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China's expansionism
1.0 INTRODUCTION
After dramatically increasing its military expenditure over the last several years, in 2010 China has raised it by only 7.5 percent, marking the first time in nearly 21 years that the rate of increase has fallen below double digits. While there are a number of factors behind this, the Chinese government has used this to announce its pacific intent, underlining that it has always tried to limit military spending and set defence spending at a reasonable level. China's foreign policy thinkers and political establishment have long sought to convince the world that Beijing's rise is meant to be a peaceful one, that China has no expansionist intentions, that it will be a different kind of great power.
2.0 CHINA AND JAPAN
There are few economies and societies on earth more complementary than China's and Japan's. The Chinese are relatively young, poor and restless and fiercely committed to economic growth. The Japanese are relatively old and advanced (hence sated), but technologically advanced and devoted to guarding their high standard of living. Proximity would seem to make the two nations ideally suited to benefit from each other.
But Japan is afraid of China's rise, because the Chinese economy is so much more dynamic than Japan's. And China is troubled by Japan, because the island nation seems to act as an unsinkable American aircraft carrier just off its coast!
Over the last year, nationalists in both countries have fought a war of words over the disputed islands that Japan calls Senkaku and China calls Diaoyu. Japan's new right-wing prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has alarmed Chinese leaders with his calls for revisiting its commitment to pacifism, enshrined in the American-imposed postwar constitution, and for making the school curriculum more patriotic.
The real explanation lies further back. Japan's rise in the late 19th century was seen as an affront by China, which had always felt entitled to the mantle of regional leadership. Mao Zedong and other founders of the Chinese Communist Party adopted these views and bequeathed them to their successors.
Most Chinese today therefore regard Japan's wealth, and its position as America's main ally in Asia, as results of ill-gotten gains. Even when the Chinese state was at its weakest, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its elites felt that the Confucianism China had exported to its key neighbors - Korea, Japan and Vietnam - was the root of a common culture. Other countries in the "Confucian zone" were supposed to simply accept China's natural leadership.
Beijing's policies in the South China Sea today resemble those of the Qing empire, China's last ruling dynasty, in the late 18th century. The emperor then, Qianlong, liked to speak to the "myriad nations" to the south as a father would address his children. Current Chinese leaders, who are exerting their influence in countries like Vietnam and Laos, echo his paternalism.
It is unlikely that China's neighbors will appreciate this now any more than they did then. Qianlong got involved in a war in Vietnam in the 1780s that severely weakened his empire. Since then, the countries in the region have had their own waves of nationalism, often in response to Western colonialism. Indonesia, a country of 248 million, does not regard itself as "small," even compared with a giant like China. It is bound to seek to counter China's power unless Chinese attitudes and policies change.
For its part, Japan veers between accommodating China and competing with it. Even though Japan's imperialism is a thing of the past, some of the attitudes that gave rise to it persist. Mr. Abe, the grandson of a former prime minister regarded by many Chinese as a war criminal, seems to embody such views.
Although most Japanese recognize the importance of trade with and investments in China, national security at the moment seems more important.
Japan's sins of omission in dealing fully with its past hinder its present foreign policy, but they pale in comparison with China's historical sense of entitlement to regional hegemony and its virulent new form of state-sanctioned anti-Japanese nationalism. Sadly, these chauvinist attitudes are unlikely to change under the new Communist leadership installed in 2012.
Even China's diplomatic language emphasizes toeing the party's line on history rather than discerning present-day interests, and it assumes that only one position in international affairs - usually China's - can be correct.
China today has much more to gain from cooperation with Japan than from conflict. Harping about past sins and inflaming the dispute over the islands do little good. If China is to become the predominant power in the region, it can only do so with Japan, not against it.
As France and Germany have demonstrated, perceptions can change when national interest demands it. But shifting Beijing's thinking from hierarchy to cooperation will require strong leadership and a nuanced understanding of national interests. China's recent leaders haven't inspired much hope of either.
Of course, the very nature of power makes this largely a charade, but more surprising is that western liberals have tended to take these assertions at face value. There is an entire industry in the West that would have us believe that China is actually a different kind of a great power and that if the west could simply give China a stake in the established order, Beijing's rise would not create any complications.
