Category: Foreign Policy

BRI through India? An Idea that Still Stays Grounded

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P.K. Anand, Research Associate, ICS

When an idea grips the masses, it becomes a material force – Karl Marx

German philosopher and political theorist Karl Marx’s quote depicts the power of ideas and how, if other factors remaining stable and equal, the value of ideas to generate transformation is very potent.

However, in the world of policy-making, ideas are not mere abstract concepts; in its germination from a seed to reach full fruition, they often have to navigate through the thick architecture of systems, structures and processes. Mostly, the shape of the ideas would have been altered significantly, to the extent they might even be indistinguishable. If this is the story with ideas that have potential traction, what about those which are yet to even lift off the ground, or even be difficult to execute due to systemic, and political-economic constraints?

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy’s recent suggestion of getting the Chinese to redirect their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through Mumbai and Kolkata ports falls into the latter category — incoherent, and without attention to details. In domestic politics, Swamy’s extreme Right-wing opinions and verbose are often ignored by his party and the Union government. However, on this count, he attempts to indicate seriousness to his idea, by indicating the apparent affirmation of the Chinese leadership.

Juxtaposed with the concrete realities on the ground, it is doubtful that his signalling would get across to the intended sections in the government. This is largely due to the avowed opposition of the Indian government on the BRI though it is yet to come out with a concrete, well-articulated response to the initiative or offer a credible and tangible alternative. Rather, oft-handed comments and terse statements are all that are available for analysts to parse through to understand the official position.

If one were to build a macro picture going by those comments as well as looking at the Chinese assertiveness, the non-transparency in most of the projects and increasing contrarian voices on the BRI from some of the participant countries, it is difficult to imagine that merely keeping out of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) would resolve the issue.

As a rising power, India aspires to play an equally enhanced leadership role in the world and, therefore, competition with China is inevitable, at multiple levels. In this context, any involvement in the BRI with next to no control on the narrative would be perceived as playing second fiddle. Furthermore, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), even with all its fragilities, is now moving to the second phase and therefore, the chances of Beijing revising its position are slim.

Swamy’s comments on the Mumbai and Kolkata ports — though BRI is not only about transportation and movement of goods but also infrastructural expansion — provides the opportunity to highlight the pressing concern of weak infrastructural capacities in India. In the hypothetical possibility of flow of goods through both the ports, the (in)capacities in the form of human and material resources, ill-equipped mechanisms, and red-tape, remain plaguing issues and cast serious doubts on preparedness. Given that the Chinese also like to put the money where the mouth is, absence of enhanced basic infrastructure will discourage potential investments.

The lack of resources and structural constraints brings to the fore the critical question of State capacity, or why, despite having high population and economic growth around same levels, China was more responsive than India in distributing resources and directing development? The high degree of organisational capacity of the Chinese State being under one-party rule notwithstanding — and thereby looking beyond the simplistic notion of type of regimes, or multi-party democracy vs one-party State — the key to the answer might lie in India’s weak public institutions.The inability of the State to perform the functions of economic and social development due to constraints of societal rifts or administrative barriers negatively impacts the people. The ongoing churning on ideas of belonging and citizenship has only exacerbated the lack of faith and trust in institutions, questioning their efficacy and effectiveness.

Clearly, material force, and concrete conditions, are key factors in actualising ideas.

Originally published as Why BRI through India is wishful thinking at best in Moneycontrol.com, 23 January 2020

‘PRC Scholars React to India’s Contentious Kashmir Move’: An Analysis

One expert said that “Kashmir war escalation shows that India is a rogue state.”

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Dr. Hemant Adlakha, Honorary Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies; Associate Professor, Centre for Chinese & South East Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Scholars in the P R China have reacted quickly and sharply to the Indian government’s sudden decision to remove Kashmir’s special status under Article 370 and reorganize the state into two centrally governed territories – Jammu and Kashmir being one, Ladakh the other.  In the views of most Chinese experts, India’s ‘unilateral’ move is not only ‘irresponsible and is source of tension in one of the most complex border disputes in the region’ but it (the Indian move on Kashmir) has the potential to ‘seriously derail’ the recent consensus arrived at between the president Xi Jinping and prime minister Narendra Modi.

