Analysis on the impact of China-India debacle

[PradoTLC]

 

[GeraltofRivia]

I think that this gives Pakistan some breathing space to re-orient because much of our progress has been impeded with the great threat next door. Over the last two decades we've had had multiple firms and it's been a battle for survival. Now that the Western front is relatively secure, we can focus our attention on clearing further issues internally and focus towards our own economic development. If one were an optimist I'd hope that bureaucratic change may come but knowing how poisonously powerful that sector is, I'd be guarded about it. As CPEC is the flagship of the Belt initiative it's the best time that we use whatever time we have to gear ourselves to gain maximum advantages from it and focus towards being a more stable nation economically so we can counter our threats in a safer and stronger manner.

As you rightly pointed out, BRI is China’s strategic game plan in the next 100 years, of which CPEC is the flagship project. China has committed large amount of resource in capital, human and technology into the project to enable the process. What has happened along LAC will has shown the China’s willingness to participate and defend the project in military dimension.

Over a longer term, the success of CPEC will heavily dependent on the security environment that China and Pakistan can create, not only within Pakistan but also the entire South Asia region. Investors need to be confident about security and social stability that the host country can provide. China is obviously making the message clear that it will go to great lengths to enforce the order, particularly at China’s doorstep.

US’ withdrawal from Afghanistan is certainly a welcoming step towards the direction. However India is still highly susceptible about the BRI and hostile to CPEC due to a mix of reasons. I think Indian leadership does understand very well that BRI can benefit India tremendously which aligns with their goal of economic development. I’d be shocked if they don’t. However they are uncomfortable with a growing Chinese influence and footprint in the region and a powerful and prosperous Pakistan and this view has clearly overpowered their thought. It is certainly regrettable that they couldn’t see the full picture and the recent approximation with Australia reaffirms its stance.

Pakistan and China would most simply take a pragmatic and agile approach and focus on building infrastructure and economy. Direct involvement by China military could allow Pakistan to divert some of their energy into economical front and accelerate the progress.

 

[jaibi]

Agreed, I think that the current weaning will of the Western powers, The US and NATO, to be involved directly demands that the Pak-China alliance keep the check on the situation. This isn't ideological but purely the realpolitik of the era: much of the ME and CARs can be utilized to create unrest especially Afghanistan, which is yet to stablize. There's simply no other option left.

Secondly, I'm also surprised that the pragmatic centre of Indian political junta has not appreciated the opportunity that BRI offers them as well. They would have a massive market to expand to with little investment. However, I think this is from the inept bureaucratic system of the nation which perhaps thinks that they would be able to retain their own power with maintaining the status-quo. I have read that the progress of India is despite its executive branch rather than because of it and here it shows that.

Thirdly, the great imbalance that India shows also exposes that there is a need for massive re-orientation of the nation: for instance, China was able to drastically reduce poverty levels with its growth but India has not been able to implement the same level of progress at the home front. That once again shows a 'confused' policy making process. Thus, it seems that they are being held by regressive mentality in their political process.

Moreover, it's also surprising that India is not offering any other alternative to the BRI and its wide arching aims before challenging China and expecting a realistic manner of being able to prevent it from being realized and losing potential allies. I think Afghanistan would be a future example of it. In the end, each nation looks for its own advantage.

Lastly, I think this exposes a huge strategic mistake and frankly hypocrisy on the Indian defence dimension: it has always justified the size of its forces by addressing Pakistan and China as potential threats. However, their focus on ground has heavily been towards Pakistan exclusively. Therefore, when China enters the field, I think, it's quite clear that the Indian military was not prepared to answer the threat in any appreciable manner. I think this justifies what Pakistan has always been stressing that it must maintain a balance of power against its neighbour because it has malintent towards it. Once focused upon, I think, this shows a lack of foresight on their part and a clear cut message to the region.

As you rightly pointed out, BRI is China’s strategic game plan in the next 100 years, of which CPEC is the flagship project. China has committed large amount of resource in capital, human and technology into the project to accelerate the process. What has happened along LAC will has shown the China’s willingness to participate and defend the project in military dimension.

Over a longer term, the success of CPEC will heavily dependent on the security environment that China and Pakistan can create in the region, not only within Pakistan but also the entire South Asia region. Investors need to be confident about security and social stability that the host country can provide. China is obviously making the message clear that it will go to great lengths to defend it, particularly at China’s doorstep.

