China’s conduct and the logic of power

As the India-China standoff continues at the Doklam plateau, reams have already been written about the sources of Chinese conduct. All sorts of analyses are doing the rounds, from the centralization of power under Xi Jinping and the forthcoming Communist Party Congress to the growing belligerence of the Chinese media and Beijing’s growing need to show its displeasure to New Delhi for boycotting the Belt and Road Initiative and underline who the real boss is in South Asia. While all these factors can shed some light on recent Chinese behaviour, the ultimate factor remains a structural
one—China’s growing power is altering its view about its own interests, which are now in an ever-expansive mode.

Just look at its behaviour in recent weeks, apart from its stand-off with India. Last week, China told Japan to “get used to it” after it flew six warplanes over the Miyako Strait between two southern Japanese islands in a military exercise. Taiwan’s ministry of national defence also complained that the Chinese bombers flew just outside its air defence identification zone. China also dispatched troops to Djibouti as it gets ready to formally establish the country’s first overseas military base. And as the world paid its muted tribute after the demise of Chinese dissident and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, China shrugged it off, arguing that “conferring the prize to such a person goes against the purposes of this award. It’s a blasphemy of the peace prize.”