View: Xi may have lost the plot on China’s dream of great rejuvenation
In 2012, upon becoming general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi announced a new goal: ‘qiang zhongguo meng’ — strong nation’s dream. It was the Chinese dream to be at the centre of earth, or ‘tianxia’. Over the years, Xi embarked on his goal of achieving greatness for China by 2049 —a hundred years after the State was founded by Mao Zedong — through territorial and economic domination.
After the calmer years of Hu Jintao, the world had started to see in Xi shades of another autocrat: Mao. Xi’s father was a senior party official during Mao’s time who was charged with disloyalty and banished to hard labour. Growing up, Xi’s belief was strengthened by his father’s experiences. To him, seizing control was the only way to ensure security.
In 2013, one of his first acts in power was to issue a memo called Document 9. This warned rebels and western elements of sabotaging China’s ideology. Soon, party websites were hounding people in China, naming them as threats. Those were the first signs the country was slipping back to Mao mode.
Next, Xi launched military reforms in 2015, identifying external threats and outlining China’s plans to become a global maritime power by 2030. He knew the importance of tightening his grip over the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and thus integrated Xinjiang and Tibetan military commands into one western theatre in 2016.
The man he chose to head it was Zhao Zongqi, an ambitious and loyal general with long experience in Tibet. Zhao survived Xi’s purges and would play a crucial role in the years to follow. By keeping his man in charge of the crucial western theatre against India, Xi ensured that PLA was under his control. It was Zhao who led the Dokalam stand-off against India in 2017.
In early 2020, the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Taiwan and protests in Hong Kong gained momentum. Besides, voices arose within the party about the inability of Xi to handle the coronavirus crisis. Jayadeva Ranade, president of the Centre for China Analysis and Strategy, wrote that veteran cadres called an emergency meeting of the politburo to discuss Xi’s replacement. Xi responded by unleashing a coterie of loyal Ying Pais — a hawkish military-political group on dissent ..
To avoid attention and reassert power within the party, the growing opposition had to be channelised towards an outward projection: a nationalistic cause. To implement his plans, Xi’s loyal general, Zhao, was back. Clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in Pangong Tso and Sikkim in May were followed by the deadliest clash in 45 years in Galwan.
Given that PLA forces both in Sikkim and Ladakh report to the western theatre commander, Zhao’s signature was evident. Xi’s brinkmanship towards India may have been an outcome of a desperate effort to wriggle out of internal wrangles, but the outcome leaves him with little room.
Zhao and PLA can ultimately persuade Xi to attempt cutting out India’s main lines from its farthest post, Daulat Beg Oldi and also to scuttle any Indian plans to interfere with China’s trade route into Pakistan. Tactically, that might be an ambitious goal. But General Zhao’s growing clout will ensure LoAC remains troubled at several places for some time to come.
Xi may also reach out to countries such as Nepal, and possibly Bangladesh, to surround India. Clearly, China is struggling with the stretched costs of ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative, most of which could turn into bad debts. At a more strategic level though, has Xi miscalculated?
Xi’s approach is surprisingly belligerent for a modern leader. In 1969, when threatened by Soviets amid internal strife, Mao responded by befriending Richard Nixon and the US. In 2020, when faced with growing international isolation, an insecure Xi chose to open up multiple fronts against India. His generals might benefit, but Xi, in the process, could end up with more debits to show than gains.
One, he has ruptured a carefully built-up truce with India of 24 years. Two, in India, he may have weaned away a potential US ally against China and leveraged a large market in the face of a stubborn Donald Trump. He failed on both. What is the outcome of this adventurism?
An angry India that joins a global clamour against China more willingly, an Indian market that is no longer welcoming, and opening up options for the Indian Army in a localised conflict along LoAC that had been kept at bay by the ‘no weapon use’ accords of 1996 and 2005.
Three, through his bellicose stance across multiple quarters — India, Taiwan, South China, Hong Kong —Xi finds himself hastening the emergence of US-led alliances such as Quadplus and D10, that puts pressure on China’s expansive naval plans for 2030.
Sun Tzu’s The Art of War describes how successful leaders get adversaries to act in a manner that ensures victory over them. Most Chinese leaders have believed in ‘shi’ — an alignment of forces necessary to win. By losing the space to adversaries in a bid to protect himself, Xi may have just lost the plot on China’s dream of great rejuvenation by 2049.
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