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

[kit]

harassment is a mind game .. how you deal with it is the matter

[nam]

Unkil currently owns all three so we need to keep that in mind and that fact is key to understanding why cheen is in the IOR. The Western Pacific is barred to Cheen by the USN and its allies on the first island chain. Cheen’s strategic outlet is therefore open only to the west.

Unkil is able to patrol the globe due to it's support bases and allies log share agreements. it has barred other nations from it's shores by not allowing similar agreements for it's rivals with neighboring countries.

Chini has no such agreements so it is not able to patrol US Atlantic and deep Pacific.

The funny part is, given that we have logistics agreement with US, we can technically deploy and patrol Atlantic and Pacific with supplies from US mainland !

[Prem]

Agreed, Nam ji. That is the viewpoint I want to advocate. The USN didn’t stop them so the PLAN won’t stop us.
BI would say, do our best to get to the 5 trillion GDP. Given our friends Pak & Chini will make sure we are under threat and invest in tech.
If you compare with Chini, they were similar to our GDP around 2006-07. They didn't even have a carrier. We are building our own. Investing in hypersonic. Chinis waited till they were closer to 5-7 trillion before throwing money. So in another 5 years, we will be closer to that magic figure, we will automatically become one of the top dog. \
IOR for us, Pacific for the Chinis, Atlantic for Uncle Sam.

NO Guarantee that China is actually 12 T economy. Experts have disputed these numbers. IMHO, even Our economic equation will be balanced under a decade.

[nam]

NO Guarantee that China is actually 12 T economy. Experts have disputed these numbers. IMHO, even Our economic equation will be balanced under a decade.

12 or 2 , what matters is what a country can produce and how much it can produce. This is the reason Russia is a superpower with 1.5.

Similarly I don't under estimate China, as they have tremendous manufacturing capabilities. And people willing to work hard to produce.

[SSridhar]

International Relations theory certainly talks of such normative ones as 'balance of power', 'spheres of influence' etc. Chanakya's mandala theory is actually about managing 'spheres of influence'. The 'sphere of influence' acts as the first line of defence for a large state politically, economically and militarily. Most often than not, at least in modern times, countries do not go to war to establish these norms in their regions of interest. In our own case, the Colonial British going to disastrous wars in Afghanistan to establish its sphere in India's west was perhaps the last time a country went to war to do so.

China is challenging the existing norm in what we consider as our region, extending from Hormuz & Cape to Melaka & Sunda/Lambok. China may have, what it considers as valid reasons for doing so, but we consider it as a threat to our interests. It uses coercive & cunning diplomacy, alluring baits, show of force and all such tools of diplomacy to achieve its purpose. So far, and especially after c. 2004, the powers-that-be have recognized IN as the net provider of security in IOR. The Chinese with their projection of PLAN here, want to slowly but surely snatch that status from India. They have used several ruses such as anti-piracy operation, building ports, mutual naval exercises etc to expand their presence as their naval capabilities, experience, logistics and confidence grew.

It is this likely erosion in our influence in our own backyard that we are most worried about at present. That is why mission-mode deployments of IN task forces are taking place now, we are feverishly getting port accesses in the region, Op. Milan recently included Vietnam (and China forced Maldives to drop out of Milan), Chinese task force came up to Sunda but were forced to go back hastily,P-8Is are constantly on the prowl, India willingly signed a LEMOA-like agreement with the French Navy etc. There won't be a war but the intensity of the cat-and-mouse game will increase a great deal. Unfortunately for us, we neglected our Navy for far too long and there must be a mission-mode modernization, capacity-buildup now.

[TKiran]

What is often ignored is the consequences of letting China do so, by saying that India will raise nevertheless.

The consequences are
1. India would become a market for China.
2. India would become a state which depends on China for import of Ganesha Murthys.
3. India would depend on China for spare parts of its imported shiny fighter aircrafts and shipping industry.
4. India would become dependent on CPEC.
5. India would become home for Bangladeshis and Rohingya, and second partition of India would take place
6. The North East states would be annexed to China.

India would raise nevertheless, and become 12 trillion dollar economy, with all the poverty intact by 2030

[panduranghari]

NO Guarantee that China is actually 12 T economy. Experts have disputed these numbers. IMHO, even Our economic equation will be balanced under a decade.

12 or 2 , what matters is what a country can produce and how much it can produce. This is the reason Russia is a superpower with 1.5.

Similarly I don't under estimate China, as they have tremendous manufacturing capabilities. And people willing to work hard to produce.

It matters. How can it not?

You take a party out for lunch as you wish to do a business deal. You pay for this lunch -say £100. This is an expense. It should reduce your end of the year profits by £100 as it should normally go into the liability side of the balance sheet. Because you spent this as an expense, not an capital investment. If you make a capital investment and invest in your business (which is say computer factory) the same £100, the end of the year profits should not change as £100 went into the asset side of the balance sheet. This computer factory contributes to the GDP.

You also have another factory producing typewriters. You spend, then spend again and later spend some more on this and inventory piles up but no one is buying these typewriters. The production of these typewriters is also contributing towards GDP. In a normal situtation this business should shut down. Its a loss leader. But what if its not shut down? What if it stops producing typewriters and inventory is built up occupying a few godowns? However the catch is the investment is not written down i.e. put down as a loss? What if this is still shown as asset 5 or 10 or in case of China 25 years down the line? This is breaking the international norms and standards. The Chinese might very well be hard working and they can produce, but produce what for whom at what price and profitability matters a lot.

