Head-on | How a rising India can counter China’s geopolitical challenge

Indian policymakers have several economic, geopolitical and military levers to counter the challenge China poses to India’s orderly rise as a regional power today and as a global power in the 2030s.

China’s ascent as the world’s pre-eminent nation ahead of the United States over the next decade is not pre-ordained. Beijing has weaknesses it hides as it bides its time. Policymakers in India need to target those weaknesses.

China uses Pakistan to keep India off-balance. It seeks to pin India down to a regional role and not challenge its global supremacy as the 21st century unfolds. That is why, defying world opinion, China continues to block the prosecution of Pakistani terrorists like Masood Azhar and his brother Abdul Rauf Azhar. Beijing has for years obdurately vetoed India’s membership of the nuclear suppliers group (NSG).

In his new book How China Sees India and the World, former foreign secretary Shyam Saran sheds light on an important lever India has only haltingly deployed: Tibet. China forcibly occupied the province in 1950-51. Till then China and India did not share a border.

India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru was slow to recognise how the annexation of Tibet by China could transform the geopolitical relationship between Beijing and New Delhi.

The Chinese knew how important a prize Tibet was. As one reviewer of Shyam Saran’s book wrote in Business Standard on 12 August 2022: “Saran, who has dealt extensively as foreign secretary with the Tibet question in the Sino-Indian territorial dispute, unsurprisingly rebuts Beijing’s continuing claim over Tibet on the grounds that, at several points in history, the Chinese emperor ruled from Beijing or Changan over the entire Tibet plateau. He points out that, in the 7th century, Tibet too became a powerful empire under its king, Srongtsen Gampo.

“Under the fifth Dalai Lama, Tibet attacked Ladakh, an outbreak of hostilities that ended only with the signing of the Tingmosgang Treaty in 1684. This drew a boundary between the two sides, which incorporated familiar names: the border bisected Pangong Lake and further south was set the Demchok River. Saran concludes that the 2020-21 clashes in Ladakh might have arisen from Beijing misinterpreting the customary boundary, which was never attached to the treaty document.”

Beijing’s hyper-sensitivity over the Dalai Lama stems from its recognition that, like China, Tibet was historically an empire in its own right. Apart from Taiwan, there is no issue that worries China more than Tibet. India has walked on eggshells, refusing to engage meaningfully with the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamshala. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wished the Dalai Lama on his birthday this year only for the second time since 2015.

Such diplomatic coyness is unnecessary. China exploits the slightest sign of Indian weakness. It sees in India’s timid approach to Tibet not a future great power but a nation that can be straitjacketed into a subservient regional role.

Beijing, however, is aware of India’s demographic advantage, fast-growing economy and expanding military capability. It therefore uses a carrot-and-stick approach: it demands normal trade ties and support over the One-China policy in return for a few diplomatic crumbs thrown India’s way.

China’s ambassador in New Delhi, Sun Weidong, exemplified this two-faced approach last week when he told journalists at a roundtable that Beijing “hoped India would reiterate its support for the One-China policy.” He added ominously that such acceptance would provide the “political basis for future relations with India.”

Since 2010, India has in fact not explicitly reiterated, to Beijing’s annoyance, its acceptance of the One-China policy. India must now capitalise on China’s lowered global stature. By vocally supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has lost its foothold in Europe built over decades. Its Eurasian Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is in jeopardy. Latvia and Estonia are the latest European countries to opt out of the BRI.

China recognises India’s potential role as a swing power in a changed geopolitical environment following the Russia-Ukraine war. It also knows that the Chinese economy could be headed into a long-term slump. Several global companies are leaving China due to a harsh zero-Covid policy that has forced even domestic businesses to shut down.

According to an IANS report on 14 August 2022, “Cooper Electronics, based in Guangdong’s manufacturing hub of Dongguan, announced it would close this month. Toymaker Dongguan Kaishan Toys has announced it will follow suit. Other private businesses plan to furlough all staff for six months after a massive slump in new orders. Financial commentator Cai Shengkun said President Xi Jinping’s insistence on a zero-Covid approach, with mandatory quarantine, has struck a major blow.”

Michael Patra, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), emphasised during a recent speech how India will over the next few years be the “second most important driver of global growth after China.” He added: “A striking feature in India is that our growth is home financed – investment is financed primarily by domestic savings, with foreign savings playing only a supplemental role.”

By purchasing power parity (PPP) India is already the world’s third largest economy, Patra noted. Its share of global GDP is 7 per cent compared to 18 per cent for China and 16 per cent for the US.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, speaking at the prestigious Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok last week, was characteristically blunt: “The Asian century will be difficult to happen if India and China don’t come together. And one of the big questions today is where India-China relations are going. Because at the moment, the relationship is going through an extremely difficult phase because of what the Chinese have done in the last two years in our border areas.”

Responding to Jaishankar, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin deployed China’s carrot-and-stick playbook: “A true Asia-Pacific century or Asian century can come only when China and India can achieve sound development. China and India are two ancient civilisations, two emerging economies and two big neighbours. We have far more common interests than differences. It is hoped that the Indian side can work with China in the same direction to follow through on the common understanding between our two leaders on being each other’s cooperative partners, not causing threats to each other and presenting each other with development opportunities.”

Undeterred by the gulf between China’s words and actions, India must deploy three levers to counter Beijing. One, use the Quad to deepen India’s security role in the Indo-Pacific. Two, build the economy so that the gap between China’s and India’s GDP in purchasing power parity terms narrows over the next decade from today’s 2.5x to 1.5x. Three, strengthen India’s defence capability to deter a two-front threat from China and Pakistan.

China’s pre-occupation with Taiwan over the next few years along with its continuing economic slowdown presents India with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rebalance the geopolitical odds in its favour.

The writer is editor, author and publisher. Views expressed here are personal.

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