208: China’s New Style of Diplomacy : Drawing Red Lines in the Sand

pic courtesy: internet – dreams time

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, visited north China’s port city of Tianjin in Jul 21. China put forward two lists during talks with visiting U.S. deputy secretary of state.

 

The two lists are:-

  • List of U.S. Wrongdoings that Must Stop.

 

  • List of Key Individual Cases that China Has Concerns With.

 

In the List of U.S. Wrongdoings that Must Stop, China urged the United States to:-

  • Unconditionally revoke the visa restrictions over Communist Party of China (CPC) members and their families.

 

  • Revoke sanctions on Chinese leaders, officials and government agencies.

 

  • Remove visa restrictions on Chinese students and stop harassing them.

 

  • China also urged the United States to stop suppressing Chinese enterprises.

 

  • Stop suppressing the Confucius Institutes.

 

  • Revoke the registration of Chinese media outlets as “foreign agents” or “foreign missions”.

 

List of Key Individual Cases that China Has Concerns With, contains some key individual cases, including some Chinese students’ visa applications being rejected, Chinese citizens receiving unfair treatment in the United States, Chinese diplomatic and consular missions being harassed and rammed into by perpetrators in the United States, growing anti-Asian and anti-China sentiment, and Chinese citizens suffering violent attacks.

 

China urged the United States to address these cases as soon as possible and earnestly respect and protect the legitimate interests of Chinese citizens and institutions in the United States.

 

Comments

 

The Chinese government has practiced issue-linked diplomacy for decades behind closed doors as a negotiating tactic.

 

China is not only disagreeing with others, but has now started demanding favourable action from others, it seems that a new threshold has been crossed in China’s diplomacy.

 

China’s engagement ethos has been summed up appropriately as:-

  • Competitive when it should be.
  • Collaborative when it can be.
  • Adversarial when it must be.

 

This engagement style reflects an interpretation of Xi Jinping thoughts on diplomacy, which calls for “a distinctive Chinese style of diplomacy” that protects the “red line” of China’s self-declared core interests.

 

Xi Jinping Thoughts on Diplomacy

It has ten core principles. These principles with comments are as follows:-

 

  1. Upholding the authority of the CPC Central Committee as the overarching principle and strengthening the Party’s centralized, unified leadership over external work.

# Emphasis is on the supremacy of the Party and the Leadership.

 

  1. Advancing major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics to fulfil the mission of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

# Emphasis is on regaining of the lost glory and apex position in the world.

 

  1. Building a community with a shared future for mankind with a view to defending world peace and promoting common development.

# Announcement of China’s arrival on the world scene and its role in the world affairs.

 

  1. Enhancing strategic confidence based on the foundation of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

# Advocating that the Chinese ideology of governance is the best.

 

  1. Promoting Belt and Road cooperation under the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits.

# Trying to sell BRI, as China has too much riding on it. Although luring others with “shared benefits”, but actually is a Win-Win situation for China.

 

  1. Pursuing peaceful development on the basis of mutual respect and win-win cooperation.

# It means achieving of China’s objectives without confrontation.

 

  1. Fostering global partnerships by pursuing a broad-based diplomatic agenda.

# Indicating that China should start dominating the multilateral institutions.

 

  1. Steering the reform of the global governance system under the principle of fairness and justice.

# Indicating that the global governance system should work as decide by China.

 

  1. Upholding national sovereignty, security and development interests with China’s core interests as a red line.

# Active Defence policy with a twist. China will decide what the red line is, when and by whom it has been crossed and China will have the legitimacy of carrying out any retaliatory action as it deems fit.

 

10. Developing a distinctive Chinese style of diplomacy by both drawing on fine traditions and adapting to the changing times.

# The global governance and diplomacy should be essentially based on the Chinese past traditions and beliefs.

 

Bottom Line

China is announcing her arrival on the world scene.

 

Question

Do we want the global governance system with Chinese flavour?

 

Your thoughts, suggestions and value additions are most welcome

 

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205: Shark in the Tank

There are many management theories which we use in our day to day life. Some knowingly and some unknowingly.

 

I was lucky to have number of command appointments in my service career.

 

I always shared my experiences with the young budding commanders.

 

One of the advice used to be – “As a commander you have to put the shark in the tank at the right time”.

 

The Story

 

The Japanese love eating fresh fish. But the fish got depleted, in the waters close to sea shore, due to over fishing. So the Japanese fishing boats got bigger and went farther from the shores.  The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish would lose their freshness.

 

To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the frozen fish did not taste the same as fresh fish and the frozen fish brought a lower price.

 

So fishing companies installed fish tanks. This solved the problem to a certain extent. However, to make adequate profit, the fish tanks started getting overstuffed, with little room for the fish to thrash around. The fish stopped moving and started losing their freshness once again.

 

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they added a small shark to each tank. The shark would eat a few fish, but most of the remaining fish would remain active and fresh.

 

Lesson & Recommendation

 

“Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment.”

– L. Ron Hubbard

 

So in the unit, establishment or group an optimum level of activity and excitement has to be maintained to keep the group and the people productive, active, healthy and happy.

 

Too much of work for too long would burn them off with fatigue and too little work would cause reduction in output due to boredom and inactivity.

 

As a commander and leader one has to maintain that optimum level of activity and know when to put the shark in the tank and for how long.

 

Addendum

Some times as a commander one needs to become the shark himself.

 

Coming up

Tyre pressure theory

 

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202: TRIBUTE TO GANDHI

 

Gandhiji was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar city of Gujarat.

 

He is revered the world over as one of history’s most transformative and inspirational figures known for his paragon of ethical living and pacifism.

 

He was a fearless campaigner for the rights and dignity of all people, whose constant and unwavering promotion of non-violence as a tool to win over hearts and minds has forever left its mark on the world.

 

His life achievement stands unique in political history. He invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation war. He is admired for his calm, courage and compassion.

 

In India he is referred to as Bapu (father of the nation). Origin of this title is traced back to a radio address (on Singapore radio) on 6 July 1944 by Subhash Chandra Bose where Bose addressed Gandhiji as “The Father of the Nation”.

 

He was also given the title of Mahatma, (taken from the Sanskrit words maha – meaning great and atma – meaning Soul. Rabindranath Tagore is said to have accorded this title to him.

 

Gandhianism or Gandhism

 

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