Chinese GDP is probably 1 to 2 % range. And all that appears at the moment is the debt fueled binge which means the productive capacity of the future Chinese nationals has been brought into the present. The future Chinese nations are going to be impoverished as all this HAS to be paid back. Those who invest in China will get back their investments (if capital flight is allowed) in nominal terms. In real terms, they wont - the demographic trend is very poor. Demographics IS destiny. AI is not here yet. We can reconsider after that.

[chola]

You also have another factory producing typewriters. You spend, then spend again and later spend some more on this and inventor piles up but no one is buying these typewriters.

As much as I would like to think the PRC is spending money it doesn’t have, financials simply doesn’t work that way.

If inventory is piling up and no one is buying then how do they get the capital to buy the raw materials, pay the workers and warehouse the inventory? You would answer that in the only way you could with your premise — they get it from the government or government controlled banks.

But where does the government gets its money? From taxes or by printing paper.

Giving tax revenues to money losing schemes can only work in wealthy nations where one region or industry can be taxed to subsidize another. If China could do that then it is wealthy already. Print money? The only countries that can print money with wild abandon are the most highly developed ones like the US, EU and Japan. Everyone else, even Russia, goes into hyperinflation. Again if Cheen could do that then it is wealthy already.

The sad truth is most countries (including ALL third world ones) cannot print enough paper for even needed projects without going into hyperinflation first. That is why poverty is so prevalent around the world. And this is why so many of them are going to Cheen for loans.

So just saying Cheen has debt is a simple but false argument because it takes great wealth in the first place to be able to loan yourself (and others, in China’s case) that money.

Money cannot magically appear for a government to provide debt to money losing endeavors. If Cheen is building out a 100+ blue-water surface fleet and still has another couple of trillions to throw at OBOR then their economy has to be able to support it.

[Chandragupta]

Why are we doubting Chinese economy? Everything we use today is being made in China. I think Chola guru posted some stats about consumption of passenger vehicles, consumer electronics etc in China being 10x that of India. Anyone who has gone and visited Chinese cities can see the 1st world infrastructure they have built. They are wealthy, no question about that.

Chola guru if you have those stats pls do post again.

[TKiran]

When we are subsidizing China with 60B$ each year, they suarly can do a CPEC every year.

[pankajs]

What is often ignored is the consequences of letting China do so, by saying that India will raise nevertheless.

The consequences are
1. India would become a market for China. [India is a market for Xina. True.]
2. India would become a state which depends on China for import of Ganesha Murthys. [That India does]
3. India would depend on China for spare parts of its imported shiny fighter aircrafts and shipping industry. [Which imported shiny fighter aircraft has its supply chain in Xina?]
4. India would become dependent on CPEC. [Spin does not change facts. It is Xina that is pleading with India to join CPEC. India can survive without CPEC.]
5. India would become home for Bangladeshis and Rohingya, and second partition of India would take place. [Bangladesh and Burma I can understand BUT Bangladeshis and Rohingya in India China thread!!? ]
6. The North East states would be annexed to China. [Ah .. the classic 50cent line. Dream of every commie/Jihadi. True color on display.]

India would raise nevertheless, and become 12 trillion dollar economy, with all the poverty intact by 2030

Start with a reasonable statement but progressively starts myth building. The line on CPEC is the classic giveaway and it is downhill from there. The last 2 points have nothing to do with the present thread of discussion.

India will nevertheless rise to become a 8-10 trillion economy by 2030 Xina not withstanding. There will still be poverty in India just as there still is poverty in Xina even when it is a 12 trillion economy. Have no fear.

[shiv]

Good one:
https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... nt/554795/

David Frum: A decade ago, you broke ranks with almost all conventional China expertise and predicted that the People’s Republic would not successfully transition toward true economic and political freedom. Why were so many people so wrong? These were knowledgeable and intelligent people. What misled them so badly?

Minxin Pei: I would say many people were too dazzled by the superficial changes, especially economic changes, to realize that the Communist Party’s objective is to stay in power, not to reform itself out of existence. Economic reform or, to be more exact, adopting some capitalist practices and embracing market in some areas, is only a means to a political end. In fact, Deng Xiaoping made it crystal clear when he started the reform, but unfortunately many observers, including China-watchers, failed to read him correctly. They have made other mistakes as well. For example, they overlooked the nature of the Chinese regime. It is not your garden-variety dictatorship, but a successor to a totalitarian regime. It is both far more ruthless and determined to protect its power than an average dictatorship and far more capable of doing so.

Pei: I was following mainly China’s political change at that time. The puzzle people like me were grappling with was whether economic reform was leading to political change. The trend starting in the late 1990s showed divergence between economic progress and political change. While China was getting richer, its political system exhibited signs of stagnation. So I wondered what was the real cause and whether autocratic politics could infect economic reform. My conclusion was that China by the early 2000s reached the sweet spot for its one-party state. Its economic reform was half-complete but had already delivered enough political benefits for it to retain legitimacy. It could use the growing economic resources to strengthen its repressive capacity to defend its political monopoly. It does not want to reform the economy further because doing so would also risk losing control over the economy and all the benefits it can generate for the party. So there is a hard limit to how far the party would push economic reform.

