The establishment of an ADIZ, the addition of an aircraft carrier and many outrageous territorial claims prove that China wants unchallenged access to the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean
The symbolism of Emperor Akihito’s visit to Delhi and India’s extraordinary gesture of the monarch being personally received on arrival by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could not have passed unnoticed in Beijing and other Asian capitals. The visit happened while Beijing was taking unprecedented steps to declare large areas beyond its land borders as an ‘Air Defence Identification Zone’, challenging the sovereign rights of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, over islands and reefs controlled by them. Under its new notification, China required all foreign powers to give prior notification of their aircraft — civilian and military —flying over the ADIZ, and reinforced it by the threat to scramble fighter aircraft to challenge any violations. These extraordinary measures by China, which are known to have been taken following years of internal discussions, were undertaken almost immediately after the Third Plenum of the Communist Party’s 18th Congress.
The Communist Party Plenum put the seal of President Xi Jinping’s virtually unchallenged leadership. Apart from populist measures like doing away with the one child policy, eliminating repressive labour camps and providing relief to migrant labour, strong anti-corruption measures were promised, together with removing Government control over allocation of resources. But, perhaps the most significant announcement was the establishment of an apex National Security Committee under President Xi, which would give him powers on national security issues, akin to those exercised by Deng Xiao Ping. Deng wielded these powers when China was relatively weak, economically and militarily, and had to follow his wise advice: “Hide your strength and bide you time”.
The Deng era has been followed by an economically vibrant and militarily robust China flexing its muscles across its entire neighbourhood. Having added an aircraft carrier to its fleet to project power, China clearly intends to expand its reach across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, defining its maritime frontiers unilaterally in the South China Sea under its ‘Nine Dotted line’. It has militarily seized the Paracel islands from Vietnam and claimed the Spratly Islands, overriding objections from the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. It has used force to seize the Mischief Reef, located barely 51km from the Philippines but 590km from its Hainan Island. China’s extraordinary claims on its maritime borders do not conform to the provisions of the UN Convention of the laws of the Seas.
China’s assertion of its ADIZ has been challenged by Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The US has challenged the legality of the ADIZ by sending unarmed B-52 bombers into the Zone. But, US commercial aircraft have been advised to observe China’s requirements. Japan and South Korea have, however, refused to comply with Chinese demands. Chinese threats of overflying the disputed Senkaku Islands have been have been met by Japan scrambling F-15 fighters. The South Koreans proclaimed: “We expressed deep regret and reaffirmed our jurisdictional rights to the waters surrounding the (submerged rock) leodo, would not be affected by neighbouring states air defence zones”. The Chinese announcement of its ADIZ has exacerbated the existing disputes with South Korea over fishing rights in the Yellow Sea.
US Vice President Joe Biden expressed his solidarity with allies Japan and South Korea over China’s border claims during his visits to Tokyo and Seoul. The US has also sent P-8 Poseidon Maritime Patrol aircraft to Japan. China’s aim is to get Japan to accept that the Senkaku Islands are disputed territories. According to the Hong Kong-based Asia Weekly, China sees its maritime boundary in the East China Sea as stretching from the southern-most Japanese Island towards the East Coast of Taiwan and joining the South China Sea. China is now clearly seeking unchallenged access to the Pacific Ocean. In 2009, the Commander of the US Pacific Fleet Admiral Timothy Keating told Indian interlocutors that one of his Chinese counterparts had suggested to him that when China acquired aircraft carriers, the US should leave maritime security in the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans to the Chinese navy, with the US confining itself to security of the Eastern Pacific.
Even as Japan and others facing security challenges from China are upgrading their defences, India’s defence spending this year has reached an estimated all time low of 1.79 per cent of GDP. Even as the Chinese build up their communication networks across their borders with India and across Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan, our Armed Forces take days to reach the outer periphery of our borders. Our Army is woefully short of mountain artillery, the understrength Air Force desperately needs multi-role combat aircraft and the Navy has only an aging and obsolescent submarine fleet. Essential reforms to our archaic defence structures recommended by the Naresh Chandra Task Force 18 months ago remain unimplemented. Sadly, South Block has no dearth of apologists for China’s policies who have even sought to downplay Chinese transgressions in ladakh. These continuing intrusions have crossed the Karakoram Range, the great watershed that separates China from the subcontinent. They have been accompanied by Chinese claims to the whole of Arunachal Pradesh, reiterated recently to protest the visit of President Pranab Mukherjee to the State.
National security expert P Stopdan, who hails from ladakh, recently voiced serious concern of Chinese ingress into the region. After explaining how the ladakh-Tibetan border was defined in the ladakh-Tibet Treaty of Tingmosgang in 1684, he dwelt on how Chinese territorial claims have grown in ladakh ever since 1956. He has drawn attention to how China dealt with its borders with its Central Asian neighbours. He notes that China purports to give ‘concessions’ without actually giving any territory. He adds: “The Chinese will have a maximum claim and then they will settle for (what purports to be) the minimum territory. They will present it as a win-win situation, but in essence usurp what is far more than their legitimate claim”.
Referring to negotiations with Kazakhstan, Mr Stopdan notes: “After the Soviet Union collapsed, China settled for a third of the territories it claimed, the claim itself being maximalist with little basis”. Overawed by the Chinese, the Kazakhs were forced to give assurances of non-interference in their soil and part with 60 per cent of their vast oil resources. China follows the advice of its Chanakya, Sun Tzu, who proclaimed: “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence”. Our brilliant negotiators, forever apologetic about China, would be well advised to study Chanakya’s Arthashastra, on statecraft.
(The accompanying visual is of the tiny islands in the East China Sea, called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. The Chinese Defence Ministry in November issued a map of an East China Sea Air Defence Identification Zone. AP photo by Kyodo News)