An Evil Empire in the Making There is a famous saying “as you sow, so you reap”, which is proved so true in all evolving situations including even in the making of the nations in the world. So it is not surprising, that Asia has become a flashpoint and hotbed of all kinds of tensions and tussles due to wrong reasons in the today’s world, be it rivalry among the hostile neighbours based on the agenda of religious hate and greed for land, sponsored insurgency and terrorism, irresponsible proliferation and threat of nuclear technology, conflicts on cast, creed, religion and ideology, including global conflicts with a potential threat of the third world war. Needless to mention, that the People’s Republic of China and Islamic Republic of Pakistan are two nations in the region, which are directly or indirectly responsible for the aforesaid troubles. The Islamic Pakistan is the progeny of the religious hate agenda of the pre-partition Muslim League and its leaders while the Communist China is the outcome of prolonged civil war in which millions of innocent people were butchered by the warring armies and groups.
Emergence of People’s Republic of China
The modern history of China begins after the fall of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty in 1912, when the Republic of China came in existence putting an end to nearly two millennia of imperial rule. The next decades were the period of extreme trials and tribulations till the People’s republic of China came in existence under the Communist Party leadership of Mao Zedong forcing the then leadership and remainder members of the Kuomintang (KMT)-led government of the Republic of China retreat to the island of Taiwan. Before this, the country had experienced an intermittent civil war between the Kuomintang led nationalists and the Communist Party of China led red army from 1927 to 1949, the last four years (1945-49), also known as the Chinese Communist Revolution, experienced fierce hostilities and bloodbath leading to the casualties of the millions of innocent people along with the fighting troops and warlords.
Late Rudolph Joseph Rummel, a professor of political science in Indiana University, had carried out long and sustained research on communist nations and wrote in the Introduction and Overview of his book China’s Bloody Century (published in 1991):
“No other people in this century except Soviet citizens have suffered so much mass killing in cold blood as have the Chinese. They were murdered by rebels conniving with their own Empress, and then with the defeat in war of the dynasty, by soldiers and citizens of many other lands. They were killed by mini-despots–warlords–who ruled one part of China or another. They were slaughtered because they happened to live where Nationalist, warlords, communists, or foreign troops fought each other. They were executed because they had the wrong beliefs or attitudes in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were shot because they criticized or opposed their rulers. They were butchered because they resisted rape, were raped, or tried to prevent rape. They were wiped out because they had food or wealth that soldiers or officials wanted.”
Professor Rummel was the creator of the term democide i.e. the murder of any person or people by the government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder. During these turbulent times, the deceased men experienced all kinds of death with variety of conceivable reasons: This included genocide, politicide, mass murder, massacres, individually directed assassinations, burning alive, burying alive, starvation, drowning, infecting with germs, shooting, stabbing, and so on. All this happened for the sheer greed for the personal power, feelings of superiority, lust or greed for money, to terrorize others into subordination and surrendering, to keep subjects in line, for the sake of nationalist ideals, or to achieve utopia.
According to Rummel’s estimates up to October 1, 1949, when Mao Zedong officially proclaimed the Peoples Republic of China, the communists had probably killed from 1,838,000 to 11,692,000 people, most likely around 3,466,000. This bloody trial and tribulation, however, did not stop in 1949; the same author in his book “Death by Government” published in 1987, estimated that approximately 77 million plus people were killed by communist government from 1949–1987. In the absence of accurate data, the aforesaid figures may be exaggerated but it certainly gives the idea how brutal and violent have been the communist regime in China over the years. Tiananmen Square Massacre of 4 June 1989 to suppress pro-democracy movement is still alive in the memories of many conscious people world over, wherein according to various estimates 2,500 to 10,000 civilians died and many others were executed after summary trial.
