Discussing Biden's Potential China Policy

taxiya said:

No. You only make concessions if you can gain something else with someone who has a legitimate ground. The disputes with SEA would NOT have been here if it is not due to the U.S.' presence in this part of world after WWII. Making such concessions is to cede to the demand of U.S. for China's total surrender.

Just look through the SEA countries. Non of them exists at the time of 1945 when China laid claim to the whole SCS. How could there be a legitimate dispute when there is no legitimate claimant? All SEA claimants were US puppet states. That includes claim by south Vietnam which is inherited by Vietnam today.

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Correct lets not forget US never even signed the law themselves are are not a party to this legally....
Keep making the sort of concessions like some have suggested and soon enough China will have the old French, American, British "Concessions" all over again... and this time Jai Hind will want a piece too
Someone didn't watch the 100th anniversary where The Honorable Mr. Xi Jingping stated unequivocally that China will no longer allow itself to be bullied... something about bloody and bashed skulls for those that try...

So long as Central Asia is largely within Russia's CSTO military alliance, then SCO will never supercede CSTO as the primary military alliance, because Russia would never give up "Senior Big Brother" role of CSTO/Central Asian states to China.

So that really leaves SCO as a largely economic organization, with some peacetime exercises sprinkled within. Viewing it through this lense, there is no harm to include India into SCO if it's largely economic, because it reinforces India's non-aligned status to be friendly with Russia-China. Otherwise, India would exclusively be courted by QUAD or NATO.

taxiya said:

This is contradictory on your part. If you don't blame someone why do you demand payback? Payback for "doing nothing wrong"?

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Nuance.

I dont blame Russia for following its interests but that doesn't mean that China shouldnt fight back

Maybe this could explain it better, for example, i understand why the Japanese attacked the US in the Pearl Harbor during the WW2 but that doesnt mean that the US shouldnt fight back.


(Wrong order)

taxiya said:

If you think Russia was so eager to damage SCO, why do you think China should care to preserve it?

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You are twisting my words by introducing these subtle word changes. I said that Introducing India would damage SCO.

So the action, Russia (national interest) wanted to introduce India to join SCO, caused the effect of damaging SCO.

By saying that Russia was "so eager" to damage SCO, you are now implying that Russia was always seeing SCO as a threat.

IMO that move from Russia was the usual "just business, dont take it personal" thing

As for why China should care to preserve it, the answer is clear. It brought together many different actors from the region in a joint table to discuss, formulate strategies and respond appropriately on (officialy)anti-terrorism, and (unofficially) on any attempted US' colour revolution

taxiya said:

But Pakistan has no say to it because it was not in SCO just like India

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India had a say on it by using Russia, Pakistan had a voice by China. As the results show, India had a much bigger voice and thusvit managed to get in.
So China as the most dominant power lost this round

taxiya said:

China is not the only member of SCO. Just like UN, no matter how small a country is, it carries one vote in the assembly, and one vote in the UNSC when in it. Not even the US can do anything at will in UN, why do you expect China to be better in strong-arming others?

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Please.. is this a serious argument from you? I expected better.
Please tell me that "not even the US can do anything at will in UN" is a joke lol. Were you here where US would say a word and the rest of the world would fall upon each other to align their votes with the US?

Obviously the way these blocs work is by the bigger countries "influencing" ie. pushing the smaller countries to vote with them.

I hope I wont hear again how "every country is equal in the UN". This is just utopian talk

taxiya said:

You make that up. Everybody knows that. Only you think that others did not know

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Ah you are one of these Xi's fans I was talking about then.

If you couldn't see that the 1.5 (correct?) billion India wasn't destined to be an obstacle to China rise then you must have drank Xi's kool-aid about "civilisation friendship" abd all that.

Did you forget Nixon's strategy about drawing China to US' side against Soviet Union? Anybody who had read a history book knew what US' new (old..) strategy would be against China

History is very important. While it is not a holy book, it teaches a lot of things. And the number 1 thing it taught was that India along US were destined to be China's adversaries.

Maybe next time Xi and his team can study better. Anyway, the mistake has already happened.

taxiya said:

Hypothetically if Xi did your "right" thing of blocking India, what would the relationship between China and Russia be today?

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Ok now you talk right. This is the most important question. How would the relationship change? Who knows, maybe neutral, maybe worse, maybe bad and ultimately better.
IMO another important question is what was their undestanding on what would happen to SCO if China-India relations worsened?

