Give peace a chance

India cannot afford to ignore China as a powerful neighbour. It shares 3,488 km of the border with China that runs along with the states/Union Territories of Ladakh and Kashmir (1,597 km), Himachal Pradesh (200 km), Uttarakhand (345 km), Sikkim (220 km) and Arunachal Pradesh (1,126 km). The Indian government had maintained a cordial relation with China. Modi-Jinping bonhomie was a hot topic in the international press. Till the skirmishes in the border began in June 2020, both the leaders have met at least 18 times since Modi came to power in 2014 — including one-on-one meetings in each other's countries and on the sidelines of the multilateral summits. As per an Indian Express report, the present Prime Minister had visited China five times as the PM — the most by any Indian PM in the last 70 years.

After the PM's visit to Texas in September 2019 (Howdy Modi event at Houston, Texas) India China relations took a U-turn! It was reported that the Kashmir connection in PM Modi's Houston visit was evident in the way NRI Kashmiri Pandits greeted the Prime Minister in his first visit to the US after the scrapping of the special status in Jammu and Kashmir granted under Article 370 of the Constitution. Just like Jammu and Kashmir was not a part of India at the time of Independence, Texas was not a part of the United States of America when it was formed.

Anticipating India's change in China policy, Xi Jinping had rushed to India in October 2019 on a personal visit to meet Modi at a beach resort in Tamil Nadu to persuade him to participate in the mega-regional economic alliance. But he had to return empty-handed as India decided not to join the China-backed mega Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) over unresolved "core concerns", saying the proposed deal would have an adverse impact on the lives and livelihoods of all Indians, reported India Today. In the recent Sino-US trade war, India exhibited its inclination towards the USA. Even during the pandemic, the US President travelled to India with his huge entourages to participate in the 'Namaste Trump' event (24 and 25 February 2020) hosted by the Indian Prime Minister.

This essay tries to address three questions. (i) Where does India stand now vis a vis China (ii) What are the possible options that exist before India for a long-term beneficial engagement with China (iii) Which option looks most viable.

India vis a vis China

China and India — two ancient Asian civilisations — had dominated the global economy and trade till European nations started ruling the sea in the late 15th century as they discovered the New World in the Americas. Then, the decline started. But after attaining independence in 1949, China has regained much of its lost share (around 17.7 per cent of the global economy at present) though India is lagging far behind (3.25 per cent) China and other nations. China, the second-largest economy of the world (Japan being the third-largest), has become the manufacturing hub of the world, and in January 2020, it had a foreign exchange reserve of USD 3.4 trillion which was much higher than the nominal GDP of India.

Notwithstanding the pandemic situation, China's economy is growing at a moderately decent pace. In 2021, the estimated per capita GDP of China (USD 11,819), the world's most populous country, is over five times that of India (USD 2,191)! This gets reflected in the poor human development score of India compared to its much bigger and wealthier neighbour. India ranks poorly at 131st position as compared to China's HDI rank of 85. Since coming to power, the Chinese 'Party-State' has lifted nearly 800 million people out of absolute poverty. China is a malaria-free country at present.

Despite border tensions, pandemic restrictions and jingoism, Indo-China trade has increased during 2020-21. China also has emerged as India's largest trade partner as the value of transactions between the US and India declined during this period. According to provisional estimates, published by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, India has imported goods worth USD 65.21 billion from China in 2020-21. Imports in the previous year were worth USD 65.26 billion. Exports from India to China climbed by 27.5 per cent from a year ago to USD 21.19 billion, reported Moneycontrol.com.

India mostly imported telecom devices and computer hardware from China; ores, iron, steel and organic chemicals were the top exports from India. If we analyse the major export and import items of both China and India, we observe that while China exports high tech items, India primarily exports processed natural resources like petroleum oil and diamond to the global market.

Technology: the main differentiator

The number of patent and design applications filed by China and India in 2018 indicates the wide gap in technological know-how between the two neighbours. For example, in 2018 Chinese patent applications (15,42,002) were over 30 times higher than that of India (50,055). Moreover, 67.7 per cent of the Indian applicants were non-residents and the corresponding percentage of non-resident applicants in China was only 9.6 per cent. The same trend is observed in the case of industrial design applications also. In 2018, the number of design applications in China (7,08,799) were 56 times more than that of India (12,632). Also, in India, 29.3 per cent of applications were filed by non–residents as compared to only 2.7 per cent applications were filed by non-residents in China.

