Senator Menendez, help defend the Indo-Pacific (The Sunday Guardian)

 

It is substantially in the hands of Bob Menendez whether or not the resolution recognizing Arunachal Pradesh as part of India passes the US Senate.

The Achilles Heel of the Biden Administration is that the President of the United States has stuffed the higher echelons of his administration with wannabe Europeans. Among policymakers, Europeanists act as though Europe and the US were a single entity separated only by the waters of the North Atlantic. Paraphrasing EAM Jaishankar, while the rest of the world’s problems (barring of course the US itself) are usually not considered America’s problems, Europe’s problems immediately are seen as America’s problem. Donald J. Trump may not be the most popular person in Senator Bob Menendez’s party (or, less openly, in its main rival in the political arena), but he was the first US President in a long while to call out the Europeans for putting in a mere penny to assist Washington in its geopolitical forays, but always expecting a dollar from the US where their own issues were concerned. Whether it be in matters of defence or getting the US to act as the spearhead of European efforts to retain primacy in those parts of the world that had in the past been colonies of states in that continent, Washington has run an extra ten to each of Europe’s mile. The visit of every US President to Europe has been an exercise in unsubtle flattery from the hosts accompanied by a list of demands. Ukraine is different, for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy skips the flattery while constantly upping his demands from the Atlantic Alliance. In days past, V.K. Krishna Menon used to say that if you wanted anything from the Americans, “don’t beg them, kick them”. Zelenskyy has shown that Menon was right, given how President Biden is showing the generosity of a trillionaire Santa Claus by shovelling ever more equipment and help to Ukraine free of cost. This is in contrast to the much more meagre help given to other democracies endangered by an authoritarian state. Neither India or Taiwan has been given even a single artillery round gratis by Joe Biden. Instead of enough of the much-needed advanced—repeat, advanced—defensive and offensive (for the first is useless without the capabilities of the other) missile and aircraft systems, the US sent Taiwan House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and will soon send Speaker Kevin McCarthy. A wonderful pair, to be sure, but of limited value in case a kinetic conflict were to ensue across both sides of the Taiwan straits.
Senator Bob Menendez needs to avoid showing that he is one with President Biden in subliminally considering himself to be a European who has swum across the pond, and not an American, or part of a people who are not European, Asian, South American or African but a blend of all four of these continents and its peoples. It was the wannabe European in the White House that would have motivated Senator Menendez to demand that the alliance with India be torn to shreds by President Biden through imposing CAATSA sanctions after S-400 systems were purchased by India from the Russian Federation. Senator Menendez should instead have asked Donald Trump why the US THAAD defence system was not offered to India on concessional terms (given that they would be useful to US security as well) while the S-400 deal was being negotiated by Delhi with Moscow. Is it that “Panda Huggers” in both the Trump as well the Biden administration would fret that their friends in Beijing may pull a long face at any such offer of the THAAD system to India ? After all, if Bob Menendez is so unhappy about Russia’s land grab in Ukraine as to have signed up to Victoria Nuland’s “Let’s Punish India” policy, why is the same anger missing at China’s land grabs in Asia? This is, after all, Cold War 2.0, not Cold War 1.0. In such a context, having India as an ally in the Indo-Pacific against the PRC is essential for the security of the US. Fortunately, there are others in the Biden administration who understand where the principal threat to the US is coming from, President Biden had their wiser counsel, and refused to do what would have delighted both Beijing and Moscow, which would have been to place CAATSA sanctions on India.
It is substantially in the hands of Bob Menendez whether or not the US Senate resolution recognizing Arunachal Pradesh as part of India passes the Senate, before being sent to the House of Representatives and finally to the White House for assent. Should the Arunachal bill get signed into law, it would be an affirmation that the US is with India in resisting the expansionism of the authoritarian superpower rampaging in the Indo-Pacific. Both the Sino-Wahhabi and the Sino-Russian lobbies in Washington will seek to stifle that partnership against tyranny, including by following Nuland’s advice to make its passage conditional on India joining hands with those European powers who are committing hara-kiri on themselves by cutting off from the natural resources of Russia, which comprises half the land area of Europe and of Asia combined. Given the times they lived in, a Zbigniew Brzezinski or a Bill Casey could be forgiven their pro-China tilt. During Cold War 1.0, the PRC was invaluable in assisting the US to stymie the USSR. In the era of Cold War 2.0, a partnership with India is even more of an essentiality for the US than that with China in the past, a memo the Nulands in the Biden administration appear to have ignored. The Arunachal bill, should it become law, promises to be a game changer in India-US relations. Both in the Senate and House, and even in the White House if not yet in Foggy Bottom, this needs to be understood and actioned. Over to you, Senator.

