The Winter Olympics and Paralympics this year, being held in China from next week, were supposed to showcase President Xi Jinping’s acumen and dexterity and consolidate his place as the leader of the world and China alike.
However, according to the reports coming from China, the success of the Winter Olympics has been put under a cloud of doubt and the plan to launch China as the leading world power is not working as well as President Xi and Communist Party of China might have liked after having burnt the midnight oil to prevent the country’s isolation in the international community.
The chorus for the political and diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics by world powers is getting louder, to send out a strong message against well-documented human rights violations targeting Uighur Muslim and other minorities in China as well as the rampant sexual exploitation of women within Chinese Society. Though many countries may still send their sporting contingents, their officials will skip the event to protest the abuse and genocide unleashed on the Uighurs.
Going back to their origins in 1896, the Olympic Games have been touted as the bridge to mitigate differences among countries and forging a bond of friendship. But the Winter Olympics 2022 being held in Beijing have walked into a grave shadow of all-round acrimony due to China’s arbitrary actions. Several Southeast Asian neighbors have boycotted the games.
Looming threat of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and massive internet crackdown by the powerful regulator in China have also caused alarm among sporting nations. Since the last decade, the Chinese growth story has translated into its assertiveness. Its resurgence has made China more vocal, even treading on the verge of covert violence. One dimension of such an upturn have been China’s territorial disputes with neighbors like Russia and Myanmar but with varying outcomes that range between amicable solution and outright arm-twisting.
However, amicable solutions have been scarce and far in between. In fact, the last amicable resolution of a border dispute that China achieved was in 2011 with Tajikistan. The past decade shows a marked change in the Chinese modus operandi in dealing with such disputes. For example, since 2009 Beijing has been claiming unilaterally the South China Sea as its territorial waters by pushing forward the Ninedash Line to demarcate the whole of the water body as its territory.
The South China Sea has been the focal point of territorial disputes between China and its Southeast Asian neighbours for a long time. The dispute escalated in the beginning of 2013 when China started developing the Spratly Island and Paracel Island regions. The Chinese state has been claiming unilateral ownership of most uninhabited islands in the South China Sea Zone as ‘historically Chinese’ territories. These islands include Cuarton Reef, Fiery Cross Reef, Gaven Reef, Hughes Reef, Johnson South Reef, Mischief Reef and Subi Reef. Though countries like Vietnam have been reclaiming some islands along their coasts for quite some time, what set the alarm bells ringing was the urgency with which the Chinese started to develop these shoals.
During 2014-16, China reclaimed more islands and territories than all other nations combined in the region’s history. A graver aspect of this Chinese belligerence is the militarisation of these islands. The South China Sea is a narrow body which is also a strategic sea lane of communication, and it acts as a marine route that accounts for substantial world trade – at over $3 trillion annually.
The Chinese attempt to capture scattered islands in the South China Sea and fortify them as its military zones has unnerved several of its friends and foes alike. Discreet reclamation of territories led to coining of the term ‘Salami Slicing’, that denotes the Chinese attempt to expand its territory, one shoal at a time. Chinese expansionism has been on full display in its tussle with India. Though settlement of the Himalayan border issue has been elusive, over a period of time India and China had developed a mechanism to keep bilateral relations cordial while taking a piecemeal approach to the disputed territories.
Passage of the Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement (1993) during the Narasimha Rao era is a case in point. Subsequently, technical agreements to manage border issues were adopted after tough negotiations in 1996, 2005, 2012 and 2013. However, recent skirmishes in the high Himalayas including the Galwan crisis, the Pangong Tso tussle and the Depsang Plain offensive in 2020 are worrying, and where the unilateral offensive posturing of the Chinese PLA is forcing the Indian Army to stay put.
According to experts, China is engaged in salami slicing of the Himalayan border by taking one post at a time. It has also been speculated that China is keeping the Himalayan fault lines simmering to hem India and gain simultaneous advantage in the Indian Ocean as an emerging blue water navy. This expansionist posture, mastering the seas and major sea lanes of communication are crucial moves in the strategic chess that China is playing. Chinese arm-twisting and expansionism are visible in the recently enacted Land Border Act (2021) as well.
On the face of it, the act charts the course that China is to adopt in the border determination process. It states that for China territorial sovereignty is inviolable and it would ‘resolutely defend territorial sovereignty and land border security.’ But the trouble with such an assertion is that only India and Bhutan do not have a settled land border with China, which begs the question: Is the Land Border Act aimed at India? This contention gains further traction upon consideration of the fact that China’s “official map” unilaterally claims all of Arunachal Pradesh, the Barahoti plains of Uttarakhand and territory till the 1959 claim line in the Ladakh region as its own land mass.
Furthermore, the act declares China’s complete ownership of rivers running through its territory obliviously setting aside the claims of lower riparian states including India and Bangladesh as well as Southeast Asian countries. The disputes on Brahmaputra and Mekong rivers with China will be gravely impacted by the Land Border Act which will only lead to more disputes with neighbors in South and Southeast Asia.
As far as India is concerned, the Land Border Act has no validity. China seems to be waging a psychological offensive against its neighbors through posturing, unilateral declaration of unacceptable claims on disputed territories as well as constantly shifting goal posts. Since the Sixth Plenary Session of Communist Party of China in November 2021, it has been obvious that President Xi would continue into his third term as Chinese President. He has already put himself in the list of great leaders of China next only to Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping with his thoughts enshrined in the Chinese Constitution.
The Winter Olympics for him could have been a cherry on top of his and China’s cake. Given his intransigence on a host of issues, countries like the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a host of European nations have decided to sit out of the games citing human rights violations in Xinjiang and Tibet as well as sexual exploitation of sportspersons by the high and mighty in the Communist Party top brass. Coupled with this, the expansionist posturing of China is not likely to allow the long spell of winter in Beijing to end any time soon.
(The writer is a doctoral scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)