India-China relations Archives

BRI through India? An Idea that Still Stays Grounded

January 28, 2020June 3, 2020 ICSLeave a comment

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

What will China do if there is an India-Pakistan War?

In a hypothetical scenario of a new India-Pakistan war, what would China, the ‘deeper than deepest sea and sweeter than honey’ friend of Pakistan, do?

February 28, 2019 ICSLeave a comment

Muhammed Kunhi, Research Associate, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi

As a total shift from its conventional approach towards Pakistan sponsored terrorist attacks, days after Jaish-e-Muhammed (JeM) attack on Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Pulwama which killed over 40 paramilitary personnel, India responded with airstrikes on biggest terrorist camp in Balakot in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.

Indian media reports stated that the retaliatory action for Pulwama, carefully planned with credible intelligence, occurred in the early hours of 26 February and killed more than 350 terrorists by dropping 1000 kg Israeli Precision Guided Munitions (PGM). Some of them claimed that India destroyed at least six terrorist camps inside Pakistani territory and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) by employing 12 Mirage 2000 jets, made by Dassault Aviation of France.

In an official statement, government of India declared that Pakistan’s persistent denial of existence of terrorist training camps inside its territory had forced India to take a “non-military preemptive action” against JeM camps in the light of a credible intelligence on JeM’s plan for conducting “another suicide terror attack in various parts of the country”.

Though Pakistan rejected India’s claim of heavy casualties as its “self-serving, reckless and fictitious claim” in the context of its upcoming general election, Pakistan accepted that the Indian military aircrafts violated the Line of Control (LoC) and dropped some amount of payload inside its territory. The director general of Pakistani Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR), Major General Asif Ghafoor, tweeted that the “Indian aircrafts’ intrusion across LoC in Muzafarabad Sector was 3-4 miles. Under forced hasty withdrawal aircrafts released payload which had free fall in open area. No infrastructure got hit, no casualties.”

India’s use of air power – unconventional

Whatever was the casualty and damage to Pakistani military, Indian Air Force’s breaching of LoC to attack a terrorist camp inside Pakistan is a total diversion from India’s conventional approach towards employing air power against terrorist threats from Pakistani territory. It is for the first time since 1971 war that the Indian Air Force has crossed the LoC to attack a target inside Pakistan. In the past, even during the Kargil War in 1999 and when Pakistan sponsored terrorists attacked Indian parliament in 2001, India exercised restraint in employing air power against Pakistan.

Many observers are arguing that India’s airstrike in Balakot will send a clear message to Pakistan that the continuation of proxy war against India would come at a price. Whether Pakistan is willing to learn that lesson is a major question. Definitely, Indian Air Force’s crossing of LoC is a declaration that there will be serious repercussions if Pakistan is planning to continue its proxy war against India.

Challenges dominant discourse

Interestingly, India’s new airstrike on Pakistan, which is theoretically a ‘military action’, though India claims it is a ‘non-military action’ as it is not carried out against any military. The latest developments directly challenge the dominant discourse that India and Pakistan must refrain from challenging each other militarily given the imminent threat of escalation and nuclear war.

Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s recent statement that “if we would attack India with one atomic bomb, then the neighboring country could finish us by attacking with 20 bombs” clearly shows that the nuclear-war against India is not a popular option within Pakistani strategic thinking as many in India assume. They (Pakistanis) are well aware of India’s military capability and, now, also its willingness to take any risky military action.

Setting aside the nuclear conundrum, the important question is what would a humiliated Pakistan respond? Assessing the current mood of the nation and approach of the present government, it can be said that if Pakistan chooses any retaliatory military action for Indian airstrike on Balakot it would escalate the situation in the subcontinent. At the same time, India will not consider nuclear war as an option until there is a survival threat to it. Hence, we need not expect more than a conventional war, or perhaps a limited border war.

What would China do?

In a hypothetical scenario of a new India-Pakistan war, what would China, the ‘deeper than deepest sea and sweeter than honey’ friend of Pakistan, do? Expressing concern over growing tension in the subcontinent, various countries, including China and the United States, urged both India and Pakistan to “exercise restraint”. In his regular press conference, responding to a question of Chinese response to Indian airstrike on Pakistan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said “we hope the two sides will exercise restraint and take actions that will help stabilize situation in the region and improve bilateral relations instead of doing the opposite”. He added that “terrorism is a global challenge that calls for cooperation between countries so as to create enabling conditions and a favorable atmosphere for necessary international cooperation”.

Past experiences tell us that unless there is a credible challenge to its core interests, China will not militarily intervene in another country’s war. In the past, even in 1965, when the tension between India and China was at its maximum, China’s military involvement in India-Pakistan war was limited to creating some disturbances in India’s Himalayan frontier. This time, China has enormous economic and strategic interest in Pakistan, which includes multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Gwadar Port. Additionally, in terms of numbers, China’s trade with India is many times larger than its trade with Pakistan. Since India is not a grave threat to China, it would not consider harming a well-developed trade relationship with India by getting embroiled in the Indian subcontinent’s conflicts.

Considering the depth of Sino-Pakistan friendship and its strategic value for China, it may be assumed that China will not totally abandon Pakistan if the new tension in the subcontinent leads to a war, especially when a growing proximity between the United States and India is quite evident. It will not be a direct military involvement either. The Chinese help to Pakistan will be in the form of weapon-supply and in various other forms of non-military assistance. China will use the opportunity to increase its arms exports to Pakistan without risking its trade relationship with India.

