Fun fact: China shares boundaries with 14 countries but claims territory from at least 23 individual nations.
And China is again making its move towards India. It hasn’t yet crossed the line of actual control and ventured into Indian Territory but over 6000 soldiers were stationed close to that, which came to be seen as an aggressive move and even a call-to-action by China.
So, today we’ll take a look at some of the Chinese territory claims and what caused them to do so.
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Yuan Dynasty was one of the most powerful dynasties in China and had precedence all over the world. So on the basis of the traditional Yuan Dynasty borders China claims Burma, Laos, North and South Korea and even Mongolia although Mongolia under Genghis Khan reigned over China.
Then comes the Ming and the Qing dynasties under whose name they claim Cambodia, Tajikistan and even Vietnam!
But the modern Chinese Republic is no less than these killing and conquering dynasties of the past. China also has claims on Taiwan, Russia, Singapore, Philippines, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Japan, Indonesia, India, Brunei, Bhutan and Afghanistan.
So, why this excessive interest in the expansion?
Is it simply to ensure more land for people to live in? Obviously not. One main reason for these expansionist plans is the need to show power. Our world is a hegemony, run by the US Dollar. And it is such a strong hegemony that it’ll be difficult for any single nation to rise to power and/or have the kind of US has on international grounds. It is maintained by political researchers that the only nation/entity which will be able to tackle US muscle power is the EU, given that they stay united, due to their high collective importance.
To quantify this muscle power, let us compare military expenditure.
US spends $732 bn, China, by comparison, spends only $261 bn. That’s just 35% of US expenditure.
Any guesses how much India spends?
Just $71 bn.
And these are the top three. So you can guess how difficult this will be.
So by acquiring lands, claiming stakes in different countries China wants to build a fear factor in nations around the world. This fear factor will help them by swaying these countries their support, simply because they are too small to retaliate.
Let us look at this from India’s perspective.
China claims Aksai-Chin, Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Ladakh. So one day, India solidifies its stance and decides to take back Arunachal. Even though it’ll be very difficult, having a weaker(https://armedforces.eu/compare/country_India_vs_China) army, let us assume India wins. There is lot of bloodshed and the population is not so happy. But wait, does losing out to India stop China? No.
They come back again, bigger and stronger and wipe out Indian military. Arunachal Pradesh is now South Tibet.
The government knows this will happen and prefers peace talks over war. Because in such wars it is the people who suffer. China, on the other hand, takes advantage of government’s this position and tries to scare them off with the Chinese muscle power.
Chinese plan on world dominance. They already have economic clout and a strong military. Although in today’s time chances of an all-out World War III for complete international dominance seem bleak. But we can never underestimate China.
What we expect is that soon there’ll be a second cold war, where no guns are fired but each nation has a chosen side and US-China fight through secondary mediums like trade.
And when you want to pull people to your side either you have to be nice enough for people to be attracted or simply scare them into submission.
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