LETTERS: The recent penetration into Indian territory in the Galwan valley of the Ladakh region by Chinese armed forces may be passed off as a small incident that happened due to some misunderstanding over the border separating the two countries, which is actually a loose demarcation line.
Chinese expansionism, however, eschews direct military action, instead it resorts to coercive diplomacy by penetrating and undermining the sovereignty and economies of many countries. The latest target of China's coercive economic diplomacy is Australia.
China imposed a tariff of 80 per cent on Australian barley and a ban on beef after Australia asked for an independent probe into the origins of the coronavirus, which was subsequently backed by the World Health Assembly.
Refusing to surrender to coercion, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said: "I'm never going to trade our values in response to coercion from wherever it comes."
In another example, China slashed imports of Norwegian salmon after the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was given to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Coercive diplomacy uses threats of force instead of waging a war or resorting to limited military action to achieve political objectives and to force the target state to change its behaviour.
Under the garb of national interest, China can be seen actively engaging in coercion on issues such as territorial disputes, arm sales to Taiwan and the reception of the Dalai Lama since 1990.
China's militarised coercion has become less intense over the years, with Beijing now using different tools and resources in economic and diplomatic coercion.
China has been using coercive diplomacy in the South China Sea for a long time as it claims the entire territory is under its control despite the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) terming its contention wrong and in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Although the PCA termed China's movement in the South China sea "illegal", China still built a military base in the disputed Spratly Islands, which are also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
However, any construction, resources exploitation or even fishing in the South China Sea by other countries does not go down well with Beijing.
Last year, China's navy deployed 95 warships to intimidate the Philippines into stopping construction in Thitu Island.
The Chinese ships, including a Jianghu V-class frigate and a Zhaoduan-class coastguard cutter, were just over seven nautical miles away from the Philippine navy's frigate at the time.
In 2012, China stopped banana imports from the Philippines amid a dispute over the resource-rich Scarborough Shoal, which is claimed by both countries.
In December last year, as many as three China Coast Guard vessels and approximately 63 fishing vessels entered into Indonesian waters, based on historic arguments of the "nine-dash line".
In 2016, the international tribunal in The Hague rebuked China over its behaviour in the South China Sea over the construction of artificial islands and expansive claims to sovereignty over the waters that had no legal basis.
Sahil Mishra
Wing commander (retired), New Delhi
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times