Stopping BJP by a Thousand Cuts

For several years now political junkies (yours truly included) have fretted over biggest question facing supporters of PM Modi - How will they stop the BJP in 2019? 

Conventional political wisdom offered  one answer:  The MahaGhatbandhan (MGB).

But as the MGB has fizzled out two alternatives have emerged.  Alternatives, BJP and Team NaMo can ignore at their own peril. 

1. Non political actors/situations
2. Dilution of PM Modi's greatest asset - 'Personal Integrity' - by association

NOTE:  As I have said in previous posts for BJP to lose, the opposition doesnt need to win.  Restricting BJP to 220 would allow Congress and its clones to survive.
 
Non-Political Actors/Situations:

 Anti-India forces have set in motion a wide range of strategies hoping one of them will work.  The primary strategy is focused on dividing Indian/Hindu society. 

It's also the one strategy which has found traction.  

The Modi govt. has delivered corruption free 'mai-baap' governance.  In doing so it has hurt traditional BJP vote banks and more importantly opened up space to fuel Upper caste grievance mongering. 

Jats, Patels, Marathas....all have one thing in common - dominant castes demanding reservations. 

These groups fit into a large strategy to expose India's fault lines and trigger a series of local conflicts. 

Young Tamilians, for instance, are being indoctrinated with the notion that Tamil were never Indians/Hindus.  They had a separate identity.  The old AIT has been polished and reintroduced with some updates. 

It would be a far cry to expect all these strategies to bear fruit.  But that may not be the intention of the evil empire driving these anti-India forces. 

The trick may be to create enough localized discontent to turn what is likely to be another 'Presidential' election into a sum of several localized electoral contests. 

BJP lost 2004 partly due to local issues overwhelming a nationalized 'India Shining' campaign. 

Left unaddressed, these local bush fires could grow into uncontrollable forest fires and consume BJP's hopes - one local election at a time. 

Demands for reservations cannot be tackled one group at a time.  And conceding reservations beyond the SC mandated 50% would spell disaster for the govt. 

Instead BJP needs to leverage India's lethargic legal system to deflect these demands and buy time so as delay these agitations beyond 2019.  

One way to do it is to refer the demands to a specially constituted bench of retired SC judges.  The bench should be constituted around mid-2018.  But the suggestion should be made around late 2017.  This timeline would delay a judgement well beyond 2019 and neutralize the political facet of these demands. 


Dilution of PM Modi's greatest asset - 'Personal Integrity'

May be this rant is a bit premature.  But news of India's Most Corrupt joining the BJP keeps trickling in.  From Narayan Rane to now Sharad Pawar. 

Granted, having Pawar in the NDA camp would neutralize any chance of a viable MGB coming to fruition.  But the cost is prohibitive.  It undermines and weakens the one quality that has served as PM Modi impregnable shield from his first term as CM of Gujarat. 

Furthermore, it dilutes BJP's anti-corruption plank and brings BJP-Congress closer to parity on the critical issue of clean governance. 

It would be easy for the Congress and its presstitutes to resort to that old stratagem  - Congress-BJP-Same-Same. 

Successive election victories may have lulled BJP into political hubris.  2019 will be the biggest political battle (perhaps) the world has ever seen.  

It will be a no-holds-barred war.  By taking on friends like Rane-Pawar, BJP wont need enemies. 

China's Conundrum from OBOR to South China Sea - Explained

Picture this - China has reached the end of its economic boom cycle.  Transition to a truly market driven economy is proving to be a distant dream.  Unemployment/Under-employment could lead to social unrest carrying with it the real threat of a 'Beijing Spring'. 


Question:  What would China do?
Answer:  Colonize 

Chinese economy is too big to fail.  Even a minor speed bump could spook international markets.

But something has certainly spooked the Mandarins of the Communist Party of China (CPC).  Hitler lost his war cause he opened too many fronts.  China is doing the same.  The usually cautious and deliberate Chinese leadership is flailing, throwing everything and the kitchen sink at the global wall, hoping something will stick.

