It was Francis Bacon, the 16th century English philosopher, who is quoted as saying that: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.". Professor Mohan Malik’s 468 page book published this year, "CHINA AND INDIA: GREAT POWER RIVALS" -- definitely belongs to the third category. It is a closely argued work that calls for careful reading, line by line, paragraph by paragraph and page by page. Andrew Scobell of the RAND Corporation, rightly describes it as a "A tour-de-force study of China and India as rising powers."
The publishers characterize the book thus:
"Despite burgeoning trade and cultural links, China and India remain fierce competitors in a world of global economic rebalancing, power shifts , resource scarcity, environmental degradation, and other transnational security threats. Mohan Malik explores this increasingly important and complex relationship, grounding his analysis in the history of the two countries.....Malik describes a geopolitical rivalry, underpinned by contrasting systems, values and visions. His comparative analysis covers the broad spectrum of challenges that China and India face. Drawing on his extensive research and on-the-ground experience, he concludes with a discussion of alternative strategic futures for Sino-India relations.
In my view, it is perhaps the best, most incisive and authoritative work on the state of bilateral relations between China and India published till date.
**CHINA AND INDIA : GREAT POWER RIVALS ** by Mohan Malik, Professor of Asian Security Studies at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (468 pages), A FirstForumPress Book, 2011.
In order to get more than a taste of the book, I am quoting below extracts from its "wealth of current research and information:
"I maintain ... that there is a fundamental clash of interests between China and India that is rooted in their strategic cultures, history, geoeconomics, and geo-politics. The biggest obstacle to Sino-Indian amity is that both countries aspire to the same things at the same time on the same continental landmass and its adjoining waters." (P.9).
"Given [the] historical backdrop, it is not surprising that China’s re-emergence as a great power is causing regional unease and discomfort in East Asia where the memories of the tributary state system or ’the Middle Kingdom syndrome’ have not completely dimmed." (P.17).
"It may not be an oversimplification to argue that if the first millennium was the age of Pax Indica, the second millennium was the age of Pax Sinica. In the first millennium (during the years 0 to 1000), India was the world’s pre-eminent economic power, closely followed by China. In the first half of the second millennium (1100 to 1500), China overtook India as the world’s largest economy, relegating India to second place. This is corroborated in economic historian Angus Maddison’s pioneering study, The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, which shows that India was the world’s largest economy with a 32.9 percent share of the worldwide GDP in the first century and 28.9 percent in the eleventh century. During the years 1500-1600 as well, India was second only to China in terms of world GDP share and remained among the top until as late as the seventeenth century. Even as recently as 1820 China and India accounted for 49 percent of the world economy." (P. 18).
"Unlike the Chinese, Indians are not known for thinking or acting strategically." (P. 24).
"An unsettled border provides China the strategic leverage to keep India uncertain about its intentions and nervous about its capabilites, while exposing India’s vulnerabilites and weaknesses and ensuring New Delhi’s ’good behavior’ on issues of vital concern for China. More importantly, unless and until Beijing succeeds in totally pacifying and Sinicizing Tibet as it has Inner Mongolia, China is unlikely to give up the ’bargaining chip’ that an unsettled boundary vis-a-vis India provides it with." (P. 25).
A quote from Austin Coates’ 1972 book, China, India and the Ruins of Washington (P. 216): "Apart from the Indians, whom the Chinese mind simply cannot cope with, the Chinese regard the rest of Asia as lesser people deserving of benevolence by virtue of the plain fact that they are lesser people." (Notes: P. 35).
"If the past is a guide to the future, one can argue that the China-India rivalry has its roots in the desire of each for restoration of its historic status and influence (which prevailed before the arrival of European powers in Asia) and China’s determination (albeit, for reasons mostly of India’s own making) to deny India a role on the world stage commensurate with its size, population, military capability, economic potential, and civilizational attributes." (P. 30).
