As tensions increase between China and the U.S., Washington appears to take advantage of India’s feud with China. It looks like India and China have plans to work collaboratively using their shared increasing frustration with China as a method of bonding together.
While the Trump administration has taken numerous economic and political actions against China, India has had its own military issues with China as well.
This June, violence erupted at a land border in Galwan Valley leaving 20 Indian troops dead. This clash highlighted both nations not wanting to further the conflict but neither are willing to renounce that territory either. Tensions only increased over the summer after a solder in the Indian army was killed in August, and then again in September after shots were fired along the India-China border for the first time in years. Neither nation took responsibility for the military fire.
Now, the NYTimes reports, there is talk of a potential budding partnership knows as the “Quadrilateral Security Dialogue” that would unite the U.S., India, Japan, and Australia. Though this partnership has never been fully executed in the past due to India’s hesitancy, India might now be prepared to participate.
Though India’s motives in finally agreeing to join the “Quad” may echo Washington’s Anti-China sentiment, we have yet to see if the other states would agree to join as it is clear where India and China currently stand. While the U.S. has been vocal and condemned China’s human rights abuses towards Muslims, the U.S. has remained silent about Indian Prime Minister Modi’s similar treatment of Muslims. This hypocrisy has not gone unnoticed but the Trump administration seems to be actively ignoring India’s human rights violations.
National security experts are raising alarms about increased threats after news broke of President Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis and subsequent hospitalization. They have identified a few key areas of risk to US security posed by the latest crisis. First, there is the operational risk posed by an uncontained outbreak among senior levels of the United States government. We are still waiting for the White House to conduct contact tracing and key members of the line of succession like Vice President Mike Pence and President Pro Tempore of the Senate Chuck Grassley are refusing to quarantine or even be tested. With conflicting information being given about the President’s condition and his doctors being undermined by his own Chief of Staff, Americans, as well as our allies and adversaries, are looking for reassurance that someone is in charge of the United States and that the line of succession is secure and ready to step in if the President becomes too ill to fulfill the requirements of his office. It is also unclear how many members of the national security apparatus are ill or need to quarantine. While quarantined, they will not have access to the classified servers or key information needed to discharge their duties, hindering the United State’s ability to identify and respond to threats.
The second risk is that whether through lack of timely and accurate intelligence caused by the first risk or through illness, the President and other key decision makers will not be capable of making timely and informed decisions regarding US national security. In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson contracted the pandemic raging in his day, the Spanish Flu. He had fallen ill after arriving in Paris for the peace conference to negotiate the end of World War I. We now know that Wilson became extremely ill, hallucinating and giving unreasonable and unpredictable orders. In the end, he agreed to the harsh punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles he had previously opposed as nonnegotiable. These terms contributed directly to World War II. Aides at the time tried to hide how ill he was, claiming he had a cold. It is unknowable if the terms of the treaty would have been different had Wilson been healthy and in full control of his mental faculties, but it is fair to speculate that his illness and the coverup caused great harm to US and global security. Presidents lying about their health is nothing new, but given the deficit of trust this administration already has, the lies will not provide confidence and a sense of calm this time. In fact, they have already fueled speculation that it is just as likely the President’s doctors are lying to keep him from panicking as it is they are lying to keep the American people and our allies from panicking.
The final risk is strategic. The US’s adversaries like Russia and China may choose to take advantage of a moment of chaos and weakness to further their own goals while they think attention is directed elsewhere and the US will be unable to respond. Putin is most likely to take this path, as he appears to thrive on chaos, particularly when it is the US in chaos. But as Samantha Vinograd points out, both China and Russia have been working to undermine the United States’ reputation as a global leader able to solve these kinds of crises. With the President himself refusing to take the necessary precautions to protect his own health as well as his staff and their families’, it’s much easier to discredit the United States as a competent nation. It also is another reminder that for this administration, national security is secondary to the President’s political goals.
China and India have been in dispute over border issues for decades; but recently a border clash led to the death of 20 Indian soldiers. Then, weeks after the deadly clash, an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier entered the Bay of Bengal, drawing attention across the region. So, the conflict accelerated India’s relations with the U.S. This move as the article pointed out is a sign to China and others that the U.S. is standing by India.
