Geopolitics

China’s Strategic Overture to Japan
Star Rating Loader Please wait...
Issue Net Edition | Date : 29 Nov , 2013

Dr Manmohan Singh and the Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe

China has added another chapter to her “peaceful” rise by declaring another “defensive” measure; that all non-commercial aircraft entering a broad zone over the East China Sea must first identify themselves to Beijing (read the CCP’s Empire) at the risk of facing “defensive emergency measures” by PLAAF. So what if it raises the odds of an armed conflict. The self-drawn, self-decaled air-defence zone of “peaceful” China covers the now famous eight uninhabited islands, implying Japanese aircraft flying around those islands would need to submit their flight plans China and on being “granted permission” would still need to maintain radio communication with Chinese authorities. The obvious aim is to instigate Japan and test the US-Japan alliance. Post this announcement PLAAF conducted an air patrol with two scouts leading the mission and early-warning aircraft and fighters providing support and cover; muscle flexing laced with psychological bullying. The fact that the PLAAF spokesman declared that this Chinese measure would not affect routine international flights clearly indicates that the objective was to provoke Japan.

The US termed the Chinese action as a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region, increasing risk of misunderstanding and miscalculations, and would no way change how the US conducts military operations in the region.

This drastic Chinese action invited reactions on expected lines. The US termed the Chinese action as a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region, increasing risk of misunderstanding and miscalculations, and would no way change how the US conducts military operations in the region. The US followed up this statement by flying two unarmed B52 bombers into the so called Chinese ‘air-defence zone’. If China was signaling, then US returned the signal. It is quite possible that China was hoping such a counter action would be undertaken by Japan and not the US. Not surprising, there was not a whimper by PLAAF beyond a Chinese statement that it had monitored the flight of the B52 bombers, which is no great shakes. If China wanted to test the US-Japan alliance, it got the answer. Significantly, both Japan and Republic of Korea too later followed up by flying military planes into this so called Chinese air-defence zone. But this does not mean China will stop such mischief. The agenda of ‘global commons’ has been on the world agenda for past several years and China’s unilateral extension of her EEZ in utter disregard to her neighbours because of rising CNP and obstinacy to discuss regional disputes only bilaterally even where there are multiple claimants is hardly going to permit peace in the region. Australia too summoned the Chinese ambassador and conveyed to him that the timing and the manner of Chinese announcement are unhelpful (diplomatic euphuism?) in light of current regional tensions, and will not contribute to regional stability.

Ever since 1993, when China became a net importer of oil for the first time, China has been publicly declaring her intentions of stepping beyond her traditional continental land oriented security paradigms. In January 2005, Lt Gen Lin Yazhou, then Deputy Political Commissar of PLAAF stated, “When a nation grows strong enough, it practices hegemony. The sole purpose of power is to pursue power ……. Geography is destiny ……. When a country begins to rise, it shall first set itself in an invincible position”. Some coincidence that the recent statement of the so-called air-defence zone also came from the PLAAF but Lin Yazhou forgot that geography is not in favour of China as it has a limited oceanic front, and more importantly, changing geography akin to the erstwhile British Empire and blitzkrieg type of actions are unlikely to succeed. But then Chinese actions in recent years have led a cross section to conclude that this Chinese mindset is rooted in her historical “Tian Xia” (under the Heaven) concept which traditionally views “all territories” under the sun belonging to the Chinese, because of which, they attach no sense to territory. So possibly when Lin Yazhou muttered “Geography is destiny” he was perhaps hallucinating entire global airspace being dominated by the PLAAF.

The CCP has been actively promoting 6th Century BC beliefs that Chinese as a superior race viewed all foreigners less civilised, barbarians and culturally inferior and Chinese needed to intervene and civilize the barbarians and restore order. This ancient self-aggrandisement is perhaps being propagated to obfuscate the actual history of that period. The reference to ‘barbarians’ obviously includes Tibetans since Tibet was a separate sovereign country. The research done by John Man in his book ‘Kublai Khan’ reveals that in the seventh century Tibet was an empire, spanning the high heartland and deserts of the north-west, reaching from the borders of Uzbekistan to Central China, from halfway across Xinjiang, an area larger than the Chinese heartland. Indeed in 763, the Tibetan Army captured the Chinese capital Chang-an (today’s Xian) and much later it was the Mongols who later ruled China and then occupied Tibet. Historically until the early 13th Century, China had no claims on Tibet. Indeed the opposite applied: Tibet ruled half of present day China, but looked to India for its most significant influence, Buddhism. Promotion of this concept of disciplining the ‘barbarians’ is perhaps the reason that China continues to shoot peacefully protesting monks in cold blood in Tibet. Significantly, this weird concept has a striking resemblance to radical Islam being promoted by Wahabis who believe in killing all Shias, non-Sunnis and non-Muslims and perceive the whole world eventually being ruled by them – akin to China’s  Tian Xia Concept. It may not be wrong to assume that it is the congruence of these two concepts that led China to establish contact with, train and arm the Taliban.

