More Chinese now regard India as a security threat. Only 8% consider it favourable

INDIAPOSITIVE · May 30, 2023

File photo of PM Modi and President Xi | ANI
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Only eight per cent of Chinese citizens consider India a favourable country, a new survey suggests. China and Bhutan met for the second time this year to negotiate a border agreement. China’s first domestically built commercial airplane makes its maiden flight. The US and its allies accuse a Chinese hacking group of targeting the Guam military base. Chinascope dives into a survey on Chinese public opinion about India — and much more.

China over the week

A new survey on the Chinese public’s views about international security conducted by Tsinghua University has revealed a new insight about India. There is both good and bad news.

The survey suggests that only eight per cent of those surveyed consider India to be a favourable country—a worse performance—compared to the US, which scored 12.2 per cent and Japan which stood at 13 per cent.

The latest survey paints a grimmer picture compared to a 2020 survey of the Chinese public’s views about India. According to it, almost 26.4 per cent of the respondents had a ‘favourable impression’ of India as a neighbour. The 2020 survey was conducted jointly by the nationalist tabloid Global Times and the Institute of South Asian Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR).
But there is another caveat to the recent survey results.
Almost 41.5 per cent of respondents held a neutral view about India which conforms to the trend that many in China have limited interaction with India and Indians on a day-to-day basis.
The Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy survey was on the topic “Chinese Outlook on International Security” in 2022. The survey concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic now ranks as the top international security issue, followed by international forces intervening in Taiwan and the US-China rivalry.
As expected, the US is seen as the country — according to 82 per cent of respondents — with the most impact on China’s security environment. The survey also revealed that almost 60 per cent of respondents viewed Russia favourably.
India’s position in the Chinese public’s threat perception has increased significantly in the last three years. India now ranks almost as high as Japan which has been traditionally regarded as the most severe security threat, after the US, by Beijing.

In April, the Bhutanese Prime Minister Dr Lotay Tshering created a storm in a teacup with his remarks to the Belgian Newspaper La Libre Belgique. He suggested Thimphu would watch how India and China “resolve their differences” to broach the possibility of trilateral talks over the Doklam area dispute.
In the latest action, China and Bhutan held the 12th Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on the China-Bhutan Boundary Issues in Thimphu on 24 and 25 May.

“The two sides expressed their confidence in the Three-Step Roadmap and reiterated the importance of increasing the frequency of their meetings to make further progress in its implementation. They agreed to hold the next EGM in Beijing at an early date,” said the press release by the Chinese foreign ministry.
The latest meeting in Thimphu is the second expert group meeting since the January meeting in China’s Kunming city. In Thimphu, The two sides also agreed to hold the 25th Round of China-Bhutan Boundary Talks, a mechanism which lapsed in 2016.
The fact that the next round of talks is scheduled in Beijing, instead of Kunming or Thimphu, suggests the talks have made significant progress, and the two sides might be nearing an agreement to settle their dispute. An agreement between China and Bhutan to swap the Jamparlung and Pasamlung valleys in the North with Doklam to the West wouldn’t find any takers in New Delhi. As the talks pick up the pace, there is no clarity on how New Delhi plans to express its interest by letting China and Bhutan negotiate a boundary agreement.
China has lagged behind the US and Europe in producing commercial passenger jets domestically. There was no equivalent to Boeing or Airbus jets in China so far but that has just changed.

16 years in the making, Beijing’s prestige commercial airplane C919 produced by Chinese manufacturer Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China made its maiden flight from Shanghai to Beijing. The C919 project is close to Xi’s heart and vision to make China climb the heights of science and innovation.
“Xi stressed having Chinese airliners fly in the sky embodies the will of our country, the dream of our nation and the expectations of our people” reported Xinhua when Xi met with C919’s project team.
Despite drumming up the C919’s flight as a story of domestic innovation, the aircraft still relies on Western parts from engines to avionics.

The narrative in the media often portrays the US as the party seeking to decouple from China, but Beijing is sprinting towards reducing its dependence on the US and Europe.
The US and China have sparred over the semiconductor supply chain quite openly after Washington imposed a series of curbs stopping Chinese companies from accessing US technology.
Now, China has called the US memory chip company Micron Technology a national security risk and banned the company’s chips.

Though the ban is likely to have a limited impact on Micron’s business in China as the company primarily supplies private smartphone companies, the latest action shows the turf war between Beijing and Washington is just getting started.
The technology decoupling will be a slow and gradual process which both sides have now set their minds on pursuing.

China in world news

The Naval Base Guam offers the US a unique capability to project power across the Indo-Pacific — making Beijing dread its existence. A hacking incident in Guam and elsewhere in the US has woken up the world’s most secretive alliance – the Five Eyes alliance.

The US and its allies have revealed a campaign by a Chinese hacking group called ‘Volt Typhoon’ to access defence networks based on the island of Guam. The hackers installed surveillance malware into the Microsoft Windows system and used an approach called ‘living off the land’ to hide its activities. The group’s cyber activities went completely undetected and may have even breached critical defence and security networks on the US mainland.

Microsoft has made an assessment that the hacking group was developing capabilities which could “disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises”.

The Chinese foreign ministry has called the allegations a “collective disinformation campaign”.

But why Guam, in particular? All evidence points towards hackers trying to find a way to cut Taiwan off from the US during future contingencies involving Beijing.

The media narrative on Taiwan misses the big black spot about the type of showdown that will take place between the US and China – extending to Guam. The Microsoft hack reveals Beijing is trying to war game the Guam scenario.

China in world news

The Naval Base Guam offers the US a unique capability to project power across the Indo-Pacific — making Beijing dread its existence. A hacking incident in Guam and elsewhere in the US has woken up the world’s most secretive alliance – the Five Eyes alliance.

The US and its allies have revealed a campaign by a Chinese hacking group called ‘Volt Typhoon’ to access defence networks based on the island of Guam. The hackers installed surveillance malware into the Microsoft Windows system and used an approach called ‘living off the land’ to hide its activities. The group’s cyber activities went completely undetected and may have even breached critical defence and security networks on the US mainland.

Microsoft has made an assessment that the hacking group was developing capabilities which could “disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises”.

The Chinese foreign ministry has called the allegations a “collective disinformation campaign”.

But why Guam, in particular? All evidence points towards hackers trying to find a way to cut Taiwan off from the US during future contingencies involving Beijing.

The media narrative on Taiwan misses the big black spot about the type of showdown that will take place between the US and China – extending to Guam. The Microsoft hack reveals Beijing is trying to war game the Guam scenario.