IMO in hindsight it would be preferable to have them (India + Pakistan) in an "observer" status for another 5 years before making a decision for including either of them

taxiya said:

Will you then blame Xi for doing wrong that damaged the relationship between China and Russia today? If you do, you are in self-contradiction. If you don't then you just want to damage the most important strategic relationship of China at this part of history.

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Ok this was partially answered above. There could be more avenues of cooperation, not only SCO. Also SCO could be more multi-tiered with having different benefits and voting rights depending on the tiers. Its not like the SCO was the pillar of Russia-China relations. There are dozens of other ways to cooperate with Russia.

SCO is only a small part of this complex relations.

Btw I agree that Russia is China's most important strategic relatioship currently (past and on the far future)

taxiya said:

I some times honestly wonder if you are just being naive or has something in your mind that I don't want to point out.

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well, that was a bit unnecessary wasn't it? My initial post wasn't directed at anyone in particular, so dont blame me if now this post has a slightly more aggresive tone.

So for your above words I will just redirect you to what you said:

Not even the US can do anything at will in UN

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I will just say that when the US says "jump" the rest of the world asks back "how high". Its getting slightly better now with China rising but we are far away from your utopia of implying that every country is equal:

taxiya said:

Just like UN, no matter how small a country is, it carries one vote in the assembly, and one vote in the UNSC when in it

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@voyager1

I understand India-China-Pakistan border dynamics hinders the "military" aspect of SCO "alliance".

But so long as Russia dominates Central Asia via the CSTO military alliance as the "Big Brother" of Central Asia, then SCO will never meet it's goal of NATO equivalent, because Russia would never allow China to be co-equal in the CSTO states. So SCO had zero potential in military terms to be co-equal to NATO given how Russia covets the CSTO states sphere of influence (military-wise). Russia reluctantly shares economic sphere of influence with China over Central Asia because Russia knows it can't economically compete.

So SCO is largely economics...and doesn't China want to encourage India's non-aligned status by being friendly to Russia-China? Or let NATO/QUAD just take India into it's fold exclusively?

A military alliance doesn't mean much for China. What can these countries do for China?

Military support: No
Economic help: no
Technical help: No

On the contrary, they will demand a lot, want China to transfer-share a lot of technology, want China to lend money at low interest rates and one day they will ask for debt forgiveness and ... if China refuses the This unreasonable request, they will blame China, turn their backs and join the anti-China group in the future. Today we are friends, and tomorrow we are enemies. Good. There are no friends or allies, only economic partners. China does not need a relationship that is too deep and falls into the backstabbing scenario

Phead128 said:

I understand India-China-Pakistan border dynamics hinders the "military" aspect of SCO "alliance".

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Agreed. However I would note that India-China border dynamics have now evolved to the West actively using India (it welcomes it ofc) to counter China. This is not just a border dynamic anymore.

Phead128 said:

But so long as Russia dominates Central Asia via the CSTO military alliance as the "Big Brother" of Central Asia, then SCO will never meet it's goal of NATO equivalent, because Russia would never allow China to be co-equal in the CSTO states.

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Honestly, i dont think that even China wants it to become another NATO-style organisation.

The CSTO is ok as long as its not targeted towards China. Plus it a good message towards Russia that China doesn't have any miliatry ambitions towards that region. IMO the biggest goal for SCO will always be antiterrorism and countering any colour revolutions.

Phead128 said:

Russia reluctantly shares economic sphere of influence with China over Central Asia because Russia knows it can't economically compete.

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Russia simply doesn't have any qualifications to compete with China on this field. I know that it sounds arrogant but normally the countries shouldnt even be on Russia's military influence but that a debate for another time

Russia is simply too weak to compete economically. And as time passes (already started actually), it will lose more and more economic influence on the region.

Phead128 said:

So SCO is largely economics

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Correct me if I am wrong but I think it recently (few past years) started having some economic influence. IMO it is still in early stages and with so many members it takes time to make any decision which is why you now see China taking a step back from these big orgs, and focusing on smaller more agile forums

Phead128 said:

and doesn't China want to encourage India's non-aligned status by being friendly to Russia-China?

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This is ofc a valid point and it is obviously preferable from China's point of view.

IMO whats important is if any potential future strategies were discussed between Russia-China on what they would do if India sided with the US. I find it impossible for these discussions to not happen before letting India join SCO.