Hegemonistic and Expansionist Res publica
While Chinese propaganda machinery constantly blames other nations as hegemonistic and expansionist, its own hunger and greed for more land and resources is prodigious and insatiable. Broadly, China is comprised of the Chinese mainland and five autonomous regions. All the five autonomous regions Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Guangxi are either conquered or forcibly occupied territories of other dynasties/countries at various points of history. The erstwhile weak Manchurian empire too was conquered and divided between Russia and China; the Chinese parts of Manchuria is now known as Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces predominantly inhabited by Han Chinese people. The Tibetan Plateau with as estimated area over 1.2 million square km was forcibly occupied by PLA in 1950, a year after the formation of People’s Republic of China. Such conquered or forcibly occupied territories together account for approximately 5.2 million square km (54%) on a conservative estimate as against the Chinese mainland of about 4.4 million square km.
Despite these grabs, the Chinese hunger of more territories has remained insatiable; consequently, they have territorial disputes with nearly all neighbours and in addition they are claiming sovereign rights and monopoly over the entire South China Sea and large part of East China Sea. As South China Sea also accounts for the huge international commercial traffic, its belligerent approach and build up there has put it in direct confrontation with the United States and NATO allies. Similarly, China also claims a large part of Indian Union Territory Ladakh and whole of Arunachal Pradesh, and its recent encroachment in Galwan Valley and Pangong Lake areas have created a dangerous war like situation between the two Asian giants. Inside China too, it defines the autonomous regions as ones with a local government having more legislative powers (autonomy) under the control of the federal Chinese government but practically they are large geographical entities with different ethnic groups such as Uyghur, Tibetan, Mongols, Zhuang, Hui, Manchu, and so on, which are constantly kept under tight control by applying even coercive measures by the predominantly Han Chinese government from the mainland.
Xinjiang and Tibet could be cited as two classic examples of the forced occupation and repression by the hegemonistic and expansionist Chinese Republic of two ethnically and culturally different lot of people. Uyghurs are a Turkic-language speaking Muslims living in their ancestral homeland of East Turkestan, which had been renamed as Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in October 1955. Now it is also an open secret across the world that over a million Uyghur Muslims have been forcibly held in detention camps called re-education camps. Reportedly, these camps are operated in violation of the legal system, with large number of Uyghurs interned on suspicion of militancy without trial and formal charges levied. Similarly, lakhs of Tibetans along with their spiritual head Dalai Lama have taken shelter in India to escape Chinese persecution to destroy their cultural identity, customs and rituals. Truth is except for a brief spell of forceful subordination during the imperial age, Tibet has been an independent land all along the history. But China not only forcibly occupied militarily weak Tibet in 1950 but also stakes claim on Indian territories of Ladakh in north and Arunachal Pradesh as southern part of Tibet.
Evil Design with Perpetual Harassment of Neighbours
People’s Republic of China shares its land borders with maximum numbers of 14 countries, which are India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar. Also, the country is embroiled in territorial disputes nearly with all countries, and in the past, it had active conflicts and wars with the countries such as India, Russia, Mongolia, Vietnam and Japan. Currently, due to Chinese expansionist and belligerent approach, armies of India and China are pitted against each other in the Ladakh region across the Himalayan range and any miscalculation or misunderstanding might trigger a dangerous escalation of hostilities or even a full-fledged war. Almost similar scenario exists in South China Sea with the deployment of American Navy, where China is forcibly denying neighbouring countries such as Vietnam, Philippine, Malaysia and Brunei their due rights of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
China had illegally annexed Aksai Chin in Ladakh region where nearly 38,000 square km of Indian territory in under the Chinese occupation for nearly six decades. In addition, it also claims approximately 90,000 square km of Indian territory in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, citing it as ‘Southern Tibet’. China and Nepal share of a border of about 1,415 km and it lays claim on parts of Nepal with reference to over two century old Sino-Nepalese conflict. Recently, they have succeeded to install a pro-Chinese communist government in Nepal, and yet they have occupied its land along the border with PLA constructing nine buildings between Limi and Lapcha in Nepal’s Humla district. To defend Bhutanese territory, India had to intervene in Doklam in 2017 leading to a serious face-off before China retreated and it has now raised a new dispute with Bhutan claiming its Sateng Wildlife Sanctuary in eastern Bhutan. On one hand, China tries to befriend Myanmar; on the other hand, it also stakes claim on parts of Myanmar territory citing historical grounds.
