I believe that the concept of globalism and nationalism are intertwined in the Chinese culture for two millennia, ever since Confucius appeared on the scene. The line between the two is blurred. Also, the more I think and read about China, the more I am convinced that Communist China is as imperialistic as its 2500-year old predecessors. I will explain these below.

 

The triple concepts of the Chinese Emperor being the 'Son of the Heaven' (tianzi) to rule the 'Middle Kingdom' (zhongguo) and be responsible for everything under the Heaven (tianxia) have to be kept in the back of mind always to understand Chinese behaviour. As I said earlier, in another context, the Cultural revolution of Mao which wanted to throw away all old practices and ideas labelling them as 'counter-revolutionary' did not or could not do so to these triple concepts. The CPC and the Politburo have practised these meticulously.

 

Globalism does not eschew national boundaries or nationalism. China would argue that their setting up of AIIB or their formulation of Belt & Road Initiative are indeed truly global in nature. In fact, no such catch-phrase as 'globalism' is without some narrow intentions of one or a few, either. Chinese have always claimed that their empire (the Qing or the Manchus dynasty which had the largest territory and closest to what exists today) ruled over everyone with very benign intentions and only in order to civilize the 'barbarians'. History proves otherwise. Chinese scholars pick and choose 'convenient positions' to buttress their 'carefully formulated historical perspective'. An example is their claim that Zheng He, the eunuch naval commander of the Ming dynasty, was only doing commerce, spreading Chinese culture and educating the barbarians and civilizing them is pathetically false. Historically, the Chinese Emperors have demanded deference and subservience to the Emperor and the Court in order for nations to enjoy 'stability & prosperity'. In Chinese view, such tributary is a small price for patronage from the Middle Kingdom. That is why the Chinese naval commander said at the commissioning ceremony of the Djibouti base yesterday that it was because of "friendly negotiations, and accords with the common interest of the people from both sides".

 

The remarkable point is the continuum of this idea, among the Chinese Emperors, of Chinese lordship over large sections of Asia, whether they were Han or Mongols(Yuan) or Manchus(Qing). The present-day Emperor, Xi, has been calling for the Asians to rule Asia but this is not even regionalism, let alone globalism, because this is a thinly veiled demand for China to rule Asia; but, the Chinese scholars want to fool everyone into believing that they have a generous, liberal mind. Xi proclaims that BRI is for the 'common destiny & common prosperity' of all people in Asia, Eurasia and Africa. But, that is only to establish Chinese hegemony everywhere and for China to well and truly become the 'Middle Kingdom'. That mindset is the same as that of the Emperors of the various dynasties. During Imperial days, the Chinese might not have been largely aware of far-away places or have had means to establish their suzerainty. They were more limited to Central Asia, Vietnam (Annam), Champa, Sri Vijaya et al. But, the new Chinese Emperor, Xi Jinping, has the means, ambition and the clout to rule far, far away.

 

Regionalism or globalism, from the Chinese perspective, is that China, as the Middle Kingdom, must be the sole pivot. It brooks no competition to this core idea. This is why I say that globalism and nationalism, oxymoronic as they may sound, are inseparable in Chinese folklore. We can apply various filters such as Thucydides Trap or Heartland Vs. Rimland etc to fit the Chinese challenge into known theories. They may well be true as well but the core idea must be understood. That's why, IMHO, China would be permanently inimical to us because we are not only its sole potential challenger but also our rectitude frustrates China which finds it impossible to ride roughshod over us. The hilarious statements that come from various Chinese quarters are a result of this frustration. During the Ming & Qing dynasties, Annam (as Vietnam was known then) posed a similar challenge to the Chinese. The Vietnamese took a leaf from the Chinese theory of 'zhonhgguo' a step further and said that if China was the Middle Kingdom, it was only for the Northern Hemisphere and the Vietnamese were the Middle Kingdom for the Southern Hemisphere!!

 

While the nationalist feelings largely remained suppressed during the days of Mao and Chou, as they concentrated on internal dynamics, they were resurrected during Deng Xiaoping’s rule when reform processes were introduced. Since then, nationalism, and that too against Japan, has been a hallmark of the Chinese milieu. When the Qing dynasty collapsed and Sun-yat-Sen became the President in c. 1912, he said that one of the reasons that various colonial powers had bullied the Chinese in the past was because the Chinese lacked a strong sense of nation. He described the Manchus, Uyghurs, Tibetans and the Mongols as alien and said that only the Han Chinese, descendants of the great Yellow Emperor, Huang Di, were true sons of the soil.

 

From Mao's days, every Chinese President has tightly controlled 'nationalism' in China, unleashing a carefully scripted spectacle of 'nationalism' at appropriately suitable times. These have been largely against the USSR (Mao), Japan (Deng, Hu Jintao, Xi), US (Mao, Jiang Zemin, Xi), Russia (Xi). Just before his first foreign trip, which incidentally was to Moscow, Xi let loose a virulent anti-Russia protest against a much-besieged Russia which desperately needed Chinese friendship, classic psy-ops. Few months back It was Japan & nowadays, United states is the favourite target for Chinese nationalism. China claims that its largest loss of territory is to Russia (Eastern Siberia), followed by India and then, Kazakhastan. Of course, it also claims, east to west, Japan to Bhutan & Sikkim because they were all its tributaries once. Some sense of transplanting a long, long bygone era into present circumstances. Unfortunately, this sense of history and entitlement is prevalent among all the Hans due to indoctrination.

 

Compared to the nationalistic feelings against the 'usual countries' namely Russia, US and Japan, I don't think that Doka La generates so much resonance within China, even by design, at this point. The CPC can change all that quickly if it wants, but it has not happened. Global Times, People’s Daily, Tsinghua University scholars are another matter and they are always there. Shrill voices from these sources are not the barometer of raising feverish nationalism, IMHO.

