Syllogism: China, India and the United States

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by Mian Hameed     29 June 2020

To assist with the concept of logical syllogism (deductive reasoning), in which a conclusion can pose a problem, and a conclusion from the same evidence and premise may differ among people with different ideologies. The conclusion at times from “delusions” may not be true if the premise is false, even though the argument may be sound logically. To show such, the practitioners in discipline use this example: Things made from plants are healthy; cigarettes are made from plants. Therefore, cigarettes are healthy.

The aforesaid conclusion is visibly wrong, because the first premise is false. “Lots of things made from plants aren’t healthy—like tobacco.” Premise or faulty assumptions from human weakness coming from tendencies in beliefs make additional arguments that proceed from the premise equally faulty.

China has emerged, against which the strategic thinkers have coined the US-Indian and Indo-Pacific policy. Both terms are foreign policy’s troublesome strategic delusions of exclusion, to exclude China. The recent flashpoint between Sino-Indo is the result of efforts by the West that exclude China. “Fact of life, we have to treat [China] fairly.” –Martin Wolf.

Treating China fairly means the use of common-sense in the U.S. as a rule should prevail, as was the case in 1898 in England. Contrary to Chamberlain’s faulty foreign policy (FP) syllogism, which believed Russia wanted to control the whole of China, common sense convinced Lord Salisbury that in the event a “civilized” country like Russia was allowed to control the whole of China would not annihilate the English trade with China. In fact, the English trade with China would prosper. Therefore, Chamberlain’s faulty foreign policy (FP) syllogism was rejected.

Fairness herein means reducing the risk to the continuity of the world by embracing the United Nations’ system – The rule of law, which has “perfect syllogism.” In perfect syllogism, we have the Major Premise, which is the rule of law; the Minor Premise, which is the act committed; therefore, the Conclusion is the condemnation or the acquittal.

Scruples are a foregone cry. Syllogistic attributes are catering to control hegemony. China is a competitive threat to the U.S. in Eurasia, South Asia, and perhaps the remaining world. To win, “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal,” said Mike Pompeo, without remorse for his spy craft.

Syllogism in FP can have serious consequences to peace, especially when it lacks creation from the literary constructs to compose a thought of a nation. You will read about India lacking this literary construct. In the case of India, syllogism can be a “Dead-Reckoning.”

China, with the longest continuation policy, which I’ll explain with Lao Tzu’s “imperfect” statement -“Misfortune lurks in fortune.” And to keep her fortune, China envisions hypothetical summarizations. One of the summarizations and fortunes is the One-China syllogism. Arrogance can bring in misfortune.

In the case of the United States’ FP, syllogism reasoning has taken a “true form.” That is, it has no opposites, as a circle is without opposites, and it has no alternatives. The absolute option brings in the conduct of war and peace and overthrowing governments.

The next example is a prized textbook case of a faulty premise in syllogism. It is the aforementioned Chamberlain ideological syllogisms, and has an excellent in-depth instructional knowledge to learn from. This is how history has narrated,

Mr. Chamberlain—Major Premise: “If you do not prevent Russia, she will control all [of] China, greatly to your injury.”

Mr. Chamberlain—Minor Premise: “You cannot prevent Russia unless you have allies.”

Mr. Chamberlain—Conclusion: Therefore, “If you do not want to be greatly injured, you must shape your foreign policy so as to obtain alliance capable of holding Russia in check.”

In response to the Chamberlain syllogism, England provided a superb example of a genuine rebuttal. It said, “Mr. Chamberlain has given solution to his own problem, but we do not think it is the true solution. Mr. Chamberlain’s logic is absolute and unanswerable. Accept his premises, and you cannot avoid his conclusions.”  Anti-Russia policy came from Chamberlain’s delusion.

The English rebuttal continued, “… if we choose the policy of Russian enmity, that policy will absorb all our energies and become our chief pre-occupation.  […] If once adopted, the policy of withstanding Russia in China cannot be a side issue. It is bound to eat up all other questions in the realm of foreign policy […] Lets not take on a life-and-death struggle to prevent Russia trying to take China.”  (Such policy with such characteristics, I claim is a true form syllogism. The U.S. is on this path and it eats up all other questions, even falling into the Thucydides’ Trap.)

England argued that she will have to throw all her power and weapons she may possess to stop Russia from controlling China. However, England from a tradition of common-sense said, “If it is adopted, it shall be with due consideration of all the facts and after a clear understanding of what it means.”  England decided it was not wise to adopt an anti-Russia policy.

What is wise for the resourceful U.S. to do with China? Since the U.S. syllogism is a true form, without an alternative syllogistic form to safeguard the American interest, it leaves us with hyper-dominant orthodoxy preemptive approaches to the desired vital national interest identified in the White House’s latest policy to address Beijing’s challenges.

