President Xi Jinping appears to have taken full control of the PLA, especially following the recent anti-corruption drive, bringing down heavy weight power centres in the armed forces. As chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), he made emphatically dear to modernize a military that can “fight wars and win wars”.
One of the successful manoeuvres China undertook (from the late 1970s and 1980s) for a seat at the global high table was the “polar” international structure. In the 1980s China projected a tri-polar power balance with the USA and the Soviet Union as the strong poles and China as the third pole weak but growing. This was the theory necessitated the two powers to strengthen China to maintain global stability.
The bilateral relationship between states is one of the most important aspects in International Relations. Relations between India and China have geared up since the last few years. To continue the improved relations, it is of pivotal importance for China to prioritize engaging with the changing leaderships in India.
Natural resources are one of the primary determinants of any nation’s development. And the need for uninterrupted access to these resources has led to increasing competition among nation states. The present tug of war for resources in the Himalayan region is the most recent example of this. The Himalayan fresh water reserves are highly crucial for the sustenance of the region. The Himalayas is the source for the Indus, Ganga, Yarlung, Yangtze, Yellow, Mekong, and Nuijang rivers.
In the past few years, resentment has been rising over the emerging Chinese hydro power projects in Tibet among India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and many other countries that share rivers originating in Tibet. Due to fears of potential water and energy stress/scarcity within China, these projects are critical to its economic development in the coming decades.
China is about to operationalise a 1 GigaWatt (GW) nuclear power reactor at Karachi in Pakistan, highly-placed sources within the scientific community warn. Two more are in the pipeline in Karachi and three more in other parts of the country. This represents a quantum leap from the much smaller reactors hitherto supplied by Beijing to Islamabad, and is also the first time that such advanced technology has been demonstrated globally.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been trying to promote Yunnan as a gateway to both South and Southeast Asia for nearly two decades now, in order to bring in much needed investment for developing its south-western hinterland, covering more than 60 percent of its total landmass. With an area of 394,000 square kilometres, Yunnan shares 4.1 percent of the PRC’s landmass and is its eighth largest province.
More than half-a-century ago, in 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama fled Tibet to take refuge in India after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Prior to the signing of the Agreement on Trade between Tibet Autonomous Region and India in 1954, India had acknowledged Tibet’s de facto independence’. However, subsequently, India modified its position on Tibet by recognising Chinese suzerainty over Tibet.
China's ascent as a global power is certainly a major geopolitical development but the imports and impacts of the process seems not fully mapped and grasped.[i] Different countries perceive the phenomenon from their own vantage points – many are anxious, some admire, and a few are apprehensive. Above all, the fundamental question raised is 'what kind of power China would become'? Will China's rise strengthen or disrupt the global order in vogue?
