Dear Dr Yashwant Pathak:
In my message dated October 9 titled, **PROFESSOR MOHAN MALIK’S MAGNUM OPUS ON "CHINA AND INDIA: GREAT POWER RIVALS, I had covered the 468 page book upto page 164.
In this, the SECOND INSTALMENT, I will showcase it from pages 165 through 322.
While introducing the FIRST INSTALMENT, I had said:
QUOTE:
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.
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!!
UNQUOTE.
Following are excerpts from its "wealth of current research and information" contained in pages 165 through 322:
"Pakistan remains the linchpin of Beijing’s South Asia policy. In fact, Beijing has long been the most important player in the India-Pakistan- China triangular relationship. The China-Pakistan relationship is akin to the US relationship with the United Kingdom or the US-Israel relationship. (P. 165). However, the China-Pakistan-type nuclear/missile cooperation, in particular, is unprecedented in the history of post-World War Two international relations. The US never shared such a relationship with Britain or Israel. (Notes - P. 192)
"Soon after the 1962 border war with India, China aligned itself with Pakistan to contain the common enemy. Since then this tactical alignment has turned into an "all-weather," time tested, multi-dimensional strategic alliance relationship. Beijing’s gradual penetration deep into Southern Asia since the middle of the twentieth century, has been primarily at India’s expense, thus making China the largest beneficiary of the partition in a manner that its authors would have never anticipated or imagined." (P. 166).
"Just as many Chinese dream about restoring their country’s status as ’the Middle Kingdom,’ many Pakistanis dream of restoring the Mughal Empire over the entire subcontinent. The.. two contradictory feelings of ’fear and hope’ and ’victimhood and domination’ account for the China-Pakistan alliance and their hostility toward India" (P. 167).
"The most important commonality between Beijing and Islamabad is the geopolitical challenge posed by New Delhi." (P. 168).
"China’s notion of ’peaceful rise’ is an indirect acknowledgement of its neighbors’ legitimate concerns about China’s past aggressive behavior. (Notes - P. 192).
"Tariq Niazi: ’China is the only country, when it comes to the national security of Pakistan, which Islamabad trusts. No one else. Pakistan does not trust the United States as much as China, and the reason for that is India. Pakistan’s defence policy is Indo-centric. Who is going to support Pakistan when it goes up against India? Of course it is going to be China’." (P. 169).
"For Pakistan, Beijing looms large in alliance calculations because it ’fully identifies with its anti-India goals.’ W.van Kemanade, Yale Global Online, March 12, 2008" (P. 169).
"The Chinese and Pakistani interpretations of history are .. similar. For both Chinese and Islamists, territory - once conquered - is regarded as immutably theirs. Both see India as an ’artificial construct’ put together by the departing British Colonialists in 1947. Apparently, this stand underpins the Chinese and Pakistani negotiating positions on their territorial disputes with India, which is identical: ’Whatever we have is rightfully ours, whatever you have is open to a negotiated settlement.’ To both, a border settlement in Arunachala Pradesh or in Kashmir that freezes the status quo with India is unacceptable. In contrast, New Delhi favors freezing the territorial status quo and opposes any map-making exercise. Indians see Sinic and Islamic civilizations as inherent expansionists that seek to dismember India to expand their control over the entire subcontinent." (P. 170).
"The UN Population Fund’s projection of the doubling of India’s Muslim population to 300 million (along with 300 million each in Pakistan and Bangladesh) by the middle of the 21st century is seen by some as facilitating ’the secession of the northeastern states form India to form a greater Islamistan in another 30-40 years.’ The scenario of another Muslim state’s emergence south of Arunachal Pradesh and east of Bangladesh apparently dampens any desire in Beijing for a negotiated border settlement with India." (P. 172).
[The future of the China-Pakistan] "enduring alliance depends a great deal on the evolving US relations with India, Pakistan and China. Everything China does in Pakistan may not be with India in mind, but it inevitably impacts India because all of Pakistan’s policies are quintessentially India-centric." (P. 172-173).
"John Garver succinctly sums up China’s Pakistan policy (1992): ’China’s overriding strategic interest is to keep Pakistan independent, powerful and confident enough to present India with a standing two-front threat ..... Were India able to dissolve this two front threat by subordinating Pakistan, its position against China would be much stronger..... [This would amount to] conceding South Asia as an Indian sphere of influence. Such a move would spell the virtual end to Chinese aspirations of being the leading Asian power and would greatly weaken China’s position against Indian power.’ (P. 174).
