POL 319

India China US

Dr. Lairson

9/15/17/22/24

How is Chinas position in the world different in 2015 as compared to 2000?

Economy size

How does this size affect the global economy

Foreign direct investment inward and outward

Foreign Exchange Reserves

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/24/business/international/the-world-according-to-china-investment-maps.html?_r=0

Actions:

Latin America

Africa

Middle East

East China Sea

South China Sea

Silk Road

New Type of Foreign Relations?

Vincent Wei-cheng Wang, "Chindia or Rivalry? Rising China, Rising India, and Contending Perspectives in India-China Relations," Asian Perspectives 35 (2011) 437-469

What is a strategic relationship among major powers all about?

Whether an Asian century will finally arrive after five centuries of Western dominance of world affairs depends importantly not only on whether India and China can continue their respective rises but also on how each of these two Asian giants will deal with its own and the other nations ascent.

While the implications for the rise of China have been debated in various contexts (global or systemic, regional, and bilateral), much less scholarly attention has been devoted to the rise of India and how these two Asian giants perceive each others ascendancy.

Examine the key factors influencing India-China relations and analyzing elite perspectives on this relationship in each nation.

Chinese strategy

What factors do Chinese consider in making their assessment of the security and strategic environment?

The structure of the international system after the Cold War (multipolarity or unipolarity). BIPOLAR?

The question of whether the US role in global affairs is in decline.

Chinas role in the international system and proper grand strategy (i.e., the distinctive combination of political, economic, and military means to ensure a states national interests or to achieve the objectives of the regime).3

The best ways to deal with the United States.

Relations with other great powers (Japan, Russia, and India).

What important conclusions about the security and strategic environment can China make?

China today is fairly sanguine that large-scale military conflicts involving great powers are unlikely to occur and that China is likely to be increasingly secure from traditional security threats (i.e., military threats by a foreign power against Chinas territory or the physical security of Chinas population). DOES THIS CREATE AN OPPORTUNITY TO ADVANCE CHINAS POSITION?

In the 1970s and 1980s, Chinas leaders concluded that the country needed a peaceful international environment for at least another two decadesa period of strategic importance for the country to concentrate on the further development of its economy. Economic development was to be the overriding linchpin to increasing Chinas wealth, power, prestige, and international standing. ARE WE AT THE END OF THIS ERA?

The dominant position of the US meant that managing relations with the United States and navigating in an international system that many Chinese analysts saw as reflecting Western (especially US) values and strengths became critically important. IS THIS STILL TRUE?

The Evolution of Chinas Strategy

Deng Xiaoping 24 character strategy:

twenty-four character strategy:

observe calmly;

secure our position;

cope with affairs calmly;

hide our capacities;

bide our time;

be good at maintaining a low profile;

never claim leadership;

make some contributions

IS THIS STILL RELEVANT?

Jiang Zemin 1989-2002

post Tiananmen rebuild respectintegrate into the global economy, WTO

Hu Jintao 2003-2013

Peaceful rise

1) an embrace of globalization as part of the solution to Chinas growth imperatives.

2) to achieve the goal of rising to great-power status, China must secure a peaceful international environment that is crucial to sustaining Chinas economic development and augmenting Chinas power.

3) the new diplomacy is characterized by several important changes in style, if not substance. Instead of acting like an aggrieved victim, China now aspires to be a responsible great power and is acting increasingly like one. Whereas China used to distrust multilateralism for fear that multilateral institutions could be used to constrain or punish it, now Chinese leaders recognize that deeply en- gaging these organizations helps promote the countrys trade and se- curity interests and limits US power.7 On many contentious and intractable issues, China has also adopted more pragmatic stances.8 China is more aware that its rise has consequences for the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, so it is keen on easing the concerns of various countries.

4) The major instrument used in advancing Chinas objectives is its economic power, which is buoyed by its phenomenal economic growth, rapidly expanding domestic markets, and voracious appetite for raw materials needed for its economic development.

5) In summary, Chinas peaceful rise is a comprehensive long-term strategy leveraging globalization as a catalyst to accelerate Chinas economic development and elevate Chinas power and stature.

Xi Jinping

Not-So-Empty Talk: The Danger of China's New Type of Great-Power Relations Slogan

By Andrew S. Erickson and Adam P. Liff

China is Rising and US Declining

New Type of Great Power Relations?

China receives Great Power Status (Without any requirements for earning it)

Assertion this will avoid the Thucydides Trap

respect each other and treat each other as equals politically; carry out comprehensive, mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation economically; build up mutual trust and tolerance and share responsibilities in security matters; learn from and promote each other culturally; and seek common ground while reserving differences and live side by side in peace with each other ideologically.

a very old type of values and order, in which spheres of interest, zero-sum gains, and great-power exceptionalism ruled the day

Xi expects the United States to make certain accommodations concerning Chinas core interests.

that China has never done anything to undermine the US core interests and that, even in its own neighborhood, China is merely a victim on which harm has been imposed.