US’ withdrawal from Afghanistan is certainly a welcoming step towards the direction. However India is still highly susceptible about the BRI and hostile to CPEC due to a mix of reasons. I think Indian leadership does understand very well that BRI can benefit India tremendously which aligns with their goal of economic development. I’d be shocked if they don’t. However they are uncomfortable with a growing Chinese influence and footprint in the region and a powerful and prosperous Pakistan and this view has clearly overpowered their thought process. It is certainly regrettable that they couldn’t see the full picture and the recent approximation with Australia reaffirms this stance.

Pakistan and China would most simply take a pragmatic and agile approach and focus on building infrastructure and economy. Direct involvement by China military could allow Pakistan to divert some of their energy into economical front and accelerate the progress.

 

[CriticalThought]

Very quickly, without prejudice: Focusing solely on STEM fields is EXTREMELY dangerous; it breeds fanboys. I put most of the reasons for India suddenly over the last ten or fifteen years having developed a beefy segment of totally toxic minds to this phenomenon: the growth of capitation fee colleges for engineering and for medical education that built a generation that was trained but not educated. So this flood of internal migrants from the villages and small towns brought all their prejudices and all their unrelieved majoritarian impulses to the city, sacrificed enormously to get trained, and got the money and surplus time to range freely over the more sinister parts of the Internet. The result is what you see on social media, on the comments section of Dawn, in sneers and foul-mouthed superficially patriotic comments on YouTube, in gangs roaming Quora - the lot.

It is imperative that the concentration should be on academics; if there is STEM (there must be, there has to be), it has to be through courses that actively seek to build balanced personalities, people who are aware of the past, who are not brain-washed into religion-driven fascist mind-sets, who are open to questioning their fundamental beliefs and systems, who are open to tolerance of those who deviate from their own beliefs.

I could not emphasise more what has just been so tersely articulated above - a more holistic approach towards development rather than a mere specialist one.

This should be inscribed in letters of gold and EVERY teacher should be summoned into a mass assembly once a week and asked to reflect on this fundamental goal of education, of education and not of training.



Agree totally with both your points.

I submit that personalities are already built during primary education, and further refined during secondary education. Social sciences create the other extreme: leftists. We have many a bad experience with those in our own country. If you want the country to progress economically, focus on fields of national power in tertiary education: STEM, economics, medicine, politics, international relations/geo-politics. All of them play roles in national power.

If you want a population that adheres to sound values of morality and humanity, you need to concentrate on primary education and then secondary education. After that, what children experience at home will still show in their character to some extent.

 

[Dark1]

Agreed, I think that the current weaning will of the Western powers, The US and NATO, to be involved directly demands that the Pak-China alliance keep the check on the situation. This isn't ideological but purely the realpolitik of the era: much of the ME and CARs can be utilized to create unrest especially Afghanistan, which is yet to stablize. There's simply no other option left.

Secondly, I'm also surprised that the pragmatic centre of Indian political junta has not appreciated the opportunity that BRI offers them as well. They would have a massive market to expand to with little investment. However, I think this is from the inept bureaucratic system of the nation which perhaps thinks that they would be able to retain their own power with maintaining the status-quo. I have read that the progress of India is despite its executive branch rather than because of it and here it shows that.

Thirdly, the great imbalance that India shows also exposes that there is a need for massive re-orientation of the nation: for instance, China was able to drastically reduce poverty levels with its growth but India has not been able to implement the same level of progress at the home front. That once again shows a 'confused' policy making process. Thus, it seems that they are being held by regressive mentality in their political process.

Moreover, it's also surprising that India is not offering any other alternative to the BRI and its wide arching aims before challenging China and expecting a realistic manner of being able to prevent it from being realized and losing potential allies. I think Afghanistan would be a future example of it. In the end, each nation looks for its own advantage.

Lastly, I think this exposes a huge strategic mistake and frankly hypocrisy on the Indian defence dimension: it has always justified the size of its forces by addressing Pakistan and China as potential threats. However, their focus on ground has heavily been towards Pakistan exclusively. Therefore, when China enters the field, I think, it's quite clear that the Indian military was not prepared to answer the threat in any appreciable manner. I think this justifies what Pakistan has always been stressing that it must maintain a balance of power against its neighbour because it has malintent towards it. Once focused upon, I think, this shows a lack of foresight on their part and a clear cut message to the region.

