India’s China policy is navigating stormy waters

The American vice-president Mike Pence’s remarks to the Hudson Institute, earlier this month, on the Donald Trump administration’s new policy towards China is almost as formal a declaration of a Cold War as is possible, while maintaining normal diplomatic relations with Beijing. Meanwhile, in Hunan province, a local TV channel is running a game show devoted to China’s new Mao, Xi Jinping: a totalitarian dictator of the kind the world has not seen since Stalin.

In contrast, New Delhi, which is a clear target of Beijing’s aggression, on multiple fronts, is hedging, acting without any obvious tactical or strategic road map. Is it not time for everyone concerned to wake up to this reality? And to recognise that India’s China policy today is far too important to be left to career diplomats or Sinophiles who have outlived their shelf lives? Barely a decade ago, some of the smartest thinkers had warned of Beijing’s expanding influence in India. Today, at the helm of affairs, they seem helpless, almost wanton in their responsibility of crafting a strong and sensible China policy.

Pence’s speech could have been delivered, almost verbatim, by an Indian mandarin. The VP made the distinction between what the world had hoped from China, and the stark reality of Beijing’s policies.

The US vice-president rightly stated that the world had hoped that China’s rise would be one characterised by openness, friendship, fairness, reciprocity, respect for sovereignty, private property, religious freedom and the “entire family of human rights”.

Instead, Beijing is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic and military tools as well as propaganda to advance its influence and interests in the US and the wider world. Through the “Made in China 2025” policy, for instance, the Communist Party has set its sights on controlling 90% of the world’s most advanced industries, including, robotics, biotechnology and artificial intelligence. Moreover, as Pence argued, China is using its power like never before and, in the South China Sea, for instance, Beijing has deployed advanced anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles on an archipelago of military bases constructed on artificial islands.

This is a mere glimpse of the new China that we are faced with, and, pray, what is New Delhi’s response?

Except for a brief period, during the initial days of this government (when the Tibetan prime minister-in-exile was invited for the PM’s swearing in, the Dalai Lama was encouraged to be more assertive and the Indian armed forces were directed to be more forceful), South Block has once again gone back to buckling down.

On March 18, the Dalai Lama was the chief guest at the first convocation of the Central University of Jammu. What was to be a momentous celebratory occasion, had acquired a solemnity rooted in uneasiness. A few days previously, the cabinet secretary had circulated a note, ostensibly at the advice of the foreign secretary, that it was desirable that senior leaders or government functionaries should stay away from events that marked the beginning of the 60th year of the exile of His Holiness.

The note appeared in the Press as a deliberate leak, it seemed, to assuage the Chinese leadership. That, of course, did not prevent the convocation from going ahead. I made it a point to represent the state government as cabinet-level advisor to the chief minister and, fortunately, both minister Jitendra Singh and General NC Vij received honorary doctorates during the event. The Dalai Lama did not, of course, let this intriguing note impact on his grace and the wisdom of his thoughts.

More than six months later, we were nowhere realising the fruits of this sensitivity towards Beijing. Our backing down on the border at Doklam while the Chinese continue to rapidly build world class infrastructure or treating the Karmapa as an outcaste has yielded little from Beijing, nor has our reiteration of the touch-me-not attitude towards the Tawang monastery in Arunachal Pradesh (after first letting the Dalai Lama pay an official visit) brought even a discernible smile to Xi’s inscrutable visage.

Our China policy is navigating stormy waters without any sense of direction. Hedging, and grand standing on strategic autonomy is just that: grand standing. Meanwhile, the two contenders for the being the rightful heir to the 16th Karmapa have made peace; not in Dharamsala but in rural France. The distance is a metaphor of how much the Tibetan leadership has become disconnected from New Delhi.

Amitabh Mattoo is professor, International Relations, Jawaharlal Nehru University

The views expressed are personal