The Achilles Heel of the Biden Administration is that the President of the United States has stuffed the higher echelons of his administration with wannabe Europeans. Among policymakers, Europeanists act as though Europe and the US were a single entity separated only by the waters of the North Atlantic. Paraphrasing EAM Jaishankar, while the rest of the world’s problems (barring of course the US itself) are usually not considered America’s problems, Europe’s problems immediately are seen as America’s problem. Donald J. Trump may not be the most popular person in Senator Bob Menendez’s party (or, less openly, in its main rival in the political arena), but he was the first US President in a long while to call out the Europeans for putting in a mere penny to assist Washington in its geopolitical forays, but always expecting a dollar from the US where their own issues were concerned. Whether it be in matters of defence or getting the US to act as the spearhead of European efforts to retain primacy in those parts of the world that had in the past been colonies of states in that continent, Washington has run an extra ten to each of Europe’s mile. The visit of every US President to Europe has been an exercise in unsubtle flattery from the hosts accompanied by a list of demands. Ukraine is different, for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy skips the flattery while constantly upping his demands from the Atlantic Alliance. In days past, V.K. Krishna Menon used to say that if you wanted anything from the Americans, “don’t beg them, kick them”. Zelenskyy has shown that Menon was right, given how President Biden is showing the generosity of a trillionaire Santa Claus by shovelling ever more equipment and help to Ukraine free of cost. This is in contrast to the much more meagre help given to other democracies endangered by an authoritarian state. Neither India or Taiwan has been given even a single artillery round gratis by Joe Biden. Instead of enough of the much-needed advanced—repeat, advanced—defensive and offensive (for the first is useless without the capabilities of the other) missile and aircraft systems, the US sent Taiwan House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and will soon send Speaker Kevin McCarthy. A wonderful pair, to be sure, but of limited value in case a kinetic conflict were to ensue across both sides of the Taiwan straits. Senator Bob Menendez needs to avoid showing that he is one with President Biden in subliminally considering himself to be a European who has swum across the pond, and not an American, or part of a people who are not European, Asian, South American or African but a blend of all four of these continents and its peoples. It was the wannabe European in the White House that would have motivated Senator Menendez to demand that the alliance with India be torn to shreds by President Biden through imposing CAATSA sanctions after S-400 systems were purchased by India from the Russian Federation. Senator Menendez should instead have asked Donald Trump why the US THAAD defence system was not offered to India on concessional terms (given that they would be useful to US security as well) while the S-400 deal was being negotiated by Delhi with Moscow. Is it that “Panda Huggers” in both the Trump as well the Biden administration would fret that their friends in Beijing may pull a long face at any such offer of the THAAD system to India ? After all, if Bob Menendez is so unhappy about Russia’s land grab in Ukraine as to have signed up to Victoria Nuland’s “Let’s Punish India” policy, why is the same anger missing at China’s land grabs in Asia? This is, after all, Cold War 2.0, not Cold War 1.0. In such a context, having India as an ally in the Indo-Pacific against the PRC is essential for the security of the US. Fortunately, there are others in the Biden administration who understand where the principal threat to the US is coming from, President Biden had their wiser counsel, and refused to do what would have delighted both Beijing and Moscow, which would have been to place CAATSA sanctions on India. It is substantially in the hands of Bob Menendez whether or not the US Senate resolution recognizing Arunachal Pradesh as part of India passes the Senate, before being sent to the House of Representatives and finally to the White House for assent. Should the Arunachal bill get signed into law, it would be an affirmation that the US is with India in resisting the expansionism of the authoritarian superpower rampaging in the Indo-Pacific. Both the Sino-Wahhabi and the Sino-Russian lobbies in Washington will seek to stifle that partnership against tyranny, including by following Nuland’s advice to make its passage conditional on India joining hands with those European powers who are committing hara-kiri on themselves by cutting off from the natural resources of Russia, which comprises half the land area of Europe and of Asia combined. Given the times they lived in, a Zbigniew Brzezinski or a Bill Casey could be forgiven their pro-China tilt. During Cold War 1.0, the PRC was invaluable in assisting the US to stymie the USSR. In the era of Cold War 2.0, a partnership with India is even more of an essentiality for the US than that with China in the past, a memo the Nulands in the Biden administration appear to have ignored. The Arunachal bill, should it become law, promises to be a game changer in India-US relations. Both in the Senate and House, and even in the White House if not yet in Foggy Bottom, this needs to be understood and actioned. Over to you, Senator.