None of this is to deny the role of material power in shaping Chinas trajectory. As China expert Thomas Christensen has argued, the United States military presence in the Asia-Pacific and its focus on solidifying ties with regional allies and partners are not only hedges against possible Chinese provocations but also important means for influencing Beijings foreign policy decision-making. Indeed, the story of Chinas rise remains incomplete. No doubt, were in a rough patch today. But despite widespread claims to the contrary, nothing about Chinas future course -- and certainly not military conflict -- is predetermined. How things play out will depend on the choices made by leaders in many countries, but especially in Beijing and Washington.

China Rising and US Declining?

Do the US-originating economic crisis and US military entanglement in Iraq and Afghanistan signify the decline of the United States in both power and legitimacy?

Does that mean the international system will move toward a genuinely multipolar or even an a-polar one?

While in relative terms Chinas economy has so far outperformed all leading nations, how much can China expect to really close the gap with the United States?

How should China adjust its behavior as its capabilities continue to grow, in absolute and relative terms? Should China continue to hide its capacities and bide its time Or is it in its interest to start making contributions?

If China is to take a more active (if not assertive) approach in its external strategy, would its interests be best served by focusing on playing the role of being number two? This basically means accepting and hoping to reap the most benefits from a Western-directed world order. Molding China into a responsible stakeholder seems a more acceptable scenario to Western elites and has become the dominant discourse. Ora more likely possibilityshould China play both a stakeholder and a challenger role, working with the existing system (cooperating and soft-balancing if necessary) while also challenging US preeminence through persuasion rather than enforcement.

US pivot to AsiaRebalancing or De-Balancing: U.S. Pivot and East Asian Order Wei Ling China Foreign Affairs University

its nature and tactics have changed significantly between 2009 and 2012. Simply put, the pivot started with power cooperation but turned into a balance-of-power, especially military power, situation. Such pivot features both continuities and changes in terms of the U.S. strategies in the region. But its key components, the high-profile military deployments and exercises, the expansion of geopolitical domain from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, and the forward-deployed diplomacy, have been very conspicuous. The U.S. pivot to Asia has so far produced mixed results. Seemingly, it has reassured U.S. allies in the region and balanced the rising power of China. But, upon closer examination, the pivot has created a Georgia Scenario2 among some U.S. allies and partners, unnecessarily provoked China and increased U.S.China distrust, disrupted ongoing regional processes, and, hence, to a considerable extent, de-balanced the region.

If the 2009 U.S. pivot to Asia was about cultivating spheres of cooperation, then in early 2010, it started to look increasingly like competing spheres of influence.

By 2010, the center- pieces of the U.S. pivot to Asia had become clear maintaining U.S. leadership and counterbalancing the increasing influence of China.

[Subtext: China bears no responsibility for the US pivot and has not destabilized Asia through its actions]

First, the pivot has created a potential for a Georgia Scenario in territorial disputes and a side-taking dilemma for ASEAN countries. Georgia Scenario refers to a situation where a state in a region takes too seriously U.S. reassurance and security commitment and takes on a bigger fight than it can handle itself, only to find out that Washington had no intention of going to war in its defense over that particular issue.38 Neither the South China Sea nor the East China Sea ter- ritorial disputes are newly emerging issues. But they have become intensified after the United States directly inserted itself into these complex disputes.

The oft-repeated U.S. security commitment and increased U.S. military deployments and joint military exercises were interpreted by the Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan as U.S. commitment to defend the disputed waters, reefs, and islands, hence adding oil to the fuel of their nationalism and wishful thinking of taking advantage of China on these issues. They seem to have refused to question the U.S. intention of going to war with China in defense of a few reefs and islands that are of little strategic significance to the United States.

[Subtext: The US does not have sufficient interests in the East or South China Sea to justify its involvement in settling these disputes.]

To ASEAN countries, the U.S. pivot to counterbalance China has put them in a position of having to take sides.

[Subtext: Chinas actions are in no way contributing to ASAEAN states taking sides.]

ASEAN has balanced its relations with regional powers well enough in the past two decades to remain institutionally central in and has benefited enormously from regional integration processes. Once it had to take sides between China and the United States, not only would the balance be tipped, but ASEAN itself would lose its identity and value.

[Subtext: ASEAN nations must remain closer to China than the US in order to remain beneficiaries of the Asian production system.]

Second, the U.S. pivot to Asia has fueled the suspicion of the U.S. containment of China and increased U.S.China distrust. Many in the policy circles in Washington claim that the U.S. pivot is not at all about China, while many in China believe that it is all about China. A fair statement might be that the pivot is essentially about China. The U.S. pivot was developed based on the premises of Chinas military modernization and diplomatic assertiveness. The U.S. direct involvement in the South China Sea disputes is driven by the perceived threat to the freedom of navigation. However, the United States has greatly overestimated Chinas military capabilities;40 Chinese behavior in territorial disputes has been largely responsive and peaceful.41 And, given Chinas trading status and military capability, the threat to the freedom of navigation on the South China Sea is a false proposition.

