With muscle-flexing from South China Sea to LAC, China stirs tensions with neighbours

From the South China Sea to the Line of Actual Control with India, China has been more forcefully pushing its territorial claims with neighbours with the aim of dissuading their warming ties with the United States, a risky strategy that experts said could end up backfiring. While the latest 19th round talks between China and India, held on August 13 and 14 at the Chushul-Moldo border meeting point, ended with a joint release from both sides unlike in the previous round and an agreement “to resolve the remaining issues in an expeditious manner”, the negotiations have been anything but expeditious, Indian officials say, because of a broader hardening Chinese stand in enforcing Beijing’s claims along the LAC. This dynamic has in recent days also been mirrored in another theatre – in the contested South China Sea, where one among China’s fleet of increasingly large and sophisticated coast guard ships deployed water cannons to stop a Philippines vessel to deliver supplies to an already present garrison on the contested Second Thomas Shoal. To paraphrase the President, the Philippines wants to be friends to all, but not at the expense of its territory.” Similarly, Indian officials say as the China-U.S. rivalry has heightened, Beijing has increasingly situated its relations with India only in the context of its ties with Washington, an approach they believe has been a prime driver in worsening India-China relations, which are at their lowest point since the normalisation of relations more than three decades ago. They are convinced that America has now decided to put a containment ring around them and that India is becoming a willing partner in that.” If some observers have been puzzled by why Beijing appears to be actively driving its neighbours into closer ties with the U.S. with its actions, Mr. Saran explained that there appeared be “two views” about this approach within the strategic community in Beijing, with some voices indeed aware of the fact that this had risked backfiring and pushing countries into deeper security embraces with Washington.