President Xi Jinping’s China is displaying superpower ambitions. China is determined to secure that position – beg, borrow, steal, coerce or kill. And one very clever and completely conceited programme is establishing China Standards 2035. In a world of high technology, every newer invention or application needs to be set into an international standard, with which the manufacturing of components and processes need to be matched. This area is still emerging and China is dominating every activity of developing a global standard. The Chinese vision is to establish around the world ‘China Standards 2035’, thereby the entire production process of technology applications will be governed by Chinese dictats. And the patents and intellectual rights will be garnered and state-owned by China, thereby controlling the world of technology on the planet to the last inch.
CHINESE FOOTPRINTS IN UN AND INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY
China’s membership at the five-member Security Council is a historic fortune that China has used extremely well. Not just that, through CIDCO, hegemonistic power display, behind curtain diplomacy and gradual occupation of almost every trade, technology, the economic and political arena in the world, China has commanded enough influence already to polarise global diplomacy towards its gain. It has taken over several international organisations, including the prize catch of the United Nations. When China curtailed political freedoms in Hong Kong last year, two rival declarations circulated at the UN Human Rights Council. One, drafted by Cuba and commending Beijing’s move, won the backing of 53 nations. Another, issued by the U.K. expressing concern, secured just 27 supporters. That demonstrated Chinese power at the UN. Last summer, China won a seat on UN Human Rights Panel with help from countries it has supported. In the thick of the Pandemic last year, Trump’s USA left WHO. That became a strategic gift in disguise to China and it filled the vacuum created at WHO. US left UNESCO on the issue of Palestine and China rushed to fill in the gap created. Out of 15 specialised UN agencies, China already leads four including International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). After taking over the leadership of ITU, China patronised the fight of Huawei Technologies with the USA and has now pushed forward a case for establishing a new internet protocol that allows more surveillance and censorship. No other nation in the world heads more than one UN agency, while China heads four. With its growing power and grip over nations, China has risen to a power pedestal of warning nations to tow its line. Recently, it threatened Bangladesh with dire consequences if it joined the Quad consisting of the USA, Japan, Australia and India.
CHINA TAKES OVER MINES ACROSS THE WORLD
One of the major resources on which the human race subsists and sustains is mineral wealth. Mineral deposits are a strategic instrument of trade and development. By the end of 2018, China had already taken over vital mines in over 36 countries of the world for all kinds of mineral extraction including gold, uranium and lithium, which are strategic in commerce, military power and technology. China invests anywhere between 15 to 25 billion US$ annually on mine acquisition around the world.
DRAGON SPIT IS AN INVISIBLE VOLCANO
While all above are seemingly legitimate colonisation of the world, so that China can realise its ambitious plan of becoming the world’s greatest and undisputed power by 2049, China does not leave any stone unturned in destroying the progress of nations that look like hurdles in its path to progress. China has been brazenly involved in and suspected to be involved in several global extremities and disastrous events that undermine the progress of nations and paves way for Chinese hegemonistic ambitions.
THE MOST FAMOUS PANDEMIC IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND
It is already well established that the Covid-19 virus was manufactured in a laboratory in China and was let loose on the world, wherein over a year now, more than 3.3 million people have lost lives and a much larger number of families have descended into untold misery. If we look at the list of death by countries, we will see that over half a million died in the USA, the biggest trade and military rival of China. Brazil and India, which are the two major members of the BRIC countries that together could make a formidable power of challenge to China have collectively recorded over another half a million deaths. Western European countries that are allies of the USA and are power partners in the UN, NATO and dominate the world of commerce and military under the patronaging partnership of the USA, have collectively seen another half a million deaths. A laboratory manufactured agent of death has been unleashed into countries that are the major threat and hurdle in the marathon 100 year run of China to reach the coveted podium as the world’s largest superpower. In about a year, not just death, the health and hygiene framework and the economic fabric of these countries have been damaged to such an extent that the recovery could take years. On top of that, these nations, mostly democratic, have now acquired people’s ire due to unquantifiable suffering, and very stable political governance systems have been shaken to the core. This kind of warfare has never been witnessed before in human history.
