More alliances like Aukus needed to counter China

China’s swift response to the Aukus deal is just another instance of the nation’s intolerance towards any alliances that it believes are actuated to counter its growing stature on the world stage.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said the three countries forming Aukus – the US, the UK and Australia – were in the grip of an “obsolete cold war zero sum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical concepts” and should “respect regional people’s aspiration […] otherwise they will only end up hurting their own interests”.

China also questioned Australia’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, while the state-run Global Times said: “Australian troops are also most likely to be the first batch of western soldiers to waste their lives in the South China Sea.”

China has never talked easy as far as Australia is concerned, ever since Australia began asserting itself on issues in the Indo-Pacific region. The backlash has been seen in China’s arm-twisting of Australia economically, as Australia depends heavily on exports to China.

But the moot point is whether Australia should sacrifice its independent character and be sheepish in avoiding China’s indefensible reprisal. That Australia is, in deed, right in its assertiveness, against a belligerent China, there should be no question about. But the same should apply for Australia’s imperative to arm itself against a wilful China, that has sea-grabbed the South China Sea and is busy intimidating Taipei. Australia’s intrepidity in participating in Aukus and its refusal to conveniently extricate itself, therefore, is laudable.

China, in fact, has made expansive and unjustified claims on the South China Sea. It claims 90% of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory, but is opposed by South-east Asian countries including Taiwan. The South China Sea is a region of tremendous economic and geostrategic importance. One-third of the world’s maritime shipping passes through it, carrying over US$3 trillion in trade each year. Huge oil and natural gas reserves are believed to lie beneath its seabed. It also contains lucrative fisheries, which are crucial for the food security of millions in South-east Asia.

On 12 July 2016, The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague dismissed Beijing’s claim to much of the South China Sea. It stated that there was no evidence that China had exercised exclusive control historically over the key waterway.

China has repeatedly said it does not accept the Court ruling and has continued to expand its South China Sea presence over the past five years.

This should be enough reason why concerned nations should take up a stance against China. Aukus is a new three-way strategic defence alliance between Australia, the UK and US, initially to build a class of nuclear-propelled submarines, but also to work together in the Indo-Pacific region, where the rise of China is seen as an increasing threat, and develop wider technologies. The deal marks the first time the US has shared nuclear propulsion technology with an ally apart from the UK.

Nuclear-propelled submarines have a longer range, are quicker and are harder to detect. But the UK national security adviser, Sir Stephen Lovegrove, has made it clear Aukus is about more than a class of submarine, describing the pact as “perhaps the most significant capability collaboration in the world anywhere in the past six decades”.

In fact, more should be done to counter China’s seemingly aggressive stance on the global geopolitical stage. It has been waylaying Taipei’s diplomatic agenda globally, increasingly isolating the latter, and has been threatening the nation with inflammatory references to it being part of Chinese territory.

Besides, shows of military strength are frequent: this month, China sent 19 aircraft including nuclear-capable bombers, into Taiwan’s “air defence identification zone” on the eve of Taipei’s annual war games exercises.

China’s exceptionable destabilising activities and Beijing’s efforts to coerce and intimidate other countries, including land-grabbing in South-east Asia and against India, should engender other countries to forge a united front against it. The Quad alliance, involving the US, Australia, Japan and India, therefore, is welcome. Other alliances should engage Canada, Europe and Korea as well.

The world must not look helplessly on as China goes about flexing its muscles -economically, politically and militarily – with a predisposition to pressure countries into behaving with respect to its growing dominance.

The world is waking up a little too late to China’s premeditated, covert and efficacious successes in changing the dynamics of the world. Today, in being the factory of the world, in its huge financial resources to buy up stakes in smaller countries, and in its military power to arm-twist other nations, it has reached a point where it can hold the world to ransom.

A New World Order is not unwelcome. But a bully and egocentric entity taking charge of the world, is an increasing worry. Smaller nations are succumbing to China’s blitzkreig of investments, and larger nations do not have the wherewithal to offer them viable alternatives. The US’ resounding defeat in Afghanistan, has offered China yet another playground for its burgeoning forceful diplomacy. The fact is, the world simply cannot afford to have a callous and predatory nation with absolutely no empathy for human rights – as is being witnessed in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang – as a global leader.

At the recent 100-year anniversary of the CPC, Chinese President Xi Jingping warned countries trying to bully China stating: “The Chinese people will never allow foreign forces to bully, oppress or enslave us. Whoever nurses delusions of doing that will crack their heads and spill blood on a Great Wall of steel built from the flesh and blood of 1.4 billion Chinese.” Seldom did he reckon that it was China that is bullying the world in its current state.

What Xi Jingping actually got across was his emphasis of the combative ethic of the CPC and his adumbration of the fate of the adversarial in China’s endgame of ruling the world…