China’s Economy May Be ‘Slowing Down’, But Don’t Write Off BRI Yet

Ever since it was launched, there’s been a raging debate about the sustainability of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Conventionally, these conversations take shape depending on where you stand. In other words, depending on one’s ideological and geopolitical prism, BRI is either a grand strategic plan that is reshaping the global political and economic order or an example of Xi Jinping’s hubris, which is leading to overreach, and will eventually collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. A new Financial Times report this week, highlighting a sharp decline in Chinese overseas lending, sparked another such debate.Read the full article in The Quint.

China wants a reset with Biden, but won’t change its approach

There has been much debate about why China was slow to acknowledge Joe Biden’s election victory. It took nearly a week after Biden’s victory speech for China’s foreign ministry to issue formal congratulations. Xi Jinping is among the few world leaders who still hasn’t spoken to Biden. Despite that, Beijing has been watching the unfolding political drama in the United States (US) with a sense of cautious optimism.Read the full article in the Hindustan Times.

China’s Semiconductor Gold Rush: A Reality Check

The semiconductor industry has become a major front in the US-China tech war. Given that this is a weak link in China’s otherwise impressive technology stack, the US has imposed export controls restricting Chinese semiconductor companies from accessing key equipment, software, and intellectual property.This article was first published in the South China Morning Post. Views are personal. Read more here.

A coalition to counter China will take some time to operationalise

This story was first published in The Mint. Views are personal.This week, another important cog in the machinery of strategic cooperation between India and the United States fell into place when the two countries signed the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (Beca) for Geospatial Intelligence. The agreement opens the doors for India to get access to military-grade global positioning system signals, digital imagery and mapping that can upgrade the capabilities of our defence forces and intelligence agencies. For the United States, the agreement not only helps lock India in as a defence equipment buyer, but more importantly, is one more step towards drawing New Delhi onto its side, geopolitically.Read More  

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.

Read MoreYou can also read this piece in Hindi, here.

It is time India gave its policy on Tibet some strategic coherence

In a development that attracted relatively little international attention, Xi Jinping unveiled the Communist Party of China’s (CPC’s) new policy towards Tibet at a conclave in late August. As my colleague Manoj Kewalramani explained in the Hindustan Times last week, Xi’s new strategy “entails a mix of persuasion, development, connectivity, indoctrination and coercion". Beijing intends to construct an “ironclad shield to safeguard stability" against separatists and hostile foreign interests by sinicizing Tibetan Buddhism, stepping up ideological education, manufacturing a favourable historical narrative, strengthening border defence, deepening surveillance and enhancing connectivity to neighbouring Chinese provinces. The new policy continues to betray the CPC’s insecurities vis-a-vis Tibet, but it also indicates that Xi believes Beijing occupies the dominating heights of its relationship with Tibet.

He is not wrong in thinking so. Over the past two decades, Beijing has used its growing power to limit the Dalai Lama’s global outreach, severely constrain protests in Tibet, and change the demography of the region. Transforming the Tibetan landscape and economy, it has created vested interests in favour of Beijing’s rule among Tibetans and Han Chinese alike. It has found numerous ways to put pressure on New Delhi to limit formal interactions with the Dharamsala-based Central Tibetan Administration. Even as the PLA has increased transgressions across the length of the India-Tibet border, Beijing has become more forceful in pressing its claims to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims as “South Tibet".Read More

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

It is becoming clear that the ongoing “tech war" between the United States and China is taking place along five fronts: semiconductors, network infrastructure, operating systems, platforms and content. While it was Beijing that first erected a defensive Great Firewall around its internet users over 25 years ago to censor content, it is now Washington that is on the offensive on all fronts. The ostensible reason for this, as cited by officials of the Donald Trump administration, is national security—to prevent espionage, surveillance and influence operations by the Chinese government, as also its corporate proxies and agents.

The deeper and less-articulated reason is strategic: the US wants to increase its relative technological advantage over China. It is doing this by containing China’s progress and by rejuvenating its own high-technology industrial base. Both sides of the partisan divide in Washington have recognized that three decades of globalization resulted in the relocation of high-tech industrial capacity away from its soil, and that even if American firms and investors reaped the benefits of free trade, the strategic consequence has been the empowerment of an economic competitor and political adversary in the form of China. Nation-states are sensitive to changes in relative power, and the US has decided that China is too close for comfort.

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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.

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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).

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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:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

The global upheaval caused by China’s premature power games

As a sign of its arrival as a major power, global developments this decade have largely been shaped by China’s acts of commission and omission, and by the world’s response to it. Although Beijing’s exercises of power took a sharper turn after the global economic crisis of 2007-08, China’s leaders had been preparing their country to assume the mantle of great power at least a decade before that. In 2003, the very first year of his term as party leader, Hu Jintao organised a “collective study session" of the entire Politburo for a historical investigation into the world’s great powers. His government then commissioned a slickly produced 12-part documentary, aired on state-run TV from 2006, that got a star cast of scholars to discuss the rise of great powers from Spain and Portugal in the 15th century to the US and Soviet Union in the 20th. One of the most important lessons they must have drawn is that great power status does not just settle on you, and must be fought for and won.

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This is part 1 of a 3-part series of essays for Livemint. You can read the entire series at:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3