China also claims large parts of Vietnam on historical grounds and they had fought a bitter war in early 1979 which, according to many analysts, China lost, though both sides had significant losses, because it failed to achieve its objective. Both countries have been at loggerheads over the Spratly Islands, Macclesfield Bank Paracel Islands and parts of the South China Sea. China claims the entire Taiwan and there is also disputes between them over many islands in the South China Sea. China also claims parts of the East China Sea, particularly the Senkaku Islands which are currently in the possession of Japan. The two countries have constant tussle in East China Sea for the supremacy and maritime resources. China and Russia share about 4,300 km border and the former claims about 160 thousand square km of Russian territory despite both being communist nations with friendly relations now. Last time in 1969, they had serious conflict and several border clashes nearly bringing them to the brink of war before truce and agreement to maintain status quo. The belligerent communist nation has similar territorial disputes, though many dormant, with almost all other neighbours too.
While purportedly blaming India and others of being hegemonic and expansionist, this is what China is precisely doing with its Asian neighbours. It has arbitrarily constructed several artificial islands and military bases in South China Sea claiming control over approximately 3.5 million square kilometres of maritime zone, ignoring EEZ claims and sovereignty rights of the neighbouring small nations like Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia, and the verdict by the International Court of Justice. China wants to usurp all such resources and for that its usual tactics is to make claims citing some vaguest past event or practice. Though it talks of a mutual resolve in settling issues with peaceful means but seldom honours it; instead, it is always on a look out for an opportunity to grab more land and maritime territories by sheer application of intimidation and force.
During the year 2020, while the world is seized with handling Covid-19 disease and its disastrous impact on the human health, economy and employment, China has focused to convert it into an opportunity for its economic, commercial and military interests. Accordingly, the eventualities of its intimidation and harassment of neighbours have also increased manifold. Consequently, it has revived land and maritime conflicts simultaneously with almost half-a-dozen countries in the region. The recent flexing of muscles in Taiwan Strait including threat to Taiwan with carpet bombing, establishment of administrative districts in some disputed islands, giving a new name to Mount Everest, sinking of a Vietnamese fish trawler, encroachment in Philippine’s maritime jurisdiction, intrusion in Japanese waters near Senkaku Islands and border transgressions along Sino-Indian Borders are few classical examples of Chinese hegemony and expansionist agenda. Its recent aggressive posturing and intrusions in South and East China Sea has caused a serious concern to regional and global security, compelling US to station its Naval Battle Groups in the region.
SARS-CoV-2 – Nature’s Revenge or An Agent of Biological Warfare
Currently, the whole world is engaged in a vicious war with an invisible enemy; the source country that wittingly or unwittingly unleashed it is known but the ownership or responsibility for the same is conspicuously missing. With no let-up in 2020 till now, it appears the world would undergo an unparallel traumatic experience and upheaval for all time to come even worse than the previous World War-II with insurmountable losses and sufferings of human life, economy, employment, prosperity and future well-being. While writing these lines, the world already had a tally of total 32,463,156 coronavirus positive cases and 988,550 deaths so far. The only superpower in the world US alone has a maximum share of 7,187,179 Covid-19 patients with a record 207,555 deaths which accounts for over 33 percent of total cases and 27 percent deaths recorded worldwide. The US is closely followed by India with total 5,823,060 cases with 92,347 deaths and is likely to overtake the former very soon. In fact, the virus has shown its teeth in 215 big and small, recognized and unrecognized countries and if any country has shown reprieve after initial surge, it is China itself where the virus originated. The entire world is still foxed if it is nature’s way of taking revenge from unfaithful man or simply an agent of biological warfare unleashed.
