Indo-China Relations: Power Play or Power Dilemma?

China-India Brief #102

Centre on Asia and Globalisation                                                             Published Twice a Month
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy                                                    September 27 – October 10, 2017                                     

India and China, two of the world’s oldest civilisations and simultaneous rising powers, are engaged in a geopolitical power-play. Competition between the two, however, is not inevitable and as past experience has shown, constructive engagement can bring great benefits to both sides. Both countries cooperated successfully, along with other members of the BRICS, to establish the New Development Bank. The India-China climate alliance was another example of bilateral cooperation for a mutually beneficial cause. Besides high-level engagements, people-to-people exchanges are also increasing with greater numbers of people from both sides visiting, working, and studying in the other’s country. Today, globalisation has brought the two neighbours closer together than at any other point in history. Yet, it has also made their relationship far more entangled and complex.

Both India and China are undergoing a process of power accumulation with the ultimate aim of re-establishing themselves as great powers within the international system. As contiguous neighbours, they will need each other’s help to fulfil their ambitions. However, their relationship continues to be marked by distrust. Many in India and China perceive their relationship as a zero-sum game, whereby strategic policies which serve the national interests of one are seen to be detrimental to the other.

We can analyse the power accumulation process in China and India by focusing on three aspects of power – political, economic, and military.

Political power largely comes from membership in powerful international organisations and groupings, such as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Group of 7 (G7), and voting rights in economic institutions including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and strategic alliances. Permanent membership in the UNSC has also vested China with veto power. The Asian superpower has been economical in using this right, exercising it only 11 times since joining the UNSC in 1971. Yet, closer inspection of China’s behaviour reveals a more recent and disturbing trend – out of these 11 vetos, 10 were cast in the last twenty years between 1997 and 2017. This increasing willingness to exploit its political power to maximise its interests would undoubtedly make New Delhi more apprehensive of Beijing.

In 2016, India’s GDP was $2.264 trillion, a fraction of China’s, which stood at $11.199 trillion. Additionally, in 2016, China was rated as the world’s largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) by both the IMF and World Bank. There is also a clear disparity in terms of defence spending as China allocated $151.43 billion in 2017 towards defence, compared to India’s allocation which was roughly one third of that at $53.5 billion. A comparison of their overall military strength shows that India would require substantial financial investment, technological upgrading, and administrative overhauling to catch up with China.
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Indian professor in China explains how public libraries are benefiting Chinese society

They not only serve as 'knowledge depositories' for research, but also as centres for spreading knowledge.

What could be the best way to construct a better society? Imparting free education and opening the gates of learning centres to all. Libraries are repositories of knowledge, and as was argued by Francis Bacon centuries ago, knowledge is power.

The rise of China is not only about asserting its political and economic might, but more precisely in investing in knowledge-building. China's growing influence in the world has been marked by the spectacular performance of its universities in global rankings, a growing numbers of patents, and scientific research that has challenged hitherto Western-dominated domains of knowledge and social sciences by providing alternative concepts and theories.

Public libraries in China are serving not only as "knowledge depositories" for research, but also as centres for spreading knowledge across segments of society. Access to libraries is free and requires only an identity proof - passport for foreigners. A smart library card makes the reader's experiences convenient and hassle-free while enjoying the library's facilities. Membership is free and for life. For borrowing books, users need to deposit a security amount, which is refundable.

Compare this to any public library in India, where administrative hurdles seem designed to restrict the access to knowledge, historically a privilege for a few. For instance, to get a membership of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial and Library, commonly known as Teen Murti Library, in New Delhi, you need identity cards (PAN card, Aadhaar card, official id, student id) and a reference letter from your institute, or prove that you are an independent researcher. You also need to pay for packaged membership options. To put it differently, common citizens are discouraged from accessing public libraries.

China has invested generously in its libraries, also taking care of the buildings' aesthetics - not just Chinese, but even reputable international architects are brought in to design library buildings.

