The recent meeting of the Indian foreign minister with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing is surely a good portent. The two nations must find an imaginative way to cooperate for their own future and that of the world. Chanakya was among India’s foremost strategists, as Sun Tzu was for China. They were the original McKinsey or Bain for their societies. Can their successors come together?
In 2000, I was a member of the Indian delegation to the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, where China was admitted into the group. I shared the hope of many delegates that the rules-based global system would strike deeper roots as China becomes more akin to other trading nations. Today, it is sobering to see that the WTO is virtually dysfunctional and the rules-based world order is breaking down. Above all, far from China becoming like others, many nations including the US are becoming like how China was.
Something must give, as the West cannot continue to dominate the world. And there are good reasons for holding this view.
One reason is that India and China have learnt selectively from the West, but not lost their civilisational underpinnings. The lessons they have learnt serve as an additional layer to their solid civilisational underframe—a ‘sandwich’ of strengths that is under-noticed.
George Frost Kennan, counsellor to the US state department in the 1940s, used to refer to a ‘spiritual vitality’ that America must rely upon to contain the Soviet Union. As subsequent events unfolded, America failed hopelessly in executing this task. India today can take heed of Kennan’s view. Both India and China will claim and qualify as pre-possessing great ‘spiritual vitality’, whatever their views of it.
Secondly, Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders consider the 1800s as the nation’s ‘century of humiliation’, when it lost its economic and civilisational primacy. India sees the era of Turkish, Afghan and Mughal rule as its centuries of humiliation, though it lost economic primacy only from the 1800s, like China, as a result of European colonisation.
Nations come together and drift apart for many reasons. France and England have fought wars against each other, and together against others. The US and Russia fought the Second World War together and then drifted into decades of the Cold War.
Indeed, China and the USSR were so close in the 1950s that there were thousands of Russian advisors in China. In the summer of 1960, when China and Russia fell apart, the Soviet advisors were asked to pack up and leave. In 1969, the two fought a war. Then, in February 1972, US President Richard Nixon visited China. By 1972, Mao Zedong shifted the balance of power against the Soviets by seeking a rapprochement with the Americans. Such waves in relationships occur also because every nation wants to do what is in its own interest. Given this, a somewhat unique feature of India and China is that their differences are of relatively recent origin. And both nations are marching towards restoring their past positions of economic strength.
While doing so, China has become quite prolific and competent in new technologies and research. Maybe India can explore its own idiosyncratic approach by combining Indian manufacturing with Chinese technology. This should not be viewed as a matter of national ego. But it would hold promise only if Indian industry spends much more—three to four times more than it does now—on research and new technology. China reportedly started in the new era by imitating, but almost simultaneously built its own global R&D competencies. Somehow, India Inc has failed to do this for decades.
Here is a preliminary model of possible synergies and anomalies for a strategic shift between the two.
Civilisational: The two today are the only ancient civilisations that have shown centuries-long resilience and survival instincts.
Historical: Both are trying to clamber back to historical positions of heft after losing the plot to colonialism and foreign occupation for three centuries.
Pragmatism: China modernised using Western systems of finance and manufacturing, but was guided by a preference for disciplined leadership in which the State watches over entrepreneurs. India is modernising, but with a native preference for distributed leadership involving participation, diversity and inclusiveness.
Skills: China has an ancient record in exporting merchandise like gunpowder, compass and so on. India has a record of exporting ideas to do with philosophy, mathematics, astronomy and so on.
Attitude: China is steeped in the ancient ways of Confucian discipline underlining its growth efforts. India is steeped in its ancient ways of discussion and debate underlining its entrepreneurial attitudes. As former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew implied in an interview, in China, what the Centre instructs get implemented by the states; but in India, the states debate what the Centre requests.
Geography: Both have the natural advantage of water, climate, soil and people that characterise the Valeriepieris Circle.
Supply chains: Both are already important components of the global value chains, one in manufactured products and the other in information processing.
Emerging poles: The old construct of North and South, East and West may yield to two new poles: Arctic and Tropical. The Tropical will include India and China for sure, and maybe Indonesia, and some African and Latin American countries. The design of the future multipolar world will evolve from here, but there will be value in India and China being in the same group.
If business pragmatism drives other major nations, why not have it drive India and China in working together? Chanakya and Sun Tzu may yet converge.
R Gopalakrishnan | BUILDING BUSINESSES | Author whose latest book, Jamsetji Tata: Powerful Learnings for Corporate Success, is co-authored with Harish Bhat
(Views are personal)