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Ranabir Ray Choudhury

The Chinese are said to be inscrutable in their ways, not just in recent times but throughout their long history. As far as the historical part is concerned, the so-called inscrutability may have been the result of a lack of information about their country (in the West) coupled with the reports of the unimaginable wealth and Oriental grandeur of the rulers. But in modern times, in fact in very recent decades, the reports of the inscrutability have persisted, a view that mu st of necessity be founded on very different bases compared to those of the past.

To get to the heart of the subject, is the inscrutability a rub-off of the unpredictability of Communist Chinese State policy, which has been honed to a high level of perfection by successive regimes since that of Mao Zedong? Is it a case of deliberately maintaining a ‘plastic’ smiling visage, thereby successfully masking everything that is going on within the mind of the Chinese leadership? Indeed, has the world been overly engrossed with trying to fathom what exactly is happening at the policy-determining table in Beijing, which has in fact strengthened the mystery of what the Chinese are planning to do?

There is no mistaking the fact that China has been busy marking out its place in the world — ever since it first crossed swords with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union nearly 50 years ago. The reference to that episode is important if one wants to understand China’s State policy today because it was on that occasion that Mao Zedong, representing the age-old Chinese psyche (whether Communist or otherwise), clearly proclaimed to the world, albeit indirectly, that China would not rest till it was publicly acknowledged to be the most powerful nation on the planet and given the attendant respect.

The “Chinese path” was unique, and it was simply not possible for a strong Chinese leadership — as opposed to a weak and wasting Empire in the 19th and 20th Centuries — to toe any other path proposed by foreigners, even if they happened to be comrades in arms.

In fact, the 1970s and 1980s of the last century was a time when Beijing was expressly busy in establishing its position in the international community, a period when the classical view of the bipolar Cold War (which was just about three decades old at the time) was slowly but surely being transformed into one where there were three players instead of two. Indeed, it may even be argued that the India-China military conflict of the early 1960s was an integral part of this very basic Chinese design, the point sought to be made at that juncture of world politics through the conflict being that in Asia only China counted and not India as well.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s once more changed the “Cold War” scenario, with one of the three players exiting, leaving the field to the remaining two, the latter eyeing each other closely and continually sizing up the other’s strengths and weaknesses. The only change in this larger picture today compared to that of the 20th Century is that while, in the earlier phase, it was Communist ideology and nuclear weapons that were used as the medium of struggle, today the war is being fought mainly through economic power with military capability forming the bedrock of the rivalry.

The tool of Communism has been discarded by Beijing, which is clearly manifested in the absence of any ideological outpouring directed either at Washington or at the numerous satellite Communist Parties distributed all over the world. (Ordinarily, this should lead to a winding up of the military dimension of the rivalry, but this has not happened probably because of the well-entrenched mindset of both Beijing and Washington.)

On the contrary, it can even be suggested that the Chinese leadership today has deliberately moved away from the ideological battle, allowing the basic historical Chinese instinct of being a Great Power to govern its dealings with the rest of the world. This is probably why the main focus has shifted to economic growth, the realisation now being that only this route can establish Chinese predominance over the international community, the first-step being the dislodgement of the US from its current position of still being considered as the economic icon of the planet.

As a matter of policy, such an approach would seem to be extremely rational although, if one considers the saying that Rome was not built in a day, it may well appear that Beijing’s objective of becoming the world’s economic powerhouse almost ‘overnight’ will not be attained in the true sense of the term.

Admittedly, the battle for figures may ultimately be won, but this certainly would not automatically mean that the economic sinews of China would be equally strong as those of the US, Japan, or the West generally.

In all probability, Beijing is fully aware of this gap between illusion and reality which, among other things, would lead it to keep up the pressure on India so that the latter’s established economic prowess in no way upsets the applecart of Beijing’s long-term economic goal. And if ‘pressure’ if involved, why only consider the economic sphere?

The image of India cannot be allowed to flourish beyond a point, and, if necessary, all the stops, including the military option, will have to be pulled out to put New Delhi in its place, in a manner of speaking (echoes of 1962).

The current phase of engagement between India and China should be seen against this background, one view being that New Delhi should not be caught making the same errors it committed half a century ago.

The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, must of course always be seen to extend the hand of cooperation towards China, but he must not extend it blindly, oblivious of what the real intentions of the Chinese are.

Certainly, the exercise must be gone through with a smiling face, but Beijing must be made fully aware that the wool cannot be once again drawn over the eyes of New Delhi.

It is not a question of whether Beijing can be trusted or not. It is more an issue of being mindful of what the Chinese, in all their wisdom, would like to accomplish in the temporal world, and where India fits in in this large design. In short, the 50-year-old ‘struggle’ with Beijing is far from over, even when the hands are locked in a tight clasp of apparent friendship.

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