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Web Log - June, 2020

Summary

25-Jun-20 World View -- Both India and China reinforce armies in Ladakh, as China makes new claim

Russia will speed up delivery of weapons systems to India

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Both India and China reinforce armies in Ladakh, as China makes new claim
Chinese Communists make new claims
Russia will speed up delivery of weapons systems to India

Both India and China reinforce armies in Ladakh, as China makes new claim

China military exercise

China military exercise

The situation in Ladakh, on the China-India border, continues to worsen.

As I've been writing for some time, China and India have been mobilizing thousands of troops in Ladakh on either side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the nominal boundary between the two countries. Then, on June 15, Chinese forces ambushed Indian forces in Ladakh's Galwan Valley, using barbaric weapons consisting of bayonets, poles studded with steel nails, and wooden clubs wrapped with barbed wire, killing 20 unarmed Indian soldiers.

While officials from China and India are continuing negotiations for a "peaceful resolution" to the border conflict in Ladakh, both sides have been moving in even more reinforcements. According to Indian media, both the Chinese and India armies have moved troops and tanks into the regions adjacent to the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

According to a 1993 agreement between China and India:

"The two sides are of the view that the India-China boundary question shall be resolved through peaceful and friendly consultations. Neither side shall use or threaten to use force against the other by any means."

The Chinese took advantage of the unarmed Indians with bayonets, clubs wrapped with barbed wire, and rocks, despite the agreement that requires both sides to be unarmed. Last week, in response to the June 15 ambush, the Indians repudiated the agreement and changed the rules of engagement, so that the Indian soldiers are now armed.

I've said in the past that this dispute is remarkably similar to the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge incident that triggeredd World War II fighting between Japan and China. The Ladakh dispute looks more and more like it every day.

Chinese Communists make new claims

In the midst of the latest peace negotiations, the Chinese Defense Ministry made a new claim on Tuesday that the Galwan Valley in Ladakh is sovereign Chinese territory:

"China has sovereignty over the Galwan Valley region and the Chinese border troops have been patrolling and on duty in this region for many years."

The Indians were jolted by this new claim, and say that this is a lie, that Galwan Valley is well within Indian territory, and that this is the first time that China has made such a claim.

It seems that every day, I get a new reason to be impatient with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). I see the CCP lie all the time. They've repeatedly lied about the South China Sea that they've illegally annexed, they've repeatedly lied about the Uighurs that they're arresting, torturing and enslaving, and they've repeatedly lied about the Christians and Buddhists who are regularly beaten and jailed. They also lied for weeks about the Wuhan Coronavirus, and purposely infected hundreds of other countries, so that they wouldn't be alone in dealing with the virus. They're apparently congratulating themselves for this victory in infecting the world. As I wrote in my book, "War Between China and Japan," the Chinese Communists consider themselves to be the Master Race, and everyone else to be barbarians and vassals.

So the CCP are criminal thugs and liars, and if they're now claiming sovereignty to the Galwan Valley, then there is absolutely no reason to believe anything they say.

At any rate, nationalism is very high on both the Chinese and Indian sides, and neither side will back down. Both the Chinese and Indians are sending troops and tanks into the regions around the Galway Valley, and tensions are continuing to rise.

Neither Chinese nor Indian officials have made official statements about what happened on June 15, except that 20 Indian soldiers were killed. Chinese media have been claiming that China dealt a "heavy blow" to the Indians.

According to Chinese media:

"The PLA is a glorious army. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, it fought with the armies of the two superpowers, the US and the former Soviet Union. It has punished the Indian army for the latter's outright provocations. Some in India preach that the PLA, which has not fought a war for more than 30 years now, is an army that does not know how to fight. Their arrogance is frivolous. It is now clear who is the egg and who is the rock."

At a briefing on Wednesday, the Chinese finally officially admitted that they had casualties in the June 15 encounter:

"Exact casualties were not publicised as China did not want the media to play it up. Now was the time for both sides to find ways to de-escalate the situation and restore stability. Comparisons may trigger antagonism on both sides, which is not helpful."

There have been media reports of anywhere from 25-45 Chinese casualties on June 15. No wonder the Chinese don't want to admit the exact numbers.

Russia will speed up delivery of weapons systems to India

And so, Dear Reader, start placing your bets. How long can this "peaceful" standoff remain peaceful?