Nikki Haley is a formidable challenger to Democrats (The Sunday Guardian)

 

Ron DeSantis, the favourite of the media, has handed over the First Mover advantage to Haley.

Every member of the Republican or Democratic Party who is aware of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis knows that he wants to be the GoP nominee in next year’s Presidential elections. As yet, however, DeSantis has yet not accumulated the courage to announce the obvious. The ambitious Republican hopeful is waiting for what many believe to be a sure bet, which is that Donald Trump can be expected to blow up his chances with some indiscretion. The former President has in his usual manner careened over the past months, flouting both common sense as well as common decency, such as by sitting down to supper with a White Supremacist together with a Black Holocaust Denier. Given his ignorance or uncaring attitude about what is politically incorrect and even toxic (as are Racial Supremacy and Holocaust Denial), the reaction even from within his adopted party to his cosy dinner with two fringe elements must have surprised him. But Donald Trump has spent a lifetime doing such things, and he is not going to change. What is different is the extent of the fall in the backing that he has within the Republican Party in his craving for a second term in the White House. Given that she is the first Governor of South Carolina (and a Republican at that) to have removed the Confederate flag from the precincts of the state capitol, Nikki Haley is also among the overwhelming majority of US citizens who are unafraid to acknowledge the evil that was perpetrated by the Nazis during the 1941-45 mass murder of millions entirely on account of their Jewish faith. At the same time, while having resigned as Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley has been careful to not cross swords with former President Trump. Indeed, there may exist a chance that she chooses Donald Trump Jr, Trump’s son, as her running mate, something that may convince Donald Trump to let go of his effort as securing the Republican nomination (and losing to a Democratic candidate, provided that individual is not Joe Biden). The younger Trump has shown himself to be a feisty kickboxer in the political arena, and has a way of energizing the Trump base in a way no other surrogate can. Despite his age and other handicaps, the former President of the US appeals to the cowboy and gunslinger instincts of enough members of the Republican Party to make the Democrats dream come true by securing his party’s nomination. The most likely antidote to that could be the candidacy for the Vice-Presidency of his son, who is young enough to still be considered youthful even were he to wait out even four presidential terms without seeking to step into the job his father won in 2016.
In the way that has happened to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain, nativists within the Republican party may balk at choosing an individual who not only makes no secret of her Indian roots, and who is a woman as well. It must be remembered that the clueless Liz Truss was chosen over Sunak by the Conservative Party faithful, almost certainly because it was too much for most of them to have a non-white family live in 10 Downing Street. Not the Conservative Party base (which still hankers after Boris Johnson) but party MPs chose Sunak over Truss, to their credit. Despite efforts by his ebullient predecessor to fan unrest and criticism of the UK Prime Minister within the Conservative Party, Sunak has soldiered on. Of course, it has helped neither Britain nor him that the Labour Party has mobilised its cadres to make the UK a country where strikes by essential workers have become a commonplace occurrence. The Labour leaders want a situation that is chaotic to a level that would lead to an economic catastrophe by next year. Should that take place, the UK’s present success in maintaining its lead over the rest of Europe in its financial industry may be lost, and with that, the country’s best hope for an early recovery from woes that have been majorly caused by the hypersonic manner in which Boris Johnson (then Prime Minister) joined hands with President Biden to craft a strategy that was designed by them to kneecap Russia. Instead, the backfire from the Biden-Johnson led moves against Putin’s Russia has damaged oedinary lives not just in Europe but across the world. In creating what the Biden-Johnson duo believed would be a one-way street for Russia, they have succeeded in preventing any visible escape from the auto-da-fé that Ukraine has to its cost become. There is no mercy shown by the Zelensky regime to any Ukrainian citizen who dares to point out that the only way to stop the war with Russia is to concede the territories lost to the Russian side since 2014. That year marked the overthrow of the previous regime in Kiev by a band of Russophobes groomed for the task by the US, Britain and Germany, something that Angela Merkel with refreshing honesty had no qualms about admitting last year. Whatever his private views about the Biden-Johnson escalatory tactics being followed by NATO in Ukraine, Prime Minister Sunak has been forced to join other Atlanticist leaders and worship at the shrine of the Kiev regime. By the time the US Presidential elections take place, it is certain that the Ukraine war will be an albatross on the neck of President Biden, and will define his legacy more than the transformational social welfare programs that he is working to implement. Biden is going the way President Johnson did in Vietnam, of making himself unelectable through the prosecution of an increasingly unpopular war on Russia at a time when China is by far the principal adversary of the US.
With her attacks on the adventurism of Xi Jinping and on the terror machine fashioned by Wahhabi extremists, Nikki Haley has long been a target of the Sino-Wahhabi lobby. She will have to overcome the invectives hurled against her by this lobby, besides the worst instincts of the nativist wing of her party. Despite such handicaps, Haley is articulate and attractive as a candidate. Ron DeSantis, the favourite of the media, has handed over the First Mover advantage to Haley, and that may not be the only thing that he loses out on, now that the former Ambassador to the UN has come forward and declared her candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination in a country where skin colour and ethnicity matter far less than was the case in the 1950s.