"The US-India nuclear deal rankles the Chinese because it fulfills two of India’s key strategic objectives that are vociferously opposed by Beijing: ending the nuclear parity with Pakistan and establishing strategic equivalence between India and China." (P.181)
"Nearly 70 percent of Pakistani military hardware originates from China." (P.182).
"An article by Zhang Weiwei in Guoji Guanxi (International Studies, February 6, 2006) of the Chinese Foreign Ministry-affiliated China Institute of International Studies acknowledges that ’Pakistan enjoys an edge over India in the nuclear sector’ - a feat difficult for Islamabad to accomplish without Chinese inputs." (P. 182).
"The Chinese [too] have benefited enormously over the decades from partnering with the Pakistani armed forces that possess and operate advanced conventional military hardware. Pakistan has long served as a conduit for Western technology to flow into China, particular military technology related to avionics, radar systems, sidewinder missiles, tanks, fighter aircraft, Stringer shoulder-fired missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and uranium enrichment technology that was stolen by A Q Khan from Holland in the late 1970s. China has also used Pakistan as a front in the arms trade with several Middle Eastern states where Beijing seeks to project itself as an ally against the US-Israeli domination of the Middle East. A close military-to-military cooperation with recipients of advanced Western weaponry in the Islamic world helps the Chinese undermine the arms embargo imposed by major Western suppliers since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. This strategy earns China goodwill, advanced technology, foreign exchange, and access to energy resources in the oil-rich Gulf states." (P. 182-183).
[China and Pakistan] "plan to base their naval strategy around a large submarine fleet and possess a variety of ballistic and cruise missiles in large numbers in their arsenals. The net effect of ongoing and planned military hardware co-development and co-production projects will be to make Pakistan an integral part of China’s fast-expanding military-industrial complex in the decades to come. Beijing has also signaled its desire to establish military bases in overseas locations that would possibly include Pakistan. The growing military nexus between China and Pakistan, in turn, has raised the specter of a two-front war in India." (P. 183).
"Over the last decade China has repeatedly used its UN Security Council membership to ensure that no harm comes to Pakistan for using terrorism against India. In return, Pakistan essentially ’carries the water’ for China in the Islamic world by acting as a contact point for China’s engagement with the Islamic ummah (community). Beijing pro-actively courts Islamic countries for their natural resources and support in international forums. Islamambad played a key role in selling China’s point of view on the July 2009 riots in Xinjiang which resulted in 183 deaths. Pakistan has ensured that the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) does not pass any resolution condemning China’s ’strike hard’ campaigns (including curbs on the observance of Ramadan) against its Uyghur Muslim minority. Beijing today has better relations with key Islamic states - Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Egypt - than any other great power. Apparently, the historical memory of defeats of Muslim invaders at the hands of Imperial China has also built into the Muslim psyche a grudging respect for Communist China. [Italics added] (P. 188).
"As India’s power grows, Beijing is devising new strategic, economic, and diplomatic strategies to keep its southern rival in check. In the triangular power balance game, the Sino-Pakistan military allance (in particular, the nuclear and missile nexus) is aimed at ensuring that the South Asian military balance of power is neither pro-India nor pro-Pakistan but remains pro-China. Beijing fears that an unrestrained Indian power would eventually threaten China’s security along its southwestern frontiers. Both enmity and amity between India and Pakistan have significant implications for China’s strategic objectives. As in the past, China remains committed to coming to Pakistan’s aid in the event of a military conflict between India and Pakistan by upping the ante along the disputed Himalayan border. Conversely, an India-Pakistan rapprochement under a civilian-democratic Pakistani leadership facilitated by closer trade and commerce links would constrain Beijing’s options in achieving its grand strategic objectives. It is in China’s interests to keep Pakistani fears of Indian dominance alive to keep Pakistan within its orbit. (Italics added) (P. 189).
"The ’Pakistan factor’ is central to the structural dynamics of US-China-India triangle, As India’s strategic competition with China intensifies in the 21st century and becomes almost as fundamaental a part of the global order as the Sino-American contest, Pakistan’s value for China as a geo-strategic tool or a bagaining chip in the China-US-India triangular relationship will inevitably increase..... If China’s economic and military cooperation with Pakistan reaches its full potential, Washington may then find that ’it cannot match the all weather friendship offered by Beijing.’ China cannot forsake Pakistan in the interest of its relations with India because Pakistan is located at the tri-junction of Central, Southwest, and South Asia where the national security interests of China and the United States intersect in so many ways. Rasul Baksh Rais rightly argues that ’India has no levers to change the basic structure of the [Pakistan-China] relationship.’ " (P. 190).
