China has astounded the world with the speed and scale of its creation of artificial islands and military infrastructure in the South China Sea.&nbsp;

The first Chinese dredger initiated land reclamation in December 2013. Five years later, China has completed building its manmade islands and is now steadily ramping up its military assets in the South China Sea.

Even after an international arbitral tribunal invalidated its claims in the South China Sea through a ruling in 2016, China continued with the frenzied expansion of its frontiers. Yet, it has incurred no international costs for pushing its borders far out into international waters.

Today, China has consolidated its hold in a strategically crucial body of water through which $5.3 trillion in global trade flows every year. It has set up an interconnected array of radar, electronic-attack facilities, missile batteries and airfields there.

And by turning its manmade islands into military bases, it has virtually established permanent aircraft carriers, whose role extends to the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific.&nbsp;

The South China Sea, in fact, highlights that Beijing’s favoured frontier strategy is pivoted on “salami slicing”. This involves — as witnessed in the Himalayas since the 1950s — a steady progression of small actions, none of which serves as a casus belli by itself, yet which over time lead cumulatively to a strategic transformation in China’s favour.

And by camouflaging offence as defence, China presents a targeted state with a Hobson’s choice: endure the territorial loss or face a dangerous and costly war with great power.

As other Asian nations are discovering, including India in the Himalayas and Japan in the East China Sea, the China challenge centres on Beijing’s lack of respect for existing frontier lines. China is still working to redraw political boundaries, almost 70 years after communists seized power there and began expanding the frontiers.

China clearly has been emboldened by America’s muted response to its expansionism. The US has focused its concern merely on safeguarding freedom of navigation through the South China Sea, not on ratcheting up pressure on China to stop its territorial revisionism.

In fact, the US has refused to take sides in the territorial disputes between China and the other claimant-states in the South China Sea. The US has similarly stayed neutral on disputes elsewhere between China and its neighbours, including in the East China Sea and the Himalayas.

For example, President Donald Trump’s administration did not issue a single statement in India’s support, but stayed neutral during the 73-day military standoff between Indian and Chinese forces on the remote Himalayan plateau of Doklam in mid-2017.&nbsp;

The Trump administration also stayed silent when Chinese military threats forced Vietnam in March 2018 to halt oil drilling within its own exclusive economic zone.

To be sure, the Trump-led US has stepped up the so-called freedom of navigation operations, or FONOPS, in the South China Sea.&nbsp;

However, while the US has yet to provide strategic heft to its much-publicized strategy to ensure a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region, China has embarked on robust initiatives, such as the twin Silk Road projects, with the aim of changing the regional geopolitical map.&nbsp;

ASEAN disunity has also aided Beijing’s aggression. The South China Sea has emerged as ASEAN’s Achilles heel. ASEAN’s reluctance to take a unified stance may have delighted Beijing — its largest trade partner — yet, by conveying weakness, it allows China to do as it pleases.

China’s strategic aim in the South China Sea is to legitimise its control over this critical corridor. Through various actions, China is etching a lasting presence in the claimed areas. For example, to create an administrative base, including setting up a local civilian government in the South China Sea, Beijing has established “Sansha City” on Woody Island. Woody Island was in the news recently when China, for the first time, landed the nuclear-capable H-6K heavy bomber aircraft there.

There is a distinct possibility that, like it did in the Paracel Islands in 1996, China might declare “straight baselines” in the Spratly Islands. Such baselines, connecting the outermost points of the island chain, would seek to turn the sea within, including features controlled by other nations, into China’s “internal waters”.

Against this background, the South China Sea has emerged as the symbolic centre of the international maritime challenges of the 21st century.&nbsp;

The developments in the South China Sea — the world’s main maritime hotspot — hold the potential of upending the current liberal world order by permitting brute power to trump rules.

For India, the South China Sea, which connects the Indian and Pacific oceans, is of central importance. About 60 per cent of India’s seaborne trade passes through the Strait of Malacca, the link between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. China’s expansionism in the South China Sea directly impinges on India’s vital interests.

In fact, China’s establishment of a naval hub in Djibouti — its first overseas military base — and its increasing submarine forays into the Indian Ocean draw strength from its aggressive actions in the South China Sea.

Given the South China Sea’s centrality to the wider geopolitics, balance of power and maritime order, like-minded states must work closely together to shape developments there, including ensuring that aggressive unilateralism is no longer cost-free. Failure to do that will create a systemic risk to Indo-Pacific stability and the world order. 
 