In a fully “marketized” economy—in the Chinese case that would mean very few state-owned enterprises—the Communist Party would have no real economic means to protect its political monopoly. But if the economy is not fully marketized, inefficiency will eventually doom economic growth. That’s why I applied the concept of “trapped transition”—the continuation of the status quo leading eventually to stagnation.

Pei: Foreign adventurism in the context of declining economic performance is a distinctive possibility, but it is also very risky for the regime. If it succeeds, it will gain domestic legitimacy, but should it lose a war, it could lose power quickly. In the short to medium term, the Communist Party’s real strategy is to strengthen the security state, including the building of a powerful surveillance state. The strategic thinking behind it is that, since we can no longer deliver carrots, we will have to rely on sticks more. This explains the rising degree of repression in China, and things could get a lot worse if the economy performs more poorly. At the moment, China’s assertive foreign policy is partly designed to burnish the regime’s image at home, but it would be premature to say that Chinese leaders would be rash enough to decide to go to war with a neighbor and risk a military defeat (if the U.S. intervenes).

...etc

[SSridhar]

One important facet of the Chinese that must be remembered is that they want and they are most comfortsble with a strict top-down hierarchy. 'Hierarchy & harmony' is the way to achieve heavenly bliss in this world is the mantra singed into their genes. They want everyone to be harmonious with them, not the other way about; no give-and-take there.

[Pulikeshi]

Why are we doubting Chinese economy? Everything we use today is being made in China. I think Chola guru posted some stats about consumption of passenger vehicles, consumer electronics etc in China being 10x that of India. Anyone who has gone and visited Chinese cities can see the 1st world infrastructure they have built. They are wealthy, no question about that.

Chola guru if you have those stats pls do post again.

The sheer size and population with network effects - positive feedback loops in such markets would contribute to growth of a certain order in large states such as China or India. In the case of China, it seems the economy is heavily driven by corruption money recycled via investments as FDI. While there is also genuine investment that exploited the availability of cheap labor and heavy subsidize of resources, there are questions on its sustainability with a declining population and worsening environmental and living conditions.

For those who know what to look for when traveling in China, the holes are very visible if you peek behind the Veil of Confusionism.

[yensoy]

As much as I would like to think the PRC is spending money it doesn’t have, financials simply doesn’t work that way...If inventory is piling up and no one is buying then how do they get the capital to buy the raw materials, pay the workers and warehouse the inventory? You would answer that in the only way you could with your premise — they get it from the government or government controlled banks.

But where does the government gets its money? From taxes or by printing paper.

No that's not all there is to it. Banks get money from deposits people have placed with them. Savings rates in China are seriously high and very few places to park their wealth - banks offer ridiculously low deposit rates but are considered safe. Yet Chinese have been putting a lot of money into "wealth management products", i.e. shadow banks, into the stock and real estate markets, and expatriating it abroad. There is still a lot of domestic savings available to the Chinese government/banks to deploy the way they see fit.

Just as India is a conundrum and full of contradictions, so is China. While some parts of the financial system are seriously broken, it is true that infrastructure and factories have been built, people are employed making things the rest of the world wants and often isn't available from any other source competitively, there is rule of law and human development in the form of literacy and productivity. So China isn't just going to collapse due to financial monkey business, just as India didn't even after discovering and recognizing multi-billion dollars of NPAs with no hopes of recovery. What we can hope for, at best, is that the skewed cost structure which makes competing against the Chinese a futile exercise is done away with.

For those who know what to look for when traveling in China, the holes are very visible if you peek behind the Veil of Confusionism.

And what may those be?

[Pulikeshi]

Pei: Foreign adventurism in the context of declining economic performance is a distinctive possibility, but it is also very risky for the regime. If it succeeds, it will gain domestic legitimacy, but should it lose a war, it could lose power quickly. In the short to medium term, the Communist Party’s real strategy is to strengthen the security state, including the building of a powerful surveillance state. The strategic thinking behind it is that, since we can no longer deliver carrots, we will have to rely on sticks more. This explains the rising degree of repression in China, and things could get a lot worse if the economy performs more poorly. At the moment, China’s assertive foreign policy is partly designed to burnish the regime’s image at home, but it would be premature to say that Chinese leaders would be rash enough to decide to go to war with a neighbor and risk a military defeat (if the U.S. intervenes).

...etc

One important facet of the Chinese that must be remembered is that they want and they are most comfortsble with a strict top-down hierarchy. 'Hierarchy & harmony' is the way to achieve heavenly bliss in this world is the mantra singed into their genes. They want everyone to be harmonious with them, not the other way about; no give-and-take there.

Speaking to some Eastern green chaiwallas in the know... one aspect not explored on BRF that I’ve alluded to on occasion is China’s internal dynamics. Even Dosaslam and other incidents can be traced back to internal machinations between the PLA cliques and Commie Party cliques.

