A blueprint to counter CCP and Xi
tion. Parliamentary alliances such as Friends of Tibet or of Uighurs must be allowed free play. We need to oppose the Belt Road Initiative and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) much more vocally at all forums. Buddhist diplomacy has great resonance across Asia. Both Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh occupy pole positions in this regard, but they remain underused by India internationally.
If Pakistan deters the Indian elephant by displaying the Chinese dragon in India’s backyard, India must flaunt the super dinosaur Russia overlooking the dragon’s own backyard. I deprecate India’s unfortunate dilution of its close ties with its oldest all-weather ally, Russia. The latter has to be immediately reassured that closer Indo-us relations do not affect our deep bond with Russia. Countering the latter’s newfound closeness to China and worse, even to Pakistan, should be the government’s top priority.
Turning to economic options, first, some Chinese investments can be terminated. The fear of breach of the Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITS) is exaggerated, since most have clear derogation clauses allowing invocation of the Essential Security Interest (ESI) exception. Second, while import substitution is not easy, we must snap the perfect symmetry between China as an export-driven engine and India as a domestic demand-driven economy.
Third, since China is a controlled economy, with land frequently being free with heavy subsidies built-in, India must use anti-dumping levies much more along with a judiciously-crafted and targeted mix of import substitution, discriminatory tariffs, steep duties, and bans in certain areas.
Above all is the most important facet which we ignore at our peril: The persona of President Xi Jinping. In eight years, he has risen from general secretary to the supreme autocrat of China. His journey to unquestioned leader status has included arrests of opponents, purging hundreds of officials close to his predecessors, bringing the security agencies and the army under his direct command, removal of the two-term limit on his presidency, his “New Guidelines for Political Life” replacing Deng’s 1982 ones and new courses in universities on Xi’s “China Dream”.
In one of his rare interviews, he said: “If you want to be a general, you must be able to win a battle. We do not have battles every day, especially in times of peace...only battles can give an opportunity to show success...”
A man looking to leave his personal stamp on China and globally is hardly going to be content with jhoola diplomacy. He has to be retaught Mao’s dictum that power comes through the barrel of a gun, whether it is a military, economic or diplomatic gun. We should never forget: China is not the problem, but the Chinese Communist Party is and, more than that, Xi Jinping is.