Lay off the fodder, brother !

(A cautionary post against pitfalls of BhaiChara)

Rejoice brothers and sisters, for the season of embarrassing headlines, and gratuitous punditry is just over.

The occasion was of course Chinese Premier Mr Jintao recent visit to India.

Let's start from beginning. One concedes the merit of friendship.One also recognizes Chinese emergence in economy as well as strategic reach and its potential to be a global superpower and possibly the only rival to American influence in not so distant future.Add to this the reality that at present India is in no position to match China in strength, it would be foolhardy to harbour delusions of confronting China directly. Further, it is a sensible policy to engage with China economically, as well as politically and hence it is perfectly understandable if Indian government works to improve trade and bilateral relations.

However what is not understandable is when our experts take a collective leap off the cliff of circumspection and dive into lake absurdity.

What else can explain notion of ChinIndia ? Of course the inherent idiocy of idea has not stopped it from gaining currency with certain clique of intellectuals, one of whom has already written a book on this.

To understand the inherent absurdity first consider the economic idea (link via rohit)

It is not difficult to see the problem with the idea of India as a "knowledge hub", and China as a "manufacturing hub". While the dream of one billion Indian earning frooglepoopillion rupees as service providers in air conditioned offices is a admirable one, it is simply unachievable not least for the paucity of resources and near impossibility of creating education infrastructure required to train every Indian. Instead if India has to accelerate growth, it must concentrate on manufacturing industries. Same applies to China, if it wants to sustain the high rate of growth, it has to move up the value chain from supplier of components to original equipment manufacturers to even further as designers and innovators.

Hence if economic progress is considered, India and China do not complement (that is besides the increased efficiency which free trade brings) each other as much as they are competitors by the virtue of their being most populous nations. [Ref]

But this is not all. To me atleast, there is a more serious flaw, at a deeper level.The flaw is misunderstanding of dynamics of international politics.

Essentially the driver behind follies like ChinIndia is the tendency to reduce the complex relationships between nations to simple formulae of business and trade. One can call it as "end of history" syndrome.

Like Fukuyama, who assumed that adaption of western democratic system was historical inevitability, proponents of ChinIndia tend to dismiss the other aspects of relationships between countries, whereas the simple matter of fact is that all states whatever be the specific nature of regime, tend to increase their influence. What is more this power play is, unlike free trade always a zero sum game. The equilibrium is reached when various factors which influence the decision making process of a state are balanced, economic criteria being one of many factors.
The corollary is if some state, under ideological delusion (example being India) neglects to further its influence, other players will gain at its expense.

In end it is a two way dependency between economic performance and overall strategic influence. While it is true that economic growth increases the influence of state, it is also equally true that the economic growth can be sustained only if the state is stable internally as well as externally.

In the specific case, as far as power balance goes, both China and India being immediate neighbours and aspiring heavyweights, will have conflict of interest more often than not.
This implies that strategic interest of one nation can only be furthered by other's expense and China can attain undisputed leadership of region only by relegating India to second rung.
This is not mere speculation, China is actively engaged in containing India by covertly supplying nuclear and missile technology to "land of pure", either directly or indirectly through North Korea.

Underneath the slogans of peaceful rise, Chinese leaders, aware and proud of their heritage realize this truth, India with its intelligentsia lacking any sense of history and seduced by the latest ideological trend does not, and hence jeopardizes her future.


Mandatory Reading : Will the Iron Fence Save a Tree Hollowed by Termites? by Arun Shourie

Also Read: Nitin, Rohit