Imran Malik<\/p>\n
The current geopolitical environment thus makes for a very interesting and engrossing battle for spheres of influence between the US and China. It entails a massive struggle to retain or preserve already established ones and the forging of daunting, competing new ones. It also implies the expansion of one sphere of influence at the cost of the other. An intrusion into, or sharing of, a sphere of influence is inconceivable to either belligerent. The arguments begin when one power attempts to encroach upon the geopolitical and geostrategic space claimed solely by the other.
\nIs the US-led West\u2019s perceived decline creating that critical and vital strategic space for China to move into regions hitherto considered the exclusive domains of the US and Europe? Is China\u2019s rise in the geopolitical and geoeconomic domains then directly proportional to the US-led West\u2019s relapse, allowing it to fill the geopolitical vacuum thus created, rapidly and smoothly?
\nThis brings into contention the US\u2019 formidable presence in the IPR and its opposition to China\u2019s corresponding ingress into the Western Hemisphere, Latin America in particular. Where does the moral authority or superiority of US foreign policy then stand on this score? What is good for the gander ought to be good for the goose as well. If US presence in the South China Sea\/IPR, in what the Chinese consider their own backyard, is justified, then by the same accord so is Chinese presence in the Western Hemisphere. The dichotomy, or blatant contradiction, in this aspect of US foreign policy is unfathomable and no longer viable.
\nFurthermore, while the US presence in the IPR is overwhelmingly military in form and essence, the Chinese presence is rooted, by and large, in the economic domain. The BRI is the vehicle through which China moves into various regions of the world, including the Western Hemisphere. It promotes shared economic development, progress, and prosperity, with back links to China, while the US tends to use coercion\u2014diplomatic, economic, military, and technological\u2014as its primary foreign policy tool. The creation of military alliances poised against China is a testament to US policies in the IPR. The QUAD, comprising the US, India, Japan, and Australia, is one example, while AUKUS, comprising Australia, the UK, and the US, is another. South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, etc., are all clearly aligned with the US and will ostensibly be major components of the coalition(s) of the willing that the US creates in times of war.
\nThus, the US is implementing a strategy of alliances and coalitions in the IPR that is unambiguously directed against China, while the latter has no such policies, strategies or alliances focused upon it anywhere. However, the outrageous selectivities and dichotomies in US foreign policy (IPR, Latin America, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, GMER, etc.) are now being questioned globally. This is nullifying the unilateralism and exceptionalism that the US has thus far enjoyed. The US appears to be losing its moral high ground and authority, along with its economic and military superiority, at a rather ominous pace. Will this reduction in US overall clout, power and moral standing create the strategic space for China to fashion a viable, manageable, or even favourable geopolitical and strategic balance at the regional and global levels?
\nChina has a claim on the South China Sea, though contested by certain countries within the region. Not only does it claim the immense fisheries, fossil fuel, and mineral resources therein, but it also considers Taiwan to be no more than an errant, runaway Chinese province. Although the US professes to pursue a One China policy, it continues to profusely arm Taiwan (weapon systems worth USD 11.1 billion of late), ostensibly to obviate and deter a potentially forcible or military takeover by China. It also professes to safeguard freedom of navigation in the IPR, as well as to guarantee Taiwan\u2019s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
\nCould parallels then be drawn between the Western Hemisphere and the IPR, the Caribbean Sea and the South China Sea, Cuba and Taiwan, and, ominously, between the arming of Cuba by the USSR in 1962 (the stationing of nuclear-tipped and conventional missile systems) and the US\u2019 continuous arming of Taiwan to this day? If the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba threatened the continental USA, do the weapon systems on Taiwan not threaten mainland China? If President J. F. Kennedy was constrained to invoke the Monroe Doctrine and militarily coerce the USSR and Cuba to remove those missiles, can this not be seen as a feasible precedent for the Chinese? Is a Xi Doctrine, based upon similar injunctions and interests as the Monroe Doctrine, a viable and justifiable possibility? Is it merely a matter of time, opportunity, and the necessary strategic environment and space being created? Does the US\u2019 perceived decline hasten this possibility?
\nAlthough China would prefer Taiwan\u2019s peaceful unification with itself, the geopolitical and geostrategic environments in the IPR would be truly flummoxed were such a doctrine to emerge and be implemented. Could Taiwan thus become the flashpoint to instigate a mutually destructive war at the regional and global levels? The potential for a clash between the two major powers thus grows very discernibly and perceptibly.
\nFrustration at losing its singular perch atop the world might cause the US to consider options that could have disastrous consequences at the regional and global levels. Any clash in either of the major powers\u2019 backyards\u2014the Western Hemisphere or the IPR\u2014could pose an existential threat to the world as we know it today. Mutually accommodative coexistence is thus key to global peace, stability, and prosperity; or will the incensed West\u2014the US plus Europe\u2014go to war to uphold its floundering, flailing, failing perception of singular global hegemony and take the world down with it?<\/p>\n
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at im.k846@gmail.com and tweets @K846Im.
\nCourtesy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imran Malik The current geopolitical environment thus makes for a very interesting and engrossing battle for spheres of influence between the US and China. It entails a massive struggle to retain or preserve already established ones and the forging of daunting, competing new ones. It also implies the expansion of one sphere of influence at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13166],"class_list":{"0":"post-523630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-article","7":"tag-imran-malik"},"yoast_head":"\n