China has threatened the USA with a nuclear Armageddon after the visit of Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. This is simply because China has never respected international law which is synonymous for the comity of nations presided over by the weak and effete United Nations (UN), resulting in the fear of an impending World War III.
Even after causing the deaths of 58.1 crore people throughout the world with at least 526,212 deaths reported in India, due to the Covid-19 virus which leaked out from the Wuhan laboratory, the international community is not willing to take on China—the Big Bad Bully Boy of the World.
The UN supplanted the asthenic League of Nations in 1945 to implement international law but has miserably failed to prevent aggression by Russia which invaded Ukraine and was backed by China. As a quid pro quo, Russia supports the ‘One China policy’ which implies China can transgress international law with impunity to annex Taiwan. Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China are the world’s biggest nightmare.
Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter prohibits use of force with the exception of self-defence when attacked. But China has flouted this provision with impunity by using military force to encircle Taiwan, while attacking Indian jawans on June 15, 2020. The endless talks between China and India will never ensure the return of Indian territory for the simple reason that China is too powerful for the Indian military.
Our jawans are brave but China under Xi Jinping is second only to the USA in artificial intelligence. “Hide your strength and bide your time” is the aphorism guiding Chinese foreign policy, which makes it impossible for China to co-exist peacefully with India and its neighbours. For China thrives on expansionism, which is why it gobbled up Tibet in 1965 from where it uses its formidable military to nibble at Indian territory in Ladakh.
The BJP’s own leader Subramaniam Swamy has flayed the late Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Atal Behari Vajpayee for agreeing that Tibet and Taiwan were a part of China, while he said Narendra Modi uttered “koi aaya nahin” when China invaded our territory in Ladakh on June 15, 2020 murdering 20 of our soldiers.
Between Articles 2 (4) and 51 of the UN Charter or between the use of force and self-defence, lies the UN’s collective security structure. The use of force by China is prohibited because it is not defending its own territory while it falsely claims to do so. The Security Council has to authorise the use of force but makes an exception if an armed attack occurs on a nation before the Security Council can prevent it. China has attacked India and encircled Taiwan in gross violation of Articles 2 (4) and 51.
But China and Russia use their veto power in the Security Council, rendering it impotent and effete. This is why the G-4 nations of India, Germany, Brazil and Japan were set up to support each other for a permanent seat in the Security Council. These countries concur that the Security Council has miserably failed to preserve global peace and security due to the use of the veto by the five permanent members of Russia, China, USA, UK and France rendering international law a beautiful rainbow in the sky.
If the USA permits China to take over Taiwan after Nancy Pelosi declared Taiwan was an independent country, it will prove that international law is dead and the world better accept that China is now the Big Bully whom nobody dares to challenge. History has repeated itself because just as the League of Nations collapsed in 1945 when Germany thumbed its nose at this effete body, the United Nations has failed because China and Russia thumb their noses at it. The 45 UN peace-keeping legal commitments ratified by 150 nations has been reduced to a farce.
Failure of international law because of China’s clout in the Security Council is proved by the fact that China has used Pakistan to not only wage a proxy war against India but also to set up laboratories in Pakistan where biological warfare experiments have been initiated with the help of the ISI. The Covid-19 virus which leaked out from the Wuhan laboratory and devastated the world has proved that China has supplanted the former USSR as the world’s second superpower to neutralise the USA.
China has bankrupted the Sri Lankan economy and controls the Pakistani economy by infusing huge funds into these countries to get them indebted to it so they will exchange their sovereignty for military bases. The repayment has been done by permitting renegade China to encircle India with nuclear bases in Sri Lanka and
Pakistan so that India is unable to combat China. China has proved to be much smarter than the dead Articles 2 (4) and 51 of the Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter which have become a barter for Chinese hegemony of the world.
China’s latest round of actions in the South China Sea through war exercises involving fighter jets and warships flouts the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In 2016, a UN tribunal concluded that China had violated UNCLOS by operating within the Philippines' EEZ, preventing fishing and petroleum activity, constructing artificial features, and preventing other maritime nations from using the region.
China has taught us that there are two systems of international law – the bourgeois law which subserves the needs of the capitalist countries, and the socialist view of international law which adjusts relations between socialist states. This theory has undergone a change but China will never respect international law which it makes and breaks at its own sweet will to annex territory. This is why India cannot co-exist with China unless it is willing to accept being bullied forever and its territory being gobbled up.
The writer, a Ph.D in law, is a senior journalist and advocate at the Bombay High Court
