Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

[SSridhar]

China must strengthen its nuclear deterrence and counterstrike capabilities: PLA Daily - Reuters

China must strengthen its nuclear deterrence and counter-strike capabilities to keep pace with the developing nuclear strategies of the United States and Russia, the official paper of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) said on Tuesday.

US President Donald Trump's administration may be pursuing the development of new nuclear weaponry and could explicitly leave open the possibility of nuclear retaliation for major non-nuclear attacks, according to a draft of a pending Nuclear Posture Review leaked by the Huffington Post.

This "unprecedented" move by the United States, combined with continuous quality improvements of nuclear arsenals in both the US and Russia, means that both countries place greater importance on deterrence and real combat usability, the commentary in the PLA Daily said.

"In the roiling unpredictability of today's world, to upgrade the capability of our country's deterrence strategy, to support our great power position... we must strengthen the reliability and trustworthiness of our nuclear deterrence and nuclear counterstrike capabilities," it said.

The article was written by two researchers from the PLA Academy of Military Science, a top research institute directly responsible to China's Central Military Commission.

A change was necessary despite China having developed nuclear weapons to avoid bullying from nuclear powers, the paper said, adding that China would always stick to the principle of "no first use" and a final goal of eliminating nuclear weapons.

Neither Russia nor the United States is abandoning nuclear weapons as each adopts new high-tech weapons capabilities, the paper said, pointing to the US Congressional Budget Office's estimate of maintenance and modernisation of the US nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years costing more than $1.2 trillion.

This spend, the paper said, has led to a corresponding Russian military modernisation programme, aiming to boost the share of advanced armaments in its nuclear triad to at least 90 percent by 2021.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is overseeing an ambitious military modernisation programme, including developing advanced nuclear-capable missiles. China carried out its first nuclear weapons test only in 1964.

Trump's strong embrace of his predecessor President Barack Obama's nuclear modernisation programme has led some former senior US government officials, legislators and arms control specialists to warn of risks from the US stoking a new arms race.

A US national defence strategy released on Jan 19 shifted priorities to put what defence secretary Jim Mattis called a "great power competition" with China and Russia at the heart of the country's military strategy.

[Prasad]

Apropos the discussion on the previous page and this in the 2-front scenario thread -

As regards Doklam - when I look at the map - I cannot imagine how the Chinese could have imagined that they could go further with that road without inviting Indian intervention. It was either stupidity or brinkmanship. Yes, it is true that 60 years ago Chinese troops had a free run in border areas and could build roads without seeing a soul. But with India increasing its border vigilance - there are going to be more and more Chinese probes and "encounters" between China and India. The story of a Chini sub surfacing near a Jap ship is the maritime equivalent of Doklam. They are expanding their provocations and will grab any territory that is not guarded. The question is will they fight to get territory that is not theirs to take?

PRC is wary even now of getting punched in the face wherever it tries to be sneaky and keep moving the goalpost further and further away from its earlier frontiers. Reclaiming and building radar and airstrips and moving fighter detachments & SAMs in the tiny inslands in the SCS and constant pinpricks on the HImalayan border are just manifestations of this new Xi thought. Same with flights of bombers and EW/A aircraft with fighter escorts towards Guam and islands contested by Japan. They're getting bolder as time goes by and they build more number of platforms. But they're still wary because they're not where they want to be, yet. They're pretty fragile and a punch in the face will cause the edifice to crack and who knows if the structure will stand or crumble. Xi has reshuffled not just the PLA but the PLAN too by posting officers and admirals with experience in wargames and exercises in key positions (link is somewhere earlier in the thread). So guess what happens when they get a Doklam++, which itself was a major loss of face for them.

[TKiran]

For China, India is a challenger because in terms of size, civilization and potential, there is simply no other country that can come anywhere near PRC. That makes China worried.

China feels that if India joins the Quad (which it already has), then China's work to lord over India would double. First, it would have to wean her away from such an alliance/partnership and then re-start the hegemonizing programme. China faces a particular drawback with India unlike its advantageous position with the rest of the countries surrounding it. Japan, Korea, Singapore, Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia have been either Chinese tributary at various times or have a huge Chinese diaspora and cultural influence. Many of them are smaller economies. But, India not only is as huge a country as China but an equally great (if not greater) civilization, has cultural influence too over those very same countries mentioned above, never had any Chinese influence on it (OTOH, only China has a huge Indian influence in the form of Buddhism) etc. So, China is fearful of India that it can be the only spoilsport for its Middle Kingdom ambitions.

I do not therefore see a solution here by displaying piety. China will *NOT* relent. On its part, India realizes this, especially in the last few years, but one must admit that all governments since the 70s, have taken tough stands vis-a-vis China.

The Indian position seems to be to give back to China as much as it gets without holding back anything but at the same time not letting the situation go out of control. There is quite optimism too that if the situation does get out of control, we can manage it equally well; but, we don't want it to come to such a pass. China too does not want the situation to deteriorate beyond a point it considers as manageable. So, all the manouevering is within this space.

SS sir, if China is fearful of India, China will relent and there would not be the kind of language they are using in their official communication either through Gober Times or by "kya hua".

China has a blind spot that is India. They think that India is much worse than Philippines in strength. They are not even ready to acknowledge that India could be a remote challenger. Even an acknowledgement to that effect could bring the CPC's downfall. They are very much convinced that it's very easy to break India into pieces. All their policies with respect to India is based on this assumption.

[Singha]

http://www.news18.com/news/world/how-ch ... 45933.html

china gifted the african union server systems with a backdoor from shanghai that uploaded all logs from midnight to 2am

[shiv]

Sridhar garu this ij for you. I got no response in the ChiMil thread

Anyone with any insight into this? The dame pronounces Cheeni names better than me.
http://www.wionews.com/videos/wion-grav ... china-7969

[Prasad]

There was an article last month on that possibility https://thediplomat.com/2017/12/the-mys ... e-general/
and a follow-up earlier this month https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/why-gen ... as-purged/

[NRao]

Growing fangs .......

South Korea accuses Chinese military plane of entering air defence zone without permission, report says

China dispatches one of its largest air force fleets ever near Okinawa in show of force to Japan

[NRao]

This is - IMHO - the next big Chinese grab: Social ranking in China.

Step 1: Create a system to rank people - much like a credit score: Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens
Step 2: Create just enough uncertainity in how this raking is determined. So, people are not sure what they need to do to keep a high ranking. This ensure that the populations leans towards making sure they do nothing to make a mess of the ranking. So, population "behave" with minimal effort from the State. Smart I would say
Step 3: Those who do mess up - read tick off the State, are in some form publicly shamed. Jay walkers can have their faces plastered on a local bill board or the like.