Click here:https://www.dailyo.in/arts/public-libraries-china-india-knowledge-depositories-education-political-and-economic-might/story/1/19741.html

BILATERAL RELATIONS

Does the Doklam stand-off signal the beginning of the end of the Asian Century?

It has the potential to puncture the efforts of successive governments in both countries over the years.

The stand-off between Asian powerhouses India and China in the Doklam plateau has not only challenged the contours of a cordial bilateral relationship but, if not dealt with properly, may also signal the beginning of the end of the shared dream of the Asian Century.

After the Sino-Indian War of 1962, relations between both countries went into hibernation for 26 years, only to awaken when Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited China in December 1988. During that visit, Deng Xiaoping, one of the most powerful figures in China at that time, famously told Gandhi that “Only when China and India have developed will [emphasis added] a real Asian century emerge. I have high hopes and great optimism for the prospects of China-India relations!”.

And relations did improve. Over the next few years, India-China came close, among other things, to secure and defend the interests of developing countries at climate change negotiations. In 2006, the two emerging economies came together again, to set up the BRICS grouping along with similar economies – Brazil, Russia and South Africa. The establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2014, and the New Development Bank under the aegis of BRICS in 2015, marked the beginning of a new era of the world economic order.

Despite the fact that the two countries shared an unsettled boundary and a trade-deficit favouring China, both countries were moving ahead in a synchronised manner to claim the leadership role in the promised “new world order”.

Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi and President Xi Jinping in Beijing seemed determined to further strengthen the bilateral relationship. Xi’s visit to India in September 2014 and Modi’s visit to China eight months later was viewed as cementing the bond between the two Asian giants. During Modi’s visit to China, the Chinese media and analysts saw “new hope” in India-China relations.

Click here for more : https://scroll.in/article/847471/does-the-doklam-stand-off-signal-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-asian-century

CHINA ONLINE

In China, social media is shaping the public discourse on Doklam stand-off

A peek into the discussions on Weibo and WeChat.

The border stand-off in Doklam has predictably animated discussions in mainstream and social media in both India and China. For the most part, commentators and social media users are busy bolstering their respective side’s position even if it means being economical with the facts.

China’s English media is well known for whipping up hysteria over India, but the Chinese language media, though far less bellicose, is not immune to it either.

Take Huanqiu Shibao, the mothership of the pugnacious Global Times. After Sushma Swaraj asserted that the world community was with New Delhi on the Doklam dispute and that both India and China must withdraw from the region to ease the tension, the paper, in an editorial, accused the Indian foreign minister of lying to her country because it was India that had illegally entered Chinese territory.

The paper also reminded India that its “inferior military strength” was no match to the People’s Liberation Army.

On July 7, Xinhua News ran an article “demystifying the truth” about the stand-off. It maintained, among other claims, that India has illegally entered Chinese territory on the pretext of protecting Bhutan. It lamented that New Delhi has made Doklam a disputed territory even though it has always belonged to China, referring to Thirty Six Stratagems, a set of Chinese military directives that lists “creating something out of nothing” as a key strategy of warfare. Further, the contentious road that Beijing is building in Doklam is within its own territory, the article asserted, so it cannot be a threat to India’s security.

Such articles, of course, omit or distort facts. For one, the Chinese media has not cared to inform its readers that China and Bhutan have signed agreements, in 1988 and 1998, to keep peace on the border until the boundary is settled for good. The two countries have also agreed to maintain the status quo on the border, including the Doklam plateau, as it existed before March 1959. In essence, the Chinese media should acknowledge that the region is disputed and give space to the opposing views as well.

Amplified on social media – including Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter which has over 340 million users, and WeChat, a sort of a hybrid of WhatsApp, Facebook and Paytm with close to 889 million users – the distorted views might come to dominate the discourse about India.