3.0 SENKAKU-DIAYOu ISLANDS
Maps and texts from both [the two Chinese governments in Taipei and Beijing] during the period between 1895, when Japan seized the [Senkaku] islands, and 1971, when the claim was first mentioned, have three things in common:
- they always assign their sovereignty to Japan;
- they refer to them using the Japanese names; and
- they never refer to the disputed status of the islands. Simply put, there was no "dispute" over the Senkaku until after scientists raised the possibility of oil in the area in the late 1960s.
Since 1970 the People's Republic of China, Taiwan and Japan have all put forward bold sovereignty claims over the islands, which are equidistant from Taiwan and the southwestern tip of the Ryukyus. According to Chinese sources the first mention of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands is in a 15th-century document now held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Early sources tended to mention only the islands' location on the voyage to the Ryukyus from China, but by the 17th century Chinese sources clearly named the maritime boundary between the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and the Ryukyus as the Heishuigou ('Black Water Trench'), an area of high turbulence which we now know marks the edge of the continental shelf. In 1720 Xu Baoguang, the deputy Chinese ambassador sent to confer the royal title upon the Ryukyuan king, collaborated with the local literati to compile the travelogue Zhongshan Chuanxin lu (Record of the Mission to Chusan), which demarcated the westernmost border of the Ryukyuan kingdom at Kume-jima south of the Heishuigou Trench. Deputy ambassador Zhou Huang likewise identified Heishuigou as the boundary in 1756 and later the envoy Li Dingyuan noted the practice of sacrificing a live goat or pig when convoys crossed the trench. In the late 19th century the reformer Wang Tao, who had had experience of travelling in Europe, responded to the Japanese annexation of the Ryukyus by referring to Japanese sources which listed the Ryukyus as a separate country in 1670. He argued that even though the islands were vassals of both China and the Japanese state of Satsuma, the former relationship was more formal; the conquest of an inner tributary (Ryukyus) by an outer tributary (Japan) of China was a cause for outrage.
In contrast Japan's argument largely ignored the historical position put forward in Chinese accounts. Claiming that the uninhabited islands were not occupied by any power, or terra nullius, Japan annexed the islands in 1895 shortly after its victory in the Sino-Japanese War. Japan claimed that the islands were 'discovered' in 1884 by Fukuoka merchant Koga Tatsushiro, who then applied to lease the land from the Japanese state. At the time, however, the interior ministry noted that it was still unclear as to whether the islands belonged to Japan, especially as there was detailed knowledge of the islands in Chinese and Ryukyuan writings, making Koga's claims of 'discovery' difficult to substantiate. Nonetheless a Cabinet decision in 1895 ruled that the islands should become part of Japan, which provided the basis for their inclusion in Japan's territories under the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1952 that concluded the Second World War in Asia, but at which neither China nor Taiwan were present.
From the Chinese perspective there is little substance to Japan's claims that the islands were not 'occupied', given that a fine distinction exists between 'uninhabited' and 'unoccupied'. Sources suggest that there are graves of Taiwanese fishermen on the island. Although US occupation authorities in Okinawa administered the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands from 1945 until 1972 and used them as a training base, the US government did not see the transfer to Japan of the right of administration over the islands as equivalent to the transfer of sovereignty, which it insisted was a matter to be resolved by the relevant parties. Realising that such an ambiguity existed, the Okinawa Legislative Assembly, still under US control at the time, passed a resolution in August 1970 which declared the islands to be part of Japan and its claims were backed up by the then foreign minister Aichi Kiichi in the National Diet. In the meantime Taiwan issued an official protest, followed before the end of the year by similar complaints voiced by official Chinese media.
The dispute over the islands is a time bomb, given the enormity of the stakes involved. Despite Japanese claims that Chinese and Taiwanese interests in the islands are guided primarily by the possibility of major oil deposits, there has been little constructive dialogue between the countries involved in the question of the recent disputes over ownership of the islands. This remains at the very centre of broader tension between China and Japan, with the Nanjing Massacre of 1937 a focal point. Japan's intransigent position on atrocities committed during the Second World War helps to fuel Chinese popular sentiment against it and makes the country an easy scapegoat for domestic discontent. Yet these days it is also easy to forget that China was the underdog for much of the 20th century; even today China is less articulate on the global scene than Japan.