What is scary is that China is trying to export this system abroad. We should expect it to appear in places like Pakistan. But the ranking system can appear in companies that China bought in the West!!! Go figure what can happen.

[gauravsh]

http://www.news18.com/news/world/how-ch ... 45933.html

china gifted the african union server systems with a backdoor from shanghai that uploaded all logs from midnight to 2am

Not sure if this is the correct thread to post but a related incident happened sometime back.
One of the Chinese manufactures of ARM processors induced a logic in their netlist wherein running a specific code [a specific memory loaction] will result in processor exception level being changed to secure mode [In processor jargon from el1 to el2]. Any application could read secure information.
This was caught and reported to ARM but was kept under wraps for better economic sense.

[Bart S]

This is - IMHO - the next big Chinese grab: Social ranking in China.

Step 1: Create a system to rank people - much like a credit score: Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens
Step 2: Create just enough uncertainity in how this raking is determined. So, people are not sure what they need to do to keep a high ranking. This ensure that the populations leans towards making sure they do nothing to make a mess of the ranking. So, population "behave" with minimal effort from the State. Smart I would say
Step 3: Those who do mess up - read tick off the State, are in some form publicly shamed. Jay walkers can have their faces plastered on a local bill board or the like.


What is scary is that China is trying to export this system abroad. We should expect it to appear in places like Pakistan. But the ranking system can appear in companies that China bought in the West!!! Go figure what can happen.

Something like this is very much needed in India given the way people lack civil sense and are unwilling to drive properly or stand in a queue.

[Agasthi]

For China, India is a challenger because in terms of size, civilization and potential, there is simply no other country that can come anywhere near PRC. That makes China worried.

China feels that if India joins the Quad (which it already has), then China's work to lord over India would double. First, it would have to wean her away from such an alliance/partnership and then re-start the hegemonizing programme. China faces a particular drawback with India unlike its advantageous position with the rest of the countries surrounding it. Japan, Korea, Singapore, Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia have been either Chinese tributary at various times or have a huge Chinese diaspora and cultural influence. Many of them are smaller economies. But, India not only is as huge a country as China but an equally great (if not greater) civilization, has cultural influence too over those very same countries mentioned above, never had any Chinese influence on it (OTOH, only China has a huge Indian influence in the form of Buddhism) etc. So, China is fearful of India that it can be the only spoilsport for its Middle Kingdom ambitions.

I do not therefore see a solution here by displaying piety. China will *NOT* relent. On its part, India realizes this, especially in the last few years, but one must admit that all governments since the 70s, have taken tough stands vis-a-vis China.

The Indian position seems to be to give back to China as much as it gets without holding back anything but at the same time not letting the situation go out of control. There is quite optimism too that if the situation does get out of control, we can manage it equally well; but, we don't want it to come to such a pass. China too does not want the situation to deteriorate beyond a point it considers as manageable. So, all the manouevering is within this space.

Thanks Sridhar. My worldview is limited to interactions with mainland chinese and their propaganda over Doklam and others and I may be wrong in my understanding but this is what I believe is the mainland chinese perspective.

"Sure, Buddhism is not home grown but it has now been sufficiently cooked and refined to suit chinese tastes and it is only one of the three strands of ethics to be followed. You don't have a claim to Buddhism more than Israel has to Christianity. Christianity as the worlds knows it, is European Christianity and the Jesus of Nazareth is a white guy with blue eyes and blond hair even though he was in reality a 'sand nigger' as the whites would call it. We control the buddhist councils and once the separatist Dalai Lama croaks our control will be complete. The temples in Colombo have my heroes as temple guardians. And, since I'm the real inheritor of Buddhism, beware we can claim Bodh Gaya, Lumbini etc to be added to China as well. Why, because Buddha was President Xi, a han in another incarnation. Tomorrow, we will make Google Maps display Bodh Gaya as contested territory just like the Diayou islands even if we haven't set foot on it in a 1000 years. Your school students and bureaucrats will then subconsciously use these maps in their homework and presentations and in 50 years we will be warning your President not to damage relations if he/she steps into Bodh Gaya. The Maoists in Bihar will gladly welcome our rule.

We don't understand why you wouldn't accept our vassalage, after all you have done that before, first to the turks and then to the Whites and still are. Maybe you need to be taught a lesson again and then you will fall in line after all you accepted foreign rule only after a fight. We don't want to do that for we are benevolent but don't test us. We have never been fully subjected to any foreign rule. The Yuan and the Qing, barbarians though they were realized the superiority of Chinese culture and assimilated and furthered Han interests. The Han doesn't celebrate the fall of the Qing at hands of Western forces, his humiliation was mine as well. We don't have our signage display English on top in a bigger font and then Mandarin in a smaller font like you do. Wherever we go, people bend to speak in Mandarin. You guys celebrate the british for defeating your own!

In World War 2, we fought under our own flag for our own, while you fought for neither your home or community. We believe your self rule is a sham because we believe Lutyens Delhi and South Mumbai is still an extension of the Western Powers. When you can accept and endure US sponsored Pakistani Terrorism for over 30 years and keeping running to Washington for peace and visas, you can endure the same when we replace the US. Why is that you find it acceptable western domination but not ours, we are of fair skin as well. Our only worry is that Lutyens and the West has 1.3 billion people at its disposal and they may use you as cannon fodder against us. They have done that in the past and we have not forgotten that"

[Arjun]

Serious crap man!! Why are we tolerating this patent nonsense?!

[Singha]

good writeup from the chinese pov.

after power, one desires to be loved, admired, be seen as cool and leave a legacy. like every street kid in the world has access to "I luv NYC" and "california" tshirts and caps but not to "I love peking" and "Najing" stuff. even the chinese who make the "I luv NYC" tshirts have not gotten to exporting their cheen pasand versions due to lack of market demand.

china does not lack in hard power, but its cultural and soft power is very limited. by the nature of its ruling regime, the kind of stuff like media, films, internet that can spread chinese soft power are rather constrained in what they can say and do. they can only purvey a sanitized version mainly historical dramas and not tackle modern themes for fear of censors. phones, washing machines and computers cannot project soft power the way books, advertising, films can.

also they will have to attract large and diverse body of immigrants both at elite and low skill levels to spread their mantra and sheen around the world , something america has done for 100s of years now and europe for a few decades. japan failed to do that and remained limited and opaque as a society to assimilate into or learn from.

india has no such problem and has been assimilating all comers for 1000s of years except oil droplets who consider themselves special. a wide swathe of societies in south america, africa and far east can easily understand our society and values and consume our films for instance. our cultures or religion do not hate the outsider, consider their paths inferior or have a khujli to impose our views or values on them. this is both a strength and a weakness. america demands that to really rise you assimilate , while permitting all sorts of freedoms, it is still a very white and christian values country at the core psyche levels.

