Bhaskar Roy, who retired recently as a senior government official with decades of national and international experience, is an expert on international relations and Indian strategic interests.
Beijing has consistently expressed outrage over the "so called China Threat Theory," and projects itself deceptively as a ‘harmonious" member of the global community.
But Zhongnanhai (the central headquarters for the Communist Party of China and the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China.) would be well advised to indulge in some deep introspection, and ask how long Beijing's mandarins will continue this strategy of "denial and deception".
Why is no other country stuck with the label "threat to the world"?
The world at large, particularly some of China's neighbours, can answer that question.
Throughout the 1950s, China deceived India with friendly words and "Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai", the slogan created by India's first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. With total faith in the new revolutionary China, Nehru dismissed the view of Indian skeptics who viewed Beijing with suspicion.
In 1956, when asked by Nehru about the validity of China's border maps with India, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai replied that those were old maps, and new maps would be made. Three years down the road, China held up those same maps as proof of their claim to huge chunks of Indian territory. Then of course came the 1962 Chinese attack along the border.
Vietnam cannot forget how China grabbed the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea just before the US withdrew from Vietnam. The Americans looked away - one of a series of Washington's monumental global policy blunders, stemming more from emotional outbursts of frustration than considered strategic foresight. Hanoi also cannot forget and forgive China's attack on Vietnam in 1979, described by Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping as "teaching Vietnam a lesson".
China claims sovereignty over the entire islands and reefs of the Spratly group in the South China Sea, though there are five other partial claimants including Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. It has employed gunboat diplomacy in the area, much to the dismay of the far weaker claimants. These claimants have to bow down to China and cooperate, because the preeminent power in the Asia Pacific region, the US, has pursued an inconsistent policy towards China.
Japan has been facing political, and military backed probes of its Senkaku group of islands in the East China Sea, from China. Periodic tensions in Japan-China bilateral relations remain a serious problem between the two countries.
Deep distrust remains between Russia and China. The Russian foreign policy establishment and the military are of the view that the improved Russia-China relations are tactical, and they have no illusions about China's sincerity. They also have not forgotten how China supported the US against the old Soviet Union during the Cold War.
China's less developed and land locked Central Asian neighbours like Kazakhstan have little option but to kow-tow to China. Beijing offers them access to sea ports, and is a major purchaser of their oil. They are also dependent on China both for general trade and border trade, and do not have a defence capability to speak of. But while they resent China's high handed approach, they are imprisoned by geopolitics. All these nations are disturbed by China's approach, which is a complex mixture of superiority, sabotage and veiled threats.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Chinese Diaspora in the South East Asian region were called Beijing's Trojan Horses, and with good reason. China supported anti-government revolutions in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar (Burma). Indonesia was hardest hit.
In recent years, Chinese writings have gloated that the leaders of some of these countries, especially in Thailand, are of Chinese origin, and over 70 percent of the wealth in some of these countries are controlled by Chinese ethnic businessmen who regularly interact with China.
In the 1980s, China created an Overseas Chinese office, and gave overseas (ethnic) Chinese special privileges to invest in China. China benefitted immensely from the investments made by the ethnic Chinese of South East Asia.
China has woven a network, like a cobweb, with Chinese emigrants in far corners of the world. The US and Western Europe became Beijing's main target for acquisition of high technology - both military and civilian. The means did not matter. Chinese espionage, searching for high technology from the US and Europe is legend, with proven records in courts.
Having acquired military strength by means both fair and foul, and economic strength by offering the west a cheap manufacturing platform, China today speaks of a strategy of "strong military and rich nation", to control and decide in its favour developments in its neighbourhood - South East Asia to the far East.
From around 2004, under President Hu Jintao who heads the Communist Party and the military, China began to extensively exhibit its arrogance, including an unofficial proposal this year (2009) to divide the globe between the US and China. While the concept was firmly rejected by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it has not deterred the Beijing Mandarins from prosecuting their strategy in the Chinese way. Beijing's arrogance and impertinence is now out in the open.
It is, therefore, not surprising that having acquired this position, China has embarked on an aggressive strategy to cut its perceived main rival in Asia, India, down to the size of a regional non-entity.
In the interest of arriving at a peaceful solution to the border and territorial issues, the Indian government may have been too careful, or even remiss, in admitting Chinese incursions across the unofficially recognized line on the borders. Since August 2009, the India media has sniffed out and exposed Chinese transgressions on the border, with some having gone overboard. New Delhi, however, tempered the media and emphasized the growing bilateral relations.
Whether the Chinese government perceived the Indian position as weakness, or whether it saw this as an opportune time to cut India down to size, Beijing went on an offensive on the border issue.
Apart from increased border violations, including by air, it challenged India's sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh, bordering Tibet. On October 12, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu used sharp and intemperate language bordering on gratuitous insults over Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the Indian state on October 3 on an election campaign.
He warned the Indian Prime Minister "not to trigger disturbances in the disputed region" and accused him of "disregarding China's concerns". The statement also described Arunachal Pradesh as "Southern Tibet", a nomenclature Beijing has adopted in recent years.
The Indian government rebutted the Chinese statement strongly, reiterating Arunachal Pradesh is a sovereign part of India. China's strategy on territorial claims has been to make excessive claims and enter into prolonged negotiations backed by threats wherever possible, to get the maximum territory of strategic advantage.
But where the adversary is strong, it retreats. China got a lot of concessions from Russian Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, much to the chagrin of the Russian army. But the next Russian President, Vladimir Putin, tore up the earlier border agreement in the China-Russia eastern sector and forced a new agreement. China quietly acquiesced.
The provocation along the India-China border, reopening partially a new issue on the Sikkim border which was thought to be long settled, and signals that a strategic shift on the Kashmir issue may be imminent, are a part of a well thought out larger Chinese strategy.
Apart from its negative stand on India's nuclear development and attempts to block Asian Development Bank (ADB) assistance for some development projects in Arunachal Pradesh, other problems on global issues like disagreements on climate change etc may come to the fore sooner than later.
China is also unhappy with India's rising appreciation in Afghanistan, which cuts across the warring factions, tribes and the government. Afghanistan is the gateway to Central Asia, which China feels is a preserve to shared only with Russia for now.
What will decide the outcome of these issues and questions are the strength of the India-US relations terms of India's security and global aspiration, and a renewed warmth in India-Russia relations.
The India-China relationship is the most important issue in the Asian context. China wants to be openly accepted as the only "pole" in Asia, and that India should acknowledge its subservience to Beijing. This syndrome will continue to haunt India-China relations till there is some clarity over the Asian Security development paradigm.
'Nervous China may attack India by 2012' | Column: Calling China's Bluff | How China plans to split India | More columns by Bhaskar Roy
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect those of Sify.com