The White House outlined the following vital interest objectives in the, “United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China” paper:  “(1) Protect American people, homeland, and way of life; (2) promote American prosperity; (3) preserve peace through strength; and (4) advance American influence.”

The first and the second goals are welcoming, but the past policy’s objective of the U.S. by building China against Russia has placed these goals in jeopardy. Inadvertently, China got built to face the United States. Building the hyper-nationalist India is the United States’ next nightmare.

The third and the fourth goal, if I may rephrase, is the ‘ever’ powerful and prosperous United States, eager to bring peace and influence usually through carrots and the use of force. Hence, the U.S. syllogism has coined the strategic term, Indo-Pacific, and is a measure of faulty alliance and a vector of force. This is problematic.

Although the White House in the policy paper claims containing China is not an objective, the Indo-Pacific arc and the US-Indian concept has fingerprints of preserving and advancing American influence through containing China. Indo-Pacific is the reorganization of the Asia-Pacific strategy. To some, it is an extension of the Asia-Pacific policy that restrains, controls, and excludes China.

Hence, I compose the syllogistic form of the U.S. foreign policy. It starts with a question: Are we, or are we not, to treat China as our natural, our essential, our potential enemy in regard to China becoming a hegemonic power? A verbatim of what England in 1898 posed for Russia. Thus, my recomposed syllogistic form premises are,

Major Premise: If you do not prevent China, she will control the entire world, greatly to your injury.

Minor Premise: You cannot prevent China unless you have allies.

Conclusion: Therefore, if you do not want to be greatly injured, you must shape your foreign policy so as to obtain alliance capable of holding China in check.

The debate and assessment that followed Chamberlain’s syllogism applies here. It would, and it has, involved the U.S. “in a struggle for the next fifty years as the main-spring (causa causans) of the [U.S.] foreign policy, will regard [China] as the other power—possible friend, possible enemy, with whom we may quarrel or with who we may be at peace, according to circumstances shall determine.”  Reproduced with a U.S.- China context.

Containing China and Pakistan was the causa causans of the U.S. throwing good power. Afghanistan was for the sake of China and Pakistan, and perhaps another fifty years in life-and- death struggle may go by to contain, restrain and exclude China from exerting influence. The Trump administration’s generals did not want to leave Afghanistan.

The U.S. Generals were given an auxiliary reason—Pakistan, and Pakistan became the recipient of the U.S. strategic blunder from a faulty ideological delusional thought. The U.S. ideological delusion in syllogism carved AF-PAK from South Asia, and ironically it was the strength of coexistence in AF-Pak that defeated AF-PAK.

Pakistan’s interrelationships in the South Asia region would not nurture the AF-PAK delusional logic. The U.S. did not benefit from, as one would from a natural FP, which does not defy commonsense.  I explain the U.S. AF-PAK FP in a syllogistic form as follows:

Major Premise: AF-PAK – Afghanistan and Pakistan are the same—they depend on their coexistence. Or to destabilize and disintegrate Pakistan through Afghanistan

Minor Premise: Afghanistan is ‘mortal’

Minor Premise: If Pakistan does more, Afghanistan will destabilize

Conclusion: Therefore, Pakistan is ‘mortal,’ will destabilize, disintegrate and contain China

The U.S. faulty premise, AF-PAK, ignored another premise, which is, AF-PAK can save Pakistan as well. The AF-PAK syllogistic form is not fictional. Its evidence is in President Obama’s goals, “our interests [… is] Pakistan, not Afghanistan.” –Bob Woodward.

The U.S. FP’s AF-PAK syllogism was a wakeup call for China and a serious threat to her security. China has no choice but to throw all her power to counter any effort towards containment or destabilization of China.

In that realm, demonizing china is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In that sphere, CPEC is the answer to the Asia-Pacific strategy.  Within this ambit of threat, the Chinese presence in Ladakh is China’s preemption to the US-India and Indo-Pacific syllogism.

The Indo-Pacific geostrategic pivot exists because of the minor premise: “You cannot prevent China unless you have allies,” i.e., the US-India nexus. This means that India has effectively become a satellite Proxy State of the U.S. and India will not be encouraged to do her own strategic thinking, as was the case with Australia and New Zealand before and after World War II. After World War II, the U.S. assumed the geopolitical strategic thinking for them.

In fact, India does not mind the U.S. handing India her strategic thinking because the U.S. PF plays into Indian syllogism’s delusions, “The Hindu Kern is to conquer.” India’s syllogism raises two primary questions: (1) Is India capable of containing China? (2) Will India’s syllogisms help foster peace in South Asia?