[Agasthi]

seems outrageous, doesn't it. However, many of the mainlanders seem to have this view, don't know how prevalent this view is. A taiwanese colleague who is also a mandarin teacher translated some of these views from online and said this is what they think of you.

[Arjun]

Good writeup??

Some of the arguments in there are so stupid its not even worth a response !

Leave aside these asinine arguments, the reason that makes far more sense is simply that India will lose out in the race to dominate strategic industries and in the Science & Tech arms race to China. Any small disadvantage that China has in soft power will be more than made up by its lead in STEM which the world will start appreciating and respecting.

[ShauryaT]

This is - IMHO - the next big Chinese grab: Social ranking in China.

Step 1: Create a system to rank people - much like a credit score: Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens
Step 2: Create just enough uncertainity in how this raking is determined. So, people are not sure what they need to do to keep a high ranking. This ensure that the populations leans towards making sure they do nothing to make a mess of the ranking. So, population "behave" with minimal effort from the State. Smart I would say
Step 3: Those who do mess up - read tick off the State, are in some form publicly shamed. Jay walkers can have their faces plastered on a local bill board or the like.


What is scary is that China is trying to export this system abroad. We should expect it to appear in places like Pakistan. But the ranking system can appear in companies that China bought in the West!!! Go figure what can happen.

Not scary, normal for them. They have a ranking based bureaucratic model, with some 24 levels or such in the CPC hierarchy. They trace this system right back to Confucius days. They are proud of it and it works for them. It is a logical outcome of their system they call "Meritocracy". Social stratification based on individual merit is their guiding mantra. The fading days of western led "democracy" is here. They have never accepted the western social model, hence they will try to export their model, as the ideal. It is the definition of how they see themselves as the middle kingdom. That word needs to be interpreted in not just a geographical sense but in an ideological framework to compete with western democracy.

[shiv]

In World War 2, we fought under our own flag for our own, while you fought for neither your home or community. We believe your self rule is a sham because we believe Lutyens Delhi and South Mumbai is still an extension of the Western Powers. When you can accept and endure US sponsored Pakistani Terrorism for over 30 years and keeping running to Washington for peace and visas, you can endure the same when we replace the US. Why is that you find it acceptable western domination but not ours, we are of fair skin as well. Our only worry is that Lutyens and the West has 1.3 billion people at its disposal and they may use you as cannon fodder against us. They have done that in the past and we have not forgotten that"

That is a fascinating post.

To my mind it indicates everything that the Chinese "like to think" to show their superiority. In fact Pakistanis use very similar paradigms to assert their superiority over India. And if we scratch the surface the Europeans who colonized us (and Pakis) and played with the Chinese using opium also used similar self aggrandizing memes to feel good about themselves.

But these things don't mean much in geopolitical terms - especially when you look at a counter Indian viewpoint. Many nations/peoples make arguments that place them morally higher than everyone else - everyone places himself in an unassailable position citing his own uniqueness as his greatness. Hitler used similar self praising memes to create German pride - and that did cause a lot of trouble. So China could make trouble in that way. Pakistan is already doing that - a 3 million genocide in Bangladesh and Hindu/Sikh ethnocide. But we follow western leads too much to assert our own views.

It is possible to be equally scathing about China (or Pakistan) but we Indians are in the business of admiring China - and here I agree with the Chinese viewpoint that we allow the west to dominate the way we admire and fear China. We are still colonized in one way. China is colonized in a different way - they tacitly accept that the way of the west is the best and they copy the west in every way and after copying the west and beating them (or appearing to beat the west) they proclaim greatness. I do not see India aping the west 100% in its development as China does. And the fact that India does not ape the west or ape China in aping the west is what upsets some Indians about India. So the Chinese self-image is "debatable" to say the least.

Looked at in one way "Modi's India" is a massive decolonization exercise that makes Lutyens, and the Chinese wary, if not unhappy

[Singha]

What is scary is that China is trying to export this system abroad. We should expect it to appear in places like Pakistan. But the ranking system can appear in companies that China bought in the West!!! Go figure what can happen.

sections of the silicon valley and NYC financial elites , including a lot of indians who went there and bolted the gate behind them are very supportive of this, as they are holding the high ground for next few generations.

[ShauryaT]

Agasthi: I agree, you have summed up the Chinese view very well. Indian society is the anti-thesis of the Chinese, except for one area and that is both have strong family based practices and shared spiritual frameworks. One believes in centralization and homogeneity, the other in a federal structure and diversity. One responds to command and control, the other resists command and control even at the pain of death. China plays the rhetoric of Merit very well but is steeped in legacy-family connections like President Xi (Son of the Nine co-marchers of Mao). India is accused of Birth based caste but frequently throws political nobody like Mr. Modi to the fore.

All I will say now is, India has yet to find her own voice to lead herself in her own image. The Indian facade may look very western but is deeply connected to Indian mores. A Gandhi like leader can easily come and rekindle the spiritual spark in no time. We do have to find a way out to lead economically and solve the Industrial scaled manufacturing challenge, we face.

[Arjun]

If accepting 'Chinese domination' refers to Chinese domination in trade, business, science and technology - then it does makes sense! You can rest assured, Indians have no problem at all in accepting Chinese domination on these fronts and Modi and team are absolutely unlikely to do anything about it.

[chola]

“One believes in centralization and homogeneity, the other in a federal structure and diversity.”

I think we are missing the true challenge and danger of Cheen by insisting on a perceived notion of the PRC as something of an USSR.

But Cheen would not have been able to become what it is today, a mercantile trading and manufacturing power by being an insular, homogenous (in ideas, not race or ethnicity) and inflexible nation.

I posted this earlier in the thread. Cheen might be authoritarian government that can run roughshod over the masses but it is also an economy and society that sends millions of people into the world to learn (and copy) foreign trends and ideas. Because of that they are more global and cosmopolitan than we are by far, our greater diversity notwithstanding.

We are not dealing with an insular military power like the USSR that couldn’t keep up with the innovations of the West and collapsed trying. The PRC is a global trading power that, though a dictatorship, is an paradoxically a competitive and far more open society than the USSR. A country that sends more tourists and students into the world than anyone else in the world.

PRC doesn’t only copy the latest designs of the West, they learn and copy the latest techniques and theories as well.

