Contain China

The United States has become increasingly critical of China over the past few weeks. Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, has openly castigated China over its military moves in its neighbourhood and in the South China Sea. China’s opaque and authoritarian political structure and its expansionist policy are being denounced the world over. This is absolutely fine. But it must not be forgotten that today’s China has been, in some sense, a creation of the US and its western allies. They have been instrumental in China’s economic rise as they have made huge investments there for their economic gains, completely disregarding China’s dismal record on human rights. In fact, the US extended its support to China in the old Cold War days, just to undermine the influence of Russia (the erstwhile USSR). Now China thinks that it has become big enough to challenge the US’S hegemony and has criticised the US for starting Cold War afresh. Whatever be the truth, time has come for all major powers to come together to contain China’s expansionist moves as only this will determine whether peace will prevail in the world or not.

Sanjeev Kumar Singh

Jabalpur