The Chinese stance over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands is comparable with the situation in the 1930s when Nationalist China refused to accept or acknowledge Japan's control over Manchuria (Manchukuo in Japanese) despite widespread concern that militarily China would not be able to withstand Japanese aggression. By refusing to recognise Japanese control over the lost territories China sought to destabilise the foreign presence there even though the Chinese Nationalist government then based in Nanjing was unable to exert physical control. At the same time the government's defiance of Japan helped to consolidate its claim to be China's sole and legitimate rulers. China's insistence on its sovereignty over Manchuria during the 1930s and over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands now is overwhelmingly more important in driving its foreign policy than the stress on physical control that is common to the West. The tussle between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan is another such example. Despite Taiwan's physical separation from the mainland, it would be unthinkable for any Beijing government to consider it culturally or politically separate. Any attempt by Taiwan to declare formal independence is likely to end in armed conflict.
The situation viewed from Tokyo today sees a more assertive China flexing its muscles and imposing an arbitrary or at least un-western and unfamiliar logic on the world, infringing Japan's control over territories that so far as it is concerned were acquired legally in the 19th century under the prevailing norms of the time.
4.0 CREATION OF ADIZ
Beijing's creation of a new Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) became the latest challenge to Japanese control of the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands. More significantly, it fits into the rollback strategy against the American military dominion in the western Pacific.
The ADIZ move is not confrontational compared to the intrusions of Chinese government vessels into Senkaku territorial waters, although if the PLA Air Force were to take hostile measures in international air space against foreign aircraft, the consequences would be more serious. So far, it has not.
Japan and the United States can respond in several ways. They can take a minimalist approach. This entails refusing to comply with the ADIZ for military and official (such as coast guard) aircraft, but otherwise abstaining from action. A maximalist approach would make life harder for Chinese airlines in Japan and the U.S. (inspections, delays at immigration, tedious security checks for the crews), embargoing critical U.S.-made spare parts for Chinese Boeing and Airbus jetliners, and so forth.
If the Chinese Communist Party is on a warpath against what it sees as an American empire in decadent decline, harsh countermeasures are needed to make it obvious that the U.S. and its partners won't cave. If China is not about to start a fight, then there is no need to add fuel to the fire. Unfortunately, Clausewitz' insight that "three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty" applies to diplomacy as well. The Prussian thinker continued, calling for a "A sensitive and discriminating judgment to scent out the truth."
The Korean angle is important in calibrating the U.S. and Japanese response. The Chinese ADIZ threatens Korean maritime claims. But the Republic of Korea (ROK) is vulnerable to Chinese pressure, both politically on account of China's ties with North Korea, and economically. This makes it harder for Seoul to take a hard line, though it did not hide its opposition to the ADIZ. It is easier for the U.S. and Japan to forge a "common front" with the ROK if they adopt a firm but mild attitude towards China.
Additionally, Korean displeasure at China may open the door to an improvement of Korea-Japan ties. This will not happen quickly given the poisoned emotional politics of this relationship, but it should affect U.S. and Japanese calculus.
A "soft" response to the ADIZ episode does not preclude beefing up the U.S. and Japanese militaries. China's moves also provides further assistance in developing a broader anti-PRC coalition for the U.S. and Japan. Numerous countries in China's neighborhood, including perhaps Russia, worry about Beijing. However, they wish to avoid confronting it if at all possible. If they perceive Washington and Tokyo as being warmongers, they will not cooperate with them. However, if they think that the U.S. and Japan are geared towards appeasement, they will kowtow to Beijing. Hence the importance for the U.S. and Japan to invest in their armed forces, but to do so calmly.
The Middle Kingdom is undergoing an unfinished metamorphosis that began more than a century ago. It may yet end tragically for everybody but this is far from certain. Fortunately for the U.S. and Japan, China is far weaker than the West. Growth has made the PRC highly vulnerable. The People's Republic is integrated into trade routes that are at the mercy of the U.S. Navy and Air Force and their allies. Chinese require raw materials and technology imported from U.S. allies or areas the U.S. can control. The U.S. and its partners can confiscate many of China's overseas securities and property. The children of the Communist Party ruling strata (as well as many spouses) are living in luxury in North America, Australia, and the U.K., ready to be interned as enemy aliens.