There is no doubt that China has been aggressive of late in the region, just like Russia is also trying to expand its influence in the Balkans. So, it is not surprising that both the U.S. and India “have recognized the importance of the other,” said Nisha D. Biswal, President Barack Obama’s assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs. He also added that “the Indians arelooking for like-minded strategic and security partners, given concerns around a destabilizing environment in the Indo-Pacific.”
It came out that Washington still don’t have a signed alliance. But with the Himalayan crisis, things are changing. India and the U.S. are looking to closing a military cooperation whereby India is planning to purchased American weapons estimated at $20 billion. Moreover, some experts are wondering whether that the border dispute will move India closer into a regional partnership with the United States, Japan and Australia, also called the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or “Quad.”
However, many worry that these warming ties between the U.S. and India have not address some serious human rights concerns, that is, India’s persecution of Muslims. In fact, it is said that PM Modi is a Hindu nationalist who is very biased against Muslims. Upon many protests against his religious-driven policies, he proceeded to lockdowns and suspended phone and internet services.
It’s reported that even late last year, Mr. Modi also came up with a law that laid out a path to citizenship for people from six religious minorities who arrived to India before 2015 but he excluded Muslims. The very action led to mass protests across India and resulted in a brutal police crackdown. So therefore, human rights experts say that “it is troubling that the United States talks so strongly about human rights abuses in China, but is willing to engage in deeper diplomatic and strategic ties with India where similar situations are occurring.”So in this case, what can the U.S. possibly do to remedy this dichotomy of foreign policy?
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, one of the most critical issues in American foreign policy has been the emergence of China as a global power. Graham T. Allison of The Atlantic and Susan Shirk of ForeignAffairs.com both seek to explain where U.S.-China relations are heading. Allison presents an argument that due to a phenomenon known as “The Thucydides Trap,” the U.S. and China may be on a collision course that will end in armed conflict. The Thucydides Trap – named after the Ancient Greek historian that was a primary account for the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta during antiquity – describes the instances in which a rising power (Athens) challenges an established ruling power (Sparta) for geopolitical dominance. The outcome is a war whose victor achieves a costly Pyrrhic victory. By analyzing cases in the past five centuries that fit the profile for the Thucydides Trap, Allison makes the argument that – more often than not – the struggle ends in armed conflict. Allison also notes that avoiding the trap takes tremendous effort on the behalf of both the ruling and the rising power involved.
Allison, through his explanation and application of the Thucydides Trap, makes the argument that conflict between the United States and China may be inevitable, and that the avoidance of conflict will take a large degree of effort from both countries. Shirk, on the other hand, stresses that both parties know that any form of conflict would bring about grave consequences. Shirk instead gives policy advice for the Trump Administration on how to deal with China. The United States can take steps to ensure Chinese cooperation. Shirk also points out that China’s cooperation is necessary for dealing with North Korea, as China – in many ways – is North Korea’s only international benefactor.
Under previous Paramount Leader Hu Jintao, China had a “peaceful rise” policy that stressed to other countries that their rise would not be a threat to peace or security. Historically speaking, China has not been an aggressive state outside of the confines of its traditional sphere of influence from a foreign policy standpoint. The application of the Thucydides Trap may not be entirely accurate in China’s case. China does not represent a rising power that is hell-bent on deposing the established dominance of the United States.
The combination of the two articles provides us with several important takeaways. First off, relations with China must remain a priority for U.S. foreign policy. The United States must tread carefully in the way in which it deals with a China that continues to gain global influence. This is a lesson that has gone largely unheeded by a Trump Administration that has pursued an economically-nationalist policy towards China. While conflict beyond the trade and cyberspace fronts appears unlikely at this juncture, history still provides us with examples of the slippery slope that exists when a rising power clashes with that of an established power.
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Allison, Graham. 2015. “The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War?” The Atlantic. September 24, 2015.
Shirk, Susan. “Trump and China.” Foreign Affairs. 1 May 2017. Web.
The European union was created in order to join European countries who suffered the world war II consequences, its policies aim to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services and capital within the internal market; enact legislation in justice and home affairs; and maintain common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries and regional development, moreover to avoid clashes between them like before, nowadays EU policies and aims could be affected from some troubles that have created discord among the members, the latest events point out European union through weakness; the Greek frustration with EU peaked at an unsurpassed at the foreign affairs Council on August 14, when Italy, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria and Malta vetoed the appeal by Athens to sanctions against Belarus. In the same way there are tension between France and Turkish because Macron president of France, has seen the growing Turkish influence in Libya as a threat to its economic in West Africa and the Sahel.
