We are living in extraordinary times, when geopolitics changes colours faster than a chameleon. With Russia on a downward trajectory, unable to get the better of its former satellite, Ukraine, and depending more and more on Chinese support for its very survival, the world order has changed irrevocably. The unipolar world, with US as its only pole, is seeing China emerge as the second pole ~ a formidable rival to the US. From scratch, China has risen phenomenally in the last fifty years, and from the time of the Trump presidency, the US has devoted much energy to stymie the Chinese upsurge.

The current decade has seen trading disputes between US and China, deteriorating into an undeclared cold war, with the US denying advanced technology, particularly chip technology, to China, and China retaliating by sanctioning high-ranking US officials, and threatening Taiwan with annihilation. Specifically targeting China, the US has created new military alliances like Aukus and Quad. On the other hand, after touching a nadir in 1971, India-US relations have improved steadily, with the US becoming India’s largest trading partner in the last two years.

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There have been hiccups too; the Devyani Khobragade incident, Trump’s levy on Indian imports, etc. Some major concerns have also emerged; the US has proved an unreliable ally, failing to provide material support to us when we were attacked by Pakistan in 1965 and 1999 and by China in 1962 and 2020. During the Indo-Pak war of 1971, the US actively supported Pakistan. After the Malabar naval exercises, we had hoped that the US would support Quad (an alliance of US, Japan, India and Australia) militarily and the Quad would evolve as a counterweight to China.

However, the formation of Aukus ~ a military alliance between the UK, US and Australia, which is Quad minus Japan and India ~ has preempted this possibility. Then there were the recent Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) against India, which involved sailing the destroyer USS John Paul Jones up to 130 nautical miles west of the Lakshadweep Islands, inside India’s exclusive economic zone, without requesting India’s prior consent. The violation of India’s marine boundaries was deliberately publicised by the Seventh Fleet Commander. India’s weak protests against this incursion were brushed aside by the Pentagon spokesman. Indo-Chinese relations are equally complex.

While India had supported China in international forums since the 1950s, the Chinese response was always unpredictable; all we got for slogans of ‘Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai’ was a full-fledged war in 1962. However, relations between China and India improved after China’s détente with the West, so much so that China became India’s major trading partner, and India and China supported each other in international forums, on innumerable issues relating to trade and climate change. During this honeymoon period also, China remained implacably opposed to India’s more vital ambitions ~ Security Council membership and Nuclear Suppliers Group membership. China also periodically raked up contentious issues like sharing of river waters, deliberately slighting India in the process.

With China’s tacit support, Pakistan repeatedly needled India, and Pakistani terrorists kept the Kashmir cauldron boiling. Danger signals emanating from China were deliberately ignored by India, enamoured as we were by cheap Chinese imports. Border disputes lurked in the background, which sometimes boiled into standoffs like Depsang Plains (2013) and Doklam (2017), but lulled into complacency, the Indian leadership never retaliated, which may have been the main reason to embolden China to trespass into Indian territory, at multiple locations, along the entire Sino-Indian border in the summer of 2020. Three years after the Chinese incursion, thousands of Indian and Chinese troops are still standing face to face on the long Indo-Chinese border.

China has used the military stalemate to build war infrastructure, including militarised border villages, like artificial militarised islands in the South China Sea, roads, and even two bridges over Pangong Tso. We have improved our border infrastructure substantially, but at the same time we have allowed journalists to show it live on TV. On its side, China has kept the pot boiling; on 9 December 2022, less than a fortnight after India conducted joint military exercises with the US Army’s 11th Airborne Division, barely 100 kms from the Chinese border, around 300 PLA troops confronted an Indian patrol in Yangste area of Tawang Sector in Arunachal Pradesh. Reminiscent of the Galwan clash, Indian and PLA troops engaged in hand-tohand combat. Some soldiers were injured, but thankfully there were no casualties. In identical statements before the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, “On 9 December, 2022, PLA troops tried to transgress the LAC in the Yangtse area of the Tawang Sector and unilaterally change the status quo.”

However, the Chinese version of the Tawang clash was totally different. An editorial titled “India’s border adventurism harms ties” in the China Daily reads: “But it is notable that the Indian troops have become more provocative in recent years, with a higher frequency of intrusions into Chinacontrolled areas… The ever-closer military cooperation between India and the United States on the premise of countering an ‘increasingly assertive and aggressive’ China may also have played a part in some Indian military hawks trying to push the envelope on the border issue… Just days before the latest skirmish, India and the US conducted a high-altitude joint military exercise in Uttarakhand near the Sino-Indian border… India must restrain its troops from trespassing across the Line of Actual Control and work with China to calm the situation.” PM Modi, who claimed a warm relationship with the Chinese President Xi Jinping, met him 19 times after becoming the Prime Minister in 2014.

Not counting their recent meeting at the G-20 Summit in November 2022, even after the Doklam standoff, Xi and Modi met four times: Xiamen in 2017 (September 3 to 5, 2017), Brics Summit, Wuhan (April 27 to 28, 2018), an informal summit in Quindao in the same year (April 27 and 28, 2018) during the SCO summit, in Mahabalipuram (October 11 and 12, 2019). Also, Mr Modi had visited China five times, the maximum for any Indian PM. The Indian leadership is in denial mode, using euphemisms like “unilateral change of status quo” for land-grabs; “friction points” for seized areas; and “full restoration of peace and tranquillity” for rollback of the intrusions. The Indian approach to Chinese aggression, that forgives their past transgressions in the hope that they would behave better in the future, has failed. Our naiveté can be gauged from the fact that we have allowed Chinese trade surplus to rise to the level that it exceeds India’s defence budget, so that we are in effect, bankrolling Chinese aggression. Meanwhile, China has adopted a new land border law that would justify its illegal annexation of territory.

The Indo-Chinese relationship can be one of mutual benefit. For India, Chinese imports are vital for developing infrastructure and manufac-turing capabilities. Not surprisingly, trade with China increased by 46 per cent in 2021, just after the border clashes, and is on an increasing trajectory. China, too, has its own compulsions, as it faces an eco-nomic slowdown, a shrinking population and an increasingly hostile West. For China, India is a huge market, as also a profitable target of invest-ment in technology, property and infrastructure. Pointing to a softening Indian stance, circumventing restrictions, Chinese investment is coming in via countries like Singapore.

For example, Shein, a Chinese online fashion company, whose app was banned by India in 2020, is set to re-enter India in partner-ship with Reliance Industries. While, the US and its allies dread the coming together of India and China, and hope that India’s continuing friction with China will push it into a Western coalition against China, a Hobson’s choice faces India: normalise relations with China and thus accept Chinese hegemony or align with the US, which if history is a guide, would offer only oral encouragement, should things spin out of control. There is also a third choice: we can remain non-aligned, ploughing a lonely furrow, and follow Theodore Roosevelt’s doctrine of ‘speaking softly and carrying a big stick.’

The famous journalist Thomas Friedman summed up the West’s fear of India and China’s technological progress: “When I was growing up, my parents told me, ‘Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving.’ I tell my daughters, ‘Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.’” It is a pity that India and China cannot see eye-to-eye.

(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax)