Does QAUD exist or its a mirage of dominance in the Indo-Pacific Region and even if exist, it is enough to restraint China? The big question stands before American new President Biden. The rivalry between China and the USA is almost as old as the liberation of China in 1948 and both fought the Korean and Vietnam wars throughout the 1950s to 1960s in which both countries were fought against each other. China managed to have the upper hand on American and allied forces and American were forced to accept the ceasefire at the cost of hundreds of lives on both sides.
China was said to be an underdeveloped country till 1990, however, the policy to open the Chinese economy to the west and the introduction of lucrative incentives like tax holidays, free utilities etc paved the way for the industrial revolution, which took ten years from 1990 to 2000 to shape new China. The might of Chinese Industrial capacity was demonstrated during the Beijing Olympics in 2006 when several new stadiums were built in a couple of years and the new huge glass Terminal on Bejing Airport and Chinese didn't look back thereafter. The transfer of technologies and new foreign funding enable China to become the biggest exporter in 20 years thereafter.
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| QUAD Countries (courtesy- Sunday Guardian) |
China in recent days
Nowadays, if you want to see the size of the industrial height of China, the volume of shipping flow in and out from Chinese Ports is the measurement. China enables a large number of the world population to have affordable latest technologies such as Mobile phones, daily use appliances, motorbikes, cars etc. It is estimated that China is one of the leading trading partners of more than 100 countries. even America have more than 70% of items in their stores are from China. Huge brands like Nike, Apple, HP Lenovo have their main manufacturing units in China. In short, China is the Industrial Hub for the whole world, which is now become a threat for formal gaint Industrial countries like Germany, France, USA and Britain. Most of the countries feeling comfortable trading with china in huge quantum due to low cost and reliability in term of cost.
Space and telecommunication advancement of China
In the last 20 years, China has been improved incredibly and new technologies have been introduced. China is the only country in the world that is working on 6G communication technology and the only country which has a fully developed working Infrastructure of 5G in civilian and military sectors. China is also speedy laying fibre optic cables from the Chinese to the Arabian sea which will connect most of the countries of the world which will increase the internet and other optical technologies in these countries. China also has the number of Supercomputers use in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other scientific, military, space applications. As per the Pentagon report, the Chinese have achieved a significant leap against the US in a certain area.
Chinese Economy and Coronavirus
In December-2018, the first cases of Corona Virus known as COVID-19 appearing in China. The Virus is so active that within two months, the number of cases had recorded in thousands in the all world which started affecting daily life. soon the whole world came into lockdown and resulted in entire industrial and commercial activities halt. China was the first one to come out from the lockdown and resume industries which not only minimize the impact of free fall GDP in China but it remains one of the very few countries with positive GDP growth in 2020. China resumes its industrial capacity in full swing. China also introduces one of the first COVID-19 vaccines and started the first vaccine countrywide drive. The Chinese had vaccinated millions of its people till July-2020 which gone effective. The Chinese are now one of the countries with the least corona cases mainly imported from other countries and food and meet import.
US and China- Love and Hate Story
In the regime of President Donald Trump, China is said to be the main threat for the USA however, Trump main goal is to reduce the defence expenditures and thinning the US presence in the worldwide stations. Trump had damaged the US military presence worldwide and gone out of the way, defy the previous policies, limited the US troops in Japan and Germany which damaged NATO and QUAD. The COVID-19 worked as a catalyst and Trump did nothing to counter the virus, resulted in huge deaths. This also puts more pressure on the Government which forced the government to introduce huge stimulus bills which further deteriorate the US Economy. On the other hand, China carefully reduces the ill effects of the virus on the economy and take strict steps to counter it successfully avoid 2nd ways and open the country. China, besides, to secure its population, also helped WHO and other countries with millions of dollar worth of donations of masks, ventilators and vaccines, especially in African countries. The USA did nothing but also stopped funding to WHO reduce its efficiency as a world organization. The USA use custom tariff increment to counter Chinese trade influence because the trade deficits between the USA and China favour China more. Every product in the Malls and shops in America is imported from China, so it would be difficult for the USA to avoid Chinese products. The most prominent American companies have their factories in China which produce a large number of products. Trump asked them to resettled their production facility elsewhere outside China or face strict measurement. The majority of the American companies have refused to do so because the skilled workforce and less inventory cost come with huge profits for these countries.
Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
Xi Jinping, Chinese Premier had announced in 2013, its economic plan to connect more than 70 countries with a series of Roads and Sea lanes with the purpose to promote the connectivity between Asian, European and African countries and adjacent seas establishing multi-tiered, all-dimension and composite networks and realized the independent, diversified, balanced and sustainable development in the countries. The jewel of this BRI is China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which give China access to Gwarder Seaport through the Karakoram highway. The Gawadar port provides fast assess to china and reduce transportation time from Pakistan to China to 7 days which ultimately reduce shipping timing to Europe to 20-25 days. This initiative is one of the most powerful soft image building of China n the world. Chinese theory behind this is to connect the World in one way and secure the trade routes for China. This also enhances the Chinese influence in the world to fight against US influence. This image will be guarded by the strong military presence in Asia, the Middle East and Africa so far. The presence of China in Europe may also not avoidable now as China now become one of the major investment and trading partners. This programme, according to the Asian Development Bank, will be increased USD 26 trillion by 2030. This is huge spending by the Chinese on the development of infrastructure. For this purpose, China also lunches its own GPS knows as BaiDou, which is said to be a more reliable and accurate GPS in the world. The completion of this project will connect China with the rest of the world and the development of western areas of China will increase its industrial capacity to fulfil the world's demand.
PLA Military Might and QUAD
The Chinese not only excel in the economy and civilian technologies but also in military might. Chinese consider the Military might as a tool to achieve the upper hand in negotiations because the win can turn into defeat on the table. The Military of China known as the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) was considered 40 years behind from USA and 20 years behind Russia till 1990-2000 and hardware imported from Russian in large number. After 2000, The Chinese own innovated and designed weapons came into the ground and achieve the level of appreciation in general users. These included tanks like MBT 2000, JF-17, several low and medium level Air defence systems and naval assets like frigates and destroyers. These innovations have rooted in some earlier technologies mostly from Isreal and Russia, however, the in-house innovation increased the quality of equipment to an unexceptional rate. Today, The PLA equipment are rating around 10 years behind the US and 5 years behind Russia. Interestingly, the PLA has leapt forward in some areas of AI and Cyber & Spaces. Chinese Premier Xi started the transformation of PLA in 2010 and combined with Pakistan in the technical area, China managed to bring high-end technology which is also sharing with Pakistan.
Chinese overseas Military presence
Chinese is never an aggressive force and had no military presence outside China till 2010 however, now China have several overseas military posts and military establishment in Africa and Asia. The Gwader and Djibouti are said to be the main military bases for China. Strategic Chinese SIGNET bases are in Myanmar, Bangladesh and Srilanka. There is one unknown base in Argentina where Chinese presence is heard but not confirmed. The Chinese military might regards as 3rd largest in the world. The Chinese Submarines and destroyers flotilla used to show their presence in the Arabian seas. A lot of news indicate frequent visits of the Chinese navy to Gwadar in previous years. The possible presence of the Chinese Navy in Gawadar give China access to the Arabian Sea and the Middle East. Several countries in Asia may not have a Chinese presence but have a huge influence on China.
QUAD and PLA
QUAD is made up of four countries in which India, Australia, Japan, USA. The US is the only country that is situated along away from China but it is one of the main players in the region. Pacific is considered to be the home ground of the US Navy and most of its overseas deployment is in this region. Technically, India is the second biggest player of Quad with huge navy numbers at its disposal however, these numbers are technically unmatched with other QUAD members. The problem is Indian Navy has assets 90% made up of Russian technology. The only aircraft carrier is also brought from Russia. The Air Force and Army are also composed of Russian Assets which doest match with the American to EU build system. There is always communication problem in between because the Russian system design to counter the weapons of the West and therefore not suitable joint exercise. This problem was expressed by Japanese Defence forces in the conclusion of the naval exercises some years ago. The QUAD group also asking small nations in Asia close to China to participate with Quad against China. The PLAN is now a real threat in terms of quantity and quality. There are around 496 combat ships in the Navy with around 500 plus aircraft. The quantity of the ships and now increasing the quality of the technology made PLAN is the most formidable enemy of the USA. USN needs a large number of replacement as most of the Ships are in retirement years. Out of 10 US Aircraft carriers, only 5 are operational. The USS Reagon, USS Nimitz and USS Lincoln are normally in news to be moving around the world. The Main advantages of PLAN are the advancement in cyber and space technologies, new missiles and independent GPS worldwide BaiDou. The BaiDou is said to be a two-way communication way that allows users to send message directly through satellite. The display of cyber capabilities was demonstrated by PLAN when they cut the USN communication and GPS and took over control for 38 minutes near Taiwan. This also reflects that in any event of war, China can jam the Satilite communication and GPS to make invading force blind and take control over enemy assets. This will be a dreadful dream for those nations who live near China to go against China. In short, QUAD can not serve the purpose of Asian NATO as the US has not able found any weakness in Chinese policies. Chinese non-interference policy in the internal politics of any country is the biggest benefit for China in comparison to the USA who always tried to influence one country's internal politics. Now, the USA resume its efforts to counter China but it's too late now for the USA to gain something out of it. India being the 4th largest military power shows its inability to counter China in recent Laddakh crises.
It is worth noting that China is no more a developing and rising economy but now the risen and developed Economy, therefore, we can say that the Asian century has been coming whose centrepiece is The Peoples Republic of China.
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