Click here for more : https://scroll.in/article/844795/in-china-social-media-is-shaping-the-public-discourse-on-doklam-stand-off

VIEW FROM CHINA

Murky signals: By focusing on China’s English media, Indian analysts are misreading Beijing

The bellicose Global Times editorial does not reflect Beijing’s thinking. Beware.

As the border stand-off in Doklam defies resolution, the Indian commentariat is increasingly analysing what appears in China’s English media, presumably for insights into Beijing’s thinking. It is a misguided enterprise.

Only about 1%-2% of the Chinese media is in English, and much of it peddles hypernationalism as a market strategy, not unlike a section of the Indian media. The Global Times, for one, spews venom against India the same way as Times Now does against Pakistan. Unsurprisingly then, most of the so-called experts who populate the columns of the Global Times carry little heft, intellectual or political.

Since reputed Chinese scholars publish mostly in their own language, they are not read widely across the border.

Instead, commentators in India overanalyse bellicose articles threatening to “teach a lesson” and “reconsider China’s policy on Sikkim”; retorting, in a dig at Army chief Bipin Rawat’s remark that India was ready to fight a “two and a half front war”, that the “Chinese look down upon their military power”; or warning that a “third country can enter Kashmir” on Pakistan’s request.

By giving undue importance to such articles by amateur scholars – merely because they write in English – India’s strategic experts and policy advisers enable them to influence New Delhi’s China policy.

Falling for the trap

If Indian scholars could look beyond the inflammatory editorials in the Global Times, they would realise that the Chinese media’s coverage of India has changed for the better. Save for Huanqiu Shibao, the Mandarin edition of the Global Times, the Chinese language media perceives India positively.

Last week, People’s Daily, the Communist Party newspaper, republished its editorial of September 22, 1962 to remind India of the “bitter lesson” of the 1962 India-China war and warn that China would inflict “greater losses than 1962”. It was, however, soon withdrawn. The Chinese edition of the daily did not carry the editorial, or even a report on the Doklam stand-off that day.

The state news agency Xinhua carried an English commentary asking India “to rectify its mistakes and show sincerity to avoid an even more serious situation creating more significant consequences”.

It appears the psychological war launched by China’s English media is solely intended to invite counter attacks from the Indian media. It is working rather well, if the coverage of the stand-off by TV news channels and Hindi newspapers is any evidence. This “media war” only serves to deepen the common Indian’s negative perception of China, and vice-versa. Young Chinese hold little or no antipathy towards India, but the hysteria over the Doklam stand-off could have them reorder their list of the most hated nations..................................

Click Here :

https://scroll.in/article/844158/picking-up-the-wrong-signals-by-focusing-on-its-english-media-indian-analysts-misread-china

How Can China Convince India to Sign Up for 'One Belt, One Road'?

New Delhi has its concerns with OBOR. Are they entirely insurmountable?

India, for various reasons, known and unknown, is reluctant to join China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) Initiative. In the beginning, Chinese media and academics were advising India to join this ambitious project in re-connecting and sharing the benefits of China’s development with the world arguing that it can profoundly help India to transform its infrastructure and achieve domestic developmental goals.

Recently, Chinese academics and media, especially the English daily Global Times, have shifted their stance from attracting to petrifying India, insinuating that if it does not join the OBOR, it’s likely that New Delhi will be isolated as many countries around the world are supporting and joining the OBOR. The reasons put forward are that India’s friends, Russia and Iran are interested in joining the initiative; as are India’s neighbours, Nepal, and Sri Lanka which have enthusiastically supported the OBOR.

In the case of the Global Times, it’s worth recalling the Lowy Institute’s Peter Cai’s observation that “any discussion of editorial positions which in the end lack real substance and are not the voice of government.” Moreover, some Chinese scholars consider its nationalist strategy as nothing but gimmick to stay in the business. Global Times, nevertheless, read widely inside and outside mainland China, does reflect part of the range of the policy discourse in China....

Click here :https://thediplomat.com/2017/05/how-can-china-convince-india-to-sign-up-for-one-belt-one-road/