Recently, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi suggested that India and China should “dance together” and not see each other as rivals. This will have many international takers, given the shift of global politics in the ‘Asian Century’, the outward signs showing One Europe flagging and the predicted end of American era in global politics.
US President Donald Trump is seen marching his country back to old isolationist-era politics and protectionism in economics. In China, now number two in GDP just behind America, the current leader Xi Jinping has got the ruling Communist Party to amend the Constitution to throw away presidential limits and effectively give himself a lifetime of power. President Putin in Russia has not gone to that extent but his authoritarian ways are driving him to just that position. China may or may not continue to remain hegemonic in its attitude to its immediate neighbours in Southeast Asia. But its immediate neighbours fear exactly that hegemony, expressed in China’s grab politics in its neighbourhood.
Philippines feels it in regard to the South Sea islands where China has rejected all third party interventions to restore peace even as Beijing is pursuing expansion of its military facilities in islands claimed by Philippines.
Vietnam feels it in regard to its claims over Hainan island where Beijing has extended its military facilities. China even objects to Hanoi exploring for oil in the deep seas.
In its relations with India, Beijing has always followed this policy: What it has grabbed or claims is its but the negotiations it is willing to have are about what others have claimed to be theirs. It wants New Delhi to deny any official facilities to Tibetans in exile in India but wants New Delhi to deny its natural linkages with Arunachal Pradesh so that Beijing could grab it.
In trade with India, Beijing would blame India for the huge trade deficit in favour of China while making sure that Indian traders in China have restricted facilities and are repeatedly harassed on charges of illegality. The bilateral talks on the border have continued on and on for several decades with very little progress because Beijing will only talk of areas in India on which it continues to extend its claims. The claim that China is serious over joint efforts to curb terrorism fails repeated tests especially when it comes to helping Pakistan protect its well-known terrorist Hafiz Saeed from international pressures.
Besides there cannot be a dance between the dragon and the elephant as long as China uses Pakistan as a proxy for its anti-India stand on every issue. Beijing continues to pour billions of dollars to build transport facilities in Pakistan to gain military advantages under the pretext of promoting trade. It even gets Pakistan to cede land that was grabbed illegally from India.
For all practical purposes China has replaced the US as Pakistan’s new banker to fund activities that would bolster Islamabad’s anti-Indian policy. In the past decades, this building-up of Pakistan by the US had gone on under the pretext of containing Russia’s rise.
Now that this pretext has been seen through by different administrations in the US and the current US president is bold enough to denounce and withhold annual military aid to Islamabad, China has taken Pakistan—with its virus of terrorism in the name of religion—under its wings.
None of these developments is any longer secret and the current government in New Delhi has worked with Indian public opinion in containing Chinese hegemonic umbrellas over its schemes like “One Belt, One Road” and the “Silk Road”. Southeast Asian nations are increasingly looking to India to lead a coalition against this form of Chinese imperialism.
This rise of Southeast Asia as one man against the new imperialist hegemony—as repeatedly emphasised during the ASEAN commemorative summit in New Delhi and the more recent Solar Alliance meeting—has disturbed China.
The most recent French-Indian joint defence ties to contain China’s incursions into the Indian Ocean have made it evident that New Delhi’s current regime cannot be wheedled into the old “bhai-bhai” era of Nehruvian times when China ended it with an invasion of Indian territory.
New Delhi can no longer let China take cover under slogans that are meant to hide true Chinese intentions. Beijing has to demonstrate its willingness to shed its adversarial attitude and the use of Pakistan as a proxy against India if Wang Yi’s dragon-elephant dance is to come true.
Even so the Dragon must be aware that India today has a strong polity even as a democracy. To expect China in the current scenario to dance together with India may be far off the horizon. New Delhi will continue to build its defences both strategically and in actuality against any surprise or adventurous deals Beijing possibly could think of.
Of course it will be in the interest of humanity if the dragon and elephant could dance in tandem, for together they account for 36 per cent of global population, about 275 crore out of a total of roughly 760
crore. Every third person in the world is either a Chinese or an Indian.
A tension free Sino-Indian theatre will ensure better lives to millions who are forced to lead a life of misery and destitution in the region. However, the condition for this dream to come true is that China will have to drop its imperialistic ambitions, respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbours and take an unequivocal stand against terror. Does it sound possible under the present circumstances? If the answer is yes, the elephant and dragon can surely dance together.
Balbir Punj
Former Rajya Sabha member and Delhi-based commentator on social and political issues
Email: punjbalbir@gmail.com