CHINA’S ‘SILENT’ WAR FOR GLOBAL DOMINANCE
Backdrop
“Of war, there is open war, concealed war, and silent war.” – Kautilya
ka ‘Arthashastra’
The ‘Arthashastra’ describes
the ‘silent war’ as that where a country while maintaining overt peace
with its target state, recruit fifth columnist to engage in subversion, orchestrate
information war to create violent discord and rift in the body polity, sow
misinformation to discredit national leadership, and employ spies for targeted
killing of influential leaders of civil society and industry. Most such
divisive activities underway today in India, and its bordering states of
Myanmar, and now Bangla Desh can be safely traced to this doctrine.
China’s Sun
Tzu, in his masterly treatise on statecraft, ‘The Art of War’, articulates
the viewpoint that the
supreme form of warfare is to win without fighting the enemy. Sun Tzu’s stress
on engaging with the target country comprehensively through covert deployment
of resources, is clearly discerned from the following extracts, “The wise
warrior avoids the battle…supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without
fighting... win first and then go to war…greatest victory is that which
requires no battle…subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”
The Western philosophy on war, on the
other hand, lays primary stress on use of brute force on the battlefield to
destroy the enemy.
Evidently, ancient India and China followed
a near common philosophy of war in their respective ancient past. But India was
forced off course from its traditional war fighting doctrine due to the
cultural onslaught under prolonged foreign rule. On attaining ‘peaceful’
independence, it inherited a military attuned to the war fighting doctrine of
their erstwhile colonial rulers from the west. China, on the other hand, relied
on the principles recorded in the ‘Art of War’ to regain their
independence, and have been consistent in following the strategy of statecraft enumerated
therein. Introspecting on the events of ‘Kargil 1999’ between India-Pakistan,
and ‘Galwan 2020’ between India-China, is adequate to highlight the current
dissimilarity in approach to war, of the two adversaries.
China’s
Path to Global Supremacy
“The
fine line separating an audacious vision from dreams is the intensity of plans
and tenacity in pursuit.” – ‘Elephant On The High
Himalayas’
China is pursuing its world vision through
parallel strategies of expanding the hard power of its armed forces, and developing
an overarching economic strength. In pursuit of the latter strategy, China has
rolled out two strategic programs, the ‘Made in China 2025’ to overtake
USA leadership in key new age technology sectors of the economy, and ‘China Standards 2035’ to
proactively standardise international technology and trade guidelines to
facilitate its economic domination.
The Digital
& Space Silk Road Initiative is their Special Purpose Vehicle to achieve the
objective primarily through the Hongyan
constellation of 320 low-orbit satellites slated to provide global two-way,
real-time data transmission system along with other multimedia data services.
It is intended to replace the existing ground-based communication networks,
allowing uninterrupted global communication, and constant global coverage of
all air, shipping, and overland routes, providing China the winning edge in
both economic and geostrategic arena.
China’s AI assisted Quantum computing will
enable it to conduct real time predictive analysis of the phenomenal
amount of data it will be able to access through its world wide spread of data
networks and space sensing assets.
China’s dominance in digital space, coupled with its technological
advancement in AI assisted surveillance & analysis, data harnessing,
computing and predictive analysis would also provide it with winning edge in
future military conflicts.
‘Influencing’ it’s Way to
Global Dominance
“Engage
people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms
their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response,
occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which
they cannot anticipate.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art Of War
China balances the deployment
of hard as well as soft power in pursuit of global dominance, with deftness. It should not, therefore, come as a surprise that acquiring ‘influence’
in key international agencies and countries, to
manipulate favourable policies, is integral to their pursuit of geopolitical
power.
It has been consistently expanding
influence in UN and other multi-lateral bodies, by securing nominations through
increased funding to head strategic bodies that shall be able to assist it in
creating new global standards for technology, expanding its Silk Roads Initiatives
in domains of Digital & Space, Belt & Roads, Health, and in global
expansion of Chinese companies.
Some of the critical
multilateral bodies where China has secured a dominant position are, the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) that sets global communication
standards, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) that
encourages industrialisation in the developing world, the International Civil
Aviation Organisation (ICAO) responsible for global air navigation and safety
standards, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) that designs policies
for food security and sustainable agriculture, and the International Maritime
Organisation (IMO) that covers safety and all other standards of shipping.
China has
also been able to secure the number two slot in other multilateral agencies vital
to influence its key national interests. The more significant of these are,
World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Tourism
Organization (UNWTO), World Health Organisation (WHO), and World
Meteorological Organization (WMO). In all other multilateral agencies it has
secured a place for its ‘influencers’.
The list of
US clients of ‘China Daily’, a Chinese state controlled English news daily, is
a veritable ‘who’s who’ of the US media houses, such as New York Times, Wall
Street Journal, Washington Post, Foreign Policy Magazine, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe
amongst others. It has paid millions of dollars over the past decade to these
US media houses, as revealed from the mandatory semi-annual disclosures of financial
activity of its US operations with the US Department of Justice, under the US
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
As an example, China
Daily in just the first six months of 2021, spent US Dollar 11, 002,628 on
advertising in US newspapers and another US Dollar 265,822 on advertising with
Twitter. This spending to project China favourably, is just from one source.