Three stories to illustrate that we are dealing with a flexible nation that will be able to continue adapting to a changing world.

1) Arctic Silk Road Trade Routes, far sighted and opportunistic. If global warming is happening then take advantage of it to further expand Cheen’s trade empire:
http://www.newsweek.com/china-russia-ma ... oad-792490

2) Sending the world’s largest numbers of students to the developed world and then luring them back to Cheen to solidify seething business and science communities that are Western educated:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ljkelly/20 ... 4d96e45c1e

3) Open embracing of foreign culture and ideas which bodes well for a trading power that is flexible and comospolitan:
https://m.hindustantimes.com/bollywood/ ... SVRQM.html

For all our diversity, we will never see a movie top the Indian box office from Cheen or Pakistan our enemies. But the chini market have done exactly this with flicks from the US, Japan and now India. They are far more open to foreign trends and ideas than we are as a democracy.

Cheen is a combination of a dictatorship and a free market. It can drive initiatives with clear five-year plans but at the same time flexible enough to incorporate the latest techniques from the rest of the world.

This is not an USSR in the making. I have little faith that the PRC will simply collapse. It is too dynamic, too forward looking and too open to the outside world to stagnate.

Without any disruption such as a war, the trendlines point to a more and more modern, mercantile and global power.

[SSridhar]

SS sir, if China is fearful of India, China will relent and there would not be the kind of language they are using in their official communication either through Gober Times or by "kya hua".

China has a blind spot that is India. They think that India is much worse than Philippines in strength. They are not even ready to acknowledge that India could be a remote challenger. Even an acknowledgement to that effect could bring the CPC's downfall. They are very much convinced that it's very easy to break India into pieces. All their policies with respect to India is based on this assumption.

TK, you simply took the 'fearful' word out of context, I fear !

Any [cursory] China watcher knows the dismissive Chinese attitude towards India since the 1950s, the kind of arrogance they have exhibited and the abusive language they have employed against us.

Betweeen the 1950s and now, the gap between the two nations has only exponentially increased in favour of China. So, if the Chinese are dismissive & condescending about us, we may get annoyed but that would be more or less the truth. We are similarly dismissive towards Pakistan, though there is a qualitative difference between the two 'dismissive attitudes'.

But, that was not my point. I feel that this disdainful attitude towards us is carefully constructed to camouflage the Chinese thinking and anxiety. China will certainly not have a blindspot when a 6-tonne elephant is sitting just next to it. A person with inferiority complex behaves in this fashion and that is China's behaviour vis-a-vis us. Even if not exactly an inferiority complex, China wants to constantly remind itself and others and reassure its own people that India is several notches below. After all, the CPC needs to survive & prosper too. As you have yourself answered, "They are not even ready to acknowledge that India could be a remote challenger. Even an acknowledgement to that effect could bring the CPC's downfall."

I quote from an earlier post of mine.

The Chinese tendency to look down upon us comes from the realistic understanding that we are their greatest rival, if at all. So, the strategy was and has been to constantly snipe at us, put us down and paint us as meek etc. Chinese Empires had constantly dealt only with small countries and therefore an equally big country with equally impressive civilization disturb them.

They fed their people with these tales and because of the absolute state-control over all media, they effectively hide India's progress or incidents such as 1967 Nathu La or 1984 Sumdorong Chu. Or, even the Vietnam debacle to 'teach Vietnam a lesson'.

Any dent in such an India narrative would be detrimental to the carefully cultivated image internally of not only India but China too. Today, they cannot pull a bamboo curtain over flow of information as they used to do before. That's their problem.

[SSridhar]

My worldview is limited to interactions with mainland chinese and their propaganda over Doklam and others and I may be wrong in my understanding but this is what I believe is the mainland chinese perspective.

The mainland Chinese are so indoctrinated that even when thy are out of their country, they do not want to believe anything else. That is the power of cognitive dissonance. Their perspective that you have described below stems from this and can be easily challenged because almost the whole of it is nonsensical. Initially, I thought of ignoring this but the fun-part of it made me respond.

"Sure, Buddhism is not home grown but it has now been sufficiently cooked and refined to suit chinese tastes and it is only one of the three strands of ethics to be followed. You don't have a claim to Buddhism more than Israel has to Christianity. Christianity as the worlds knows it, is European Christianity and the Jesus of Nazareth is a white guy with blue eyes and blond hair even though he was in reality a 'sand nigger' as the whites would call it. We control the buddhist councils and once the separatist Dalai Lama croaks our control will be complete. The temples in Colombo have my heroes as temple guardians. And, since I'm the real inheritor of Buddhism, beware we can claim Bodh Gaya, Lumbini etc to be added to China as well. Why, because Buddha was President Xi, a han in another incarnation. Tomorrow, we will make Google Maps display Bodh Gaya as contested territory just like the Diayou islands even if we haven't set foot on it in a 1000 years. Your school students and bureaucrats will then subconsciously use these maps in their homework and presentations and in 50 years we will be warning your President not to damage relations if he/she steps into Bodh Gaya. The Maoists in Bihar will gladly welcome our rule.

Nobody would like to contest such delusions coming out of feverish delirium. Even this exhibition of insanity cannot hide the fact that Buddha was a blue-blooded Bharat-vasi, his thoughts grew out of Indian Hindu philosophy and his own experience, that Bodh Gaya is an Indian hinterland (unlike Senkaku/Diayou) etc. etc. China can occupy Lumbini in a few years' time but that too would be a post-facto event and cannot alter history, can it? China can expansively draw eleven dashes, reduce them to nine at its own sweet will but the international community doesn't buy a wee bit of its manufactured history. If it wants to defy UNCLOS, bilateral and multilateral agreements, conventions that it has signed etc., that is quite another matter. Is this even an argument that the Chinese are willing to put forward? That shows their complete bankruptcy.

We don't understand why you wouldn't accept our vassalage, after all you have done that before, first to the turks and then to the Whites and still are. Maybe you need to be taught a lesson again and then you will fall in line after all you accepted foreign rule only after a fight. We don't want to do that for we are benevolent but don't test us. We have never been fully subjected to any foreign rule. The Yuan and the Qing, barbarians though they were realized the superiority of Chinese culture and assimilated and furthered Han interests. The Han doesn't celebrate the fall of the Qing at hands of Western forces, his humiliation was mine as well. We don't have our signage display English on top in a bigger font and then Mandarin in a smaller font like you do. Wherever we go, people bend to speak in Mandarin. You guys celebrate the british for defeating your own!