Its very simple, India does not trust the Chinese.
Pakistan we understand, its trying to be notindia since inception but Chinese are opposing India in arenas which make little sense , whether strategically or economically. Example is their support to UN designated terrorists in the security council or keeping us out of the nuclear suppliers club. Its a obviously planned strategy to keep India down as a competitor & does not align with your win win theory.
Poverty has reduced in India and i was watching the migrant labour trekking home recently. They for a change looked well dressed and not malnourished. India has changed in a manner we don't appreciate sitting in the metros.
We could do much better but for that just stop all imports , except for the essentials and generate employment. We have the skills and the money only we want short term profits.
The bureacracy is a deadweight but our politicians like mamta, who kicked a half built TAta plant out of Bengal for a few votes , are the real negatives.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I submit that personalities are already built during primary education, and further refined during secondary education. Social sciences create the other extreme: leftists. We have many a bad experience with those in our own country. If you want the country to progress economically, focus on fields of national power in tertiary education: STEM, economics, medicine, politics, international relations/geo-politics. All of them play roles in national power.

If you want a population that adheres to sound values of morality and humanity, you need to concentrate on primary education and then secondary education. After that, what children experience at home will still show in their character to some extent.

Very soundly put. Let me think about my views in the light of your comments.

I don't find anything wrong with leftists, by the way, so long as they don't preach the overthrow of the state and class war.

 

[CriticalThought]

I don't find anything wrong with leftists, by the way, so long as they don't preach the overthrow of the state and class war.

Maybe consider the other side of the coin as well. Someone could come along and say "I don't find anything wrong with rightists/extremists/whomever, by the way, so long as they don't preach the overthrow of the state and class war."

The experience with leftists here in Pakistan is that they want to submit totally and completely to not just a foreign ideology, but foreign actors. If left to their devices, they will make the country a proxy of some other country.

 

[jaibi]

Let's take this on face value, then what's the strategy?

Its very simple, India does not trust the Chinese.

This is a politically motivated answer rather than one stemming from realism, sir, I do not know why this would be incorporated in your response so I'm not sure how to respond.

Pakistan we understand, its trying to be notindia since inception

Your opening sentence makes little sense here I'm not sure what you're tying into. Is it not clear that India and China are rivals and have similar designs in the region therefore are competing?

but Chinese are opposing India in arenas which make little sense , whether strategically or economically.

Why would a rival help?

Example is their support to UN designated terrorists in the security council or keeping us out of the nuclear suppliers club.

I'm not suggesting a win-win situation, I'm speaking that realistically it would make sense to try to orient oneself with such a wide arching plan such as BRI or offer an alternative especially given the expansion of the Indian business community internationally at the start of the century. That lobby seems to be missing, I was speculating why is that so?

Its a obviously planned strategy to keep India down as a competitor & does not align with your win win theory.

Agreed, I was comparing it to the levels that China was able to achieve in order to have a better outlook towards expansion. Not dismissing any progress made.

Poverty has reduced in India and i was watching the migrant labour trekking home recently. They for a change looked well dressed and not malnourished. India has changed in a manner we don't appreciate sitting in the metros.

I think the part that I highlighted is the main issue here and perhaps it stems from an inept bureaucratic inertia or a strong lobby?

We could do much better but for that just stop all imports , except for the essentials and generate employment. We have the skills and the money only we want short term profits.
The bureacracy is a deadweight but our politicians like mamta, who kicked a half built TAta plant out of Bengal for a few votes , are the real negatives.

 

[ACE OF THE AIR]

Maybe consider the other side of the coin as well. Someone could come along and say "I don't find anything wrong with rightists/extremists/whomever, by the way, so long as they don't preach the overthrow of the state and class war."

The experience with leftists here in Pakistan is that they want to submit totally and completely to not just a foreign ideology, but foreign actors. If left to their devices, they will make the country a proxy of some other country.

Mind set changes only occur if the people are made desperate from various domestic issues. If we look at both India and China then we can clearly say the mindset has changed a lot over the years and it seems that China has taken the mindset of 60 year back India and on the other hand India has become more like 100 year back Germany. Both these countries have taken almost similar years in getting to what they have become.

This saying sums up perfectly
“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.”
― Karl Marx

 

[Dark1]

Let's take this on face value, then what's the strategy?


This is a politically motivated answer rather than one stemming from realism, sir, I do not know why this would be incorporated in your response so I'm not sure how to respond.


Your opening sentence makes little sense here I'm not sure what you're tying into. Is it not clear that India and China are rivals and have similar designs in the region therefore are competing?


Why would a rival help?


