All things related to China's aggression

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jayakris
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by jayakris »

And my favorite minister these days, Himanta Biswa Sarma, health minister of Assam (and BAI president) wasted no time in attacking Rahul

Himanta tweet - "And surrendering has been hallmark of Gandhi-Nehru family. In 1962, Assam was almost given away by Pt Nehru. When Chinese Army had captured Bomdila, Nehru said, "My heart goes out to people of Assam." Shame"
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by jayakris »

Sin Hombre wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 4:35 pmI generally support Modi but he has been a disaster when it comes to China.

He has had a policy of appeasement towards them, and this had led to a ballooning of trade deficit and constant intrusions and building up of Chinese military on the LAC.
The buildup of the Chinese military is because we have been doing things at the border. This latest intrusion was because of the bridge we built and they wanted to get a vantage point nearby. We pushed them back, walking into their territory (at least as per our version). The age-old Indian policy was to not do anything at those borders, so the Chinese wouldn't bother. It really didn't work all that well. That policy is all gone (from the Manmohan Singh years itself). Modi didn't do anything to cause intrusions that he shouldn't have done. It is not right to say (like in the Brahma Chellany BS article in Japan Times that Rahul quoted) that appeasement policies would do this. The Chinese knew very well that Modi is not Rahul's grandfather when it comes to borders. There was no reduction of border strengthening activities under Modi. Only improvements, as far as I know.

The result of appeasement policies on the economy is a whole other thing. I don't understand economics (at all), so I won't comment. All I know is that no country seems to have really been able to stop Chinese "economic invasion" all that well. I do feel that letting Sri Lanka and Nepal go this far into the Chinese orbit was terrible. Not sure what Modi did or didn't do to cause it or accelerate it, but it is terrible. Again, that too started quite a while ago, from previous administrations too.
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by prasen9 »

Wrt Nehru, the failure was to not build up the military. When you have a new country which had been sucked out by the British, I do not know how much he could have built in the 15 years. Maybe he did not do enough. But, if you have no good military strength, then you can, of course, just talk. Indira Gandhi recognized that mistake and rectified it to some extent. I like Himanta. But, his whataboutism actually shows a weakness. Nehru made a mistake, let us say. That does not mean that we should accept such mistakes from our leaders now. Pointing that as a defense almost seems that you have no other logic to provide and actually accept the charges. I do not know enough in this case to say whether Modi did the right thing or wrong. I like the building of the road assuming it is not that costly to build and can be maintained easily and actually serves some purpose and will be used. One can even do these things to just generate employment. Maybe Himanta has a soreness from Nehru not defending Assam as much, but the whataboutism that he engaged in is generally a sign of weakness. Hope he provided some arguments against the actual charge instead of engaging in whataboutism.
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by jayakris »

Of course, all these twitter back and forth are whataboutism. By everybody, and of course by Himanta. One anything the Congress guys tweet, there is always a wrong done by Nehru, allowing a retort. On anything! No man has given as many gifts for twitter whataboutism like Nehru. Quite funny, really.

But Nehru died for 56 years ago. Several PMs have had a chance to fix things from his 17 years, and they have not done it all that well. As for China, well, nobody has handled China well in this world anyway. The world cannot handle China, unless there is a U.S. president who wants to do it with a comprehensive strategy rather than attempt pointless schoolyard bullying that doesn't work with China. A U.S. president who does not piss off the whole rest of the world that would love to work with the U.S on that. Nobody loves China, but they all work with China on the basis of their own risk-benefit analysis. India may be at a point where we can actually provide an alternative to the world, even on the manufacturing side, though. The world may also be beginning to realize it. We need to strike when the iron is hot. This damn pandemic has to get under control first though.
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by Atithee »

The damned pandemic is actually a blessing in disguise. It provides a strategic opening to exploit the general anger against China for being thought a major cause of the pandemic, right or not. Strike the iron when it’s hot.
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by prasen9 »

jayakris wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 3:31 pm The world cannot handle China, unless there is a U.S. president who wants to do it with a comprehensive strategy rather than attempt pointless schoolyard bullying that doesn't work with China.
This is a very U.S.-centric view. If you step back, the bigger picture is a might-is-right global regime. Today it is the U.S., Russia, and China who are imposing their interests around the world. Tomorrow it will be someone else even if you handle China today. The whole system needs to move from a jungle regime to a civilized law and order regime.
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by prasen9 »

Assuming that practically speaking, the world will not come to a civilized system and the strong will want to prevent a world government, the best option is to have a multi-power-centric world. If the Soviet Union was still there and strong, the U.S. (and its western allies) would not have been able to just unilaterally go in and capture Iraq and Afghanistan. Or at least not have been able to go in to Iraq and do whatever it wants even when the people did not want them and the country got wrecked. So, in principle, I think having a strong China is not a bad idea. I want them to be bolder so that they can keep the U.S. militarism across the world in check.