[Why is this such an important paragraph?]

The TPP has also been regarded by many as dis- ruptive to ongoing regional Free Trade Area (FTA) negotiations and divisive to ASEAN.

Does the US pivot increase the chances of conflict with China or reduce the chances?

How could it reduce the chances of conflict and increase the chances for a cooperative solution?

India and China

Much more attention to Chinas rise than to Indias rise

China-India Early Years

Though India was committed to the idea of positive relations with China, the realities of conflict soon changed this. Chinas seizure of Tibet in 1950 brought China and India into a direct boundary relationship and in 1962 led to a war between China and India, which India lost. This led to a closer alignment of India with the Soviet Union and the alignment of Pakistan with China. In 1964, China developed an atomic weapon, which prompted India to do likewise in 1974. Pakistan developed atomic weapons in 1998. Only after 1976 did India and China resume normal diplomatic relations.

See page 454 for comparative capabilities

Strategic interactions

CHINAInitially, China accepts contending spheres of influence: China concedes South Asia as Indias sphere of influence. It seeks to confine India in that region by establishing good relations with Indias other South Asian neighbors (particularly Pakistan)a balance-of-power strategywhile preventing India from getting deeply involved in East Asia.

In recent years, each has treaded into the others sphere of influence: As a result of its growing dependence on foreign trade and raw materials and its desire to develop maritime power commensurate with its growing stature and interests, China has become more active in the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, Indias Look East policy has led it to forge stronger ties with Asian democracies such as Japan, Australia, Taiwan, and certain Southeast Asian countries that lie at the western Pacific littoral and have strong relations with the United States.

throughout the Cold War and until the late 1990s, Beijing was not convinced that relations with India would be as strategically significant for China as the relations it was cultivating with other major powers

The generally skeptical or dismissive view of India held by Chinese elites resulted from several sources. One was Chinas confidence stemming from its military victory over India in 1962. Chinas more impressive economic performance compared to Indias is an- other reason, as recounted earlier. Beijings much earlier start of economic reforms, its higher growth rates and GDP, the greater wealth of the average Chinese (see Table 3), and its far larger direct foreign investment and foreign exchange reserves all contribute to the self- confidence of Chinese elites. In addition, Chinese analysts generally view Indias ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity (or cleavage) as a handicap. And they also generally view Indias domestic politics (its federal system, extremely fragmented party politics, and chaotic, inefficient democracy) as a serious impediment to Indias future prospects.

Bilateral relations did not begin to improve and Chinese evaluations of India did not begin to change until the impetus provided by Indias 1998 nuclear tests. Since then, official relations have considerably warmed. In June 2003 Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vaj- payee made a historic visit to China, the first in over a decade. The two have elevated their relationship to one of strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and stability. During Chinese President Hu Jintaos visit to India in November 2006, the two sides adopted a ten-point strategy to further strengthen the bilateral relationship. Jing- dong Yuan, a China expert, quoted a Chinese diplomat by characterizing Chinas new perspective: Beijing now views its relationship with India as one of global and strategic importance that is long-term, all around, and stable

perspectives on India can be reduced to several specific elements. First, while China must accomplish its goal of peaceful rise and to some extent reckon with the gains it has achieved so far, China must also accept that India is also rising. India, too, has ambitions to play a greater role in regional and global politics and economics. But China must manage Indias rise by reducing the threats a rising India will pose to China and by selectively cooperating on issues of mutual interest. There- fore, China should reduce or eliminate the chance that India may harm Chinas interests by compartmentalizing the border disputes, containing the Tibet issue, and keeping alive the Pakistan card. Moreover, China must carefully monitor the implications of Indias military modernization and Indias growing security and overall relations with the United States, lest they harm Chinas interests or aspirations.

On the other hand, to enhance cooperation, my interviewees said that China should increase trade with India. It should also attempt to cajole India into taking the same side as China on various international issues, such as climate change.

So, as the logic goes, India must get along with China. Indeed, various Indian leaders have made this a priority, although many Indians believe that Indias goodwill is not reciprocated. The existence of a third neighbor, Pakistan, complicates the relationship between these two neighbors. So does the fact that Chinas and Indias strategic spaces overlap; they both have ambitions to be- come major regional if not world powers. Another Chinese saying is relevant here: The same mountain cannot accommodate two tigers. From Indias perspective, Chinese hegemony is unacceptable. A rising China makes Indias ascent more difficult, if not impossible. It can also explain why the Indians felt compelled to sign a landmark nuclear energy agreement with the United States.

Geopolitics

In the geopolitics paradigm, the logic of balance of power prevails. Competition, mutual suspicion, alliance, and military buildup standard tenets of realismhave heavily conditioned Indo-Chinese relations. Power is important in this paradigm. Tan Chung depicts power politics as horizontal expansion, which leads to border disputes. As stated, historically China and India did not have border disputes; China did not occupy Tibet until 1950. Modern concepts of sovereignty and territorial integrity have ensnarled both China and India.