Echoing Beijing’s official position on the status of the state of Jammu & Kashmir, the scholarly commentaries too describe the Kashmir region as internationally acknowledged disputed area between India and Pakistan; as also established in the 13 August, 1948 UNSC Resolution, 5 January, 1949 UN Resolution on India Pakistan Commission, and 1972 Simla Agreement etc. respectively.   

Interestingly, in sharp contrast with the section of the Indian English language national media – both the print and electronic – reports last Tuesday that “India and China (on Monday) seemed to have stepped back from allowing Kashmir to become an unmanageable irritant between the two countries,” just as the visiting Indian foreign minister, Mr. S. Jaishankar was holding talks with his counterpart in Beijing, op-ed columns in the mainstream Chinese media were screaming out with contradictory tones. Take a look at the sample: “As India scraps Kashmir’s special status, Pakistan’s dream lies shattered,” “India Revoking Kashmir Special Status is Violation of China’s Sovereignty: Don’t Expect Beijing to sit by idly,” “China will Never Let India’s Kashmir Power Grab Succeed.”

In addition, even as the Indian EAM was shaking hands with the Chinese vice president, Wang Qishan, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, SIIS, Mr. Liu Zongyi wrote in a signed syndicated column, “Due to India’s classification of Ladakh as a centrally administered area, the territory of the region, which was occupied by India in the western sector of the Sino-Indian border, will also have an impact on the stability of Sino-Indian relations.” Mr. Liu Zongyi also dons the position of a visiting research fellow at the Renmin University of China’s Chongyang Institute, an influential Beijing think tank on foreign affairs issues.

In another signed article on the same day, a Chinese scholar argued that India’s arrogant action has posed an increased security risk to the LAC in the western sector along the boundary between China and India. “China immediately and firmly opposed (India’s Kashmir move) not only because the Indian arrogant action will exacerbate regional tensions and pose a threat to China’s peripheral security, but also because the Indian action will render the LAC along the western sector of the boundary between the two countries increasingly vulnerable.” In the wild Indian imagination, the composition of the so-called Kashmir region includes the IOK – which includes Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, Baltistan and the China’s native land of Ladakh; the POK, the Chinese Aksai Chin as well as the Demchok region to the west of Aksai Chin – currently under dispute, the article claimed.    

Several Chinese commentaries view the controversial unilateral Indian push to change Kashmir’s status is aimed at fulfilling Modi government’s Hindu nationalist agenda. According to Liu Zongyi, “the Bhartiya Janta Party and its parent organization the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have always believed India has been at the forefront of resisting the Muslim invasion for 1300 years. The revocation of the Kashmir special status is the successful accomplishment of the BJP/RSS political agenda, i e, to strengthen Indian control over Kashmir, to alter Kashmir’s demographic nature, and to fully integrate it into the Union of India.”

The article, which first appeared on the Chongyang Institute website on August 12 and was quickly picked up by various Chinese news portals claims, the Kashmir move had been hatched based on a well-synchronized strategy, with keeping in mind both national as well as international factors. Speaking of the internal factors, the article contends that the Modi government wanted to fulfil its election promises to integrate Kashmir with India, which it had failed to implement during the previous five years on account of lack of majority in the Indian parliament. Likewise, several other Chinese commentators too have interpreted the parliamentary move on 5 August as an attempt by Modi, emboldened by the recent election victory, to have greater control over Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state and the main source of conflict between India and Pakistan.

On the other hand, the external factor which largely contributed to the timing of the Kashmir move was the rapid progress achieved by the US and Taliban recently. Leaving India not only marginalized and isolated in the renewed Afghan peace process but also pushing India face the risk of losing initiative on both Afghanistan and Kashmir vis-à-vis Pakistan.  Besides, Chinese commentators over time have been highlighting India desperately trying to win over the US support to isolate Pakistan/Taliban in order to strengthen control over the entire Kashmir region. It is in this context these experts see a close link behind the Indian unilateral action in Kashmir to two more possible external reasons: to alert as well as draw the US attention to the fact that India alone has the right to determine what goes on in Jammu & Kashmir; and that India will not tolerate Pakistan to make use of the Taliban militants to unleash terrorism in Kashmir.

