Serious Isuue
   Date :04-Feb-2021

President of Mr joe Biden
 
 
BY EXPRESSING its concern over China’s habitual intimidation of neighbouring countries, the United States has picked up a serious issue right at the start of the regime of President of Mr. Joe Biden. This is a continuing concern the White House has felt under different administrations over the past some years. It is obvious Mr. Biden, too, will continue to hold China as sort of a regional bully and shape the American foreign policy accordingly. In the international realpolitk, this carries its own importance. The White House has said reportedly that it favours a dialogue between India and China to resolve the border dispute, but it is monitoring the developments closely. This part, by itself, does not make much difference to the current tensions between India and China as Beijing has shown no willingness to consider facts of the overall nature of the dispute with New Delhi.
 
Obviously, India will have to continue its current tit-for-tat approach with China while trying to continue dialogue so that the situation does not go beyond sensible limits. No matter the American concern about Beijing’s bullying, the regional reality is that India’s tough stance for the past one year had diluted the sense of scare a few smaller countries may feel about the Chinese tactics of intimidation. When it launched its latest overture against India in eastern Ladakh, China had not actually expected a very tough and no-nonsense response from New Delhi. It did have the Doka La experience to realise that New Delhi would be a tough customer. Yet, going by its own standard notions honed by years of experience, Beijing believed that it would be able to push India down. It wanted to treat the Doka La experience as an aberration that did not fit India’s style. In actual terms, Beijing has not recovered fully from India’s stone-walling that has stretched far beyond its normal expectation.
 
A happy regional fall-out of the confrontation between China and India is that a few smaller countries in the neighbourhood also started acting tougher with Beijing. Countries likes Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines have shown remarkable gumption to stare straight into China’s eye. This toughening of attitudes of smaller neighbours has made China wonder about correctness of its policies. In international realpolitik, this development has its own significance. The trouble with China stems not from its actual power, but from its perception of its own strengths. In the past few decades, it succeeded in promoting a larger-than-life image of its strengths in the regional neighbourhood, so much so that most countries felt rather dwarfed by Beijing’s image as a global superpower. It was India that saw the reality behind the bamboo curtain, and responded in a tit-for-tat manner and stopped China in the tracks. New Delhi readied itself for an extended conflagration with Beijing and started funnelling its resources into one-point strategy of opposing China no matter what. New Delhi also expanded the area of conflict to include some measures that started hurting Beijing deeply in the economic sphere as well. This toughened stance did not go unnoticed by other countries in the regional neighbourhood as well as in the world.
 
Of course, the US recognises all these realities. Mr. Joe Biden has, therefore, made it clear that the US under his leadership would continue its China policy to keep Beijing under check. Washington may grant certain minor trade concessions to Beijing, but will not give up its political position to create a fake idea of thawing of relations with China. This is the actual message from the White House under President Mr. Joe Biden. Of course, diplomacy assumes multiple dirty dimensions when things comes to dealing with Beijing. This is not just India’s experience, but also of the rest of the world. For, China often maintained a veil of unpredictability in its diplomatic endeavours. It was New Delhi that recognised first how thin and meaningly that veil had been. Currently, Beijing is suffering from that tearing of the veil in international affairs.