The ‘Influencers’ of China
China has developed a time tested
covert operational model to gain dominant influence in target countries and
organisations to further its national interests. It first cobbles an easy to
manipulate alliance of disparate but powerful organisations, amenable to pursue
Chinese interests for selfish gains. Then it funnels substantial financial and
organisational resources to this covert alliance. They identify emotive issues to
mobilise ground support, and orchestrate civil unrest, and unleash violence to
unseat the government of the day. Electoral processes are also manipulated by
employing similar methodology, to ensure election of a bonafide government
aligned to Chinese interests.
In an ongoing example, in a meeting
held at Beijing on 22 July 2024, China has orchestrated a rapprochement between
14 different Palestinian organisations to unite them under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, the discredited longtime President/Chairman
of PLO, Fateh, Palestine state, and Palestine National Authority of the
PLO. It also used the opportunity to facilitate joining of hands between Fateh,
and its rival Hamas currently engaged in open war with Israel in the Gaza
Strip.
Then there are the political leaders
facing allegations of pro-China bias in their respective countries. Some of
them are, the Pakistan army hierarchy, Pushpa Kamal Dahal and KP Sharma Oli in
Nepal, the Tatmadaw in Myanmar, Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa
brothers in Sri Lanka, Mohamed Muizzu in Maldives, Paul Keating in Australia, and
an erstwhile Prime Minister in Italy. Such an allegation has also been raised
against Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in its Parliament.
Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus, as Director General of World Health Organisation has faced
widespread criticism for not holding China accountable for the Corona virus
global epidemic despite the public record of corroboratory sequence of events.
Within India itself, there are media
reports of China’s interface mechanisms and special relationship with political
organisations, and funnelling financial and other resources in ongoing
insurgencies in several parts of the country.
China also holds
considerable sway over segments of media houses and NGOs in India, to further its
influence. One such media organisation NewsClick is already under official investigation
in India for receiving substantial foreign fund from organisations linked to US
IT millionaire Neville Roy Singham. He is linked, through his spouse
Jodie Evans and others, to major NGOs such as United Company Fund, Code Pink,
Justice and Education Fund, and is also under serious investigation in the US for
orchestrating influence campaigns favouring Chinese viewpoint, and manipulating
elections in the US, India, and several other countries.
Kautilya Ka
Bharat
“Every
neighbourhood state is an enemy and the enemy’s enemy is a friend; for in the
absence of a magistrate (dandadharabhave) the strong shall swallow the weak;
but under his protection the weak resist the strong.” – Kautilya Ka ‘Arthashastra’
At the present China
holds sway over the governments in India’s immediate neighbourhood, Pakistan,
Nepal, Bangla Desh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Maldives. There are three primary
reasons for this bleak state of affairs.
First is the comparative
Comprehensive National Power (CNP) index of the two adversaries, which is
heavily tilted in favour of China. Just a look at the defence expenditure
confirms this observation. India’s defence
expenditure is less than 1.9 % of its GDP against global average of 2.6 %,
and its defence spending for 2024 is budgeted at 75 billion US dollars, as
against 232 billion US Dollars by China, its principal adversary. In a similar
vein, India’s GDP is a mere $ 4 trillion as compared to $ 18 trillion of China.
It shall take more than a decade and a
half of dedicated and unbroken effort to redress this imbalance to manageable
proportion.
Continuing with the CNP
factor, the Indian military, at its apex hierarchy as well as the grassroot
structure, is currently in the throes of structural reforms, making it a period
of strong vulnerability for the country. A more discerning concern, arising from the
failures and delays in implementation is,
that it is ad hoc rather than a planned approach. There is inherent organisational resistance
to change, lack of clarity on the way forward, and a weak political interface
to push the change through. It is therefore reasonable to assume that
this vulnerable period is likely to
stretch into the mid-term horizon.
The second is the ‘influence operations’ of China to extend its
sway over India’s immediate neighbourhood. With decidedly weak resources at its
disposal, India’s current diplomacy mode of government to government approach
is inadequate to counter China. The ongoing civil war in Myanmar, and mass
scale violent disturbances in Bangla Desh leading to the fall of its duly
elected government, are the latest case in point.
India needs to adopt two course
corrections to counter China’s ‘influence operations.’ First is to adopt realpolitik pragmatism to
pursue its geopolitical interests. Secondly, carry the ‘silent war’ into
the enemy realm through a proactive stance.
‘Baggi Bagh’, is the name of
an interesting analytical game played in the rural heartland of northern India,
worthy of giving a run for money to the Chinese Weiqi board game. The game is
played with stones wherein to win, the players adeptness at strategic
encirclement must be combined with the art of isolate and kill. It holds all
apt answers to the Weiqi.
In a similar vein, ‘Kautilya ka
Arthashastra’ has within its pages all that is needed to counter the ‘Art
of War’. A strong case exists for India to revert to the statecraft
practices of ‘Kautilya Ka Bharat’.
But a word of caution is needed here.
In geopolitics fear is the foremost key component of the CNP index. Apart from
the Great Powers, Israel is the best example of this insight.
India needs to be more proficient in
the art of implementation than the science of the theory of the ‘silent
war.’
“Only a crooked finger can pull the
trigger!”
A very comprehensive and in depth analysis. Tough times for India ahead. Only advantage is the QUAD and China's internal economic problems. How we can leverage it has been well brought out by the author. A brilliant write up.
ReplyDeleteThank you Wanderer for sharing your thoughts. Best wishes
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