Viewing Indo-Chinese relations through the geopolitics paradigm will have a negative impact on the relationship. Many of this authors informants seemed to accept certain basic realist premises, and their arguments confirmed the geopolitics paradigm.

Geoeconomics

At the same time, China and India are both rising economically, and complementarity exists between their economies. In the geoeconom- ics paradigm, the logic is interconnectivity and mutual dependence. This creates space and turns the zero-sum competition of the realist paradigm into a win-win situation. An increasing number of books champion this prospect (Engardio 2007; Meredith 2007): Chinas hardware combining with Indias software; Chinas yang blending with Indias yin. Judging from the still relatively moderate trade vol- ume between the two, and the fact that neither is a key trading part- ner to the other, there exists immense potential for a closer economic partnership to gradually emerge, which would help ameliorate the overall bilateral relationship.

Geocivilizations

The third paradigm is not the mainstay of Western international rela- tions theories. It is reflectivist, rather than rationalist. Its logic is affin- ity, rather than material interests. Buddhism originated in India but flourished in China.

Based on this authors fieldwork in 2006 and 2008, an overwhelming majority of Chinese informants (85 percent) adopt the geopolitical paradigm, a minority the geoeconomic, and virtually nobody the geocivilizational paradigm. In India, roughly 60 percent of informants adhere to the geopolitical paradigm, 30 per- cent to the geoeconomic, and 10 percent to the geocivilizational.

Prospects

there are three scenarios.

1) The first is continued, even heightened, rivalry, guided by the logic of the geopolitics paradigm.

The second possibility is Chindia, driven by the logic of the geoeconomics paradigm. Here, China and India would jointly pro- mote a multipolar world and a more equitable global order (e.g., re- forming the United Nations). However, an Indo-Chinese entente aimed at the United States is unlikely, as each derives many benefits by maintaining a good relationship with the United States.

The third possibility is pragmatic management of their relation- ship, seeking solutions to their unresolved disputes while exploring areas of cooperation.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization involves China in central Asia and China has developed port facilities in areas near India.

Rising Powers, Rising Tensions: The Troubled China-India Relationship

Brahma Chellaney

Nehru led India to adopt a policy of accommodation and even appeasement of China in hopes of building an ideological relationship with China. Even in the face of Chinese seizure of Tibet, Nehru persisted even refusing to challenge this action.

By 1954, Nehru surrendered Indias British-inherited extraterritorial rights in Tibet and recognized the Tibet region of China without any quid pro quonot even Beijings acceptance of the then-prevailing Indo-Tibetan border.

when China sprung a nasty surprise by invading India in 1962, Nehru publicly bemoaned that China had returned evil for good.7 A more realistic leader would have foreseen that war and taken necessary steps to repulse the invasion. After all, using the 1954 friendship treaty as a cover, China had started furtively encroaching on Indian territories, incrementally extending its control to much of the Aksai Chin, a Switzerland-size plateau that was part of the original princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Sino- Indian relations, in fact, became tense after the Dalai Lama fled across the Himalayas to India in 1959, with Beijing using its state media to mount vicious attacks on India. Nehru, however, still believed that China would not stage military aggression against India. The Indian army remained undermanned and ill-equipped.

Nehrus strategy, such as it was, failed dramatically in 1962.

Fifty years after that war, tensions between India and China are rising again amid an intense geopolitical rivalry. The 4,057-kilometer-long border between the two countriesone of the longest in the worldremains in dispute, without a clearly defined line of control in the Himalayas separating the rival armies. This situation has persisted despite the occurrence of regular talks since 1981, constituting the longest and most fruitless negotiating process between any two nations in modern world history. During a 2010 New Delhi visit, Premier Wen Jiabao bluntly stated that sorting out the Himalayan border disputes will take a fairly long period of time.

As old rifts fester, new political, military, and trade issues have started roiling relations. For example, since 2006, China has publicly raked up an issue that had remained dormant since the 1962 warArunachal Pradesh, a resource-rich state in Indias northeast that China claims largely as its own on the basis of the territorys putative historical ties with Tibet. In fact, the Chinese practice of describing the Austria-size Arunachal Pradesh as South- ern Tibet started only in 2006. A perceptible hardening of Chinas stance toward India since then is also manifest in other developments, including Chinese strategic projects and military presence in the Pakistani-held portion of Kashmir. Kashmir is where the disputed borders of India, Pakistan, and China converge.

Indian defense officials have reported that Chinese troops, taking advantage of the disputed border, have in recent years stepped up military intrusions. In response, India has been strengthening its military deployments in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim state, and northern Ladakh region to prevent any Chinese land-grab. It has also launched a crash program to improve its logistical capabilities through new roads, airstrips, and advanced landing stations along the Himalayas.