Nikki Haley is a formidable challenger to Democrats

Biden facing a 1962 in slow motion with PRC (The Sunday Guardian)

 

Washington is stumbling into another version of India’s own 1962 war with China.

The Sunday Guardian (TSG) was among the first media outlets in the world to be barred not just physically but online by the PRC in 2020. It does not therefore come as a surprise that academics known to be cosy with the CCP spew venom on the paper as well as on some of its contributors. A recent gem of vituperation against TSG was by an individual who claimed to be a professor in Australia. According to her, to talk of a Sino-Wahhabi alliance was a flight of fantasy. What she makes of the military exercises taking place that involve Turkey, Pakistan and China are not known. Perhaps she believes that President Erdogan is a true follower of Kemal Ataturk, the leader who secularized Turkey, and that Pakistan run by its army is an exemplar of what a tolerant, liberal democracy ought to be. Small wonder that non-Muslims in that enlightened country have dropped from around 37% of the population to less than 2% over the 75 years that Pakistan was carved out of India. Whether it be Somalia or Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, the PRC has cordial relations with each of the countries that openly practise discrimination against significant elements of the population. Not just the lady professor but a few other Australian academics as well have responded especially sharply in public to reports in TSG that the CCP was steadily expanding its control over several of the South Pacific Islands, now that it has created and claimed ownership rights over several islands it has built in what ought to be called the ASEAN Sea but is termed the South China Sea for some reason. Just days ago, Daniel Suidani, one of the few South Pacific leaders who were brave enough to call out the CCP, was voted out of his job as Prime Minister of Malaita, a part of the Solomon Islands. Supporters of his warned of the well-funded, remotely directed operation to topple him through a no-confidence motion in the legislature of that state. Their warnings went unheeded by policymakers in Australia and New Zealand, who have taken on themselves the task of assisting the South Pacific Island countries to resist the tentacles of the ruthless, expansionary moves of a nearby superpower. Suidani had protested against the action by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare of the Solomon Islands of shifting diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. From that time onwards, for more than two years he was the target of the China-leaning lobby in the Solomon Islands, and they finally succeeded in persuading (through methods that are not difficult to guess) enough legislators to get passed the no-confidence motion.
Australia and New Zealand are far closer to India or to Indonesia than they are to Ukraine or Germany, and yet both appear to have lost any enthusiasm that they may have had in preventing the spread of authoritarian tentacles in nearby waters. Instead, both Auckland and Canberra seem to be obsessed with the conflict that has been taking place between Russia and Ukraine. In Asia, with the exception of South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, no other country has thus far shared the substantially greater priority given by New Zealand and Australia to Europe rather than to the world’s