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Making sense of China
The editorial in the People s Daily of October 14 attacking India s alleged hegemoni
sm took the memories of senior citizens...
Written by K. Subrahmanyam | Published:October 20, 2009 2:30 am
The editorial in the People s Daily of October 14 attacking India s alleged hegemoni
sm took the memories of senior citizens and Sinologists back to 1959-60,when pol
emical articles attacking Jawaharlal Nehru appeared in the Chinese media. In tho
se articles Nehru was accused of taking an aggressive line on Tibet in the expec
tation of aid from the US. Nations tend to see other nations as extensions of th
eir own self-image. There are serious cultural problems in the Chinese interpret
ation of India and Indian foreign policy.
Whenever a major power emerges the rest of the international system voices conce
rns about the aggressive nature of that power. The rise of Britain,France,German
y,US,Japan,Russia and Communist China itself have been viewed with apprehension
by other powers,and in most of those instances there were wars. Though today all
those nations,other than China,are democracies,they were not so at the time of
their emergence as powers,except for the US. Even the US,with slavery,was only a
partial democracy. The foreign policy of a country is mostly an extension of it
s domestic values. Since most of the nations listed emerged as powers before the
y became full-fledged liberal democracies their non-democratic internal values g
ot projected in their external policies,often resulting in aggression. Once nati
ons get fully democratised,their mutual animosities tend to fade as witnessed in
Europe with the formation of the European Union.
China expects to overtake the US as the nation with the highest GDP in the next
two to three decades. China today has the world s highest foreign exchange reserve
s and the highest economic growth rate. They already talk about a G-2 arrangemen
t,sharing world financial dominance with the US. Proposals are afloat in the Chi
nese strategic community about dividing the Pacific Ocean into spheres of influe
nce between China and the US. Their military modernisation programme is being pu
shed ahead rapidly,and is not transparent. Consequently there is concern all ove
r the world that a non-democratic China wants to become the untethered hegemon f
irst of Asia,and then of the world.
There are no such fears about India. At an April 2008 conference in Delhi held b
y the International Institute of Strategic Studies the emergence of India was gr
eeted as a uniquely non-threatening phenomenon,unprecedented in history. It is n
o surprise,since India s emergence as a global player has come about decades after
India adopted a democratic and pluralistic constitution. It is a widely-recogni
sed fact that democracies do not fight each other. Today all major powers except
China are democracies. Once upon a time it used to be said that socialist count
ries did not initiate wars. But China s own experience with India,the Soviet Union
and Vietnam disproves it.
China is far ahead of India economically,militarily and
in some sectors
technolo
gically. Still,why are they picking on India,creating terrorism- and nuclear-rel
ated problems through their surrogate,Pakistan? Why are they applying pressure o
n India and trying to keep it off-balance on the border?
In the editorial India has been accused of having followed a befriend the far and
attack the near foreign policy. This perhaps is a reference to India s wars with P
akistan and China. History has recorded that in all these cases India did not in
itiate the attack but was subjected to attacks by Pakistan and China. Pakistani
attacks have been meticulously described by Shuja Nawaz in his book Crossed Swor
ds and a detailed account of Chinese planning of the 1962 attack using Chinese d
ocumentation has been made available by the American Sinologist,John Garver. At
the same time it cannot be overlooked that China also attacked the USSR at Ussur

i in 1969 and Vietnam in 1979. After conducting annual hate America campaigns,pont
ificating on the antagonistic contradictions between capitalism and socialism,an
d promoting the strategy of countryside surrounding the cities ,China made a comple
te U-turn and befriended the far-off US in 1971,gave it bases to monitor Soviet
missile tests in 1979 and allowed free access to US multinationals. Its trade su
rpluses were not utilised for the benefit of the Chinese population but invested
in US bonds to enable further credit expansion in the US and higher spending by
US consumers. Which country in recent history has done so much for a far-off fr
iend? Deng Xiaoping,who talked of seeking truth from facts,should be spinning in
his grave.
The Indian government discouraged jingoist views in the media. The Chinese ambas
sador in India wrote an article advocating further cooperation between the two c
ountries pointing out that it would be in mutual interest of both countries. Tha
t cannot be faulted. In those circumstances why should the Chinese Communist Par
ty embark on these provocations,with such wholesale misrepresentation of facts?
Dr Manmohan Singh was not the first prime minister to visit Arunachal Pradesh. P
revious prime ministers had been there without evoking such protests. We are onl
y left to speculate on possible reasons for this provocative behaviour.
Since the protest and the editorial came at the time of the Pakistani prime mini
ster s visit to Beijing,could it be an attempt to show solidarity with the Pakista
nis at a time when they are having serious problems? Or is this a follow-up to t
he successful forestalling of the Dalai Lama s meeting with President Obama? If it
is an attempt to bully India away from developing a closer relationship with ei
ther Russia (which the prime minister is due to visit in December) or the US (wh
ich is hosting a state visit for him in November) nothing could have been more f
oolhardy. Russia has reasonable worries about Siberia and Central Asia. The Indi
an defence minister just had a very fruitful visit to that country. The US is ke
en on sustaining its pre-eminence in a world where China has reduced the gap bet
ween itself and the US in the aftermath of the recession.
Having recorded all this to clarify the misrepresentations by the official organ
of the Chinese Communist Party,it must be recognised that India and China toget
her constitute 40 per cent of mankind,yet face common international challenges s
uch as climate change,trade,energy,food security,etc.,on which they have a signi
ficant mutuality of interests. They have a fast-growing trade and technology rel
ationship and their leaders have had a number of cordial interactions. There are
certain problems involving nearly a century-old status quo which need to be han
dled with delicacy and care. Slanging exercises of the type witnessed in recent
weeks do not help,when indeed more steps to promote confidence-building are call
ed for.
The writer is a senior defence analyst
express@expressindia.com