Chinas strategic projects around India are sharpening the geopo- litical competition, including new ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, new transportation links with Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan, and Chinas own major upgrades to military infrastructure in Tibet. American academic John Garver describes the Chinese strategy in these words: A Chinese fable tells of how a frog in a pot of lukewarm water feels quite comfortable and safe. He does not notice as the water temperature slowly rises until, at last, the frog dies and is thoroughly cooked. This homily, wen shui zhu qingwa in Chinese, describes fairly well Chinas strategy for growing its influence in South Asia in the face of a deeply suspicious India: move forward slowly and carefully, rouse minimal suspicion, and dont cause an attempt at escape by the intended victim.10

One apparent Chinese objective is to chip away at Indias maritime dominance in the Indian Oceana theater critical to fashioning Chinas preeminence in Asia. Chinas strategy also seeks to leverage its strengthening nexus with Pakistan to keep India under strategic pressure.

WATER

As the aforementioned territorial and maritime issues fester, water is becoming a new source of discord between the two water-stressed countries. India has more arable land than China but muchless water. Compounding thesituation for a parched Indiais the fact that most of the important rivers of its northernheartland originate in Chinese-controlled Tibet. The Tibetan plateaus vast glaciers, hugeunderground springs and highaltitude make it the worldslargest freshwater repository after the polar icecaps. Although a number of nations stretching from Afghanistan to Vietnam receive water from the Tibetan plateau, Indias direct dependency on Tibetan water is greater than that of any other country. With about a dozen important rivers flowing in from the Tibetan Himalayan region, India gets almost one-third of its yearly water supplies of 1,911 billion cubic meters from Tibet, according to United Nations data.

China is now pursuing major inter-basin and inter-river water trans- fer projects on the Tibetan plateau. These projects threaten to diminish international river flows into India and Chinas other co-riparian states. Whereas India has signed water-sharing treaties with both the counties lo- cated downstream to itBangladesh and PakistanChina rejects the very concept of water sharing. It does not have a single water-sharing treaty with any neighbor, although it is the source of river flows to multiple countries, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Nepal, and Myanmar. One environmentally and politically dangerous idea China is toying with is the construction of a dam of unparalleled size on the Brahmaputra River, known as Yarlung Tsangpo to Tibetans. The proposed 38,000-megawatt damalmost twice as large as the Three Gorges Damis to be located at Metog, just before the Brahmaputra enters India, according to the state-run HydroChina Corpora- tion.12 In fact, a governmentblessed book, Tibets Waters Will Save China, has championed the northward rerouting of the Brahmaputra.13

With water shortages growing in its northern plains, owing to envi- ronmentally unsustainable intensive irrigation and heavy industrialization, China has increasingly turned its attention to the abundant water reserves that Tibet holds. Chinas hydro engineering projects and territorial disputes with India serve as a reminder that Tibet is at the heart of the Sino-Indian divide. Tibet ceased to be a political buffer when China annexed it more The India-China relationship has entered choppy waters. The more muscular Chinese stance toward New Delhihighlighted by the anti-India rhetoric in the state-run Chinese mediais clearly tied to the new U.S.-India strategic partnership, symbolized by recent nuclear deal and deepening military cooperation.

How can we understand the strategic interaction of China-India-US

US

Preserve strategic dominance in Asia

Accommodate Chinas rise

Gain from interdependence with China

US pivot to Asia

China

Preserve peaceful environment

Assert Chinas power

Chinas antagonism to India because of US strategic connection reacts strongly to US nuclear deal sees a threat from India

Cooperate with India to mute US India relationship

Is India the longer-term rival to China?

India

Accommodate Chinas Rise

Rapidly rising India-China trade

Assert Indias rising power

Soft balance China via the US, Japan, and more

What level of support can India count on from its new strategic partners?

India has moved into the US defense orbit military purchases

US is only state that can offset Chinese power

Indias great-power ambitions depend on how it is able to manage the rise of Chinaboth independently and in partnership with other powers. A stable, mutually beneficial equation with China is more likely to be realized by India if there is no serious trans-Himalayan military imbalance.

The Indian Ocean region indeed is becoming a new global center of trade and energy flows and geopolitics. If China were to gain the upper hand in the Indian Ocean region at Indias expense, it will mark the end of Indias world-power ambitions.

Do we have an emerging strategic triangle in Asia?

What does strategic interaction in a triangle look like?

What power resides with which actor?

Can China slit the US from actual and potential allies by forcing the US to choose between the ally and fighting China?

For more discussion by Chellaney of the China/US relationship from Indias perspective, see

http://www.project-syndicate.org/columnist/brahma-chellaney

September 17, 2014

Xi Jinping in India with Modi

The Economist China

What China wants:

Does the author believe China wants to overturn the existing global order of security, economy and norms?

What about in East and Northeast Asia? Does China want to overturn this system?

Has the US played a stabilizing and reassuring role in this area?

Is the US confronted with a large dilemma?

Yet, if the liberal order is to survive, it must evolve. Denying the reality of Chinas growing power would only encourage China to reject the world as it is. By contrast, if China can prosper within the system, it will reinforce it. That is why the United States needs to acknowledge one increasingly awkward aspect of its leadership: American advantage is hard-wired into the system in ways that a rising power might justifiably resent.