Comparisons with pre-1914 Germany are mistaken. China is less stable than Germany was on the eve of the Great War. The Kaiser's realm was then the most scientifically advanced country on earth, which China’s is not. Finally, the German elite took seriously its duty to serve emperor and country. There is no indication that the children of the rich and powerful in China want to give up the pleasures of Western campuses followed by the rewards of global finance for the honour of wearing the PLA uniform.
Moreover, China is less dangerous than the late U.S.S.R. was. Moscow wanted to exterminate capitalism from this planet, making muscular deterrence and sometimes offensive action the only option. Its militarized economy created a formidable Eurasian force despite relative penury. Its autarkic system was relatively invulnerable to anything but the application of crushing power against the Soviet homeland itself.
The game with China - which is not a war for the time being - is one where the US-led alliances hold a stronger hand, but they will still need to play it well if they are to prevail.
5.0 THE STRING OF PEARLS THEORY
The "string of pearls" strategy of bases and diplomatic ties includes the Gwadar port in Pakistan, naval bases in Burma, electronic intelligence gathering facilities on islands in the Bay of Bengal, funding construction of a canal across the Kra Isthmus in Thailand, a military agreement with Cambodia and building up of forces in the South China Sea. These "pearls" are to help build strategic ties with several countries along the sea lanes from the Middle East to the South China Sea in order to protect China's energy interests and security objectives. Some of the claims are exaggerated, as has been the case with the purported Chinese naval presence in Burma. The Indian government, for example, had to concede in 2005 that reports of China turning the Coco Islands in Burma into a naval base were incorrect and that there were indeed no naval bases in Burma.
Still, the Chinese thrust into the Indian Ocean is gradually becoming more pronounced. The Chinese may not have a naval base in Burma but they are involved in upgrading of infrastructure in the Coco Islands and may be providing some limited technical assistance to Burma.
With almost 80 percent of China's oil passing through the Strait of Malacca, given its reluctance to rely on US naval power for unhindered access to energy, it has moved to build up its naval power at choke points along the sea routes from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea.
China is courting other states in South Asia by building container ports in Bangladesh at Chittagong and in Sri Lanka at Hambantota. Consolidating its access to the Indian Ocean, China has signed an agreement with Sri Lanka to finance the development of the Hambantota Development Zone at the southern tip of Sri Lanka, which includes a container port, a bunker system and an oil refinery. China's activities at Marao in the Maldives have also generated apprehension in New Delhi.
China's involvement in the construction of the deep-sea port of Gwadar on the Southwest coast of Pakistan has attracted a lot of attention due to its strategic location, about 70 kilometres from the Iranian border and 400 kilometers east of the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil supply route. It has been suggested that it will provide China with a "listening post" from where it can "monitor US naval activity in the Persian Gulf, Indian activity in the Arabian Sea, and future US-Indian maritime cooperation in the Indian Ocean." Though Pakistan's naval capabilities alone pose no challenge to India, the combinations of Chinese and Pakistani naval forces can indeed be formidable for India to counter.
Recent suggestions emanating from Beijing that China is contemplating setting up military bases overseas to counter American influence and exert pressure on India have been interpreted in certain sections in New Delhi as a veiled reference to China's interest in securing a permanent military presence in Pakistan. Although it might not be politically feasible for the Pakistani government to openly allow China to set up a military base, New Delhi fears that Islamabad might allow Beijing use of its military facilities without any public announcement.
It is possible to explain the construction of these ports and facilities by China on purely economic and commercial grounds, but regional and global powers like the US, Japan and India inevitably view the sum total of China's diplomatic and military efforts in the Indian Ocean as projecting power vis-à-vis competing rivals. Moreover, most of Chinese naval facilities in the Indian Ocean are dual use in nature and no serious strategy can discount their future military use.
