China speaks of the ‘community of the shared future for mankind’, and ‘win–win cooperation’; it plays balance-of-power politics and acts in ways that take advantage of others in adversity. China’s aim is to establish its supremacy in areas of productive technology, trade networks and financing options in ways that shut out competition.
In the past 10 years, the biggest change has been the sharp escalation in China’s naval activities in the northern Indian Ocean, including through its hydrographic surveys in the exclusive economic zones of littoral states, growing deployment of submarines and unmanned underwater drones, and establishment of its first overseas military facility in Djibouti.
If this is the beginning of a larger Chinese naval presence throughout the Indian Ocean, a close examination of China’s intentions and behaviour is warranted.
China claims that its naval activities are normal and reasonable and assures the rest of the world that it will never seek hegemony.
When the Chinese say that they will not exercise hegemony, they presumably mean not the American kind. They are not seeking to assume the role of a paramount state that uses its power and influence to impose rules and order on an otherwise anarchic world. Pax Britannica is not for them either. They have shown no appetite to directly control large tracts outside the homeland or to carry the flag, as David Livingstone did, for ‘Christianity, commerce and civilization’.
Exercising the sort of hegemony that the Soviet Union did is entirely ruled out. The lessons of Soviet failure due to overreach in the export of communism globally are compulsory reading for all members of the Chinese Communist Party.
What China seeks is the pursuit of national self-interest through persistent and consistent actions to become the dominant state in the Indo-Pacific. The shape of possible Chinese hegemony may be uniquely Chinese in character—a kind of Chinese hegemony with socialist characteristics. Covid-19 has made this more, rather than less, likely for three reasons.
First, the fundamental shift in the world’s centre of gravity from the Atlantic–Mediterranean region to the Indo-Pacific region has occurred faster than the West had planned for. China is the central actor in this drama, but ASEAN, India and others have also hastened the process.
Second, expectations from a decade ago that the balance of power between China and the United States would likely remain decisively in America’s favour at least for the first half of this century are being proved wrong.
China has not only demonstrated the determination to challenge American power in the Indo-Pacific, but it is building the capacity to neutralise America’s naval superiority in the Western Pacific. It is unlikely that China can, any longer, be confined within the first and second island chains in the Pacific.
Third, it is building a parallel universe in trade, technology and finance that will selectively reduce its vulnerabilities to American hegemony. China’s international behaviour in the year of Covid-19 gives legitimate cause for concern to the peripheral and proximate states of the Indo-Pacific.
The Belt and Road Initiative is creating a Sino-centric system of specifications, standards, norms and regulations that will favour China’s technology and services to the exclusion of others.
Those who worry that the primary problem with the BRI is the potentially high level of indebtedness that vulnerable Indo-Pacific economies may face are missing the larger point. Beijing doesn’t aim to impoverish its potential clients, but to ensure that their national systems are fully oriented towards the consumption of Chinese technology and services and are in sync with China’s strategic interests and policies.
Digital dependencies are integral to this objective. Huawei, 5G and fibre-optic networks are some of the ways that China is rewiring the region to its long-term benefit.
In the Chinese version of hegemony, so long as its industry and services enjoy supremacy in the Indo-Pacific and thus ensure the prosperity and wellbeing of the Chinese people, China is content to provide the public goods and financing for the region’s benefit as a sugar-coated pill.
The other facet of China’s potential hegemony is the idea that it is the region’s responsibility to accept and respect what China calls its ‘core’ concerns and interests. These are flexible and change according to the situation, but are always non-negotiable. What is ‘core’ will always be defined by China. The definition has expanded beyond issues of sovereignty and territorial integrity to cover economic, social and cultural issues, and even the persona of the Chinese leader. Those who don’t fall in line are apt to be taught a ‘lesson’.
India believes that the interests of the region are better served through a balance of forces rather than the preponderance of any single force—whether it is the Americans or the Chinese. This is one of the pillars of India’s Indo-Pacific vision.
Giving any country in this region a veto in the matter will be only at the peril of the security of the whole region. It should also be a matter of concern for others when China chooses to confuse the Indo-Pacific vision with plurilateral mechanisms like the Quad. The Quad is a platform for a group of countries that share common interests in the region they are located in. The Indo-Pacific is as much home to India, Australia and Japan as it is to China.