The ongoing global coronavirus crisis reminds a suspense thriller “The Eyes of Darkness” which was authored by Dean Koontz of USA and published in May 1981. The book written nearly four decades back underlined a prophecy of the pandemic at catastrophic scale in 2020 somewhat similar to the Covid-19 disease. At one place in the book, the author talks about a certain manmade agent, namely Wuhan-400, developed at the Chinese RDNA labs outside the city of Wuhan, as a perfect Biological weapon that would affect only human beings. Then at another place, it says in a prophetic tone that around 2020, a severe pneumonia like illness will spread throughout the globe attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes of human beings resisting all known treatments. By design or mere a coincidence, this prophecy has indeed come true perhaps with a far greater and severe implications and damage globally.
There are many questions about Covid-19 pandemic that are still baffling the international community; only China has answers but it has deflected all such queries with constantly shifting stands and ambiguities. Some of these are hiding of information about the epidemic in Wuhan for a considerably long time, allowing hundreds of thousand people from Wuhan for outward travel worldwide despite epidemic, punishing early whistle-blowers at home, destructing early vial samples of the virus before testing; refusing scientists and experts from international community to visit Wuhan and viral lab there, stalling discussion on coronavirus in the UN Security Council, and so on. It is indeed very surprising and belittling all logic and rationale that even the most stringent measures and prolonged lockdown implemented by India could not stop the spread of virus which China contained it largely just in one province, or so to say in one city, if their official data are to be relied upon. Simultaneously, several conspiracy theories and reports too have appeared mostly quoting some conscientious Chinese sources suggesting origin of the virus in the Wuhan lab.
The World Health Organization (WHO), more particularly its Director-General TA Ghebreyesus, have been facing constant flak from several nations with allegations of working in league with China while underplaying the contagion’s threat to mankind. Ironically, the WHO team currently investigating the origin of the novel coronavirus has concluded its tour without even visiting to Wuhan, which is globally considered as the place of origin and flashpoint of the contagion. This action will for sure spark another controversy adding to many lapses already committed by the world health body in this case. The US government had already earlier accused the WHO being China-centric and served a notice to quit over its handling of the pandemic. Needless to mention the outcome of the WHO investigation are keenly awaited globally both by the scientists and governments but the way it is going on has already started raisings of eyebrows.
Though China has been aggressively claiming its innocence but now it is widely perceived as the perpetrator globally and affected countries are increasingly expressing resentment and anger due to disruption and loss of life and economy. The Russia and China have come close in recent years due to their common rivalry with the US but the way coronavirus has hit Russia, even the Russian-Chinese bond has been shaken. So, it is not surprising that Russians have suspended the crucial supply of S-400 missile air-defence system to China without indicating the likely deadline or date of resumption. The way SARS-CoV-2 virus has behaved and its lethality caused havoc across the globe irrespective of temperature and other climatic/geographical conditions as also the pattern of earlier pandemics such as SARs-Cov (2002-04) of Chinese origin or MERS-Cov (2015-18) possibly originated in South Korea or Saudi Arabia, it appears more likely to be manmade than natural and probably set loose in an accidental or deliberate release.
Whatever be the case, the impact of the pandemic is somewhat akin to what the Chinese authors of the “Unrestricted Warfare” as visualized over two decades ago. All the nations, sans China, have lost precious human lives, their economy is in ruins, unemployment and displacement of people has gained with millions of people losing their means of livelihood. There are compelling reasons to believe that the virus spread was not merely by chance. Some more relevant reasons why many people think it is an agent of the biological warfare include the deliberate delay on the part of Chinese officials in sharing information with outside world most likely under the instructions of CPC, punishment to the whistle-blowers, destruction of early virus samples, presence of Wuhan Virology Institute at the place of origin, stalling independent investigations of origin of virus, not allowing access of scientists and experts to virus lab at Wuhan, stalling discussion in Security Council till China presided it, intimidation tactics with neighbours and countries like Australia raising the issue of virus origin, and now the fact that the WHO investigation team has gone back without even visiting Wuhan – the most likely place of origin and flash point of the pandemic.
