How should India view China?

At times of war, it is dangerous to talk of peace. As the poet TS Eliot once remarked (through the lips of Aunt Agatha in A Family Reunion), “In a world of fugitives, the one taking the opposite direction will appear to run away.” Yet, sometimes it makes sense to cry out that the emperor has no clothes.

First, you just cannot escape the reality of geography. China is and will remain India’s next door neighbour. It is large, and it just cannot be wished away. India is large as well, but China is three times larger in geographical terms, a bit larger in terms of population, and around six times larger than India in terms of GDP.

China accounts for a GDP of $ 13.61 trillion, while India accounts for a mere $ 2.72 trillion. China dwarfs India in terms of per capita income, too. India’s per capita income in terms of nominal GDP (according to the IMF) is $ 2.171. China’s is $ 10,098. Hence China was the 65th richest country in the world on the per capita income ranking. India stood at #139.

Consider history. China has vexed India. Columnist MJ Akbar recounts the follies of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister – how he lost the opportunity of finalising India’s border with China in September 1951; how he gave up the opportunity of getting India a permanent seat in the UN’s Security Council; and how China grabbed Aksai Chin. Underlying all these blunders was India’s inability to think strategically.

India is making the same blunder again. It is refusing to think strategically. Like Nehru, Prime Minister Modi is also pushing an agenda on the basis of sentiment and pride, rather than strategy based on geography, economics, and history. And, there are more questions about the Galwan flare-up than there are answers (https://www.freepressjournal.in/india/more-questions-than-answers-on-galwanface-off-writes-nawshir-mirza).

India now encourages boycott of Chinese goods. Laughable. Last year, barely 3% of China’s exports reached India. Yet India’s exports to China accounted for 5% of our export basket. Clearly, India’s needs are greater. Again, Chinese goods accounted for 13.7% of India’s imports. But imports from India accounted for just 0.9% of total Chinese imports. So, whose need is greater?

Listen to job creators in India – right from pharmaceutical sector companies to automobile players – that a ban on Chinese products will mean even more job losses in India; even a destruction of wealth.

Take Chinese investments in India. Just look at Indian Unicorns. Chinese companies funded them, not American, Japanese, or European funds. None had the patience or the confidence in Indian enterprise the way the Chinese had. The beneficiaries were both Indians and Chinese. So, does India want to block funding to Indian enterprise as well?

India and China are ancient cultures, going back over 2500 years. There have been no recorded fights between both, till post-Independence politicians decided to muddy the waters. The 1962 war was on account of such muddying of waters – the details are still kept secret by Indian authorities. Go to China. The common person on the streets doesn’t even know that Indians distrust China. Indian politicians have blown up disputes, have stoked xenophobia, and have used it to distract people’s attention each time the economy does badly.

Moreover, no country can become great without good education, health services and respect for women. India has fallen woefully behind China on all three. China focusses on policies. India is concerned more with politics, tokenism and optics.

One more important lesson for India’s politicians. Remember Chanakya. He had remarked, "Your neighbour is your natural enemy and the neighbour's neighbour is your

friend". If India had been thinking strategically, it should have wooed Russia with greater ardour, not dust the files only last fortnight and order the Sukhois that Russia had offered to India.

A final word on strategy. India does not have to trust China blindly; any more than China would trust any country blindly. But China remains a next-door-neighbour. India will have to live with it. It will have to find ways to make peace with it.

Use Chinese technology but try prevent a worsening balance of payments. One way of doing this is to work out ways to convert the trade deficit into investments. Investments create jobs, wealth and lay the foundation towards more peace than war. Moreover, India needs to feed its people and make them atma nirbhar (self-reliant).

By provoking China, India will ratchet up tensions and end up spending more on its defence preparations than on creating opportunities for wealth generation for Indians. Politicians will then resort to rabble rousing politics to dr own out the absence of wealth-generation-policies.

Please don’t make India poorer than it already is.