China’s Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng equated Indo-Pacific groupings such as Quad and AUKUS with the NATO at a programme in Beijing. This comes only a day after a two-hour-long video session between US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping late last week on the Ukraine crisis. Le’s utterings could be an indication of China’s anxiety over international efforts to checkmate its advances in the Indo-Pacific region. This stand comes after China’s persistent refusal to criticise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It had so long been suggesting a negotiated settlement and urging the US and the European Union to appreciate Russia’s position. But, now a top Chinese leader has taken a clear position on the ongoing war in Ukraine and squarely blamed the NATO for the situation. Le did not mince words and compared NATO’s actions in Europe to those of the US in Asia and warned that a crisis similar to that of Ukraine could follow in Asia too. China through its official organs and analysts blames NATO’s move to offer its membership to Ukraine as the root cause for the crisis there. Its Foreign Minister Wang Yi also said Russia had reasons to be concerned about NATO’s real intentions in Ukraine.
In a way, Le’s detailed response to the crisis is a departure from the position China had taken till now. Call it nervousness or the proverbial crying wolf, Le’s utterances show China is concerned it may meet Russia’s fate in Ukraine and even be put in a far more serious predicament, if groupings like Quad comprising the USA, India, Australia and Japan and AUKUS formed by Australia, UK and the US, equipped with nuclear-powered submarines, take it on. NATO could not directly engage in Ukraine which is not yet its member. But, the Quad countries have the ability to train their fire power on China. That is why Le has been fielded not to articulate China’s position on the Ukraine crisis as much as the threats to its hegemony in the Indo-Pacific region. Significantly, Ukraine had urged China a couple of days back to use its influence on Russia to restrain the latter from pounding the country with ruthless shelling. China has both economic and political interests in Ukraine. Even then, it has not yet responded to the appeal as it is more concerned about its own interests in the Indo-Pacific than in Ukraine.
In the characteristic Chinese way, Le took the line of offence as the best defence and threatened dire consequences if Quad and AUKUS countries ‘gang up’ against China in the Indo-Pacific region. He warned that going against the trend to pursue the Indo-Pacific strategy, provoke trouble, put together closed and exclusive ‘small circles or groups’ and get the region off course toward fragmentation and bloc-based division are as dangerous as the NATO strategy of eastward expansion in Europe. He went further to warn that if allowed to go on unchecked, it would bring untold consequences and ultimately push the Asia-Pacific over the “edge of an abyss.” This is almost a war cry when there is no war in sight at the moment. China is looking at the Ukraine crisis as a dress rehearsal of the US-led blocs to use their combined arsenal to curb China’s maritime aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region.
Only recently, China’s Foreign Minister Wang spun the same theory and explicitly mentioned the formation of Quad as a key element of that strategy. China is convinced these groupings aim at establishing an “Indo-Pacific version of NATO.”
Predictably, India took up the position along with its Quad partners that there is not an iota of truth in China’s suspicion and claims the grouping is for broad-based cooperation, including vaccines and supply chains. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar sought to buttress India’s position with the argument that no treaty has been signed nor is there any structure or secretariat. However, India, willy-nilly, seems to be on the Chinese side in its position on the Ukraine crisis. It has internationally been grouped as among the very few countries that are pro-Russia at this juncture.
Chinese propagandists brand NATO as ‘the most serious war machine’ that violates international law and endangers the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries. As the US and EU allege China is ready to supply arms and other material support to Russia during the invasion of Ukraine, China rubbishes it and says it is all cooked up to divert the world’s attention from the West’s plan to intimidate China.
This is wartime and all sorts of theories and propaganda are being circulated. China is no stranger to this game. It seems it fears its plan for invading Taiwan will face stiff challenge from the Quad and AUKUS groupings for which it has started the campaign to discredit them and portray them as NATO clones. However, China nibbling away at Indian territory may not get an enthusiastic response from countries like Japan and the US, important members of Quad, due to India’s stand on the Ukraine crisis.