The author proposes three principles:

1) The US should only make promises it is ready and able to support with force, if necessary. This should include the defense of Taiwan.

2) The US should include China in the defense system it has established in Asia and in the naval exercises it conducts.

3) China should be included in the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

China suffers from its past:

China has been the center of the world, has seen that stolen from it, and wants it back.

China deeply distrusts Western nations, including the US. Many think the US will attempt to undermine China just as it did to the Soviet Union.

Put together Chinas desire to re-establish itself (without being fully clear about what that might entail) and Americas determination not to let that desire disrupt its interests and those of its allies (without being clear about how to respond) and you have the sort of ill-defined rivalry that can be very dangerous indeed.

Chinese also reject any responsibility for global affairs other than from their own interests. China asserts it is too poor and only a developing nation and cannot be expected to contribute to solving global problems.

there is a tension in Chinese foreign policy. The country wants to have as little involvement abroad as it can get away with, except for engagements that enhance its image as a great power. It will act abroad when its own interests are at stake, but not for the greater or general good.

And China has many legitimate complaints:

The BRICS countriesBrazil, Russia, India, China and South Africamake up 42% of the worlds population and 28% of the global economy (at PPP), but they have only 11% of the votes at the International Monetary Fund. In July China led the establishment of the Shanghai-based New Development Bank, of which all the BRICS countries are members and which looks like a fledgling alternative to the World Bank, leading to talk of a Chinese Bretton Woods. China has also set up an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to rival the Asian Development Bank.

The South China Sea

Economist Video

http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21609649-china-becomes-again-worlds-largest-economy-it-wants-respect-it-enjoyed-centuries-past-it-does-not

Sebastian Heilmann, What China Wants

Economic success has given China greater weight, but not nearly enough to tip the balance

The question rarely asked, though, is how exactly China will convert its vaunted economic miracle into geopolitical power? As the party leaders in Beijing appear to understand, the answer is anything but straightforward.

It is only natural that China is becoming more assertive. Growing wealth sharpens the appetite for power. As it gets richer, China is demanding more respect, is less prepared to take no for an answer and is discovering new needs and desires. A century of humiliation at the hand of foreigners has left a legacy of resentment and a public quick to spot further slights.

When China and Russia stand together, they have blocking power in the UNover removing the Syrian regime, for example, or imposing new sanctions on Iran.

This hinders Americas ability to get things done, but it does not amount to a challenge to American primacy. To see why, look more closely at Chinese economic, military and diplomatic power. In each sphere its scope to break out of the American system is still limited and seems likely to remain so for many years.

China has more people, but America has a larger pool of technology and human and financial capital, all of which are geopolitically more potent than mere headcount.

Moreover, Chinas economy has thrived by being closely connected to the rest of the world. China could not challenge America without doing grave damage to the economic growth that is the Communist Partys source of domestic legitimacy. If it tried to dump its holdings of around $1.3 trillion of US Treasury bonds, or somehow got Chinese companies to act in concert, it would not only lose on its investments but suffer from the resulting global recession, and its credibility as an investor and supplier would be destroyed. For an economy that has prospered through trade, that looks like a self-defeating strategy.

But China is in a weak position to sacrifice commerce for national glory. Not only would it lose its largest customers, but as Bruce Jones, an American academic, observes in a forthcoming book, its economy depends on oil imports flowing through the straits of Hormuz and Malacca. Both are under American control.

Sharp limits on the ability of China and Russia to challenge the US.

Massive US advantage in allies

Chinas challenge to America is not over global primacy. If it were, China would have a mountain to climb, militarily and diplomatically, and the world would have a good decades warning. Instead, Chinas challenge is regionalover Americas ties to the countries that surround it, Taiwan and the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. And it is proceduralover how the system works and how much say China should enjoy.

Does India have a Coherent Global and Regional Strategy?

A Fine Balance: India, Japan and the United States

A triangular relationship that could define the century.

Dhruva Jaishankar

January 24, 2014

Development of India Japan partnership

Doubts about the US as a reliable security provider

Chinas challenges to Japanese and India territory

Japan-India security cooperation

senior-level Defense Policy Dialogue

2+2 dialogue involving the foreign and defense ministries, Japan being the only country with which India has such an arrangement.

Military to military contacts

Annual joint maritime exercises

talks on for the sale of ShinMaywas US-2 amphibious aircraft to the Indian navy.

US connections

Indiatwenty foreign military sales from the United States, including major contracts for C-17, P-8 and C-130 aircraft. In dollar terms, defence commerce has gone from zero to $6 billion in a decade.

The Deep economic relationships of US, Japan and India with China block closer security relationships among these three

Can Japan actually help India in Tibet or can India help Japan in the East China Sea?

