China has not just irked India with its maritime, land conquests and contentious projects. China has locked horns with various South East Asian countries and other regions to claim the territories arbitrarily. Reports from credible portals have revealed China's malicious intents to annex, instil fear among the debt-ridden countries and give rise to neo-imperialism. China has garnered ill attention from the world for its outlook, and it received heavy criticism and resistance from the country.
The elephant in the room, geopolitical game/ tussle, is the new means of warfare. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), String of Pearls and the South China Sea dispute etc. are some of China's most ambitious geopolitical projects. China has aggressively attempted to implement them on the ground to a great extent. Thus, there is a zilch amount of doubt on the ultimate objective of China.
Analysis of expansionist China's relentless and ruthless efforts in upsetting and compelling other countries to be at the mercy of China displays the path on which it is going apparently. There is no room for suspicion left.
The feuds ongoing decades have intensified in this era. The historical bone of contentions has triggered the geopolitical scuffles. The major clash of the South East Asian countries is based on the pivotal South China Sea, and the augment in the intrusions by the Chinese.
Japan has been expanding its Self-Defense Forces, adding state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets and converting warships to aircraft carriers for them. It is also building new destroyers, submarines and missiles while noting its military expenditure still pales compared to China's increased military spending. Tensions over the uninhabited rocky chain of 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometres) southwest of Tokyo but only a third of that distance from Shanghai have simmered for years, and claims over them date back centuries.
Against the backdrop of China's growing assertiveness in the South China seas, Japan and Vietnam signed a new defence deal to transfer Japanese-made defence equipment and technology to Hanoi. Japan will speed up talks with Vietnam to sell Self-Defence Forces' vessels, Kishi said.
Tokyo is also looking to expand military cooperation beyond its longtime ally, the United States, and has signed similar agreements with the United Kingdom, Australia, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Soon after Fumio Kishida took charge as Japan's new Prime Minister, he had a significant phone call with the United States of America President, Joe Biden. The two discussed regional security issues stemming from China's belligerence and North Korea's provocations in the East China Sea and the Indo-Pacific.
Japan's new missile installations are meant to serve as a deterrent and are well within the range of disputed territories such as the Diaoyutai Islands, ensuring that the country will have a suitable defence in the case of a potential Chinese attack in the region.
Japan plans to deploy the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) missile units on the island of Ishigaki, which is only 306km from the Taoyuan Taiwan International Airport. China's defence ministry has urged Japan to stop making provocative moves and refrain from attacking China over disputed, uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. The tension between the two is escalating quite rapidly. The situation is a stalemate.
Vietnam and China being strong allies, are facing the same crisis over the South China Sea. The transgressions in the region are alarming. Vietnam's territorial waters in the SCS extend to the East and Southeast, including the continental shelf, islands and archipelagos. There is also a group of around 3,000 islets belonging to Viet Nam in the Tonkin Gulf.
The Chinese assertion of the nine-dash line threatens its sovereignty. Intrusions into its EEZs harms its normal economic activities. While Vietnam usually stands up against the Chinese undue demands, it often accommodates the Chinese coercive pressure.
The recent developments have brought significant changes in the security environment, which are favourable for Vietnam. Vietnam unified the ASEAN countries during its chairmanship to demand the end of the Chinese coercive activities.
According to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, anti-aircraft and coastal defence systems emplacements have been built on reclaimed land at West Reef and Sin Cowe Island.
The Philippines has urged the US to increase their military commitment and review the mutual defence treaty with the Philippines in light of new Chinese maritime legislation. The Philippines has protested China's continuing "illegal presence and activities" near an island in the South China Sea held by the Southeast Asian nation. Tensions between Manila and Beijing have escalated over the months-long presence of hundreds of Chinese boats in the Philippines' 200-mile exclusive economic zone. China has built a mini-city with runways, hangars and surface-to-air-missiles in the Subi Reef about 25 km from Thitu.
The two Koreas have not been too vocal about the increasing footprints of China. The convoluted political and historical positions vis a vis the US and China has compelled them to be conscious. Thus, they have not openly criticised Chinese activities in the disputed sea.
