A half a century after US President Richard Nixon turned its China policy on its head by flying to China – with his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger – the incumbent Secretary Blinken made the trek to Beijing. But oh…how the world has changed since then!! The US had been locked in its Cold War with the USSR, and China – painfully recovering from the disastrous excesses of Mao’s experiments like the “Great Leap Forward” – was also communist but seen as one of the latter’s poor relations!!
Its new leader Deng had signalled he was gonna be “pragmatic” in his policies – his motto being: “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white – once it catches the mouse!” Nixon – the archetypical rabid “anti-communist” – was the perfect leader to unleash Kissinger’s strategy of playing off the most populous country, China, against the USSR. China, after all, resented Russia’s condescending “big brother” assumptions about their relationship. While they were poor and underdeveloped, China still felt they were the “Middle Kingdom” – around which the rest of the world should revolve!!
Well, Nixon and Kissinger came, saw – but – eventually, were conquered!! They accepted Communist China as the “real” China in the UN and its critical Security Council – while relegating Taiwan to its nebulous role. Most importantly, they used China’s cheap labour to create their manufacturing centre – while degutting their domestic industrial belt!! And were surprised when – after two decades of feverish development – China started to close in on them in all spheres of activity – industrially (of course!) and militarily!!
While they obviously didn’t count on this outcome, they were to repeat this strategic mistake of underestimating countries inhabited by “natives”!! Think Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. Their strategy worked to the extent that the USSR fissioned and America was left as the sole superpower standing. But wasn’t for long!! And we arrive at the reason for Blinken’s visit last week!! In its NATO-supported effort to contain Russia in Europe in the war in Ukraine, China’s stature has grown even larger through its support of its erstwhile “big brother” – which has now accepted its junior role!!
China has also used the dollars piled up from filling the shelves of Walmart – and wherever else America shops – to buy nations (friends) and influence their policies. Through its growing navy, it’s a formidable presence in its South Pacific environs – and in fact, the entire Pacific! Its Belt and Road Initiative has hopped and linked continents from Asia to Europe to Africa and now South and Central America. Economically – and militarily?
So did Blinken reach some kind of modus vivendi with the Chinese leaders?? No… they were allowed to get too big for their britches!!
…America
While Blinken flew East, PM Modi of India has flown West to meet with US President Biden and the US Congress – and not so incidentally, the UN General Assembly. The former set of meetings will focus on hard power while the latter is an exercise of “soft” power in the form of Yoga – on which the UN conferred an “International Day” on June 21st!
The question for the US remains how to contain China if it expects to remain the preeminent global power. While in the early decades of the post-WWII Cold War, the US tilted towards India’s bête noir Pakistan, and India tilted towards the USSR even though it was supposed to be “non-aligned” – China isn’t the only participant to have changed since then. “Rising” India also has ambitions and is ‘frenemies” with China. They’ve clashed over their borders and are competing powers in the evolving dispensation.
The US will seek to draw India closer into its circle while India’s gonna try keeping its options open!!
…Int’l Day of Yoga
While Yoga might be seen as just another form of exercise in the “fitness fad”, it’s actually more than that since it’s a component of a whole alternative paradigm of human living to the West’s that was spread through conquest.
