The word kowtow is an interesting one. It was used to describe the act of bowing to the Chinese emperor which the British refused to do in the Chinese imperial court as this would mean submission to the emperor. Those were ofcourse the heady days of the British colonial empire. These days the British foreign office is having to dust off the ‘art of kowtowing’ manuals and educate its prime minister on the art of bowing ever so slightly more on foreign visits. So while the ground situation in China and India has not changed ( in terms of Kashmir, Tibet and human rights) the British government seems to take a more benign view of things and in the case of India decides to lecture Pakistan on terrorism. Is Pakistan really doing more terrorism than it was in the mid – 90s? Not really, but India has changed and Britain has discovered the art of kowtow. Britain has had good practice in this for the past decades, as the Wikileaks reveal, in kowtowing to the US and has been paranoid about whether it has been kowtowing enough and properly.
But this post is not about Britian’s kowtow, but more about India and China’s relationship. I have been wanting to write this for some time and atleast before Grandpa Wen made his way to India, but I didn’t, and as things stand now I have no way of claiming that I predicted correctly what will happen in his trip ! For me India- China relations are the most exciting part of India’s foreign policy and one with an immense amount of untapped potential. I expect India’s relations with the other big players in the India foreign policy radar to follow a familiar path. In the case of relationship with the established powers (India, EU, Japan etc) , it will be a case of them wanting to play a part in India’s rise and a generally peaceful and predictable rise of India vis-a-vis these powers. The relationship with Pakistan could either go the North vs South Korea way with Pakistan being reduced to throwing its toys out of its pram ( I mean sabre rattling) every so often and becoming an inconvenience to India because by doing that it means that Pakistan doesn’t have to focus at its internal problems, or it could go the way of East vs West Germany without the unification bit.However, it is the relationship with China that may not follow any known path.
The relationship with China is a very interesting one. China’s chosen path poses a question that I had thought had been answered when the Soviet Union lost the Cold War. The question was about democracy/freedom vs totalitarian state and capitalism vs communist economy. But as it turns out only half the question was answered i.e. that there is no place in the modern world for a communist economy. However, it seems from the case of China that there is space for a totalitarian state with a capitalist economy. India on the other hand offers a broadly free state with an economy that is increasingly become capitalist from its earlier mixed(confused) origins. Both the countries hold the destinies of a billion odd people in their hands and both are in a unique phase in their demography, which means it is almost a now or never couple of decades in front of them. If either of them fail now, they will not be able to achieve the best that a country of that size and inheritance could ideally achieve. And I believe that it is in the next three decades as both these countries try to create employment for the millions who enter the workforce every year, create a better life for people who are already working, ensure that the newborn are well fed and the old are cared for , this question of freedom/democracy vs a single party regime will be answered. That question aside, there is a lot in common between India and China. Both countries have a rich heritage and for some reason (both foreign and self-imposed) have been away from the world’s top table for many centuries. They both now see a glimpse of what their world can be if they get their act together and if they as a billion people want something, there isn’t much in the world that can oppose it. Perversely, both are the world’s leading practitioners in female infanticide and feticide !
So when Grandpa Wen made his way to India, I wasn’t expecting much movement outside of trade. On the business of trade, the Chinese are the easiest and they know that their country has a proposition like no other – a manufacturing powerhouse based on low-cost, high volume, supply chain and trade links and an increasingly affluent middle class which is a couple of countries in its own right. The world takes notice when China starts trade in yuan bonds (dim sum market). Most countries are an either or and hardly ever both. It is this that lets them get away with keeping parts of their economy off-limits for foreign business and keeping the yuan devalued. On the other stuff like finalising border issues, stapled visa to Kashmiris, India’s status in the security council etc, I wasn’t expecting much because I don’t see any value to the Chinese in doing all this. While the US cultivates India media and atleast one newspaper sounds like an extension of American foreign policy, Grandpa Wen actually admonished the Indian press on his way out for stoking up tensions in India – China relationship. And this is why I say that this is going to be a relationship like no other and the most challenging for India’s foreign policy.
To me of all the P-5 who visited India this year, this one was the most interesting of them all and also the most confusing about the shape it will take in the future. I end this year with my question and my long standing unfulfilled wish for a crystal ball and a cheat sheet to connect all the dots around me.
