Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
- SARS and Ebola had alerted the world to the danger of a zoonotic virus.
- Last year, various government and international agencies issued warning explicitly of the pandemic threat to human life and the global economy.
- Yet when the time came, COVID-19 revealed that governments around the world were largely unprepared and slow to react to a widely anticipated health risk.
SIMILARLY
- The deteriorating relationship between China and the United States is a major geopolitical risk.
- Battles rage between Beijing and Washington over trade, technology, investment, supply chains, journalists, and COVID-19.
- It indicates us the new risks and we are treating it as a new normal
- But if it intensifies then the struggle between the Washington and Beijing may serve to camouflage certain chronic geopolitical risks that are hiding in plain sight – risks that, like a novel virus, we are aware of but unprepared for.
- Among these risks are Hong Kong, the South China Sea, and above all, Taiwan.
THREE FLASHPOINTS
- Three flash points that can escalate the tension between USA and China are:
- Hong Kong
- South China Sea
- Taiwan
HONG KONG {NATIONAL SECURITY LAW}
- The Chinese National People’s Congress recently introduced a draft decision to put in place laws and enforcement measures in Hong Kong ostensibly to “safeguard national security,” outlawing any act of “secession, subversion or foreign interference.”
- In 2003 (ironically, the year of the SARS outbreak), the Hong Kong authorities’ tried to pass a similar law.
USA REACTION
- As expected, USA reacted on the bill and passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, threatening sanctions against China.
- On May 29 President Donald Trump announced his decision to withdraw Hong Kong’s special economic status – a move that, if fully implemented, would destroy Hong Kong’s viability as a largely autonomous financial centre.
SOUTH CHINA SEA
- China’s incremental “salami slicing” tactics, first by land reclamation and then constructing outposts in the Spratly Islands, hampered international efforts to push back against Beijing’s extra legal assertion of sovereign rights in disputed and international space.
- Over the past three years, both countries have ramped up military operations.
- For its part, in the same period China has sunk a Vietnamese fishing vessel, announced the establishment of administrative districts throughout most of the South China Sea, and deployed its sole carrier strike group to conduct exercises in the area
VIETNAM: ANOTHER VICTIM OF CHINA’S AGGRESSION
- 03-April- China rammed into and sank a Vietnamese shipping boat with eight fishermen on board while they were out fishing in the Paracel Islands, which are controlled by China but also claimed by Vietnam.
- The spokesperson for Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the Chinese action “violates Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Paracel Islands .”
- SO THE COMBINATION OF FRAYED NERVES, INCREASED OPERATIONS, STRATEGIC MISTRUST, COULD PROVE A RECIPE FOR DISASTER BY ALLOWING AN INCIDENT TO ESCALATE TO A CRISIS, AND A CRISIS TO SPARK A MILITARY CONFRONTATION …OR WORSE.
TAIWAN
- It is also the intersection point between two major powers, both subject to strong political pressures, but with unequal interests, influence, and capacity for military action
- Different people look differently on Taiwan
USA WAY OF SEEING TAIWAN
- For many in the United States, Taiwan has symbolic importance – as an offshore rebuke to the PRC and an emblem of what a democratic China could look like.
CHINESE WAY OF SEEING TAIWAN
- But for Xi Jinping, Taiwan is an historical and a political imperative.
- Putting Taiwan on a path to “unification” is key both to the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation” and to Xi’s continued grip on power.
- No other issue is as central to the CCP identity or to its leader’s political survival.
TAIWAN SITUATION: NOT ACCORDING TO CHINA
- Yet Xi has suffered a serious of embarrassing setbacks over the past year Tsai Ing-wen, score a major victory in her re-election bid, but her success was fuelled by her very public support for pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong and her public repudiation of Xi’s suggestion of a “one country, two systems” arrangement for Taiwan.
US SUPPORT TO TAIWAN
- There is the series of very public gestures of support to Taiwan by the United States.
- Two major pieces of legislation supporting closer relations with Taiwan were enacted in the space of two years.
- Senior U.S. officials participated virtually in Tsai’s second inauguration event The announcement that Taiwan’s pre-eminent chip maker would build a $12 billion cutting-edge semiconductor fabrication plant in Arizona.
TURN COLD WAR HOT
- Rumours that U.S. officials are contemplating unprecedented steps such as U.S. Navy ship visits to Taiwan ports or even the rotational deployment of U.S. marines can escalates tensions
- The imbalance between U.S. and Chinese interests vis-à-vis Taiwan invites miscalculation and disproportionate response.
IN THE END…
- Its time to be careful not only for both the nations, but for all the countries and the International Organisations to be careful and help in resolving issues between them.
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