 

The Chinese respects the bully. The bigger the bully the more respect he gets. Hans do not feel sorry for the underdog and will always support the top dog and this has been so throughout their history. That is how so many Chinese can be killed - because in Han eyes they deserve to be killed. Strong emperors were always the top dog in the Past and the CPC is top dog now. The Chinese say they are more capitalistic than the US because capitalism is winner takes all. It is not democracy. Democracy merely regulates capitalism. Capitalism is not a natural follow on of democracy. Communist rule is only nominally bottom up. But it is effectively top down because anyone who threats communist dogma is eliminated. And if the the Commie top dog is a capitalist he will not give a rat’s hind for anyone else. In China this means that wealth and influence sit in the communist party. Other Hans will follow the top dog as long as their basic interests are looked after. They will not go after dog number 2 because of reasons like "he is more democratic", "he supports gay rights". Communism itself prevents alternate politics and awards tight top-down control

 

The CPC is the top dog and its supreme leader has to show his influence over everyone else and control the PLA who must be loyal to him, now see the purge of senior Generals by Xi in this context. Everyone has to be loyal to that, they have no choice. Nothing bottom up about that.

 

The top dog cannot be seen as weak and vulnerable. No Han feels sorry for weak and vulnerable people. Some other dog will take over.

 

I am NOT asking if China will collapse. I am not asking if people will rise up in rebellion. All I am asking is, if the top order in beijing are shown up as vulnerable by 4 nukes falling on Beijing and devastating the capital what is the degree of "inward looking" the Chinese are likely to do to replace the vulnerable leader with a strong one who can kick the Martians who nuked them. The Chinese have never ever shown allegiance to weak and vulnerable leaders who are kind hearted and humane. They are looking for a strong hand to handle Han unity. Han unity needs a strong hand - by themselves the Hans will not democratically organize into groups that cooperate and help the needy and blind and hold back the wicked.

 

That’s where I say we missed the bus in pushing Hans to a conflict in Doka-La (Doklam). standoff

 

There is an important corollary to this question.

 

if the supreme leader is shown as being weak, Hans do not organize to make him strong again. they simply follow a different Han leader who appears stronger. If that statement is true it will mean that the supreme leader will be risking his own leadership if he gets into a war that he cannot decisively win. Can a Chinese supreme leader decisively win a war where his own capital city (and maybe other cities) is devastated by Martian nukes? That’s where the situation gets interesting. Give China a crushing military defeat along the border and, ideally, create suffocating chaos for the Chinese economy by cutting off its trade routes in the IOR.  

Because China is a rational trading power with non-military culture, a short war is possible especially if we overwhelm them in the theatres of our choice and give them no incentive to pursue further hostilities by limiting territorial gains to what we lost in 1962 and bit more in defensible positions. It won't go long term or total war if we don't get victory disease and attempt to detach Tibet as a whole.

 

Another related matter, is my assessment that a majority of Indians think China is going to attack and India can lose the war. Chinese pride and boasting push exactly the fear and panic button among Indians and there is a constant demand that we prepare for defeat or prepare to defeat China. So, there is constant criticism of the political leadership in India telling them that they are not doing enough about the Chinese threat. This allows India the political and financial leeway to make certain preparations despite the poverty that many Pinkos are so eager to talk about. Maybe poor people suffer less than wealthy people when they are nuked?

 

If Indians do not fight then they will not see India overtaking China in our life time. China adds far more every year to its economy than we do to ours even with a higher growth rate. The GDP gap is widening and will widen for decades. The arms gap will widen, they have built four 12K ton Type 055s in parallel and that is on top of a flood of Type 054 frigates and Type 052D destroyers. Where are our P15Bs? And that's only the surface fleet. We are worst off on the submarine front and when their Type 002 and 003 carriers come out, we'll be behind in naval air as well. 

The Chinese leadership are acutely aware of the fact that other national leaders are humans and have their desires and fears. I see similar awareness of China among some Indian strategists and ex military thinkers but Indian politicians who become leaders generally have no time to think about how a Chinese leader (or any other leader) balances his pressures. If they know - they don't show it. But Chinese leaders constantly seem to assess the other leader's desires and weaknesses and send out signals to "play" with that leader. Mao and Chou en Lai understood Nehru very well and played games with him.

 

Even today the Chinese play little games to irritate and muddle relationships and try and make a public show that China is too big to be messed with and that other countries to know their place inferior to China. I don't know how much this is for internal Chinese consumption. This can be seen by the Indian public and it adds to their anxieties of China. But it also allows Indian governments to ensure that they can take almost any offensive or defensive military preparation against China with no political opposition. In fact, Pakistan has done a better job in appearing harmless to India than China. Brash Chinese behaviour allows India to support Tibetans in their quest for self-determination and the Chinese after boasting and barking about their greatness still find that they have an "internal security" problem in Tibet.

 

War provides India with an opportunity but China with a risk. OBOR happens unabated WITHOUT war, with war it goes on hold.  Defeating India would not change their conflicts with Taiwan, Japan, Russia, Vietnam or Korea. It didn't in 1962 and it won't today. And in fact, would spur them to arm themselves more furiously. 

G2 is no longer happening given the trade war or accommodation they make. The US public won't let G2 happen if China gets into fight with another democracy.

 There is nothing that war can help China with which is why I don't think they'll fight. They want to intimidate and grab a defensible position on the cheap but it is not in Indian interest to allow them to just back off when we currently own overwhelming advantages along the border and in the IOR. Advantages that will disappear over time as OBOR and CPEC kick in and their naval programs mature and their Currency printing press buys their bases around the IOR.