On September 10, Emmanuel Macron met with MED7 countries hoping to put pressure on Turkish nevertheless leaders of Italy, Spain and Malta move backward France’s intentions arguing the importance to set up dialogues with Ankara. Indeed, after days Spain’s President was willing to enhance relationship with Turkish also Italy discussed on the phone about topics related to Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean.” Two days after the Corsica summit, the Maltese Minister of EU Foreign Affairs met with Cavusoglu in Turkey’s Mediterranean resort town of Antalya.
It seems Europe is fading while Turkey seems to be on the rise, likely Europe will face in a short term the renaissance of the big empire where at least Russia, China and Turkey will be playing important roles on global affairs in Europe. Turkey’s ascendancy in the region should be expected to accelerate the fracturing of Europe, where each state is increasingly preoccupied with its own problems, forming competing alliances against one another and the idea of the united Europe based in prosperity, democracy and solidarity will become in a shadow.
Joshua Shifrinson argues that the United States is a relatively declining super power, not quietly as the Soviet Union where power would go in to a dust bag in history but essentially declining in the sense of exceptionalism and exercising a unipolar position in international affairs landscape. The U.S. still possess the highest GDP in the world but other countries such as China are in the race of moving in fast pace to essentially compete with the United States. However, this hasn’t been something new, in 1990 and early 2000 when the U.S. had to deploy advanced military assets towards East Asia. DOD has announced that it has been in a long-term strategy competition with China and Russia.
By that said, this leaves us to the question that we should really ask ourselves. Is china really a threat to the United States hegemony and in what way? How threatful is China now and in the future?
I find these questions crucial as one may think that since China is considered a Revisionist and expansionist state. Which means that china will always try to find new technologies, solutions and opportunities to cease to become a super power.
It is very clear that China seeks to cease control and hegemony in the Indo-Pacific Region
The United States perceives that this is shaking it preeminent position with its allies in the region. The geopolitical context in concerning this regard has created several tensions and implications, one to mention that the United States has strengthened ties with surrounding countries such Vietnam, Thailand and promoted defense cooperation’s between South Korea, Australia, India and Japan. In regards that China would not push the U.S from the Western Pacific and also prevent from aiding the U.S allies.
The United States is starting to accept the rising of another powerful state and this is clear during the Obama administration when he stated that the “United states welcomed the rise of China that is peaceful, prosper and responsible in global affairs”
What are the on international security in the U.S and China? In my opinion, neither the U.S nor China would go into war together in the near future, two relatively strong super powers that possess nuclear warheads. And find several options to use in international security as deterrence mechanisms but differences might be on the technological and artificial intelligence.
Perhaps this reveals some personal bias on my part, but I found Hong Yu’s piece on the motivation behind China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative to be overly effusive while overlooking some of the more problematic aspects of the endeavor. Yu’s article makes brief reference to preferential loans for infrastructure in Africa and South Asia but doesn’t really interrogate the notion that China is engaged in serious debt diplomacy in the developing world. Yu frames OBOR as an initiative to foster economic cooperation and connectivity and increase trade and investment but focuses little on China’s predatory lending practices.
This is an old Foreign Policyarticle, but it offers some emblematic examples of Chinese debt diplomacy:
“Unable to repay China for a loan used to build a new port in the city of Hambantota, in 2017 Sri Lanka signed over to China a 99-year lease for its use, potentially as a strategic base for China’s navy. In Djibouti, public debt has risen to roughly 80 percent of the country’s GDP (and China owns the lion’s share), placing the country at high risk of debt distress. That China’s first and only overseas military base is located in Djibouti is a consequence, not a coincidence.”
Beyond its problematic and non-transparent lending practices, China is also promoting a “Digital Silk Road.” This is ostensibly to enhance digital connectivity in the developing world and expand the reach of Chinese tech and telecom companies, but it is easy to see how a Digital Silk Road might undermine democracy and human rights, particular given the PRC’s recent actions in Hong Kong and toward the Uighurs. I find myself wondering: Will the world face a “Digital Curtain” in the future?
But perhaps I’m just another American engaged in unnecessary handwringing over the rise of China.
