How China has overplayed its hand
nial, post-world War II era, it has viewed India as a long-term competitor that must be checked. Thus, its relentless focus on keeping India under pressure, and slowing down its resurgence, from every possible angle, using every possible tool at hand.
China’s India-containment strategy was clear since its early patronage of Pakistan from the 1950s. It has continued to exploit that benighted nation as a client-state, primarily to act as a brake on India. Then, while establishing a detente on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India for nearly half-a-century, China began leveraging its fast-growing economy to implement the “string of pearls” strategy to encircle India from south-east Asia to Africa. This has recently seen sharp acceleration, with the Belt and Road Initiative projects such as Hambantota and Gwadar ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and the China-pakistan Economic Corridor running right through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Most significantly, China has feverishly stepped up its attempts to cultivate Pakistanlike client states among India’s immediate neighbours, as recent developments in Nepal have shown. Furthermore, as covered in the previous edition of this column, in recent years China has also begun asserting itself globally, raising the hackles of nations near and far.
India has also been changing. It had earlier wasted decades of LAC detente (when “no bullet was fired in anger, no life was lost”) by being laggardly about fortifying its border defences, unlike the Chinese. That has changed dramatically since 2014, with huge increases in infrastructure expenditure in border states, both civilian and defence. As many commentators have noted, the recent rapid scaling up of infrastructure on India’s side of LAC was one of the key triggers for the current clash, with China wanting to intimidate India from trying to achieve parity. The Modi government has also taken similar steps abroad, for instance, by finally commissioning Chabahar port in Iran after decades of delay.
This time, China has badly overplayed its hand,andbeenshockedbyindia’sdetermined resistance. The Modi doctrine is clearly rooted in Kautilyan principles. Unlike his predecessors, he will not be complacent with defences because of opponents’ words of peace. He will seek peace like them, but maintain it from a patient, gradually-built position of strength.