Many in the region look upon the US as a resident power, whose benign presence has been helpful to the region’s stability and growth. China itself has benefited from the American presence, not least in securing the capital and technology that has helped in its national rejuvenation.
Hence, labelling the Quad as a security hazard and threat to peace and development seems to be contradictory and self-serving. Contradictory, because China is the initiator of similar plurilateral mechanisms, including some in India’s neighbourhood. Self-serving because China doesn’t wish to permit any other platform that offers alternatives to the region.
The claim by China that the Quad is a historical regression and a danger to peace and security rings hollow, especially when it seeks to press centuries-old territorial claims on sea and land through the use of force.
If China is committed, as it claims, to uphold the principle of peace and stability and is ready to practice its diplomatic philosophy of affinity, sincerity and inclusiveness, it should desist from tilting at windmills and demonstrate this diplomatic philosophy in deeds.
China could begin by winding down the aggression it has displayed against its neighbours by unilaterally altering the status quo, and join the open discussion on the future of the Indo-Pacific.
India is willing to discuss Asian security with all parties in accordance with the principles of democratic and transparent engagement, and on the basis of respect for globally agreed norms of behaviour.
Vijay Gokhale was India’s foreign secretary until January 2020 and is a former ambassador to China. This is an edited version of a chapter in the Regional security outlook 2021 published by the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific.
John Menadue is the Founder of Pearls and Irritations and a board member. He was formerly the Editor-in-Chief. John was the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.
Comments
35 responses to “China’s vision of hegemony: the view from India – Vijay Gokhale”
The views expressed doesn’t surprise me at all of the Indian Elitist attitude which greatly benefited from India’s colonisation. Being a fake country with borders defined by the British, there are many forces within that are no more than Western lapdogs who greatly benefited from the British colonisation. It makes sense that these forces are just blowing hot air up the Western audience’s ass to great effect.
India never went through land reform like China, in the end, it still lives under the shadows on British colonisation along with all the inequalities and tribal mentality that comes with a divided country united by a foreign power.
Human rights? How about clean water and toilets, seems a bit more pressing than “elections”.
I think the “benign presence” of America has been adequately dealt with in previous comments.
I agree with the observation that China can no longer be denied preeminence within the first island group in the South China Sea.
For me the key comment in this piece was the observation on the Belt and Road that this is creating a Sino-centric system of specifications, standards, norms and regulations that will favour China’s technology and services to the exclusion of others. And that, in a nutshell, is what is driving the West mad. There will be a rules based order. It just won’t be the old rules.
Yes, I think that’s an astute comment.
Yes. It is the heart of the matter and we have been through all this before. So have the Indians. Our resources are managed by the City of London, Wall Street and Zurich. Not much point swapping that for Beijing. The failure of the mining tax in 2010 was another crushing blow against our sovereignty. Let’s make a more determined effort to hang on to our assets.
Many thanks for publishing this most interesting article. It was fascinating to get a view from one of the key players who is not Australia or China. It sounds very much an authoritative Indian view, given the credentials of the author.
It’s also highly amusing to see the usual pro-China posters in a tizzy. Sorry to confess that made me smile, but it did. Upsetting for them to have the usual narrative interrupted.
This is P&I at its informative best.
No surprise there, barney, and the usual suspects.
Biggles i suspect Barney finds your cheer leading an embarrassment. He is not a bird of your feather.
Skilts, no response on “apologist”, how come?
For your next english lesson please review SLUT. Find the original definition and its usage today.
Biggles i was in the commies embassy yesterday picking up my Beijing RMBS i was otherwise engaged. I do have a life apart from posting on here. In regard to you long winded reply re the apologist malapropism you fail to grasp the difference between usage and meaning. Apologist means as it always has – someone who argues in defense of a position in a controversy. It is not a pejorative. And yes the usage has extended beyond that of the church. As for your suggestion i am referring your post to the mods. I have always received your sometime bizarre posting in good spirit and good humor. I dont think abuse can be tolerated. Particularly sexist abuse. Over and out chum.
Just typical of you to twist things in a manner a Trumpian would be proud of, but it doesn’t hide your ignorance and a rather pathetic attempt at that.
Feel free to report me to the mods, again it shows your ignorance in calling that “sexist abuse”.
