US, India Join Force to Block China’s Belt and Road Initiative

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khan Abbasi this week after a stopover in Afghanistan and before heading to India. Washington has been critical of Pakistan’s links to terrorist groups. Photo: AFP

Clinton was the first to fall into Thucydides Trap in starting containment of China by interference with China’s disputes with its neighbors in the South China Sea. She was joined by Obama, who began his pivot to Asia to encourage China’s neighbors to contend with China in the South China Sea. Philippines’ President Aquino thought he could exploit US pivot to force China to give up its claims to the islands, reefs and sea areas there. However, China would even fight a war to protect its rights and interests while the US has no rights or interests to protect in the South China Sea, the US refrained from fighting. As a result, US plan to contain China in the South China Sea has entirely failed.

To avoid complete loss of its rights and interests in the South China Sea to a rich and strong China, Aquino’s successor President Duterte seeks friendship with China and has even been putting an end to Philippines’ reliance on its long-term ally the US. The loss of an ally proves Obama’s stupidity in containing China.

At the beginning, ASEAN members told the US and China that they would not take side between the two giants. US failure has made them take Chinese side. According to SCMP’s report “Lull in South China Sea tensions brings joint Asean-China naval drill closer” on October 28, “After adopting the framework on the proposed code of conduct in the South China Sea in Manila in August, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and China attained yet another milestone this month. On the sidelines of the Asean defence ministers’ meeting in the Philippine city of Clark, they agreed to aim for an inaugural joint maritime exercise between their navies next year.”

The US has lost not only the Philippines but also the entire ASEAN.

US President Trump adopts the policy of “American first” so that he does not want to contain China as long as China is willing to help him deal with North Korea and make trade concessions. However, lots of Americans including the vested interests represented in US congress remain deep in Thucydides Trap.

US magazine Foreign Policy published Daniel Kliman and Zack Cooper’s article “Washington Has a Bad Case of China ADHD” on October 27 that precisely shows that the two US security experts have fallen deep in Thucydides Trap. The article says in its subtitle, “China is the biggest threat to the U.S.-led global order. But America keeps getting distracted.” The writers, both being US Asian security experts accuse US presidents’ failure to contain China and describes it as a bad case of their ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).

They accused China of unfair trade, stealing US technology, etc. China is a WTO member. If it is found to conduct unfair trade, the US can complain to WTO and if WTO finds US complaint justified, it will punish China. Facts have proved that the US has indeed lodged some complaints. WTO rejected some but found some justified and punished China. There have been no incidents that China disobeys WTO’s final decisions.

As for the accusation about technology, perhaps Chinese hackers have indeed stolen some US technology, but most of the technology is military one. Such military espionage is common practice of most countries including the US. China has indeed obtained some technology from some Western firms through quite a few joint venture arrangements. That is not illegal.

Moreover, US-led global order has been developed by the US for its own interests. When the US finds such order unfavorable to its interests, it does not observe the order developed by it. For example, the US has been much by benefited by globalization in exploiting other countries’ cheap labor and exporting its capital to make money abroad. Pizza Hut, McDonald, Kentucky Fried Chicken, General Motors, etc. are making big money in China due to globalization. Now it finds globalization unfavorable for US jobs so that it opposes globalization.

I would like to ask: What is US global order globalization or isolation?

The US does not regard UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as global order as it is not desirable for its own interest; therefore, US Congress refuses to ratify it. However it wants China to observe even the arbitration award wrongly based on the Convention because it is desirable for the US to contain China. What double standards!

Since US-led global order serves its own interests at the expense of other countries’, why shall China respect it? China shall respect UN-led instead of US-led global order.

Facts prove that the US has no grounds at all to be unhappy with China; therefore the real cause is but as the article points out, “China has increasingly challenged U.S. leadership both in Asia and around the world, particularly in the economic domain.”

That proves that some Americans have fallen deep into the Thucydides Trap. The US as the established great power finds itself threatened to be displaced by another great power China so that it wants to contain China and even to fight a war to defeat China.

Daniel Kliman and Zack Cooper though are respected as experts, have limited influence on US diplomacy.

Rex Tillerson, however, is influential on US diplomacy as US Secretary of State. Tillerson has also fallen deep into the Thucydides Trap. He calls President Trump a moron due to Trump’s diplomacy that does not pivot to containment of China.

However, Tillerson seems wiser than Obama. He realizes that the US lacks the strength to contain China in the South China Sea and even if the US succeeds in containing China in the South China Sea, the US still cannot hinder China’s rise as China does not depends on the South China Sea for its rise.

Tillerson seems to know where China’s Achilles’ heel is. He sees that China’s win-win cooperation with other countries through its Belt and Road initiative will greatly facilitate China’s access to the global market and boosts China’s economic growth. He also has the keen vision to perceive that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is the most important Belt and Road project. It will provide China with connection to the Middle East and even Europe without sailing across the Indian Ocean.