China has 25 per cent of the world's R&D workforce, and ranked second among countries filing the most international patent applications in 2018 (53,981) — just behind the US (55,981).

This technological edge has enabled China to emerge as the global leader in manufacturing, telecom services and in all other new sectors associated with the digital economy. Focused policy for the advancement in science and technology has empowered the country to successfully implement the 'Made in China' policy while India was compelled to propagate the 'Make in India' slogan with little success. For instance, from 2013, the year Xi Jinping was named Communist Party general secretary, he began pushing the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) to become a world-class research institution. Among its most ambitious initiatives has been the "Made in China 2025" industrial plan. The aim, since its 2015 launch, is for China to become a world leader in a number of high-tech industries, such as medical devices, robotics, and aerospace equipment.

While India has seen four education ministers during the last seven years, China has immensely contributed to enrich human knowledge in every field — from agriculture to space science, from telecommunication to nuclear fusion, from consumer electronics to medical technology. Analysts, Yu Xie, Chunni Zhang, and Qing Lai (2014) argue that four factors have favoured China's continuing rise in science: 1) A large population and human capital base 2) a labour market favouring academic meritocracy; 3) a large diaspora of Chinese-origin scientists; and 4) a centralised government willing to invest in science.

The UK Research and Innovation Agency projected that China will overtake the US in 2022 as the no.1 nation in R&D investment. In 2017, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated that China accounted for 23 per cent of total world R&D expenditure. In the following year (2018), its spending rose further to account for 2.19 per cent of gross domestic product — a rise from 2.15 per cent in 2017 — which was slightly greater than that of the European Union. Several Western universities have set up R&D research centres and universities in China. As per a sciencebusiness.net report, China ranked third behind the US and UK in terms of quality of universities.

Challenges

On July 1, 2021, in a spirited speech during the Chinese Communist Party's centenary, President Xi Jinping said: "China's rejuvenation is finally within grasp and any attempt to bully the nation will be met with a steely response". Reacting to Xi's remarks, Indian politician Shashi Tharoor, as reported by economictimes, has rightly pointed out that under Xi Jinping, China is transitioning from "bide your time approach" that it undertook under Deng Xiaoping who wanted China to grow and become strong and wealthy but "keep its head down" to 'Wolf Warrior diplomacy', a term that has been used to describe confrontational rhetoric by Chinese diplomats to ward off criticism on a host of issues. In addition to the recent skirmishes on the Ladakh border, there are a few more developments that may be considered as a major security and economic challenge to India.

During his state visit to Myanmar in January 2020, the Chinese President Xi strongly reaffirmed China's commitment to revive the stalled multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Myanmar by signing 33 new memoranda of understanding. The infrastructure route in Myanmar — labelled as the "China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC)" — promises to connect the Indian Ocean oil trade to China's Yunnan province by upgrading the deep-water port at Kyaukphyu (situated in the Rakhine province of Myanmar) on the Bay of Bengal. With CMEC in the east, China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the west, Hambantota Port and Colombo Port City SEZ in the south, China has strategically surrounded India.

Moreover, the scheduled departure of the American forces from Afghanistan by September 2021 has given rise to the fears of civil war and the Taliban taking over the country. Sensing an opportunity, China has stepped in to fill the vacuum and the Chinese authorities are in talks with officials in Kabul to persuade them to join the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). If this materialises, then China Afghanistan Pakistan Economic Cooperation (CAPEC) will ensure China's gateway to Europe, Middle East, and Central Asia through Afghanistan. India will lose its traditional trade routes to the west.

Options before India

The two feasible options left with the Indian policymakers are either to maintain the status quo and follow India's old policy of non-alignment with superpowers or to engage more actively with China by entering into long-term alliances on specific areas of mutual interest.