Donald Trump has offered to mediate, but it seems unlikely that his offer will be accepted.

The Russians have met with both sides, but India's Defense Minister said on Tuesday that the Russians will speed up delivery of advanced S-400 air defense systems and other weapons systems to India. This gives the impression that Russia is on India's side. This is not surprising, since Russia has its own problems with China making false claims to parts of Russia's Far East. China is even claiming that Vladivostok, the home of Russia's Pacific Fleet, is really China's sovereign territory.

This is also not surprising in view of the Generational Dynamics prediction, which I've stated repeatedly for many years, that in the coming Clash of Civilizations world war, China will be allied with Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries versus the United States, allied with India, Russia and Iran. In particular, India and Russia are historic allies.

I keep seeing claims that Russia and China will be allied. There isn't a snowflake's chance in hell that will happen. The Russians have hated the Chinese ever since the Mongols defeated the Chinese in 1206, and then went on to attack and conquer almost all the Russian principalities, and made them bitter vassals of the Mongol Empire, in a relationship called the "Mongol Yoke." This hated period, two centuries long, has defined the relationship between the Russian and Chinese people forever. There is no possibility that China and Russia will remain "strategic partners" for long. In fact, Soviet Russia and China almost went to full-scale war as recently as the 1960s, just as China and India went to war in the 1960s. So Russia's delivery of advanced weapons systems to India is just one more step along the same path.

Another common claim is that World War III will be won by means of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons can do an enormous amount of damage, and they will be heavily used. But a war cannot be won with just by bombing, even by bombing with nuclear weapons. The war, whether it occurs this year, next year, or later, will be won with ground forces, and nuclear weapons will be used tactically.

John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan: Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book 2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references, $13.99 https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Between-Prepared-Generational/dp/1732738637/

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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.)

(25-Jun-2020) Permanent Link
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19-Jun-20 World View -- Nationwide protests in India demand revenge against China

Brief list of Chinese Communist Party crises

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Nationwide protests in India demand revenge against China
What happened in Ladakh on Monday evening?
The core principle of Generational Dynamics
Brief list of Chinese Communist Party crises

Nationwide protests in India demand revenge against China

This is the kind of crude weapon, made with iron rods studded with nails, used by Chinese soldiers on Monday to kill Indian soldiers, according to India.

This is the kind of crude weapon, made with iron rods studded with nails, used by Chinese soldiers on Monday to kill Indian soldiers, according to India.

Anti-China protests have erupted in cities across India by people demanding retaliation for the killing of 20 Indian soldiers on Monday in the growing Ladakh border confrontation that we described last weekend. ( "13-Jun-20 World View -- China and India mobilize thousands of troops along border in Ladakh")

The protesters are burning the Chinese flag and calling for boycotts of China-made products.

However, the calls for revenge grew even louder on Thursday, when a photo emerged of a weapon used by Chinese soldiers to kill Indian soldiers. The weapon, pictured at the beginning of this article, is made with iron rods studded with nails, and is being called "barbarous" by some Indian officials.

Former leader of the opposition, Rahul Gandhi, also demanded fiercer retaliation from the government.

"It is now clear that China has committed an unforgivable war crime. The Chinese have used bayonets, nail studded iron rods, wooden clubs wrapped with barbed wire ... to mount a surprise attack on our unarmed soldiers."

Some MPs are demanding that Indian army forces invade the Chinese-controlled territory Aksai Chin, a disputed region on the Chinese side of the border. According to Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, the MP for the Ladakh region:

"We want a one-time solution. Not just the people of Ladakh but people of the country too want a one-time solution. After the sacrifice of our soldiers, I am starting to think the time has come to take Aksai Chin back."

What happened in Ladakh on Monday evening?

Several days have passed, but there's very little confirmed information about what took place.

Here's what we do know:

20 Indian soldiers were killed.
There's no information on the number of soldiers injured.
There's no statement on how the clashes started.
There's no statement on how the clashes escalated.
The Indian army says that China also suffered casualties, but China has not confirmed any casualties. According to some reports, about 40 Chinese soldiers were killed.
No guns were fired by either side. Both sides are honoring a decades-old agreement that everyone be unarmed. Firing a gun would be a declaration of war.
The Indian Army says that no soldiers were captured. However, early Friday morning there were reports that the Chinese released 10 captured Indian soldiers.