Nepal has faced several obstacles with China on its border issue. Nepal shares a 1,439-kilometre-long border with China. The border is remote and inaccessible in large parts due to its difficult terrain and complex geography.
On September 1, Nepal's Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba announced the formation of a committee to "study" the border dispute between Nepal and China in Humla. Beijing has secretly built structures in the Humla district and stopped Nepal civilians from entering the area.
It is pertinent to mention here that the land dispute between Nepal and China first emerged in August last year. Issues of land encroachments in Nepal has sparked political and diplomatic tensions.
China's view is in the juxtaposition of what has been claimed so far. In a statement released, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Nepal, Wang Xiaolong, said China and Nepal have always respected each other's independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
China-Nepal border has since been free of dispute. Some individual forces earlier tried to hype up the so-called "China-Nepal border dispute".
Apart from India, Bhutan is the only country with which China has an unsettled land border. Bhutan shares over a 400-km-long border with China, and the two countries have held 24 rounds of boundary talks to resolve the dispute.
Pangda is one of 628 Xiaokang border villages in Tibet's autonomous region, a community serving China's socioeconomic and defence purposes.
Satellite images show that China is developing a village near Doklam, a border area with Bhutan and India, where Indian and Chinese troops had a long stand-off four years ago. Chinese media claimed that a new border village built by China near Bhutan was on Chinese territory but released images of the village appearing to show its location on territory disputed by the two countries. Bhutan's officials denied the village was on their territory.
In a major investigative article, Foreign Policy magazine revealed that the Chinese government in Tibet, in an initiative directed personally by President Xi Jinping since 2017, is setting up villages in territory that China claims in northern Bhutan. They were in a 232-square-mile area claimed by China since the early 1980s but internationally understood as part of the Lhuntse district in northern Bhutan.
Malaysia and Indonesia have also seen the same pattern of Chinese transgressions in the contested South China Sea. China is trying to control, exploit and claim its "rights" in the mineral-rich areas of the country. EEZ areas have also witnessed the despotic intervention of China. This has severe repercussions on their bilateral relationship.
China and Mongolian bilateral trade faces a big impact posed by the sporadic COVID-19 outbreaks in some parts of North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the strict but necessary preventative measures on the border.
As China's only ally in Southeast Asia, Cambodia has been an asset to Beijing as a member of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN), which seeks consensus on its key decisions, some of which impact China's strategic interests.
China will help modernise and expand Cambodia's largest naval base but will not be the only country given access to the facility.
In February 2021, the Cambodian government suspended a planned joint military exercise with China, citing the need to cut spending to allocate more resources to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. But the government's explanation is less than convincing and likely has more to do with its foreign policy, particularly its broken relationship with the United States.
Hundreds of Cambodian families refused compensation for their land from a Chinese-owned resort developer, the latest wrinkle in a decade-long land dispute. The lease was handed without an open bidding process and has provided the company with more than triple the size of any concession allowed under Cambodia's land law. Chinese investment has meanwhile flowed into Cambodia, but Cambodians regularly chafe at what they call unscrupulous business practices and unbecoming behaviour by Chinese businessmen and residents.
Russia has shown an increasing interest in the South China Sea. The exploration and search of oil and gas have inclined Russia. The relations of Russia and China have been revamped over a period of time, which brings another paradigm across the table.
The level at which the Geopolitical scheme of China has been laid out is surfacing the grim situation in the Asian region. The status quo is unilaterally handled by China alone. The imbalance of power is strongly evident. The 14 countries that share land boundaries with China and some countries that share maritime borders with China have continuously reiterated their whimsical claims on territories.
The Chinese side is being pretentious and in complete denial mode, but the above arguments cannot fool the international fraternity. It's high time that China mends its way to stall any severe impediment.
The sail is not so smooth for China now. The countries in the Asian region are coming in solidarity and in unity against the arbitrary actions of China, which is violating the sovereignty of the Asian countries.
Leave a Comment