(This article was originally published on DNA. Read the <a href="https://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-china-and-the-critical-corridor-2700381">original article</a>)

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

China has astounded the world with the speed and scale of its creation of artificial islands and military infrastructure in the South China Sea. The first Chinese dredger initiated land reclamation in December 2013.

China has astounded the world with the speed and scale of its creation of artificial islands and military infrastructure in the South China Sea. The first Chinese dredger initiated land reclamation in December 2013. Five years later, China has completed building its manmade islands and is now steadily ramping up its military assets in the South China Sea. Even after an international arbitral tribunal invalidated its claims in the South China Sea through a ruling in 2016, China continued with the frenzied expansion of its frontiers. Yet, it has incurred no international costs for pushing its borders far out into international waters. Today, China has consolidated its hold in a strategically crucial body of water through which $5.3 trillion in global trade flows every year. It has set up an interconnected array of radar, electronic-attack facilities, missile batteries and airfields there. And by turning its manmade islands into military bases, it has virtually established permanent aircraft carriers, whose role extends to the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific. The South China Sea, in fact, highlights that Beijing’s favoured frontier strategy is pivoted on “salami slicing”. This involves — as witnessed in the Himalayas since the 1950s — a steady progression of small actions, none of which serves as a casus belli by itself, yet which over time lead cumulatively to a strategic transformation in China’s favour. And by camouflaging offence as defence, China presents a targeted state with a Hobson’s choice: endure the territorial loss or face a dangerous and costly war with great power. As other Asian nations are discovering, including India in the Himalayas and Japan in the East China Sea, the China challenge centres on Beijing’s lack of respect for existing frontier lines. China is still working to redraw political boundaries, almost 70 years after communists seized power there and began expanding the frontiers. China clearly has been emboldened by America’s muted response to its expansionism. The US has focused its concern merely on safeguarding freedom of navigation through the South China Sea, not on ratcheting up pressure on China to stop its territorial revisionism. In fact, the US has refused to take sides in the territorial disputes between China and the other claimant-states in the South China Sea. The US has similarly stayed neutral on disputes elsewhere between China and its neighbours, including in the East China Sea and the Himalayas. For example, President Donald Trump’s administration did not issue a single statement in India’s support, but stayed neutral during the 73-day military standoff between Indian and Chinese forces on the remote Himalayan plateau of Doklam in mid-2017. The Trump administration also stayed silent when Chinese military threats forced Vietnam in March 2018 to halt oil drilling within its own exclusive economic zone. To be sure, the Trump-led US has stepped up the so-called freedom of navigation operations, or FONOPS, in the South China Sea. However, while the US has yet to provide strategic heft to its much-publicized strategy to ensure a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region, China has embarked on robust initiatives, such as the twin Silk Road projects, with the aim of changing the regional geopolitical map. ASEAN disunity has also aided Beijing’s aggression. The South China Sea has emerged as ASEAN’s Achilles heel. ASEAN’s reluctance to take a unified stance may have delighted Beijing — its largest trade partner — yet, by conveying weakness, it allows China to do as it pleases. China’s strategic aim in the South China Sea is to legitimise its control over this critical corridor. Through various actions, China is etching a lasting presence in the claimed areas. For example, to create an administrative base, including setting up a local civilian government in the South China Sea, Beijing has established “Sansha City” on Woody Island. Woody Island was in the news recently when China, for the first time, landed the nuclear-capable H-6K heavy bomber aircraft there. There is a distinct possibility that, like it did in the Paracel Islands in 1996, China might declare “straight baselines” in the Spratly Islands. Such baselines, connecting the outermost points of the island chain, would seek to turn the sea within, including features controlled by other nations, into China’s “internal waters”. Against this background, the South China Sea has emerged as the symbolic centre of the international maritime challenges of the 21st century. The developments in the South China Sea — the world’s main maritime hotspot — hold the potential of upending the current liberal world order by permitting brute power to trump rules. For India, the South China Sea, which connects the Indian and Pacific oceans, is of central importance. About 60 per cent of India’s seaborne trade passes through the Strait of Malacca, the link between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. China’s expansionism in the South China Sea directly impinges on India’s vital interests. In fact, China’s establishment of a naval hub in Djibouti — its first overseas military base — and its increasing submarine forays into the Indian Ocean draw strength from its aggressive actions in the South China Sea. Given the South China Sea’s centrality to the wider geopolitics, balance of power and maritime order, like-minded states must work closely together to shape developments there, including ensuring that aggressive unilateralism is no longer cost-free. Failure to do that will create a systemic risk to Indo-Pacific stability and the world order. (This article was originally published on DNA. Read the original article) (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

China’s expansionism in South China Sea impinges on India’s interests

Just as China has changed the status quo in the South China Sea through an island-building strategy, it is working to re-engineer cross-border flows of international rivers that originate in Tibet, which Beijing annexed in 1951.