India thinks anti-US posturing is more valuable than association with the US

Japans special security situation

Deep reluctance for real rearmament

A Wider View of Indias Foreign Policy Reveals Clear Strategy

By DHRUVA JAISHANKAR

The last year has been a tough one for India under Mr. Singhs embattled leadership. The Economist ran a cover story in March which argued that the countrys lack of strategic culture promises to constrain its rise. The influential magazine Foreign Affairs published an article by the Boston University professor Manjari Chatterjee Miller which declared that New Delhi lacked strategic ambition.

There are many reasons why Indias foreign policy remains something of an enigma to analysts, scholars, and reporters both in India and abroad. The Indian government is averse to publishing strategic documents of the kind regularly released by the United States, most European states and even China. A careerist bureaucracy and hypercompetitive national politics encourage secrecy in decision-making. Policymakers have traditionally been distrustful of researchers and journalists, both Indian and foreign. And the views of disgruntled critics outside of government resonate far more loudly than bland official pronouncements do. But it is nonetheless clear that Indias objectives since the end of the Cold War have remained remarkably consistent, and its performance surprisingly effective.

Indias Strategy

India is in the midst of a slow motion realignment of its domestic and international politics, its economy and its strategic and economic relations with the world and region. These policies and actions consist of:

Adaptation and adjustment to the collapse of the Soviet Union as Indias main ally

Domestic economic reform

Increasing integration in the global and regional economies

India has developed much closer relations with ASEAN, especially with Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia

India has forged a strategic relationship with Japan

India agreed to lower tariffs with Japan, South Korea, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, while enjoying steadily deeper commercial relations with the United States, China and the European Union. Such efforts appear to have borne dividends: since 1997, Indias total trade has grown more than sevenfold, about 60 percent faster than its economy.

1998 nuclear tests to reestablish nuclear credibility

Alignment with the United States

Nuclear agreement

Soft balancing with Japan and Australia

Create a placid regional environment to support economic growth

Relations with Pakistan

Nuclear deterrence

Modernize conventional military forces

Preserve positive relations with China

Avoid excessive dependence on one nation or region

Several difficult problems

Slowing pace of domestic economic reform after 2005

Chinese willingness to act aggressively in border disputes (civil-military conflict in China?)

Brahmaputra water issues

China-Pakistan connection

Deep distrust of China in India

Continuing dependence of Russia for military arms

The Case Against India and its strategic culture.

The Economist

Can India Become a Great Power?

India as a great powerKnow your own strength

India exhibits a striking lack of what might be called a strategic culture. It has fought a number of limited warsone with China, which it lost, and several with Pakistan, which it mostly won, if not always convincinglyand it faces a range of threats, including jihadist terrorism and a persistent Maoist insurgency. Yet its political class shows little sign of knowing or caring how the countrys military clout should be deployed.

whereas Chinas rise is a given, India is still widely seen as a nearly-power that cannot quite get its act together.

Nehruvian ideology also plays a role. At home, India mercifully gave up Fabian economics in the 1990s (and reaped the rewards). But diplomatically, 66 years after the British left, it still clings to the post-independence creeds of semi-pacifism and non-alignment: the West is not to be trusted.

India is a powerful nation that does not know how to apply this power for strategic purposes:

For the past five years India has been the worlds largest importer of weapons (see chart). A deal for $12 billion or more to buy 126 Rafale fighters from France is slowly drawing towards completion. India has more active military personnel than any Asian country other than China, and its defence budget has risen to $46.8 billion. Today it is the worlds seventh-largest military spender; IHS Janes, a consultancy, reckons that by 2020 it will have overtaken Japan, France and Britain to come in fourth. It has a nuclear stockpile of 80 or more warheads to which it could easily add more, and ballistic missiles that can deliver some of them to any point in Pakistan. It has recently tested a missile with a range of 5,000km (3,100 miles), which would reach most of China.

India and its leaders show little interest in military or strategic issues. Strategic defence reviews like those that take place in America, Britain and France, informed by serving officers and civil servants but led by politicians, are unknown in India.

The armed forces regard the Ministry of Defence as woefully ignorant on military matters, with few of the skills needed to provide support in areas such as logistics and procurement (they also resent its control over senior promotions). Civil servants pass through the ministry rather than making careers there.

The Ministry of External Affairs, which should be crucial to informing the countrys strategic vision, is puny. Singapore, with a population of 5m, has a foreign service about the same size as Indias. Chinas is eight times larger.

The main threats facing India are clear: an unstable, fading but dangerous Pakistan; a swaggering and intimidating China. One invokes feelings of superiority close to contempt, the other inferiority and envy. In terms of Indias regional status and future prospects as a great power, China matters most; but the vexatious relationship with Pakistan still dominates military thinking.

Pakistan has engaged in a terrorist proxy war against India; has nuclear weapons and missile delivery capabilities, and battlefield nuclear weapons

Indias strategic doctrine for war with Pakistan is problematic:

Cold Start that would see rapid armoured thrusts into Pakistan with close air support. The idea is to inflict damage on Pakistans forces at a mere 72 hours notice, seizing territory quickly enough not to incur a nuclear response. At a tactical level, this assumes a capacity for high-tech combined-arms warfare that India may not possess. At the strategic level it supposes that Pakistan will hesitate before unleashing nukes, and it sits ill with the Indian tradition of strategic restraint. Civilian officials and politicians unconvincingly deny that Cold Start even exists.

