As India reported a record number of Wuhan coronavirus cases for the sixth straight day, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has told the country to change its “pro-US diplomacy.”
On Tuesday, India reported over 320,000 new cases of the Chinese virus, taking the number of nationwide infections to 17.6 million — out of which 5 million were detected in April alone. With the massive coronavirus surge, the country struggles with a crippling shortage of vaccines, oxygen, and other medical supplies.
As the death toll from the Wuhan virus mounts, Communist China tries cynically to drive a wedge between India and the West.
“India should reflect on the course of its pro-US diplomacy over the years. It ought to rethink its return to strategic autonomy,” the CCP-run newspaper Global Times said in an editorial on Monday.
The Chinese editorial blamed India’s ordeal with the Wuhan pandemic on its pro-U.S. foreign policy and its hostile relations with Beijing. “Now India is bearing the disappointing consequences of its choice. At the very least, the strategic choice of leaning to the US to contain China is completely wrong,” the Maoist daily concluded.
China is weaponizing the global mayhem created by the Wuhan pandemic to attack and intimidate its Asian neighbors, including India. In May 2020, the Chinese military overran Indian border posts and occupied a strategic valley in India’s Kashmir region.
With the U.S. and the West preoccupated with the pandemic, China is encircling India. Under the cover of its commercial Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing is acquiring military, air, and naval bases in Iran and Pakistan. With the talk of China’s People Liberal Army (PLA) entering Afghanistan after U.S. troops leave by September, India fears a Chinese pincer movement from the West.
India’s military planners are worried about China entering Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal.
“We have concerns about Afghanistan,” India’s Army chief Bipin Rawat admitted last week, “If the US feels that their withdrawal … is ultimately going to lead to peace and tranquility, we would be happy to see such a situation emerging. But our concern is that the vacuum should not create space for other disruptors to step in.”
China is pursuing a “string of pearls” strategy at sea by taking control of strategic ports and islands stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf. The move effectively gives Beijing the ability to impose a naval embargo against India in a conflict.
China’s hostile actions and military build-up along the border have prompted India to seek better ties with the U.S. and Asian Pacific neighbors. Under President Donald Trump’s watch, India upgraded its participation in the U.S.-led Asia Pacific alliance or the Quad. The four-nation coalition — comprising of the U.S., Australia, Japan, and India — is seen as a counterweight to China’s growing naval and military build-up in the region.
The growing U.S.-India defense ties, particularly New Delhi’s membership of the Quad, have angered China. Last year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused the Trump administration of building an “Indo-Pacific NATO,” a Cold War Western alliance created to counter a similar threat posed by Soviet imperialism.
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