"It is because of the geopolitical faultline that links Pakistan with Xinjiang and Tibet that Sino-Indian relations have seen so many false dawns." (P. 190).
"Indian policy-makers’ hopes of driving a wedge between Pakistan and China via closer Sino-Indian economic ties are unlikely to be fulfilled. For, if Beijing downgrades ties with Islamabad, Pakistan may become destabilized, completely slide into the American camp, or comes to terms with Indian predominance -- all three outcomes are detrimental to China’s core security interests. Beijing is aware that Pakistan’s capacity to protect Chinese interests has somewhat weakened, and that Pakistan’s own future trajectory is far from clear. Pakistan’s possible futures cover a wide spectrum: from the emergence of a moderate, democratic state to a radical Islamic republic to Lebanonization (being divided into several small pockets). In the worst-case scenario, it may even face disintegration. Should China’s long-term asset turn into a liability, a more fundamental reappraisal of Beijing’s old South Asia strategy will then be undertaken. Unless Pakistan descends into total chaos and anarchy, and/or is seen as posing a serious threat to China’s vital national interests, Beijing will not give up on its ’most allied ally’ in Asia. Simultaneously, China’s (and Pakistan’s) mutual desire to stymie India would be tempered by Beijing’s strategic imperative to avoid a policy of open confrontation with New Delhi, because that would only push India closer to the United States and Japan in a ’contain China’ drive. (P. 191-192).
"Burma [Myanmar] now occupies the same place in China’s calculus of deterrence in South and Southeast Asia that Pakistan does in South and Southwest Asia. More than anywhere else, it is in Burma that Beijing and New Delhi are waging an open and determined struggle for influence and advantage." (P. 200).
"Burma has always understood the harsh geopolitical reality of its long border (2000 km) with China. Resisting while accommodating the ’big brother’ has long been part of the Burmese security culture and will remain the pattern of Sino-Burmese relations in the future too. As for their other neighbors, the Burmese are known to dislike Thailand and do not fear India." (P. 202).
"Burma-watchers generally agree that the military regime’s pro-China tilt was not the result of some ’grand design’ in Rangoon but because it had nowhere else to go. In contrast, Beijing’s forays into Burma are definitely a part of China’s grand strategy based on a careful assessment of China’s strategic interests and economic needs in the twenty-first century." (P. 204).
"Over the last two decades, China has developed substantial economic interests in Burma (P. 204)"
"The 1990s saw Chinese strategists increasingly questioning India’s view of its status in the Indian Ocean. A high-ranking PLA officer and director of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, General Zao Nanqi, was quoted in 1993 as saying that China would extend its naval operations farther than East and South China Seas to check attempts by India to ’dominate’ the Indian Ocean and other regional waters." (P. 205).
"In the mid-1980s, the Chinese Foreign Ministry toyed with the idea of renaming the Indian Ocean the Afro-Asian Ocean..... However, the Chinese apparently did not find any takers for the idea at that time. (Notes - P. 230)."
"Beijing’s Burma policy is a manifestation of a Chinese desire to dominate both the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It is also a demonstration of the potential for a Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean. The prospect of Chinese naval presence at the eastern end of the Indian Ocean littoral adds an unwanted element of unpredictability to the natural resource strategies of resource-poor South and Southeast Asian countries. This realization has brought about a strategic consensus between India and some Southeast Asian countries on the need to counter Chinese expansion into the Indian Ocean."[Italics added] (P. 209).
"Beijing’s ’string of pearls’ strategy coupled with China’s anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden in 2008 have prompted the Indian navy to unveil a three-pronged strategy: fortify its defenses in the Indian Ocean by acquiring privileged access to bases in the Maldives, Mauritius, the Seychelles and Madagascar; conducting joint naval exercises in the East and South China Seas; and launching an ambitious naval modernization program." (P. 212).
"Historically, whenever there has been a conflict between Chinese and Indian interests, Rangoon has given greater importance to the Chinese interests than to those of India, for the Burmese dare not antagonize China. Not surprisingly, despite intense competition between China and India over Burma’s ports, resources, and friendship, China continues to outbid and outperform India." (P. 214).