No country will be more affected by China's dam frenzy than India because of one telling statistic: out of the 718 billion cubic metres of surface water that flows out of Chinese-held territory yearly, 347 billion cubic meters (or 48.3 per cent of the total) runs directly into India. Several major Indian rivers originate in Tibet, including the Brahmaputra, the Kosi, the Sutlej and the Indus.

China already boasts more large dams than the rest of the world put together. More importantly, it has emerged as the key obstacle to building institutionalised collaboration on shared water resources in Asia.

In contrast to the bilateral water treaties between many of its neighbours, China rejects the concept of a water-sharing arrangement or joint, rules-based management of common resources.

India has water-sharing treaties with both the countries located downstream to it: Pakistan and Bangladesh. These treaties govern the Indus and the Ganges.

By contrast, China, despite its unrivalled international status as the source of river flows to more than a dozen countries, stands out for not having a single water-sharing arrangement with any neighbour.

India's treaties with Pakistan and Bangladesh have actually set new principles in international water law. The 1996 Ganges treaty — which coincided with the 25th anniversary of Bangladesh's Indian-assisted independence — set a new standard by guaranteeing delivery of specific water quantities in the critical dry season.

The Indus treaty stands out as the world's most generous water pact, in terms of both the sharing ratio (80.52 per cent of the aggregate water flows in the six-river Indus system are reserved for Pakistan) and the total volume of basin waters for the downstream state (Pakistan gets 90 times greater volume of water than Mexico's share under a 1944 pact with the US).

China, in rejecting the 1997 UN convention that lays down rules on shared water resources, contended that an upstream power has the right to assert absolute territorial sovereignty over the waters on its side of the international boundary — or the right to divert as much water as it wishes for its needs, irrespective of the effects on a downriver state.

Today, by building mega-dams and reservoirs in its borderlands, China is working to divert the flows of major rivers that are the lifeline of lower riparian states.

Since the last decade, China's major dam building has moved from dam-saturated internal rivers to international rivers located in ethnic-minority homelands like Tibet.

On the Brahmaputra, China is racing to complete several additional dams located in close proximity to each other. This cascade of dams is likely to affect the quality and quantity of downstream flows into India and Bangladesh.

Only five rivers in the world carry more water than the Brahmaputra and only one — mainland China's Yellow River — carries more silt. The Brahmaputra is the world's highest-altitude river. It represents a unique fluvial ecosystem largely due to the heavy load of high-quality nutrient-rich silt it carries from forbidding Himalayan heights.

The Brahmaputra's annual flooding cycle helps to re-fertilize overworked soils in India's Assam plains and large parts of Bangladesh, where the river is the biggest source of water supply.

The silt-movement impediment by China's upstream dam projects constitutes a bigger threat to the biophysical vitality of the river and to the soil fertility of downstream plains than even the likely diminution of cross-border flows.

China's centralised, mega-projects-driven approach to water resources is the antithesis of the policy in India, where water is a state (not federal) subject under the Constitution and where anti-dam non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are powerful. India's Narmada Dam project, which remains incomplete decades after its construction began, symbolises the power of NGOs.

The largest dam India has built since independence — the 2,000-megawatt Tehri Dam on River Bhagirathi — pales in comparison to China's giant projects, such as the 22,500-megawatt Three Gorges Dam and the new mega-dams on the Mekong like Xiaowan, which dwarfs Paris's Eiffel Tower in height, and Nuozhadu, which boasts of a 190-square-km reservoir.

China's population is just marginally larger than India's, but its internally renewable water resources (2,813 billion cubic meters per year) are almost twice as large as India's. In aggregate water availability, including external inflows (which are sizeable in India's case), China boasts virtually 50 per cent larger water resources than India.

India's surface-water storage capacity — an important measure of any nation's ability to deal with drought or seasonal imbalances in water availability — is one of the world's lowest: Amounting to 200 cubic metres per head per year, it is more than 11 times lower than China's. The 2030 Water Resources Group, an international unit, has warned that India is likely to face a 50 per cent deficit between water demand and supply by 2030.

In the coming years, China, by ramping up construction of dams on trans-Himalayan rivers, could fashion water into a political weapon against India. 
 
(This article was originally published on DNA. Read the <a href="https://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-dragon-s-water-weapon-against-india-2694354">original article</a>)

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

Just as China has changed the status quo in the South China Sea through an island-building strategy, it is working to re-engineer cross-border flows of international rivers that originate in Tibet, which Beijing annexed in 1951.