India has opted out of the non-alignment option when it decided to participate in the first ever Quad Summit in March 2020 to counter RCEP — one of the largest alliances of the world involving 15 countries of the Asia Pacific region. The Quad Alliance of the USA, India, Japan and Australia — often dubbed as 'mini-NATO' — was formed in 2007 to counter Chinese influence in Indo-Pacific. The group, which began with an ambitious geostrategic vision, had remained dormant for over 14 years and failed to take off due to hesitation among the four nations. Unfortunately, the USA, itself a stagnant ship (if not a sinking one!), has pushed India into the murky water of the Indo-Pacific to counter China. It may be noted that the other two members of the Quad — Japan and Australia — are also members of RCEP! America has a history of betrayal with its allies. Abandonment of the Kurds of Syria and the Afghan government are only the latest examples of American treachery

It is time to correct India's mistakes and learn the virtues of an evolving foreign policy. Both India and China are members of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and APTA (Asia Pacific Trade Agreement) groups. These two groups should be used to develop people to people contacts between these two great civilisations. Sudheendra Kulkarni, a former Advisor to the Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Bajpayee and an eminent foreign policy expert has rightly suggested: "India, China and Pakistan, along with Russia and other SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) members, should work together for peace, cooperation and development in Eurasia — something which QUAD can never deliver."

India is the only country in South Asia that is not a part of China's BRI. All the neighbours of India have already joined the initiative. The much talked about 'Chinese debt trap' has no empirical basis till now. Indian policymakers should seriously deliberate on this and make an informed decision.

One of the reasons why India had decided not to join RCEP was the genuine fear that India would fail to compete with big players like China, Japan, South Korea, and Australia in a free trade arena. Indian experiences with earlier comprehensive economic agreements with Japan and South Korea were disappointing. Over-dependence on Europe and America for scientific and technological knowledge has made India weak and uncompetitive in high-tech products and services which, at present, dominate the world market. India should now look to the east, not for a wider market for its goods but to acquire the much-needed knowledge to be competitive. Here lies the importance of China, Japan and Korea. Sino-India cooperation has to be built on a technological and ecological alliance

BCIM-Economic Corridor

The Kunming-Kolkata (K2K) Initiative (1999), rechristened as the BCIM Forum (Bangladesh, India; China, and Myanmar) for regional cooperation, primarily aims to boost the economic prowess of the region and increase connectivity. The proposed BCIM Economic Corridor may remind you of a geographical space consisting of the 19th century Bengal Presidency (that consisted of the present-day eastern and north-eastern parts of India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar) and Yunnan province of southwest China. It aims to link Kunming with Kolkata, via Mandalay and Dhaka. An important aspect of the BCIM was the Kolkata-Dhaka-Mandalay-Kunming car rally in 2013. The long-proposed 2,800-km-long BCIM corridor, after being dropped by Beijing from its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) due to New Delhi's opposition, got a fresh lease of life at a meeting in 2019 held by the four stakeholders in Kunming.

Instead of entering into a broad-based umbrella type agreement, India should revive the dormant BCIM–EC for (i) improving physical connectivity of the region and (ii) sustaining the common ecosystem.

This region shares a common ecosystem which demands cooperation and coordination among all the stakeholders for preserving the same. Between the two great valleys of Brahmaputra and Chindwin, lies a long range of jungle-clad mountains — stretching from The Himalayas in the north to the port of Akyab (Myanmar) on the Bay of Bengal in the south.

River Brahmaputra, the lifeline of Assam and Bangladesh, originates from the Tibet administrative area of China. India and Bangladesh have 54 transboundary rivers between them, all of which are part of the drainage system of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basin. The Padma (the Ganga), the Jamuna (the Brahmaputra) and the Meghna (the Barak) along with their tributaries are integral in maintaining food and water security in the region. The GBM river basin is a transboundary river basin with a total area of over 1.7 million sq. km, distributed between India (64 per cent), China (18 per cent), Nepal (nine per cent), Bangladesh (seven per cent) and Bhutan (three per cent). Cooperation among BCIM members is essential for the sustainable development of the GMB basin. The Mekong Ganga Cooperation (MGC) model, which has been in operation for many years, may act as a reference.

Conclusion

India cannot ignore China anymore. The sleeping dragon has woken up and it is dancing. India China cold war will not be beneficial to either of the nations. As before, the USA and its allies will be the major beneficiaries. But if the dragon and the elephant decide to dance together, others will leave the floor. For the sake of a better future for the two great civilizations, where Buddhism once flourished, all we are saying is: 'Give Peace a Chance'!

Views expressed are personal