Furthermore, typically least surprising, not one Chinese commentary so far has voiced concerns such as total clampdown on democracy in Kashmir, closing down of schools, tourists evacuation, cutting off internet connectivity, and putting some of the local political leaders under house arrest etc.; on the other hand, what is also noticeably absent in the Chinese commentaries are the worldwide heightened concerns of both India and Pakistan being the nuclear weapon possessing neighbours. Neither China’s leaders nor the experts/scholars have indicated worrying signs that any escalation might push the two South Asian hostile neighbours ‘over the edge’ and start a conventional war that might well grow into a full-on nuclear conflict. 

Finally, as already mentioned, the Chinese concerns are largely centred on how Pakistan is going to equip itself both diplomatically and otherwise to successfully thwart off the arrogant Indian move in Kashmir; whether the immediate counter measures the Imran Khan government has announced would exercise any impact on India – measures such as to downgrade diplomatic relations, to cut off economic and trade ties, to put a ban on the Indian movies, to deny air space access over Pakistan to the Indian air flights and so on. A few Chinese scholars did however warn India of serious consequences of carrying out ‘aggression’ over the Chinese sovereign areas in the so-called Union Territory of Ladakh. Likening India’s highly contentious move in Kashmir to the behaviour of a rogue state, one commentator questioned: India has been dreaming of becoming a UNSC permanent member, does India aim to achieve this by deliberately violating the UNSC Resolutions and by trampling on the authority of the UN and the Security Council?

The dance of dualities in the Chinese Social Credit

Unlike the conflicting nature of dual forces in western philosophy, traditional Chinese philosophy manifests this duality in the form of complementary and balancing forces exemplified in the Yin-Yang.

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Nishant Dilip Sharma, Research Intern, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi

Dualities have always held a prominent place in traditional Chinese philosophy. Unlike the conflicting nature of dual forces in western philosophy, traditional Chinese philosophy manifests this duality in the form of complementary and balancing forces exemplified in the Yin-Yang. The way in which the Chinese government has gone about experimenting and implementing the infamous Social Credit System in China is another duality at play.

What is being seen as the emergence of an Orwellian “Big Brother” age in China, is being carried out in several cities through a number of pilot projects running on a dual ‘carrots & sticks’ model. Just like any other ‘reward-punishment’ scheme, this programme offers certain incentives (carrots) to people complying with the expectations of the governing body and at the same time, has punitive sanctions (sticks) in place for non-compliance. Interestingly, the quality of the carrots and the size of the sticks has not been uniform across all pilots.

This arises from the fact that the implementation of pilot programmes is being undertaken in a two-pronged approach. At one end are the Government run mandatory SCS programmes that are operational in more than 43 Chinese cities. At the other end, there are the corporate-run Social credit systems. Unlike the Government SCS programmes (GSCS), the corporate ones (CSCS) are not mandatory. The CSC pilots do offer virtual and monetary rewards to their customers, however the real intent is to eventually become incorporated with the government’s plans. This way the corporate in question remains in the forefront when SCS is rolled out in a more comprehensive measure. Speaking of the sticks, punishments are harsher in GSCS than under CSCS. The carrots and sticks in the GSCS are in the form of ‘red-lists’ and ‘black-lists’ respectively. While one’s name in the ‘red-list’ would mean a special honor and privileged/subsidized access to public services, a name in the ‘black-list’ would mean lesser privileges or denial of certain privileges. This could mean low internet speed, ban from traveling, denial of bank loans, public naming and shaming, etc. In short, one’s social credit scores could have a great impact on his/her routine life and social reputation.

