the mainstream media, the two nations continue to maintain a tense border standoff, with troops on both sides stationed just meters apart. However, it should be noted that the skirmishes in 2017 were effectively ended when both parties<\/a> disengaged by mutual agreement.<\/p>\n

The recently published white paper also confirmed the deployment of a Type 15 tank<\/a>, much lighter than tanks deployed in China\u2019s northern and western regions and purpose-built for mountain warfare. As the paper also makes numerous references to the mobilization and mobility of the PLA, such a low-weight Chinese tank may help in this regard. Deployment of this tank on the Sino-Indian border is almost certainly something New Delhi will become increasingly concerned at.<\/p>\n

Read more: Joint India-China Moon exploration could mend relations & counter US space dominance <\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Barely a day after the Chinese defense ministry released the white paper, Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh said<\/a> that India was watching carefully, after noting that a lot of resources had shifted to China\u2019s navy from other branches of the PLA. According to Singh, this all fits in as part of China\u2019s intention to \u201cbecome a global power<\/em>.\u201d Singh indicated that India would be required to respond within its own budget and the constraints that it has.<\/p>\n

At the end of last year, Indian media reported<\/a> that India was taking steps to counter China\u2019s \u201cstrategic footprint<\/em>\u201d in the Indian Ocean, approving the construction of 56 new warships and six submarines for its navy over the next decade. India\u2019s aim is to have 200 ships and 500 aircraft by the year 2050. According<\/a> to the India Times, the country\u2019s Navy has designed more than 90 warships across 19 different classes. As Singh recently said \u201cwe require long-term fiscal support to build a navy, that is the only way we can plan.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

That being said, China\u2019s white paper\u2019s reception has the potential to be interpreted in many contradicting ways, as the remaining references to India are not openly hostile or otherwise critical. As I discussed last year<\/a>, there have been many signs that, despite the growing competition between New Delhi and Beijing, the two nations are finding ways to work together and minimize tensions that are likely to arise, whether they concern freedom of navigation, China\u2019s closeness with Pakistan, or the growing question of Afghanistan and who can best exploit the mineral-rich war-torn nation.<\/p>\n

Since then, there have been further indications <\/a>that India is purposely and conscientiously avoiding ways in which it can outright provoke China, including and especially with regard to the South China Sea. In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s official position now seems to be that the Indo-Pacific is inclusive and not a \u201cstrategy or as a club of limited numbers.\u201d Given that India sits firmly on the side of US-allied nations, it is clear that India does not seek to formally or officially exclude China from this zone. At the end of the day, India is becoming increasingly unlikely to be able to match<\/a> China\u2019s growing military prowess.<\/p>\n

Given this context, it is unlikely that China\u2019s white paper on defense will irk India to an extent which would not have been expected from India in the first place. Compared to, say, the ever-increasing US-China dispute, the competition between India and China appears to suggest a competition which can at least be contained for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

For example, just last month the US Department of Defense quietly released<\/a> its Indo-Pacific Strategy Report (with the laughable subtitle: \u201cPreparedness, Partnerships, and Promoting a Networked Region.\u201d With chapters entitled \u201cThe People\u2019s Republic of China as a Revisionist Power<\/em>\u201d and \u201cRussia as a Revitalized Malign Actor<\/em>\u201d, Beijing\u2019s white paper on defense begins to look quite tame indeed. As the US document states,<\/p>\n

\u201cthe core diagnosis of the National Defense Strategy is that DoD\u2019s military advantage vis-\u00e0-vis China and Russia is eroding and, if inadequately addressed, it will undermine our ability to deter aggression and coercion.<\/em>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The report identifies China as being more confident and assertive, and more willing to \u201caccept friction<\/em>\u201d in pursuit of its expanding foreign policy strategy. The US \u2013by its own admission\u2013 is unable to deal alone with the threat that a rising China presents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenges we face in the Indo-Pacific extend beyond what any single country can address alone,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department seeks to cooperate with like-minded allies and partners to address common challenges.<\/em>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is in this framework that China\u2019s white paper on defense likewise focuses heavily on the Asia-Pacific region, hotly contested by the US and its allies as well.<\/p>\n

In 2015, President Xi Jinping made a concise declaration that China does not intend to pursue militarization of the features located in the South China Sea, such as those seen at the Spratly Islands. And yet, the white paper appears to have flipped that on its head, as it clearly refers to China\u2019s<\/p>\n

\u201cright to install to build infrastructure and deploy necessary defensive capabilities on the islands and reefs in the South China Sea<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The US, China also argues, \u201cis strengthening its Asia-Pacific military alliances and reinforcing military deployment and intervention<\/em>.\u201d The white paper notably singles out South Korea, Japan and Australia as fitting in this category of alliances. What may be the most cause for concern throughout the entire white paper, however, is the fact that China appears to be undeterred even in the face of this growing military alliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsia-Pacific countries are increasingly aware that they are members of a community with shared destiny<\/em>,\u201d the white paper states, perhaps the single-most important sentence of the entire white paper.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the face of it, it is unclear what Beijing is referring to. However, as far as some people and their sources<\/a> are concerned, at the very least China is hinting that the region shares the destiny of what will become \u201cthe end of a US-led alliance system<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

While this all seems to be part and parcel of the inevitable decline of the American empire and the understandable rise of an ambitious competitor, I have suspicions of my own that the US is unlikely to surrender its throne to China without a fight<\/a>, and an ever-looming showdown between these two nuclear powers is really what should be concerning us in the long run.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Darius Shahtahmasebi is a New Zealand-based legal and political analyst who focuses on US foreign policy in the Middle East, Asia and Pacific region. He is fully qualified as a lawyer in two international jurisdictions. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 rt.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 Aug 2019 – The release of China\u2019s white paper on defense demonstrates an increasingly confident and more assertive China. \u201cAsia-Pacific countries are increasingly aware that they are members of a community with shared destiny\u201d is perhaps the single-most important sentence of the entire white paper. China is hinting that the region shares the destiny of what will become \u201cthe end of a US-led alliance system.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":139366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,180,49],"tags":[239,244,120,331,267,1126,504,291,91,109,287,70,118,172,75],"class_list":["post-139365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","category-brics","category-current-affairs","tag-brics","tag-china","tag-conflict","tag-development","tag-geopolitics","tag-hegemony","tag-international-relations","tag-military","tag-nato","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-usa","tag-war","tag-west","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}