S/he wins. S/he loses. Reams have been splashed in black and white, and in colour, and the bytes have polluted the air. Whoever wins this ugly US Presidential polls between sophisticated perennial liar Hillary Clinton of the Democratic Party and uncouth diabolist Donald Trump of the Republican Party, the new President will continue the wily American policy it inherited from the British Empire.
Because, the US, like UK, which dwells on the legacy of an Anglo Saxon contagion has neither friends nor foes. US has its own interest in geopolitics whether the policy suits the Americans in the new world order. Russia, China and India like elsewhere will keenly watch the outcome of the hate-driven election campaign.
American games have been known better during the days of Henry Kissinger when he was US Secretary of State in the administration of President Richard Nixon. Shocking revelations crop up now how Nixon- Kissinger axis intervened on behalf of Pakistan against India in the Bangladesh War of Independence.
In his vastly researched masterpiece “ The Hundred- Year Marathon ” in 2015, before Michael Pillsbury , director of the Centre on Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute, says that “ unbeknownst to the public that would have shocked to see the United States aiding and abetting the People’s Liberation Army , Kissinger gave China detailed classified information about Indian troop movements against Pakistan as well as America’s approval of Chinese support to Pakistan, including diversionary troop movements. In return, Kissinger asked for Chinese troop movements on Indian border to distract India from its efforts to invade and then dismember eastern Pakistan. China’s troops did not move, but that did not dampen expectation, he says.
The game did not end there. In January 1972, Nixon authorized Kissinger’s deputy Alexander Haig to make another covert offer to China. Haig told Zhou that during the crisis between India and Pakistan, the United States would attempt to neuteralise Soviet threats along China’s borders and deter threats against China, says Pillsbury, who had also served in Presidential administrations from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama.
American hawks have been deciphering this Chinese dream to overtake the US without firing a shot even before Pillsbury saw the Chinese hidden strategy. The secret strategy of China to replace America as the global superpower could have possibly began in 1949, the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic.
However his seminal work might have given vis-à-vis dealings – past, present and future – between US and China primarily focusing on The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Nonetheless Pillsbury has referred to India in at least in a few places where he elaborates China’s entry into the WTO was viewed with skepticism unlike India. Another is the premature deaths linked to air pollution “occurring in China and India. “
Next he mentions the potential counter to NATO – the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) whose members are China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. By 2050, the SCO will include three of the largest economies in the world, once India along with Pakistan becomes a full member at its next meeting at Astana in June 2017.
Quoting Ding Bangquan in World Military Trends, a journal published by China’s Academy of Military Science , he has said “ There is no doubt that Japan has the capacity to produce a nuclear bomb. Japan has measures to avoid international supervision and undertake secret research on nuclear weapons.” However he highlight that “ Even on the issue of nuclear weapons , some Chinese analyst predict that in the future of Japan, like India, will become a nuclear power. ”
He says that China may pursue gains not through military conquest, but by creating a situation whereby its neighbours will feel that making concessions to China is prudent, given Beijing’s increased capability to inflict punishment upon them. For example, China may demand that India shutter the Dalai Lama’s exile government in Dharamasala. Beijing may also pressure or force India, the European Union , and the United States to cease their financial support of the Tibetan exiles , support that has been provided since 1958.
Pillsbury also points out how China has done warning strike for political motives of a different sort: to achieve psychological shock, reverse a crisis situation or establish a fait accompli. One of these is the offensive against India in 1962, US forces in Korea in 1950; Soviet Union in 1969 and Vietnam in 1979.
