[ SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS: ]
Can Argumentative Chinese Step Forward?

BEIJING - This year marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the People's Republic of China and India, a momentous occasion that invites reflection on where the two Asian giants are heading in the much-touted "Asian century."

Awareness that this bilateral relationship is critical to the current world order is rising in both countries as they try to position themselves as drivers and pivots of global economic and security structures.

As an Indian traveling in China and meeting Chinese intellectuals and policymakers in this key anniversary year, I perceived more strategic attention being paid to India's foreign policy and economic direction. There is a sea change in China's level of alertness to what India is doing or saying in domestic and international spheres.

A State Council official of the Chinese government who researches South Asian affairs told the author that India's actions and approaches are now intensely followed, compared to a decade ago, when India was seen in Beijing as a bogged-down state with healthy but not spectacular economic growth.

The efforts being taken by Chinese governmental and quasigovernmental cultural diplomacy organizations to engage Indian thinkers and institutions in dialogue stand testimony to the fact that India is now nearly as important an actor for China as the United States, Japan and the Koreas.

I heard from a number of prescient Chinese academics and strategic consultants that there was a creeping apprehension in Beijing's corridors of power that the economic growth gap between two countries "is closing" and that India "might one day overtake China." Overconfidence is not a Chinese trait and they are in many ways wary of being outdone. One fascinating historical parallel made by a scholar went like this: "Will China become the next Japan and will India become the next China?" In other words, will China enter a period of stagnating growth with demographic decline and will India enter a zone of double- digit economic growth with a favorably low population dependency ratio?

 That this kind of crystal ball gazing is occurring among Chinese cognoscenti at a time when their country's economic engine is speeding ahead like its high speed train shows how much India weighs on elite Chinese consciousness. Yet, worrying about India attaining parity does not mean that Chinese overtures to Indians lack the big brotherly and condescending tones that are legacies of the Mao Zedong era. On numerous occasions, I was literally hectored by civil society members close to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) about the wrongs India was committing and also reminded about core weaknesses that held India back.

For instance, one assertion that I heard from highly placed Chinese was that the Indian value system was still primarily spiritual while China was solidly materialistic. There was more than a hint of arrogance when specialists on Chinese politics I spoke to tried to turn the tables on the virtues of India like democracy and liberal freedom. While the CCP's standard riposte to the West in defense of its one party dictatorship is that each country has the right to determine its own political system, its ideologues sing a different and more aggressive tune to Indians.

A Chinese information technology entrepreneur who was involved in setting up some of China's most successful Internet companies with state blessing, addressed a gathering of Indian politicians and scholars, saying that India must learn from its larger neighbor the techniques of strongly policing the worldwide web. In his hyper patriotically charged view, India has a "weak government" that cannot have "security" enjoyed by the Chinese government unless it employs stricter Internet censorship.

 One recurring theme during my China visit was a decidedly anti-Western tendency and appeals to India to not fall for the "trap" of the "new yellow peril" or "China threat theory." Chinese foreign policy observers kept reminding me that Western portrayals of China as a belligerent power or an obstacle to multilateral institutional consensus was a ruse to pit India against it. A peculiar view in Beijing, often shared by Indian leftists, is that Western powers are planning a devious game to "divide China and India" and that war between the two Asian powerhouses will "play into the hands of Western interests."

 The implication of such theories, which are popular in China is that India lacks a mind of its own and can be easily suborned. This misreading of India is all the more acute because it brushes under the carpet India's own strategic problems and disputes with China and assumes that New Delhi is merely being provoked by Washington to adopt certain anti-China postures. There is a generational change camp in China though that anticipates "blue skies" in bilateral ties due to passage of time and lapsing of old antagonistic mindsets. The affability and hospitality of Chinese youth towards Indian visitors seemed to give credence to the notion that fellow Asians of the two most populous countries can coexist in harmony because they share so many common personal traits and dreams.

But here too, the vast differences in political culture are bound to complicate matters. Many Chinese university students I interacted with were surprised that I could be so critical of some Indian government policies. One of them exclaimed in shock when I said that 30% or so of Indians lived in absolute poverty. She thought I was being unnatural and traitorous by conceding flaws of my country.

Can stronger people-to-people links be built between a society like India that is accustomed to critical self-reflection and a society like China that has internalized self-censorship, orderliness and regimentation? A Chinese moderator of a bilateral forum I participated summed up this huge attitudinal gap by urging Chinese attendees to read Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's The Argumentative Indian to understand why Indians are such loose cannons. The bridge that divides may never be genuinely crossed as long as the argumentative Indian lacks a counterpart in the form of an argumentative Chinese. The author is associate professor of world politics at the OP Jindal Global University.

There is a sea change in China's level of alertness to what India is doing or saying in domestic and international spheres.

[ By Sreeram Chaulia ]