SLUT: todays definition is a women of loose morals. Some decades ago (my 1975 Collins pocket dictionary) is a slovenly unkept women, and occasionally used for men, but that is archaic.
You can cry about it as much as you like, but you are a China Apologist and it can be used as pejorative.
Good day, village boy and good riddance.
Barney
It was a point of view from a senior person and as such well worth reading.
However I did rather smile at his “many see the USA as a benign influence”. Tell that to the Japanese, North Koreans, Vietnamese, Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis and Syrians. Nothing very benign in any of those situations. The USA us a benign influence until it isn’t.
The fact that India under Modi has shifted allegiance to the USA is certainly important but i would have hoped an ambassador had more subtlety than he shows.
Now call me naive but the “hegemony ” he says China is seeking, seems to me to be rather more tolerable than the “hegemony”of gunboats and imperialistic whiteness which characterized the British hegemony and superior to the of air supremacy and bomber diplomacy that characterized US hegemony in the years since WWII.
Every nation/tribe/empire/chieftain seeks to expand their wealth and power using whatever method works. Powers rise and fall and squabble and jockey one another. China is only doing what, Britain, France, Russia, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Turkey, Japan, USA, have been doing over the last 500 years. it is moreover exactly what India is currently doing re Kashmir, not to mention the ongoing rivalry with Pakistan.
He wants a balance of powers- I think we all do provided it does not lead to war. However what I find hard to understand is why China in the Indian Ocean is more of an issue than Japan, UK, USA, Australia etc.
On a far more serious note it seems obvious that India has some major internal issues just now which are not getting much press. The Kashmir situation seems indeed to be very similar to the Xinjiang situation and the problem with the Sikh farmers seems urgent and very serious indeed. Now I do not claim an expert knowledge of India, but there was a reason that the British used the Sikhs as troops. If it comes to a real fight between the Hindu government of Modi based in the centre and the Punjabi Sikhs, my money would be on the Sikhs .
Hi Janet
You make some good points. Loved the US as a benign presence until it isn’t. But the author followed it up with ” China itself has benefited from the American presence, not least in securing the capital and technology that has helped in its national rejuvenation.” This indicates the sort of benignity he has in mind.
You point out that every empire etc seeks to expand their wealth and power as though you were contradicting the author. But he said exactly the same, and put China in positive terms compared with the empires he compares it with. And you can add rising persecution of Muslims and Christians to the list of unpleasant Indian positions. But I don’t see what Indian inadequacies have to do with the post – this strikes me as the sort of whataboutism we usually find from the right.
You’re clearly an intelligent woman. If you can’t see why India – which has already fought one war with China and is currently in a tense stand-off on the border – might be concerned at Chinese naval ambitions in the Indian Ocean, I can’t persuade you. I think the author has nailed it here: “Hence, labelling the Quad as a security hazard and threat to peace and development seems to be contradictory and self-serving. Contradictory, because China is the initiator of similar plurilateral mechanisms, including some in India’s neighbourhood. Self-serving because China doesn’t wish to permit any other platform that offers alternatives to the region.”
That comparison to the “Quad” was also a lie. PRC has no military alliances. He is tiffed because India is now almost totally isolated in its region. Hated in Sri Lanka, where its much vaunted army was booted out of Sri Lanka by the Tamil Tigers. The Tamil Tigers wiped out an entire Sikh commando unit in the battle for Jaffna University in 1990. It has 700,000 troops of occupation in Kashmir where it has killed an estimated 70,000 civilians and is opposed by an enraged Pakistan over its anti-muslim prejudice, distrusted in Nepal, hemmed in by Iran and its war of proxy in Afghanistan is another US disaster and defeat. But it does have the Dalai Lama. Indian diplomacy has been a disaster. So the BJP runs off to be the shoe shine boys of the US in the Indo Pacific. Their political predecessors in the INA tried that with Japanese imperialism. Another ‘benign” presence in Asia no doubt. Didnt end well.
Barney
Of course I can understand why India is wary of Chinese naval forces near its borders, but it should rationally be just as wary of those from the USA or even Australia.
You do not seem to understand that the Quad is seen by China a a major security hazard, because it increases the encirclement of China by known enemies. The USA has declared itself China’s enemy and Japan obviously is still just such an enemy, since the invasion of Manchuria. Australia is now more threatening because it has allowed US naval presence as well as being closely located to the major choke points for sea access to China.