biggest continent. Even in the case of South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, there has been from the Biden administration none of the gifts of advanced weaponry that has been sent by Washington to Ukraine. This when any one of this trio is much more vital to the national security of the US than Ukraine is. CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping is into an unprecedented third term in his job. Having achieved that, simply for reasons of survival, he needs a fourth term. Unless he is able to fulfill his promise of recovering the “lost lands” (i.e. those territories that belong to the PRC only in the imagination of the CCP leadership), even the usually docile CCP Central Committee may balk at giving him yet another term once he completes his present term within five years. Which is why this period is one of extreme danger to Taiwan in particular, the country that the CCP proclaims is a “renegade province”. It must be said that even though the members of NATO have not directly entered the Russo-Ukraine war, a seamless flow of weaponry has gone to Kiev, not to mention sanctions on Russia that only its abundance of resources has shielded that country from economic collapse. In particular, China is by far the biggest purchaser of Russian natural resources, a factor that has enabled Moscow to shrug off the impact of western sanctions. The fall of Taiwan would critically weaken the defences of two US treaty allies, South Korea and Japan, and would have almost as severe an effect on the Philippines. The ripples would then spread to Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Given that, why President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken still cling to the doctrine of “strategic ambiguity” when it comes to defending Taiwan in the event of an attack by China makes no sense. Rather than prevent a conflict by humouring the exaggerated sensibilities of Beijing, the doctrine of strategic ambiguity only pushes forward the prospect of a kinetic attack on Taiwan by China. Together with strategic clarity on what is an essential reaction in the context of overall US interests, the Biden administration needs to put in place a mechanism to begin delivery of advanced weaponry to Taiwan in the way this has been done for Ukraine.
The visible eagerness of the Biden administration to downplay the significance of the strategic slap that the PLA administered to it in the form of a mammoth spy balloon has cast doubt in several corners of the Indo-Pacific about the extent of resolve of the White House to resist authoritarian expansionism in the region. Seeking a diplomatic America-Chini Bhai Bhai is as much a chimera as India’s efforts to get a military-controlled Pakistan to sheathe its terrorist talons and choose the path of cooperation rather than conflict with India. Given the steady salami slice upon salami slice of the advance of PRC expansionism within the Indo-Pacific, Washington is already stumbling into another version of India’s own 1962 war with China, except that this time around, it is in slow motion. When or even whether this oncoming reality will become evident to the Biden White House is unclear.

Biden facing a 1962 in slow motion with PRC

The life and times of a 21st century Indian (The Sunday Guardian)

 

Renee Ranchan’s book gives a series of peeks into what such an individual, such a mind thinks and reacts to places, people and circumstances.

