Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Lying through his teeth? At a time when China has already encroached into Nepal, built infrastructure illegally on India’s occupied territory ‘donated’ by Pakistan in PoK, and tried to cross the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and barge into India.
There is no end to China’s falsehoods. Now, President Xi Jinping has claimed that China will never seek expansion, has no intention to fight either ‘Cold War’ or ‘hot war’.
In a pre-recorded video message addressing the United Nation’s 75th General Assembly Meeting, he said on Tuesday that China will never seek hegemony, expansion, or sphere of influence. “Beijing has no intention to fight either a “Cold War” or a “hot war” with any country.
With its expansionist and hegemonic plans now an open secret and global concern, and its bravado on Covid-19 getting global opprobrium, a naked China is trying to use some fig leaf and score brownie points while not diluting any of its nefarious designs.
Xi said China will continue to narrow the differences and resolve disputes with other countries through negotiations. This at a time when six rounds of high-level talks between India and China have failed to produce any result on the ground due to the Chinese stubbornness since their aggression in June and the resultant tense military standoff between their armies in Eastern Ladakh for over four months.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had, on July 4, declared that the era of expansionism is over and history is proof that “expansionists” have either lost or perished, in comments that were seen as a clear message to China.
Irrespective of all this, Xi’s rhetoric continued: “Rather, we aim to foster, over time, a new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other. This will create more space for China”s economic development and add impetus to global economic recovery and growth.”
Xi also claimed that no country can gain from others’ difficulties or maintain stability by taking advantage of others’ troubles.
“To pursue a beggar-thy-neighbor policy or just watch from a safe distance when others are in danger will eventually land one in the same trouble faced by others,” he said.
“We should reject attempts to build blocs to keep others out and oppose a zero-sum approach. We should see each other as members of the same big family, pursue win-win cooperation, and rise above ideological disputes and do not fall into the trap of “clash of civilizations
More importantly, he said one should respect a country’s “independent choice of development path and model.”
The global pandemic, still unfolding, has so far infected nearly 32 million people and claimed more than 9,76,000 lives. In America alone, Covid-19 has infected nearly 8 million and caused more than 200,000 deaths. In India, the second-most infected country, the virus has affected 5.6 million people and resulted in over 90,000 deaths.
In his address, US President Donald Trump said: “The Chinese government, and the World Health Organization—which is virtually controlled by China—falsely declared that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.”.
“Later, they falsely said people without symptoms would not spread the disease. The United Nations must hold China accountable for their actions,” he said.
Trump has repeatedly blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic which originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year and accused Beijing of suppressing the details of the contagion.