While, it would be disengenious to argue that only internal power play is involved in nation-state behavior, if you accept my supposition that nation-states behave along the lines of their past experiences - good or bad, then the simple conclusion that follows is thus: China experienced foriegn rule, esp Mongol, but also Manchu (only 120k of them took out the Ming Han by one account) which imprinted in the Han Chinese a deep desire to avenge this internal subjugation. Much later, the experience with European colonialism, left China desiring to avenge this perceived humiliation externally, even though they are predominantly inwardly focused. Combine these two with Communist/Confucian zeal to harmonize/hierarchy the world into supplicants - one begins to see the method to the madness. This is however not driven by any realistic understanding of strategy - imvho 1962 for example made India go nuclear, China’s infusions into IOR for example only makes India more desireable to GCC, Europeans and African states. The Chinese success with Indian neighbors, may actually wake up the crouching tiger!

It is also important to emit a blurb on India at this juncture. A similar analysis (controversial I suppose) leads one to see that for the first 7 odd decades India (like Hanuman of legends being made to forget his power) was made to forget the trauma of colonial and Islamic onslaught and oppression. Or alleast a valiant attempt was made along those lines. However, more recently, the stronger desire to right those perceived internal wrongs and external oppression has tried to replace the primacy of Indian nation-states desire to merely transform the lives of the Indian citizen. Ironically, the Hanuman like amnesia did not transform the Indian citizen and only adds fuel to this desire to act out... even so, the India state is for the most part status quoist, much to the chagrin of those internal constituencies in India that desire to use naked power like Hanuman. Mostly they forget that Hanuman could have but never destroyed Lanka

Extended to its logical absurdity - China represents an unstoppable force and India represents an immovable object

[nam]

Digressing a bit, 62 did not make India go nuclear. 64 caused Pak to go nuclear (and plan 65), 71 caused us to go nuclear.

[chola]

No that's not all there is to it. Banks get money from deposits people have placed with them. Savings rates in China are seriously high and very few places to park their wealth - banks offer ridiculously low deposit rates but are considered safe.

Again, like Panduranghari ji, you do not close the logical loop. How is a high savings rate helpful if wealth was not created for people to save in the first place?

There are two hard limits to having a high national savings rate to begin with and they both require wealth being created to break though:

1) Persistent Surplus — you cannot save unless you make BEYOND the bare necessities that make living possible; if the economy is poor and everyone is at a subsistence level then even a dictator can’t make you cough up enough blood to criss-cross the country in HSR because blood can’t buy the raw material like iron ore you need to import for your steel (the need to access raw resources drives OBOR too),

2) Persistent Income — without this you cannot build a surplus to save; any economy that can create persistent income year after year for a billion people in order to save trillions is by definition stable and wealthy; conversely nearly ALL nations in the turd world have implacable issues with employment which is why FDI from the global supply chain was instrumental in building up the Four East Asian Tigers and then China.

In the end, savings ultimately comes from the Chini printing press.

Now that we have established that Cheen has a surplus (the public can’t save and the state can’t build without one) then the issue is to figure out how large is the surplus.

So this is where I support Chandragupta ji with some figures.

The most important figures to me are always sales not GDP. You can lie about GDP but you can’t lie about sales because lying won’t get you real money to pay for your input materials, your workers and worse your taxes (especially if you reporting large fake sales numbers.) So what company reports fake sales so it can pay more taxes on income it never made?

Now that we established sales as the best medium to calculate surplus, I would look at particular kinds of sales. I don’t want to tabulate the whole damn gross national product so I look at a particular class of spending called discretionary spending. Discretionary spending is using money for non-necessities.

And by far, the largest discretionary spending that people make is for cars. Though some in this day and age would argue buying and feeding a car is necessary to survival, it really isn’t.

And here the numbers are heavily in Cheen’s favor as a large economy creating surplus.
https://focus2move.com/world-car-market/

1. China - 28.2 M
2. USA - 17.2 M

We are at 3.2 M onlee. And unlike us, Cheen is not buying cheap cars, they are the number one or number two market for practically all of the world’s luxury brands (BMW, Benz, Audi) and as well as the largest for the premium middle brands such as GM, Ford, Toyota, etc.

Cars are only one discretionary market, Cheen dominates the global markets by the same kinds of margin in nearly every other large discretionary sales — flat screen TVs, air conditioners, pork, donkey meat, etc.

And then there is their film industry which caught my interest recently because of how bollywood is now going gangbusters in the land of the lizard.

Dangal and Secret Superstar made $200M and $112M a peice in Cheen and now they now sit at number 1 and number 3 in India’s ALL TIME box office list. A few weeks in the PRC and they rewrite Indian box office history. If the chinis are putting out more moolah than even Indians for the ultimate non-essential like an A Khan flick then it is very hard to imagine they are not a pretty well off economy.

[Pulikeshi]

Digressing a bit, 62 did not make India go nuclear. 64 caused Pak to go nuclear (and plan 65), 71 caused us to go nuclear.

The seeds of the Indian Nuclear program may have had many external power fathers, perhaps even the US, post 1962 war and 1964 tests by China.
That did not mean, there was no later back tracking by the West and even a intense desire to curtail and turn back the program...
Don’t have time to pull up all my notes here... anyway its OT here.

[VKumar]

Digressing a bit, 62 did not make India go nuclear. 64 caused Pak to go nuclear (and plan 65), 71 caused us to go nuclear.