The leading role of a great power does not last forever. For over a century, the U.S. has been the world’s leading economic power. After WW II it became also the international political power. Looking at China it was already once the dominant empire at least in the eastern part of the world for a thousand years. The Roman Empire disintegrated but parts of it remained centers of power. The Nazi “Drittes Reich” could not make it for two decades. Also, it is rather rare that one single power is emerging. So, chances are that more centers of powers are coexistent. I was an excited reader of Huntington; I am not a great fan of him. Still, the rise (or resurgence?) of China into the leading power of the Eastern World alongside the United States as the leading power of the Western World could make sense.
While earlier it was the trade, later the industry, nowadays it is the technology and knowledge-based sectors which define economic leadership. Developing technology comes at a significant cost, but whoever succeeds to take the lead in this competition can set the direction for the future. China is focusing on IT, automation, aircraft, electrical equipment, energy-saving vehicles, biomedicine which is also declared in its technology strategy. Achieving leadership by the set deadline would make China from the workbench to the technology leader of the world as soon as 2025. 5G plays an important role as the knowledge-based world needs that technology. Therefore, without attacking or defending the China policy of the USA, there was some logic in the government actions to protect American IP against Chinese espionage and buyouts.
However, how can a shrinking and protectionist US economy, a country loaded with social tensions compete with China and keep high import tariffs? It is also no secret that the Chinese economy was sturdier than the American during the pandemic and COVID could be a game-changer for China. An IMF comparison of the GDP growth statistics gives a clear picture[1]
GDP Growth of Selected Power Centers. Source: IMF
While the influence of partisanship on the foreign policy of the USA is also represented in the hiccups with international conventions (Bush: No to Kyoto. Obama: Yes to Paris. Trump: No to Paris), and the protectionist, separatist line would most likely continue if Trump wins, I am not sure that at least some parts of it would not infiltrate into Biden´s more conciliatory foreign policy. Whoever makes the run, he must find an answer on how to answer the Chinese challenge and maintain America’s leadership in the world. A brief answer to the Shifrinson piece “Should the United States Fear China’s Rise?”[2] would be: Yes and No. Yes, it could disrupt the American Dream about what the world makes go round. No, because it is the nature of the power that it comes and goes. And China comes again.
Trump, China, Pandemic. We live in times, we could not have imagined some years ago. As Heinz Alfred (Henry) Kissinger told the Financial Times in Manhattan two years ago[3]
I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses. It doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be an accident.
China and U.S. has been trading partners with each other, but there has also been a lot of economic competition between them, including strategic investments, technological research, as well as more recently, trade wars. Now, there also seem to be competitions related to various economic initiatives with trade partners, as China has done with the Belt and Road Initiative. In the U.S., there has been more push towards trade embargoes and sanctions, as well as national security-related push to prevent Chinese companies with ties to the Chinese government. There seems to also be more difference in long-term economic strategy, which has been heating up the conflicts in hegemony and influence over different regions in the world, such as the South China Sea. This seems to be a parallel in terms of economic competition as well as hegemonic competition between the U.S. and China.
For the last three decades Bahir’s government drowned Sudan into a dictatorship, after Sudan’s former President, Omar Hassan al-Bashir fell from the power in 2019, Sudan is moving forward through a transitional democracy process, planning to win democratic election in 2022, during present period they have been looking restauration of freedom of the assembly, press and speech, but in fact is not an easy way for Sudanese people who have been dealing with many difficult issues amid the post-Bashir period, such as Sudanese military’s abuses to Covid-19. Regarding the Sudan’s goal to aim democracy path; it needs urgent measures to strengthen their weak economy, improve international relationship and gain support from the US and others influence countries.
Nowadays Sudan is struggling with the one the biggest obstacles to recover their economy, due to sanctions imposed in 1993 from Washington aimed at punishment during Bahir’s government when the US labeled Sudan at state sponsor of terrorism and supported Osama Bin Laden. In 2020 Trump’s government have approached to the issue disregarding the significant ways in which Sudan has changed its policies both domestically and internationally, trying to make a quid pro quo deal with Khartoum where Trump required from them normalize relations with the Jewish state in exchange to remove Sudan from the State Sponsor of terrorism (SST) list.
Sudan’s economic situation and COVID-19 crisis has affected the country’s movement towards democracy, in the present they are stuck into the Trump’s government inertia to make a decision from Washington to remove them from the SST list, allowing Sudan’s economy to increase by trading also giving to Sudanese civil society an opportunity to regrow after being harshly oppressed under Bashir’s rule.