From the same list of countries, one may observe that countries in the neighbourhood of these strategic nations have not been so much affected by the Chinese virus at all. Is it a coincidence or a conspiracy that nations like Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan, most of which have societies that are closely linked to India’s in trade, cultural exchange, familial relations, and interaction through our perforated border do not have the viral infection anywhere near to the proportion in India? Is it a coincidence or conspiracy that a similar disparity in the viral spread happens across Europe and only NATO countries get severely affected and not the eastern nations on that continent? Why and how is that a Chinese virus affects only countries that may have a capacity to successfully control the hegemonistic ambitions and not the countries that secure aid and assistance from China and remain subservient to the growing power of the dragon? This is only possible with the help of a laboratory-generated virus and not through an organism spun out of organic evolution. For this very reason, India should never accept the vaccine, medicines or any material of mass consumption originating from China, because we could just become sitting ducks for a conspiracy that is deep and wide and is brought out through a careful fusion of science, technology and hegemonistic strategy.
SUSPICION OF THE DRAGON FOOTPRINT
We are living in times when completely unthinkable and what we thought impossible have begun to happen. This month, a rocket launched by China fell back into sea and space agencies have wondered what might have fallen from it into the Indian Ocean. We all remember not many years ago, across the world, unsolicited packets of seeds arrived at people’s doors from China and agriculture experts warned people not to sow them, for they might be seeds that will destroy the native species and obliterate our food security. Australia is in the eye of the storm of the dragon because of its developmental position in the southeast and scientists wonder if there is any Chinese connection to the devastating wildfire of last year that burned for weeks on end. For scientists, the devastating glacier burst in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district, which lies in Chinese proximity, is also an unusual and rare occurrence in the peak winter months when the Himalayan glaciers remain in the deep-frozen state. Technology companies in Silicon Valley are increasingly being established and led by people of Chinese origin, which might help China in global surveillance and information collection. Zoom, the video conferencing facility, has been blamed on that count and nations have suspected that information from secretive and strategic video conferences may have already reached Chinese information archives.
FIRE OF THE DRAGON AND THE WITHERING SUSTAINABILITY OF INDIA
A recent publication of NITI Aayog has elaborately traced the character of India’s rural economy and put into perspective the importance of rural sustainability of the nation. Although India is in a transitionary state of economic resurgence, 68.8% of the nation’s population and 72.4 % of the nation’s workforce are from rural areas. Nearly half of India’s National Domestic Product (NDP) is still rural. While 96% of agricultural employment is rural, 48.6% of non-agricultural employment too is rural. Because of this, the sustainable development of India depends predominantly on rural industriousness, productivity, dynamics and livelihood quality. The efforts of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) are intricately linked to this horizon of rural sustainable development of India through nearly 100 different kinds of rural industrial entrepreneurship and handholding activities. KVIC has been sustaining a major part of village industries in India through over 40 Offices spread across the nation, around 5,000 aligned institutions, 23 Departmental Sales Outlets and around 8035 Khadi sales outlets /Khadi Bhavans run by Khadi Institutions. The direct beneficiaries organised through this mechanism exceed 15 million people, while indirect beneficiaries run into several additional millions. If you put together the direct, indirect associated and familial beneficiaries of this carefully hand raised and sustained sector, it could well over be a billion people in the lifeline of village industries sustainable development programmes.
China understands the socio-economic and socio-political power of this community and its influence on the mainstream life of our nation. And it engages itself in a calculated and consistent manner in which this delicate balance could be obliterated so that the nation can be hollowed from within.
In taking some examples of this phenomenon, the Agarbatti (Incense stick) industry stands out. Out of the half a million metric ton agarbatti requirement and production in India annually, over 80% raw material came from China and Vietnam.