India, becoming the fourth member of this encirclement by large and middle powers is obviously seen by China as a strategic threat. It is a fairly obvious reaction by China to send military forces along side any nation that declares by its alliances that it is an enemy.
The Quad is a semi formal military alliance aimed at containing China. To pretend otherwise is rather silly. So if we accept reality ie that the quad is an alliance to contain China, it is pretty ridiculous to bluff and bluster when China takes action to counter the threat eg like sending in its own navy or forming an alliance with Pakistan.
Ditto for Australia if China puts a naval base or other forces in PNG or East Timor. What did we expect when we allowed US forces in Darwin at the same time as initiating a technology ban on China. It may or may not have been a wise decision by Gillard to allow the US base, but once having done so, it is pretty bloody childish to then carry on about China building bases near us. What did we expect? China to say “very sorry great white master we are scared of the big boats in Darwin.”
Pessimistically I see the Quad ad the beginning of an alliance/axis power confrontation such as in WWI. It did not end happily for the players.
It got me, who opposed the US atrocities in Vietnam in a “tizzy” as you so quaintly put it. The continuing effects on children in Vietnam from Agent Orange and chemical warfare against the Vietnamese people continues by the “benign” ones.. Three million dead and the US is “benign”. I have my intelligence insulted every day by the US propagandists in Australia. But i wont have my morality mocked. As for the rest of it the runs are on the board. In 1980 India and PRC had the same per capita GDP. Today the GDP of PRC is five times larger. For the slum dweller of Manila they look at the score. The farmers of India are staging the biggest strike in the last forty years anywhere in the world. Maybe this BJP propagandist should step outside his luxury abode and chat to the farmers. They are also in a tizzy. Tizzies all round in India. The rest of his article is breaking wind against a hurricane.
Yes, Skilts. I too have my share of the insults and mockery. Ironically, they mock even the bible. In the David and Goliath tale, the ultra conservative Christian supporters of Trump ought to be supporting weaker of the two, David. Instead they support Goliath, the bully.
That’s way off the mark, TL, if it’s aimed at me. I had a visceral loathing for Trump, and still have utter contempt for the craven Republicans who are too scared of the Trump-cult fantasists to honour their oathes to the Constitution. Trump, of course, will not be convicted though he absolutely ought to be.
I completely fail to understand how conservative Christians could support a man lacking any quality of human decency, who boasts of sexual assaults, tells 30,000 lies in office – well, I could go on for a while. There’s a terrible cognitive dissonance there, and it’s not going to end well.
Finally, David was not the weaker of the two, for he had God with him. As you know, he didn’t come close to Goliath, so strength never became the issue.
Hi Barney. With our own politics on the boring side we keep watching America’s drama. There’s an even-handed view of the Trump presidency from Global Research written by Emanuel Pastreich, a source generally critical of Trump. I found it on a post under the heading of “Global Research comes to the Defence of Donald Trump” by Paul Craig Roberts who was a Treasury under-secretary during the Reagan administration. Roberts, no relation as far as I’m aware, has turned 80 but keeps pounding out his political comments almost on a daily basis.
I take no pleasure in seeing a war between two old civilization on either side of the Himalayas. As someone who had grown up with Indian classmates and neighbours in the Bitish Empire, there is no much difference in the resilient nature, talented and wanting to do well in life in both these cultures and civilizations. All good and bad attributes are commnon to both the people they were able to co-exists for centuries. The current political ideology of India is very much a post British colonial influence whilst the post WW2 China has another European influcence Karl Marx. Surprisngly China has been able to rise economically but India is still trying and some pundits may attribute the slow rise to India ‘s internal problems (relgion and caste system & others). There is no hatred between Chinese and Indians and they have lived side by side outside India and China in peace and mutual respect. Indian neutrality (non-alignment has been exemplary durng the Cold War I period).
I suspect such bias writing is to shift the attention of the Indian masses from their domestic problems (including the Himalaya’s fights with sticks and stones). We wsih Modi the best in resolving Indian problems (including Border disputes with China) and improving her economy otherwise India will be further fractured into smaller independent nations (Greater India has loss Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangalahdesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. A stronger India is desirable but not for the agenda of US containment of China or hegemonic pursuits, but for two old civilizations to have peaceful influence on all the nations between India and China.
