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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 9-Aug-2017
9-Aug-17 World View -- China threatens India, as Trump threatens North Korea

Web Log - August, 2017

9-Aug-17 World View -- China threatens India, as Trump threatens North Korea

China sets apparent Aug 19 deadline for war with India

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

China sets apparent Aug 19 deadline for India to remove soldiers from Doklam
Trump threatens North Korea with 'fire and fury'

China sets apparent Aug 19 deadline for India to remove soldiers from Doklam

Chinese soldier confronts Indian soldier at border crossing (AFP)

Chinese soldier confronts Indian soldier at border crossing (AFP)

China's rhetoric over the border dispute with India has been become increasingly belligerent since the standoff began in June, and now appears to be setting a hard deadline for military action.

As we've been reporting a standoff between India's army and China's army on Doklam plateau in the tiny country of Bhutan. China is attempting to annex the region, and on June 16 sent Chinese troops and construction workers to begin road construction. Bhutan troops tried to prevent the Chinese troop incursion, but they were overrun. India sent in its own troops, saying that it did so when Bhutan invoked a treaty with India and asked for help. The result is a standoff, though no bullets have been fired yet.

However, statements in the media and from China's Foreign Ministry have been increasingly threatening, demanding that India withdraw its troops and permit China to invade and annex the region, or be "annihilated" by China's army. Many analysts seem to agree that China will win a military confrontation.

In the last three days, China's state-run Global Times appears to have set a deadline of August 19, after which there will be a "small-scale military operation to expel Indian troops."

The article on August 5 said:

"China will not allow the military standoff between China and India in Doklam to last for too long, and there may be a small-scale military operation to expel Indian troops within two weeks, Chinese experts said after six ministries and institutions made remarks on the incident within the past 24 hours.
From Thursday to Friday, two ministries and four institutions, including the Chinese foreign ministry, the defense ministry, the Chinese Embassy in India and the People's Daily, released statements or commentary on the military standoff between China and India in Doklam, Tibet Autonomous Region. The standoff has lasted for almost two months now, and there is still no end in sight."

In order to prove that the threats are credible, the article emphasizes that all of China's relevant ministries and institutions are saying the same thing: That a military action within two weeks will expel Indian troops.

The article goes on to quote Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences:

"The series of remarks from the Chinese side within a 24-hour period sends a signal to India that there is no way China will tolerate the Indian troops' incursion into Chinese territory for too long. If India refuses to withdraw, China may conduct a small-scale military operation within two weeks."

As usual, we have to point out that China has lied repeatedly and continuously about its claims and criminal activities in the South China Sea, and so there is no reason to believe any claims they make about Bhutan's territory on the Doklam Plateau. But China's policy is to use brute military force to invade and annex other countries' territories, and the same thing is now happening to Bhutan. It would have happened already but Indian troops have blocked China's invasion so far.

Another article on August 7 says the following:

"The Times of India reported on Monday that "the Indian security establishment is reasonably sure China will not risk a war or even 'a small-scale military operation' despite all its belligerent rhetoric."
Of course China doesn't want to risk a war and hopes that peace could return and China and India can get along well. But if Indian troops continue to linger on Chinese soil, it will be quite another matter.
India made constant provocations at the China-India border in 1962. The government of Jawaharlal Nehru at that time firmly believed China would not strike back. China had just undergone domestic turmoil and natural disasters; Beijing and Washington were engaged in hostility and China's relations with the Soviet Union had begun to chill.
However, the Nehru government underestimated the determination of the Chinese government to safeguard China's territorial integrity even as the country was mired in both domestic and diplomatic woes.
Fifty-five years have passed, but the Indian government is as naļve as it ever was. The lessons of the 1962 war didn't last for half a century. Usually, no government dares to offend a powerful neighbor. Now all Indian people know that their troops have trespassed on the territory of another country, although New Delhi claims that it is a disputed area between China and Bhutan. As the risk of war is rising, Indian public opinion has become clear that Indian troops cannot defeat the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
Now the Indians place their hopes on China being unwilling to risk a war due to strategic concerns. They believe the US will likely side with India, which will exert huge psychological pressure on China. It seems that New Delhi does not comprehend the nature of the Sino-US rivalry and the meaning of strategic containment. It thinks Washington can influence the situation along the China-India border simply by issuing a pro-India statement or sending warships to the Indian Ocean."

As I've said in the past, the people in China live in a fantasy world where their military will defeat everyone else in the world, and all that will be required is "a small-scale military operation," similar to a victory in a brief war in 1962. That war fizzled quickly because both countries were in a generational Recovery era, about 14 years after the end of their respected generational crisis wars, China's Communist Revolution and India's Partition war. In any country, there is little desire to fight another war so soon after a generational crisis war.

But today both countries are in generational Crisis eras, and any war they fight will not be brief.

In fact the editor at the Global Times is probably a child who is too young to remember another massive invasion by the Chinese into Vietnam in 1979. That was largely a defeat for the Chinese, though they undoubtedly thought at the beginning that it would be a victorious "small-scale military operation."

China might also take a look at the current war in Yemen. When it began in 2014, it was supposed to be a "small-scale military operation" by Saudi Arabia to wrest control of the country's capital city Sanaa from the Houthis. Instead, that war is still going today. Global Times (Beijing, 5-Aug) and Global Times (Beijing, 7-Aug) and Reuters

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Trump threatens North Korea with 'fire and fury'

President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened North Korea with "fire and fury," in response to North Korean threats. A statement from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) says the following, where "DPRK" refers to North Korea and "UNSC" refers to the United Nations Security Council:

"The DPRK is taking measures to strengthen the self-defensive nuclear deterrence in order to counter the policy of extreme hostility and nuclear threat against it from the US, the biggest nuclear weapons state of the world.
As long as the US hostile policy and nuclear threat continue, the DPRK, no matter who may say what, will never place its self-defensive nuclear deterrence on the negotiation table or flinch an inch from the road chosen by itself, the road of bolstering up the state nuclear force.
Second, now that the US did forge the "sanctions resolution" by manipulating the UNSC to obliterate the DPRK's sovereignty and rights to existence and development, the DPRK will move into its resolute action of justice as it had already clarified ....
As the gangsters of the US remain unabated in their mean and heinous provocation, the DPRK will further increase the strength of justice to thoroughly eradicate the cause of war and aggression and never back away from this fight to a finish. ...
Third, the DPRK will make the US pay dearly for all the heinous crimes it commits against the state and people of this country. ...
The US is sadly mistaken if it considers its mainland a safe haven for being on the other side of the ocean."

This statement was followed by reports that North Korea has developed a nuclear weapon small enough to fit into the tip of the intercontinental missiles that they have been testing.

President Trump made the following response at a meeting where journalists were present:

"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.
He [Kim Jong-un] has been very threatening beyond a normal statement.
And, as I said, they will be met with fire, fury, and, frankly, power — the likes of which the world has never seen before."

Last week, Trump said:

"We will handle North Korea. We are gonna be able to handle them. It will be handled."

North Korea responded by on Wednesday by saying that they're considering an attack on the American base in Guam.

So there have been numerous threats from numerous sources in numerous countries around the world in the last few days, as the Clash of Civilizations world war approaches. Newsmax and Reuters

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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Aug-17 World View -- China threatens India, as Trump threatens North Korea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (9-Aug-2017) Permanent Link
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