Term Limits Off for Xi: Some Reflections for India

March 7, 2018 ICSLeave a comment

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

When China’s National People’s Congress – the rough equivalent of India’s Lok Sabha, but toothless – meets in the coming week it has to deal with a proposal by the ruling Communist Party of China to amend the state constitution to remove term limits for the President of the state. Coming from where it does, this is pretty much a direct order to the NPC to remove the term limits.

Removing term limits for the President, imposed in 1982, is a roundabout way of saying that the norm of two terms for the CPC General Secretary – Xi’s more powerful avatar – too, is not set in stone. Continue reading “Term Limits Off for Xi: Some Reflections for India” →

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

March 1, 2018 ICSLeave a comment

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?” →

China’s Global Influence in the Film Industry

February 14, 2018 ICSLeave a comment

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

China’s rise is the economic story of the 21^st Century and the entertainment industry is no exception. Cinema was introduced in 1896 in China.[i] The film industry is viewed as part of China’s modernization process and with the global influence wielded by the country’s economy, the rise of “cultural industries” in China is seen as the next step on a path from a developing nation to a world power.

Before the 1949 revolution, China had a vibrant film industry. There were studios in Shanghai – the city was known as the Hollywood of China – which made comedies, romances and melodramas on an almost weekly basis, which were very popular with domestic audiences. But during the Cultural Revolution, the ruling Communist Party of China under Mao Zedong came close to destroying Chinese cinema. Soon after the Cultural Revolution the film industry again flourished as a medium of popular entertainment. [ii]

With China’s liberalization in the late 1970s and its opening up to foreign markets, commercial considerations made its impact in the post-1980s filmmaking. Fifth-generation Chinese filmmakers who had graduated from the Beijing film academy sought to popularize Chinese cinema abroad. Continue reading “China’s Global Influence in the Film Industry” →

India Becoming a Threat in Chinese Imagination

January 16, 2018 ICSLeave a comment

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” →

The Doklam Standoff and After: Whither India-China Relations?

September 9, 2017 ICSLeave a comment

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

The standoff between China and India in the Doklam area of Bhutan has been resolved with each government putting out differing versions of the exact terms of the settlement. But it is certain that status quo before 16 June this year has been restored. The Chinese have stopped their road construction in the area, which had led to the Indian action in the first place and Indian troops have pulled back to their positions.

The Chinese government has sought to sell the deal as a case of the Indians having blinked, of having bowed to Chinese threats and coercion. It is doubtful that the line has much purchase even within China where the netizen community might have constraints on their conversations but are not stupid and not entirely without access to information from the outside world. Continue reading “The Doklam Standoff and After: Whither India-China Relations?” →

In the Wake of Doklam: India-China Relations Entering a New Phase

July 31, 2017 ICSLeave a comment

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

This article was originally published as,‘भारत-चीन संबंध नये दौर में’, in Rashtriya Sahara, 29 July 2017. The original English version follows below the Hindi text.

भारत के राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा सलाहकार अजित डोभाल बीजिंग में ब्रिक्स देशों के राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा सलाहकारों की बैठक में शिरकत करने चीन पहुंच चुके हैं। सभी निगाहें इस तरफ हैं कि क्या भारत और चीन इस मौके पर भूटान के डोकलाम क्षेत्र में बने तनाव को समाप्त करने में सफल होंगे। लेकिन दोनों देशों के आधिकारिक बयानों पर गौर करें तो लगता है कि चीन किसी सूरत पीछे हटने को तैयार नहीं है। न केवल इतना बल्कि वह भारत के खिलाफ तीखे बयान भी दे रहा है। मांग कर रहा है कि उसके क्षेत्र, जिसे वह अपना होने का दावा कर रहा है, से भारत अपने सैनिकों को पीछे हटाए।

लेकिन इस मामले से जुड़े तय बेहद सरल-सादा हैं।

Continue reading “In the Wake of Doklam: India-China Relations Entering a New Phase” →

Doklam Reminder: Need for Indian Redial in South Asia

July 28, 2017 ICSLeave a comment

Shyam Saran, Member, ICS Governing Council and former Indian Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister’s Special Envoy

The standoff between Indian and Chinese forces at the Doklam plateau in Bhutan is now over a month old and though diplomatic efforts have continued, no early solution appears to be in sight. India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, is in Beijing for the BRICS NSAs meeting. It is possible that on the sidelines, he will be able to engage with Yang Jiechi, his counterpart in the special representative mechanism between the two countries. One should remain hopeful that these talks in Beijing will lead to a satisfactory resolution of the impasse and pave the way for relaxing tensions between the two countries. Confrontation will be damaging to the interests of both countries and is best not allowed to persist.

Such confrontation is also not in the interest of Bhutan, India’s neighbour with which there is a special relationship of mutual trust and understanding. The two countries have shared security interests, acknowledged in the revised bilateral treaty concluded in 2007. Any threat to Bhutan’s security will always be a major concern to India and similarly a security challenge to India will impact Bhutan as well. China’s encroachment on Doklam is often characterised as a security threat to India, particularly to the narrow Siliguri corridor linking India’s North-East to the rest of the country. But it is also a threat to Bhutan whose main communication links south also traverse the same Siliguri corridor. The action taken by Indian forces in Doklam is in response to a serious security threat to both countries. Continue reading “Doklam Reminder: Need for Indian Redial in South Asia” →