Whatever China's vision, together with its expansive military budget and accelerated global search for energy and other natural resources, it has built up all aspects of its maritime economy and created one of the world's largest merchant fleets with a port, transport, and ship-building infrastructure to match.10 Certainly, the Indian Ocean could play an important role in Chinese efforts to establish a position as a leading maritime power in the region. And this is resulting in Sino-Indian competition for influence in the Indian Ocean and beyond. Despite significant improvement in Sino-Indian ties since the late 1990s, the relationship remains competitive and China has succeeded in containing India within the confines of South Asia by building close ties with India's key neighbours, in particular with Pakistan.
For its part, China is merely following in the footsteps of other major global powers, which have established military bases abroad to secure their interests. There is only one kind of great power, and one kind of great power tradition. China will not be any different; power is necessarily expansionist.
6.0 INDIA - ASEAN
After increasing co-operation between India and ASEAN as a part of the government's 'Look-East Policy', India is now taking the initiative of promoting India-Mekong Economic Cooperation. Both sides are also planning for a Mekong-India Economic Corridor which will form an integral part of the India-ASEAN connectivity.
India had been working upon the idea to promote Mekong-Ganga Cooperation which includes India, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam for a very long time. It was originally decided as part of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral, Technical, and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) initiative in 2004.
However, it seems the idea is now gaining some traction as India prepares to sign the much-awaited free trade agreement on services and investment with ASEAN in December, which will then become India-ASEAN Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
The Mekong-India Economic Corridor (MIEC) will be a network of land and sea infrastructure and the proposal is currently being studied by ministry of external affairs (MEA). The basis of this corridor will be the larger India-ASEAN connectivity plans. It envisages the linking of vibrant emerging economies in the ASEAN region with India.
The Mekong Ganga Cooperation (MGC) includes India, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam for cooperation in trade, tourism, culture, education, as well as transport and communication.
The prospect of further liberalization between ASEAN and major regional economies, including India , was aided by the agreement in November 2012, to begin negotiations in 2013, on a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The recent political reform process in Myanmar, a key bridge between the regions-now makes possible, land connectivity between South and Southeast Asia, which was not feasible a few years ago, according to a study done by CII.
Trade between India and ASEAN have risen by nearly 10 times in last 11 years to $76 billion in 2012-2013, surpassing the set target of $70 billion. India and ASEAN has a combined population 1.8 billion. It is expected that bilateral trade will reach $100 billion by 2015 with the implementation of India-ASEAN CEPA in July 2015.
Mekong-India connectivity is currently being addressed as part of the Asian Highway Network and Trans-Asian Railways being promoted by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
7.0 THE COMPETITION IN AFRICA
From the southern tip of their own continent and across to Latin America, Asia's two rising and aspiring powers are set to compete for supremacy and the mantle of superpower status. But it's in between these two points that the biggest competition between China and India is set to unfold. Forget Central Asia-Africa is the scene of the next 'great game.'
The reason why the two will zero in on Africa is simple-both have burgeoning, resource hungry populations and rapidly growing economies. If they are to have any chance of sustained competition with developed Western economies, they will need access to the rich natural resources that Africa can provide.
China already looks to have a significant edge on its rival, with two-way trade with Africa set to top $100 billion this year, compared to about a third of that between India and Africa last year.
Beijing has, after all, been actively courting allies through the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which since October 2000 has had regular summits attended by the Chinese premier and dozens of African heads of state.
And India's response was a relative flop. It tried to follow in China's footsteps by launching the India-Africa Forum Summit. However, at its first and only summit so far, in April 2008, only 14 African countries were represented out of a possible 53.
Part of the problem is that India's External Affairs Ministry is still infused with what's known in diplomatic circles as 'Pakistani Syndrome'-an unhealthy focus among Indian diplomats at the highest echelons of government, including the national security advisor, on India's western neighbour.
China's African ambitions, in contrast, are not hamstrung by such regional concerns. Although the Chinese dragon is surrounded by what it sees as a sea of sharks wanting to curtail its influence in East Asia and the Pacific-namely India, Japan, Russia, the United States and Russia-it has a broad enough worldview and understanding of international relations to continue to focus on the valuable development of Africa.
Another Chinese advantage has been that many countries in Africa, including Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Namibia and Sudan, feel a sense of obligation toward China after it helped them when they were confronted with the spectre of civil war following the demise of the Soviet Union.
