CHINA CLAIMS MORE TERRITORIES

Within days of claiming China was not a ‘Hegemonic Power’ by President Xi at the BRICS summit, and just days in advance of the upcoming G20 which he’s decided not to attend, China published a new map of what it regards as Chinese territory, on land and at sea.
It’s entirely likely he was not made aware of it - there is a tense power struggle in China and this looks like it was deliberately published to embarrass him.
China is in meltdown financially, with its housing sector in freefall, government backed investment bond companies on the point of bankruptcy and youth unemployment at 80%. Add to that four devastating typhoons, vast flooding and droughts, a shocking fall in exports and political inertia, China is in deep deep trouble. It’s potentially facing a real famine and is hoarding grain, forcing up prices.
Much of this goes largely unnoticed and unreported in the West, which is just how China likes it, but it’s easy enough to find out. Youth unemployment is so severe the government’s stopped even publishing the figures. And they blame Xi.
The map is at first glance like any other map. Then you start to realise its claimed new areas of Indian controlled Andra-Pradesh, even more of the South China Sea, all of Taiwan and even Japanese islands in the Ryuku chain. Parts of Nepal are also included. But the icing on the cake is its claims to a key island in the Amur River on the border with its ally of convenience, Russia. These two fought a bitter undeclared war in 1969 over the area. It was so vicious the Soviet Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev, asked President Nixon to acquiesce in a Russian nuclear strike on China. He didn’t but it helped generate the idea of the infamous visit to Beijing that began the road to opening China to international markets, and it marked China as an enemy of Russia.
The vast array of nations affected by China’s new map, are not impressed at all. Not one of them is willing to concede it in any way and it’s seems to have simply generated a huge amount of animosity. What was the point of publishing it? Why now? Embarrassing Xi, always a favourite of his opponents in the Chinese Communist Party, seems high on the list. Having let it out he now has to back it or look like he’s not in charge - a fatal mistake in the inner workings of the CPC.
What the whole thing has done is alienate China’s neighbours. There’s almost nobody unaffected by the new claims with a border with China.
The endless encroaching and bullying of other countries - especially at present, the Philippines  which is making a stand against the behaviour of Chinese coastguard cutters, has incensed everyone.
All China has done is prove the Americans right, and shown China to be everything it tries to pretend it isn’t. Meanwhile back in China the economic situation is dire and nothing is going right.
One thing it has done is demonstrate Russian powerlessness. Not a word has come from Moscow, even as China claims once again, territorial sovereignty over Russian lands. Little shows how powerless Moscow has become.
If the Chinese walked in and took
it tomorrow there’s nothing they can do. China knows it.

The Analyst
@DiDiAussie