In a country which bears the tag of the most populous nation on Earth, such measurement of reputation scores for each individual is no small undertaking. This is accomplished through the creation of a systematic surveillance state where big data and artificial intelligence play a major role. Each camera captures the movement of every face and small offenses like jaywalking or walking your dog without a leash could result in an immediate fine from the government. Thus, surveillance in the eastern industrialized towns is associated more with governance and has helped bring down law enforcement costs and many governance issues.

In contrast, state surveillance in Xinjiang and Tibet is employed to address security concerns. Surveillance cameras here snoop into the personal lives of the inhabitants to stamp out any cultural expression. Any sign of resistance opens up the gates of re-education camps, the insides of which many have seen but few have come out to tell the story. Here state security is a priority while separatism is viewed as evil and surveillance becomes a tool. This dual nature of surveillance, that of governance in the eastern region and that of security in the western region, is another duality present in the Chinese system. This duality, however, begs to question the coherence of what China plans to achieve with a full-scale rollout of the SCS model in the entire Mainland China, which could be up and running as early as 2021.

These dual objectives, dual implementation models, dual outcome conditioning, raise multiple questions: Will China be successful at creating a reputation state amidst the incongruities that exist in China? The answer seems to be hooked to a second question: Will China be willing to respect the socio-geographic disparity present between the historically separatist western regions and the presently thriving eastern industrial hubs?

One way of doing so would be to prevent any punitive sanctions and credit reductions on the grounds of cultural suppression. A conundrum in the eastern region could be credit rating reductions caused due to systemic failures, human errors, or corrupt bureaucracy. As remediation mechanisms, legislations are being put in place to prevent such reputation harms. Shanghai’s local credit legislation passed in 2017 on the “right to be forgotten” provides a much-needed right to credit restoration and a reasonable requirement on administrative agencies’ query over citizens’ social credit information.

Such remediation mechanisms are also extended to cover data protection and norms for safe collection, processing and storage of personal data. These measures are limited to eastern cities like Hubei, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. The lack of such legal remedies in the GSCS pilots being run in the western region calls for a systemic shift in the way the pilots are being conducted. More polarized developments in the way the pilots are conducted could likely leave the western inhabitants estranged and brew discontent if the policy is applied without systemic planning and West-specific trials. Perhaps it’s time for the policymakers to take a hint from their traditional philosophies and create more balancing dualities than conflicting ones.

Limitations of the New Intellectual Property Reforms

Though reforms in IP remain a strong demand of the Trump administration, there exists a significant gap in the Chinese understanding of US requirements and the actual reforms being undertaken by the Chinese government towards that end.

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Beijing Intellectual Property Court

Kuldeep Saini, Research Intern, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi

One of the major catalyst for the ongoing trade war between China and the United States is the question of Intellectual Property rights (IPR) protection to foreign firms in China. Even after months of discussions and negotiations, an agreement seems elusive. China recently imposed tariffs worth US$60 billion in retaliation to the tariff hike that had been imposed on Chinese goods by the US. The investigation report submitted by United States Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer on 22nd March 2018 cited Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974[1] to discuss China’s engagement in policy of transfer and theft of Intellectual Property (IP) technology from foreign firms. Ever since, China has committed to enhance its IP protocols by 2020 through the attainment of high levels of IP regulations on utilisation, administration, protection and creation.

The latest step in this regard are the amendments made to the Trademark Law of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on 23 April 2019 at the 10th session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC). Though reforms in IP remain a strong demand of the Trump administration, there exists a significant gap in the Chinese understanding of US requirements and the actual reforms being undertaken by the Chinese government towards that end.

This article discusses the constraints faced by the Chinese Government in deescalating the ongoing trade war with the US despite the it having undertaken three major intellectual property reforms. A discussion of the three reforms undertaken by the Chinese government follows.