Lal Bahadur Shastri, PM, had said that nuclear explosions could be used for peaceful purposes. J. Bhabha was ready with the technology. First there was an attempt to stop this via the 65 war. A loss would have been a severe setback. Failing this, both Shastri and Bhabha died soon after (killed?) And the next few years of drought plus turmoil in Congress put all plans on back burner.

[Prem]

http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/O1TJNi4 ... -trap.html

Is the foreign secretary putting down the Tibetans so that Chinese will talk to him nicely or is New Delhi working on some substantive outcomes during Modi’s visit in June? Or is it that the Bharatiya Janata Party does not want a conflagration with the Chinese before the next election in 2019? Or is it that despite their bombastic statements in the media, the generals are saying something serious to the government?
By ignoring the China threat over the last two decades, Indian policymakers have not only exacerbated the trust deficit with China but also made it virtually impossible to stand up to China even on issues which are vitally important to India. The power differential between the two has grown at an alarming rate. Sino-Indian relations, therefore, require deft management, but pandering to Chinese concerns, real and imagined, did not result in a change in Chinese behaviour in the past and won’t result in any sort of stabilization of Sino-Indian relations. It will only entrench Chinese positions at the cost of India. One hoped that India would learn from its mistakes, but, clearly, old habits die hard.

[yensoy]

No that's not all there is to it. Banks get money from deposits people have placed with them. Savings rates in China are seriously high and very few places to park their wealth - banks offer ridiculously low deposit rates but are considered safe.

Again, like Panduranghari ji, you do not close the logical loop. How is a high savings rate helpful if wealth was not created for people to save in the first place?

You are the one claiming that wealth is not being created in the first place . I never said such a thing - wealth is absolutely being created - now we may argue whether all of the GDP reported activities are productive or not, what fraction of the GDP is actually productive, and whether the goods being produced are sold at a sustainable price or not.

My contention is that the printing press and taxes are not the only 2 levers in the hands of the government. Sky-high savings rates (including compulsory savings in the form of "social security deductions") are equally instrumental in funding the great China slush machine.

How does it work? Banks are flush with money from savers, so they are free to make cheap loans available to industries and businesses which otherwise would have not been able to get this money at these rates based on their risk profiles. These industries & businesses themselves employ people whom they pay ok to decent salaries, producing goods which they sell somewhat below cost thanks to government kickbacks. Governments themselves raise taxes to pay for this kind of stuff, since operational budgets in city and provincial governments is met with land sales (yeah, money from land sales is another key lever here) instead of with taxes as would be the case in the rest of the world minus oil states. As for "social security", it's in a honeymoon phase now with big incomes and small expenditures.

Now who are the net losers from financial point of view? The Chinese people who have put in their savings into miserably yielding bank accounts (or risky shadow banking accounts), the Chinese people who are overpaying for property whose supply is constrained and controlled by crony moguls, and once again the Chinese people who are being forced to contribute to a social security system of dubious finances.

All this is great as long as GDP keeps rising - people's salaries will trend up, their ability to pay down their mortgage will improve. It may even survive a temporary flattening of the GDP since not everyone is going to need access to their savings right away. But if there is a sustained period of slow, no or negative growth, then the sh!t will hit the fan.

And nobody is more aware of all this than the Chinese people who, if circumstances permit, are voting with their feet - moving their wealth and even families to Western shores. It's the rich Chinese whose wealth sources are primarily in China who are moving out, not only the middle class with aspirations and ambitions to succeed in a foreign land.

[shiv]

China's "String of Pearls"
https://youtu.be/UPWq32DP7u8

[Philip]

There are umpteen ways in which we can douse the Chinko dragon,but the abject display from our MEA beggars the Q,do we have the b*lls for it and are we ( the Delhi establishment collectively,gutless and cowards? This piece shows in stark nakedness our woeful foreign policy towards china,which according to a Japanese newspaper,prevented an Indian intervention in the Maldives by simply sending a naval task force to just poke its nose into the IOR near Indonesia,thousands of miles away from the Maldives and India,which so they say,"scared us off!"

You know the title of the famous Forster novel,"Howard's End".The title ,or future epitaph perhaps for Indian foreign policy could very well be called,"Coward's End"!

https://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion ... havoc.html

India’s weak China policy can spell havoc
Published Mar 12, 2018, 12:56 am ISTUpdated Mar 12, 2018, 12:56 am IST

There are several reasons why the China relationship is extremely important and ought to be seen as such.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (Photo: AFP)
)
Recent steps of the Narendra Modi government to go out of the way to appease Beijing can only lead to the entrenchment of unhealthy ties with our northern neighbour.

This would be singularly unfortunate because there is some merit in the view — held by some of our prominent foreign policy practitioners — that it is with Beijing that India must imagine her most important relationship.

This view has been obscured because, for the most part since the 1950s, our relations with the Soviet Union had very high value. There was a beneficial economic and defence component, besides Moscow’s crucial assistance on the Kashmir question in the UN Security Council. And since the end of the USSR, India has come to enjoy a very productive and comfortable connection with the West.

With China, the memory of 1962 has been somewhat effaced. Still, the bilateral interaction has at times been characterised by mutual mistrust, in part on account of China teaming up with Pakistan to discomfit India in a variety of ways. At the level of both popular perception and official deliberations, these factors have badly undercut the rapid rise in trade ties with China, about which some questioning has now begun to be raised.

