The People's Republic of China (PRC) tried hard on Thursday to salvage a humiliating blow to its big power image by its impoverished and tiny neighbor North Korea. For this, it fell back on its old habit of sermonisng like a monk and acting like a true communist subversive. As a monk standing up for peace, it offered its unsolicited advice to both India and Pakistan to 'properly' deal with their difference following the terrorists' raid at Pathankot air base. As a communist subversive, its People's Bank of China (PBOC) chose Thursday to accelerate the downfall of the yuan with an eye on bolstering up its export-led economy. The objective, as usual, is to steal money from all over the world by way of dumping its cheap goods. Beijing's sermon on the subcontinental affairs had no takers in New Delhi which was busy on Thursday evaluating the pros and cons of a foreign secretary level talks with Islamabad, even as Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharief held a high-level meeting to cope with terrorists challenging his agenda of improving relations with India. At the same time, world markets crashed on deliberate Chinese move to speed up devaluation of the yuan. While Chinese stock trading halted for the 2nd day since new year, there was carnage in currency and stock markets from Tokyo to London and from Mumbai to New York. Legendary investor and billionaire George Soros told an economic forum meeting in Colombo on Thursday that even as China was struggling to find a new growth model, its currency devaluation was 'transferring its problems to the world.' As in markets, so in politics, the PRC has been projecting its fears, born out of its hegemonic tendencies, on the wide world. On Wednesday, in a clear move to provoke the world community, it landed two of its aircraft on a disputed coral reef island in the south China sea. Most of the East Asian nations have vowed to do the same in a tit-for-tat exercise. The PRC's subversive role in the Indian subcontinet, from exploding a nuclear device for Pakistan at its nuclear testing site Lop Nor to facilitating exchange of nuclear and ballistic missile technology between Islamabad and Pyongyang, is too well documented to be enumerated here. But China's bad karma might have finally begun to haunt it. Its great desire to bottle up India in the subcontinent through Pakistan has boomeranged with North Korea blasting off China's big power image through its nuclear test on Wednesday. And if the United States finally accedes to the request of South Korean policy makers for deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-ballistic missile system, Beijing would find itself return to the days of the 1950-53 Korean war. Most often, one should bite only as much as one can chew. Written by: M K Shukla (Editor) Your feedback: [email protected]