No one can understand the nuances of irregular warfare better than China for it was China that on plea of ideology, established extremist groups such as Maoist in Nepal and Burma, the New People’s Army of Philippines, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Japanese Red Army, and Shining Path in Peru.

No one can understand the nuances of irregular warfare better than China for it was China that on plea of ideology, established extremist groups such as Maoist in Nepal and Burma, the New People’s Army of Philippines, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Japanese Red Army, and  Shining Path in Peru. Thomas Reed in his book ‘The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and its Proliferation’ reveals post his talks with Chinese scientists that China under Deng Xiaoping, decided to proliferate nuclear technology to communists and Muslims in the third world based on the strategy that if the West started getting nuked by Muslim terrorists or another communist country without Chinese fingerprints, it would be good for China. Hence the nuclear help to Pakistan and North Korea. But in the heady feeling of a rising power, China apparently forgot that nuclear capability does not always need an explosion. If Israel is unofficially acknowledged a nuclear power without a test, has China driven her neighbours to similar capability? If the first Pakistani nuke was tested in Lop Nor in China, can someone not test the first nuke on Shanghai or another target amongst all the economic boom along the east coast?

Yes, China claims to be the author and mother of unrestricted warfare and is going full hog in proxy war using irregular forces including creating perhaps the deadliest proxy in the USWA (United State Wa Army) controlling the ‘golden triangle’  but what is new about irregular warfare? Look what happened to the US in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and the Soviets in Afghanistan as well. What about the lesson China learned when invading Vietnam to “teach a lesson” to that country? Then, as China backed the radical Taliban, has radical Islam not hit back in Xinjiang and now even in Beijing and north China? How long before the radicals hit China with the first dirty bomb with all the suppression in Xinjiang? With an even sterner suppression in Tibet including shooting of unarmed Tibetans, why should a section of the six million Tibetans not pick up arms against the seven million Han Chinese thrust upon them to throttle their culture, beliefs and religion? When Buddhist have picked up arms elsewhere in the world, why should Tibetans not? Akin to the blowback by radical Islam, why should the Buddhist in USWA not come to the assistance of the Tibetans against Chinese genocide? Why will the world not hit back in similar fashion? If China created the Japanese Red Army, why can a Chinese Yellow / Black Army not be established? Look at all the pipelines sprouting in all directions into China. Why would someone not convert them into burning entrails of the dragon? With that possibility, the recent blast in Qingdao, a section of the 176-km pipeline (with investment of 1.3 billion yuan / $211.8 million) linking oil depots in Huangdao to Weifang city, killing 55, injuring 160 and burning up some 2000 litres would look like a lit matchstick. The bottom-line is that China is highly susceptible to 4GW and the susceptibility is increasing by the day due to Chinese actions and should realize that while the world too has the option to strike back similarly, centred on 4GW but including multiple asymmetric means in unrestricted conflict.

To divert attention from the internal security situation, CCP may have instigated nationalism by encouraging Chinese youth to attack Japanese car businesses in China, however, there is a need to look beyond getting hyper on the annual visit of Japanese hierarchy to Yasukuni Shrine. Obviously, the 国家安全部 (Chinese Secret Service) has not penetrated the World War II vintage museums of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Had they done so, they would see walls full of letters written in their own blood by kamikaze pilots before flying off on their last suicide mission – letters addressed to their Emperor who they had never even seen. That would give them a taste of Japanese nationalism. Ask the US who went on to nuke Japan twice when it was never required since Japan had practically been raised to the ground with conventional bombing. Visit the Hiroshima Museum to witness how rebuilding of Hiroshima commenced within seven days of the nuclear holocaust by a population with burn injuries, skin peels hanging from their bodies and after effects that went down generation. What China does not realize is that it has provoked that Japanese nationalism that the US was keeping suppressed through a Constitution thrust upon them. That is the strategic overture that China has made to Japan albeit inadvertently. Already Japan is in the process of revising its defence policies. As per analysts a pre-emptive strike strategy against potential aggressors may well be on the cards.

http://www.lancerpublishers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=103

Click to buy

Japanese media reports indicate a study to strengthen the ability to deter and respond to ballistic missiles has been concluded. Mao Tze Dong’s had said, “The Chinese people have stood up; they will never again be humiliated”. But China must realize that Japanese people were standing much before Chinese took baby steps. So, China will have to bear consequences of trying to humiliate the Japanese psyche. Even if the Chinese dragon is feeling restless, it must not stand up and expose the vast expanse of its soft underbelly. If the Japanese tiger wakes up, it will tear apart the dragon’s underbelly even if its fur gets somewhat singed.

Rate this Article
Star Rating Loader Please wait...
The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Lt Gen Prakash Katoch

is Former Director General of Information Systems and A Special Forces Veteran, Indian Army.

More by the same author

Post your Comment

2000characters left