If the Mongolians & Manchus were not foreigners, who were they? If they were 'assimilated' so were the Central Asian barbarians who came into Bharat. What is this 'Century of Humiliation' for which China wants to take its revenge? Signages in English & Mandarin are worthless to even discuss. Confucian & Hindu philosophies are vastly different (minor overlaps apart) and that reflects in the two nation-states in every sphere.

In World War 2, we fought under our own flag for our own, while you fought for neither your home or community. We believe your self rule is a sham because we believe Lutyens Delhi and South Mumbai is still an extension of the Western Powers. When you can accept and endure US sponsored Pakistani Terrorism for over 30 years and keeping running to Washington for peace and visas, you can endure the same when we replace the US. Why is that you find it acceptable western domination but not ours, we are of fair skin as well. Our only worry is that Lutyens and the West has 1.3 billion people at its disposal and they may use you as cannon fodder against us. They have done that in the past and we have not forgotten that"

In WW II, the British Indian Army fought with valour all over the world. What did the Chinese achieve? Nothing, absolutely nothing on their own. Besides, it is utterly wrong to claim that India fought under the occupying British. The INC, the only predominant and widespread political force in India at that time, refused to support the British war efforts. It is also wrong to claim that Indians did not fight against the British. The INA did that magnificently.

As for cannon-fodder, it was Mao who was quite willing to use his own people as cannon fodder if a nuclear war broke out. It was Mao's fanatical ego that led to the genocide of a hundred million of his own people in a mad Great Leap and then the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese-supported Khmer killed millions of its own people in Cambodia later. They continue to kill thousands in Tibet & Xinjiang to this day. The Chinese have absolutely no moral authority to talk about 'cannon fodder'.

[TKiran]

SS sir, that is what exactly I was trying to say (rather differ with your opinion)

What you are saying is that even though they say something in public, actually they take India seriously as they acknowledge internally that India is a formidable challenger.

What I am saying is that they don't have any such notion that India could be a potential challenger even remotely. Actually they make a mistake of wrongly considering our genuinely peaceful intents as our weakness as they are absolutely convinced that India is a very fragile country and weak and can be cooked very easily. All their policies are framed based on this assumption when it comes to India.

This is where Last year's Doklam incident is significant. It would have lead to war for sure if we prolonged the incident without giving them a face saver. But it was once again reinforcing their belief that India is really weak. They didn't learn any lesson from Doklam.

[SSridhar]

I got no response in the ChiMil thread

Anyone with any insight into this? The dame pronounces Cheeni names better than me.
http://www.wionews.com/videos/wion-grav ... china-7969

shiv, for far too long, which is to say from Mao's days, the Chinese President had to constantly keep looking over his shoulder to ensure that the PLA was not up to some mischief or other.

Mao had to eliminate Gen. Lin Biao, the most influential Chinese General ever (in fact, he was the one who devised and led the Long March while an ordinary Mao took credit later on), through a supposed aircrash in remote Inner Mongolia. Gen. Lin Biao was the second in hierarchy after Mao and had stood solidly behind Mao when voices grew against him after the Cultural Revolution. It was with his support that Mao consolidated his position. But, the General was totally opposed to the detente with the US and the top Generals of the PLA rallied around him. A coup was most probably in the offing when his aircraft 'conveniently' crashed.

There is a widespread thought that the September 2014 intrusion by the PLA, just weeks before the first state visit by Xi to India, into Chumar was undertaken by the PLA unauthorisedly. In fact, on the day Xi arrived 100 more PLA troops joined the intrusion. At the same time, a number of Chinese civilians (Chinese nomads known as ‘Rebos’) assisted by the PLA intruded 500 metres into Demchok. Simultaneously, the PLAN was very active in the IOR and the Indian Navy was closely monitoring the PLAN. Just a week prior to the arrival of Xi in India in September 2014, a PLAN Song-class diesel submarine docked at the Colombo Container terminal, a terminal constructed with Chinese help. Immediately after his September 2014 visit to India, which was marred by the twin intrusions of the PLA, the Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed the PLA and told them " Headquarters of PLA forces must have absolute loyalty and firm faith in the Communist Party of China, guarantee a smooth chain of command and make sure all decisions from the central leadership are fully implemented”. Immediately thereafter, General Fang Fenghui, Chief of Joint Staff, said in a statement that all PLA forces follow the instructions of President Xi. Some interpreted that President Xi was unhappy that his instructions to the PLA to stand-off at the LAC were not obeyed. In the recently concluded 18th CPC Congress, the Party's control over PLA was greatly increased thereby throwing enough hints about the internal situation within the armed forces.

In 2015, Xi assumed overall command of the armed forces as the Chief of CMC (Central Military Commission) and ordered a reduction in the strength of the PLA, promising to absorb the cashiered employees in the police force. This has not happened. There is widespread resentment in the army since then.

Then Xi also ordered a complete revamp of the PLA. In January 2016, the PLA’s four powerful headquarters were abolished and their functions spread into 15 agencies under the CMC, a move widely seen as a decentralisation of power at the top echelons of the military leadership. A month later, in February 2016, the existing seven military regions (known as da jun qu in Mandarin) in Beijing, Shenyang, Nanjing, Jinan, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Lanzhou were regrouped into five theatre commands. A number of Generals, well entrenched, should have felt earth slipping under their feet.

In the 19th Congress of the Party, Xi also revamped the CMC reducing its strength from 11 to 8. The three service chiefs were excluded though the Rocket Force Chief (the fourth service line that Xi introduced in 2016) was in. Just weeks before the 19th Congress, Xi had ousted the topmost CMC General (next only to Xi who is, of course, the Commander), Gen. Fang Fenghui, along with his deputy, Gen. Zhang Yang (who was the Director of the military’s Political Work Department), who were both members of the CMC, on charges of corruption. The three deputies of Zhang Yang were also removed from the list of over 300 PLA delegates to the 19th CPC Congress. Gen. Fang Fenghui’s removal as PLA Chief happened on the same day as the Doka La stand-off with India came to an end triggering off speculation that the stand-off might have earned the General the displeasure of Xi Jinping. It is worth recalling that before Fang was elevated as PLA Chief, he was the Commander of the Chengdu Military Region which was responsible for India borders.

[DavidD]

SS sir, if China is fearful of India, China will relent and there would not be the kind of language they are using in their official communication either through Gober Times or by "kya hua".

China has a blind spot that is India. They think that India is much worse than Philippines in strength. They are not even ready to acknowledge that India could be a remote challenger. Even an acknowledgement to that effect could bring the CPC's downfall. They are very much convinced that it's very easy to break India into pieces. All their policies with respect to India is based on this assumption.

