Caught in a Chinese web

China is looking to leverage its new-found economic clout over the US with an “aggressive” assertion of geopolitical power, including in South Asia, but its “hubris” is leading to a “dangerous imbalance” that could unleash a “horrible tragedy”, say strategic analysts.

“China is right now in a self-congratulatory mood because it perceives that the US is weak and China is strong,” Gordon G Chang, China analyst and author of The Coming Collapse of China, told DNA. “It sees very few checks on its power, and therefore it is attempting to assert itself in ways that can only undermine global stability.”

China’s assertiveness — and its support for rogue regimes in Pakistan and North Korea — is already having serious consequences for India. “In its dealings with India, Pakistan feels emboldened by Beijing and its belief that at the end of the day, China will support it,” says Chang.

“China’s ‘String of Pearls’ strategy — aimed at maintaining an ‘arc of influence’ in South and Southeast Asia, where China and India have challenged each other for long — has been quite successful,” says Claudia Astarita, a Sino-Indian political researcher at the University of Hong Kong.

China’s position in Asia is stronger than India’s, and India’s internal problems inhibit it from playing a more critical role in the region, she adds.

Chang, however, argues that the Obama administration has overestimated China’s strengths. “US policymakers have this miscomprehension that the US has no leverage over China… That kind of thinking amounts to unilateral disarmament.”

Instead of ‘outsourcing’ US foreign policy in Asia to China — as evidenced by the excessive reliance on Chinese diplomacy in North Korea and (increasingly) Pakistan — “the US should signal to the Chinese that we don’t rely on them to maintain global stability.” US secretary of state Hillary Clinton would have sent out that “important symbolic signal” if she had travelled to India during her maiden tour of Asia, he reasons.

Strengthening America’s strategic relationship with India “is such a commonsense-logical solution to many of the world’s problems,” says Chang. The Obama administration doesn’t see that now, but it will eventually come around to pursue an ‘India strategy’ — “when it becomes evident that its China policies aren’t working.”

Problems are sure to crop up everywhere — from North Korea to Iran to the South China Sea. “We shouldn’t be under any illusions about what’s going to happen,” says Chang. The world, he says, “has a very interesting way of correcting itself… I think the Chinese are going to suffer the consequences of their hubris.”