Reports
about India backing China containment, post-Obama visit, are blinkered. Both
India and China are key centres in an emerging polycentric world order. The
U.S. fears their genuine reconciliation undermines western hegemony. But the
civil nuclear deal, described as the centrepiece of new understanding with the
U.S., could be a damper on the future of India’s indigenous technology. Modi’s
challenge is Make India a nuclear sector.
President Barack Obama’s recent visit to New Delhi has generated a lot
of speculation that India’s foreign policies under Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s leadership are slouching toward an alliance between the two countries
with the shared objective of finessing the rise of China.
The pro-American lobbyists in the Indian media have gone to town
celebrating a so-called “new entente” with the US. Is there an entente, really?
If so, is it altogether new? Is an entente necessary at all? Frankly, this is
all becoming a bit like what Lao Tzu, the great philosopher and poet of ancient
China, once said, ‘Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.’ We
simply do not know how far those who speak for Mr. Modi’s mind are in fact
speaking for him. The high probability is – not one of the lobbyists.
All the speculation was engineered from one source, namely, a New York
Times report attributed to unnamed US officials to the effect that during the
conversation with Mr. Obama, Mr. Modi spoke in a 45-minute torrential flow of
deep angst over China’s rise. Of course, why Mr. Obama’s senior diplomats felt
prompted to plant a mischievous story in the media is intriguing. They are
either plain duffers or were being clever by half. Suffice it to say, the
“leak” was deliberate, exposing Mr. Modi badly ahead of his forthcoming visit
to China.
The heart of the matter is that Washington always sought to co-opt India
as a participant (“lynchpin”, as former defence secretary Leon Panetta once
said) in the US’ ‘pivot’ to Asia and a defining moment may be reaching soon. To
be sure, Mr. Modi has injected dynamism into Indian diplomacy. For the first
time after Narasimha Rao (who navigated India’s difficult and complicated
transition to the post-cold war era), we have a prime minister who is not
‘one-dimensional’ in his world outlook. Mr. Modi is negotiating harder than any
of his predecessors in the recent decades for getting the best terms possible
from the world’s major powers for meeting India’s emergent needs as an economy
and society, which is passing through a formative transition period.
Being the gifted politician he is, and with his intense awareness of the
mood of his people in this vast country, Mr. Modi knows that the fantastic
mandate he received in the 2014 poll will prove ephemeral unless he delivered
on the development agenda that he pledged. Quintessentially, it boils down to
creating job opportunities in the tens of millions for India’s unemployed
youth. Thus was born Mr. Modi’s obsessive idea of ‘Make in India’ as the
leitmotif of India’s partnership with major powers. Without doubt, Mr. Modi has
thought through a recalibration of policies geared to advance his ambitions
regarding a rising India as well as his own (legitimate) political agenda to
secure a renewed mandate from the Indian people in 2019.
Enter China. Mr. Modi has visited China five times, more than any other
country. The Chinese companies invested most in Gujarat when he was the chief
minister than in any other state. As a subaltern, Mr. Modi has taken immense
pride in his region’s Buddhist heritage and the ancient links between China and
his own village. His pride and emotion on that balmy evening on the Sabarmati
riverbanks hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping was self-evident. But far more
important is the role that Mr. Modi attributes to China in his ‘Make in India’
project.
China’s experience is unique in undertaking massive labor-intensive infrastructure
projects and creating a manufacturing sector that enabled that country to lift
some 700 million people out of the trap of poverty, a feat without parallel in
modern history. While the West can provide India with technology, which helps
the economy to become more efficient, the pressing demand of the political
economy, which Mr. Modi prioritizes as a statesman, is job creation that makes
the benefits of growth percolate down to the dispossessed and disadvantaged
sections of society. In sum, India needs both the West and China.
Mr. Modi is taking a leap of faith toward China. A $32 billion Chinese
railway project and the fulfilment of the $20 billion offer made by Mr Xi
during his September visit to create two industrial parks in India have the potential
to create several lakhs of jobs in a very near future. The purposiveness with
which he is planning his return visit to China so soon shows Mr. Modi’s sense
of urgency.
