Business Standard
June 24, 2015
It is by now generally acknowledged that Prime Minister Modi’s successes during the first year of his rule have been mostly in the area of foreign affairs.
Modi’s outreach to neighbours – be it Bhutan which was the first country he visited, Nepal, which he visited twice during the year, Sri Lanka or recently Bangladesh – have all yielded positive optics.
His visit to countries such as the US, Canada, Germany, France and Australia can also considered to be successful though, the actual deliverables will only be known later. Pakistan continues to present problems to Prime Minister Modi and the mandarins in South Block. However, it is the relationship with China that has thrown major challenges to Modi’s foreign policy initiatives. It would be instructive to see how the relationship with China is developing now and what options India has.
One of the reasons why PM Modi’s accession to power in May 2014 was considered significant by the global community was because of the majority he received in the elections, and because of this mandate, he was considered to be able to take strong actions needed to improve relations in the region and globally.
His personality, which has been perceived as decisive as against the vacillating personality of some of the earlier leaders, was also considered favourably by global leaders and analysts.
China, however, was in the process of its own change with the coming to power of President Xi Jinping in March 2013 and his efforts to give new direction to the country. It will be interesting to examine how this refashioning of China by President Xi Jinping is affecting its relationship with India, and how, does the Chinese leadership perceive India now.
The 1962 border war between China and India continues to be a watershed event in Sino-Indian relations. However, unlike in India, where, the 1962 war still evokes strong feelings of hurt, in China it is treated as just one more chapter in the adjustment process of a post-colonial period.
Again, while in India the relationship with China is considered to be arguably one of the most important aspects of India’s foreign policy along with relations with Pakistan and the USA, in China, the relation with India is perceived today as only marginally important. China perceives itself as one of the “poles” of a new multi-polar order, with the US and Europe as other two poles.
The relationship with India, though important in a regional context, is not, in the Chinese view, critical to the success of their foreign policy. China also sees the issue of Tibet, along with Taiwan, as its core national issues, and their relationship with India, is inextricably linked with the Tibet issue, particularly since the Tibetan Government-in-exile and the Dalai Lama are located in Dharmshala in India.
For China’s current leadership, the projection of China’s power globally has become an intrinsic part of its foreign policy, and before we analyse China’s responses to the new Indian Government’s overtures, it will be instructive to see how China looks at itself today, and where, India fits in their foreign policy calculations.
The Chinese foreign policy since 1949 has gone through three distinct phases. During Mao Era, China was keen to expand ideologically and export its brand of Communism to the world. In the Deng and Jiang Zemin Eras, China was inward looking and wanted to concentrate only on improving its economy. From mid 2000s, this policy started to shift subtly, with China flexing its muscles.
This trend has increased exponentially since Xi took over, and, it is clear that aggressive nationalism in foreign policy and the anti-corruption crusade internally, are going to be the core policies of the Xi era. The internecine warfare between factions of the Communist Party of China is now coming into public view. Arrest, conviction and public humiliation of senior leaders such as Bo Xilai and Zhou Yongkang indicate that before Xi took over, there was intense battle for supremacy between different factions.
Though Xi has come out decisively victorious in the battle, he and his allies have to watch their steps carefully. Both the anti-corruption drive of Xi, as well as the Chinese Government’s assertive nationalism, has to be seen as their effort to rally Chinese public opinion in their favour. Given that imperative, it is unlikely that the Chinese Government will give up its muscular foreign policy any time soon.
How does China sees its role in the global and regional affairs? The Chinese have historically perceived themselves as the centre of civilization. That the reality during last two to three hundred years was far from this was brought home poignantly to them by actions of the Western powers, particularly by the British during the “Opium Wars”. This sense of injustice meted out to them is still very strong in the psyche of the Chinese and the articulation of the muscular policy by the regime now is extremely popular in China.
Xi and the regime are, therefore, not averse to taking actions that are considered expansionist by other countries in the region and elsewhere but is popular at home. With the Chinese economy improving, and the US and Europe losing ground at least perceptually, Chinese public opinion considers the twenty first century as the Chinese century. It is debatable whether this perception is correct, but for the Chinese people (and for some Western experts too), this is obvious. In Chinese perceptions, their competitors are the USA and Western powers. India is perceived as a weak power dependent upon the West and a threat more as a part of a Western plan to encircle China, rather than a threat by itself.
China’s foreign and security policy, therefore, is currently geared towards expanding its area of influence globally, be it Africa, Latin America or closer home to around the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. China has also been increasing its military spending consistently over past many years.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has estimated that in 2014, China spent USD 216 billion on the military. This is significantly more than that spent by India which was assessed by the same institute at USD 50 billion. China’s attention now is focused towards containing what it considers a US attempt to encircle it. It is, therefore, involved in flexing its muscle in the South China Sea by emphasizing its claims over the disputed islands.
Significantly for India, China is now trying to muscle into areas which it earlier did not consider important, such as Afghanistan. Till some years back, China’s only interest in Afghanistan was economic. No longer, as now, it is trying to play the peacemaker in the country and to increase its political influence there.
It is because of these factors that PM Modi’s visit to China did not yield any significant results. Whereas for Modi, it was important to be seen to try and solve the vexed boundary issue, there is no such imperative for Xi.
The Chinese would rather keep this issue alive with a view to pressurize India not to be a part of a US-led consortium to contain China. It is for this reason that China’s response to Prime Minister Modi’s proposal to settle the LAC issue was so lukewarm.
While the Indian Government has sought to clarify the Line of Actual Control, the Chinese have been insisting on the elaboration of a code of conduct among border troops to defuse tensions along the border.
It is apparent that whereas India is keen to settle the border dispute, for China, that is not so important as of now, and can only take place as a part of overall settlements, which would include Tibet and would probably also, define the Chinese role in the region.
All of this is of course is unlikely to be acceptable to India, less so to PM Modi, who sees India as a growing regional power with pretensions of emerging as a global power.
This suggests that given the current geo-strategic environment, it is unlikely that the China-India border dispute will be settled any time soon.
India needs to understand this and fashion its policies accordingly.
The article represents the views of Mr. Rajiv Kumar, who retired as Additional Secretary in Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India.