While I place these two questions in the orbit of your thinking, we have another question to answer. Will India gamble to face China even when India is capable of making better nuclear weapons with the United States’ assistance? Hindu delusion can commit them to a mistake, while the same weakness can safeguard the Hindutva cause, and will stop India from annihilating her Hindu kind. Therefore, India may perpetually remain incapacitated in hopes to preserve the kern.

Therefore, it is ever so vital to turn to Dr. Aisnslie Ambree’s guidance—the importance of understanding India as a society. Or alternatively, understanding the reasoning of the discourse in India’s logic that stems primarily from ideological syllogism, which undermines South Asian peace.

To report on India’s delusion in ideological syllogism, I have looked to the assessment in Jonardon Ganeri’s paper, “The Hindu Syllogism […] Perceptions of Indian Logical Thought.” Ganeri has explained the India logic with help from H. T. Colebrooke (1824), Ballantyne and Müller, Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan, and T. Raychaudhuri.

The Hindu logic is an abstract phantom that needs understanding. In Ganeri’s essay, he begins with the 1955 H. H. Price’s acknowledgement of the “vast-chasm,” between the Western “scientific knowledge” or as I call it, the scientific syllogism Vs. the Eastern “mysterious and fundamental sort of self-knowledge” that “cannot be literally described […] Western and Easter philosophers are not to be thought of simply as giving different answers to the same perennial philosophical puzzles: they can hardly be regarded even as asking the same questions.”

There is hope in India, and we can read about India’s potential in Pathways to Greatness, by Kalam or the good in India in other viewpoints, as Muller’s in Indian, What Can it Teach Us? Muller had his harsh critics in England, Germany and America. In the aforementioned book, Muller writes that one called him “a Hindoo [Hindu] pervert,” which Muller found was “a perfectly bona fide accusation,” which came from an individual he labeled, had an “innocent” caliber. Interesting—you see Muller’s Hindu contradiction, “bona fide” and “innocent caliber.”

Ideological syllogism from the perspective of India’s foreign policy brings new twists and risks to the Sino-Indo conflict and South Asian peace.  Risk comes from a few factors, i.e., (1) “ill-defined sense of national identity,” (though this assessment was made by T. Raychadhuri for Bengali Hindus in Jonardon Ganeri‘s essay,) is valid for India; (2) downgraded rationalism with “negative” reaction to “Hindu Syllogism.”  – Ganeri.

India would have fared well, especially in her relationship with neighboring States from Gandhi’s syllogism (Truth, Love and therefore, love is God), but Gandhi did not live a full life to make an ongoing impact—Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu for a delusional ideological purpose. At present, Indian “forward policy” and “Delusional thinking is rampant in India, including among sections of the elite who ought to know better.” –By MK Bhadrakumar, “1962 India-China war redux?” Asia Times, June 21, 2020.

India’s heavy reliance on intrigue has modeled her FP syllogism from bizarre logic of expropriation—taking Kashmir from somebody (Kashmiris) and giving it to another (Hindu India), and the bolstered intrigue now claims the Pakistan occupied J&K. If we follow the Indian logic, then does that mean China has the right to send her troops to the India occupied J&K— expropriation, “because Pakistan is not comfortable with what India is doing in the Indian controlled Kashmir?” The world will quickly turn tumultuous.

India’s stance from inability to resolve disputes is an unattractive Indian ‘decency’ because the expenditure and logic specific to J&K dispute does not show the Hindu State’s commitment to regional prosperity, and preserving human life in Kashmir and Pakistan or India.

China needs to improve her record. President Xi’s syllogism is following a Marshall Plan, forgetting that the real Marshall Plan gave grants and not questionable loans to help revive allies. Xi perhaps believes Islam will be used as bulwark against China’s stability and ideological thought that will greatly cause injury to China. President Xi’s syllogism from his hardline stance has given China concentration camps with one million Uighur Muslims corralled into prisons.

The delusions with faulty premise are ongoing and are nurtured with a system. The U.S. gave China her best shot to build China from the U.S. value system and failed. The hyper-nationalist Indian experiment by the U.S. is underway, pending results of this new marriage. To float delusions native to countries, a system is in place.

In China, the system is the hardline police state. In India, it is the “ill-defined sense of national identity,” and downgraded logic. In the U.S., not common sense, but the axiom, “Manipulation of the Mind: Our Children and Our Policy at peril” is quite telling of a system, which masks logical consideration of all the facts for the people to have unclear understanding.

“Wolf has a winning game when shepherds quarrel.” The United States brilliantly placed warships in the region, though facing Iran, helped lure the delusional Indian intrigue—abrogation of article 370. Modi, the ideologue, took the bait from his “weakness coming from tendencies in beliefs,” which also made the Indian FP gurus look like amateurs, and left India with no recourse to join camp-China or consider ‘little brother’ Pakistan worthy of camp-India.