If China really didnt have any discussions with Russia on any potential Indian treachery then the Chinese diplomatic corps should be thrown into jail for life

Phead128 said:

Or let NATO/QUAD just take India into it's fold exclusively?

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QUAD has recently gained some (very low) relevancy. As for NATO or any other military alliance, I doubt that India would join it because it would open a new whole can of worms. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka etc would join China to resist India.

There is no way that India's neighbours will accept such a thing in their region.

Anyway I will stop here. This discussion is obviously offtopic

KYli said:

It made strategically sense to court India and defuse whatever tensions between India and China. However, India is very unreliable and hostile towards China. Moreover, India doesn't have a long term strategic thinking. Furthermore, it rules by a populism and charismatic leadership and the ruling party is Hindu nationalistic and religious focus. Consequently, any attempts to mend relationship is pointless and useless. I do think Xi's attempt to reason with Modi is not well planned out especially after Mao had already tried and decided it is fruitless to understand Indians' strategic mentality.

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If only India were less delusional and more pragmatic, that is.

Chinese strategic community has long realized, based on decades of experience dealing with India, that what India demands from China are permanent concessions (territory, relationship with Pakistan, etc.) while what China desires from India is reversible, that is, not joining any anti-China alliance. In any case, what India wants are way beyond the balance of power dictates with China. With the power differentials being increasing year by year, Indian threat is manageable for China. India, meanwhile, carries the increasing burden of a competing and adversarial relationship with a neighbor far more powerful that it while missing the opportunity from a cooperative relationship with the world's second largest, soon to be the largest, economy.

KYli said:

As for making concessions toward the SEA nations, I think is a mistake. China had made a lot of concessions toward Burma and Vietnam during the early days of its founding. But Burma still doesn't trust China til this day. Vietnam is even more aggressive by trying to take over all of South China Sea. So any thinking of making concessions would only invite more demands from some SEA nations especially for countries that want a large piece of South China Sea.

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SEA countries, particularly Vietnam and Philippine, still have not come to the point to realize that their claims will not prevail in their entirety and they need to come to the table to negotiate a grand bargain deal on both territorial and resources claims in SCS. They still pin their hope on The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the US hegemony.

To be fair, China only recently has gained bargaining power by building islands in SCS and increasing its naval power, which occurred within the last decade. And it's hard to argue that PLAN had dislodged the USN from the dominant position in SCS entirely. Plus, the claims from SEA countries and China are all entangled, therefore any negotiation would have to be multiparty.

In short, the SCS claimants are not in a position to start to negotiate a final deal yet. SCS is too strategically important to China to make any unilateral concessions. For now, the best way to maintain the calm of the situation for everyone (within the region that is) is to complete the negotiation of the Code of Conduct.

weig2000 said:

If only India were less delusional and more pragmatic, that is.

Chinese strategic community has long realized, based on decades of experience dealing with India, that what India demands from China are permanent concessions (territory, relationship with Pakistan, etc.) while what China desires from India is reversible, that is, not joining any anti-China alliance. In any case, what India wants are way beyond the balance of power dictates with China. With the power differentials are increasingly year by year, Indian threat is manageable for China. India, meanwhile, carries the increasing burden of a competing and adversarial relationship with a neighbor far more powerful that it while missing the opportunity from a cooperative relationship with the world's second largest, soon to be the largest, economy.



SEA countries, particularly Vietnam and Philippine, still have not come to the point to realize that their claims will not prevail in their entirety and they need to come to the table to negotiate a grand bargain deal on both territorial and resources claims in SCS. They still pin their hope on The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the US hegemony.

To be fair, China only recently has gained bargaining power by building islands in SCS and increasing its naval power, which occurred within the last decade. And it's hard to argue that PLAN had dislodged the USN from the dominant position in SCS entirely. Plus, the claims from SEA countries and China are all entangled, therefore any negotiation would have to be multiparty.

In short, the SCS claimants are not in a position to start to negotiate a final deal yet. SCS is too strategically important to China to make any unilateral concessions. For now, the best way to maintain the calm of the situation for everyone (within the region that is) to complete the negotiation of the Code of Conduct.

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High quality posts, thanks.

I also agree with @KYli that China has already made many concessions which have not resulted in a much better strategic environment for it. In fact I would say that these concessions have (predictably) only invited more and more demands.

Vietnam's behaviour in particular has been outrageous. That it has been allowed for so long to make so many gains on the SCS is unforgivable.

