Commentary
Find our newspaper columns, blogs, and other commentary pieces in this section. Our research focuses on Advanced Biology, High-Tech Geopolitics, Strategic Studies, Indo-Pacific Studies & Economic Policy
The Bangladesh comparison
India was a midwife in the birth of Bangladesh. She sent in her army to liberate the newly born independent nation and even stood up to threats from the world’s mightiest power, the United States, which had sent its Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal. Henry Kissinger, the US secretary of state, contemptuously referred to an infant Bangladesh as a “basket case”, meaning it would be hopelessly mired in poverty, hunger, and disease. India welcomed and gave refuge to almost ten million refugees from the newly forming nation, as they fled military atrocity, hunger, and deprivation.Bangladesh from the very beginning was counted among the least developed nations as per the United Nations and enjoyed the generosity of foreign aid in its development. It also had other concessions like the generalised system of preferences (GSP), which meant that its exports had duty-free access to western nations. India lost its GSP status recently. Bangladesh got interest-free long-term loans from development banks like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.Read More
China’s new data security initiative has implications for India
This article was first published in Deccan Chronicle. Views are personal.Recently, the Chinese government announced the launch of a new Data Security Initiative. Outlining its components, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said he hoped that China can provide a “blueprint” for the formulation of international rules for digital security.The Chinese initiative entails eight broad principles, which include a call for supply chain stability, pledges against data theft and surveillance, norms for data storage and access, and a requirement for technology companies to not abuse their market dominance.
Wang’s announcement came a month after the United States launched its new Clean Network program in early August.The US initiative explicitly seeks to exclude Chinese telecommunications firms, apps, cloud service providers, and undersea cables from internet infrastructure used by the US and partner countries. The initiative draws upon a range of different standards, such as the Prague Proposals and the European Union’s 5G Toolbox.
Heed Napoleon’s words as China fancies its odds of taking Taiwan
The ongoing confrontation between Indian and Chinese troops along the Himalayan frontiers is serious, but pales in comparison with the situation across the Taiwan Strait. Over the weekend of 18-19 September, China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and Navy (PLAN) flew 37 aircraft—including fighters and bombers—across the centre line that has served as the informal boundary between the mainland and Taiwan. One of the intruding pilots declared to Taiwanese defenders on the radio that “there is no median line in the Taiwan Strait." Beijing’s intrusions coincided with and were certainly a reaction to a US state department official’s visit to Taipei. As an intimidatory tactic, China’s move is highly risky. One miscalculation by a pilot or an air defence operator could spark a conflict that could well draw in the United States and its allies into a bigger war.Read more
Science and State Power in China
In May 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping placed an ambitious proposition before the leaders of the country’s scientific community. He called on them to “aim for the frontiers of science and technology” and emerge as the “vanguards in innovation in the new era.” The overarching objective, he said, was for China to become a “major world centre for science and innovation.” This, for Xi, is one of the “responsibilities bestowed by history” upon China’s scientific community. For him, the development of science and technology is a strategic imperative. It’s what will drive future growth and ensure China’s security, overall competitiveness and global standing.At the heart of Xi’s emphasis on and investment in science and technology, therefore, is the goal of enhancing state power. This perspective is not exclusive to the current Chinese leadership. It is the product of historical debate over the role of science and technology in Chinese society. The origins of this conversation can be dated back to the last few decades of the Qing Dynasty, which ended in 1912. Since then, while strengthening state power has remained the core objective of the pursuit of scientific advancement, each generation of leaders has adopted a different pathway. [Read More...]
China is an enemy of freedom of thought. It wants the same from other powerful nations
There is now an abundance of analysis and commentary around the world on how countries should respond to challenges posed by China. East Asian countries are concerned about China’s aggressive military moves in the South China Sea, across the Taiwan Straits and the Sea of Japan. India is concerned about Chinese moves along the Himalayan border, across the subcontinent and in the Indian Ocean. Western Europe is having a difficult time with China-backed counterparts in Central and Eastern Europe.
The United States, for its part, has recognised that China presents a multi-dimensional strategic challenge to its global superpower status — one that manifests itself in global trade, technology, cyber and geography. What is consistent across all these perceptions of the nature of the Chinese challenges is that they are about competing interests. Territorial ambition, economic dominance, technological supremacy and a desire for hegemony are all classic manifestations of realpolitik — clashes arising from a tussle for greater power.
It is time India gave its policy on Tibet some strategic coherence
Understanding China’s LAC deployment capabilities
Broadening of the India-China standoff into multiple theatres will present formidable challenges for Chinese forcesAll eyes are on the meeting between Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart on September 10 in Moscow, nevertheless, it has increasingly become clear over the past few weeks that the two countries are preparing for a...The article was originally published in Deccan Herald.