After a surge of attention on the continent during the Cold War, the US and Russia lost interest in spending money in Africa, leaving instability-and space for China to step in. The gaps the two big powers left that China has sought to fill were big ones, with many African nations having depended heavily on their Cold War sponsors in the 1960s and 1970s for state-building assistance after securing independence from their colonial masters. Withdrawal pulled the rug from under any prospects for stability.
But China has not just lent financial support to secure goodwill. As parts of Africa were wracked by civil war in the 1990s, China used its leverage as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council to ensure affected countries received funds and peacekeeping assistance.
The assistance was partly payback from China for the debt it owed many countries on the continent for backing the People's Republic of China efforts to be recognized at the United Nations instead of the Republic of China (Taiwan), a shift that finally occurred in 1971. China received significant backing from African nations who themselves felt they had benefitted from the close, revolutionary ties that Mao had forged in the 1960s. China also, in many Africans' eyes, acted as an even-handed player, accommodating either the Soviet or US position in a given African country depending on the 'merits' of their case.
Such ties have given China far better first-hand knowledge of African affairs than India, despite the latter's closer proximity.
But India does have a crucial advantage - its political system is a lot more appealing than China's. China may be awash with cash to invest, but numerous questions have already been raised about the effects of China's investment in Africa, with some questioning whether the honeymoon is over.
India can capitalize on such reservations by ensuring it contributes robustly to peacekeeping forces in Africa, a move that would be smiled upon by the African Union. Indeed, the African Union shouldn't be seen as the only worthwhile forum for India to court-the Economic Community for the West African States also has security capabilities that India could support.
In addition, India can work creatively to counter China's use of, for example, former Portuguese colony Macau to court Lusophone countries for trade by turning to its own regions like Goa (another former Portuguese colony) and Pondicherry (a former French colony that could be useful in nurturing ties with Africa's Francophone nations).
A century and more ago, Western colonizers of Africa had also subjugated Indian and Chinese interests. Fast forward to the 21st century and these two nations have an opportunity to project their might through an independent Africa.
8.0 MISSILE TECHNOLOGIES
The Agni-V is the latest in a series of Indian-developed missiles of varying ranges and capabilities. With a range of 5,000 km (3,100 miles) is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the Chinese capital Beijing. It will become operational by 2015, adding significantly to India's nuclear punch. Then will come Agni-VI, with a longer range and deadlier weapon delivery capabilities.
Indeed, western experts have been quick to play down the significance of the Indian missile test, noting that the nuclear dynamics of the region are complicated and involve other countries, not just India and China.
Jeffrey Lewis, who heads the East Asia Non-proliferation Programme at the Center for Non-proliferation Studies in Monterey, California, puts it this way: "Beijing tends to focus much more on the United States, rather than India. Indian officials talk about China much more than their Chinese counterparts talk about them."
Indeed, he suspects that "New Delhi's emphasis on China is more about slighting Pakistan than competing with China."
China is already modernising its own nuclear-armed medium and intermediate-range missile systems that could be used to target India. But as Taylor Fravel notes, "India and China have similar nuclear doctrines, as both emphasize no first use and achieving deterrence through development of a secure second strike."
It should be remembered that compared to Russia and the United States, China and India have relatively small nuclear arsenals. China is believed to have a stockpile of around 240 warheads, with perhaps 175 of them active.
In recent years it has been deploying more modern solid-fuelled missiles like the two-stage DF-5A with a true inter-continental range capable of threatening the United States. It deploys a number of shorter-range systems like the DF-21 - a potential threat to India.
China's modernisation of its nuclear deterrent includes the development of a small number of submarines capable of carrying ballistic missiles, but it is not yet judged to have an operational sea-going submarine-launch capability.
India, in contrast, is believed to have around 100 nuclear warheads, some capable of being dropped from aircraft. But the bulk of its nuclear punch rests upon short-range Prithvi missiles and medium-range variants of the Agni missile.
India, too, is seeking to take its nuclear deterrent to sea. It is building a new class of nuclear-powered submarines intended to carry ballistic missiles. The first of these Arihant-class boats has already been launched and is expected to enter service next year. Five more are planned.
