Coping with China

Book review of India's China Challenge: A Journey through China's Rise and What It Means for India

China’s rise in the past three decades has made it a formidable challenger to the international order. Under General Secretary Xi Jinping it has been on a quest to attain economic, military, diplomatic and technological supremacy by 2049, the centenary year of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). China’s manifestation of revisionism through multiple projects and goals, which Mr Xi initiated in this decade, diverges from its claim of peaceful rise. Being a major country on its periphery with an unresolved active border dispute and a formidable trade deficit, India is inevitably impacted by China’s rise and aggression.    

There has been considerable scholarship on individual aspects of China’s rise and its impact on the West, especially the United States. Ananth Krishnan’s book focuses on four major themes of China’s rise — leadership, economy- technology, military-diplomacy, and governance — and what it means for India.

The author benefits immensely from his decade-long reporting stint in China and Chinese language training, which enabled him to travel throughout the country. As he highlights, the book is a reporter’s on-ground perspective, informed by a range of influential Chinese voices across different age groups and strata of the party-state system.  The first section dwells into Chinese leadership’s role, especially under Mr Xi, in centralising power and authority. Barely five months in office, the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee released “Document Number Nine,” highlighting the importance of positive propaganda and detailing China’s most significant political threats internally and externally. The author stresses that this was a clear indicator of the political direction in which China would head under Mr Xi. Through the course of his leadership, Mr Xi used the war on corruption as a tool to manage internal factionalism. The nationwide social credit system, furthermore, would most likely be the next step in managing internal unrest, which Mr Xi calls a “political threat.”

Externally, he has used propaganda measures to build the anti-West narrative alongside actions such as banning NGO funding, limiting western journalists, clamping down on anti-party voices and flagging the involvement of “foreign hands” in the voices on the Xinjiang detentions and Hong Kong protests. His renewed emphasis on transforming the Chinese intellectual landscape by controlling the education system for classrooms, the party and the People’s Liberation Army is what the author quotes as “the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation” rooted in the tradition of political education, supported by the political system and core values resulting in the revival of Chinese civilisation.    

India’s China Challenge: A Journey through China's Rise and What It Means for India

Author: Ananth Krishnan

Publisher: HarperCollins

Pages: 420; Price: Rs 599

The book’s second section emphasises China’s manufacturing miracle and technological advances, making it the world’s second-largest economy by nominal GDP. The author points to three instances that highlight India’s dependence on China. One, the description of Yiwu, a town most Indians would not have heard of but it plays a vital role as the primary wholesale market to all of India. Two, India’s import of critical medical supplies from China for frontline medical worker in the Covid-19 battle, with a minimal pool available to diversify its source. Finally, the influx of Chinese money acquiring stakes in almost every vertical in the fintech industry. These examples invariably answer the larger economic decoupling debate that has gained traction since the military stand-off along the Line of Actual Control.

The diplomacy and history sections provide insights into the Sino-Indian competition and the Chinese understanding of the conflict. The author highlights the historical debates between the two countries and connects it to the current period involving the Doklam stand-off and the Galwan River Valley clash. He highlights that the heart of the strategic dilemma is the fundamental difference in how the two countries view each other’s place in the world — India views China as an equal, while China resents India’s reluctance to acknowledge the power differential. He suggests that the unresolved border issues and strategic dilemma make the Sino-Indian relations more competitive than cooperative.  

The author’s travels to Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjiang inspired the book's frontier section, reiterating the regime's Orwellian nature, especially under Mr Xi’s leadership. The author was followed, stopped and almost sent back to Beijing while travelling from Gangsu to Qinghai in 2012. He thought that he had managed to evade the cop by travelling in the early hours and switching off his cell phone, but realised that the Chinese state was a step ahead of him.

Finally, the portrait section offers insights into the historical, literary and popular convergences between them. Besides dwelling on the Sino-Indian competition, the book also highlights certain areas where India could learn from China’s rise. One, Beijing’s governance model in fighting pollution and traffic issues. Two, lessons from China’s urbanisation and infrastructure development.

The book concludes with China’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic and highlights the Chinese model’s weaknesses and strengths. The lack of openness and transparency, endemic bureaucratic problems, and fear of offending allowed the virus to spread in the first place, but the Party-state’s demonstration of power also managed China’s return to normalcy shortly.

(@suyash_desai) The reviewer is a research scholar working on China’s defence and foreign policies at The Takshashila Institution. He also writes a weekly newsletter on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army called The Takshashila PLA Insight.