Talks won't help: US NSA on India-China border row
As talks to resolve border tensions between India and China have remained fruitless, the United States National Security Advisor (NSA) has said that it is time to accept that dialogue will not persuade China to change. India and China have been engaged in a border standoff along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh since early-May. Here are more details.
Early this week in Utah, US NSA Robert O'Brien said, "Chinese Communist Party's territorial aggression is also apparent on its Indian border where China has attempted to seize control of the LAC by force." The border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long LAC, with China claiming Indian territories such as Arunachal Pradesh. The recent border row involves conflicts along the LAC in Eastern Ladakh.
O'Brien said, "Beijing's signature international development program—One Belt One Road (OBOR)—involves impoverished companies taking on opaque and unsustainable Chinese loans to pay Chinese firms employing Chinese laborers to build their infrastructure" "Now these countries' dependence on the Chinese debt leaves their sovereignty eroded," he said, which compels them to toe the CCP's line on United Nations votes or other issues.
Further, O'Brien said that China's international aid efforts include selling surveillance systems, along with other tools of repression to "pariah regimes" worldwide, including Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro. "The time has come to accept that dialogue and agreements will not persuade or compel the People's Republic of China to change. There's nothing to be gained from looking the other way or turning the other cheek."
O'Brien said the US must stand up to China and protect Americans. He said the US must "promote American prosperity, practice peace through strength and advance American influence in the world." Under Donald Trump's leadership, that is exactly what the US has done, he added.
He said the Trump administration has a competitive approach to China with two primary objectives: To improve the resiliency of US institutions, alliances, and partnerships to prevail against the challenges that China presents; and To impose a tangible cost in order to compel Beijing to cease/reduce actions harmful to America's vital national interest and those of its allied and partner nations.
O'Brien said that Chinese telecommunications giants Huawei and ZTE have been barred from accessing Americans' personal and private data and national secrets. He said the US imposed import/export restrictions on US semiconductor technology and other exports going to Huawei and similar Chinese telecommunications corporations.
