Book Review : How India Sees The World - Sham Saran

India and China, collectively account for 2.8 billion of the world's 7.9 billion people, roughly 35% of our planet's population. These Asian behemoths also share a contentious and undemarcated border whose length roughly 2,100 miles slightly longer than the border between the US and Mexico, this long border has served as the source of tension between the two countries, including of course, a war in 1962 and most recently an ongoing dispute beginning in 2020 that resulted in the deaths Indian as well as  Chinese soldiers, the first of troop casualties in decades. But despite of dispute the trade between the two has increased and touched new scale. As per China's general administration of customs, total trade between India and China in 2021 stood at over 125 billion US dollars, up 40% from 2020 and driven by growth of exports in both directions. Provisional data from India's Ministry of Commerce also shows similarly, total trade crossing over 114 billion US dollars, still a record high. 

To understand Indo Chinese complex relations, one should read  book written by Shyam Saran , a career diplomat, who spent six years in China as Ambassador. He knows Manadrin so well , this knowledge had also opened door for better understanding China . As Saran is an Indian and he has analysed China from India’s percepective , so this book is an interesting read for Indian readers .

He tried to find out reasons how China progressed so fast after 1978, despite the fact that India and China were roughly at the same economic level in 1978, with similar GDP and per capita in­ come. Saran discerns the threads that tie together his experiences as a diplomat. In his book, part memoir and part thesis on India’s international relations since Independence, Shyam Saran discerns the threads that tie together his experiences as a diplomat. Using the prism of Kautilya’s Arthashastra and other ancient treatises on statecraft, Saran shows the historical sources of India’s worldview. He looks at India’s neighbourhood and the changing wider world through this lens and arrives at fascinating conclusions — the claims that the world is hurtling towards Chinese unipolarity are overblown; international borders are becoming irrelevant as climate change and cyber terror bypass them; and India shouldn’t hold its breath for a resolution to its border disputes with China and Pakistan in the foreseeable future. The book also takes the reader behind the closed doors — from Barack Obama popping by a tense developing-country strategy meeting at the Copenhagen climate change summit to the private celebratory dinner thrown by then US President George W. Bush for then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the success of the nuclear deal.

Though China began to grow much faster around 1978, the gap bet­ween the two countries was not very significant even a decade later, when the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi paid a historic visit to Beijing in December 1988. It was then possi­ble for Deng Xiaoping to declare that there could not be an Asian Century without India and China growing to­gether and playing a resurgent role. The surge in India’s GDP growth as a result of its own economic reforms and liberalisation policies adopted in the early 1990s expanded India’s pol­itical and economic profile. At the turn of the century, India was behind China but was seen as shrinking the gap. In the period 2003–2007, India’s growth rate accelerated while Chi­na’s began to slow down. This was the brief period when India’s diplo­matic options multiplied. It was able to leverage the advance of its. rela­-tions with one major power to pro­mote its relations with other major powers, thereby expanding its strategy space.

During the visit of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee to China in 2003, two important deci­sions were taken. One, the two coun­tries agreed to seek an early political solution to the India–China border dispute, instituting regular negotia­tions at the level of Special Represen-tatives of their respective leaders. The Chinese side also conveyed its recognition of Sikkim as a State of In­dia. It had not accepted the accession of the State to the Indian Union in 1975 and its maps had continued to depict it [Sikkim] as an independent country. The backdrop to these im­-portant decisions was the recogni­tion that relations between the two large emerging economies had now acquired a global and strategic di­mension, going beyond their bilater-al relations. It was, therefore, impor­tant to resolve the long­standing border issue in order to enable the two countries to cooperate more closely in the shaping of the emerg­ing regional and global architecture.

This development was carried for­ ward during the subsequent visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to India in April 2005. As Foreign Secretary, Saran  was closely associated with the visit. The Chinese were already aware that India was negotiating a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with the U.S., which would greatly enhance India’s diplomatic profile and signifi­ cantly strengthen the India–U.S. partnership. This encouraged the Chinese to balance this development by upgrading their own relations with India, and this increased India’s room for manoeuvre vis­à­vis China. At their meeting, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and [Premier] Wen Jiabao reached a broad consensus on the following lines: One, that China was not a threat to India and India was not a threat to China; Two, that there was enough space in Asia and the world for the simultaneous growth of both India and China; Three, that India was an economic opportunity for China, and China likewise an economic opportunity for India; Four, that as two large and emerging economies the two coun­ tries, by working together, could ex­ ercise significant influence on the ex­ isting global regimes in different domains and could shape new global regimes in emerging domains such as climate change, cyber space and outer space; Five, that India­-China relations having thus acquired a glo­bal and strategic dimension and in order to enable them to work more effectively together, it was important to resolve the India­-China border is­ sue at an early date.

The global financial and economic crisis had a major impact on the. room for manoeuvre vis­à­vis China. At their meeting, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and [Premier] Wen Jiabao reached a broad consensus on the following lines: One, that China was not a threat to India and India was not a threat to China; Two, that there was enough space in Asia and the world for the simultaneous growth of both India and China; Three, that India was an economic opportunity for China, and China likewise an economic opportunity for India; Four, that as two large and emerging economies the two coun-tries, by working together, could ex­ercise significant influence on the ex­isting global regimes in different domains and could shape new global regimes in emerging domains such as climate change, cyber space and outer space; Five, that India­China relations having thus acquired a glo­bal and strategic dimension and in order to enable them to work more effectively together, it was important to resolve the India-­China border is­sue at an early date.

Impact of financial crisis

The global financial and economic crisis had a major impact on the which it would be futile to resist.

Finally, Saran focuses on India’s role within the new emerging world order, as an era of US unipolarity comes to an end for a more multi-polar world. He insists that globalisation has created a deeper interconnectedness and interdependence where global challenges can only be met by a globally-oriented regime that complements national interests. He warns against relapsing into an assertive and competitive nationalism, of the type that is currently sweeping the world. He reminds readers that India possesses the attributes, of upholding diversity and plurality, that could contribute to the success of a new international order. Ultimately, this is where India, a plural vibrant democracy aspiring to be a free economic power, holds the advantage over all other countries.