Lockdown Book Reading : India’s China Challenge

Lockdown Book-reading challenge 

China has a glorious past, its culture, technology and life style was ahead of Europe . Than came a period when Japan invaded , Pourtgese and British constructed colonies on coastal China and exploited its resources. India and China started their growth stories almost simultaneously, but China outwitted and outpaced us. It’s exponential growth as well as development is an enigma to others, its belt and toad initiate is a small step towards capturing the entire world. 

Ananth Krishnan’s present book tried to understand China to certain extent.

Krishnan first moved to China in the summer of 2008. In the years that followed, he had a ringside view of the country's remarkable transformation. He reported from Beijing for a decade, for the India Today and The Hindu. This gave him a privileged opportunity that few Indians have had - to travel the length and breadth of the country, beyond the glitzy skyscrapers of Shanghai and the grand avenues of Beijing that greet most tourists, to the heart of China's rise. 

In this book, Krishnan also tried to unpack India's China challenge, which is four-fold: 

1. the political challenge of dealing with a one-party state that is looking to increasingly shape global institution
2. the military challenge of managing an unresolved border
3. the economic challenge of both learning from China's remarkable and unique growth story and building a closer relationship
4. the conceptual challenge of changing how we think about and engage with our most important neighbour.     India's China Challenge tells the story of a complex political relationship, and how China - and its leading opinion-makers - view India. It looks at the economic dimensions and cultural connect, and the internal political and social transformations in China that continue to shape both the country's future and its relations with India.

It is tragic that we are accustomed to see China from the eyes of western reporters and authors. Indian news channels, newspapers sadly do not have even full-time correspondents in China . For all its protestations of nationalism, the news-consuming class is also happy viewing the world through western eyes. While China occupies so much of our mindspace these days, there are only four Indian reporters stationed there, writes Ananth Krishnan. I have gone through a number of books on subject by western authors, I compare and feel that

the quality of Indian reporters has made up for the quantity. After Pallavi Aiyar’s delightful account of life in pre-Xi Jinping China viz. Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China’ , 2008, we now have Krishnan’s insightful account of Xi’s China. Both Aiyar and Krishnan began their stint learning Mandarin, an essential requirement for a foreign correspondent. Familiar- ity with the language helps open doors and Krishnan’s access is impressive. He manages to speak to important leaders in Beijing as well as common people across China.

Krishnan’s insights are quite  interesting, he peeps  into the play of power politics, the workings of the ‘workshop of the world’, a modernising cultural landscape and the corruption of China’s political ‘tigers’, compared to the ‘flies’ of Indian babudom. Non-specialists will find his survey of the India-China bilateral relationship useful in under- standing the ongoing stand-off in the high Himalayas.

Krishnan has three key messages for all thinking Indians: first, while In- dia and China are equal in population size, are both great civilisational states and were at similar levels of develop- ment till the 1980s, in the first two decades of the 21st century, China has taken off and now sees itself as a Great Global Power. It does not view Indiaas an equal and, worse, does not think India will catch up in the near future.

Second, China has an authoritarian state that is run by an increasingly assertive communist party manned entirely by Han Chinese. That said, the Chinese are a lively people, with differing views, desires, aspirations and concerns like any other people. Many are also now turning to religion in search of solace. While governance is still highly decentralised, regional competition and local leaderships spur growth, driven by an increasingly welleducated and enterprising people.

Third, China has problems along its outer reaches—Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong—but it is quite capable of managing these. 

Krishnan’s assessment that China is unlikely to integrate Taiwan into the communist republic is quite realistic. Taiwan’s demography, ethnic composition, democratic politics and society and culture have made it far too independent-minded for easy annexation.

Krishnan’s portraits of interesting individuals reinforce the argument about China’s internal plurality. Any hope for China’s normalisation lies in the full fruition of this plurality. What both Aiyar and Krishnan have buttr- essed is the need for Indians to have a direct experience of China and be able to relate to the ordinary Chinese even though relations between the two na- tions are unlikely to improve anytime soon. China has to come to terms with India’s rise just as much as India has to come to terms with China’s power.

Krishnan also tries to access effect of  the Covid pandemic on China , it has accentuated a trend towards greater centralisation of power, while at the same time also contributing to growing criticism of the government. However, it is unlikely to alter the ‘course of history’, which is the rise of China relative to other powers. However, China’s belligerence and attempt to keep India tied down have only encouraged the latter to leverage its relations with other democracies, including the US, Japan, France, Germany, UK, Australia and Canada, while also preserving her relationship with Russia.

Krishnan also tried to find out answer  to India’s China challenge , according to him it lies at home. India must not only regain its economic momentum and continue to pursue all-round economic and human development, it must also retain its credentials as a secular, plural and liberal democracy. The world has to want a New India to overcome the China challenge, sadly we are far behind in achieving this set of attributes.