India’s China Challenge : A journey through China’s rise and what it means for India

Having been a regular reader of “The Hindu” newspaper since my college days, the author Ananth Krishnan was a familiar name to me . He is also one of the most highly regarded China experts in India, quite often mentioned as a reference by Shekhar Gupta in his meticulous “Cut the clutter” series. These were the prime factors of my choosing the book by Ananth Krishnan , in a world that has a plethora of literature on China .And I say this with absolute certainty that i haven’t been disappointed. 

The book is a memoir of the author’s time in China, spanning a decade and the rich and diverse experience that he has brought with himself. His penning down of his time in china, how the social,economic,cultural and political systems work there, his interviews with a plethora of Chinese scholars and of the depiction of how a common chinese lives, is what forms the underlying theme of the book. To author’s credit, he puts a  disclaimer at the start of the book clarifying that the book is not an academic study of China but his attempt to understand the nation for himself and for his readers leveraging his time in China.

The book has been carefully divided into sections , each dealing with china’s politcs,economy, diplomacy, etc that help the reader understand how the Chinese communist party (CCP) works. I have carefully chosen to use the term “how CCP works” and not “how China works.” This is because the fundamental lesson in understanding our neighbour is that, it is not a country that has a party, but a party that has a country. This is also a reason, why Trump and his secretary of state Mike Pompeo used to choose Xi Jinping and the CCP as their target rather than targeting the country as a whole. For them the bone of contention that prevents China from turning into a full fledged democracy is the iron clad control of the CCP and its authoritarian leaders. Differentiating CCP from China as a whole and Xi from other CCP leaders and then dealing with them separately is also the strategy mentioned in an anonymous article published recently, titled “the longer telegram”, similar to the iconic “the long telegram” written by George Kennan, that advocated for Soviet Union’s containment by USA to prevent the spread of communism. 

The legitimacy of the party in the eyes of the Chinese people is what keeps the nation going. It is this legitimacy that has prevented China from going down the path of soviet union. The CCP and its leaders since the times of Mao have endeavoured to maintain this legitimacy through their actions like the “Cultural revolution” and the “Great Leap Forward” by Mao and the opening up of Chinese economy by Deng Xiaoping that unleashed an economic boom in China on which it rides to this day. This legitimacy is now being taken forward by Xi Jinping, who after Mao and Deng is the third CCP leader to find his name in the constitution of CCP. Like Mao’s purge through the cultural revolution, Xi purged all his political rivals particularly Bo xilai through his anti corruption campaigns. He now heads the CCP, is the President (or National chairman as he is referred to in China) and commands China’s Central Military Commission that controls the People’s Liberation Army(another instance where the army’s allegiance is to the party and not the Chinese people.) All this point towards the once in a generation challenge that the world and particularly India is facing with the rise of Xi. Through his “Belt and road initiative”, “ The Chinese dream”, “Made in China 2025” he wishes to take China on what he calls as “road to rejuvenation”( analogous to what Mao wanted to do through his Great Leap forward).

The book gives a detailed account of how China rose from ashes to become the world’s second largest economy at a breakneck speed and how the establishment of world class manufacturing and supply chain infrastructure make it all the more difficult for countries to decouple from china economically, despite the anti Chinese rhetoric. The book also describes what one might call the underbellies of China- Xinjinga,tibet,hong Kong and Taiwan. It takes the reader through their history and geography and gives a glimpse of how people are living there, particularly the limited and controlled lives in regions like Xinjiang and Tibet. Apart from these regions, one thing that the book also highlights is the lives of people living amidst the sparkling sky scrappers in Beijing and Shanghai. The author through extensive interviews with Chinese people highlights that only economic growth isn't sufficient for human development. It must be coupled with political growth and democratic rights that allow the people to voice their opinions. This is a fundamental difference in the socio-political life of people in China and in democracies like India and barring all the India vs China growth model aside , this aspect is something has a lingering effect in the minds of the readers.

The subtitle of the book mentions what China’s rise means for India. But this aspect has been dealt in detail only in a subsection titled “diplomacy” , whereas in other chapters the readers will find only passing references of comparison between India and China. Many might find the last section of the book titled “portraits” slightly uninteresting, even though it mentions important historical India-china connection, popularity of Rabindranath Tagore(“poet sage” as he is called there) in China, and of Aamir khan for his films like Dangal and PK. The epilogue of the book is quite impressive as it succinctly sums up the book and talks about how COVID has impacted China, how it was suppressed and how it was dealt with, highlighting the importance of transparent state institutions to develop trust not just internally but also externally. But to his dismay he concludes that , the learning for the CCP from crisis like Tiananmen and COVID is that “greater control is the answer.”

The book is a timely work that opens a new vista of understanding China, as many would have never thought of or imagined. This is also because ( and the author too laments it in the book) that India has a very limited investment in understanding China and the CCP. The TV media (particularly the commando comic channels that constantly advocate for an India China war) does not even has a china correspondent and all their information that they present to viewers comes from their second and third hand sources. It is said that “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”, which also highlights greater need for establishing centres for Chinese learning and think tanks dedicated to the study of China. The Galwan clash has opened new avenues of mistrust and led to birth of new generation of Sino-phobics and Sino sceptics in Indian strategic community. But all our responses to the rising threat of Xi Jinping and of Chinese belligerence must be based on a clear eyed understanding of the nation. And the book leaves no stone unturned in helping the readers do so.