First, the measures governing the transfer of intellectual property rights overseas were issued on 18 March 2018 by the State Council’s General Office. These reforms state the complete opposite of what the world understood by Trump’s claim of IP theft by China. The changes mandate the reduction in IP related theft by putting the onus on US firms that are in a merger with domestic Chinese companies. They fulfil the purpose of implementing the regulations and setting forth the procedures for overseas transfer of intellectual property for the foreign companies having mergers with the domestic companies. However, while China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) claims transfer of more than USD 4 billion intellectual properties from China, the numbers fail to reflect the home conditions for foreign companies. These structural changes fail to focus on the internal regulations of IP in China while considering the export of technology as a priority concern for the Chinese government.

The significant change is the involvement of relevant governmental departments like Forestry and Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and departments looking at technology and agriculture in a more orderly and legal manner. This increases the processing time in receiving the patent rights. As of 2017, the total numbers of patent applications received in China were 1.2 million out of which only 3,26,000 were approved. These reforms further discourage the trade incentives of foreign companies to establish themselves in the Chinese market.

Second, the establishment of the appellate-level intellectual property tribunal on 1 January 2019 by the Supreme People’s Court of China (SPC) reflects the concrete structural steps undertaken to strengthen the IP protection laws. According to Zhou Qiang (Chief Justice of SPC) there has been an increase of 41.8 per cent in the IP cases resolved in 2018 and the new IP court will add to these numbers. The major point of contention in the first quarter of the year highlights the lack of resources, enlisting of powers, persistence and professionalism in handling the IP cases of foreign companies. Another concern with the new IP court as stated is the unknown statistics about the IP cases of foreign firms that are currently under review. This creates an asymmetry of information for scholars and other countries attempting to analyse the efficiency of China’s IP Court.

The verdict of the first case in IP Court came out in just two trials embodying the idea of “protecting innovation innovatively”. However, the speed at which the decision was made led the foreign companies to fear that the verdict was pre-decided. This also raises the question of which court’s verdict has the final say in the IP matters as these cases are still being directed to the earlier SPC and not to the new IP Court. The development of a national level appeals court might prove to be insufficient to tackle the current situation for international businesses fear that their proprietary technology could be stolen at a regional level.

Third, the reforms in the Trademark Law and Anti-Unfair Competition Law issued on 23 April 2019 did not follow the usual process for public comments. The primary concern regarding these positive changes is whether they will be followed by the necessary laws on transparency of the enforcing and implementing agencies like National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) that still awaits additional clarifications related to administrative procedure regulations. This concern arises due to the inability of IP related cases that involve technical, confidential or business information that are not reported on public databases. It is hard for foreign companies to comply with the requirements raised by the new NPC reforms resulting in the current slowdown of foreign related cases. The reforms further fail to restrict the fraudulent activities such as claims of trademarks (TM) with bad faith and no commercial usage. The use of language in the recent reform of Article 4 highlights the need for commercial use of the trademark while applying. Thus, the US government and firms see these reforms as a state encouragement for violating international intellectual property rights.

Overall, it can be accepted that China is firmly aiming to be the hub of technological innovation. But with the escalation of trade war with US (increasing tariffs to 25 per cent) has added heavy pressure on the Chinese government to negotiate the opening of the Chinese economy with effective protection to foreign technology. However, one has to agree that the current reforms fail to address the major US concern with respect to forceful technology transfers. The Chinese government needs to accommodate the international guidelines of relaxing contractual norms with respect to foreign companies in order to prevent the slowdown of its economy due to trade war.

[1] Section 301 authorizes the US President to take all appropriate action, including retaliation, to obtain the removal of any act, policy, or practice of a foreign government that violates an international trade agreement. Section 301 cases can be self-initiated by the (USTR). Thus, Trump initiated the tariff imposition on China.

Hanoi Summit: Limitation of ‘All for None’ Approach

The Hanoi Summit between the leaders of the US and North Korea on 27 and 28 February 2019 ended without any deal or joint declaration.

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Sandip Kumar Mishra, Associate Professor, Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Adjunct Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies.