Pakistan and North Korea are the only real 'allies' China can count on.  Their status as International pariahs has left the two dysfunctional nations with few options.  Even a country like Australia whose economy is dependent on China's insatiable appetite for Australia's natural resources is openly maneuvering to counter China. 

But within China's ham handedness lies a strategy.  One driven by 
a) a well known desire to replace Uncle Sam as the preeminent super power 
b) fear

China is getting hit by a double whammy - rising unemployment and an aging population.  The one child policy has created a social dynamic which a much smaller and more prosperous Japan has struggled with for years i.e. Younger couples having to support and care for up to 6-8 parents + grandparents. 


China lacks the resources to create a social safety net that can support a large restless population.  As the Great Recession hit its primary export markets in 2008, China opted for the only solution at its disposal.  A massive Quantitative Easing program which as a percentage of GDP would be the largest program launched by any nation.  

The debt was channeled through local govts. to state owned enterprises to keep the wheels turning i.e. Keep workers employed.  One estimate suggests that 70% of Chinese companies are state owned.  While the Alibabas of the world garner attention and provide Beijing with a veneer of free market, the CPC through the Chinese govt. controls most of China's companies and its economy. 

China's massive borrowing binge resulted in the creation of Ghost cities and industrial over capacity. Local govts. were given quarterly targets and provided with unlimited funds to achieve them.  It did not matter that there were no takers for the 'products' produced by these efforts.  Growth for growth sake was the only objective.  It kept citizens employed and a restive population in check.   

A normal free market economy would allow (even encourage) failing enterprises to fail and the natural process of creative destruction to play itself out.  Using the resulting reallocation of resources to create new profitable enterprises. 

China's command/control economy does not allow such a restructuring to occur.  It is simply fraught with too much risk.  In democracies disgruntled citizens/laid off workers take to the streets and replace their rulers. 

China has no such outlet.  They are on a treadmill and must continue running just to stay in place. 

Additionally, a free society is a prerequisite to creating an innovation driven economy.  If the thought of 5 strangers assembling in a friend's garage threatens Beijing, the chances of an Apple or Microsoft emerging out of China are slim to none.  Is it any surprise that most Chinese goods are knock-offs of ideas generated in other parts of the world. 


Enter Colonialism.  

As with European Colonial conquests, China is sending out missions to explore and occupy small patches of space within target countries.  No third world country is safe.  

The strategy is as follows: 

1. Offer financial assistance as part of a grand program - One Belt One Road
2. Co-opt local leadership with a combination of shiny infrastructure monuments and corruption 
3. Inflate the bill to bribe aforementioned local rulers 
4. Flip ratio of 'Investment to Loan' and impose the loans at unsustainable interest rates 
5. Draw recipient nations into a debt trap
6. Allow only Chinese state owned companies to implement projects 
7. Import Chinese labor to execute the project 
8. Convert project workers into settlers 
9. Use debt burden to subdue any local resistance to Chinese settlers 

This strategy kills many birds with one stone. 

1. Expands China's unviable 'Ghose city' strategy to an International scale 
2. Gets foreign govts to finance China's Colonial expansion 
3. Migrates Chinese labor from the mainland to foreign shores easing some of the local social pressures
4. Begins the creation of local Chinese assets available to do China's bidding in the future

China's desperate attempts to simultaneously intimidate all its neighbors points to several short comings of this strategy. 

1. China's own debt may be much higher than estimates suggest.  Limiting its room to maneuver out of any economic crisis
2. Social unrest may be at a critical inflection point 
3. Time may be running out 
4. OBOR could be the only way for the CPC to stave off impending doom
5. With nations (latest being Kenya) wising up to China's imperial ambitions, China may be running out of runway 

Ideally, a confident, secure China would have waited for an aging, fatigued West to wear itself out.  With Islamism eviscerating western societies, another decade would leave China with easy pickings.  The rush to implement OBOR suggests Chinese leadership has seen something we havent. 


OBOR is CPC's attempt at self preservation. It may already be too late.