One China Policy crumbles, brick by brick
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, September 19: The Chinese sabre rattling in the Taiwanese straits failed to scare the world. Chinese President Xi Jinping looked tired at his first appearance outside China at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit after 2020.
US President Joe Biden has said that his country would come in defence of Taiwan if China attacks Taipei. Americans are gung ho about Taiwan after Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker of the US Congress, stirred the waters violently in the Taiwanese straits with her visit to Taipei.
European Union is also scaling up its engagement with Taiwan with political and economic representations. The US is firming up its ties with Taiwan with legislative backing.
The UK has allowed a Taiwanese representation to sign the condolence book for the late Queen Elizabeth II. That has sent the Chinese spokespersons squirming, as Mao Ning said on Monday that what the British have done is actually “very disgraceful”.
Kelly Wu-Chiao, the Taiwanese representative in the UK, will be signing the condolence book.
At the SCO forum, the global media ignored XI. The spotlight fell on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who delivered the peace talk to the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
China’s no-strings attached ties with Russia by all accounts is backfiring on Beijing, as Moscow is seemingly searching for a face saver to get out of Ukraine amid heavy losses.
Quad, G7 and other western-led blocks are firming up plans to diversify the global supply chain, which will have far reaching ramifications for China, as the global dependence on Beijing is being sought to be cut down at the behest of the US, Japan and the European countries.
The SCO and BRICS, the Russia-China influence zones, are hardly seen dictating the direction of the global order in the post-Covid era.
China’s bid to gain a reiteration by several countries for its One China Policy found takers only from countries which have become Beijing’s debt slaves such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and some Latin American and African countries.
The reversals of Russians in the war against Ukraine will also have impact on dragon’s threat of fire play. If a determined Ukraine, full of courageous and patriotic people, can push back the Russians, then Taiwan too can rise to match the fire play of China.
Military strategists concur that the Ukrainian push back has been all about the precision weapons guided by the cutting edge technology supplied by the US and other western nations. The Ukrainian pushback is also about the fact that size doesn’t matter, and reminds of Vietnam’s successes against big powers.