The Hanoi Summit between the leaders of the US and North Korea on 27 and 28 February 2019 ended without any deal or joint declaration. This is unfortunate given that the US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had managed to at least bring out a joint declaration during their Singapore summit in June 2018. Although Trump left Hanoi after making many positive statements about Kim Jong-un and North Korea, North Korean official statement, which was released on late night of 28 February was sharper.

While Donald Trump’s press conference that was held in the immediate aftermath of the summit, attempted to convey that everything is not lost and there is still hope, North Korean statement was more accusatory and uncompromising. According to Trump, the US wanted North Korea ‘to do more’ but North Korea ‘was unprepared to do that’. In his interpretation of the North Korean position, Trump shared that North Korea wanted full reversal of the sanctions, which the US considered premature. However, he was still ‘optimistic’ and added that the US and North Korean visions were ‘a lot closer than it was a year back’. He announced the two countries would keep their relationship and especially since Kim Jong-un had assured him that regardless of anything, North Korea would not have rocket and nuclear tests. For Trump, the time was not appropriate for signing a deal currently, though he expressed that signing of a ‘deal is a process and it’s moving along’.

North Korea’s initial statement said that it had asked for only partial lifting of sanctions (only five which were brought in 2016 and 2017 out of overall 11 sanctions), which contradicted with the US claim that North Korea asked for the removal of all sanctions. Actually, North Korea had demanded for a step-by-step approach given the limited trust between the two countries and for the same reason had not put out its full list of demands at the Hanoi summit. North Korea considers removal of all sanctions and non-aggression guarantee as encompassing its full set of demands to the US. Hence, it stated that that even if only partial concession would have been agreed by the US, it was ready to ‘permanently and completely dismantle all of the nuclear production facilities in the Yongbyon area… in the presence of US experts’. It further agreed to commit to ‘permanent halt of nuclear testing and long-range rocket launch testing’ in return for the partial lifting of sanctions.

The US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun had stated in a conference on 11 March 2019 that the US was ‘not going to do (North Korea’s) denuclearization incrementally’. According to him, North Korea offered to eliminate part of its nuclear programme and in exchange asked for the lifting of ‘basically all’ of the international sanctions and it was not possible for the US to accept such a deal. North Korean version says that when the US demanded to ‘take one more step beside(s) the dismantlement of nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, it realized that the ‘US was not ready to accept our (its) proposal’.

A careful reading of various statements of the US and North Korea suggests that both the parties were asking for more and ready to give less to each other. Moreover, the US considered that even partial lifting of the sanctions might dilute the pressure from North Korea and thus, until full denuclearization of North Korea is not on the table, the easing of sanctions could be a bad strategy. Thus, the US was ready to compensate North Korea’s Yongbyon plus alpha offer by establishing liaison offices in each other’s capitals and having a peace declaration but not to ease sanctions.

For North Korea, without lifting some sanctions, all other American officers are insignificant and useless at this point. North Korea felt that at ‘the existing level of trust between the US and North Korea, there could not be a better agreement proposal’ which is incremental in nature.

Overall, it seems that there is some serious gap between the US and North Korea’s approach towards the denuclearization issue and in the last two weeks, loose statements from both the sides may have widened the gap further. Both the countries need to review their approaches and modify them to accommodate each other’s concerns, otherwise, the prophecy of North Korea might become true in which it said that ‘opportunity like Hanoi Summit might be difficult to come again in future’.

Wang Huning: China’s Amit Shah

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Jabin T. Jacob, PhD, Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies

If Shah’s job is to help Modi do the electoral math and draw up strategies to win elections, it is Wang’s job to help create the narrative that legitimizes Xi Jinping in power in an authoritarian system.

As the National People’s Congress in China cleared a constitutional amendment on Sunday allowing President Xi Jinping to remain president for life, here is a look at Xi’s closest confidante and politburo member Wang Huning, who is also known to be the brain behind President Xi.

Wang has been speechwriter and ideologue to three successive General Secretaries of the CPC –- Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and now Xi. Many key concepts for these three leaders have been fashioned and refined under Wang’s watch in the Party’s Central Policy Research Office since 2002 and later as a member of the Central Secretariat.

