Author: Seema Sirohi
Publication: The Timers of India
Date: October 13, 2011
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/The-dragon-has-landed/articleshow/10330871.cms
Projecting an image, like power, can be tricky
for a country because you should neither hype nor hide the real picture for
maximum impact. The image can be designed to help achieve larger political
and strategic goals. China has achieved a near-perfect balance where its aura-building
bolsters its diplomatic agenda in the US and elsewhere. Americans feel a combination
of fear, awe and reverence when they deal with the Middle Kingdom.
China has managed to create a parallel universe
in the American mind, which it inhabits alone, largely unhampered by history
or disputes or neighbours. To the extent they exist, they do so at their own
peril. Chinese "sensitivities" must always be considered, or China
will become an adversary, a self-fulfilling prophecy no one wants to contemplate.
This is the mantra of many influential American academics and policy experts,
the chanting of which is encouraged by Beijing and its vast network of friends.
If China throws out a nifty slogan (Peaceful Rise in the 1990s) to obfuscate
intentions, it is quickly adopted as part of the local discourse.
India, other countries and their disputes
barely enter this narrative. If they do, they make a guest appearance as irritants
and are dealt with as an aside, no matter how serious the problem or allegation.
China sees itself as the centre of the universe where its resurgence is not
an anomaly but its eclipse was. The world must see it the same way. With Israel's
exception, officialspeak from no other country permeates American thinking
as much as that from China. Whether it is Beijing's feigned indifference towards
India or its blistering attacks against New Delhi for the 1998 nuclear tests,
most US experts buy the line without the context.
It is partly because they study China with
little cross-country emphasis. A US expert on China is rarely interested in
India and reads history from one perspective - the Chinese. There are no chapters
on China arming Pakistan with nuclear and missile technology or on the constantly
changing stand on its border dispute with India. Chinese provocations, incursions,
bunker-busting antics do not register. The director of China Studies at Johns
Hopkins last month dismissed the spike in Chinese aggressive behaviour as
"the unskilled period" of diplomacy which was already over. He clearly
wasn't aware of the many recent instances involving India. He stressed the
US was in no economic shape to fashion the new Asian order by showing up at
what was essentially China's party. In other words, let China "deal"
with Asia, a line that Beijing is happy to promote.
The Democrats have repeatedly bought this
logic for some reason. Two presidents - Bill Clinton in 1998 and Barack Obama
in 2009 - issued joint statements with Beijing, bestowing upon it a role no
other country wants it to play, save Pakistan. Obama even flirted with the
idea of a condominium of the G-2 with China and the US in partnership to solve
the world's problems. Fortunately, he abandoned the project quickly but not
before raising serious questions in New Delhi and East Asia.
The evolution of this China-friendly narrative
is not entirely natural or innocent. Beijing exercises extreme discretion
and leverage over US academics it permits into the country. They go to officially
sanctioned think tanks, meet certain Chinese academics and visit Communist
Party bigwigs and come back to write "safe" analyses. Those who
dare to write critically are denied visas and blacklisted. For life-long academics
and heads of China departments, the lure of returning to China unhindered
is often great, sometimes greater than the crush of reality or the denial
of access to the rest of the one billion Chinese. There is also the blinding
dazzle of China's extreme success: if they can deliver so much, so quickly
and so well, they must be doing it right.
This exclusivist framework has set over a period of time starting with Richard
Nixon's historic opening to China in 1972 with attendant strategic thrills
of countering the Soviet Union. China became the vast new frontier for American
academics and universities for scholarship. As commercial relations grew,
"friendship societies" and trade associations began mushrooming.
Helped by Chinese Americans, they kept the focus on China alone.
But a key in creating the "awe"
factor around China was Henry Kissinger, Nixon's brilliant strategist who
initiated the first contacts with secret trips via Pakistan and a fake fever.
He helped shape the narrative and remains China's friend-in-chief to this
day, tactical modifications of his policy positions notwithstanding. China
has enjoyed the benefits of Kissinger's deep hold on Washington, cutting through
Democratic and Republican administrations over 40 years. He lobbies for Chinese
interests and regularly appears as the unquestioned guru of foreign policy
on American television.
By comparison, India has neither had a grand
patron nor a grand plan to help shape its story line. If anything, India was
a target of Kissinger's bile and strategies for a decade. But its own ruling
elite must also share the blame for the shortage of India expertise today.
Prickly attitudes and strong suspicions about US intentions shut out American
academics from India for nearly two decades. Visas to genuine researchers
were blocked as punishment for the anti-India policies of their government.
As a result India lost an entire generation of scholars and experts, who would
have provided a balance. It is desperately playing catch-up, trying to encourage
a spate of South Asia programmes in US universities. But the fruits of this
labour will be apparent only down the line.
