Can a polarised India deter China?

If the smartest thinkers in the US can worry about its political dysfunction and can call for ‘rebuilding support at home’, Indians should worry too, about how our country’s external aspirations are articulated and achieved

An article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs by former United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates calling his country ‘The Dysfunctional Superpower’ is germane to an examination of Indian policy towards China.

Hyper-nationalist regimes cannot keep up pretences for too long in domestic politics — there comes a time in their foreign and security policies when they must act to show domestic and international audiences that they are capable of action even if they do not have a fully worked out plan. Since Galwan, the Indian government has largely made mistakes in its China policy by acts of omission — for example, not responding punitively to the Chinese transgressions in eastern Ladakh in 2020, or giving up within a few months heights it had captured in the region in response.

However, as policy-making continues its path towards ever greater centralisation and unwillingness to keep either Parliament or the general public in the loop, mistakes are likely to be made that are acts of commission.

Gates’ question about his country — ‘Can a Divided America Deter China and Russia?’ — is a reference to the extreme political polarisation in US politics that has made it difficult to have conversations across the political aisle. There is a similar lack of consultation and engagement between political actors in India that does not bode well for Indian foreign and security policymaking, and, especially, for the objective of deterring and countering China.

Gates points out that the US’ ‘fractured political leadership… has failed to convince enough Americans that developments in China and Russia matter.’ For Indians, too, internal friction and conflict seem the priority — between political parties, between Members of Parliament, between religious communities, between states and regions.

If Gates says, ‘Political leaders have failed to explain how the threats posed by [China and Russia] are interconnected’, Indian leaders despite their use of Pakistan for electoral reasons continue to do an insufficient job of drawing the connection between China and Pakistan, and its consequences for India’s strategic space.

China’s economic engagement over the past decade through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) appears somehow to have taken attention away from the China-Pakistan nexus rather than having Indians more worried about the increasing breadth and depth of Chinese engagement in India’s neighbour. Narratives of CPEC’s limitations or failure — however, true they may be — should not distract from the fact that Pakistan is being pulled into an ever tighter embrace with China that will only end up constricting India’s options in South Asia, and complicate its moves in West Asia and the Indian Ocean.

Gates’ accusation that US political leaders ‘have failed to articulate a long-term strategy to ensure that the United States, and democratic values more broadly, will prevail’ mirrors the situation in India. Recent news of an Indian National Security Strategy document in the works does not take away from this reality. Such ambitions have been declared before and come to nought. One reason for this might be the absence of an overarching doctrine or set of values to underline such a strategy document. Such a doctrine or set of values is already contained in the Constitution or ideally must derive from it. But if constitutional values and parliamentary procedures and norms are increasingly sacrificed at the altar of political one-upmanship or in the interests of political hegemony, then a national security strategy so derived will also fail to do its primary job of protecting the interests of all Indians.

India has a stronger system of government than the US does today and with a greater capacity to muster and direct available resources necessary for national security objectives. Consider, for example, the regular news of infrastructure projects being completed or on the verge of completion — the Bogibeel bridge across the Brahmaputra in Assam, the Atal Tunnel in Himachal Pradesh, or any number of border roads and advanced landing grounds for military aircraft along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Yet, dissuading adversaries is more than about infrastructure capabilities. It is also about policymaking nous.

Gates calls for ‘address[ing] the breakdown in the decades-long bipartisan agreement with respect to the United States’ role in the world.’ What is India’s role in the world? Is this role to be determined by one political party without consultation with others in India’s parliamentary system? Can this lead to a well-thought-out approach to international relations? Consider the thoroughly confusing picture that Indian foreign policy must present to the world on the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict where the ruling party has sided with one party to the conflict while the Ministry of External Affairs has reiterated India’s traditional support for the Two-State Solution even as its voting record on United Nations resolutions display a degree of inconsistency.[1]

China policy, at least since Galwan is a lot easier — New Delhi has so far had a clear line —  restoration of status quo ante on the LAC before allowing progress in other domains of the relationship. However, a government-aligned think-tank was recently the first to host a major Chinese academic delegation in New Delhi. Some weeks earlier, another government-aligned think-tank had taken a large delegation of Indian scholars and retired government officials on a weeks-long tour of China. Notably, this delegation did not include many scholars who actually specialised on China. While both sides have engaged with each other in the online mode since Galwan and Indian scholars have travelled individually to China since the end of Covid-19 restrictions, these were the first organised Indian and Chinese delegations travelling across.

Indian governments, whatever their political colour, have seldom been encouraging of Track-2 initiatives, especially those involving the Chinese. So, what — despite the current government’s current hard line — explains the timing of this sudden opening to China? What is the policy line being conveyed to the Chinese or the message for the Indian public?

As general elections near, are we in for a repeat of the poorly thought-out Wuhan informal summit that preceded the 2019 general elections? Chinese transgressions leading to Galwan would start just six months after the second informal summit in Mamallapuram, in Tamil Nadu.

India’s China policymaking appears driven by inexplicable, contradictory, and self-defeating impulses — a clear sign as any of the lack of adequate consultation and creative thinking within the system. This must change.

If the smartest thinkers in the US — still the world’s pre-eminent superpower — can worry about its political dysfunction and the gap between rhetoric and action and can call for ‘rebuilding support at home’ for the responsibility of US global leadership, Indians should worry too, about how their country’s external aspirations are articulated and achieved. Without domestic consensus and accountability on foreign policy objectives, New Delhi will not be able to convey commitment or constancy of purpose to either its external partners or its adversaries.

(Jabin T Jacob is Associate Professor, Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, and Director, Centre for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi-NCR. X: @jabinjacobt.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.