HVK Archives: China's challenge: India should not ignore it
China's challenge: India should not ignore it - The Times of India
M D Nalapat
()
14 July 1997
Title: China's challenge: India should not ignore it
Author: M D Nalapat
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 14, 1997
India was among the first countries to recognise the Mao Zedong regime in
Beijing, and demand that it occupy the China seat at the UN Security
Council. There wasn't even a ritual expression of concern on our part when
units of the Peoples Liberation Army moved into Tibet and began
Han-culturising the province. And Nehru became a cheerleader for Communist
China, in the process further alienating the West.
Jawaharlal Nehru hypothesised that China would never attack India. That
Beijing would accept Nehru's choleric utterances about "Throwing out the
Chinese" for what they were: rhetoric. However, the new heirs of the
Middle Kingdom wanted to show India its place, and this they did by the
1962 attack. The toy generals to whom a sentimental Nehru had given charge
of the front collapsed, and very soon London and Washington were on New
Delhi's back, demanding the ceding of Kashmir to their client, Pakistan. A
tune that has not changed in these two capitals over four decades.
These days there is once again a new romanticism about China. The problem
in this is that, as during the 1950s, it confuses the Chinese government
with the Chinese people. While the latter are one of the great nations of
the world, with a civilisation virtually unmatched in human history, the
former is a group of political bureaucrats whose chief goal is their
perpetuation in office. This they expect to achieve in two ways.
The first is to give freedom to the Chinese people to better their lives
economically. While Christopher Patten may daydream about a swelling
"democracy movement", the fact is that the emerging classes in China are
likely to focus on economic betterment (rather than political freedoms) for
perhaps another two decades. So long as the Chinese Communist Party gives
the people it rules freedom to trade and produce wealth, they are unlikely
for quite some time to oblige the Pattens.
The second prong of the Chinese Communist Party's strategy is to cover
itself with a nationalist sheen. The so-called "Nationalists" led by Chiang
Kai-shek disgraced themselves by their subservience to outside powers, thus
enabling the Communists to grab the nationalist mantle even during the
1930s. With China's emergence as a superpower during the next decade, this
protective armour will become even stronger. The carefully orchestrated
Hong Kong festivities were designed to burnish the Beijing regime's
credentials as the protectors of China's "Middle Kingdom" status.
While the objective of the "nationalist" chant may simply be to preserve
popular backing for the Communist regime, one secondary fallout may he the
level of vehemence with which Beijing defends its perceived interests in
Siberia and South-east Asia. For at least a decade, the regime is likely
to focus primarily on growth. However, as the Chinese people get more
prosperous, the propensity to demand political freedoms will rise. This
will have to be met with greater dosage of "mercantile nationalism", in
which Beijing follows Washington's example of using superpower clout to
generate advantages for its manufacturers. The Beijing regime will have to
demonstratively show its efficacy in protecting Chinese interests in order
to retain public acquiescence.
In the coming decade China may enter into friction with India over
Myanmara. In particular, there may be an effort to get leased a Chinese
naval base on Myanmar territory, a development against India's security
interests. In the next decade, as China overtakes the US economically, it
may attempt to get trade advantages within ASEAN, to the disadvantage of
enterprises from other countries. This again will not be in New Delhi's
interests: what we need is an ASEAN free of any hegemonistic influence.
However, not just in the next two decades but right now China has crafted a
major security risk for India by gifting Pakistan its M-9 missiles, now
renamed the Hatf-3. The lack of any substantive US action against this
breach of the Missile Technology Control Regime indicates that the missile
supplies were in furtherance of a common China-US strategy to equalise"
Pakistan's strike power with India's. As the Brown amendment made clear,
Washington will continue to supply Islamabad with lethal technologies even
while it tries through its Indian agents to choke off funding for our own
nuclear and rocket programmes. Indeed, along with a probe into Bofors, a
future JPC should examine how a small group of officials have tried to
scuttle India's rocket and nuclear programme, on the grounds that the
nation cannot "afford" it.
It is not only that missiles and their warheads make a reliable deterrent
against aggression, the fact is that should India make commercial use of
the technologies it has developed, an adequate nuclear and rocket programme
can be financed from such commercial inflows. Hopefully Yogendra Alagh will
make good on his promise to open up at least the nuclear power programme to
the private sector. Billions of dollars can be earned if New Delhi were to
sell hardware and provide repair and fabrication facilities to the armed
forces of friendly powers. However, at present key installations such as
the Mazagaon Docks are being deliberately under-utilised.
Washington is downplaying the Chinese supply of M-9s to Pakistan. However,
New Delhi cannot this time afford to face this threat with its weapon of
choice, hot air. The Indian missile and warhead programmes need to be
accelerated, even while New Delhi strives through diplomacy for a world
that is weapons-free. That China has so crucially harmed India, even while
New Delhi ensures (for example) that no element within the Tibetan
community here is allowed to undergo arms training, nor are arms supplies
allowed through Indian soil, is a repeat of history. Beijing accepts
Delhi's tribute without any matching gesture on its part. Indeed, apart
from the ISI, some of the other Myanmar-Bangkok based sources of funding
for the North-east militants indicate the reverse. Sadly, just as the
Indian Foreign Secretary did not deem Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in India
to be worthy of mention at the recent Islamabad parleys, New Delhi is
unlikely to ruffle China's conscience by launching an international crusade
against the latest hostile act against India - the so-called "Pakistani" M9
missile. It is another matter that a future regime in Islamabad may direct
these missiles at China, the way the ISI is today active in Xinjiang.
What is needed is the development of a "security crescent" from Korea and
Japan in the north to India in the south. This will ensure that the ASEAN
region remains free of hegemonistic threats. Neither Japan nor ASEAN
appears to have yet realised the need for India as a factor safeguarding
their own well-being. However, seeing that even New Delhi has not
articulated such a concept, neither ASEAN nor Japan can be blamed. After
all, who takes hot air seriously, except other gasbags?
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