THE DRAGON: IT’S CUNNING STRATEGY

CHINA is a half-masked nation with a secretive society and ruled by the Communist party that has proclaimed President XI Jinping as president for life vesting in him absolute powers to control the destiny of the Chinese people. One cannot express his opinion freely and, if one dares, it is dealt with brutal force as was seen in the army crackdown at the Tiananmen Square in 1989. Scores were murdered mercilessly, and lots are still loitering in jails. It is in this perspective that we should view every action of Beijing.

China wants to dominate the world; that is in a nutshell. The end of the cold war and the consequent break -up of the Soviet Union paved the way for this. They built up their economy, subsidised production clandestinely and sent their products at throw away prices pushing behind all other economies. If you travel to the USA or Europe you will find Chinese products occupying more than 75% of the space. That is one side of the story, pushing their product that kills the local industry.

Now comes their global vision. First, they gobbled up Tibet. The world nations looked the other way as they had no interest in the region. Then they provided soft loans and financial aid to Pakistan and Sri Lanka under the pretext of assisting in development. They assisted Sri Lanka in eliminating LTTE and thought it would provoke India. They failed. Then they succeeded in getting Tamil fishermen arrested Sri Lankan navy citing that they crossed into the territorial waters of Sri Lanka. This is not a military issue, but just a test to see Indian reaction. It is important to note that not a single Kerala fisherman was arrested. Their aim was to provoke Indian Tamils who will persuade Indian government to take some action. Again, it did not bring the desired results.

Now the Doklam stand off! The Chinese army objected to the construction of the access road by the Indian army on the Indian side of the border. And now, the Galvan valley in Ladakh, where they ambushed Indian soldiers, inflicting unwanted casualties on both sides. China has also been financing terror activities by Pakistan hoping to destabilise India. They will not come in the front line but use proxies to achieve their goal. In their latest move, they successfully persuaded Nepal to alter their national borders to include portions of Indian territory thus opening one more front against India. Why do they do all these?

They have enough trouble with Hong Kong who does not want Chinese rule and lose their individual freedom though the commercially successful island was handed over by Britain in 1997. And Taiwan, whom China considers a breakaway province, recently held elections as an sovereign independent nation. They cannot risk a direct confrontation with Taiwan because of the strong backing of the USA and their allies.

Then comes the story of Wuhan and the Coronavirus. Though under Geneva convention, the use of chemical weapons like nerve gas was banned in a conventional war, we have seen countries like Syria using it against the civilians. China, being a permanent member of the UN security council, may not have wanted to go against the convention, but took an alternative route to destroy other nations and their economies by spreading the virus across the world nations. If they succeeded, they could use this opportunity to tame the protestor of Hong Kong and Taiwan, while other countries fight the virus. Unfortunately, this strategy misfired and the virus stuck its own backyard.

There are unconfirmed reports that they are covering up the actual fatalities which could run into millions, but Beijing has deliberately not disclosed. This  is based upon the number of cell phone connections surrendered since the outbreak of the Corona virus. May be we can rely on these reports to a great extent. What started in the small town of Wuhan has become global issue. The world nations have to come together to isolate China and make them pay reparations to all countries for the damage they have done.