On the other hand, the Chinese are pragmatic enough to know that the
border dispute with India does not lend itself to an easy resolution anytime
soon and the art of the possible lies in providing underpinnings for peace and
tranquility in the vacant lands that separate the two countries. China is keen
to deepen and expand its ties with India comprehensively, especially in the
hugely beneficial economic arena, which in turn would create the mutual trust
and confidence to stabilize the overall relationship and put it on a
predictable footing.
China seems to understand Mr. Modi’s political personality and made an
unprecedented overture to the new government as soon as it took over last May.
China sees Mr. Modi as a decisive leader who can take difficult decisions, and
an effective interlocutor – and that a rare opportunity has presented itself
for a historic upgrade of the relationship contemporaneous with the
twenty-first century. Mr. Xi would like to receive Mr. Modi in Xian, his
hometown. Quite obviously, India-China relations form an important template of
the geopolitics of Asia-Pacific. Being two of the fastest-growing countries in
the world, how they bond – and the quality of their bonding – will be of
profound consequence to the world order. The short point is that in the
emerging polycentric world order, India and China are already two key centres.
This and this alone explains the US’ keenness to see that a genuine India-China
reconciliation does not take place, which undermines the western hegemony in
the international system.
Mr. Modi is a tough negotiator. His diplomatic moves underscore that he
wants partnerships with all major powers, which are of use to India. But then,
the US historically viewed with wariness any robustly nationalistic leaderships
abroad – from Charles de Gaulle to Vladimir Putin. Unsurprisingly, the US hopes
to leverage the interest groups that surround Mr. Modi. But then, there are
serious contradictions, too.
Three things need to be noted. First and foremost, US-China ties are
complex and it is unwise for India to become a function of that relationship of
high interdependency (which at times takes the hue of a “G-2” partnership or
may seem adversarial.) At the end of the day, China tops the list of countries
that finance the US’ debts. The massive bilateral trade; Chinese investments in
the US; China’s commitment to dollar as the world currency; China’s market as
the driver of growth for the world economy; China’s gargantuan appetite for
world’s resources (and its impact on commodity prices) – all these impact the US’
vital interests.
The US-Chinese cooperation is actually quite dense regarding regional
and global issues – Iran, Islamic State, North Korea, climate change, maritime
security and regional trade. In fact, they closely consult each other with
regard to the South Asian region. Mr. Obama, while visiting China in November,
urged a ‘proactive’ role by Beijing to stabilize. Curiously, China has begun
discussing with the Taliban (and Pakistan) how it could mediate a
reconciliation process. (Washington will never countenance a similar role for
India, lest it annoyed Pakistan.)
A second aspect is that the majority of Asia-Pacific countries
themselves are stakeholders in friendly relations with China and have turned
their back on the US ‘pivot’ strategy. They do not even believe that the US can
extricate itself out of the Middle East quagmire. So, what is this US-led
alliance system against China in Asia-Pacific all about?
Finally, India has its own problems to resolve with China and there is
no scope for an American role there. The bottom line for China is that India
should not link up with any US-led containment strategy. China’s record is
consistent here. Decades of Soviet-Chinese border negotiations reached nowhere,
but no sooner than the hostilities ceased following the end of the cold war and
Moscow made overtures to Beijing, a settlement could be reached – to Russia’s
full satisfaction.
Clearly, it is not in India’s interests to identify even remotely with
the US pivot to Asia. Besides, a good market already exists in India for the
export of American weaponry. India provides a level playing field for the
foreign arms manufacturers and the US lately figured as India’s main supplier.
It is unnecessary to fuel arms trade with geopolitics or India’s relations with
China, as India genuinely needs to modernize its armed forces and is keen to
develop an indigenous arms industry. Let market forces prevail, which is in the
best interests of ‘Make in India’.
The writer M.K.
Bhadrakumar is a former ambassador
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