Wait and watch
Amid existing tensions between India and China, reports have come in that New Delhi has informally asked airlines not to fly Chinese nationals into the country. Although airlines have said they haven’t received any specific instruction to stop flying in Chinese nationals – many continue to board Chinese passengers – the issue is part of the larger frosty India-China dynamic.
There’s no denying that ever since the Galwan Valley clashes in June, ties between the two sides have dipped sharply. China has been trying to capitalise on the Covid pandemic and unilaterally pushed its territorial and maritime claims. At the same time, it has been aggressively expanding its footprint in South Asia. Case in point, a high level Chinese team led by a vice-minister has been sent to Nepal to prevent a split in the ruling Nepal Communist Party – in what is overt political interference in another country.
Similarly, there are reports that Pakistan is fencing off a large part of Gwadar city to protect Chinese projects in the port area. This means that ordinary Pakistanis themselves will be kept out of Pakistani territory to please Beijing. China’s $60 billion ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor – a key part of Beijing’s mega Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – is increasingly unpopular in Pakistan, particularly in that country’s Balochistan province where Gwadar is located. Recently, seven Pakistani soldiers were killed in Balochistan, highlighting local resentment against the Pakistani military and its cover for Chinese investments there.
Taken together, Beijing appears determined to ignore the lessons of history and engage in imperial overstretch. It perhaps feels that by increasing its influence in India’s neighbourhood it can roll back New Delhi in what it sees as its natural strategic backyard. Here, a good Indian strategy would be to wait and watch, rather than to either work itself into a lather or try to imitate Chinese tactics. Let Beijing over-invest and impinge on Pakistani sovereignty, in which case it will face a natural pushback from Pakistanis (who may, in the goodness of time, even stop seeing India as their primary antagonist). Let Beijing buy up the Nepal Communist Party – which will come to be regarded by ordinary Nepalis as China’s stooge. Moreover, given the power differential between India and the China-Pakistan axis, New Delhi has its work cut out defending its own borders. This is what the Centre should focus on now, along with rectifying the economy.