Even the national flag of India that is only made with Khadi cotton or silk fabric was not spared by the Chinese invasion. Counterfeit national flags made of plastic and other artificial material from China flooded Indian markets forcing the current government to place the National Flag under the prohibited category of import in October 2019.
Similarly, the traditional Indian Silk Industry, the heritage art of clay pottery, handmade paper, leather industry were driven to the verge of extinction. Imagine, the idols of Indian deities were made in China and worshipped in Indian households. Toys, honey, minerals, and dozens of other natural resources based village industries have been rendered unproductive due to Chinese economic aggression of pushing through our market a subsidised and quality compromised product till recently until the present government made corrections by imposing higher import duty and import restrictions on such Chinese products. It will, however, take years for the Indian village industries to recuperate from the Chinese intrusion and be self-reliant in all respects.
One can imagine the invasion of the dragon. The fire is not in the borders that guard the nation. The fire is burning the nation to its core and is devouring the integrity, national character and our very ways of existence. And we have unconsciously allowed that.
AN ATTACK OF SOCIO-CULTURAL CHARACTER & HERITAGE
Besides trade, a number of these developments are an attack on the socio-cultural character and heritage. Offering silk Angavastram (stole) to guests in North-Eastern states and Leh Laddakh is an old tradition. Making Angavastram in these states was part of the village industry which was providing jobs to thousands of local artisans, mostly women. China has captured this heritage art too by flooding cheap artificial silk stoles. Not just here alone, the heritage headgear Keffiyeh of Babylonian/Mesopotamian origin Palestine which the Arab civilisation guarded as its heritage symbol is now made in China and Keffiyeh factories have systematically closed shop in the Arab world. Travel anywhere in the world and buy a memento or a curio of memorabilia of your visit to the Statue of Liberty or Fountain of Trevi or Eiffel Tower or Taj Mahal or Burj Khalifa, the probability is that it is made in China and the enchanting global diversity is engulfed by the dragon fire of hegemonistic monopoly.
A DRAGON THAT IS ENORMOUSLY INTELLIGENT AND EQUALLY EVIL
If a nation has to survive and protect itself into the future from the aggressive invasion of China through seen and unseen belly fire of the dragon, it has to think of all scenarios that until now may never have been imagined. Can some seeds destroy our crop, biodiversity and food security? Can something dropped from the air can contaminate our rains and water bodies and multiply there to cover us in risk over time? Can some material that arrives from China remain dormant for a while and gradually uncoil like a serpent and slither around in effect? Can a vaccine imported from China have an ingredient that could bring out a larger demon into our lungs or heart than the coronavirus? I know we are thinking of the evil, but as the old adage goes, forewarned is forearmed.
The dragon is an embodiment of determination and mind application. If a lab-made virus can be selectively unleashed to destroy the potential competitors in progress, there is a devilish finesse in the application of scientific imagination. It should not be beyond imagination now to believe that the dragon could use the elements of nature to its advantage. The jet streams in the air, the ocean currents, tectonic dynamics, raging forces of climate change, monsoon system or El Nino – nothing is beyond a determined dragon. This may sound being paranoid. A non-democratic and stable autocracy of a bunch of leaders that believe in ruthless communism powers the engine of action. And the dragon is never short of belly fire. Therefore, the future is uncertain. The dragon that hovers over us from the sky spewing fire in every breath uses methods that are visible, invisible, and unpredictable.
The dragon is ruthless and uncompassionate. It has one singular purpose in its mind, which is to acquire the crown of world emperorship by 2049, no matter what it takes. Its power is so unchallenged and determination so unwavering that we do not know if the air that we breathe and the rains that fall from the sky are as pure and natural as they have been before.
India as a nation needs to remain integrated, united and resolute in thwarting the advance of the dragon. Because the dragon sleeps at a breathing distance from us. And we are perceived to be a potential power that can slay the dragon. We need a vision that will not be blinded by fire or darkness.
The writer is Chairman, Khadi and Village Industries Commission, Government of India, New Delhi.