TK, you simply took the 'fearful' word out of context, I fear !

Any [cursory] China watcher knows the dismissive Chinese attitude towards India since the 1950s, the kind of arrogance they have exhibited and the abusive language they have employed against us.

Betweeen the 1950s and now, the gap between the two nations has only exponentially increased in favour of China. So, if the Chinese are dismissive & condescending about us, we may get annoyed but that would be more or less the truth. We are similarly dismissive towards Pakistan, though there is a qualitative difference between the two 'dismissive attitudes'.

But, that was not my point. I feel that this disdainful attitude towards us is carefully constructed to camouflage the Chinese thinking and anxiety. China will certainly not have a blindspot when a 6-tonne elephant is sitting just next to it. A person with inferiority complex behaves in this fashion and that is China's behaviour vis-a-vis us. Even if not exactly an inferiority complex, China wants to constantly remind itself and others and reassure its own people that India is several notches below. After all, the CPC needs to survive & prosper too. As you have yourself answered, "They are not even ready to acknowledge that India could be a remote challenger. Even an acknowledgement to that effect could bring the CPC's downfall."

I quote from an earlier post of mine.

The Chinese tendency to look down upon us comes from the realistic understanding that we are their greatest rival, if at all. So, the strategy was and has been to constantly snipe at us, put us down and paint us as meek etc. Chinese Empires had constantly dealt only with small countries and therefore an equally big country with equally impressive civilization disturb them.

They fed their people with these tales and because of the absolute state-control over all media, they effectively hide India's progress or incidents such as 1967 Nathu La or 1984 Sumdorong Chu. Or, even the Vietnam debacle to 'teach Vietnam a lesson'.

Any dent in such an India narrative would be detrimental to the carefully cultivated image internally of not only India but China too. Today, they cannot pull a bamboo curtain over flow of information as they used to do before. That's their problem.

That's a way too India-centric view of Chinese thinking. China has been dismissive of India because India has been dismissable. As India gains in power and stature, China has begun to pay more attention to India. I don't know why some of you think a nation/people should get any more respect than it earns. An earlier post noted the lack of "I love Beijing" T-shirts compared to "I love NYC". China's GDP per capita is similar to Mexico's, why would a nation at this stage of development garner any international admiration? "I love Beijing" is as ludicrous as "I love Mexico City". There is no grand conspiracy to put down India, the lack of attention is because the average Indian's wealth is somewhere between that of a Cambodian and a Filipino.

As India's development rapidly gains pace, that'll change. It's already changing. You see a lot more talk about India from China both in official channels and on the grassroots level today than compared to say 10 years ago.

As an aside, the similar India-centric view seems to be applied to China's OBOR strategy. I see many accuse China of attempting to surround India with its OBOR developments, but that's really like accusing the water in the Indian Ocean trying to surround Sri Lanka. China is trying to spread out its influence in all directions, India just happens to be a rock that's trying not to buy in. That's not a critique on Indian policy, just a different perspective on Chinese actions.

[pankajs]

My worldview is limited to interactions with mainland chinese and their propaganda over Doklam and others and I may be wrong in my understanding but this is what I believe is the mainland chinese perspective.

The mainland Chinese are so indoctrinated that even when thy are out of their country, they do not want to believe anything else. That is the power of cognitive dissonance. Their perspective that you have described below stems from this and can be easily challenged because almost the whole of it is nonsensical. Initially, I thought of ignoring this but the fun-part of it made me respond.

To expand ...

1) Buddhism [even with Chinese characteristics] is imported.
2) Marxism [even with Chinese characteristics] is imported.
3) Communism [even with Chinese characteristics] is imported.
4) Capitalism [even with Chinese characteristics] is imported.

Their internal culture was systematically destroyed under Mao's Cultural Revolution that had at its core the goal of destroying the "Four Olds [Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas]". Not to say that they have nothing left of the own culture e.g. their language is their own and Confucianism still very very influential but a lot of what forms the bedrock of their current society and culture is imported.

[SSridhar]

SS sir, that is what exactly I was trying to say (rather differ with your opinion)

TK ji, I also differ completely with your opinion and that's what I have said in so many words.

[chola]

1) Buddhism [even with Chinese characteristics] is imported.
2) Marxism [even with Chinese characteristics] is imported.
3) Communism [even with Chinese characteristics] is imported.
4) Capitalism [even with Chinese characteristics] is imported.

Only the last one makes them a global power. The first three are irrelevant (Buddhism) or a hindrance (Marxism, Communism) and are rapidly being discarded — from their economy and I assume their day to day society judging from consumption patterns.

They import even newer trends and ideas with wild abandon as well. It prove an advantage to them.

[SSridhar]

That's a way too India-centric view of Chinese thinking. China has been dismissive of India because India has been dismissable.

I am saying that the gap is widening rapidly, that one can understand the dismissive attitude of China and that we have a similar attitude towards Pakistan etc. I am not too sure how what I have said is India-centric, by which I understand that you are meaning India-partial. I am not sure if similar Chinese thinking about India would be dismissed as way too China-centric.

I don't know why some of you think a nation/people should get any more respect than it earns. An earlier post noted the lack of "I love Beijing" T-shirts compared to "I love NYC". China's GDP per capita is similar to Mexico's, why would a nation at this stage of development garner any international admiration? "I love Beijing" is as ludicrous as "I love Mexico City". There is no grand conspiracy to put down India, the lack of attention is because the average Indian's wealth is somewhere between that of a Cambodian and a Filipino.

I don't think the discussion here is about any lack of attention or a grand conspiracy to put India down. OTOH, the discussion is about *the kind of attention* that China is paying to India.

As India's development rapidly gains pace, that'll change. It's already changing. You see a lot more talk about India from China both in official channels and on the grassroots level today than compared to say 10 years ago.

China has never stopped paying considerable attention to India since the 1950s.

As an aside, the similar India-centric view seems to be applied to China's OBOR strategy. I see many accuse China of attempting to surround India with its OBOR developments, but that's really like accusing the water in the Indian Ocean trying to surround Sri Lanka. China is trying to spread out its influence in all directions, India just happens to be a rock that's trying not to buy in. That's not a critique on Indian policy, just a different perspective on Chinese actions.

I am sure that Indian policies in South China Sea or elsewhere are similarly viewed by the 'relevant' {a Chinese Foreign Ministry fetish word} parties. Unfortunately, China too, like India, feels that Indian actions are inimical to it.

[Arjun]

China wouldn't be consorting and actively propping up a dead-beat nation like Pakistan if not for the fairly considerable 'attention' it has been paying to blocking India over the decades

If anything - they have been paying far more attention to India's rise than most Indians do

[shiv]

China has been dismissive of India because India has been dismissable.

