India’s External Affairs Ministry (EAM) today signaled an end to the Doklam standoff. The good thing is that in this situation India and Bhutan worked together and were also able to corner China which was widely portrayed as the one with the habit of ‘bullying.’
In a statement, the EAM said that “in recent weeks, India and China have maintained diplomatic communication in respect of the incident at Doklam. During these communications, we were able to express our views and convey our concerns and interests. On this basis, expeditious disengagement of border personnel at the face-off site at Doklam has been agreed to and is on-going.”
China, true to its bullying nature, tried to pull off a Mongolia on India but India’s resolve meant that China had to, eventually, draw its steps back and respect the sovereignty of Bhutan.
The racist video that you see above makes fun of a typical Indian soldier especially the Sikh. The man here is turbaned and has a mustache. This would have really angered Indians if his accent wasn’t typical of that of the people of South East Asia, and the man had at least some muscles. The saving grace for the Chinese was that the man was shown sleeping; if he were shown standing then that would have been the perfect self-goal because the Indian Sikh and Jat soldiers are known for their height as well. That the Chinese did not even think of hiring someone who looked even remotely a Sikh or a Jat Indian soldier, who they were so eager to lampoon, shows their utter lack of planning.
Mongolia, India to take defence partnership to next level, but India must not bear all the burden
Chinese video, therefore, wasn’t really making fun of Indian soldiers, it merely showed just what intimidated its soldiers when the Indian Army when after it; the tough and confident armed Indian men who didn’t give two hoots to the ‘illustrious’ dragon breathing fire.
It is also no secret in Indian political circles that the Chinese were surprised when the Indian soldiers went ahead to stop the road construction and did not offer much resistance. But why?
Let’s say it bluntly, the Chinese soldiers, unlike their Indian counterparts, have had it easy.
Disciplined Armed Personnel made the biggest difference
Indian newspapers were filled with news that Sikhs and the Jat soldiers were especially getting deployed to intimidate the smaller Chinese. And merely to counter ‘that’ news the Chinese made that racist video but they forgot that India also has the lethal Gurkha soldiers and ‘their sin’ of not covering them made them even a bigger laughing stock in India!
If you were following the newspapers, then must have read this statement by an Indian officer in which he explained the contrast between the soldiers of the two nations:
“Our soldiers, in contrast, live a far tougher life. In Doklam, they stand guard without moving, while the Chinese keep breaking the line and going back for cigarette breaks. Indian morale is sky-high; soldiers know they are participating in something unprecedented – crossing a border to defend an Indian ally.”
Later, the officer said, “the Chinese had to send in a political commissar. The commissar ordered up martial music and the hoisting of Chinese flags to stiffen resolve. They clearly had problems.”
In a private gathering of news personnel, another officer had soon predicted that China or its soldiers held no clear advantage at Doklam and they will have to withdraw sooner. He had also cautioned Indian media that the shriller Chinese mouthpieces become, the bigger blow would it be on its own face when it will have to withdraw from the spot. That’s exactly what happened a while back; the soldiers of both the countries are going back, the road construction has stopped and the dragon is still singing its feet by breathing more and more fire.
In an article published in major newspapers titled, “China Discovers the Price of Global Power: Soldiers Returning in Caskets” it was noted by the journalist that when Corporal Li Lei, a Chinese soldier died, his mother Yang Bin recalled her conversation with her son. When she had asked Li that would his job be dangerous, he had replied: “China is so powerful, who can bully us Chinese people?”
The Communist government fuels this myth of China being invisible against any enemy. It can do so because it gets away with antagonizing Japan and preying on the sovereignty of smaller nations such as Philippines, Mongolia, and the Philippines. Last year, it even insulted the US President Barack Obama showing its true intentions. It, however, went a little too further with Bhutan by not acknowledging its ties with India.
China must relax
China should have stepped back when 21 people died in the anti-Chinese riots erupt in the Vietnam a few years back.
It should have thought about its lack of finesse in diplomacy when its GHc 10, 000 donation was mocked by nearly everyone in Ghana and when a similar ‘dubious’ donation to the local police by the Ghana Association of Chinese Societies was criticized by the netizens. Ghana police had found Chinese connection to the illegal mining in Ghana and these donations were seen with suspicion.
China's tentacles reach everywhere. #Ghana a week after we banned illegal mining , Chinese company decides to make public donation to police
— The Maid's Boyfriend (@burckson_jude) April 5, 2017
This year a major brawl in Sri Lanka showed that the Chinese investments were being seen as the footprints of covert imperialist plans.
During the opening ceremony for the industrial zone near the port city of Hambantota protestors clashed violently with pro-government supporters over the fears that this area was becoming a ‘Chinese Colony.’
The tag of becoming a Chinese colony has become an insult so high that Botswana Guardian quoted President Ian Khama detailing just what China was doing to stop Tibetan Buddhist spiritual guru Dalai Lama from visiting the country.
He told the paper:
“Yes China spoke to us, they spoke to anybody under the sun to try to undermine this government, undermine the Cabinet. They were using time to get to Ministers, Members of Parliament, and my own relatives, everybody you can think of to try and prevent the Dalai Lama coming here. They even invited a group of Batswana to go to China to try to reinforce that, hoping that when they came back here they would write stories or ask questions in Parliament about why the Dalai Lama is coming here, things that they would not allow in their own country.”
Khama also said that “It is ironic that in China where you do not have the freedom of the Press, they would then take advantage and acknowledge that actually we are a free and open society where the Press is able to operate to use them against us in trying to find reasons to condemn. So yes, they (Chinese) engaged in intimidation, they told me, and they told other people things like the Ambassador may be recalled, it would damage relations between Botswana and China, that they would as China engage other African states to isolate Botswana. You can imagine that as far as we are concerned we are not amused by such threats, nor are we going to be intimidated or moved off our path”
But despite all this no country was able to tell dragon to mind its business.
In the face of Indian assertiveness, therefore, China was first perplexed but now it must do some soul searching and understand that it does not own the world.