On the whole, broad Indian nationalism has been affronted. That’s not a good sign in building relations with any country, leave alone a powerful neighbour with which there is an unsettled boundary.

There are several reasons why the China relationship is extremely important and ought to be seen as such. For one, China’s economy is four times the size of India’s, although India could forge ahead in about 30 years’ time if we are sensible and can make our young population productive.

Two, China has been spending heavily on defence for a number of years, several times more than India. Three, China — like Pakistan, which it partners against India — is an unsatiated power, which makes it a troublesome entity.

It appears to have messianic zeal and a sense of destiny. In line with this, regionally it gives every impression of flexing its military muscle by growing as a maritime force, a missile force, and a cyber force in a manner that its neighbours find threatening. Its spectacular rise in recent decades has disturbed the placidity of the waters that surround it.

If any neighbour of China must deal with these harsh realities, it is evident that if ties are managed in an equable and mutually respectful way, India-China relations have enormous potential to be a stabilising factor for the international economy, and calming political nerves from the Strait of Hormuz to the East China Sea and the broad Indo-Pacific zone, an area of extraordinary economic and human potential.

For this to happen, India and China need to be sensitive to each other’s essential concerns. Only that can lead on to the present century being an Asian century. Regrettably, however, India has lately given the impression of being ready to accept an unequal relationship. That will stunt India’s potential, and impart an epidemiological dimension to the ties with unpredictable flare-up possibilities.

Recently, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi reportedly told the Indian foreign secretary, who was on a visit to Beijing, that India ought to be “prudent”. Last week, Mr Wang, answering media questions, held forth rhetorically on the good that may ensue from good Sino-Indian ties, but pointedly noted that China would “protect its legitimate interests”. Is this a warning? And, if so, how is India going to prepare for it?

Replying to a Parliament question recently, the minister of state for defence gave the impression that India needed to prepare for a renewal of Chinese military belligerence in the Doklam area, where the armies of the two countries held each other in a “standoff” for 73 days last summer.

But the way India has shaped its political response gives the impression of being obsequious to Beijing, leaving room for the impression that the present government is strong on words but weak, vacillating and unimaginative when it comes to action.

New Delhi asked all officials not to associate themselves with programmes featuring the Dalai Lama. The noted Tibetan spiritual leader was planning on a programme to thank India in the 60th year of being given shelter in this country.

There was simply no need for this as Indian officials have not participated in the Tibetan monk’s programmes in the six decades that he has been here. The Dalai Lama runs only religious affairs here. A precondition set by India was that he won’t engage in politics. Therefore, India declared a ban for transgressions that have never occurred. This is a sure sign of being overly courtly.

The meaning that can be plausibly read into this is that New Delhi is paying obeisance to Beijing. This is the way India has received it, and this is the way China would too. India’s several neighbours — who are always looking at how Beijing and New Delhi deal with one another — are also likely to read a similar meaning into recent events.

Here on, then, we may expect the Chinese to turn on the squeeze even harder — the perfect example of an unequal and inequitable relationship. In our ties with Nepal, which has lately made no bones about privileging China over India, and with Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, our supine stance in relation to Beijing is likely to leave India without any worthwhile leverage in the region. What would then be left of India’s standing in Saarc?

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru gave the Dalai Lama refuge in 1959 when the Tibetan uprising against Chinese occupation was crushed. The Chinese attacked India in 1962, and gave our unprepared forces a thrashing with a view to belittle Nehru’s leadership. But Nehru stuck to his guns. He did not turn over the Tibetan monk to Beijing.

But the Modi regime appears to be altering the terms of engagement against the Tibetan holy man. This sudden loss of nerve on India’s part belittles us in the eyes of the Tibetan people and dents this country’s image across Asia and the world, which regards the Dalai Lama with sympathy.

It is now also easy to see why India backed off from underlining its strategic interests in the Maldives once it became clear that the absolutist government of President Abdulla Yameen was in cahoots with Beijing and has offered China a naval observation post, which, doubtless, will become a full-fledged military base on India’s doorstep. We have caved in and our interests will be hit hard all round.
i

[pankajs]

^^
If you think the policy is weak then place the blame where this belongs i.e. Right at the door steps of the PMO and more specifically Modi.

I can understand a loan being issued in SBI Haryana/Gujarat/Pick your state without the knowledge of Modi but I don't buy this as a MEA babudom shenanigan. Modi, more than any other PM except perhaps Nehru is directly in charge of India's foreign policy.

BTW, I don't agree with the above analysis on many counts. I just think that a tadpole has climbed up the ... err ... how to say it politely .. the backside of some folks and every-time that tadpole wriggles they experience a bout of diarrhoea. Highly understandably and my sympathies are with them.

If you don't like the above explanation I have another one. Some people are experiencing a loss of face and want strong action on part of the GOI to help recover from such a loss of face. IMHO, letting *loss of face* guide you foreign policy is very bad policy.

[Prasad]

RM said to the media that she is going to China this month. No kament on agenda. Something is in the works.