Unethical Means in Capturing World Consumer Market
The credit for the Chinese economic reforms goes to Deng Xiaoping starting from 1978 after he took over the reigns of the country after the death of Chairman Mao Zedong in 1976. While the manner of reforms implementation shall always be debatable but the success of reforms led to immense improvement in the Chinese economy and quality of life during the next two decades so much so that by the end of twentieth century, the Chinese leadership started visualizing the country as the next global leader and superpower. The People’s Republic of China represent an ideal Marxist communist regime but rather than creating a stateless and classless society, they have created a state and socio-economic order that doesn’t fit into any classical definition of socialism or capitalism. As in the name of stateless society, they have produced the most autocratic and hegemonistic Communist Party of China (CPC) that monitors and controls every aspect of the life of Chinese people and government; and for the classless society the umpteen billioners like Jack Ma of Alibaba Group with enormous gap in the creation and distribution of wealth among the Chinese people as in the capitalist societies. Coming to ethics and morality, they are seldom bothered about these attributes and are willing to do anything that suits without any guilt or shame attached.
Ever since it opened to the world for economic reforms, China has shown tremendous growth in all areas fully exploiting its rich natural resources, cheap labour force and vast consumer base. According to an Oxford study, China’s consumer market is set to expand by about 12 percent per annum and is expected to hit a value of $8.4 trillion by 2022. Further, China is also expected to overtake the US to become the world’s largest consumer of goods by 2019-20 despite the slowdown in the economy and retail sales, due to Covid-19 pandemic and other reasons. China continues to be the most populated country of the world, which ensures an abundantly low-priced work force and a huge domestic market. Also, the Chinese government has very strong information network and conducive pro-export policies targeting consumer markets in nearly all foreign destinations. Due to high tariff and other restrictions on imports and strong backing by the Chinese government to its export companies over the years, most countries in the world have adverse import-export balances with China. The US Department of Commerce reported that in 2018 alone the US trade deficit with China was $621 billion which has already escalated a trade war between the two countries; the position of India and many other countries is no better. Americans constantly blame China for unfair trade and tariff practices as responsible for the growing trade deficit, theft of intellectual property (IP), and the forced transfer of American technology to China, and so on.
Another common complaint world over is that the Chinese products are substandard and not durable. However, any Chinese businessman or even common man would strongly refute this. According to them, different companies have different products with different standards depending upon consumptive power of the concerned country. To illustrate this, they would cite American customers and African customers, their preference for the quality and price of goods; and that the Chinese companies accordingly target their standards, customer base and pricing. The aforesaid averment may have some validity but the overall business ethics and standards of the Chinese commerce is way behind the international standards and norms. Even during the world crisis due to Covid-19 pandemic, they have tried to convert it to an opportunity for self by supplying large scale corona kits and equipment to other countries, which were found defective and substandard. In fact, almost all countries including US and India have complained and rejected such supplies in many instances.
China has not stopped here: Currently the Chinese FOREX reserves stand at over $3 trillion and their companies are flooded with cheap capital to buy foreign assets among other things in Europe and other destinations. For instance, in Covid-19 triggered recession, when India’s top lender, the Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC)’s shares were going down in March 2020, the Central Bank of China acquired as many as 10.75 million shares of the company. The episode compelled India to revise its foreign investment policy to tighten investment rules for the countries sharing a land border with India. However, it is not India alone, many European countries too had to take similar action to protect their companies from the Chinese onslaught. Unhappy with the Chinese unfair and unethical commercial and trade practices, many foreign companies with a manufacture base in China, particularly American and Japanese majors, have started shifting their base to elsewhere, including India and other Southeast Asian countries. Japan has even offered substantial financial package to its companies leaving China and USA has passed a bill to delist Chinese companies from American stock exchanges, subject to certain conditions.
