Vijay Gokhale has been India’s ambassador to China and went on to become the Foreign Secretary. He has written extensively on China. America engaged China’s low labor cost to sustain a lifestyle that they thought was fuelled by tech superiority. But China did not rest on manufacturing laurels. From 1995 education was revamped. The state invested in RnD. Made the PhD more rigorous. Identified 10 priority sectors and focussed on them. The 20 trillion USD China economy can’t grow at 8%. But 3 % is not bad. China today is 30% of global manufacturing. More than the US, Germany & Japan put together. And the share is growing. Today, you can’t bully China. You can’t keep China in control.
With rising economic power, came rising military ambition. The PLA started investing in tech early on. They bought a second hand aircraft carrier from Russia to start their now famous reverse engineering. Vijay’’s previous books have covered China’s diplomatic negotiation tactics and the rise of China after the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989. Chinese troops had fired into the Tiananmen crowds with several hundred casualties. The events that occurred that summer would re-define China’s relationship with the world. China was committed to market-oriented reform, but it would not tolerate any challenge to the supremacy of the Chinese Communist Party. A democratic future seems unlikely. Trump and the US have acknowledged that by coining a new moniker – the G2. China is a rival, but one that needs to be accommodated by the US.
Vijay’s latest book – China’s Wars looks at the Chinese army from a diplomatic lens, trying to find a pattern in its conflicts. Most of the original research has been sourced from declassified Soviet documents – found in US universities archives. The Chinese have a very tight control in their own archives. The first notable war was in 1958- the Taiwan strait crisis – when a civil war raged between the communists and the Nationalists. The US supported the nationalists as they defended Taiwan islands from attacks by the Communists. The popular perception in India was that in the 1962 Indo China border dispute, India deceived China. Maxwell, an Aussie, wrote a well researched book, mostly using Indian Sources, to make this point. But Vijay claims that China was never the victim in any of its wars. All the major wars were initiated by China, what VIjay calls preemptive deterrence. The 1962 clash with India was over borders which had been ambiguously defined in history.
In 1969, China surprised the world when it attacked Russia, a known nuclear power even though China was much weaker at that time. The clash, like the 1962 Sino Indian war, was over ambiguous borders. Their first nuclear test had just happened. The civil war with Taiwan had just ended. China needed to show off some muscle. Russia was surprised when they were attacked by a fraternal communist state. But then China is more nationalist than communist. Like India, China has a nuke ‘No 1st use’ policy. But they may not follow this policy in a future war.
And then there was the Vietnam war, where the dispute did not involve any of China’s own borders. China launched an offensive in response to Vietnam’s invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978, which ended the rule of the Khmer Rouge. The conflict lasted for about a month, with China withdrawing its troops in March 1979. Chinese forces launched a surprise invasion of northern Vietnam and quickly captured several cities near the border. A month later, China declared that its punitive mission had been accomplished. Chinese troops then withdrew from Vietnam.
Vietnam continued to occupy Cambodia until 1989, suggesting that China failed to achieve one of its stated aims of dissuading Vietnam from involvement in Cambodia. But China’s operation at least forced Vietnam to withdraw the 2nd Corps from the invasion forces of Cambodia to reinforce the defense of Hanoi. Additionally, it demonstrated that the Soviet Union, China’s Cold War communist adversary, was unable to protect its Vietnamese ally. 20K Chinese soldiers were killed in this operation. Chinese forces penetrated 30 km into Vietnam. But it was a geopolitical win for China. Vietnam was taught a lesson. China got sanctions imposed on Vietnam.
The 1962 war holds special significance for India. It was the first major one fought after independence. Tibet was the battleground. VG cited a China diplomat who in a book written in 1952 talks of the Tibet boundary disputes with India. We need to keep in mind that until 1954, Tibet was not under Chinese control. In the 30’s Indian communists had relations with Chinese Communists. So Nehru assumed that Hindi-Chini were bhai-bhai. But the world had changed by the 40s. China thought of itself as a victor in WW-II – and so to be the natural leader in Asia. Japan, India and Indonesia can’t be seen to be competitors in Asian power games by China. The West was the major villain for the communists. India was seen as pro-West, hence not to be trusted.
There is some disputed history in both Arunachal and Ladakh about the region’s ties to Lhasa. Tawang was a monastery which owed allegiance to a bigger monastery in Tibet. The monastery would collect taxes from locals and pass on the same to TIbet. The People’s Liberation Army started a slow infiltration in Ladakh, starting from Aksai Chin. Nehru had tied the hands of the Indian military – Nehru’s Forward Policy: no firing during confrontations on our Chinese army brothers. Two violent incidents in 1959 changed this policy. Police Forces, not the army, were sent forward. The Indian army was woefully underprepared to fight a high altitude war on two fronts – and lost.
Vijay talks of the Chinese use of a strategy he calls the gray zone: use of military, short of conflict. China wants to continue to focus on economics, so no hot wars. But the gray zone is costly for China’s adversary – with its sustained military pressure, accompanied by uncertainty. This ties down the adversary’’s military and increases its defence costs. Analogy – the hangman’s noose. China decides when to tighten. US and Russia’s dealings with a country decides the Chinese policy towards that country.
The discussion gravitated soon to the Iran US conflict. Vijay is of the view that Tech and drones can’t substitute boots on the ground. And the existing institutions to regulate conflicts don’t work when the US is involved, In the Iran war, the U.N. couldn’t do anything. Even the UN Security Council was toothless in the face of US aggression. There is no multipolar world today – It is bipolar – just the US and China. The rest are middle powers. Iran is just 600 nautical miles from India, but we had no role to play in the Iran US affair. Yet China ended up protecting its interests in the Gulf through gray shipping. They shared GPS inputs of US defence installations with Iran. And went on to use Pakistan as a proxy to push for peace. If peace holds, Iran rebuilding will happen with Chinese companies. US corporations cannot be trusted by Iran. China will be happy to get paid in Iran crude for its rebuilding efforts. To sweeten the deal, expect Iran to provide a base for the new Chinese aircraft carrier group.
Like a lot of countries, quite often external conflicts are a way to divert attention from domestic problems. Case in point: 5 out of 6 Generals of the top military committee, appointed by Xi in 2022, are in jail today. This reminds one of Indira Gandhi in the seventies, with her constant regime changes. Probably, there was a coup attempt by the PLA. Communism is not monolithic. We don’t know of Xi Jinping’s internal challenges.
Vijay cites the examples of two military adventures. In 2016, the PLA navy spent quite some time in the South China sea in the Philippines. The Chinese rhetoric was mobilisation. In 2017, it was with India – at Galwan. There was hardly any coverage of the Galwan conflict in the Chinese language media. Only in Chinese English media – did reports come in – toning down the rhetoric and aiming at pacification.
We ended with a discussion on the structural problems that could threaten China’s strongest area – the economy. After many decades of double digit growth, the Chinese are faced with stagflation. Expectation of salary growth is leading to discontent. And to add to the masala, is the challenge of managing an ageing population. So the welfare system is strained. With the One Child policy – you have one couple supporting 4 parents and raising a kid while trying to plan for their own retirement savings pot. The government does not provide a pension safety net – there is no money.
Automation can’t help with demand generation. Family savings have been in property, but the market is saturated. Prices have been stagnant for a long time. In interior China many apartment blocks lie empty. The government can’t make money by leasing land any more. So social instability is an internal challenge that the current regime has to be ready to face.