Not sure how to put this.

China's dismissiveness about India is seen, at one level as a surprising example of Chinese dumbness about the way China is heading. And while the Chinese viewpoint is at least partially right in assessing much of India's intellectual and governing structures as copies of western constructs, what is missing from the Chinese viewpoint is that at its core India does not buy into a western model in the same way that China appears to have sold itself to the western model.

There is a curious parallel between India and China here. With India apparently adhering to western constructs of freedom and democracy, and China running after the greed and environmental degradation and using coercion to end up building what appears to be a "Developed western country" while claiming to be "different". To an extent this appears fraudulent to Indians. Of course the easiest way for Indians to mock China is to rubbish Chinese claims of development by pointing out the blatant aping of the west, the need for western admiration and the fact that this is being done by coercion.

Funnily enough and I don't know for sure here. Maybe the Chinese as a people are willing to submit to coercion. Indians simply do not. Pakistanis are a great example of how Indians behave when coerced. They will do exactly what they please even at the risk of being mocked as poor and primitive and staying underdeveloped. To use a commonly cited example -"khap panchayats" in India are a problem because rights in India are implemented in a way that is unique to India. India is not a democracy of individuals (which is the way the west and westernized Indians imagine). India is a democracy of small groups. Village level power to make local laws can work against the national laws and coercion is simply not encouraged. The local communities are allowed to protest and fight and law enforcers do not have an automatic right to coerce. In other words the "freedom" that Chinese mock in India is valued as a fundamental right in India and Indians only feel disgust or horror at the way things are done in China. Oh yes there is an undercurrent of admiration of China - but no one is going to use Chinese methods. And these are not "western constructs" - because ancient Indian laws demand that the head of state (ruler) must follow local laws when he is visiting a local area. That is how local democracy is implemented in India. The king must submit to local practices. That is why vast areas of India see only slow change. Invasions have not changed them and that is a matter of pride and no one gives a rats ass if some Chinese are mocking. Mocking is easy, and is usually done by people who need to feel better about themselves, and cannot feel contentment in themselves despite boasting and bluster. That is the Indian way.

[Agasthi]

Thanks guys for your comments, a range of emotions on those views! These views along with the derisive language employed by chinese media and the racist videos lends credence that these views are fairly widespread and given the top-down nature of chinese polity, these views are sure to be held at the top as well although how prevalent these are among influential chinese is not known. China is a revisionist state and it has two crackpots serving as side kicks. Such views have led to great suffering in Europe and the nukes sound like a great investment. We seem to be thinking China in a way of what it ought to think about India. In my opinion, if this is how china sees itself and the world, we cant change it nor dismiss such views but we should develop strategies to counter or co-opt china for our own betterment.

Now this is not a chinese view, but a question from I. Why do a lot of indians keeping harping on Buddhism? How is it relevant? It is a big turn off for them and faith is really not a big thing for them anyway as it is in the subcontinent. They seem to love money a lot more than anything else. It seems that their traditional new year greeting translates to "May you have a lot of money".

If the Mongolians & Manchus were not foreigners, who were they? If they were 'assimilated' so were the Central Asian barbarians who came into Bharat. What is this 'Century of Humiliation' for which China wants to take its revenge? Signages in English & Mandarin are worthless to even discuss. Confucian & Hindu philosophies are vastly different (minor overlaps apart) and that reflects in the two nation-states in every sphere.

The Mongolian and Manchus were foreigners but they and their lands are now part of China. Of course a part of Mongolia got away but it is now part of their sphere of influence. When Mongolia wanted our help what did we do? In the end, they had to give in to China. China's traditional border was the Great Wall, but now its borders go beyond that. The Dzungar mongols of today's Xinjiang who did not submit were eliminated to the last man. North Xinjiang was called Dzungaria, that is history but nobody uses the name in the present. If we did a good assimilation of Central Asian Barbarians, we would not have Afghanistan, Pakistan & Bangladesh. And, Pakistan wishes that we were dead.

[Singha]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_genocide

The Qianlong Emperor's orders[edit]

Qianlong Emperor
The Qianlong Emperor issued the following orders, as translated by Peter C. Perdue:[9]

Show no mercy at all to these rebels. Only the old and weak should be saved. Our previous military campaigns were too lenient. If we act as before, our troops will withdraw, and further trouble will occur.

If a rebel is captured and his followers wish to surrender, he must personally come to the garrison, prostrate himself before the commander, and request surrender. If he only send someone to request submission, it is undoubtedly a trick. Tell Tsengünjav to massacre these crafty Zunghars. Do not believe what they say.

Qianlong issued his orders multiple times as some of his officers were reluctant to carry them out. Some were punished for sparing Dzungars and allowing them to flee, such as Agui and Hadada, while others who participated in the slaughter were rewarded like Tangkelu and Zhaohui (Jaohui).[9][10]

Young Dzungar men were especially singled out by the Emperor. Loyalist Khalkhas received Dzungar Khoit women as slaves from Chebudengzhabu, and orders to deprive the starving Dzungars of food were issued. Manchu Bannermen and loyalist Mongols received Dzungars women, children, and old men as bondservants, and their Dzungar identity was wiped out.[9][11] Orders were given to "completely exterminate" the Dzungar tribes, and the genocide left Dzungaria mostly depopulated.[12]

The Emperor saw no conflict between his order of extermination and upholding the peaceful principles of Confucianism. He supported his position by portraying the Dzungars as barbarians and subhuman. The Qianlong Emperor proclaimed that "to sweep away barbarians is the way to bring stability to the interior", that the Dzungars "turned their back on civilization", and "Heaven supported the emperor," in their destruction.[13][14]

Genocide[edit]
The Qianlong Emperor moved the remaining Dzungar people to other places in China. He ordered the generals to kill all the Dzungar men in Barkol or Suzhou, and divided their wives and children among the Qing soldiers.[15][16] In his account of the war, Qing scholar Wei Yuan, wrote that about 50% of the Dzungar households were killed by smallpox, 20% fled to Russia or the Kazakh Khanate, and 30% were killed by the army, leaving no yurts in an area for several thousand li, except those of the surrendered.[1][17][18][19][20] Clarke wrote 80%, or between 480,000 and 600,000 people, were killed between 1755 and 1758 in what "amounted to the complete destruction of not only the Dzungar state but of the Dzungars as a people."[1][21] 80% of the Dzungars died in the genocide.[22]