Moreover, the Corridor will greatly boost the economic development of Pakistan and China’s vast west.

Tillerson is also wise enough to see that a rich and strong Pakistan will be India’s nightmare so that in spite of India’s long-term practice of non-alliance, there is potential for an alliance between the US and India to oppose the Corridor so as to contain the rise of China, which India also fears.

That was why he gave a speech at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) titled “Defining Our Relationship with India for the Next Century” before his visit to India aimed at forging such a relationship.

In the speech, he said that the US needs to collaborate with India to prevent the Indo-Pacific from becoming a region of disorder, conflict and predatory economies, hinting US want India’s cooperation in containing China but refrain from naming China.

When CSIS President John J. Hamre asked him to be more specific, Tillerson said, “We have watched the activities and actions of others in the region, in particular China, and the financing mechanisms it brings to many of these countries, which result in saddling them with enormous levels of debt. They don’t often create the jobs, which infrastructure projects should be tremendous job creators in these economies, but too often foreign workers are brought in to execute these infrastructure projects. Financing is structured in a way that makes it very difficult for them to obtain future financing and oftentimes has very subtle triggers in the financing that results in financing default and the conversion of debt to equity. So this is not a structure that supports the future growth of these countries.”

He hinted that the countries that have taken loans from China that they cannot repay according to their current financial strength will become insolvent and lose their sovereignty as they will be forced to obey China.

He fails to mention that China takes great risks in financing the construction of infrastructures in the countries in the Silk Road Belt and along the Silk Road and such finances are not attached with any political conditions.

The Soviet Union provided free aids to its satellite states to keep them obey it, but was finally crushed by the financial burdens. The US has found the burdens to protect its allies too heavy so that American people elected Trump to carry out the policy of “America first”. Shall China be so stupid as to follow their examples of failures in making other countries obey China?

China pursues its long-term goal in taking the financial risks. It learns from its own experience that when a country has developed its economy with the infrastructures financed by China, it will grow rich enough to repay the debt. Moreover, China’s trade with it will grow and the country will provide China with investment opportunities. Lots of jobs will be created in those countries compared with the limited needs for skillful labor that those countries cannot supply in building the infrastructures.

Certainly, some of the countries may fail to develop their economies and become unable to repay Chinese loans. Still China is willing to take the risk as such investment is a better option than investment in US treasury bonds that China has done for years. The investment in US bonds helps fund US development of weapons to attack China. A US general has made that very clear. He said that development of B21 bomber was indispensable if the US wanted to bomb Beijing.

What China spends in financing its Belt and Road initiative even if lost is better than being used to financing US development of weapons to attack China.

Will the US really attack China? History proves that Thucydides Trap often leads to war. The US does not attack China as it is not sure that it may win the war. If China helps the US develop weapons to make the US strong enough to attack China, no one can ensure that the US will not attack China.

China must be careful. Investment in Belt and Road infrastructures may bring great returns but may even cause China to lose its investment entirely. However, investment in US bonds will only bring harms to China.

The US at least may attack Pakistan, which may involves China. SCMP says in its article “What do you get if you cross Pakistan’s Game of Thrones and China’s Belt and Road?” on October 28, “According to political analyst Nusrat Javeed, the episode (the incident of American-Canadian hostages held by Haqqani Network) was engineered by the US to embarrass Pakistan and demonstrate that the US would stage military incursions into Pakistan if the authorities there did not comply with its demands. During a brief stopover in Islamabad on Tuesday, on his way from Kabul to New Delhi this week, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson renewed the US’ demands of Pakistan.

“‘The secretary reiterated President Trump’s message that Pakistan must increase its efforts to eradicate militants and terrorists operating within the country,’ said the US embassy.”

The US may use the above as excuse to invade Pakistan in order to scrap the project of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

The article regards the conflict between Pakistani civilian government and military especially the military’s opposition to the project as some great problem for the project, but Pakistani military relies heavily on Chinese weapon supply so that it will certainly support the project. However great the pressure the US may place on Pakistan, the project will not be scrapped. The only way out for the US and India is to fight a war in disputed Kashmir as the Corridor goes through the area in Kashmir claimed by India.

India depends on Russia for weapon supply but Russia is China’s close ally. It certainly will not supply India with weapons for the war. US has only begun to provide India with weapons so that even if it is willing to be involved in the war, it takes time to supply India with weapons and train India military to operate the weapons.

It takes at lease a couple years for India to be ready for the war. Moreover, will India be so stupid to fight a war in both east and west fronts with Pakistan and China?

India’s Modi is very shrewd. He is exploiting the conflict between the US and China to gain from both of them. He certainly will not fight a proxy war for US interests, knowing well that the US is unable to send its army to Kashmir to join the fight.

One thing is certain: US-India alliance will push Pakistan even closer to Chinese side, making India tightly sandwiched between its two neighbors.

Article by Chan Kai Yee