In the absence of statements by either the Indian or Chinese side giving details of what happened, unauthorized reports are beginning to appear, and they are highly explosive. Here's one from India's News18:

"Furious hand-to-hand fighting raged across the Galwan river valley for over eight hours on Monday night, as People’s Liberation Army assault teams armed with iron rods as well as batons wrapped in barbed wire hunted down and slaughtered troops of the 16 Bihar Regiment, a senior government official ... has told News18.
The savage combat, with few parallels in the history of modern armies, is confirmed to have claimed the lives of at least 23 Indian soldiers, including 16 Bihar’s commanding officer, Colonel Santosh Babu, many because of protracted exposure to sub-zero temperatures the Indian Army said late on Tuesday.
“Even unarmed men who fled into the hillsides were hunted down and killed,” one officer said. “The dead include men who jumped into the Galwan river in a desperate effort to escape.”
Government sources say at least another two dozen soldiers are battling life-threatening injuries, and over 110 have needed treatment. “The toll will likely go up,” a military officer with knowledge of the issue said."

In the absence of official statements, it's impossible to determine the veracity of this narrative, but it almost doesn't matter, because this situation is rapidly growing out of control.

The core principle of Generational Dynamics

Indian and Chinese officials claim that they're conducting ongoing negotiations to bring the crisis to an end and pull troops back on both sides.

In dozens of articles in the last few years, I've stated and restated the core principle of Generational Dynamics that, even in a dictatorship, major decisions are made by masses of people, by generations of people. The attitudes of politicians are irrelevant, except insofar as they represent the attitudes of the people.

We're seeing that applied in this case. According to reports, Chinese army teams hunted down, attacked and killed Indian soldiers, using barbarous weapons like the one shown at the beginning of this article. On the Indian side, we see increasing demands for retaliation and revenge.

Recall what happened in 1937 in the Marco Polo Bridge incident that I described in my article last weekend. The Japanese and Chinese negotiated a settlement, but both sides brought in reinforcements. Within a month, they were at full scale war, leading soon after to the Rape of Nanking.

That's not to say India and China will be at war within a month, but it does say that they're following a familiar pattern that leads to full-scale war. If both the Chinese and Indian armies are pulled back immediately, then a war can be avoided, but I see little desire on either side to do so, or to do anything but escalate.

It's worth noting that the India government has ordered the armed forces to make emergency procurements to stock up its war reserves in case of war in Ladakh. These preparations even include the deployment of navy military assets near the Malacca Strait, which would be a focal point for any future India-China war.

Brief list of Chinese Communist Party crises

The following is a reference list of the major crises currently being faced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and dictator Xi Jinping:

Dozens of countries are blaming China for purposely spreading the Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) to other countries, so that China wouldn't have to deal with it alone. Attempts by China to blame the United States have backfired. This is a much bigger problem than you might think, since it attacks the competency of Xi Jinping.
And now, China is facing a major new outbreak of Covid-19 in Beijing, after having declared the city to be free of the virus.
North Korea's government appears to be increasingly chaotic, and an unstable North Korean government is a big problem for the CCP.
The India-China border crisis in Ladakh is growing.
Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters are starting up again, after being quiet because of Covid-19. The new proposed security bill is provoking unrest in Hong Kong, and a great deal of international concern.
Taiwan pro-independence activists are becoming emboldened by the situation in Hong Kong.
China is receiving increased international condemnation for the Uighur concentration camps in Xinjiang province.
One issue that's seldom talked about is that many African countries have huge debt obligations to the Chinese, thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Debt Trap Diplomacy, and because of the Covid-19 crises, many countries are missing their debt payments. These countries are pressuring China to forgive or postpone much of the debt. Laughably, the Chinese are asking the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international organizations to bail out these African countries, so that they can make their payments to China.

So those who think that America and the West have a lot of problems are absolutely correct, but they do not have nearly as many problems as China, which has been turning into an international pariah.

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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (19-Jun-2020) Permanent Link
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13-Jun-20 World View -- China and India mobilize thousands of troops along border in Ladakh

Significance of the Ladakh border confrontation

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

China and India mobilize thousands of troops along border in Ladakh
Significance of the Ladakh border confrontation

China and India mobilize thousands of troops along border in Ladakh

Chinese soldiers mobilized to the northwest plateau near Ladakh in images shown on state television (SCMP, Weibo)

Chinese soldiers mobilized to the northwest plateau near Ladakh in images shown on state television (SCMP, Weibo)

China has occupied more than sixty square kilometres of Indian territory in eastern Ladakh, according to a senior Indian Army source.