Xi’s new approach to Tibet will affect India
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent remarks at the seventh Central Symposium on Tibet Work indicate that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is doubling down on its hardline approach in the region, which evolved gradually after the 2008 protests.The strategy for the next few years that Xi outlined entails a mix of persuasion, development, connectivity, indoctrination and coercion. This will not only have serious implications for ordinary Tibetans but will also impinge on the Sino-Indian boundary question, particularly in the context of China’s claims on Arunachal Pradesh.Read the full article in Hindustan Times.
The US-China tech war is being fought across a bamboo curtain
India must treat the oil spill near Mauritius as SoS. Lockdown has left seafarers exhausted
he Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius is facing one of its most serious crises in its modern history. On 21 July, around a week into its voyage from Singapore to the Brazilian port of Tubarao, the MV Wakashio, a 300-metre long bulk carrier, owned and operated by Japanese companies, deviated from its course and headed towards Mauritius instead of the regular shipping lanes several nautical miles south of it. A few days later, it struck a reef just over a kilometre from the shore, ran aground, spilled around a 1,000 tons of oil into the sea, before splitting into two. A major portion of the front part of the massive ship (or the “bow”) has been towed some distance to the south where it has been allowed to sink. The remaining parts lie on the reef, as weather and sea conditions do not permit its disposal. The ship’s 20-member crew has been arrested by the Mauritius authorities, and its captain, Sunil Kumar Nandeshwar, an Indian national, has been charged with endangering safe navigation.
Even without accounting for the Covid-19 pandemic, Mauritius is under-equipped to deal with environmental and economic disasters the marine accident has brought upon the nation. Over the past month, French and Indian marine disaster management personnel have joined their local counterparts in containing the damage, and Japanese and other international experts are to follow in the coming days.
What is driving China’s aggression?
There has been growing debate in recent times in India and other countries about China’s aggression. What’s driving Beijing to engage in contests on multiple fronts, be it Hong Kong, the near seas, or India, particularly amid a pandemic and economic weakness? Is it opportunism? Is it hubris? Is internal turmoil and insecurity leading to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lashing out? Or are there structural factors that one must consider?Read the full article in The Hindustan Times.
Understanding Implications of Hong Kong’s Tech Ecosystem Changes for India
This article was first published in Deccan Herald. Views are personal.While the pandemic rages on, the Chinese leadership in Beijing has tightened its control over Hong Kong. Earlier in 2019, the region saw fierce protests take place regarding an extradition bill. Now, Chinese lawmakers have voted to adopt the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.The law came into force by being added to Annex III of the Basic Law (de facto Constitution of Hong Kong) and hence was not debated in Hong Kong’s legislature. There had been plenty of speculation about the dynamics of the move and how that reflects on China itself. But since the law has been put into place, it has met with sharp responses, especially within the tech community.
Arriving at a new normal in India-China relations
This article was first published in The Hindustan Times.The ongoing stand-off between the Indian and Chinese forces in eastern Ladakh is a fork in the road, fundamentally reshaping the direction of the bilateral relationship. Over the last few years, the architects of the gradual thaw and developing partnership between the two sides, which began in 1988, had been warning about the withering of old mechanisms that had kept the peace on the disputed boundary.Despite the pageantry of informal summitry, the strategic guidance provided by the leaders to their respective militaries has clearly not succeeded in stemming incidents. In November 2019, the minister of state for defence, Shripad Naik, told Parliament that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had transgressed into Indian territory 1,025 times between 2016 and 2018. Roughly a third of these incidents took place in 2018. In April that year, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping held the first of their two informal summits. Recent reports suggest that the number of transgressions across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) increased significantly in 2019.
Is China's Western Theatre Command Confident Enough to Challenge India?
In 2013, during the Third Plenum of the18th Central Committee, it was announced by Xi Jinping that China would introduce widespread military reforms. This shift in policy came a year after Xi Jinping had succeeded Hu Jintao as General Secretary and at the beginning of his program of consolidating his faction’s hold over the Chinese Communist Party. Amid other reforms, including announcements on the economy, the Third Plenum specifically identified the People’s Liberation Army leadership, command and force structures, institutions, and civil-military integration as key areas for major reforms.