[jaysimha]

Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce Invites Memoranda on the subject ‘Impact of Chinese Goods on Indian Industry’

Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce headed by Shri Naresh Gujral, M.P. , Rajya Sabha has taken up the subject ‘Impact of Chinese Goods on Indian Industry’ for detailed examination and has, accordingly, decided to invite memoranda there on within 15 days.



Those desirous of submitting memoranda or giving oral evidence before the Committee may visit the website of the Rajya Sabha (http://rajyasabha.nic.in) under the link “Committees” for details. All correspondence may be sent to
Shri Narendra Kumar,
Additional Director,
Rajya Sabha Secretariat,
Room No. 535, Parliament House Annexe,
New Delhi-110001
(Tel: 011-23034057, FAX: 011-21410347),
E-mail: narendra.rs@sansad.nic.in/ rsc-comm@sansad.nic.in.





******

MM






(Release ID :177186)

[shiv]

^^
If you think the policy is weak then place the blame where this belongs i.e. Right at the door steps of the PMO and more specifically Modi.

I can understand a loan being issued in SBI Haryana/Gujarat/Pick your state without the knowledge of Modi but I don't buy this as a MEA babudom shenanigan. Modi, more than any other PM except perhaps Nehru is directly in charge of India's foreign policy.

BTW, I don't agree with the above analysis on many counts. I just think that a tadpole has climbed up the ... err ... how to say it politely .. the backside of some folks and every-time that tadpole wriggles they experience a bout of diarrhoea. Highly understandably and my sympathies are with them.

If you don't like the above explanation I have another one. Some people are experiencing a loss of face and want strong action on part of the GOI to help recover from such a loss of face. IMHO, letting *loss of face* guide you foreign policy is very bad policy.

Did I tell you that India has cancelled the Tejas program? You are welcome to believe it. Or not. Most people who put in one millisecond of thought would ask me for some kind of proof, but I'm going to say "Balls. Proof not needed. Nyahahaha"

But I digress...

The Indian government "it is reported" sent a "missive" asking officials not to attend a Dalai Lama event. Has anyone seen the missive? What is the proof. But hey - "proof not required" Anyone can say any shit and manufacture news...

I tell ya - we people live on edge - like abused children.

One the one hand we have constant diarrhoea about Chinese development and strength. I mean, if you sat in a tiger's cage would you act cocky? Diarrhoea would be the right response no? But then why get upset if we kowtow to China? We must bend, buckle and genuflect no? Why howl in a constant stream of pain that we are fcued and then get all upset because we did not stand up to China. That is silly. If China is strong we must crap in our pants and comply. We can't stand up to them.

[Hari Seldon]

How come sooo many cheeni cities in the list, hain ji?

[pankajs]

Largest Population + High Urbanization = High concentration of GDP in cities = Many cities in the list

To make it easy to understand, lets take an extreme case.

ALL US population i.e about 300 million in 1 mega American city. Lets assume per capita GDP at $4. American City GDP = $1,200 million.
ALL China population i.e. about 1,400 million in 1 mega Chinese city. Lets assume per capita GDP at $1. Chinese City GDP = $1,400 million

Now even if the Chinese per capita GDP is 1/4 of America, the Chinese mega city will top the list of cities worldwide If ranked by GDP.

[Hari Seldon]

Population + Urbanization = High concentration of GDP in cities = Many cities in the list

Sure. My point is not a single desi city makes the list. While the likes of jakarta do so. Of course the slimy brish1ts making the list might have some implicit bias spilling over but still, a rather large overrlok, no?

P.S. I see the way my own city of bhagyanagaram is growing. Its unrecognizable compared to a decade+ ago. It has abundant land, being an inland city. And is now ringed by a world class ourter ring road (misnamed after nehroo, sadly). It is my fond hope, (nay, expectation almost, given the rate of change) that by 2030 this greater hyd region will be pulling in some quarter-trillion p.a. in GDP or GVA. Onlee.

Only.

[pankajs]

Got you.

Google chacha has Mumbai GDP @ $416 billion at present. So by 2030 Mumbai should at least be @ 3rd or 4th position if not higher.

As you pointed out, Britshit still haven't come to grip with the loss of the *Crown Jewel*.

[SSridhar]

The Hindu carries a 'sponsored content, "President Xi's [glorious] Five Years"

[Hari Seldon]

Reg some alleged rumors of GOI kowtowing to PRC, this from the chindu no less: https://twitter.com/the_hindu/status/973133679135371264

The Hindu Verified account @the_hindu

JUST IN: Dalai Lama to be chief guest at Indian Science Congress, Manipur. PM Modi to inaugurate. @neutranino

[pankajs]

Please don't spread rumor of "The Hindu" kind ... we only love and appreciate the Whatsapp kind.

[Peregrine]

What China can learn from India, according to Chinese state media

NEW DELHI: China's often shrill state media toned down its rhetoric recently to praise India for doing a better job than their country in the area of soft power, or "culture export" as it referred to it.

Of course, it couldn't resist immediately following up that statement with "China leads India in terms of military and economy". Still, a recent article in the state-backed Global Times was rather fulsome in its praise of the way India has managed to make yoga "the staple" of its soft power abroad, and how its Hindi film industry "has truly played an important role" in stretching Indian soft power into China.

China should "learn from India, as its ways of showing off its soft power are more acceptable than some of China's government-support programs overseas," said Zhao Gancheng, director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told the Global Times.