The Himalayas separate two big cultures in the same way that a lesser range keeps two New Guinea tribes from fighting each other. The difference is that China has more successfully thrown off superstition than either India or the West.
In 1980 India and PRC had roughly the same per capita GDP. Today PRC per capita GDP is five times that of India. The score is on the board.
Thank you for publishing this new perspective on our wearisome China debate. I hope we can hear more from this writer. The basics of foreign policy never change. We can still relate to the stuff we learned in school about Palmerston and Canning.
This piece is void of evidence, spiteful, envious, unmoored from observable reality and, ultimately, silly. In other words, it is typical of official Indian commentary on China.
It is blatantly dishonest. He lecturers that PRC should discuss the SCS claims with its neighbours. That is precisely the position of the PRC. It has maintained conciliation through the ASEAN-China Joint Working Group on the Implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. It was the Manila oligarchs that broke this agreement by after being paid by the US and took the West Philippine Sea dispute to the Permanent Court of Arbitration for a unilateral arbitration.
https://asean.org/?static_post=terms-of-reference-of-the-asean-china-joint-working-group-on-the-implementation-of-the-declaration-on-the-conduct-of-parties-in-the-south-china-sea#:~:text=The%20Declaration%20on%20the%20Conduct%20of%20Parties%20in,and%20China%20on%20the%20South%20China%20Sea%20issue.
To which, of course, China responded as a mature and responsible member of the international community. I.e., by raising a sturdy middle finger at everyone else.
Really Barney? The PRC has complied with the ASEAN Declaration. The PRC have had hundreds of co-operative meetings over the SCS with ASEAN members.
https://asean.org/storage/2012/05/Overview-of-ASEAN-China-Relations-22-Apr-2020-00000002.pdf
You are like a lot of Australians sadly. Very happy to “tolerate” China when they are taking in your laundry. Anxious and enraged when China becomes strong. You are in for a very unhappy and anxious next decade because the PRC in every way is going to be not just an Asian power but a global power. Fancy that mate. Thy are not white or in racial translation, dont have “Western” values as the convicted racist Andrew Bolt would say. Live with it mate. You can rage against reality. Or like me celebrate it.
They defied the court of arbitration, Skilts, as I’m sure you know. Completely ignored it. That’s the middle finger.
Unworthy of you to play the racism card. Such a tired old trope of the far left, which I had not associated you with. I could equally accuse you of anti-Indian racism for siding with China, but I don’t believe that for a second, and nor do I believe you think I am racist.
Next, I’m not enraged by China’s rise; I dislike the way they treat others. And yes, it is like every superpower before them. Above all, I dislike the persecution of minorities, including Christians. I dislike it when it happens in India, or nearly every Muslim majority country. But we don’t often have threads on Saudi Arabia or Pakistan here. And, before you accuse me of anti-Indian, anti-Arab, anti-Pakistan racism, I don’t like it when it’s done in Russia (especially under Stalin) or the West (eg against French Muslims). What I don’t like are thugs and bullies.
I’m curious about what it is you “celebrate” about China’s rise? I can’t imagine you want the sort of surveillance and censorship they have to be imported here. Is it just your oft-expressed loathing for the US and delight in their decline, or do you really have contempt for all of the West? As I’ve written before, don’t write off the US. They will remain a superpower. Or are there particular aspects of China you want us to replicate? For myself, I celebrate the huge interest in Western classical music found today in Asia. They are helping keep it alive.
Where we can agree is that China’s rise is inevitable, we have to adapt to it, and it doesn’t have to be bad news for Australia.
My view is this and it is not derived from PRC but Philippines. I am outraged and heart broken to see the poverty and the begging. Not in our village but in the cities such as GenSan and Manila. I try to be a good christian in the Luke 10:25-37 sense. I celebrate the defeat of poverty by the PRC. I earnestly wish for the poor of the Philippines and the rest of the “third world” to be liberated from what i regard as the worst sin – that of grinding poverty. For those who say that the poor dont have to follow the path of the PRC. My reply is that the US had a century to develop the Philippines and they turned it into a brothel and a slaughter house. Their century is over. Now it is not my decision to make. Its for the wretched of the earth to decide. But for me – would i trade the liberal capitalism with its individual “freedoms” including the right to starve and beg on the streets of GenSan for the PRC “authoritarianism” and the elimination of poverty, despair and human degredation? You bet. In an instant. My parents were Salvation Army. I love the music of the church. Brass bands. Unfortunately the Salvation Army outpost in Genral Santos City doesnt have a brass band. By way of clarification i am living in hotel room here in Wollongong by the good grace of dear friends waiting to go home. In regard to the suffering caused by the revolution in PRC and elsewhere this poem by Aschylus:
“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
I believe we agree that we hope and pray for a just and gentler life for the wretched of the earth.