Xi initiated the reform process two years later in 2015 with the ambitious goal to make the PLA a fully mechanised force by 2020, informatised by 2035 with the key aim of turning it into a world-class army by 2050. These reforms included changes to the Central Military Commission’s bureaucratic structure, the creation of newer forces like the PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF) and the PLA Joint Logistic Support Force (JLSF), and the formation of theatre commands for improving effectiveness between the various branches. Alongside these institutional reforms, Xi Jinping also prioritised weapons modernisation with the deployment of newer weapon systems.
The formation of the PLA’s Western Theatre Command (WTC) in 2016 saw the replacement of the old Chengdu and Lanzhou Military Regions and established a single unified command structure across Xinjiang, Tibet, and along the border of key states from Afghanistan and India. The impetus to modernise the PLA was accelerated after the 2017 Doklam stand-off which saw Indian and Chinese troops face-off in Bhutan. This along with amplified military training has helped the People’s Liberation Army to improve its firepower and develop its combat readiness, making it now more confident to challenge India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
India can resist China by acting in concert with its adversaries
At an emergency cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister indicated that the border fighting did not constitute a threat to India. The strategic Chinese threat, he maintained, lies in the rapidly increasing industrial power base of China as well as the building of military bases in Tibet. The only Indian answer, he continued, is the most rapid possible development of the Indian economy to provide a national power base capable of resisting a possible eventual Chinese military move." Arthur Cohen of the United States’s Central Intelligence Agency wrote this in his 1963 study of border skirmishes that occurred in Ladakh in 1959. The Prime Minister he refers to was Jawaharlal Nehru.Read moreThis is part 1 of a 3-part series of essays for Livemint. You can read the entire series at:
The global upheaval caused by China’s premature power games
Power is the only currency that will work in dealing with China
In January 2016, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China—a position that outranks his commonly used job title of president—made an important speech assessing the global situation. China, in his view, was faced with “three unprecedented situations" and “three dangers". On the opportunity side of the ledger, it was “closer than ever before to being the centre of the world stage", he said; “It is closer to achieving its goals, and it now has the ability and the self-confidence to achieve its objectives." The dangers he spoke of were external aggression and internal division, an economic slowdown and political challenges to the party’s supremacy.Read moreThis is part 1 of a 3-part series of essays for Livemint. You can read the entire series at
Indian unpredictability could make China rethink its game
The South China Sea is thousands of miles away from the Indian heartland. Very few people in our country pay attention to developments in that part of the world, and although it has a bearing on India’s national interest, it barely figures in our self-centred public discourse. There, over the past decade, China has incrementally occupied islands disputed by several South East Asian countries, built military infrastructure on several of them, imposed its political administration, and is on the verge of declaring an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the entire region, threatening military force against any aircraft that overflies without its permission. Read more
Time for Modi to take political stand on China. Military talks won’t deter the bully
n an earlier article on how China has crossed the Lakshman Rekha, I had noted that ‘diplomatic virtuosity is insufficient to resolve the issue unless it is accompanied by political sagacity and boldness’. Two weeks later, we saw talks through military and diplomatic channels between India and China, but there is not much sign of the role that political sagacity is playing. It is well possible and understandable that political moves beneath the surface are going on and the matter will be resolved through an agreement. The incident at Galwan, which has resulted in the tragic death of a Commanding Officer and 19 jawans on 15 June, is symptomatic of China’s continued violations of agreements and protocols.You can find the article here
What are China’s weak points?
What is common to PayTM, Ola, BigBasket, Swiggy, and OYO? Yes, they are all made in India startup success stories. Some of them have achieved global success too. Did you know the Ola taxi service was launched in London in February? And OYO rooms are available in almost a dozen countries other than India? However, the other common factor to all of them is that they are substantially funded by Chinese investors. As reported by the digital publication, The Ken, all the top ten startups of India, ranked by venture funding raised, have Chinese investment. Apart from the five mentioned above, these include the app-based self-learning platform Byju’s and a very successful logistics company called Delhivery. A startup needs angel funding in the very beginning, and venture funding soon thereafter. Indian banks cannot help. Once the startup becomes successful, its value increases. If its value exceeds billion dollars (which is roughly Rs 7,500 crore today), then it is called a unicorn. The Gateway House, a think tank, reports that 18 out of 30 unicorns in India have Chinese investors. These investors are crucial to the startup community, because in their earlier years these companies have been incurring losses, and these have to be funded by some rich uncle, at least to pay salaries. Since there are not enough Indians willing to patiently fund losses for the first few years of startups, the Chinese have happily stepped in. In the process, Indian companies have achieved scale, and some can become world-beaters. The Chinese investors will make handsome money, but that is because they took risks and were patient for all these years. Besides, eight out of 10 startups fail. So the investor makes up by hitting a jackpot on the ninth or the tenth that does not fail.Read More