I'm not suggesting a win-win situation, I'm speaking that realistically it would make sense to try to orient oneself with such a wide arching plan such as BRI or offer an alternative especially given the expansion of the Indian business community internationally at the start of the century. That lobby seems to be missing, I was speculating why is that so?

Agreed, I was comparing it to the levels that China was able to achieve in order to have a better outlook towards expansion. Not dismissing any progress made.


I think the part that I highlighted is the main issue here and perhaps it stems from an inept bureaucratic inertia or a strong lobby?

All to do with trust .
Suppose India takes a leap of faith with the bri , what makes you think that all our investments wont come to a standstill next time Pakistan's PM wants to show solidarity with the Kashmiris ? Reason given for nawaz shariffs ouster is that he was too friendly with India.
The Chinese have made it clear that they want a adversarial relationship with their actions and we havent even used the Chinese tool kit of using trade against them.
Fine words on forums wont change the ground situation between the countries.

 

[nahtanbob]

As you rightly pointed out, BRI is China’s strategic game plan in the next 100 years, of which CPEC is the flagship project. China has committed large amount of resource in capital, human and technology into the project to accelerate the process. What has happened along LAC will has shown the China’s willingness to participate and defend the project in military dimension.

Over a longer term, the success of CPEC will heavily dependent on the security environment that China and Pakistan can create in the region, not only within Pakistan but also the entire South Asia region. Investors need to be confident about security and social stability that the host country can provide. China is obviously making the message clear that it will go to great lengths to defend it, particularly at China’s doorstep.

BRI is short to intermediate term plan to dump surplus Chinese manufacturing capacity & labor, package surplus chinese capital on some good & a lot of unviable infrastructure projects. In the process dump the debt & financial risk on third world countries. All the transit projects are at the mercy of Iran or Russia - neither of which are the most responsible stakeholders

 

[jaibi]

Then why are you questioning China's moves on India? Why should they trust India when it's mutual? Strange for you to question such clear cut alignments and strategy and then resort to simple explanations.

All to do with trust .

No one is asking India to. I'm not sure if you're reading what I wrote but to clarify again, it's reasonable to have either an alternative or some manner of using the initiative. Both seem to be missing. I'm questioning why and coming up with possibilities.

Suppose India takes a leap of faith with the bri , what makes you think that all our investments wont come to a standstill next time Pakistan's PM wants to show solidarity with the Kashmiris ? Reason given for nawaz shariffs ouster is that he was too friendly with India.

Something that's missing from the overall policy of India, this is surprising. Perhaps you're not seeing this as analysis and just being defensive but the aim is to understand the phenomenon.

The Chinese have made it clear that they want a adversarial relationship with their actions and we havent even used the Chinese tool kit of using trade against them.

Who claimed it would? Quite unnecessary to add this here.

Fine words on forums wont change the ground situation between the countries.

 

[CriticalThought]

Mind set changes only occur if the people are made desperate from various domestic issues. If we look at both India and China then we can clearly say the mindset has changed a lot over the years and it seems that China has taken the mindset of 60 year back India and on the other hand India has become more like 100 year back Germany. Both these countries have taken almost similar years in getting to what they have become.

This saying sums up perfectly
“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.”
― Karl Marx

What may appear superficially as a change in mindset may very well be a tactical withdrawal. For real change, we need to talk about character and morality. Note I am generalizing out my own beliefs that are solidly grounded in Islam. What I am saying does not go contrary to Islam.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Maybe consider the other side of the coin as well. Someone could come along and say "I don't find anything wrong with rightists/extremists/whomever, by the way, so long as they don't preach the overthrow of the state and class war."

Oh, but I completely subscribe to that. My objection is to the bigoted religious right, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar.

The reason that I oppose the BJP and the Sangh Parivar is precisely that: they are opposed to the rule of law and instead preach that the law is the wish of the majority; they have tried to isolate the Muslim Indian, whom even Pakistanis found to be among the most loyal Indians; they have subverted the constitution in what they did in Kashmir.

The experience with leftists here in Pakistan is that they want to submit totally and completely to not just a foreign ideology, but foreign actors. If left to their devices, they will make the country a proxy of some other country.

You are referring to Communists, in that case. Even among Communists, in India, there are large segments of Communist opinion that have relocated the focus of their loyalty to the Indian nation-state, and no longer to either Soviet Russia (the CPI) or Communist China (the CPI-M, and latterly, the CPI-ML, aka the Naxalites).