Arms Race and Formation of Evil Axis
Although not much information is available about the ownership or source, the Global Fire Power (GFP) has provided a unique analytical display of data relating to military strength of countries for the last many years. According to GFP ranking based on war potential across land, sea, and air, China is militarily third most powerful country after the US and Russia in the same order. However, based on service personnel deployed on active duty, it has the largest military force in the world with nearly 2.18 million uniformed men. Following its phenomenal economic growth particularly during the last two decades, China is undoubtedly in the race of the number one in the world and, accordingly, its military budget has grown manifold in the recent years. As the number one slot is currently occupied by the US for many decades after the Second World War, China is in direct rivalry and race with it.
Due to its ultra-expansionist approach and constant conflict with its neighbours, China needs a huge conventional war capacity. On the other hand, it needs high strategic war ability too by expanding non-conventional war machinery and equipment such as long range missiles and nuclear arsenal in its rivalry with the US and its NATO allies. The current Chinese military acquisition and capacity building programmes on land, air and sea vindicate how both the aforesaid factors have driven it to a blind and ugly arms race in the continent. In a recent report released by the US Department of Defense suggests that the Chinese Navy, officially known as the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), is now the largest in the world with 350 battle force ships. As against this, The US Navy claims to have 293 warships with the difference that they far larger in tonnage, that advantage might be soon be erased due to China’s frantic shipbuilding schedule. Over the last two decades, the Chinese defence spending has shown double-digit growth, which was possible due to high growth in its economy and GDP.
The objective and goal of the communist nation is very clear, it slowly but sure aims to outwit and outplay the US in every department. The two countries do not share a land border and their capitals are over 11 thousand km apart; hence the only possibility of their confrontation is at sea or air, and China is frantically readying itself for such eventuality. Currently, this tension and conflict is apparent in the South China Sea; while China wants complete control of the maritime zone and its vast resources belying the claims and interests of small neighbours such as Vietnam and Philippine. As the US is only country which is effectively stalling with counter moves the Chinese manoeuvres and belligerence in the South China Sea besides showing its commitment to protect smaller nations like Taiwan and others in the region, China obviously considers it as enemy number one.
This once again reminds the book “Unrestricted Warfare” authored by two colonels of PLA, Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui, in February 1999 underlining the tactics of China as a developing country to compensate for their military inferiority vis-à-vis United States during a high-tech war. The authors inter alia penned a strategy for their country to use money power to prepare an army of loyal people in America who would constantly criticize and oppose the federal government in an endeavour to paralyze its normal functioning; wage an economic war targeting financial institutions and target the communication network system through hacking into websites and other available means. Needless to mention, that the communist nation is spending hundreds of million dollars annually through China Global Television Network (CGTN) and other media to achieve this objective by overt and covert means.
The primary concern shown in the book was how a country like China can defeat a technologically superior adversary like US employing alternative means. The book underlined that the alternative methods have similar or even greater destructive potential. Considering the interconnected nature of global economics and inter-dependence of nations, it is possible to inflict severe damage on the economies of other nations without direct offensive operation. Similarly, cyber-attacks disabling communication networks could easily hamstring large areas of dependent life. Another example of network warfare could be shutting down a network that supplies power; massive power outages could easily cripple industry, defense, medicine, and many other crucial areas of life. Further, the terrorism may affect a small section of population but it can easily erode any nation’s sense of security and well-being. In a nutshell, these alternative tactics together constitute a “grand warfare method” substantially weakening or even convincingly defeating the adversary. No wonder India has recently banned over one hundred Chinese Apps citing security threat and breach of data protocol; the US too has followed suit by restricting Apps like Tik Tok and Share Chat on similar consideration.
It is beyond imagination that such a crafty work by the senior army officers of PLA would go unnoticed and stay just as an academic exercise, and the Chinese central leadership would not consider it to accomplish its global political and military objectives and ambitions. Clearly, there is no place of ethics and morality in Chinese codebook in pursuit of achieving upper hand over any potential adversary. The current spread of Covid-19 essentially represents all features and implications of bio-terrorism which has completely shattered life and economy of the countries like US, India and many other countries. It is also an open secret how China has been supporting Pakistan in its efforts to subvert and sabotage India in Kashmir and elsewhere. The world has also experienced during recent past how it constantly stalled action against the dreaded terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammad and its Chief Masood Azhar in UN Security Council for years on flimsy and untenable grounds.
