January 17th, 2008 
krishna Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s first official visit to China has evoked a large number of articles in the media, mostly exhorting him to stand firm in his dealings with the Chinese leadership. One did not see very many articles that supported the trilateral India-Russia-China grouping expected to balance the unilateralism of the United States. Understandably enough a majority of the writings drew attention to the Chinese stand on the Tawang tract and their tactics of negotiating endlessly.
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There were references to the Chinese strategy of string of pearls by which they were developing facilities in countries around India – Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and their increasingly growing arms transfer relationships with those countries. There were also references to the rapid development of infrastructure in Tibet and its implications for India. A few articles also focused attention on the positive developments in the India-China relations since the visit of Prime Minister Wen Jiao Bao to India.
There has been rapid development of trade – now in favour of China and mutual investments have been stepped up. Prospects for further economic and technological interaction are considered bright. A small number of articles had referred favourably to India being included in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as an observer and regretted that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was reluctant to attend its last meeting as an observer while the heads of state of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran did not mind attending in their capacity as observers.
While the present visit of the Indian Prime Minister to China has generated a vast range of views on the past, present and future state of India-Chinese relations what is badly needed is a comprehensive assessment of China’s policy towards India.
Obviously it is unrealistic to assume that China intends to confront India militarily across the Tibetan border or using their facilities in our neighbouring countries, or their navy in the Indian Ocean or with the threat of use of nuclear weapons. However, it is true that Chinese leadership had been having a somewhat patronising view about India.
At the dawn of Indian Independence the Chinese Communist Party termed Jawaharlal Nehru, an imperialist lackey. Even when Nehru visited China he complained to the Indian journalists that when he was meeting Mao Dze Dung he was ushered in as though into a great presence.
In the late 50s there were attacks on Nehru and his Tibetan policy. Their true views on India and Nehru can be read in “Kissinger Papers”. They planned carefully and executed the 1962 attack to conincide with the Cuban missile crisis. The Indian Army’s fourth division dissolving without a fight at Sela-Bomdila only confirmed the low opinion they had about India.
They started siding with Pakistan and arming it with conventional weapons. They initiated negotiations with Islamabad for cooperation on nuclear weapon development and concluded it in June 1976 during Z.A. Bhutto’s visit to Beijing.
In the sixties Beijing authored the thesis “Spring-thunder over India” which cast doubts about India remaining united. The Sino-Pakistan nuclear weapon and missiles proliferation was comprehensive and led to Pakistan’s nuclear weapon arsenal and China getting access to sophisticated European centrifuge technology and US weapon technology transferred to Pakistan.
Meanwhile, in 1971 China switched over to US alliance against the Soviet Union. Though in the early 50s Mao Dze Dung talked of capitalism and socialism as irreconcilable, China fought a high casualty war with the US and used to conduct annually “hate America” campaigns. But it had no hesitation to ally itself with the US. China cultivated closer relationship with the US than India had and launched on a trade expansion with the US by enlisting multinationals and chain stores.
Even during Maoist era the objective of China was to catch up with the European standards in a couple of decades. China always characterized its ideology as Sinicised Marxism. In the sixties they came up with various theories of country side surrounding the cities (the developed world). An overall assessment of Chinese strategy from 50s to 80s would reveal that china’s aim was to become once again the Middle Kingdom, particularly in Asia.
They planned to countervail India by allying themselves with Pakistan and by cultivation their relations with all India’s neighbours and all great powers. Given their population for China, only India could be a possible rival. They felt they were in a position to contain India and keep it at the status of a regional power bracketed with Pakistan.
The strategy appeared to work up to 1998 when India conducted the Shakti tests. India’s rise as a power was taken note of by other major powers and the great powers US, EU and Russia appreciated India’s potential as a balancer of China primarily in Asia but also in the emerging international balance of power. Following this development China has developed a two pronged strategy. Firstly to cultivate India and try as far as possible to prevent the development of a closer relationship between India on one side and the US, Japan and EU on the other.
Secondly, to continue the drive to cultivate India’s neighbours to contain India within South Asia. China has understood there is an inherent competition between the two most populous nations which are also two ancient civilizations.
The competition is essentially in economic and technological fields. China also takes seriously that in the competitive game among the US, China and India, the first and last powers will have a natural tendency to come together vis-a-vis the second power.
This is because the first power does not want to be overtaken by the second. The third power has to move up and draw level with the second before it can move up further. This competition will prevail though in this nuclear age there is not likely to be any military confrontation among the three.
India has to reconcile itself to China’s global competition as well as Chinese efforts to countervail it in its own neighbourhood. In turn India has to cultivate the major powers that have a stake in enabling India to balance China and become so economically and technologically powerful that it would be more beneficial for our neighbours to cooperate more intimately with us than with China and through us with other great powers of the world such as the US the EU, Japan and Russia.
The only way to ensure that China, as a great civilization and power will have a stake in friendship with India is to develop our economy and technology rapidly and cultivate our economic, technological and where possible military interactions with other great powers. China, like all other great powers, has only contempt for weak nations spouting platitudinous sentiments..
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