India should take a leaf out of China’s playbook
China’s domestic debates throw light on issues behind the LAC crisis and also hold a lesson for India — to recognise and leverage its increasing strategic value to China
Two years have passed since the deadly Galwan Valley clash of June 2020, but some elements of the crisis remain a mystery. Why did China choose to violate existing agreements, disturb peace and stability at the border? Why did it reverse the progress made in bilateral relations in the last 45 years? Some argue this was China’s reaction to India revoking the special semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019. Others see an infrastructure arms-race at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as the immediate trigger. Still others believe the intensifying great power competition between China and the United States is responsible for deteriorating China-india ties. Against this backdrop, a survey of China’s internal debates and discussions on India in the years preceding the Galwan clash and thereafter, provide important cues.
At the outset, it is important to understand that India is a country that features concurrently in all four areas of China’s strategic outlay ie major power diplomacy, neighbourhood diplomacy, developing country diplomacy and multilateral diplomacy (the basic framework of Chinese diplomatic practice). A careful analysis of Chinese language literature indicates that the LAC crisis is likely the manifestation of an intensifying conflict between China’s major power diplomacy and neighbourhood diplomacy vis-à-vis India. In a paper recently published by the Stimson Centre, I pointed out how, as a part of its major power diplomacy, China sought India’s cooperation to hedge against US strategy.
In Chinese assessment, India, being a non-ally to the US, is the “key variable” determining the success or failure of the US Indo-pacific strategy, and hence, important to Chinese interests. At the same time, Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – which is China’s own version of the Indo-pacific, aimed at connecting the Pacific and the Indian Ocean economies under Chinese leadership and opening up a stable, secure and economically-viable Indian Ocean exit, overcoming the Malacca dilemma --rests heavily on India. Chinese scholars often highlight how India’s endorsement, cooperation, and access to the super-sized Indian market are all crucial for the successful and cost-effective implementation of China’s BRI in South Asia. Furthermore, China values India’s critical role in maintaining the stability of China’s overall security environment, enabling Beijing to concentrate on the Pacific and deal with the pressure of the US alliance system.
But, in sharp contrast to its major power strategy, which mandates closer
China-india cooperation, China’s neighbourhood strategy is all about attaining an “overwhelming power advantage” in Asia, which necessitates checking and balancing India. Why? Because China believes India is the only country in the region with the military and geographical advantage to intercept China’s energy lifelines in the Indian Ocean, pose a direct threat to China’s restive western frontier, replace it in global supply chains, and compete in various international bodies. So, be it resolving the border dispute, the Pakistan problem or the issue of India’s accession to important global platforms, China opposes it all, as it remains wary that any accommodation will mean further strengthening India’s power and China losing its valuable local advantages. “What if India manages to get these concessions from China, but still chooses to cooperate with the United States?” asks Ye Hailin, director of the Center of South Asia Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
This explains why the past few years saw Beijing, on one hand, actively courting New Delhi in matters related to Us-china competition and BRI, but on the other hand, being particularly upset about what it called New Delhi’s “issue-based diplomacy/problem diplomacy” towards China. India’s unwillingness to shelve the border dispute, its public opposition to BRI, its hardening stance against Pakistan, its strong response during the 2017 Doklam stand-off and its growing ties with
Washington riled the Chinese, as these were seen as efforts meant to chip away Beijing’s local leverages.
Beginning 2020, as the pandemic put China under unprecedented international pressure, Chinese strategists accused India of taking advantage of intensified Us-china rivalry to fuel its own rise. The buzz in Beijing was that the US rejection of China at the global level had offset China’s power advantage and diluted its psychological advantage over India, New Delhi was emboldened like never before and China’s cooperative approach to India was not paying off, but providing geopolitical advantages to India.
It is against the backdrop of this churn in China’s strategic thinking that the 2020 clashes broke out. From Beijing’s perspective, destabilising the border, creating new flashpoints at LAC (while carefully averting a full-scale conflict) seemed the most cost-effective way to get India to the table, to make it consider Chinese interests, without having to pay any real costs. The cost in terms of estranged bilateral ties, negative public sentiment and its impact on China’s overall South Asia and Indian Ocean strategy were seen as worrying, but manageable through active diplomacy, at least to sections within the Chinese strategic community.
For India, it is important to no longer fall for China’s long-standing and highly successful propaganda strategy of outrightly trivialising India’s capability and role, while creating an impression globally that “India does not feature prominently in Chinese strategic calculations”. India must know it has a crucial role to play in the realm of China’s foreign policy as well as future development strategies (BRI/ Western Development Strategy/ Two Oceans Strategy). As long as India approaches the relationship with Beijing solely through the lens of the power differential between the two countries, it will continue to find itself in a disadvantageous position. India would do well to come to terms with and better leverage its increasing strategic value to China, so as to shape Beijing’s behaviour and extract adequate benefits from it. By taking a leaf out of China’s own playbook and consistently emphasising India’s fundamental and growing importance in determining Chinese strategic outcomes, New Delhi can influence Beijing towards greater concessions and conciliation.