The Tibet episode, the 1962 war and the contrasting developmental courses over the decades have contributed to India's changed outlook. Essentially, India's current perception of China is that it is more a powerful neighbour than a reliable partner. New Delhi needs to emerge with a China policy within a ‘multiple’ prism of competition, cooperation, correlation, coexistence, collaboration and conflict
The China debate continues to occupy the cosmos in India. Perceived as being between the prism of an economic opportunity and security concern, India’s China deliberation is divided more between the competition-and-cooperation portent. The debate is perplexed in anticipation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to China in May 2015. Prime Minister Modi’s scheduled visit to China brings with it numerous hopes. It could set the course of India-China relations for the next few years. But can this visit become a prelude to an upsurge in India-China relationsIJ Can it really define India’s China policy for the next decadeIJ
Every progression in India-China relations must be based on reciprocation. It must also be even-handed: there needs to be mutual acknowledgement of policy reciprocation. It is essential that China acknowledges that India is a power to reckon with in the current century, and not simply an ordinary power in the Asian neighbourhood (see author’s piece in Saturday Special Oped of The Pioneer, “Chinese Reflections on India’s Power on Refraction”, February 21, 2015, P9). For India, the challenge of approaching China needs much greater introspection and reflection. Phrased bluntly, India must have a stronger, meticulous and comprehensive China policy beyond the tried and tested competition-and-cooperation approach.
India’s perception of China is an advancing experience of a democratic nation. India primarily perceives China as an authoritarian, communist legacy that continues to progress as a strong and powerful country in its neighbourhood. In India’s perception, China is a strong “neighbouring” country. It belongs to Asia, while already arriving on the stage as a superpower.
This contemporary outlook may differ somewhat from India’s historical outlook, where India witnessed China more as a “Panchsheel partner” before the 1962 war. Nonetheless, the Tibet episode, the 1962 war and the contrasting developmental courses of the two countries over the decades have contributed to India’s changed outlook as regards China. Essentially, India’s current perception of China, reflecting India’s conservative view of things, is that China is more a powerful neighbour than a reliable partner. It also needs to be emphasised that the strategic community in India has a conservative outlook vis-à-vis China, which continues to struggle to comprehend, analyse and appreciate China’s rise as a contemporary power to reckon with. Among the obstacles that prevent India’s open outlook as regards China and the difficulties in assessing Beijing’s rise objectively are India’s failure to value and appreciate the Chinese and East Asian culture, besotted as India is with its usual Western persuasion. With this attitudinal benchmark, India perceives China as a seemingly “mysterious” modern nation-state.
Hitherto, the “obsessed nationalist” security-centric lookout of its political-strategic community has been the main factor in shaping India’s China policy. Unremarkably, most of it is the mental baggage of the trauma of the 1962 India-China war. Compounding the problem to a much greater extent has been China’s emergence as a strong military and political power. Viewing things in a realistic perspective, however, two concurrent aspects need to shape India’s China policy. These are: (i) India’s strategic elitist edifice, where China should be seen across multiple prisms in terms of how India-China ties should take shape in the next decade; and (ii) India’s changing regional and global foreign policy outlook, in which China is, of course, important.
In terms of India’s strategic elitist outlook, much of the debate in India harks back to the 1962 conflict, which appears to be a collective national PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). The symptoms over the decades have largely been reactionary. Currently, they are confined to concerns about China’s rise as a military and political power. Indian strategic literature remains mostly engrossed on the People’s liberation Army (PlA) in the context of China’s military and political rise. But it needs to be recognised that these deeply harboured antediluvian convictions conjoin a narrowness of outlook. Emotionally, it may be satisfying. But in the wider context, they do not absolutely contribute to the practical strategic discourse.
The tragedy is that in this emotional conundrum, the nature, the process and the trend of China’s rise as India’s immediate neighbour, as an Asian power and as a global power, have received scant attention in India, to India’s own disadvantage in terms of strategic choices. Currently, India simply lacks the ability to form a well-rounded policy on China (see Table). It simply reflects on the dowdiness of the policy perspective that while the business community in India sees China more as an opportunity, the think-tanks and the media visualise China more as a strategic concern. Adding to the irony is that the Government maintains a safe middle path.
Amid this gaggle, it needs to be understood that India currently needs to comprehend China in multiple prisms in its outlook. China is not simply an “opportunity-obstacle” conundrum. Basically, India’s policy approach towards China is based on the general premise of “engage with China, albeit cautiously”. India must move beyond this standard premise of viewing China.
India currently views China as a powerful neighbour, a vital global economy and, markedly, an important country in Asian and global politics that India needs to engage with. But amid this engagement, there is caution that China currently is too strong both politically and militarily vis-à-vis India. Given the two countries’ identical strategic interests in regional and global spheres, the Indian outlook seems to be to remain cautious and watchful of China. Both countries are resource-hungry, which to a considerable extent shapes their mutual perception. Both are largely “developing countries”, even though India apprehends that Chinese economy is thriving and China’s economic authority and influence have currently become a global phenomenon. In India’s current reckoning, China may leave India behind as a developing-world partner in times to come. The strong Chinese military as well as economic authority and decisive communist construct in China do affect India’s overall China bearing. For India, China is still a security concern, especially on territorial and maritime domains.