Of course, I am looking at this from a global perspective. If I look at it from an Indian perspective, the key may be to create a coalition of countries with whom we align and create something like a NATO where we will together be a solid antidote to China's strength. For now, the short-term answer may be to align with the U.S. and get whatever we can from the U.S. to help us create a bulwark against China without giving them the ability to create permanent bases in India (unless it is on extremely favorable terms).
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by prasen9 »

For those worried about economic invasions, these have happened and will continue to happen. It is not as bad as it appears because keeping economic hegemony is extremely hard in the long run. For example, the U.S. economic invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation will not last forever although it wrecked the country and countless lives. Bush's economic invasion of Iraq article in the LA Times. Let us see.

In 1940, people were worried about "economic invasion" of China by Japan. Foreign Affairs article from 1940 And, last year, S. Korea complained against Japan. Japan's economic invasion in Korea
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by prasen9 »

One more blast from the past. 1977: Japan's Economic Invasion This is nothing new. It's China's time now. Maybe we should try to have an Indian Economic Invasion in the next decade say?
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by jayakris »

prasen9 wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 4:01 pm
jayakris wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 3:31 pm The world cannot handle China, unless there is a U.S. president who wants to do it with a comprehensive strategy rather than attempt pointless schoolyard bullying that doesn't work with China.
This is a very U.S.-centric view. If you step back, the bigger picture is a might-is-right global regime. Today it is the U.S., Russia, and China who are imposing their interests around the world. Tomorrow it will be someone else even if you handle China today. The whole system needs to move from a jungle regime to a civilized law and order regime.
Along with the above posts, you are arguing in favor of my point there, no? Right now, only the U.S.president can lead a move to put some shackles on what China is doing. Nothing US-centric in it, unless you are saying that Russia can form some sort of a resistance scheme -- but I don't think Putin is in position to do that. He is more worried about keeping his own dominance in Russia and knows how tenuous that itself is. The EU is just not united on such things, so we come around to US leadership again. And India or the whole QUAD could well be a big piece of the puzzle in that.

I'm also not saying it will be for ever. 15 or 25 years from now, it could be India that people are worried of. Or a big African Union that has got its act together (nah, maybe not in 25 years :) )....

Bit the "might is right" paradigm isn't going to go away that easily. It has always been there in the world, however much the idealist leftists like you might hope for it to go away, Prasen.
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by Sin Hombre »

Atithee wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 3:36 pm The damned pandemic is actually a blessing in disguise. It provides a strategic opening to exploit the general anger against China for being thought a major cause of the pandemic, right or not. Strike the iron when it’s hot.
100% correct.
prasen9 wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:35 pm One more blast from the past. 1977: Japan's Economic Invasion This is nothing new. It's China's time now. Maybe we should try to have an Indian Economic Invasion in the next decade say?
China is not just about an economic invasion, but more of a military and cultural one (and of IP theft).
jayakris wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 5:20 pm The buildup of the Chinese military is because we have been doing things at the border. This latest intrusion was because of the bridge we built and they wanted to get a vantage point nearby.
This is not the correct sequence of events.

Modi embarked on a policy of appeasement with China and make it easier for Chinese goods to be sold in India. Our trade deficit has doubled to 60B.
Doklam happened and India/Modi had a small victory.
China recouped from that and started building up roads and infrastructure and encroaching on the LAC in Ladakh. We finally decided to try and build a road to Galwan area and Chinese military got enraged and we have the flare-up.

Any deescalation at this point essentially means we let China build up the infrastructure but have barely little on our end.
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by Sin Hombre »

Jay, now this is the positive version of events

https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status ... 2365177856

ps: twitter embedding seems to be broken
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by jayakris »

^^^ (I actually like the twitter items being NOT embedded -as it usually fills up the page and makes us scroll more. Also, other have complained of not having videos or downloading start on their phones, etc)

Interesting, what Abhijit Iyer saying here. I was already feeling that this was a case where we went into their territory (the detailed India today article that I linked above also hints at it)... That may have been because they came into our territory at the lake.

So, did we just do what I had actually suggested earlier? That is, to go into their territory and show that we can do that too, and get them to the table? In the process, we killed a bunch of Chinese too. It seems pretty sure that they lost some 30 to 50 people.

But I don't think your timeline on road constructions are correct above, Sin Hombre. That road all the way past Galwan valley to very close to Karakoram range limit (at Daulat Beg Oldie) was built already, earlier. We built an extra bailey bridge at Galwan valley, from what I understand. But the roads on the left and right side of the Shyok river was already built in the last 3-4 years, not this year. I thought the bridge allowed us easier access to China's patrol point 14 at Galwan valley which is 30 km south of Daulat Beg Oldie, and was needed for the connection on the right side of the river. That road is barely 5 km away from LAC which is on the hills to the right side of it, from what I understand. The maps are all confusing, actually.
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by Atithee »

What I’m perplexed about is that we aren’t or are we a good hand to hand combat army? I’d think Indians are generally physically a good match even superior. Any idea?
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Re: All things related to China's aggression

Post by jayakris »

Apparently, we have always been good at hand-to-hand combat. So used to claim a close friend of mine who was a Lt. Colonel in the army, an NDA grad who fought in the 1971 Pakistan war. It seems Indians, collectively, can get really fired up in a brawl. Stuff like Bharat Mata Kee Jai gets them going. Maybe more than other countries' soldiers. Adrenaline helps too.
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