"ASEAN’s ’constructive engagement’ policy notwithstanding, China still remains Burma’s main trading partner, arms supplier and a steadfast supporter in international forums such as the UN Security Council where Beijing has a veto. Neither ASEAN nor India can compete with China either in providing diplomatic protection or military assistance or in offering trade and investment benefits. Perhaps recognizing this, the Burmese generals always favor Chinese oil and gas companies over their Indian competitors, inking larger deals with China." (P. 223).
"Since the early 1990s, Rangoon has come to rely heavily on China - which controls more than 60 percent of the Burmese economy for support and sustenance..... For its part, the military regime values its relations with China more than any other country because Beijing’s backing has been invaluable to the regime’s survival. For China, the payoff goes beyond geoeconomics to geopolitics, gaining access through Burma to the Indian Ocean. Its intent to steer a more balanced foreign policy notwithstanding, the Burmese junta may not find much room for maneuver. As one Burma- watcher has argued: ’China is developing such a hold on Burma’s economy and armed forces that it will constrain the Rangoon regime’s ability to act independently in future’. (P. 223).
"China bears a great responsibility for nuclear proliferation in Asia given the assistance it has provided to Pakistan’s and North Korea’s nuclear/missile efforts over the years. (P. 234).
"According to Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, ’If you subtract China’s help from the Pakistani nuclear program there is no Pakistani nuclear program.’ (P. 235-236).
"The China-Pakistan nuclear nexus is one of the major reasons that ’China-India relations [remain] very fragile..... and very difficult to repair’ - Zang Yan, the Chinese Ambassador to India. (P. 268).
"Both India and South Korea continue to exercise retraint in the face of grave procations from their Beijing-backed neighbors. India has responded by boosting defense cooperation with South Korea that includes military exercises, sharing of military expertise, and technology. .....India has also established strategic partnerships with Mongolia, Japan, Vietnam, and the United States..... China’s aggressive behavior in disputes over territorial and maritime boundaries has already unnerved its neighbors -- behavior that undecuts efforts to sell itself as a benign power. For Washington, China’s aggressive behavior not only helps validate American forward military presence in old allies (such as South Korea and Japan), but also attracts new ones (Mongolia, Vietnam, Indonesia and India), thereby enlarging its strategic footprint in the Asian theatre. In short, China’s diplomatic missteps have brought the United States, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, and India closer. (P. 273).
"In their talks with Indian leaders, Chinese leaders reportedly made it clear that China’s support for India’s [Security Council] seat would come ’’with strings attached’. According to diplomats privy to bilateral negotiations, the Chinese listed three preconditions: India must oust the Dalai Lama, it must not support Japan’s bid for a permanent seat , and New Delhi should be sensitive to Beijing’s security concerns in building its relations with China’s East Asian neighbors. Soon after the release of the high-level panel’s report, Li Wei, a Chinese analyst from an influential think tank, the China Institute of Contemporary Relations (CICIR), spoke of new benchmarks: ’one, India should ensure stability in South Asia [translation: resolve the Kashmir dispute to Pakistan’s satisfaction]; two, it should have friendly relations with its neighbors [translation: abandon great power hegemonistic ambitions] and three, it should contribute towards world peace [translation: cease development of nuclear weapons]. These benchmarks were so broad that no government in New Delhi could accept them as the price for Beijing’s support. Were it to do so, any signs of deterioration in India-Pakistan relations, for example, could be exploited to question India’s suitability for membership. At any rate, Beijing’s conditional support for India’s inclusion comes only if the new entrants are not given the right of veto. Commenting on the Indian foreign minister’s statement after the release of the panel’s report that New Delhi would not accept a seat without a right of veto, Li Shaoxian, Vice President of the CICIR, commented: ’If India sticks to this position, I don’t see India becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council any time soon.’ (P. 289)." [Italics added].
"The dominant Indian thinking is not to give in to such ’unreasonable demands and conditions’ for the Security Council seat, because ’the status it gives may well be more illusory than real’." (Notes - P. 318).
A THIRD INSTALMENT of a taste of Professor Mohan Malik’s monumental work on **CHINA AND INDIA : GREAT POWER RIVALS ** will follow in the next few days.
Cheers,
Ram Narayanan
US-India Friendship
http://www.usindiafriendship.net/
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