The way India promotes its soft power is "more acceptable", according to the article, because the Indian government aims to promote yoga "as a non-religious activity", and because Bollywood "avoids exporting its values and usually focuses on social issues", said the article.

The popularity of yoga can be gauged by the fact that over the past two years, yoga clubs have been popping up in Chinese cities "like mushrooms after a rainy day", said the article. And this isn't just in the big cities. Yoga has become popular even in fourth- and fifth-tier cities, said Lin Xiaohai, founder of Chan Yoga, the first professional yoga club in China, to Global Times.

"It (yoga) even has entered the public school system in some cities across China. For example, a primary school in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province, has included yoga in its morning exercise routines," reported a Chinese Internet company sohu.com. In 2015, one university in southwest China's Yunnan Province also co-founded the country's first specialized yoga school in cooperation with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

Another cultural export that could well become on a par with yoga in its popularity is Bollywood . In fact, currently, the Salman Khan starrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan is running to packed houses in Beijing.

"Different from American or European movies, Bollywood avoids exporting its values and usually focuses on social issues, which makes it easier for Chinese audiences to identify with it," said Zhao Gancheng, director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, to the Global Times.

Many Bollywood movies have helped change the perception of Chinese people about India, said the Global Times article getting in the obligatory reference to India's slums.

"Chinese people's impression of India, however, is not always that upbeat. Overwhelmed by negative news about rapes, slums and sewage, the Chinese used to see India as a dirty, disorderly and backward third-world nation. But the situation is dramatically changing, as more and more Bollywood films win the hearts of Chinese audiences and erase some misunderstandings, presenting a more wholesome glimpse into modern India," said the article.

The fact that India's done such a good job of exporting its soft power is even more remarkable considering its fraught relationship with Beijing due to severe border tensions, said Global Times.

"Despite the tense military and political situation along the border, India has done better work in stretching its soft power, which is partly because of their pride in their culture and their efforts in protecting their traditions," said Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, to the Global Times.

Cheers

[nam]

Youtube has had a great contribution in spread of our useful idiots across Europe and other countries. There is even a islamic prayer song based on a bollywood number !

The ones watching our jokers sing and dance, think all Indians are born dancer and all they do is dance all day long. They are quite surprised at the high production quality as well.

I watch this growth of bollywood in China, as an interesting phenomena. Chinese government has always tried to show India as a mess due to it's democratic setup. It will be very fascinating to see the Communist party reaction to Chinese people wondering why Indians looks happy(atleast in bollywood songs) despite being a democratic mess....

[chola]

You are the one claiming that wealth is not being created in the first place . I never said such a thing - wealth is absolutely being created - now we may argue whether all of the GDP reported activities are productive or not, what fraction of the GDP is actually productive, and whether the goods being produced are sold at a sustainable price or not.

My contention is that the printing press and taxes are not the only 2 levers in the hands of the government. Sky-high savings rates (including compulsory savings in the form of "social security deductions") are equally instrumental in funding the great China slush machine.

...

All this is great as long as GDP keeps rising - people's salaries will trend up, their ability to pay down their mortgage will improve. It may even survive a temporary flattening of the GDP since not everyone is going to need access to their savings right away. But if there is a sustained period of slow, no or negative growth, then the sh!t will hit the fan.

Ah you are talkng about sustainability. That is a fair point and something we can hope for going forward.

But the question I answered was whether Cheen has a 12T economy. From sales of major discretionary income items that I explained Cheen has an economy that spends MORE than an US-sized economy. It is already treated as an US-sized economy by Wall Street firms. So whether it is a 12T economy is no longer even a relevant question. The real question is whether it functions as 19T economy or bigger. It does when it comes to cars, meat and almost all of the major white goods.

Our current economic advisor Arvind Subramanian changed Wall Street close to a decade ago when he told the corporate boardrooms that China was as big a market as the US. The corresponding sales afterwards proved him right. His defining work on the Cheen economy “Eclipse” was published in 2011!

As important it is for MNCs to have a proper understanding of the Cheen economy so they can plan and invest properly, it is doubly so for nations like India competing with Cheen. Like Wall Street, we need to forget GDP and concentrate on sales — what and how much they buy. For example, if they buy 28M cars every year to our 3.2M, you can roughly translate that to warships and aircraft too if push comes to shove. It is the same in developmental aid and influence money it can push out to the IOR versus what we can.

Unfortunately, the sales figures gap of Cheen versus India is much bigger than the 5 to 1 ratio in nominal GDP. So they are harder (emotionally) to look at. But I think we need to.

The Japanese in WWII ignored Adm. Yamamoto’s plea that his nation cannot win in a war with the US because the economic numbers made it impossible. He was overruled by a faction that put its faith in the mystical — that the Japanese Samurai spirit will overcome any material advantage the US had. In the end, shear weight of heavy metal overcame spirit by a wide margin.

[Bart S]

The Hindu carries a 'sponsored content, "President Xi's [glorious] Five Years"

I am totally shocked that this kind of stuff is even legal. Carrying paid propaganda from a hostile totalitarian dictatorship that is an existential threat to us in one of our biggest newspapers has to be a new low, even for the seditious (and proud of it) DDM.

[shiv]

It is paid content. It says so on the page.