However, Jeffrey Lewis suggests that it is wrong to see in the dynamics between Beijing and Delhi echoes of the Cold War arms race between the US and the Soviet Union.
"Both countries,"he argues, "tend to pursue the same specific capabilities, but neither produces large numbers of nuclear weapons or nuclear-capable missiles."
He suggests that both China and India seem to be pursuing what he calls a "possession" oriented approach to nuclear modernisation: "They are developing in turn small numbers of ever more advanced capabilities held by other powers.
According to Taylor Fravel, "the main strategic dynamic behind China's nuclear modernisation is the need to maintain a secure second-strike capability". In other words, the ability to launch a counter-attack if China is attacked with nuclear weapons.
"From China's perspective," he says, "the main threat to this capability comes from United States, which has been developing both ballistic missile defences that could prevent China from launching a counter-attack and long-range precision strike capabilities that could be used to attack China's nuclear forces (or command and control systems) with conventional and not nuclear weapons."
Indeed, it is in the United States that some of the most active debate is underway on the significance or otherwise of China's nuclear modernisation.
This comes against a backdrop of discussion about eventually reducing the US military arsenal further - below the 1,550 deployed warheads set by the most recent arms reduction agreement with Moscow. It should be noted that the US arsenal in 2010 stood at some 2,468 operational warheads according to the respected journal, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Some in the US see China's modernisation plans - especially its move to develop a sea-going component for its nuclear deterrent - as indicative of a growing threat to the continental United States.
Critics of China point to a huge network of underground tunnels which some believe could be hiding a significant part of its nuclear arsenal. Other analysts take a less dramatic view, arguing that everything we know about the Chinese deterrent suggests a more purposeful and slower pace of modernisation. These differences were on display when the House Armed Services Committee took evidence from various experts in October of last year.
What everyone could agree on was that a lack of transparency on the part of Beijing remains a serious problem in making any accurate assessment of China's nuclear trajectory.
9.0 THE GREAT FIREWALL OF CHINA
The Golden Shield Project is an internet censorship and surveillance project initiated by the Ministry of Public Security of the Government of China. It was initiated in 1998 and its operations commenced in November 2003. This project is known as the Great Firewall of China. A variety of tricks are employed to censor China's Internet and block access to various foreign websites. It is considered as the largest, most extensive and most advanced internet censorship regime in the world. The various techniques that are used are
DNS Poisoning: When a person tries to connect to a website like twitter.com, his computer contacts its DNS servers and asks for the IP address associated with the website. If an invalid response is received by the user, he ends up looking for the website at the wrong location and will not be able to connect. China intentionally poisons its DNS caches with wrong addresses for websites like Twitter, making them inaccessible.
Blocking Access to IPs: The Great Firewall of China can also block access to certain IP addresses. For example, to prevent people from accessing Twitter's servers even by accessing it directly at a certain IP or by using unofficial DNS servers that haven't been poisoned, China could block access to the IP address of Twitter's servers. This technique would also block other websites located at the same address if they're using shared hosting.
Analyzing and Filtering URLs: The firewall can scan URLs and block connections if they contain sensitive keywords. For example, research shows us that http://en.wikipedia.org is accessible from within China, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China is not accessible - the firewall is looking at the URL and deciding to block web pages that appear to be about Internet censorship.
Inspecting and Filtering Packets: "Deep packet inspection" can be used to examine unencrypted packets, looking for sensitive content. A search performed on a search engine will fail if the content to be searched contains politically controversial keywords such as 'Tiananmen Square' as the packets associated with the search are examined and blocked.
Resetting Connections: Evidence suggests that, after the Great Firewall blocks such packets, it will block communication between both computers for a period of time. The firewall does this by sending a "reset packet," essentially lying to both computers and telling them that the connection was reset so they can't talk to each other.
Blocking VPNs: In late 2012, the Great Firewall started trying to block VPNs. VPNs were previously used to escape the Great Firewall. They're also critical for many business users, so this was a surprising move. The firewall learns to identify what encrypted VPN traffic looks like and kills VPN connections.
In December 2014, in what is seen as another phase of the censorship campaign, China tightened access to Goggle's email service. China's government has unveiled a smarter and stricter Internet filter, riling web users and widening the divide between China's Internet and the World Wide Web.