Qing Bannermen and Mongol cavalry made up the initial expeditionary army. As the campaigns progressed, tens of thousands of Green Standard infantrymen were also brought in.[23] The men, women and children of the Dzungars were all slaughtered by Manchu soldiers according to Russian accounts.[24] It was not until generations later that the population of Dzungaria began to rebound.[25]

Historian Peter Perdue has shown that the destruction of the Dzungars was the result of an explicit policy of extermination launched by the Qianlong Emperor,[1] Perdue attributed it to a "deliberate use of massacre" and has described it as an "ethnic genocide".[26] Although it has been largely ignored by modern scholars,[1] historian Mark Levene[27] wrote that the extermination of the Dzungars was "arguably the eighteenth century genocide par excellence."[28] According to the Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity, Volume 3, under Article II of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Qianlong Emperor's actions against the Dzungars constitute genocide, as he massacred the vast majority of the Dzungar population and enslaved or banished the remainder, and had "Dzungar culture" extirpated and destroyed.[29]

[Singha]

fits in with the periodic convulsions that china experiences, in each one a few millions(sometimes more) have to die, for the rest to march forward...

arachnid societies function in this top down, uncaring of casualties or side effects manner, overwhelming by sheer numbers , discipline and goal-orientation once the fire ants and locusts start the long march.

Sinic and Islamist societies seem to be kindred brothers, no wonder they get along quite well

[Philip]

Treat China today as the 21st century's Asian version of the Nazi party.Their recently anointed "Fuhrer", is a megalomaniac who wants the world to kowtow to it.The disgusting spectacle of British PM one T.May on a visit now dressed in her best mandarin red, like a vassal paying tribute-she should've worn royal blue instead,must've tickled the Chins no end at how she has humiated herself and her country.

Keep the Chins out of India at arms length, impose huge tariffs on all Chin goods and issue only stapled visas to the few whom we allow to enter India.Also warn all Indian cos. who want to invest in China that they do so at their own risk and that any goods brought back to India will face the same stiff duties.The $60B trade deficit is crushing the Indian economy.I cannot understand why the Modi regime is doing nothing about redressing the situ and kowtowing to China economically.

[TKiran]

For 30 years since USSR collapsed US has been sole super power but was not prepared for such a role and nurtured a snake PRC, and now for all practical purposes US has reduced itself to second rate power, self inflicted pain upon itself. Lack of experience in maintaining it's leadership role and still obsessed with Russia.

That leaves only two powers that have traditionally been the world leaders for millennia together India and China, with China leading a little more than India.

This fact is not sinking into many who are still stuck to the idea that somehow US could still come back and take the lead. But that's not gonna happen and China is the first country to recognize that fact in 2008. But China could not recognize that it can't be a sole super power, India is going to challenge and slowly but steadily is going to dominate the world without causing any other nation to feel threatened.

They wrongly read India's patience with Pakistan as weakness, they didn't understand that India considers Pakistan as the 'Pakistan' for India, Han didn't understand that in India we keep 'Pakistan' outside our house because it stinks but we still have claim to sovereignty over Pakistan.

Doklam is just a jhalak to China. I thought China would come to it's senses but alas, baaz nahin aaya. But we need to create more Doklam's. That is the only thing pending with India.

The most likely scenario in the next decade and a quarter is that by 2030 India would catch up with China and because of frustration China would tempt to provoke India and gets cut to it's size.

If India is really interested to avoid such situation and let China continue to exist as it is today, India should start demanding to China to show respect it deserves. As Panchatantra says, two equally powerful nations can co-exist if both of them see each other as equals.

The onus is on China to show respect to India, and it is the responsibility of India to make it clear to China that whenever China acts inimical to India's interests, India is going to precipitate the situation to either choose to fight or risk getting cut. Though military is showing its teeth, it's time our politicians and MEA to be more assertive so that our magnanimity towards our own 'Pakistan' is not our weakness.

[DavidD]

That's a way too India-centric view of Chinese thinking. China has been dismissive of India because India has been dismissable.

I am saying that the gap is widening rapidly, that one can understand the dismissive attitude of China and that we have a similar attitude towards Pakistan etc. I am not too sure how what I have said is India-centric, by which I understand that you are meaning India-partial. I am not sure if similar Chinese thinking about India would be dismissed as way too China-centric.

I don't know why some of you think a nation/people should get any more respect than it earns. An earlier post noted the lack of "I love Beijing" T-shirts compared to "I love NYC". China's GDP per capita is similar to Mexico's, why would a nation at this stage of development garner any international admiration? "I love Beijing" is as ludicrous as "I love Mexico City". There is no grand conspiracy to put down India, the lack of attention is because the average Indian's wealth is somewhere between that of a Cambodian and a Filipino.

I don't think the discussion here is about any lack of attention or a grand conspiracy to put India down. OTOH, the discussion is about *the kind of attention* that China is paying to India.

As India's development rapidly gains pace, that'll change. It's already changing. You see a lot more talk about India from China both in official channels and on the grassroots level today than compared to say 10 years ago.

China has never stopped paying considerable attention to India since the 1950s.

As an aside, the similar India-centric view seems to be applied to China's OBOR strategy. I see many accuse China of attempting to surround India with its OBOR developments, but that's really like accusing the water in the Indian Ocean trying to surround Sri Lanka. China is trying to spread out its influence in all directions, India just happens to be a rock that's trying not to buy in. That's not a critique on Indian policy, just a different perspective on Chinese actions.

I am sure that Indian policies in South China Sea or elsewhere are similarly viewed by the 'relevant' {a Chinese Foreign Ministry fetish word} parties. Unfortunately, China too, like India, feels that Indian actions are inimical to it.

By India-centric I mean you interpret actions by China as targeting India, when it's simply an ordinary action taken by China toward any state of India's stature. It's like a rude black customer thinking he was mistreated by the waiter because he's black, rather than because he's rude. To put it more clearly, China had been dismissive toward India because India had been poor, not because of some nefarious plan to keep India down.

Whether you feel China has been paying considerable attention to India is irrelevant, what's relevant is that the attention being paid is more now because India is no longer as weak or poor.

[Arjun]

If China had been dismissive of India and not paying any attention to it given its poverty - that indeed would have been good for India! Unfortunately, geopolitical moves by China since the 1950s are completely contrary to that misinformed 'lay' Chinese person opinion.

In fact, there was a very good video posted a few pages back on this thread which had a panel discussion among American experts & historians on China- India relations. The American expert consistently expresses surprise at the amount of attention and paranoia China has been exhibiting towards India right from the days of Independence.

[Arjun]

History of India China relations from an American historian who has spent time wading through all the historical Chinese govt archives