Thanks Skilts. I can only respect such a cry from the heart. And marvellous poem.
Good luck with getting home.
Thanks Barney. And all the best with your important work here. And please keep writing.
How surprising to read this, Godfree. Pot, kettle, perhaps?
Mate this geezer was the Director General of the India Taipei Association in Taiwan. Apart from the dishonesty throughout the article he doesnt declare which side he is batting for. ITAT is a front organization for the Indian oligarchs trading with Taiwan. So much for the prince of peace and ‘independence”.
For me, the key to understanding this essay is the following sentence:
“Many in the region look upon the US as a resident power, whose benign presence has been helpful to the region’s stability and growth. ”
This is not a neutral article that makes an effort to state impartially what an intellectual thinks of the geopolitical situation in the Indo-Pacific region. The sentence tells us where the author is coming from. The “benign” presence of the US? Just think of the Middle East (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yeman etc.). In Indonesia in 1966, the CIA helped Suharto purge Indonesia of the PKI (communist sympathisers) resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of people, many were innocent people – and of course the Chinese. If this is “benign” American presence, Vijay Gokhale can have more of it.
“In the Chinese version of hegemony, so long as its industry and services enjoy supremacy in the Indo-Pacific and thus ensure the prosperity and wellbeing of the Chinese people, China is content to provide the public goods and financing for the region’s benefit as a sugar-coated pill.”
Which business, whether multinational corporations or otherwise, do not seek supremacy or dominance? In Australia, Bunnings literally wiped out the small corner hardware stores that were ubiquitous in every Australian suburb. What about the multiple takeovers to prevent competition. Many of the successful suburban newspapers were taken over by the major newspapers in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s and beyond. But “cleverly” using the word “hegemony” to describe business competition turns a civil practice into politics and gives the practice a sinister spin.
“Beijing doesn’t aim to impoverish its potential clients, but to ensure that their national systems are fully oriented towards the consumption of Chinese technology and services and are in sync with China’s strategic interests and policies.” Does Indian companies go around the world doing business without orientating the consumers (here he politicises it by saying national systems) towards continued consumption of Indian goods?
Does the author think that the countries that have close trading relationships with China are fools led passively like sheep to the slaughter?
India has been trying to dominate Sri Lanka for decades. All the stories about getting small countries indebted or fall into a bigger picture painted by Gokhale finds counterbalance in the following article available on the following website (Its Apple News from an American journal called The Atlantic about the Chinese debt trap):
https://apple.news/AP8vW34H9SAupkJqpN8XpLQ
The following sentence paints India, Japan and Australia as helpless victims being denied their place in their homes! Japan had never been a victim in all its history except when it made the mistake of invading its neighbours during WWII. India just fought a border skirmish with China on their common borders. America has Australia’s back. Non of the three countries are helpless victims denied their place in their “homes”. Form alliances by all means to counter whatever threatens you but for goodness sake stop painting yourself as a victim.
“The Quad is a platform for a group of countries that share common interests in the region they are located in. The Indo-Pacific is as much home to India, Australia and Japan as it is to China.”
I can point out more sly articulations but it is such an unpleasant task. However, I judge this article to be the quintessential propaganda of a somewhat subtle kind that would be very effective on the ill informed. For people who can think for themselves, I can’t think of a better response than Paul Keating making that sound with finger and lips – burrrp, burrrp, burrrp…
I stopped reading at the phrase “benign presence”. This is an insult to the intelligence of the reader. Vietnam War ring a bell.
I agree entirely. I would observe that Asean created the opportunity for south-eastern nations to draw together and with China there on the sidelines. This is a new bloc with no strong affinity to Japan, India, Australia and the US, especially.