India’s China Policy

India’s rising power in Asia has been an eye sore of china because India is the only country in the region  which is geographically and economically capable of competing china in long run. All other countries are either very small or economically or strategically not in position to overpower china in any case. Since 1949 china is continuously increasing its military power to have better control over the region.

There is a myth prevailing that India-China relations strained only after armed conflict and undeclared war in 1962 but I believe that china was keeping an eye on Indian territories and the challenge of growing India since beginning and organizing and building its military muscle to control Asia.

China’s Strategy since beginning was hovering around some major areas. The first was to control Tibet so that Indian strategy of keeping china away from Indian borders by bringing in a independent state of Tibet and Nepal can be suppressed. Continue conflict in south eastern states so that India can be kept busy tackling these issues. The third was to play a major role in using Pakistan to make India unstable without burning its hands by becoming a part of terrorism.

More or less china has been successful in these strategies; no one in the world will ever say that china is supporting terrorism, all black spot on Pakistan while china protecting Pakistan and supporting it to use Indo-Pak conflict for wasting its energy in unproductive war like situations.

In 2015 Indian prime minister Shri Manmohan singh and prime minister of china wen Giabio came together to look beyond and work forward towards increasing bilateral trade between two countries. Some of us took it very positively and thought that now both the countries are keeping their conflicts aside and building bilateral trade relations, again I will call it a myth because that time the main focus of china was Indian market for consuming its goods. Not only India but china created such relations with rest of the world to empower its industries with the consumers around the globe.

Reality remains unchanged and even after having bilateral trade bonds with India it also continued on its basic policy of supporting Pakistan and border conflicts with India in south eastern states. We can say that china is determined on its policy and whatever the situation Chinese policies against India will continue to thrive.

According to a 2014 BBC World Service Poll, 33% of Indians view China positively, with 35% expressing a negative view, whereas 27% of Chinese people view India positively, with 35% expressing a negative view. These survey are useless because public opinion has a relevance to India but china is not a democratic country and they have a communist setup, where public life is governed by government and public opinions will always be only recessive opinions.

We can easily understand by china’s actions where since 2015 china has been supporting Pakistan’s army build-up not only supporting in developing missile and arsenals but also strategically supporting to become a nuclear power, in the 2015 visit of Pakistan’s president  announced that china is supplying six submarines and more then hundred fighter planes to Pakistan.

In the recent scenario when Chinese president visited India to meet prime minister Shri. Narendra Modi there was a Chinese army movement at chomar choki in laddakh. What was that conflict all about? To speak straight it was to pressurise India so that china is empowered at that point to have better negotiability with India. That is china and its policy; they have permanent colours and always take army and economy parallely and know very well how to play pressure tactics.

China has learnt how to use pressure on India but china should also understand that India is changing now and there is a strong prime minister who has capability to take actions. World understands china, most of the western countries are now worried of rising Chinese power and they also know very well that there is only one country that can strategically and geographically stand in front of china is India.

Indians are supporting every move of their prime minister and recently there is a boost in Indian relations with America and Israel. These relations are not only for trade but also for armed power tie ups. India has been placing long range missile bases in south eastern states and trying to surround china. I will call it a correct step, because the chances of declared war with china are negligible and only way to deal with china is to treat then in the language they understand.