Also agreed that the US has not been fully dislodged from the SCS yet. How long do you think it will take? IMO 2-3 years should be enough for China to gain sufficient military strength.

Agreed on Code of Conduct, however ASEAN countries are predictably drawing the US to gain leverage. And China also doesn't want to sign it yet because in this important period it is important to have strategic and tactical freedom to make SCS moves to counter any potential US actions

voyager1 said:

Agreed. However I would note that India-China border dynamics have now evolved to the West actively using India (it welcomes it ofc) to counter China. This is not just a border dynamic anymore.



Honestly, i dont think that even China wants it to become another NATO-style organisation.

The CSTO is ok as long as its not targeted towards China. Plus it a good message towards Russia that China doesn't have any miliatry ambitions towards that region. IMO the biggest goal for SCO will always be antiterrorism and countering any colour revolutions.


Russia simply doesn't have any qualifications to compete with China on this field. I know that it sounds arrogant but normally the countries shouldnt even be on Russia's military influence but that a debate for another time

Russia is simply too weak to compete economically. And as time passes (already started actually), it will lose more and more economic influence on the region.




Correct me if I am wrong but I think it recently (few past years) started having some economic influence. IMO it is still in early stages and with so many members it takes time to make any decision which is why you now see China taking a step back from these big orgs, and focusing on smaller more agile forums


This is ofc a valid point and it is obviously preferable from China's point of view.

IMO whats important is if any potential future strategies were discussed between Russia-China on what they would do if India sided with the US. I find it impossible for these discussions to not happen before letting India join SCO.

If China really didnt have any discussions with Russia on any potential Indian treachery then the Chinese diplomatic corps should be thrown into jail for life



QUAD has recently gained some (very low) relevancy. As for NATO or any other military alliance, I doubt that India would join it because it would open a new whole can of worms. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka etc would join China to resist India.

There is no way that India's neighbours will accept such a thing in their region.

Anyway I will stop here. This discussion is obviously offtopic

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We agree on every point.

Also, SCO was founded few months before Afghanistan invasion by US....and SCO was instrumental in getting one of the Central Asian (Tajikstan?) states to kick out US air force base (for Afghanistan war)....so US lost it's presence there and forced to rely on Pakistan (lol) as supply route....so maybe it was a way for Russia-China to counter US presence in Central Asia.

weig2000 said:

If only India were less delusional and more pragmatic, that is.

Chinese strategic community has long realized, based on decades of experience dealing with India, that what India demands from China are permanent concessions (territory, relationship with Pakistan, etc.) while what China desires from India is reversible, that is, not joining any anti-China alliance. In any case, what India wants are way beyond the balance of power dictates with China. With the power differentials being increasing year by year, Indian threat is manageable for China. India, meanwhile, carries the increasing burden of a competing and adversarial relationship with a neighbor far more powerful that it while missing the opportunity from a cooperative relationship with the world's second largest, soon to be the largest, economy.



SEA countries, particularly Vietnam and Philippine, still have not come to the point to realize that their claims will not prevail in their entirety and they need to come to the table to negotiate a grand bargain deal on both territorial and resources claims in SCS. They still pin their hope on The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the US hegemony.

To be fair, China only recently has gained bargaining power by building islands in SCS and increasing its naval power, which occurred within the last decade. And it's hard to argue that PLAN had dislodged the USN from the dominant position in SCS entirely. Plus, the claims from SEA countries and China are all entangled, therefore any negotiation would have to be multiparty.

In short, the SCS claimants are not in a position to start to negotiate a final deal yet. SCS is too strategically important to China to make any unilateral concessions. For now, the best way to maintain the calm of the situation for everyone (within the region that is) is to complete the negotiation of the Code of Conduct.

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Very great post, I agree with every single point.

If you're an American company how to weigh the odds between ire from Americans or from the Chinese. Americans could care less especially since American still keep buying made in China with accusations of slave labor but now the biggest Islamophobes on the planet all of sudden care about Uighurs that they would have never heard of if they didn't hate China or Chinese calling for a boycott of their products over American foreign policy hypocrisy. American humanitarianism isn't going to win. American greed will.


Let me guess... coexist in peace means China has submit to every US demand while the US gives up nothing. What ever happened to cooperation between the US and China is over. If peaceful coexistence is possible, that would require cooperation. I don't even know why Kirk Campbell has a job unless this is more what they want to believe to be true. All his ideas have failed on China and never comes out like thinks.