In January 2015, an upgrade to China's web filters made it more difficult to use services called virtual private networks to circumvent the country's blocks to U.S. services like Google and Facebook. According to Chinese officials, new measures are needed as the Internet is evolving. This is being seen as an indication of China's desire to create a parallel Internet environment that it can more easily control. The web filters serve a dual purpose of screening out content critical of the Chinese government and providing protection for China's own growing web firms against stronger overseas rivals. The Chinese government is also insisting upon U.S. technology companies to submit to intrusive security inspections, according to U.S. business groups.
10.0 SOCIAL MEDIA IN CHINA
QQ: As a messaging platform similar to Skype, QQ offers comprehensive Web communication functions such as text messaging, video chat, voice chat, online, and features that allows users to send files on and offline. At June 2014, QQ's monthly active users (MAU) hit 829 users.
Since its launch in 1999 by Tencent, QQ has since expanded to include services such as social games, music, shopping, and microblogging. In April 2014, the service recorded 200 million simultaneous online users. As it is an older platform, QQ has had to offer additional features in order to stay relevant - and it did so with its instant messaging app Mobile QQ. After joining the mobile payment space with QQ Wallet, which was launched in July this year, newly integrated lifestyle services include shopping, restaurant deals, and even health monitoring.
Despite its reach and new features, QQ is rarely used for marketing, as its users are predominantly young students in rural areas who don't have a lot of spending power.
Qzone: Qzone is a social networking website launched in 2005 that offers similar services to QQ such as blogging, photo sending, music, and videos. Tencent 2014 first-quarter figures put Qzone monthly active users at 644 million.
WeChat: Wechat completes the trinity of social media of Tencent. With its seemingly endless array of features including voice and group chat, video call, walkie-talkie, and people nearby, WeChat is a formidable force in the Chinese social networking space.
At June 2014, WeChat had 438 million active monthly users.
Compared to its messaging rival WhatsApp, WeChat has been far more focused in monetizing its platform within the social and mobile spheres with its in-app e-commerce and services. Besides gifting friends and family a red pocket during Chinese New Year, WeChat users can upgrade while gaming, buy shoes, and even book a taxi.
Besides outreaching to users in-group, chats of up to 500 people, brands can also use WeChat to advertise in a number of ways. Brands can set up a WeChat service account, which allows them to engage with customers by sending targeted material and use affiliate sales channel Weidian to analyze their users' shopping habits and preferences. Businesses can also place QR codes in high-trafficked places for users to follow their brand, use the location-based service function to target offers, and ads to nearby users, and use the "throw a bottle" feature to raise awareness about charities or discounts.
Weibo: Popularly known as China's twitter, in September 2014, Sina Weibo boasted of 167 million monthly active users. Despite stiff competition from newer player WeChat, financial results released in November, show Weibo's third-quarter revenues grew 58 percent year-over-year to $84.1 million.
Weibo has an active presence in the Mainland market - especially among the younger demographic. Weibo's sway has a lot to do with its influential user accounts such as business tycoons, Asian celebrities, and media figures. It initially launched as "Sina Weibo," but shed the "Sina" prefix back in March.
Coach is one of Weibo's top brands as it focuses on interacting with followers and running mini-campaigns. For example, their 2013 "New York Style" campaign featured five Chinese fashion bloggers in a video, then had fans voting on their favorite street styles for a chance to win Coach merchandise. With more than 640,000 followers and 3,200 posts, Coach was named "Most Digitally Competent American Fashion Brand in China" in 2013 by the Digital IQ Index.
RenRen: Called the "Facebook clone of China," RenRen not only fronts a similar layout and colors but also has a lot of the same features - such as profile creation, a friend's list, fan pages, and a messaging application.
Its origins are also similar to Facebook, as it started out as a network exclusively for college students. As of June 30, 2014, RenRen's social network had approximately 214 million activated users. With its large user base, access to the Mainland market, and similarities to Facebook - foreign brands can easily use RenRen to engage with Chinese consumers.
However, RenRen has made some missteps in recent years, such as almost entirely missing the mobile revolution, and as a result their user base has been declining.
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