India has seen a transformation of mindsets that has become impossible to ignore. From 1993-95 onwards, waves of reforms in the economy ensured that the earlier policy of discriminating against private industry ended. Once Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister of India in 2014, that process has accelerated sharply. Sectors where in the past domestic (although not international) private industry was excluded have been thrown open. Across the country, private schools and colleges have multiplied, as have innovations in education designed to replace rote learning with the exercise of intellect and discretion. It does not not come as a surprise that citizens of India have become welcome additions to countries across the world, from Australia to the United States. It helps that for 75 years, the people of India have lived in a democracy and have adapted to its ways and requirements, thereby outfitting them to live and work in other democracies. Renee Ranchan reflects the new, globally attuned, confident persona of the 21st century Indian. Her book gives a series of peeks into what such an individual, such a mind, thinks and reacts to places, people and circumstances. As is clear from the title, the range of subjects that is covered is wide, very wide. There are vignettes of the interaction of a mother and her son interspersed with contacts and communications with strangers or friends.
Ranchan weaves into her narratives the inevitable essentialities of modern life, especially in matters electronic. She speaks with a smile about her son’s attachment to a portable DVD, or to spending hours on an I-pad. The question is whether the steady march of online contact is reaching a point where the person to person interaction is essential to human society. She sketches the way in which fun mingles with knowledge, through outings under a star studded sky that teach of the wonders of space. The vignettes are ever written in a tone of amused wonderment followed by understanding.
Humour is pervasive, as in her description of different diet regimes , such as the papaya or the cabbage diet. Of course, a friend holding a book on such esoteric matters was willing to surrender that gem of a book for a block of the darkest of chocolates, perhaps a fair trade, given how diets seldom last beyond a few days. Or in her description of government offices with their long lunch breaks.
At the same time, she draws attention to dangers such as online stalking. The mobile phone, the laptop, are ubiquitous, they are everywhere, including in a country that not long ago was derided for being “Third World”. Not any more. Ranchan points to the influence of India even in Britain, which has become a fusion of cultures and ethnicities, even choosing a Prime Minister whose parents came from India. Over abd over, she sketches the impact of technology on everyday life. About how these days, there is no need to carry a staggering load of books when all that and much more can get fitted into a palmtop.
The author moves on from locale to locale, personal glimpse to personal glimpse, personality to personality, with ease that makes reading the book a pleasure rather than a chore.Ranchan has a sharp eye for detail, not only where India is concerned, but where the US or Britain are. She points to the reverence with which the Royal Family is regarded in Blighty, and draws a contrast to the attitude in the US, where Presidents move on and family dynasties falter, as the experience of the Clinton and Bush families have shown. Given her undoubted talents, Hillary Clinton would probably have been more succesful had she been a candidate whose husband had not been President of the US. There is so much to read about, from Sanju Dutt to Madhuri Dixit to Angelina Jolie. There are so many slices of reality revealed through her expressive prose, that it would take a page to enumerate even in precis form. Better, dear reader, to get the book and savour its delights directly.
WIDESCREEN ( pages 312)
by Renee Ranchan
Konark Publishers (P) Ltd

The life and times of a 21st century Indian

Don Quixote would have approved of Secretary Blinken (The Sunday Guardian)

 

Blinken needs to read ‘Don Quixote’ to understand the nature of his temporarily halted mission to get Xi to go against CCP’s interests and push Putin to the negotiating table.

