Thread by @MD_Nalapat

Russian as well as western tradition defines war in kinetic terms: guns, bombs, troops. The Chinese do not.

They (Chinese) believe in achieving their objectives through chipping away and reducing the physical, psychological, economic and technological advantages of the adversary. Such “victory through stealth” suppresses the ability of the rival power to respond effectively... .

This is what had been taking place with India since the PRC pace of establishing superiority accelerated in the 1990s. Territory has been lost, meta data got vacuumed up in copious quantities to feed the Artificial Intelligence capabilities of the PRC […] .

The 1st POTUS to seriously call out China for its primacy-seeking policies was Trump in 2017. This had never been attempted in the past, and indeed several US Presidents (including Nixon, Carter & Clinton) showered benefits on Beijing while occasionally scolding the CCP in public

The overt nature of Xi’s drive to replace the US with the PRC at the centre of global geopolitics has resulted in an increasing number of analysts even within the Democratic Party accepting that there is now a new Cold War, this time between the US and China.

War to the Chinese means the subordination to their interests of the other and using this definition, Communist China has been “at war” with the US for a long time.

The earliest expression of this was the essay of Lin Biao that “the villages of the world will overcome the cities”. “Cities” referred to the western world, “villages” to the rest. Of course, while the US led the “cities”, it would be China who led the “villages” to victory.

President William J. Clinton continued the bipartisan policy of opening wide the doors to US technology to China, even while denying the same to India.

Much of the growth in the national power of China since the 1980s is due to Taiwan, Japan and the US, all three of whom are now at the receiving end of “Xi Jinping Thought”.

In terms of geopolitical as distinct from economic boldness, Xi is much closer not to Deng Xiaoping or to his immediate predecessors than he is to Marshal Lin Biao […] in his willingness to take risks.

The Belt and Road Initiative is among the signature policies of Xi Jinping, as are his digitalisation of Chinese currency and the harnessing of social media to create a “national will” such as would facilitate the CCP’s objectives.

In dealing with prospective and present allies, Xi has revived the Jimifuzhou or the Jimi system of Imperial China as the model that Beijing would like to follow in dealing with the countries it regards as allies.

The (Jimi) system preserved the protocol privileges of foreign rulers while ensuring that they functioned in a manner that promoted Beijing’s objectives.

The overall objectives would of course be decided in Beijing, and would be so designed as to achieve and subsequently protect the primacy of the PRC in the global order, displacing the US. The exception is Russia […] .

A hopeful sign is that lately the Biden campaign has brought into key slots individuals such as @elyratner, whose views are more anchored to the reality of the Indo-Pacific century than the long-standing opinions of the individual seen as a future Secy of State, Anthony Blinken.

@elyratner As stated by Chairman Mao, war is the continuation of politics by other means. […] The preferred method is to avoid a significant kinetic conflict and instead chip away at territory and interests over an extended period of time.

@elyratner Now that he has studied the mindset and tactics of the Chinese, Prime Minister Narendra Modi resisted pressure from arms’ lobbies influential in India and finally gave sanction to the signing of BECA, the Basic Exchange & Cooperation Agreement with the US.

@elyratner By signing BECA, PM Modi has shown that while he remains friendly with Russia, he is aware of the geopolitical shifts that have resulted in the formation of the Sino-Russian alliance and its implications for India.

@elyratner What is needed next is for the Quadrilateral Alliance to be operationalised in a manner that would be useful in deterring the other alliance from entering into a kinetic conflict in the Himalayan massif, the South China Sea or the Taiwan straits. #QUAD

@elyratner India and the US are essential partners in ensuring primacy over not only the Indo-Pacific but superiority in global logistics and technology chains of the future. #FreeAndOpenIndoPacific #IndoPacific

@elyratner Not only that Cold War 2.0 is a reality, but that it has been ongoing for decades … . It is astonishing that there still remains doubt about this, given for example that the CCP’s Document Number Nine explicitly regards the ideology of freedom & democracy as the primary threat…

@elyratner ❛Cold War 2.0: US and India work on a winning strategy❜

Full article @ i.mdnalapat.com/tsg251020