But will India be a willing US ally in containing China?
Americans hope that an Indo-US alliance will make China commit a foreign policy blunder that would provide it with a ha-ha moment. Many seem to believe that Obama´s visit will have the same effect on international politics that Richard Nixon´s visit to Beijing had in the early 1970s. However, China is not the former USSR. India and China may differ on many issues, but both being world powers know how to handle their differences by themselves.
Things are different today than it was during the 1970s when Nixon went to Beijing. Then, the US needed China for a graceful exit from Vietnam, and both countries considered the USSR as an aggressive power. Furthermore, with the Cultural Revolution in full-swing in China, the Chinese leadership feared a pro-Soviet group staging a coup, and the border skirmishes between the two countries made them wary of their security. Since China and the US were both in bad terms with the USSR, they joined hands with each other. And the strategy worked: It put tremendous pressure on the USSR as it followed the policy of encircling China and increased the number of troops, aircrafts and weapons along its borders with China and its economy could not sustain it. As some believe, it was one of the major reasons that led to the eventual disintegration of the USSR.
Now, let´s look at India and China. China´s relations with India is quite different from the relations it had with the USSR. The former has historical and cultural ties, whereas the latter was new to the Chinese scene with no deep historical and cultural ties.
Historically, as neighbors, India and China have peacefully existed for thousands of years. Both being empires that had cultural and trade ties realized that it was in their best interests not to provoke each other. If the Hindu mythical texts like the Bhagvat referred to the Indian sub-continent as the Bharatvarsa, then they referred to China as the Kimpurushvarsha, where many Indian sages went to meditate. Even at the time of writing those, there was a clear idea where India´s frontiers ended and where China´s started.
Likewise, the Chinese considered India as the land of knowledge. It is widely believed that the founder of one of its most prominent religions, Daoism, Lao Tzu, went to live in India in his later years. Similarly, many Indian Buddhist scholars went to China and translated the scriptures into Chinese from as early as the second century BC. What´s more? Xuan Zhang, a Buddhist monk immortalized in one of the four Chinese classics The Journey to the West (Xi You Ji), went to India to study Buddhism. The story of his journey to India is one of the most widely read texts in China today.
The real tensions between India and China began to surface only in the latter half of the 20th century. And a border war was fought between the two countries in the early 1960s. Both realized that there was no way of either of them winning in a conventional war. The population and the land mass make it impossible for either of them to conquer the other. And since both are nuclear powers with sophisticated weapons today, it is highly unlikely that they would resort to nuclear warfare. Two democracies with McDonalds can go to war (alas! proving both Francis Fukayama and Thomas Friedman wrong), but two world powers with nuclear arsenals at their disposal will never fight a war. The theory of democratic peace has been proven wrong, but the theory of nuclear deterrence has not yet been proven wrong, and the chances of it being proven wrong appear miniscule each passing day.
Many seem to believe that Obama´s visit will have the same effect on international politics that Richard Nixon´s visit to Beijing had in the early 1970s. However, China is not the former USSR. India and China may differ on many issues, but both being world powers know how to handle their differences by themselves.
Another factor that makes India chart its own policy vis-à-vis China is that the trade volume between the two countries is increasing. If the figures are to be believed, "India has emerged as the 7th largest export market of China and 10th largest trade partner. If the current growth rate continues the bilateral trade between the two most populous countries may cross US$ 100 billion by 2010. Even if the growth rate in India-China trade slows down to 25 percent annually (a conservative projection) from the current rate of over 50 percent, bilateral trade between them is expected to be almost US $75 billion in 2010" (www.indo-china.org). Therefore, it is in both countries´ interest to trade with each other as both have a population of more than a billion each. This too, provides a good incentive for them to be in good terms with each other.
Then comes the issue of sphere of influence. One theory suggests that both will be competing for their respective spheres of influence in Asia and China has already stepped in what the Indians have considered their traditional sphere of influence i e South Asia. It would be outright silly to imagine that China would not want to get involved in South Asia. Without any doubt it does, but the question is: Does it want to get actively involved in Nepali, Bhutanese or Bangladeshi affairs to antagonize its largest South Asian neighbor and trading partner? No. China is aware of and respects the Indian sensitivities in South Asia, and would not do anything to upset India´s standing in the region—a point made clear by the Chinese by not pushing hard on joining the SAARC as a full-fledged member, and the Chinese leaders telling our leaders to maintain good relations with India. Also, let´s not forget, one of the earliest practitioners of sphere of influence were the Indians and the Chinese.
Historically, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia along with South Asia were in the Indian orbit whereas Vietnam, Korea and Japan were in China´s orbit. The same thing is happening today with much of SouthEast Asia and East Asia orbiting China and most of South Asia orbiting India because of cultural, geographical and economic factors. Since the threat of both conventional and unconventional war diminishing with each new missile being developed in India and China, it would not make sense to think that China is encircling India. The Chinese have not forgotten the real reasons behind the USSR´s disintegration. China understands that a strategy of encircling India would backfire and the consequences would be disastrous to itself.
The Indian side knows that the US needs India to maintain its position in Asia and keep China on its toes. With China and India both rising, the US has to play one against the other to maintain its position in Asia. Maybe for a while India may appear to be in a strategic alliance against China, but the Chinese lesson is not lost to the Indians: 38 years ago, China and America entered into an alliance to contain the USSR and China was America´s most trusted ally in Asia, besides Pakistan. Now, the US courts India and hints at forging an alliance against China. What next? 10-20 years later when India becomes comfortable to challenge the US position in Asia, the US forging an alliance with Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Myanmar to contain it?
America with its less than 300-year history, and a little over 150 years of involvement in Asia, beginning with the Gunboat Diplomacy in Japan, and later the Open Door Policy in China, does not seem to realize that relations between two nations have many aspects, besides security and trade. Both China and India being more than 3,000 years old and with more than 2,000 years of recorded contacts between them do not necessarily think the same way as the US does. Both have respected and trusted each other from the ancient times and will continue to do so in the future. Chinese society believes in maintaining order, thanks to Confucianism’s influence and the old concept that “hao han bu dang bing” (gentleman does not fight), and the majority Hindus of India is influenced by the concept of Basudaiva Kutumbakam (universal brotherhood). Therefore, it is also imperative to look at what concepts and notions shape the societal perceptions in these two countries, as the government and its policies are nothing but the reflection of the society.
Of course, as two neighbors, they will have their differences and they will let their dissatisfaction with each other known, and at times may appear tough against each other to appease a small segment of their nationalist population, but to imagine that either one of them entering into a serious strategic alliance against the other is, if history and culture besides other factors are anything to go by, quite unlikely and rather far-fetched at best and doubting the collective wisdom of 2 billion-plus people at worst.
Writer is a Republica staff. He holds a BA degree in Chinese Studies from a US college and MA in International Relations from a Chinese university
trailokyaa@yahoo.com
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