Various dimensions to analyze China’s policy and goals

Ever since the China’s rapid economic modernization has taken place since late 1970’ it has remained unclear on what the modernization goals entails. Is it to bring wealth and prosperity to people of China or is it something hidden and deeper; invisible until the time is right?

Undeniably, the double-digit GDP nominal growth has raised the total output to ~$18 trillion, has increased overall production output of the country in manufacturing sector, and not wrongly China is termed as world’s factory of modern times.

What remains unanswered is, now since wealth is acquired, means and modes or productions are known, productivity is at an all-time high. What will the true intention of China be? One cannot deny wolf is wearing sheep’s skin

To analyze that one needs to look at the China’s national goals:

1. To re-integrate break-away province

2. To reestablish the territorial integrity based on historical beliefs

3. To turn the world into China’s market; silk-route strategy

4. To re-engineer the world’s US led rules-based order

While the world engages with factories of China, there is very little visibility to what China really is:

1. Lack of understanding of Chinese culture

2. Lack of understanding of Mandarin language

3. Poor exposure of Chinese movies

4. Lack of exposure to Chinese values system

5. Closed nature of Chinese population living abroad

Let’s understand the national goals and what is required to achieve them, and the cost China will have to pay:

re-integrate break-away province

Republic of China- Taiwan is an island territory where the Chiang Kai-shek’ Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party retreated after being defeated in Chinese civil war 1949. The PRC China wants the reintegration of Taiwan before 2049, before its hundred years of jubilation. The current separation of China territories in the name of PRC and ROC keeps China worried grossly seen in China’s diktat to the world, to stick to one-China policy

While China does have the economic and military might to adventure on Taiwan’s integration plan but is looking at the success ratio, which at present may not look very favorable. What worries China is not the suicidal path it may have to take to reintegrate Taiwanese land, but the humiliation, should its adventure fail to achieve the desire outcome given what’s at stake is not just the national goals but also the image that China carries as an alternative to the only superpower, the US.

It is apparent that China believes the US might come to Taiwan’s aid in an unprecedented way throwing off the strategic calculation it would not like to experience, while its two friends Russia and Iran are already battling on immediate or proxy fronts.

re-establish the territorial integrity based on historical beliefs

China has used the Han dynasty’s physical rulings etc. as a baseline to re-architect its boundaries. Such claims which may appear straight put the opponent nation under tremendous pressure. China uses these tactics to:

• mentally defeat the enemy into negotiation of give-and-take given no opponent wants to fight the many-times numerically superior force. It opts to produce false geographical maps, and not willing to share but use them during negotiations. It is clear the ideology it serves allows using any tools and means to gain victory; disregarding any on-ground values and beliefs

• carry salami-slicing and construct structures to prove its ownership. It has been doing this in South China sea, and on borders with India

• keep the military pressure on, to achieve desired geopolitical outcome

• keep the dispute threshold below direct kinetic action with country (i.e. India), to attain incremental benefits one at a time. This shows China is playing a very long-term game of patience

Nine dash line is an arbitrary line drawn to keep the adversaries and their friends far and serve a buffer zone for its maritime interests and security. China is using PLA navy and militia naval force to change the maritime boundaries for countries like Philippines and Vietnam. The low-cost naval militia are again an exemplary example of grey zone sea tactics to keep the threshold well below of any possible direct kinetic action between PLA and US-allied forces. China is making well planned incremental gains as much as it can without causing any serious bloodshed and derailing its economic growth

turn the world into China’s market; silk-route strategy

China wants to go the historical way of re-establishing itself as the center of trade. It cannot be denied that silk route once existed and traders from all over the world would come for business along those roads. With the change in mode of transportation, speed and economies of scale, trade is happening albeit the roads and routes have changed. China wants to bring back the glory, however, deeper it is not purely for the sake of old times. China wants to use the silk road strategy to achieve its geopolitical ambition, i.e. to change the US led world order, and then transact with the world on its terms (an unfair one), to use the silk road as its path of being the world’s supplier. China’s practices cannot be termed as free market driven, thus, leaving China’s trader with an upper hand on the pricing concerned. This leaves other countries and their markets on losing end

re-engineer the world’s US led rules-based order

Since WWII the architecture of the global security vests on treaties and agreements between allies and other nation states through various United Nations and its sisters’ institutions. Need not to mention the global institutions serve Anglo-Saxon interests and are heavily funded by them, with largest share coming from US every year. The US led order provides and guarantees security to its friendly nations in every theater, be it Asia pacific, Middle East or Europe. The security architecture designed by the US serves its own geopolitics, and its economic interests rides over to serve capitalism predominant in US markets. China has shown that following the mix of capitalism and socialism it has spun growth but the decision makers in CCP are barely influenced by the profit and loss objectives of capitalism-oriented industries and much more to Marxist-Leninist ideologies it believes in and serves. The belief US capitalists held that funding China growth will eventually call for rise of democracy has turned into a self-concocted myth.

In the end, China will have to take losses to dethrone the US from its sole superpower position and the current intra-state challenges, and conflicts must be seen through the lens of geopolitical competitions between the de-facto and the budding superpower