On many counts, India’s regional and global foreign policy outlooks are in transition. The debate is continuing on how India must approach major powers in the current century, including its important neighbour China. It has been advocated that India must craft a strategic path without entirely rejecting the previously recognised path of “non-alignment”, which bespeaks “strategic autonomy” the country has enjoyed over the decades.
But amid the numerous challenges and opportunities, the major paradox for Indian foreign policy is how to approach and craft a policy towards the two most important countries of the world, namely, the United States and China. While the United States is strategically closer to India at many levels, China remains a partner as well as a security challenge. Implementing a balanced approach towards China, as many would argue, could be a desirable policy approach for India. But in practise, the greater quandary in India’s broader strategic context is how to deal with China as a “development partner” at the bilateral level, while coping with China’s influence at regional and global levels without affecting the course of India-China ties. Further, challenge is whether to place China as a priority nation ahead of the United States in Indian foreign policy.
Without addressing China’s position in Indian foreign policy, the conventional argument notes that India’s policy approach towards China should be “balance” of a competition-and-cooperation. It appears, however, that the enterprise of a balancing policy, in the prism of competition-and-cooperation, must be more nuanced and subtle. Rather than just having a policy of competition-and-cooperation, India needs to emerge with a China policy within a “multiple” prism of competition, cooperation, correlation, coexistence, collaboration and conflict, which would be analogous to China’s India policy. That must place China as priority country in India’s foreign policy stratagem.
China’s current India policy, it needs to be admitted, is quite practical, in that China views India in multiple prisms, envisioning India within the evolving progression of a multi-polar world order. Given this construct, for India to have a “balanced” policy towards China confined to the prisms of competition-and-cooperation seems to be quite out-dated. In its approach to China in the current century, India certainly needs to comprehend the nuances that have emerged over the decades in the foreign policy approaches of various countries. For India, China is not only an immediate neighbour. It is also a strong Asian partner. It is also a developing country. And it has motives identical to those of India. Given these nuances, India needs to find a methodological equilibrium to deal with China or design a China policy rather than simply trust competition-and-cooperation conundrum, which needs to encompass “correlation, coexistence, collaboration and conflict”.
Correlation is a new mode of engagement in international politics. India is indeed connected with China in terms of BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) grouping and BASIC (Brazil-South Africa-India-China) climate grouping. But India needs to clarify with China as an emerging power that on what basis and essence it can establish with it a correlated relationship at global level when China have designed a “new type of major power relationship” with the USA. In terms of coexistence, India must revisit the notion to what extent it values China as a power to coexist with it in Asia and beyond. China has usually shown disquiet as regards India’s rise in East Asia. India needs to bring clarity in its China outlook in terms of whether China values India’s rise in Asia, in East Asia or in Central Asia. India needs also to clarify with China whether coexistence between the two of them is possible in the multi-polar world politics in the real world, given their diverse understandings.
Collaboration is another domain that needs deliberation in India’s China policy. Collaboration is not cooperation: the former is more issue specific. India needs to have a discussion on various aspects of collaboration, whether India can actually collaborate with China in third-party sectors or in third-country domains. Afghanistan has been a matter of discussion between two countries in official parlance. Is there scope for collaboration between India and China in AfghanistanIJ Can India and China aim to establish collaboration in Africa where both countries’ strategic aims are identical, namely, to explore energy and resourcesIJ
These clarifications need to be entrenched in India’s China policy.
Deliberating on these specific aspects, going beyond the competition-and-cooperation portent will help India have a nuanced and comprehensive policy outlook on China. This will also help India anticipate whether the phenomenon of conflict does exist as a possible breadth with China. Conflict between the two countries may not be inevitable. Nevertheless, China’s emergence militarily and politically in Asia needs a nuanced discussion in India’s China debate. It is easy to visualise the Chinese concern in border areas. But the concern is not limited to the border. China poses multiple concerns and challenges to India politically, economically and strategically other than militarily. Given China’s impressive rise in Asia and beyond, India must prepare itself on multiple counts for a conflict with China. This conflict may not necessarily be military: it is more likely to be a subtle conflict that relates to power presence, power influence and resources politics. India’s power presence is in conflict with China’s power presence in diverse sub-regions of Asia, especially with regard to resources exploration, infrastructural presence and maritime domains.
Modern China under Xi Jinping’s leadership is more stupendous than the earlier regimes. India needs to factor this fact in its deliberations with China. Though it is premature to expect that the current NDA Government, still cutting its teeth on its foreign policy approaches, will have a robust and comprehensive China policy. Still, there is no denying the fact that the debate on China in India must be revisited and must move beyond the competition-and-cooperation prism, to incorporate the factors of correlation, coexistence, collaboration, and conflict.
(Dr Jagannath Panda is Research Fellow and heading the East Asia Centre as Coordinator at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. He can be reached at:
jppjagannath@gmail.com)