It took a hot air balloon to stop US Secretary of State Antony Blinken from embarking on a pilgrimage to Beijing that not just countries in Greater Asia but the Democratic Party’s own voters would have disowned. US Senators belonging to the Republican Party have signed on to a letter warning Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the lack of sufficient and substantive action by the Biden White House on a matter of the highest concern to countries in the Indo-Pacific. This is the kid glove treatment given to the PRC led by CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping. This is despite his masterminding of aggressive actions by units of the PLA directed against India and Taiwan. In the case of India, there has thus far been silence from the Biden administration not just about how much but whether there will be additional US supply of weapons to India during the next kinetic attack by the PLA on Indian territory. While US President Donald Trump gave a strong official response to the aggression by the PLA at Galwan in 2020, in the Yangtze fracas that took place barely months ago, all that Biden came up with was the same formulation that Xi Jinping has favoured. This is that the PRC aggression against India “should be settled bilaterally”. In other words, that India is on its own where even kinetic aggression by the PRC is concerned. President Biden has taken credit for the way in which the cooperation in matters of defence between India and the US has been progressing since Ashton Carter was the Defence Secretary during 2015-17, in the previous administration. Since that period, even the Quadrilateral Security Alliance has been downplayed by Biden in favour of localised alliances between the US, Japan and Australia with countries not in Asia but in Europe. Not that this comes as a surprise. From the time he was in the US Senate, Joe Biden has been a committed Europeanist. The US President shares this trait with his longtime advisor on foreign policy, Antony Blinken. Those knowing this admittedly pleasant Biden favourite say that to the Secretary, US interests must revolve in the same orbit as the interests of its European partners. Asia, South America and Africa are a much more distant priority in the White House since 2021, as is noticeable from the hypercharged way in which Ukraine is being flooded with weaponry and resources gratis at the cost of substantial chunks of voters in the US who had been promised by Biden in his 2020 Presidential campaign that they would be his primary priority. Are any of the countries in Asia that have endured loss of sovereignty of territory to China been given the same consideration? None at all, not even countries that have faced PLA efforts at land and air encroachment this year itself, India and Taiwan.
It is not easy to keep secrets in Washington, and those in that city who track diplomatic goings on say that the primary purpose of Blinken’s humbling, hopefully not entirely visit to Xi in his court in Beijing was to persuade the CCP General Secretary to put his thumb on the scales and help get Vladimir Putin to pull out of the Russian-speaking parts of that country that have been taken over by Moscow since the 2014 change of regime from a Russophile to a Russophobe Head of State in Kiev. Common sense would indicate that Xi has no interest in any except token and cosmetic gestures in so fundamentally altering a situation that serves the interests of the PRC and in particular the PLA so completely. Only a desperate man or someone who has no comprehension of the mind of the top tier of the CCP would have undertaken such a mission, but given his Europeanist blinkers, this is what Blinken hoped would be achieved by his visit. Just as he did not factor in the damage to trust among democracies in Asia at least to his chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, President Biden seems oblivious to the effect that such an obvious kowtow by one of his closest associates to Xi Jinping would have had on US credibility as a reliable partner against the expansionist plans and activities of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping.
Several countries in the periphery of China have suffered the effects of such a policy by the CCP leadership, including a country that had for the longest time been organically connected to the US, the Philippines. Small wonder that behind the politeness by President Marcos to Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, there was a polite scepticism about US reliability. It was while Biden was a heartbeat from the White House during the Obama administration that Scarborough Shoals was forcibly taken away from Manila by Beijing, an action that showed that none of President Obama’s tough talk was backed by action where military aggression by China was concerned. At a time when the future of the Indo-Pacific as a location where hegemony by a single power is concerned hangs in the balance, all that a legislator close to Biden, Pramila Jayapal, seems to bother about is buttering up GHQ Rawalpindi by dragging out the so-called Kashmir issue. Or in other words, get Biden to pressure India to hand over chunks of Kashmir to Pakistan and China. For it has become obvious that GHQ Rawalpindi is as much an auxiliary of the PLA as the LeT or the JeM are auxiliaries of the Pakistan military.
With the consent, sometimes direct and otherwise implicit, of his interlocutors in Beijing, Secretary Blinken would have mouthed the usual homilies about China, which would then have fired back, again in a predictable fashion. As he dusted off this time-worn routine indulged in by US Presidents who cloak their empowerment of the CCP by rhetoric, Blinken’s thoughts would ever have been Ukraine, defined by Europeanist policymakers in Washington as the determinant of the future of Europe. It is time for those political leaders such as Senator Marco Rubio that are serious about deterring the PRC to ask why thus far, there has not been any trace of Ukraine-style generosity in giving advanced weaponry to either India or Taiwan, the two countries most at risk of a large-scale PLA attack. Or why there has not been any talk by the White House of what (or even whether) sanctions of the kind imposed on Russia would be imposed on China in the event of further PLA aggression into the sea, air and land spaces of Asian countries whose territory Xi publicly covets. Antony Blinken needs to read “Don Quixote” by Miguel Cervantes, to understand the nature of his temporarily halted mission to get Xi Jinping to go against the CCP’s interests and push Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table to in effect sign a surrender document. On such dreams is present-day US foreign policy based.

Don Quixote would have approved of Secretary Blinken