Spectre of Dragon’s spies over our skies
The issue is surveillance and espionage by the Communist Party of China (CPC), spanning the who’s who of sovereign India. Not the other way around. Not Indian spies snooping on Chinese President Xi Jinping, his CPC cohorts or the PLA top brass. It’s the deep-penetrating, omniscient Dragon at work, defiantly entering India’s territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), and eyeing New Delhi’s western naval command-deployed combat vessels.
Contextually, therefore, Indians may recall what Brigadier John P Dalvi of the ill-fated 7th Brigade had said in his seminal Himalayan Blunder after (seven months of prisoner-of-war days) his release from Lhasa in May 1963: “… the Chinese PLA had successfully planted local tribal boy spies deep inside the Indian garrison much before the Chinese attacked NEFA (now Arunachal) in October-November 1962. Deep penetration and accurate espionage give advance info to PLA ops. The classic/cardinal principle of the Dragon’s deception and deceit developed through thousands of years, taking a cue from Sun Tzu’s Art of War.”
The CPC simply cannot live without all-embracing espionage, which India has seldom noted, and consistently ignored for some strange, unfathomable reason, with fancied hope for Chinese money rejuvenating the shrinking Indian economy. Thus, even today, the alarming national health scenario due to the pandemic caused by a Chinese-origin virus and the resultant adverse effects of the lockdown don’t seem to have impacted Delhi’s psyche over recurrent monumental mistakes.
Not unexpectedly, therefore, when Delhi Police Deputy Commissioner Sanjeev K Yadav announced on September 20 the arrest of Chinese woman Qing Shi, Nepalese national Sher Singh (aka Raj Bhora) and Indian journalist Rajeev Sharma (writing for CPC mouthpiece Global Times since 2010) on espionage charges against the Indian State, a tri-national nexus strategised and masterminded by the CPC came to light. That’s the superpower’s ultimate device to fulfil the Han Chinese slogan: “Our time has come. It’s now or never.” The command, control and communication baton in the hands of the Beijing central authority is ready to go for the kill.
Hence, India needn’t be apologetic, or defensive, pertaining to any citizen playing along with the CPC to penetrate and wreck the Indian system from within. He surely deserves to face the law. And now, ask those few, not yet contaminated by the lure for the CPC cash, and who witness the world media report on the modus operandi of the Dragon. CPC espionage would surface — from Washington, London, Canberra, Ottawa, Tokyo to Gurugram. Six countries (the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, India) top the ‘hit list’ of the CPC.
Contemporary China’s aggressive espionage, however, has its origin in the rise of CPC general secretary Xi Jinping as the head of State in 2013. Xi decided to flaunt the ‘CPC money bag’ to win anyone, whatever the cost.
Indeed, in a worsening ambience, the CPC-run State spies have spread across the Indian hinterland. Their motto is to create a band of loyal supporters deep inside India, the way the East India Company traders did. First, winning trading rights from the Mughal emperor, and slowly, steadily exploiting the faultlines of the hinterland to create hubs of Indian clubs, working as pressure groups consisting of the indigenous elite, and elders who will forcefully speak for the CPC Hans and try to protect and justify each/every action, even if illegal.
Today, however, what’s most interesting is the way Hu Xijin, the Global Times editor-in-chief, personally and openly defended the CPC-controlled media and belittled the efforts of the Delhi Police for unearthing the Dragon’s ploy. Hu Xijin also defended the accused Indian journalist, saying, “We are astounded to hear of the arrest of a well-known independent journalist of long standing and a member of the Press Club of India.”
Indeed, this brazen display of support by the CPC-controlled Global Times for the accused Indian hides more than what’s revealed. The CPC finds fault with the functioning of the Indian State rather than owning up its own exposed espionage. It ridicules the good work done by the Delhi Police, referring to it as a ‘petty trick’. Indirectly, it is all praise for the arrested journalist: “It’s common for Indians to work for the Global Times.”
Simultaneously, however, the Chinese distanced themselves from the espionage case in which one of their nationals is allegedly involved, saying: “It’s very inappropriate to publicly link the Global Times to this case.”
Be that as it may, the CPC-controlled media criticism notwithstanding, the much-maligned Delhi Police have done a good job by unearthing the Chinese espionage racket. Hence, they do deserve a big ‘thank you’ from the Indian citizens, those millions of patriotic citizens who are fed up with the Chinese going scot-free despite committing all types of illegal activities in the Indian hinterland, owing to the lamentable failure of the Indian State to bring them to justice and jail.
Finally, a question comes to mind. What if a freelance Chinese scribe writing for an Indian media house had been caught for espionage against the CPC-controlled PLA and passed on military intelligence on Tibet, Taiwan or Xinjiang to the Government of India? How would the Chinese have reacted if the editor-in-chief of an Indian publication had written an edit-page article, launching a scathing attack on the Chinese police and the State, referring to the espionage case as “rubbish, false or a petty trick?” This is the new CPC under general secretary Xi: “It’s my way or the highway.” Will India wake up even now?
