India’s chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat has asserted that India has “military options” to deal with Chinese transgressions in Ladakh if negotiations between the two countries to restore the status quo ante don’t yield results. But an Indian “China watcher” in Beijing strikes a note of caution to say nobody can be under any illusion that China will give a “walkover”.
“When you are up against a military that spends four times what you are spending, and a country whose economy is five times your economy, no one in government or the military can be under any illusion of the military challenge we face from China,” says Ananth Krishnan, the Beijing Correspondent of The Hindu newspaper.
“I will be surprised if the Chinese just cut and run suddenly after investing so much into these events [incursions] over the last few months.
“China will score on military funding and equipment. Where India would score is it has been tried and tested—even the Chinese acknowledge that. China hasn’t seen action since 1980 in Vietnam, which it didn’t go well for China.”
Krishnan, who has been based in Beijing for 11 years, speaks Mandarin, and has visited all but three of China’s 33 provinces and regions, has a new book out next month titled India’s China Challenge (Harper Collins), and it opens a rare window into India’s big neighbour through Indian eyes.
On J-POD, the journalism podcast, Ananth Krishnan says:
“The Chinese know they are sitting pretty in terms of their current position on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). As much as you want to talk and negotiate, possession is nine-tenths of the game, as they say, and if you are holding on to the land, things are in your favour. If you are going to give up what you are already occupying, you can extract something significant, and I am sure they will extract something significant, if they are going to walk away.”
Listen to the full podcast with Ananth Krishnan
No doubt of change in status quo
“At Pangong Lake, the Chinese are at least 8 km on India’s side of LAC. They have built permanent and semi-permanent fortifications that could very possibly mean loss of territory. In Depsang, it’s a bit hazy whether PLA (People’s Liberation Army) is within 18 km of the LAC. This is possibly the first time that in multiple areas India is being denied access to its LAC. So make no mistake, this is very, very significant.”
Orders came from high up
“The specific events on the night of June 14 that led to the loss of lives might have been something unexpected but the broader moves by PLA were coordinated. These weren’t actions taken by local-level commanders or somebody in the western theatre command of PLA. It would have come from a higher level only because it involved massive coordination from PLA to deploy in such huge numbers at multiple points on LAC in a way we haven’t seen since 1962.”
The worst-case scenario
“When the China-India clash happened in June, one of the theories doing the rounds was that rather than pick a fight with the United States, it would make more sense for China to do something right in its periphery, whether India or Taiwan. That is something that is possible and you could link that to China’s broader rivalry with the US, to expose its inability to intervene on the behalf of its allies or partners.”
Prof Graham Allison (above), the Harvard political scientist, who has found that in the last 500 years whenever a reigning power has felt threatened by a rising power, in 12 out of 16 cases there has been war.
‘Peaceful Rise of China’ is passe
“‘Peaceful Rise of China’ is a phrase Chinese have used less and less since Xi Jinping took over. They are not embarrassed at all to say at the highest level that this is their time; this is a period of strategic opportunity for China. They have openly spoken of moving away from Deng Xiaoping’s maxim of being cautious and biding their time. They feel it is their right to do what they want, and if there are consequences, they will deal with them.”
China doesn’t see India as equal
“For quite a long time there has been resentment among Chinese intellectuals of being equated with India. Chinese thinkers find it puzzling, even insulting, that we look at them in the same breath. They see China as an equal of the US. Scholars situate India within this broader game they have going with the US, not on its own merit but more in terms of India riding on the coat tails of Donald Trump.”
Chinese model has lost its sheen
“The way people look at China has diminished, not just in India but in many countries. The political direction it has taken under Xi Jinping has come as a wake-up call. The elite imagination of China, that it is a post-ideological China, a China that is run by far-sighted men in suits, has come crashing down. For a lot of people in India, that was the model they wanted. This was a myth.”
The return of ideology
“One service Xi Jinping has done is remind all of us that behind everything you see in China and the skyscrapers and the bullet trains, is the Communist Party. It was staying out of the limelight, but is making no bones under Xi Jinping that everything begins and ends with the Communist Party. The return of ideology under Xi Jinping has made people in the West rethink in elevating this model.”
Can India hurt China economically?
“China doesn’t want an indefinitely prolonged situation where its businessmen can’t travel to India, its companies can’t invest in India, where there is no economic engagement. We shouldn’t be under any illusion that the dependency is one-way. China hasn’t taken any economic counter-measures yet. If it turns off the tap for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), or electrical machinery or auto components, it could bring India’s economy to a halt if it chose to. It would be wrong to think that we can continue taking measures without seeing them respond.
TikTok versus WhatsApp
One of the things that troubled me about the ban on Chinese apps was the justification that China doesn’t allow WhatsApp. If China becomes your standard of reference, you are really going down a slippery slope. Shouldn’t you believe at a fundamental level that your values in democratic society are strong enough to deal with disinformation or propaganda coming from a China or Russia? In the supposed clash of values you are internalising many of those values.”
Ban on study of Mandarin is crazy
“Even if you have decided China is going to be Enemy No.1, it is insane to ban Mandarin. I don’t see what you will gain. It’s just posturing and may win you headlines, and this is what happens if you are governing in terms of getting next day’s headlines. It’s not going to get you very far if you are unbothered about outcomes and you are only obsessed with optics.”
India’s challenge is premature
“When will India get there?” We may never get there. We aren’t quite there yet [to pose a challenge]. India will go its own course. I don’t think we are going to replicate what they did for various reasons. I would hope we don’t replicate what they politically. And it would be a strange irony if we end up emulating them more politically than economically.”
Also read: How Steve Bannon used Indian TV channels to shape India’s anti-China rhetoric even before the incursions in Ladakh
Fatigue in Indian media
“Right from the outset, there has been a tendency in some sections of the media to downplay what was happening in Ladakh. There is a large section of the media that doesn’t want to dwell on stories that present the government in a bad light.”
Chinese journalism isn’t all propaganda
“Some of the journalism that was done from Wuhan was extraordinary. A lot of what we know today about the coverup is not because of The New York Times or The Washington Post, it is because of Chinese media that were allowed by Beijing, because it felt the local government wasn’t giving them the full picture.”
Media freedom is being eroded
“Xi Jinping has reversed almost a decade-long trend of the opening up of domestic Chinese media. In the last 4-5 years you are going back to a pre-2000 kind of media environment where all the papers are saying similar things, where the party is controlling what people say and don’t say. The gains are being eroded.”
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'No one in government or military can be under any illusion of the challenge India faces from China'