China's Universal Game of Territorial Gain

"There's no trust right now."
"Nobody is going to buy this idea anymore that greater economic engagement is going to alleviate political strains [between India and China]."
Tanvi Madan, director, India Project, Brookings Institution, Washington

"If you consider the division of labour, then China is certainly on the winning side [of the two countries' trade imbalance]."
"[Particularly in two key areas -- telecoms and pharmaceuticals -- the government] must put in place a medium-term strategy to get out of this kind of dependence [on China. It is] absolutely imperative."
Biswajit Dhar, former Indian trade negotiator

"[China is] trying to change the status quo unilaterally in the Est China Sea, the South China Sea, at the Indian border and in Hong Kong."
"Our fighter jets scramble against Chinese airplanes almost every day.  ...Their armed ships are trying to violate our territorial waters."
Taro Kono, Japanese Minister of Defence

A Japanese military plane flies over the Senakuku/Diaoyu islands

China has named 50 underwater geographic features located in close proximity to islands whose sovereignty has long been disputed between Japan and China in the East China Sea. China obviously is in the mood to prove the old adage that 'possession is nine-tenths of the law'. Tokyo has interpreted Beijing's move as an "alarming" leap in advancing Chinese territorial claims; recognized as but one of a number of provocative events in flashpoints in the Asia-Pacific region based on fears of military escalation.

Events between China and India have become even more obviously fraught where disputed territory between the two giant nuclear nations in the Himalaya has seen Beijing's departure from the cold diplomacy its neighbours rely upon to blatant military violence in claiming geographical points within India's boundaries. In a May 15 physical altercation between unarmed Indian and Chinese troops, over 20 Indian soldiers were beaten to death in a violent melee. China has not divulged the numbers of its own losses.

Beijing has given orders for its military to move forward beyond China's territorial borders and into India's. It has surreptitiously erected army posts where no Chinese should venture, within the borders of India's sovereign territory high in the Himalaya. There has been a troop buildup on both sides; China belligerently prepared to advance its interests, and India just as prepared to protect its own from a predatory neighbour. And though both sides had long ago agreed that their military would not carry arms to prevent bloodshed in case of a skirmish, both resorted to improvised weaponry.

An Indian Army convoy moves along a highway leading to Ladakh, at Gagangeer in Kashmir's Ganderbal district June 18, 2020. REUTERS/Danish Ismail

China's latest move is to send martial art trainers to their outposts on the Tibetan Plateau -- itself representing a geographical territory torn from Tibetan sovereignty over Chinese claims that Tibet is part of China which it appropriated a century ago, formally annexing it in 1951 with the claim that Tibet formed part of China 800 years ago. Chinese soldiers stationed in their mountain redoubts will now become proficient in the martial arts, though even without them they had hurled an Indian commander to his death off the side of the mountain.

Analysts of satellite imagery confirmed that despite its diplomatic "mutual consensus to disengage" with India over the disputed territory, it had taken no action to remove the posts it had constructed inside Indian territory, nor had it withdrawn its troops stationed there in the Galwan valley. Indeed it has fortified the area in dispute. "India will reduce its dependence on imports", stated Prime Minister Modi. "We [will] become [the] biggest exporters of the commodities that we now import", he declared.

The treacherous terrain of the Ladakh region.Credit:AP

Unfortunately, just like all other nations within the international community, India too has over the years become a nation dependent on Chinese trade, intertwined with its own, a huge trade imbalance in China's favour the result of acquiring cheaper goods, ranging from household items to high-tech communications and personal protection equipment during a time of global economic breakdown caused by a ferociously infectious virus out of China.

Most nations including those whose natural resources China is steadily depleting, and who will never be able to repay the immense infrastructure loans made by Beijing to emerging economies, to bring them into China's "one road, one belt" orbit to capture an even greater share of the world market already mortgaged to China, seek to ingratiate themselves with the power that is behind Beijing, fearful of enduring its wrath should they be seen to defy Chinese directives.

The irony is that the country that gifted the global community with an economy-wrecking, social disaster-wreacking, death-delivering zoonotic, is the very same country that produces a huge proportion of the world's disinfectant chemicals, respirators, medical masks and gowns, ensuring that the stricken world remains dependent on China and in the process, semi-vassals of Beijing. India, with its uneasy political and trade relations with China, finds itself in a bind.

India exports raw materials and imports intermediate and final products of higher economic value; the traditional short-end-of-the-stick in trade. It accesses raw material that China produces; high performance polyethylene, to produce its bulletproof vests for Indian paramilitary and police forces.  Bulletproof jackets for the Indian army relies on materials imported from China. India will henceforth make a strenuous effort to wean itself away from Chinese products.

As a worldwide pharmaceutical producer in the global generic drug industry, India is deeply dependent on China, since around 70 percent of the active ingredients required by drugmakers emanate from china, according to Ashok Kumar Madan, executive director of the Indian Drug Manufacturers' Association. Decreasing that reliance on China is a goal that India has long eyed and found frustratingly difficult to attain.

Taking a leaf, as it were, over China's preferred method of punishing nations that dare to defy the advances of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing India will nonetheless begin the process of withdrawal. Where China bullies other nations when they run afoul of Beijing's wishes, by punishing them through imposing high tariffs on their products or finding reason to discontinue accessing their products for Chinese consumption, as it has done with Canada and Australia. A trade war is less destructive than a military war.