Intimations of an Asian Century

INDIA SEES ITSELF as the world’s friend—a Vishwamitra. Others see it differently.

China, for example, looks upon India as an interlop­er, trying to queer Beijing’s rise as the world’s premier su­perpower by 2049, the centenary of the birth of the People’s Republic of China.

It scorns India for falling into the West’s geopolitical trap and forging alliances aimed at stalling China’s rise. Reacting to the dispute between Canada and India, Chinese commentators have filled Weibo, China’s social media platform, with memes, jokes and advice.

The main advice: never trust the West. Europe and America will always stick together.

Another blogger suggested, tongue only marginally in cheek, that India and China should work together to build an Asian Century.

India’s steady tilt towards the West has angered China. It has tried, by turns, to charm India (Ahmedabad, Wuhan, Mahabalipuram) and coerce it (Doklam, Ladakh) in order to wean it away from the Western embrace. When charm fails, coercion takes over.

Beijing has used Pakistan’s political and military establishment to keep India off-balance by repeatedly giving cover at the United Nations to designated Pakistan-based terrorists.

China never lets India forget that the border problem between the two countries is a colonial legacy. Beijing does not recognise the McMahon Line that in 1914 drew an arbi­trary boundary between Tibet and British India.

Chinese analysts have long argued that China itself suf­fered colonial abuse. The opium wars of the 1840s and 1850s inflicted by the British on China led to China ceding Hong Kong to Britain.

Author Amitav Ghosh’s masterful trilogy describes the devastation the opium wars caused on the Chinese: widespread addiction to opium, impoverishment, and loss of territory.

China hasn’t forgotten the humiliation. The ruling Qing dynasty, founded in 1644, fell in 1911 within decades of China’s defeat in the two opium wars.

Colonial India’s role in the opium wars rankles the Chinese to this day. Opium was grown in Bengal and Bihar in the east and in Malwa in the west. The East India Company sold silver from India to China in exchange for Chinese tea imports. When the silver ran out, the British sold Indian-grown opium to the Chinese.

When the Chinese objected to the trade in opium, Britain unleashed the First Opium War in 1839. The Second Opium War followed in 1849. Indian soldiers were used by the colonial British to fight the Chinese. But many Indian soldiers crossed over to the Chinese side, rebelling against British atrocities in colonial India. Using superior weapon­ry, the British defeated China and seized Hong Kong.

Indians have short memories and are liable to forget and forgive. The Chinese neither forget nor forgive. To them, the West spells deceit and dishonour.

Two centuries after the Second Opium War, the tables have turned. The West today fears China, a technological and economic superpower whose GDP at $19 trillion is triple the combined GDP of former colonial powers, Britain and France (collectively $6 trillion).

For the US-led West, India has two util­itarian values. One, it offers the last big opportunity to invest in the world’s fast­est-growing large economy. Two, it acts as a gendarme against China in the parabolic arc from the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) to the Indo-Pacific.

But of course there is a caveat: India must always know its place. The global hierarchy is set. On top are the five English-speaking Anglospheric nations. In the second tier is Continental Europe. In the third tier lie the rest: Asia, Africa, South America and Russia.

China scoffs at this Western construction. It is the Middle Kingdom, after all. Its Ming and Qing dynasties called Western nations “barbarians”. China reminds the West that in 1700, before the colonial age, China commanded 25 per cent of the global economy. It intends to do so again. China’s GDP today is already 20 per cent of global GDP.

Where does India fit in? Courted by the West, India has used its leadership of the global South to carve out an inde­pendent geopolitical strategy over the next crucial decade.

Sandwiched between a mercenary West and a venge­ful China, India’s strategy is to play the role of everybody’s friend. Being a Vishwamitra may ward off challenges till India’s economy crosses $10 trillion. At current growth rates, that could be as soon as 2035.

Deng Xiaoping said in 1980 that China must hide its strength and bide its time. India has modified Deng’s strategy. It is biding its time but not hiding its strength. The Asian Century beckons.

$10 trillionAmericaChinaeconomic powerIndiaVishwamitra