Rage of the Impotent: Three Reasons That Explain China’s Border Moves and How India Should Respond

The Book of Changes, or I Ching, containing distilled ancient Chinese wisdom which guided the heavenly ordained rulers of the Middle Kingdom both in the discharge of temporal duties and in the pursuit of pleasures, offers this cautionary advice: “Give rein to your emotion. Yet, there has been a certain departure from the inscrutability that has been the hallmark of the CPC leadership ever since China realised that the global blowback to the manner in which Beijing handled the ‘Wuhan Virus’ outbreak, that has since turned into the rampaging COVID19 pandemic, is more than fleeting anger. Closed factories mean lost jobs; neither the CPC commissars nor their super-strong general secretary-for-life Xi Jinping ever thought either would happen Understandably, at the all-important annual ‘Two Sessions’ meetings last week, delayed by nearly two months, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress spent considerable time in deliberating on the economy and the path ahead. From abusing and threatening Australia to seeking to browbeat the US to bullying the EU into watering down its position on Chinese culpability in the spread of the ‘Wuhan Virus’ to flexing its muscles over South China Sea to manipulating those countries which have benefited from Chinese patronage, China has been betraying its battered and bruised emotions, disregarding what I Ching says – that this way lies disaster and there is no benefit whatsoever. As Quad Plus rallies together and an alliance of democracies takes shape, as countries call for new supply chains and restructure their economies, disentangling them from the pre-Covid-19 global mesh, as manufacturers relocate from China and look for new hubs, as big ticket investors look at India despite the current setback to the economy, and as America continues to harden its position, imposing penalties and disincentivising American firms doing business in China, as broke BRI ‘partners’ plead inability to service their debt, and as Huawei fails to fly as the global flagbearer of Chinese technology, the rage of the impotent, metaphorically speaking, sets in.