In India’s China policy, a mix of three approaches
Countries are relying on internal strength, engagement with Beijing and external balancing. Prioritise wisely
a robust Indian economy, appropriate budgetary allocations for national security, and political will to deploy these tools. However, the Indian economy did not perform as dynamically as many had hoped after 2011. Nonetheless, India activated once-dormant airfields, raised army mountain divisions, reallocated air force assets eastwards, and began to improve border infrastructure.
Other tools came into play. Indian aid and concessional loans to the neighbours (especially Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and the Maldives) increased and naval deployments in the Indian and western Pacific Oceans picked up by late 2017, although capital budgetary allocations did not keep pace. India’s willingness to intervene to support Bhutan against Chinese road-building in Doklam was an important statement of intent. While these developments have been positive, it is debatable whether they have been sufficient given the widening resource gap with China.
India also attempted engagement with Beijing. The period between the global financial crisis of 2008 and the Chumar stand-off during Xi Jinping’s India visit in 2014 witnessed the most sustained engagement in recent years. This was motivated by several factors — an accelerated global economic rebalance, US attempts at engaging China under Barack Obama, and political dynamics within India. While this period also witnessed a hardening of India’s military position on the border, efforts at external balancing slowed down.
The latest period of engagement, which began in 2017, revealed that neither China nor India were able or willing to make major compromises. India continued to reject both the BRI and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The boundary question remained unanswered. Even on economic relations, China made only minor concessions on agricultural and pharmaceutical imports. Even in the absence of real changes, the rhetoric of engagement made sense in the aftermath of the Doklam crisis only because it bought both countries time.
Finally, external balancing involved a series of arrangements with partners that shared India’s concerns about China, with the intention of improving interoperability, facilitating intelligence and assessments, and boosting each other’s economic and defence capabilities. In the past few years, India has made progress in facilitating logistics support, increasing maritime awareness, upgrading military exercises, and regularising strategic dialogues with the US, Japan, Australia, Russia, France, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and others. This month’s India-australia “virtual summit” is but the latest step in a larger progression.
India is not alone in having a domestic debate about managing China’s rise. A combination of approaches will remain in the policy mix of every country. But if one believes that India’s internal balancing has been inadequate and engagement requires some genuine compromises by Beijing, New Delhi must logically accelerate its efforts at external balancing to deal with a more powerful China.
Technology and collaboration are the mantras that many hope will help the world turn the tide against Covid-19. The public health ecosystem has demonstrated unprecedented collaboration among scientists, governments and medical companies, sharing everything from epidemiological data to software and design files to develop a vaccine and manufacture-testing equipment.
Could this crisis be the trigger for a new era of technology collaboration among citizens, businesses and governments to solve the gravest problems of our times? The initial signs are promising. Governments are deploying technology in newer innovative and collaborative ways. For example, many countries, including India, have deployed contact tracing apps developed through public-private partnerships, to prevent the spread of the virus, and are crowd-sourcing relevant information from citizens. Private companies, such as taxi aggregators, are opening up their tech platforms to help the government fight the crisis by tracking crowds in real-time.
This crisis seems to have become a laboratory for the dawn of a new era of what we will call Gov Tech 3.0. While 1.0 was the era of “computerisation” of manual processes such as putting income tax forms online, 2.0 was about building systems which digitised end-to-end processes, for example, the government’s “e-office” file management system. Govtech 3.0 is focussed on Open Digital Ecosystems (ODES), the underlying philosophy of which is for governments to move away from being a builder of end-to-end tech solutions towards becoming a facilitator by creating digital infrastructure on which innovators can collaboratively build solutions for the public good.
A good analogy to understand this shift is the physical infrastructure of cities. Building “commons” is done by the government through public funding and engagement. This includes the construction of roads, drainage systems, parks and mass transit systems. If built and governed well, this is the “platform” on which businesses and individuals then create the vibrant ecosystem of activities that make up our urban life and are visible to us as we interact and transact with others in the city. Similarly, the ODE approach suggests that the government should focus on creating the “digital commons”; enable interoperability between siloed systems, so that innovators can build solutions on top, by leveraging what technologists call open-source software, open standards, and open Application Programming Interface (APIS).
Several path-breaking ODES are already in play in India: Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in the financial services space; the
National Digital Health Blueprint that imagines a radically different public health ecosystem; the National Digital Infrastructure for Teachers called DIKSHA; the National Urban Innovation Stack which is enabling more efficient provision of municipal services; and a digital ecosystem for agriculture which is being designed by an inter-ministerial committee.
In the wake of Covid-19, we can take this thinking further. Could we create a “social protection ODE”, through which migrant workers can access State benefits irrespective of where they are? This could be enabled through an interoperable tech architecture connecting disparate state and department tech systems and apps, built by innovators, enabling migrants to get real-time information about and access to their entitlements.
ODES are not just a different way of delivering government services — they are a different way of imagining the citizen-state relationship. ODES enable the rapid scaling of solutions, through modular technologybuilding blocks, that can be deployed in multiple contexts by ensuring interoperability across platforms. This can shift the balance of power in favour of citizens.
While ODES empower and enable collaboration in unprecedented ways, many worry that such interconnected digital networks may make us more vulnerable to harm, with dispersed accountability and possible violation of individual privacy. These concerns are heightened when the power of digital platforms is combined with the coercive power of the State. In the Covid-19 context, we see that in some countries, mobile phone location data, thermal imaging drones, and cyber tech normally used in counterterrorism, are being integrated and deployed for surveillance of citizens. The curtailment of personal freedoms may be acceptable to the public during a crisis, but the worry is that once such technology is out there, it may be impossible to roll it back.
This issue — that with high-stakes benefits come high-stakes risks— is central to the ODE debate. Designing privacy-protecting and secure databases is critical. The invisible rules that are coded into “tech” need to be made transparent through thoughtful design principles, legislation, governance frameworks and public engagement. For example, having accountable institutions behind these ODES, and robust grievance redressal mechanisms is critical for their success. Making sure the design is citizencentric and ensures inclusive access to services at the last mile will help drive adoption and sustain these ecosystems.
A recent government white paper put out on has invited public consultation on some of these critical open questions around National ODES. The design choices India makes today, not just in terms of the technology and data architecture, but also in terms of governance architecture and community engagement around ODES, will determine how we collaborate to build a more resilient and empowered India.