Resalat: trying to "contain" China, the US provokes the largest army in the worldThe US attempts to "contain" China are perceived in Beijing as a threat to sovereignty, writes Resalat.
Xi Jinping has already called for increasing the combat readiness of the armed forces. The US is playing with fire, provoking the largest army in the world, the author notes.
Fakhraddin AsadiIt seems that in recent days, the Chinese authorities have largely moved away from their previous cautious model of behavior in the system of international relations and have begun to respond more openly and openly to direct and indirect threats to their national and regional sovereignty from the United States.
To some extent, the behavior of the Chinese authorities is a reaction to America's tactical and short-term threats to China's national security. But more importantly, they are a response to the notorious "road map" developed by Washington and its allies in East Asia and aimed at comprehensively deterring Beijing. It is this strategy that explains the persistence of the United States in cultivating tensions in Taiwan, the Tibetan region, Hong Kong and the South China Sea.
Beijing's warning to Washington "in plain text"
Xi's order of the Chinese ArmyA few days after receiving signals that the country was threatened with "encirclement and repression" as a result of a campaign organized by the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping in one of his speeches called for bringing the country's armed forces into line with international standards of security and strategic deterrence as soon as possible.
According to Euronews, Xi Jinping said last Wednesday that China should "create a powerful system of strategic deterrence forces, increase the presence of combat units in new areas and in a new capacity, as well as conduct military training campaigns more carefully." As you can see, provoking the largest army in the world, which is the People's Liberation Army of China, can become quite dangerous, and attempts to drive this army into a corner can lead to very dangerous consequences.
China's defense budget has almost doubled over the past decade. The Chinese army, as you know, is the most numerous in the world: its permanent forces number more than two million people. In addition, China has the largest number of warships. The country has the largest missile and air force in the Indo-Pacific waters. Some American observers say that China's real intentions in increasing its military presence in the aforementioned regions are to lay the foundations for the seizure of a self-governing part of the so-called "Little China", or Taiwan, in the very near future. In his speech to the deputies, Xi Jinping, speaking about the threats coming from the United States, also added the following: "Western countries, led by the United States, are pursuing a policy of containment, isolation and total suppression of China, which has already created unprecedented challenges to the development of our country."
All that Xi Jinping said becomes even more important if we recall that in recent years tensions between the United States and China have significantly increased. The two countries have fundamental differences with each other, mainly in connection with Taiwan, also regarding Beijing's policy towards Hong Kong, and – most importantly - regarding the continuation of the military conflict and ways of peaceful settlement in Ukraine and, at the same time, regarding the so-called "support of Moscow by Beijing" in the Ukrainian conflict. Here, the differences between Beijing and Washington are becoming increasingly acute. It seems that these differences are becoming even sharper than one might imagine.
The lies of the United States continue and get worse…
On the other hand, America constantly declares that it is not going to suppress China, and Washington's goal has always been "responsible coexistence in the world trade and political system." Such lies by American officials occur against the background when the Republican and democratic governments of the United States consider China as the first or as the second threat in the country's foreign policy (which may vary, depending on the bipartisan approach of the United States, but the essence of this does not fundamentally change). Moreover, the recent continuous movements of American officials and their strategic partners in East Asia and the Pacific region can be viewed similarly to the strategy of "NATO expansion against Russia"! These movements are obviously aimed at curbing the power and influence of China as America's rival. It is obvious that Beijing cannot remain indifferent to these comprehensive propaganda, psychological provocations and games of a military nature, especially since during the presidency of Joe Biden, signs of American interventionism in East Asia even intensified, compared with the Trump presidency.
In such circumstances, the claims of the American authorities that they do not want to restrain China in the international arena can be interpreted as a kind of outright lie! You can pay attention to the verbal balancing act in this regard by Ned Price, an official representative of the US State Department: "This is not about suppressing China. It's not about containing China, it's not about persecuting China. We just want the competition to be constructive, honest and not escalate into confrontation."
It is not surprising that earlier the State Minister of Foreign Affairs of China declared the inevitability of "an increase in conflict and confrontation," of course, unless the United States changes its course. At the same time, the Chinese President stressed that China should "make maximum use of the country's capabilities to combat strategic risks, to protect strategic interests and implement national strategic goals, and all this through constant updating." The Chinese leader also spoke about the need for "self-sufficiency" in science and technology, about the necessary constant work to implement strategic capabilities in emergency situations, about increasing the flexibility of production chains, as well as about creating and securing national reserves as programs that should be implemented for national security purposes.
About the contradictions of the strategic plan between China and the United States
The contradictions between Washington and Beijing, which, as we see, are deepening and expanding day by day, are the result of a deep strategic divergence of the parties. And part of the national strategy that Xi Jinping spoke about (and whose reasoning we partially cited above) is already under implementation. This strategy includes the promotion of the "Made in China-2025" campaign for China's dominance in 10 key areas, ranging from integrated circuits to the aerospace industry, as well as another multi-year campaign to integrate the civil and military sectors of the economy.
Beijing constantly emphasizes that these goals are exclusively positive and peaceful in nature, and speaks of the need to achieve them by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the PRC. However, American officials view such targets as a threat. According to them, all of the above development plans of China are at least partially based on "theft" or "pressure on foreign companies" in order to transfer technology! The US leadership unequivocally interprets all Chinese acceleration programs as a "threat to its national interests", clearly fearing that China will thus turn into the first economic power in the world. These large-scale plans of China constantly cause confusion of the political elite in America and reinforce the anti-Chinese rhetoric of the traditional two US parties, each of which advocates a strategy of "comprehensive containment of China." China's transformation into an economic hegemon in the world will definitely narrow Washington's room for maneuver in many international affairs.
Moreover, in addition to the constant anti-Chinese rhetoric, which has intensified even more over the years of the COVID-19 pandemic, during the Trump presidency, American officials tried their best to wage a direct economic war with China, but in the end they again saw only an increase in the deficit in the trade balance in trade relations with this Asian country. And this problem forced the Americans, already under President Biden, to use other methods besides trade and economic war to strike at China, the most important of which is to increase the level of interventionism, the policy of economic and political blockade of China in the East Asian region.