This article is from the Global Times, which is an English-language propaganda outlet controlled by the Communist Party of China. Since the article is propaganda, it is mostly filled with half-truths and outright lies.
What’s the point of featuring an article full of lies? It’s because the lies themselves give you insights into what the Chinese Communists are thinking and what they are concerned about. The greater the fear, the stronger the propaganda.
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China versus India
The article concerns recent confrontations between Indian and Chinese military forces in the Himalayas. The border between India and China has never been properly defined, a difficult task in the best of circumstances because of the remoteness, high elevation, and severe weather on the border itself.
Instead China and India agreed in 1959 on a Line of Actual Control (LAC), describing where their forces are located without necessarily agreeing that the LAC is the real border.
The LAC understanding was reinforced after a 1962 ceasefire following an Indian-Chinese war, and a 1993 agreement on the non-use of force. The respective armies kept their distance on either side of a kind of demilitarised zone and no shots were fired despite occasional confrontations.
The agreement has been trampled
China has advanced troops to areas formerly acknowledged as under Indian control. India has pushed back by advancing its own troops. Shots have been fired and there have been casualties on both sides.
Now, China is rushing elite troops from Tibet to the Himalayas, and India has mobilised its own forces. I’ve spent time at high altitudes comparable to those at the LAC (about 14,000 feet) and I can attest to the thin air, freezing temperatures, and high winds that are not uncommon.
This article basically threatens war if India does not stand down. The Chinese say, ‘If India wants war, China will oblige. Let’s see which country can outlast the other.’ This bombast is really a sign of weakness.
India has much more experience in operating troops at high altitude (partly because it has similar disputes with Pakistan), and India has shorter supply lines (China must reinforce by traversing the entire subcontinent of the Tibetan Plateau).
Any escalation could have catastrophic outcomes
It’s important to bear in mind that India and China are both nuclear powers, so any escalation can have catastrophic outcomes. China’s threats, as revealed in the article, are not helpful and not well received in India.
The world has enough hotspots already. Let’s hope this situation cools down before this confrontation turns into a shooting war between the two most populous nations on Earth.
Give peace a chance
Here in the US, at a time when people are absorbed in news of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic collapse, domestic rioting, and the course of the election campaign, it’s easy to lose sight of foreign policy. Yet, traditionally, foreign policy and domestic policy are the twin pillars on which any presidential campaign is judged.
We can leave the domestic policy debates for another time. But, in the realm of foreign policy, President Trump has been a giant.
Trump has gradually reduced troop levels in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Europe. He has avoided new wars. Trump has also avoided major humanitarian crises, although he has had to deal with the aftermath of crises in Syria and Libya that Obama precipitated and then left behind.
Trump has opened the door to dialogue with North Korea and has come down hard on Iranian cheating with regard to the nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs. Importantly, Trump has been a peacemaker.
Trump’s peace treaties
In recent weeks, Trump has announced three major peace treaties between former enemies that were negotiated with direction from the US.
The first was a historic treaty between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Then came a peace agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, resolving differences that go back centuries. Finally, Trump announced another Arab-Israel peace treaty between Bahrain and Israel.
These breakthroughs have not gone unnoticed by the world (even if they have been ignored by mainstream media). This article provides details of the Israel-Bahrain accord, but also gives background information on the Israel-UAE treaty and analysis on possible future breakthroughs with Saudi Arabia.
A boost to Trump’s re-election chances
As a result of these successes, Trump has received two separate nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize — one from a member of the Norwegian parliament and another from a member of the Swedish parliament.
We’ll see if Trump wins the Nobel Prize (he deserves to, but there’s a lot of anti-Trump sentiment in Norway and Sweden, and the rest of Scandinavia). There’s no doubt that these achievements will help Trump’s re-election chances.
According to Professor Allan Lichtman’s predictive model, called ‘Keys to the White House’, an achievement in foreign policy is one of only 13 factors that accurately predict who will win a presidential election. Trump has now definitively turned that key in his favour.
All the best,
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Jim Rickards,
Strategist, The Daily Reckoning Australia
PS: This content was originally published by Jim Rickards’ Strategic Intelligence Australia, a financial advisory newsletter designed to help you protect your wealth and potentially profit from unseen world events.
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