Personally, after having lived through the Naxalite insurrection in Calcutta in 1969-70, I abhor their philosophy of violence.

 

[GeraltofRivia]

I strongly suggest you have another good look at BRI, which may change your mind.

BRI is the most ambitious infrastructure plan that humanity will see. Since the dawn of civilization, human has been dreaming of traveling freely on the Eurasia - a road between Rome and China on which Plato and Laotian can meet. This is the time to build it. Certainly there will be a lot of doubt but from what I can see it is no more ambitious than building the Great Wall on the mountain ridge over thousands kilometers with ancient technology. If you look at Chinese history, one can clearly see that 2 grandest building projects were infrastructure projects-the Great Wall and the Great Canal.

In the past 400 years, Europeans have been responsible for pushing the boundary for humanity in terms of technology and infrastructure development. I think it is the time for China to contribute and push the boundary of what we can achieve. It doesn’t have to be complete in one generation, it can span as many generations as required, just like the Great Wall.

Another aspect is that the land branch of BRI will be a key enabler for the rejuvenation of land power, which has been dominated by the western maritime powers over the last 500 years. Maritime transport will still be the most economical means of transportation and handle lion share of global fright but the large scale deployment of new land transportation technology e.g. high speed rail and highway network, have put the land transport back into the competition.

Industrial investment and development is another centerpiece of BRI, which tends to be overlooked. The work on Rail, highway, port and airport are merely laying the foundations and the end goal of BRI is really about economical development and industrialization. This is where many observers would question China’s motivation of helping other developing nations to achieve industrialization. They think China uses this as smokescreen to hide its real agenda. I’d argue this suspicion is partially due to their biased understanding of capitalism and industrialization as a form of production that is mainly driven by individual entrepreneurs and free market.

Individual entrepreneurship and free market do certainly contribute significantly to the capitalism and industrialization, together with other elements like technology, labor, land and legal framework to protect private ownership but two other critical elements: physical infrastructure that makes the transportation of raw material and production efficiently and a market for the products. A key concepts here are purchasing power of the market and role of state in capitalism.

The model of traditional capitalist countries have been built on a very cruel way of production, extracting raw material from colonies and selling the finished goods back. For the countries that they could not colonize, they would force them to open the market by military means. This will rapidly dominate the local market of the developing countries as their products tend to be far more competitive due to mass production and technology. As a result, the local economy would be destroyed as the people who were in the old production mode lose livelihood and their purchase power. Over time, the purchasing power of the local market diminishes but traditional capitalists will continue their practice despite the overall value of economy has vastly reduced. They will “extract” all the value from local market, at certain point the value of the market will be so low that there is no purchasing power left i,e. people can afford to buy anything from the capitalist countries despite they want to as they have no income. The purchasing power may not go down any further as there’s always certain class that benefits from this cycle and still have some purchasing power for themselves, but they are minority. Now the developing country is in a equilibrium or slow growth state as there’s still natural growth from other aspects like population growth. The capitalists have to move on to the next country and repeat the same thing. However this is not a sustainable model because at certain point all the developing countries would reach this equilibrium stage so the capitalist countries run out of new markets to exploit. They can continue enjoying their high living standard in this equilibrium but there is little new prospect to grow. This is more or less likely what we are having today.

China has been practicing capitalism for the past 4 decades and already have a good understanding of it and where it is heading to.

I believe the reason China comes up BRI is that they like to achieve a new form of capitalism - sustainable capitalism, in which they will help the developing countries to grow their economy and achieve industrialization. As a result of this, The developing countries will have far greater purchasing power than the current state, which means they will be able to buy products from China and vice versa. The new market will stimulate further economical growth in China and it will invest back and the cycle goes on. As a result, China and the rest of the world will enter a sustainable model of growth that will unleash further industry revolution and new technologies.

One may wonder why western countries would have done this if all above makes sense and this brings us to the second key elements in capitalism - state. The western countries have been doing this on a piecemeal basis but state is too fragmented to implement this at a national level. US despite its power and resources wouldn’t be interested in something as tremendous as this. China’s state has the size and willpower to actually implement this as a national strategy on a prolonged basis.

BRI is short to intermediate term plan to dump surplus Chinese manufacturing capacity & labor, package surplus chinese capital on some good & a lot of unviable infrastructure projects. In the process dump the debt & financial risk on third world countries. All the transit projects are at the mercy of Iran or Russia - neither of which are the most responsible stakeholders