"As India combines its potential economic might with strategic might, its foreign policy is becoming increasingly assertive. This means that a resurgent India will face a rising China, which will ensure a conflict of interests between the two giants unless their power competition -- a clash of identical world views, similar aspirations, and interests -- is manged carefully. ..... All the indications point to a geopolitical contest between China and India over domination of South, Southeast, and Central Asia and the Indian Ocean region." (P. 31)
"China’s India-watchers believe that India’s fractious polity will limit its economic and military potential, and Chinese leaders remain skeptical about India’s future prospects." (P. 89).
"Official China loathes being spoken of in the same breath as India.... Traditionally, China has never looked at India as an equal, but merely as an upstart wannabe that likes to punch above its weight and needs to be constantly reminded of its place.... As in the pre-1962 War period, many Chinese analysts find the growing global tendency to compare their country with India as ’offensive’ and ’demeaning.’ One letter-writer to Asia Times Online noted derisively: ’China is not competing with India... it is competing with the USA. Who wants to compete with India?’ (P. 90).
"As in the past, the PLA judges the Indian military inferior to the Chinese in combat, logistics, equipment, and war-fighting capability. In a conversation with French President Jacques Chirac in late 1999, President Jiang Zemin took a dig at the Indian army. Referring to PLA forays aimed at testing Indian preparedness across the LAC in mid-1999 Kargil War between India and Pakistan, Jiang mockingly told Chirac: ’Each time we tested them by sending patrols across, the Indian soldiers reacted by putting their hands up.’ .... Blaming the 1962 War on ’Indian aggression’, Jiang warned: ’If India were to attack China again, we will crush it’." An editorial in Peoples Daily Online, August 12, 2009 said: ’China won’t make any compromises in its border disputes with India.’ (P. 90-91).
"One Chinese official quipped: ’If India doesn’t give up its great power dreams (daguomeng), China can turn every neighbor of India into another Pakistan.’ "(P. 92).
"Apparently, many Chinese strategists see in the unresolved border an invaluable tool to keep India in check.... A resolution of the Sino-Indian border dispute would lead to the deployment of India’s military assets on the India-Pakistan border, thereby tilting the military balance decisively in India’s favor, much to Pakistan’s disadvantage. This, in turn, would deprive Beijing of powerful leverage in its relations with Pakistan and undermine its old strategy of keeping India under strategic pressure on two fronts, particularly by creating border incidents on the India-China frontier (whenever the India-Pakistan border flares up or the Pakistan army is occupied on its western frontier with Afghanistan and internal security operations) so as to assist Beijing’s ’all-weather friend’ Pakistan. Aggressive patrolling keeps India on tenterhooks all along the disputed border as well as tests India’s resolve and preparedness, heightens its anxiety, and exposes its strategic vulnerabilities." (P. 99).
"Tibet lies at the heart of China-India relations. It is the key to understanding Beijing’s stance on the China-India territorial dispute. (P. 125)..... Modern China is more of an ’empire-state’ than a nation-state." (P. 130).
"Successive Indian governments have bent over backwards to reassure and appease the Chinese on Tibet. India never recognized the Tibetan government-in-exile. As S. Kondapalli points out: ’The Indian establishment strongly believes that taking in the Dalai Lama was very costly to India, that it led to the 1962 War with China. That is why successive generations of Indian bureaucrats have wanted to wash off the Tibet card.’ It surely was washed off gradually. During Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s 1988 visit to China, India reiterated that the ’Tibet region is an autonomous part of China.’ As a further gesture of goodwill, the 1988 position was given up during Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee’s visit in 2003 when India recognized the TAR ’as part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China,’ without linking it to the settlement of the disputed borders. (P. 138)...... This new formulation is silent on the history of the relationship between Beijing and Lhasa. However, as S. Dutta argues: ’It was not realized that the TAR included Arunachal in the Chinese maps , nor was any reciprocity sought. Such unilateral concessions and postures have compromised India’s negotiating edge.’ (See his Revisiting China’s territorial claims on Arunachal, Strategic Anaysis, 32:4, 2008. P. 549-81)." (P. 160). [Italics mine, not the authors].
