:: Balbir Punj

To take on China, build on our strengths

By Balbir K. Punj

Aug 19 : The plan to "Balkanise" India into scores of "manageable parts", revealed in a recent article published by a prominent Chinese think tank, and observations by India’s soon-to-retire Navy Chief, Adm. Sureesh Mehta, read together, portent to dangerous times for India’s integrity in the near future.

"India needs to cooperate with China rather than confront it", declared Adm. Mehta, the outgoing chairman of the chiefs of staff committee. While speaking on "National Security — Challenges", he described this approach as dictated by "common sense". His exact words, as reported in newspapers, were: "In military terms, both conventional and non-conventional, we neither have the capability nor the intention to match China, force by force". If this thinking prevails in our topmost military circles — obviously fuelled by a government that develops cold feet easily — one can only say: God help this country.

To believe that Beijing could be talked into cooperation is somewhat romantic. Dialogue on the border dispute has been going on for over two decades and yet its progress can only be measured in inches, not feet. And often it is one step forward, two steps backward.

On Sikkim, for instance, we were told that China has "almost" accepted that it is a part of India. But, on and off, Beijing stirs the embers and creates doubts whether it really has accepted that Sikkim is a part of India. The slightest mention of Arunachal Pradesh in India brings a howl of protest from Beijing.

In the Indian Ocean, China’s growing presence and network is well-known — the new relationship with the Burmese military junta, use of Pakistan’s Gwadar port and soon a naval base in Chittagong, Bangladesh. A nuclear submarine base in Hainan Island, South China Sea, is also being built to further strengthen its foray into the Indian Ocean.

The Chinese, in fact, are now talking of a US-China dominance of the world. Surprised by China’s recovery with its $586 billion economic stimulus and its growing economic importance, an article in Time magazine said that many in these two countries have begun to suggest that "the only dialogue that really matters in going forward is the conversation between the "G-2" — China and the US. We may recall a top Chinese naval officer telling his US counterpart that the two should partition the world between them — Pacific to the US and the Indian Ocean to China.

Much of China’s present power derives from the market-oriented reforms it undertook 1978 onwards, after dumping the Marxist model. What was India doing between 1978 and 1991? As China was rapidly adopting the market economy, we were tied to the Soviet model of "socialism" that was ultimately thrown out in 1991 by the Russians themselves. Even after the 1991 reforms in India, the economic policy meandered, revealing a country that could not give up its economic shibboleths.

The real reform started in 1999 — for instance, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s report on telecom and information technology that started the real information and communication technologies growth. The vision of a $50 billion software export was also projected in the 1999 IT policy under the NDA government. Then came the electricity reforms of 2003, insurance reforms and others. But the Chinese had the first-start advantage, that too with a 20-year lead.

Besides, the Chinese have taken the global approach in its manufacturing operations to capture foreign markets and sell "Made in China" goods in global markets. It also built huge infrastructure: 100,000 MW additional electricity every year (India’s total capacity is 1.5 lakh MW now and we are expected to add about 15,000 MW every year, in 2007-2012). The huge push in infrastructure was China’s trump card in attaining double-digit growth in its gross domestic product (GDP).

It was only in 2003 that we started talking of infrastructure — for instance, the NDA’s Golden Quadrilateral national highways programme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, massive port development plans, the telecom revolution.

What does all this add up to? The United Progressive Alliance government does not seem to have a China policy. Its top military man talks of cooperation with China and says we cannot compete with them. This is a defeatist attitude. It reveals lack of self-confidence and the inability to locate focus on our strengths and project them in a global perspective.

In 1998, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee stunned the world by letting our scientists demonstrate our nuclear power, thereby announcing to the world community that India was not going to remain namby-pamby.

The following year, the decisive victory in the Kargil war brought new respect for India — even Beijing began to distance itself from Pakistan after that. But the momentum was lost with the change of government in 2004. And as the new dispensation in New Delhi became a "slave" of the pro-China Marxists, the pace of Indian assertion on the global scene began to slow down.

If the current leadership can energise people, we could rapidly close the gap, however wide it appears right now. But this can happen only if we are able to synergise the "baniaisation" of India (as management expert and writer Gurucharan Das calls it) with its intellectual strength and bring national pride to bear upon our endeavour. To create our own separate political dynamic, we need a new order.

China’s Olympic success revealed what cultural nationalism harnessed to economic growth and political stability could do in a market economy environment. Instead of our elite hailing China, it should seek to release the political and economic dynamic that a similar approach in India could generate. Cooperation with China is not to be rejected; but it should be on the basis of respect for India’s inherent strengths.