China’s promises of `good neighbourliness’ is only to covet neighbours’ goods

Late last month (in November), China pledged 1.5 billion dollars in development aid, over the next three years, to the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The aid would go into helping the ASEAN in fighting epidemics and revive their economies, Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a virtual meeting with heads of state and government.

He also said China would donate 150 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to ASEAN. Xi emphasised that China wants to get along peacefully with its neighbours and work together to maintain “lasting peace in the region, never seeking hegemony.”

“China was, is, and will always be a good neighbour, good friend, and good partner of ASEAN,” Chinese state media quoted Xi as saying.

Chinese rhetoric, in the situation, is a contradiction to what it actually undertakes to do. Recently, there were renewed incidents with ASEAN members the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam in maritime areas in and around the South China Sea. Late last month, the Philippines condemned the actions of three Chinese coast guard vessels that it said blocked and used water cannons on resupply boats headed towards a Philippine-occupied atoll in the sea.

On November 27, China sent 18 fighter jets plus five nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, as well as a Y-20 aerial refuelling aircraft into the south-western part of Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, or ADIZ, close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands. This after, continued raids into Taiwanese ADIZ, for a four-day period from October 1, when China marked its national day, sending 150 PLA military aircraft into a broader area Taiwan monitors and patrols that acts to give it more time to respond to any threats.

China’s increased belligerence and arrant snub of international sentiment is reprehensible. It continues to explicitly claim territory regardless of international jurisprudence. As it has done in the South China Sea.

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.

On 28 November, Xi talked of rapid modernisation of the armed forces and triumphing in future wars. “Strengthening the capabilities to fight and win should be the starting point and ultimate goal of military talent cultivation,” Xi said. This statement comes amid reports that the Chinese military has committed more resources to enrol 3 lakh personnel for front-line positions.

As it is, China has been amassing troops on its border with India, and is building military infrastructure at a furious pace there. China has a disputed area of 3,488 km along the Line of Actual Control, it shares with India.

On 23 October, China’s National People’s Congress approved a new border law asserting that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China are “sacred and inviolable”. The new border law which becomes operational from 1 January next year, stipulates that “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the People’s Republic of China are sacred and inviolable”.

India protested China’s new law blaming China for its “unilateral” decision to bring about a new land border law and said it is a matter of concern as the legislation can have implications on the existing bilateral pacts on border management and on the overall boundary question.

Besides India, China has a list of maritime disputes with a host of its East Asian and South-east Asian neighbours.

With the Philippines, China disputes the Scarborough Reef and the Spratly Islands. Even as China offered to negotiate, the Philippines declared these territories as non-negotiable. With Indonesia, there is a dispute over the Natuna Islands and other parts of the South China Sea. With Malaysia, it is over the Spratly Islands. With Japan, it is over the Senkaku Islands (or Diaoyu Islands) and Ryukyu Islands. With South Korea, it is over the Socotra Rock (Ieodo or Suyan Rock) in the East China Sea. With Brunei, it is over some parts of the Spratly Islands. With Singapore, it is over some parts of the South China Sea. And with Taiwan, over the Macclesfield Bank, Paracel Islands, Scarborough Shoal, parts of the South China Sea and the Spratly Islands.

The Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands (or Xisha Islands) are the two primary contentions in the sea. The first is a dispute between China, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei, while the second is between China, Taiwan and Vietnam.

China has been building military bases on artificial islands in the South China Sea, in a region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

China has impeded commercial activity like fishing or mineral exploration by countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, claiming that the ownership of territory belonged to China for hundreds of years.

Over the last five years, China has rapidly built artificial islands housing significant military infrastructure on what had been low-lying reefs.

Since 2020, China has become more aggressive in increasing its military presence in the South China Sea, prompting the US, in June 2020, to formally reject most of China’s claims in the South China Sea. While the US does not claim rights over any territory in the region, it supports the claims of various South-east Asian countries and has historically vindicated that by conducting Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea.

China has, over the past decades, displayed exceptionable conduct by continued and relentless military aerial sorties over disputed areas, its naval war ships trespassing these areas, and in its exercising fishing rights over troubled waters.

China’s combativeness in the Indo-Pacific, and in the South China Sea, in particular, compelled the formation of AUKUS. 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. China views this as a provocation, protesting that its new power and might have actuated the formation of alliances like AUKUS and the Quad. The Quad involves the US, Australia, India and Japan.

Australia, for one, has been at the receiving end of Chinese attempts at arm-twisting, ever since it became increasingly vocal in its disapproval of China’s actions. China’s belligerence in the Indo-Pacific region, its unjustified claims on the East and South China seas, its crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong, its human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and its increasing aggressiveness towards Taiwan has prompted Australian intrepidity in taking on a mighty China despite the consequences. To top it, Australia’s early public calls for an international investigation into Covid-19 origins triggered much Chinese outrage.

The fallout has been China’s crackdown on Australia’s exports to that country. Over the past year- and-a-half, Beijing has rolled out tariffs and other trade actions against Australian export sectors including barley, wine, beef, seafood and coal. China blames Australia for the breakdown in relations, while Australia has accused China of political motivations behind the trade cuts.

Recently, in late November, Australia came out strongly against China, stating that China’s actions do not match its rhetoric of peaceful co-existence. Australia enumerated China’s militarisation of the South China Sea, recent aggression towards Taiwan and the introduction of the national security law in Hong Kong as examples of that.

Verily, China’s words and deeds are not in harmony, enough to leave its adversaries nonplussed, as it goes about expanding its global reach and economic and military might. China has an annual military budget of a stupendous $209 billion. Militarily, China is modernising rapidly, carrying out organisational reforms and adding new weapon systems, including hypersonic weapons.

According to the US military, China recently launched a long-range missile that went around the world, dropped off a hypersonic glide vehicle which glided all the way back to China and came close to hitting the target.

What is all this in aid of, if China wants good neighbourliness and global peace? The fact is, as Xi put it: China wants to win future wars. There is no doubt that China wants to be the nonpareil power of the world, but will that eventuate in subjugation of the rest of the world by bullying, intimidating and tyrannising? It is belligerence not peace that China is encumbering the world with.

Xi said, earlier this year, that time is on China’s hands. But China is going about its task with increasing urgency and impatience. China’s record of human rights and regional pacifism certainly does not qualify it to be a global leader. But it has managed to manoeuvre its way into an increasing number of lesser countries with its blitzkrieg of investments, something that the US cannot match.

We are looking at changing dynamics of the world today. Smaller neighbours and global powers, alike, will have to watch out for a redoubtable China!