Indeed, one might wonder if China’s – and President Xi Jinping’s — slow turn towards a more assertive stance has not been influenced also by Wang’s personal ideological proclivities conveyed through the mouths of China’s leaders.

In practical terms, Wang Huning is to Xi Jinping what Amit Shah is to Narendra Modi. If Shah’s job is to help Modi do the electoral math and draw up strategies to win elections, it is Wang’s job to help create the narrative that legitimises Xi Jinping in power in an authoritarian system Continue reading “Wang Huning: China’s Amit Shah” →

How must India deal with an all-powerful Xi Jinping?

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Prof. Alka Acharya, Honorary Fellow, ICS & Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

The question that had been the cause of much speculation and discussion since the 19th Communist Party Congress last October — ‘After Xi Jinping, Who?’ — has now seemingly been answered. Xi Jinping himself!

In fact, Xi’s continuation in power beyond two terms was widely anticipated when, as had been the practice since the political and administrative reforms had been introduced by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s, no successor was announced at the end of the 19th Chinese Communist Party congress.

Xi now proposes to overturn the practice, which had limited the top leader to two consecutive terms in office — and this will now be enshrined in the state constitution of the People’s Republic of China. Continue reading “How must India deal with an all-powerful Xi Jinping?” →

A China Gazer’s Random Musings – No. 2

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Kishan S. Rana (IFS Retd.), Emeritus Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi

China in Africa

As a second secretary at the Indian Embassy in 1963-65, I occasionally visited Peking University (Beida), always in the company of African diplomats, who went to meet students from their countries at that great institution. I sometimes accompanied a friend from the Egyptian Embassy, circumventing the tight surveillance that we as Indian Embassy officials faced. That first indirect exposure sparked my interest in Africa. Little did I anticipate that I would spend nearly ten years in Africa (Algeria, Kenya and Mauritius and, later Namibia).

How is China seen in Africa? Given that in 2016 China committed itself to US$100 billion by way of credits and loans for African states – significantly more than the World Bank – what has been the impact? Glib talk about neo-colonial actions aside, the reality is rather complex. Continue reading “A China Gazer’s Random Musings – No. 2” →

India Becoming a Threat in Chinese Imagination

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Hemant Adlakha, professor of Chinese at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Honorary Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), Delhi.

As the new year gets underway, and Chinese foreign policy analysts join their counterparts around the world in assessing the events of 2017, the emerging international relations (IR) discourse in Beijing is quite a revelation — at least to the Japanese and Indian strategic affairs community.

While most Chinese believe Japan to be the second biggest threat to China’s “peaceful rise,” according to a few Chinese experts, the rising global profile of India, especially under the “right-wing” nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has gone unacknowledged. Continue reading “India Becoming a Threat in Chinese Imagination” →

Fluffy Ambassadors: China’s Panda Diplomacy

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Preethi Amaresh, Research Officer, Chennai Centre for China Studies (C3S)

The giant panda has proven itself to be an instrument of foreign affairs and its use as a soft power tool has played a part in International relations. Pandas are considered to be a symbol of peace for China. China’s policy of sending pandas as diplomatic gifts was revitalized in 1941 when Beijing sent two pandas to the Bronx Zoo as a “thank you” gift on the eve of the United States entering World War II. This stimulated the relationship between countries, which in turn increased China’s soft power in the panda-receiving country. Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, often engaged in panda diplomacy in the 1950s, sending the bears as gifts to North Korea and the Soviet Union.

According to one theory, the movement of pandas from China to another country means that the other country accepts the extension of “China” on its territory. It all began in 1941 where Soong Mei-Ling (First lady of the People’s Republic of China) sent the first batch of pandas as gifts to the U.S. In 1949, after the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, more giant pandas were shipped abroad. One well-known example is when the Chinese government presented two pandas to U.S President Richard Nixon during his visit to China in 1982, which turned out to be an enormous diplomatic success with respect to China’s establishment of relations with the U.S. Continue reading “Fluffy Ambassadors: China’s Panda Diplomacy” →