Is China a threat to India?

The military as well as political leadership of India have recently issued statements referring to China as a security threat to their country. In October, Indian Army Chief General V K Singh, while speaking at a seminar in New Delhi, had bracketed China with Pakistan as ‘major irritant’ for India’s security. A couple of months earlier the Indian army chief had caused a heated controversy in the political and diplomatic circles of Pakistan by claiming in a statement that India was working on a defence doctrine based on the capability to simultaneously fight a war with Pakistan and China. The statement was somehow ignored by China but it evoked a sharp reaction from the top military leadership of Pakistan. In a similar but wider context, the same view was expressed by Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in September that China was seeking influence in South Asia at India’s expense. Calling the expansion of China’s bilateral relations in trade, economic cooperation and security fields with Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as “new assertiveness by the Chinese”, the Indian Prime Minister said that that Beijing was trying to “have a foothold in South Asia, and we have to reflect on this reality”. Sino-Indian strategic discord was further highlighted in October when China denied a visa to an Indian general based in Kashmir. Most interestingly, the Indian concerns seem to centre on growing Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean — a water body India perceives as its exclusive preserve.

The Indian perception of China as a security threat has been for quite long an important element of the Indian security doctrine, although Chinese leaders have repeatedly asserted that China neither sees India as a threat nor does it pose any threat to India. India relates its nuclear weapons development programme to the perceived nuclear threat from China, despite the fact that China never resorted to nuclear sabre-rattling against India. It is also true that despite robust bilateral trade, which may exceed $ 50 billion in 2010, mutual mistrust between the two countries continues to persist. The Indian media never misses an opportunity to play up this mistrust to sour relations between Beijing and New Delhi. Thus, on the one hand, there are positive and encouraging developments in relations between India and China; on the other, India’s political and military leadership and media continues to raise the bogey of a threat from China. The traditional theory that India does so in order to curry favour with the US, which itself is worried about the lengthening Chinese shadows over Southeast Asia and South Asia, fails to explain this, as, according to a Pentagon Report of 2009, the US is convinced that China can play a positive role in South Asia, particularly in defusing Pakistan-India tension. Then why has India suddenly started whipping up the perceived threat from China; and do the recent Chinese moves in South Asia pose a threat to Indian security? In order to find an answer to this question, we will have to analyse the traditional Chinese policy towards South Asia, particularly recent initiatives focusing on the promotion of bilateral trade and economic cooperation with countries that are strategically located in the Indian Ocean, and look at the Indian self-image and its perceived role in South Asia.

Unlike most western countries, including the US and Russia, China has never looked at South Asia through Indian eyes. It is to be noted that even at the height of Sino-India friendship epitomised by the slogan ‘Hindi-Cheeni bhai bhai’ (Indians-Chinese are brothers) and despite the fact that Pakistan had joined avowedly the anti-China military pact Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), China never publicly endorsed the Indian stance on Kashmir. The Chinese have interacted with smaller countries of South Asia since the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949 but they never used their presence to influence the security and foreign policies of these countries. Chinese peripheries — and South Asia being one of them — constitute the areas of special focus of the foreign policy of China for the reason that tensions and instability in these regions will have a spillover effect on the Chinese mainland. This is the reason why trade, investment and economic cooperation relations occupy top priority in China’s approach towards expanding relations with its neighbouring countries. In South Asia, this approach is reflected in a more than 30 times increase in bilateral trade with India, focus on commerce and investment, involvement in the development of infrastructure and the energy sector in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and, most importantly, Chinese acquisition of an observer state status in SAARC summits. China did not oppose India’s signing a civil nuclear deal with the US and has offered India a long-term relationship based on a strategic partnership. China is a consistent supporter of the Pakistan-India peace process and, according to former prime minister Zafarullah Jamali, China was one of those countries that played a behind-the-scenes role in facilitating the resumption of the Pakistan-India peace talks in 2004. Then why should India raise the spectre of a Chinese threat to its security?

It is because through expanded bilateral relationships with Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Burma, China looks poised, in India’s perception, to ‘dominate’ the Indian Ocean the way the British did for two hundred years by acting on the strategy developed by famous Portuguese Admiral Albuquerque. This strategy was based on the control of three key points in the Indian Ocean — Aden in the west, Malacca Straits in the East and Ceylon in the centre. In addition to this, India still sticks to its traditional view of regarding the entire South Asia region as its sphere of influence and finds it difficult to reconcile with unfettered freedom of options by the peripheral states to engage with extra-regional powers like China.