"Prior to 2005, there was no reference to ’Southern Tibet’ in China’s official media or any talk of the ’unfinished business of the 1962 War.’ Nor did the Chinese government or official media ever claim that the PLA’s ’peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1950 was partial and incomplete’ or that ’a part of Tibet was yet to be liberated.’ With China now insisting on the return of Tawang on religious grounds, Indians argue that they have a more powerful case for the return of Mount Kailash-Mansarovar in Tibet, since it is a sacred religious place associated with the Hindu religion." (P. 151).
" Several commentaries in Chinese language sources published during 2006-2009 indicate a shift toward a tougher Chinese stance on the territorial dispute with India." (P. 151-152). These views and arguments clearly (a) advocate a ’containing India’ strategy; (b) foretell a long and torturous course of future border negotiations; (c) point to the possiblr eruption of a ’limited border war’ between the two countries; and (d) indicate an uncertain and unpredictable future for India’s relations with China." (P. 154).
"To date, China has made no formal public declaration that it recognizes Sikkim as Indian territory. " (P. 162).
"A new potentially divisive issue for the future appears to be the ecological impact on the Indian subcontinent of Chinese plans to divert the rivers of Tibet for irrigation purposes in China." (P. 156).
"Should a conflict break out, the PLA’s contingency plans emphasize a ’short and swift localized’ conflict (confined to the Tawang region, along the lines of the 1999 Kargil conflict initiated by Pakistan) with the following objectives in mind: (1) capture the Tawang tract; (2) give India’s military a bloody nose; and (3) deliver a knock out punch that punctures India’s ambitions to be China’s equal or peer competitor once and for all." (P. 156).
"Conversely, optimists are confident that political will and increased mutual trust can break the impasse. As far as Tibet’s future is concerned, it will ultimately be determined more by what happens inside Tibet than by what India says or does. Despite heightened tensions and tit-for-tat exchanges, neither side can afford to allow their disagreements to spin out of control because of both countries’ focus on economic development for the next couple of decades. In particular, the adoption of a pragmatic approach based on ground realities would facilitate dispute resolution. An east-west swap (Arunachal Pradesh in the east for Aksai Chin in the west) with both sides making smaller territorial adjustments and giving up claims to territory controlled by the other, could be the most feasible way out. A future border settlement will need to ensure that in return for China’s respect for Indian interests in Tibet, especially in Mount Kailash-Manasarovar, India would respect Chinese interests in Tawang. Negotiating these issues will test diplomatic skills, but a mutually agreed settlement will help curb jingoism and ultra-nationalist sentiment on both sides. In the meantime, both sides may have to learn to live without an early resolution to the dispute." (P. 156).
"The centrality of Tibet in Sino-Indian relations is best summed up in the following observation: ’When there is relative tranquility in Tibet, India and China have reasonably good relations. When Sino-Tibetan tensions rise, India’s relationship with China heads South.’ (C Raja Mohan, Indian Express, November 27, 2008)." (P. 157).
"For Beijing, a hard-line approach to India could backfire and drive India (and other Asian neighbors) into stronger opposition to China. The pursuit of aggressive foreign adventures would destroy the benign ’peaceful rise’ image that China is so assiduously striving to achieve. A conflict will cost India dearly in terms of economic developmental objectives and the political ambition of emerging as a great power in a multipolar Asia. Given their current focus on economic growth and prosperity, one hopes that saner voices will prevail in both capitals and both will find ways to resolve their disputes in the interests of regional peace and stability." (P. 158).
If there is one book which foreign policy and military experts both within and outside the Governments of India and the United States (and perhaps also Japan and Southeast Asia) MUST read and digest, it is this, it is this, it is this!!
A SECOND INSTALMENT of a taste of Professor Mohan Malik’s monumental work on **CHINA AND INDIA : GREAT POWER RIVALS ** will follow in due course.
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