Just as China has changed the status quo in the South China Sea through an island-building strategy, it is working to re-engineer cross-border flows of international rivers that originate in Tibet, which Beijing annexed in 1951. No country will be more affected by China's dam frenzy than India because of one telling statistic: out of the 718 billion cubic metres of surface water that flows out of Chinese-held territory yearly, 347 billion cubic meters (or 48.3 per cent of the total) runs directly into India. Several major Indian rivers originate in Tibet, including the Brahmaputra, the Kosi, the Sutlej and the Indus. China already boasts more large dams than the rest of the world put together. More importantly, it has emerged as the key obstacle to building institutionalised collaboration on shared water resources in Asia. In contrast to the bilateral water treaties between many of its neighbours, China rejects the concept of a water-sharing arrangement or joint, rules-based management of common resources. India has water-sharing treaties with both the countries located downstream to it: Pakistan and Bangladesh. These treaties govern the Indus and the Ganges. By contrast, China, despite its unrivalled international status as the source of river flows to more than a dozen countries, stands out for not having a single water-sharing arrangement with any neighbour. India's treaties with Pakistan and Bangladesh have actually set new principles in international water law. The 1996 Ganges treaty — which coincided with the 25th anniversary of Bangladesh's Indian-assisted independence — set a new standard by guaranteeing delivery of specific water quantities in the critical dry season. The Indus treaty stands out as the world's most generous water pact, in terms of both the sharing ratio (80.52 per cent of the aggregate water flows in the six-river Indus system are reserved for Pakistan) and the total volume of basin waters for the downstream state (Pakistan gets 90 times greater volume of water than Mexico's share under a 1944 pact with the US). China, in rejecting the 1997 UN convention that lays down rules on shared water resources, contended that an upstream power has the right to assert absolute territorial sovereignty over the waters on its side of the international boundary — or the right to divert as much water as it wishes for its needs, irrespective of the effects on a downriver state. Today, by building mega-dams and reservoirs in its borderlands, China is working to divert the flows of major rivers that are the lifeline of lower riparian states. Since the last decade, China's major dam building has moved from dam-saturated internal rivers to international rivers located in ethnic-minority homelands like Tibet. On the Brahmaputra, China is racing to complete several additional dams located in close proximity to each other. This cascade of dams is likely to affect the quality and quantity of downstream flows into India and Bangladesh. Only five rivers in the world carry more water than the Brahmaputra and only one — mainland China's Yellow River — carries more silt. The Brahmaputra is the world's highest-altitude river. It represents a unique fluvial ecosystem largely due to the heavy load of high-quality nutrient-rich silt it carries from forbidding Himalayan heights. The Brahmaputra's annual flooding cycle helps to re-fertilize overworked soils in India's Assam plains and large parts of Bangladesh, where the river is the biggest source of water supply. The silt-movement impediment by China's upstream dam projects constitutes a bigger threat to the biophysical vitality of the river and to the soil fertility of downstream plains than even the likely diminution of cross-border flows. China's centralised, mega-projects-driven approach to water resources is the antithesis of the policy in India, where water is a state (not federal) subject under the Constitution and where anti-dam non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are powerful. India's Narmada Dam project, which remains incomplete decades after its construction began, symbolises the power of NGOs. The largest dam India has built since independence — the 2,000-megawatt Tehri Dam on River Bhagirathi — pales in comparison to China's giant projects, such as the 22,500-megawatt Three Gorges Dam and the new mega-dams on the Mekong like Xiaowan, which dwarfs Paris's Eiffel Tower in height, and Nuozhadu, which boasts of a 190-square-km reservoir. China's population is just marginally larger than India's, but its internally renewable water resources (2,813 billion cubic meters per year) are almost twice as large as India's. In aggregate water availability, including external inflows (which are sizeable in India's case), China boasts virtually 50 per cent larger water resources than India. India's surface-water storage capacity — an important measure of any nation's ability to deal with drought or seasonal imbalances in water availability — is one of the world's lowest: Amounting to 200 cubic metres per head per year, it is more than 11 times lower than China's. The 2030 Water Resources Group, an international unit, has warned that India is likely to face a 50 per cent deficit between water demand and supply by 2030. In the coming years, China, by ramping up construction of dams on trans-Himalayan rivers, could fashion water into a political weapon against India. (This article was originally published on DNA. Read the original article) (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

Dragon's water weapon against India

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Zee News Rajasthan

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Brahma Chellaney

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