China has mobilized thousands of paratroopers, armoured vehicles and equipment in a military drill on a plateau near Ladakh, the border region disputed by India and China. According to state media reports, they could be deployed "within hours" to the Ladakh region.

According to India's media, China's army has been carrying out manoeuvres to occupy Indian territory and build concrete defenses on it. China now has at least two group armies, three air force bases, and one rocket force base in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), with over 200,000 soldiers conducting combat training.

These steps signal a dramatic escalation in border tensions by China's military. In response, India has been reinforcing its forces on the India-China border.

So far, not a shot has been fired on either side, since that would amount to a declaration of full-scale war, but there have been clashes anyway. Seventy Indian troops were injured in fist-fighting and stone-throwing as they tried to stop the advance.

India must now prepare for a two-front war, with the Pakistan military on one side and China's army in the east. Pakistan and China have been doing combined combat training since 2011.

Indian army sources say that similar Chinese army troop movements are occurring in multiple locations in all three sectors -- western, middle and eastern -- of the 3,488-km boundary that India shares with China. While the current faceoff has been restricted to eastern Ladakh, which is in the western sector, armies on both sides have augmented their military strength even in the middle and eastern sectors.

Divisional commanders on both the Chinese and India side met on Wednesday to discuss moving troops back. Nothing was resolved, although negotiations are expected to continue in the near future.

The United Nations is calling for restraint. UN officials undoubtedly believe that a border war would be "unacceptable," and they would not hesitate to take firm action by calling a committee meeting or a press conference. Russia would blame the United States.

Significance of the Ladakh border confrontation

As I've written a number of times in the past, I do not expect WW III to begin with some major attack, such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or Japan or a missile attack on the United States. Those acts would come later. Major wars begin with small events. In a generational Crisis era, when public levels of nationalism and xenophobia are very high, a small event can be a match that lights an explosive fire.

World War II did not begin with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, nor did it begin with the invasion of Poland.

As I've described in the past, World War II began in 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge incident. The Marco Polo Bridge is about 15 km south of Beijing in China, and was so named because Marco Polo praised the bridge in the 13th century. In 1937, both Japan and China were deep into generational Crisis eras, and the Japanese and Chinese people really hated each other. On July 7, a small group of Japanese soldiers, stationed near the bridge, took a roll call and found one soldier missing. The Japanese accused Chinese soldiers, also stationed near the bridge in the city of Wanping, of abducting the Japanese soldier. A brief clash was won by the Japanese. There were negotiations, and the situation was settled quickly. (The "abducted" soldier had merely gotten lost in the woods.)

So the two sides negotiated a settlement, but both sides then brought in reinforcements. Within a month there was full-scale war, leading to the Japanese "Rape of Nanking" shortly thereafter.

What's remarkable about the Ladakh border situation is its similarity to the Marco Polo Bridge incident that triggered World War II. In particular, both the Indian and Chinese populations are in highly nationalistic and xenophobic moods, and this is the kind of mood that leads to a "shoot first, look later" situation. All it would take is one gunshot to trigger an escalation situation. And there are similar potential border confrontations all along the 3,488-km boundary that separates China from India.

This doesn't mean that the Ladakh border incident will lead to full scale war. In fact, confrontations like the one going on in Ladakh are not uncommon, and they're settled quickly.

But this particular confrontation is raising international concern because positions on both sides appear to be hardening. China is occupying Indian land, and will not back off. In the border confrontation in May 2018, China did back off, possibly because the confrontation was taking place on Bhutan's Doklam Plateau, and Bhutan asked India to prevent a China takeover. It was speculated at the time that China backed off because China was not ready for a full-scale war with India, and wanted to wait until it WAS ready for a full-scale war.

What's remarkable about these border situations, alternating between negotiations and reinforcements, is their similarity to the incident that triggered World War II. With nationalism and xenophobia growing on both sides of this enormous border, with troop buildups at several locations along this border, it's quite possible that one of the India-China border confrontations will be the trigger that spirals into a major war.

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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (13-Jun-2020) Permanent Link
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