The Chinese media and newspapers constantly engage in misleading and inflammatory propaganda against the countries like US and India, whom it considers as potential threat or adversaries. One could easily find officially released clips of brazen display of PLA’s equipment and war preparations on social media, which is unique tactics of this communist nation. For instance, only few days back an official video released by the Chinese official media shows People’s Liberation Army Air Force H-6 strategic bombers taking part in a simulated attack on the US Air Force’s Andersen Air Force Base on Guam in the Western Pacific Ocean which is nearly 4,750 km away from China mainland. The obvious purpose of the display of so often fake and morphed videos is to show its technological peowess and gain psychological advantage over the rivals. They had also released similar propaganda video against India during the Doklam crisis in 2017.
Two other Asian countries which have been increasingly perceived by the world community as potential threat to the regional security, and world peace and stability are Pakistan and North Korea, and both are actively patronized by the People’s Republic of China. While Pakistan has become a major threat due to support and sponsorship to various national and international terrorist groups from its soil, radical Islam and nuclear proliferation, North Korea is increasingly perceived by the democratic countries due to its despotic leadership, ambitious nuclear and missile programme and conflict with South Korea and US. None of these countries have requisite infrastructure, scientific and technological ability yet both are in possession of short- and long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear arsenals, and Pakistan is believed to be in a mad rush of producing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. It is widely accepted and believed that both countries strategic nexus with China has enabled them an easy and assured missile and nuclear arsenal acquisition and production. The United States citing enough reasons holds that China has played a major role in the establishment of Pakistan’s atomic bomb development and delivery infrastructure, though China vehemently denies this allegation.The formation of the China-Pakistan-North Korea axis is not only serious threat to the countries like India and South Korea, but also even the world peace and stability is at stake.
End Note
When it comes to ambition and greed for the power and global dominance, the track record of the democracies like the US or the UK too is not good and appealing. The UK colonized vast parts of the world for centuries and the US, despite being a genuine democracy in modern age, has been supporting despotic and dictatorial regimes, and indulging in excesses and war crimes against the countries who refused to toe their line, if their regional or global interests so demanded. Yet there has been a marked difference: The erstwhile colonial era is over for good ending the supremacy of British and the US, despite shortcomings, has never shown greed for usurping the land and economy of other countries. While endeavouring to maintain its supremacy in world, it has simultaneously also rendered the political and economic assistance to many other countries in need, many times without any string attached. Its current stand in South China Sea to challenge Chinese hegemony, protect international sea route for uninterrupted trade and commerce, and interests of smaller countries in the region appears justified in the same spirit commensurate with its entity and obligation owing to superpower status.
On the other hand, China is an emerging superpower employing a different strategy and mission conducting more like an empire rather than a modern nation of 21st century. It’s leadership is unable to delink with imperial era mindset of conquering or forcing neighbours in subjugation by resorting to intimidation and coercion tactics. China’s continuous conflicts with neighbours for the land and oceanic resources vindicate the same mindset and approach. Its appetite for land is monumental and it wants to exclusively enjoy all resources of the South China Sea without sharing with neighbours. It is desperately trying to create a new colonial order through debt trap by offering loan and technical assistance to poor countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America for the infrastructure development while keeping an eye on their land and other assets with a view to control them through bargain when the country fails to pay off huge debt. With FOREX reserves overflowing, their investment in other countries is focused on grabbing shares and ownership of companies and running them through remote control located in China mainland rather than creating mutually beneficial industries and business these countries. Last but not the least, they are indulged in unlawful proliferation of nuclear and missile technology as also endorsement of terrorism by forming evil axis with countries like Pakistan and North Korea posing the security and existential threat to the world.
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