The line of actual control between China and India in Arunachal Pradesh, which the Chinese refer to as South Tibet, is not as tense as the one in Kashmir. Talks between the two countries aimed at resolving the border issue have been going on for ten years and 15 rounds. In official statements both sides stress that the dispute does not preclude partnership in pursuit of other goals.

But it is hard to ignore the pace of military investment on the Chinese side of the line. Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal of the Centre for Land Warfare Studies points to the construction of new railways, 58,000km of all-weather roads, five air bases, supply hubs and communication posts. China would be able to strike with power and speed if it decided to seize the Indian-controlled territory which it claims as its own, says Mr Karnad. He thinks the Indian army, habituated to passive-reactive planning when it comes to the Chinese, has deprived itself of the means to mount a counter-offensive.

Is there a naval counter to Chinas land superiority? Chinas navy is expanding at a clip that India cannot matchby 2020 it is expected to have 73 major warships and 78 submarines, 12 of them nuclearbut Indias sailors are highly competent. They have been operating an aircraft-carrier since the 1960s, whereas China is only now getting into the game. India fears Chinas development of facilities at ports in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmara so-called string of pearls around the ocean that bears Indias name.

China sees a threat in Indias developing naval relationships with Vietnam, South Korea, Japan and, most of all, America. India now conducts more naval exercises with America than with any other country.

Indias navy has experience, geography and some powerful friends on its side. However, it is still the poor relation to Indias other armed services, with only 19% of the defence budget compared with 25% for the air force and 50% for the army.

With its enormous coastline and respected navy (rated by its American counterpart, with which it often holds exercises, as up to NATO standard) India is well-placed to provide security in a critical part of the global commons.

With the army training for a blitzkrieg against Pakistan and the navy preparing to confront Chinese blue-water adventurism, it is easy to get the impression that each service is planning for its own war without much thought to the requirements of the other two. Lip-service is paid to co-operation in planning, doctrine and operations, but this jointness is mostly aspirational. India lacks a chief of the defence staff of the kind most countries have. The government, ever-suspicious of the armed forces, appears not to want a single point of military advice. Nor do the service chiefs, jealous of their own autonomy.

The defence industrial sector, dominated by the sprawling Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), remains stuck in state control and the countrys protectionist past. According to a recent defence-ministry audit, only 29% of the products developed by the DRDO in the past 17 years have entered service with the armed forces. The organisation is a byword for late-arriving and expensive flops.

If India does not stop coddling its existing state-run military-industrial complex, he says, it will never be capable of supplying its armed forces with the modern equipment they require. Without a concerted reform effort, a good part of the $200 billion India is due to spend on weaponry over the next 15 years looks likely to be wasted.

America is still regarded as a less politically reliable partner in Delhi. The distrust stems partly from previous arms embargoes, partly from Americas former closeness to Pakistan, partly from Indias concerns about being the junior partner in a relationship with the worlds pre-eminent superpower.

The dilemma over how close to get to America is particularly acute when it comes to China. America and India appear to share similar objectives. Neither wants the Indian Ocean to become a Chinese lake. But India does not want to provoke China into thinking that it is ganging up with America. And it worries that the complex relationship between America and China, while often scratchy, is of such vital importance that, in a crisis, America would dump India rather than face down China. An Indian navy ordered to close down Chinas oil supplies would not be able to do so if its American friends were set against it.

Japan and South Korea have the reassurance of formal alliances with America. India does not. It is building new relationships with its neighbours to the east through military co-operation and trade deals. But it is reluctant to form or join more robust institutional security frameworks.

Instead of clear strategic thinking, India shuffles along, impeded by its caution and bureaucratic inertia. The symbol of these failings is Indias reluctance to reform a defence-industrial base that wastes huge amounts of money, supplies the armed forces with substandard kit and leaves the country dependent on foreigners for military modernisation.

India's Feeble Foreign PolicyA Would-Be Great Power Resists Its Own Rise

By Manjari Chatterjee Miller

Indians dont talk about the rise of India

: within India itself, the foreign policy elite shies away from any talk of the countrys rising status.

Why NOT?

First, New Delhis foreign policy decisions are often highly individualistic -- the province of senior officials responsible for particular policy areas, not strategic planners at the top. As a result, India rarely engages in long-term thinking about its foreign policy goals, which prevents it from spelling out the role it aims to play in global affairs.

Second, Indian foreign-policy makers are insulated from outside influences, such as think tanks, which in other countries reinforce a governments sense of its place in the world.

Third, the Indian elite fears that the notion of the countrys rise is a Western construct, which has unrealistically raised expectations for both Indian economic growth and the countrys international commitments.

The Indian Foreign Service

The powerful role of the Indian Foreign Service produces a decision-making process that is highly individualistic. Since foreign service officers are considered the crme de la crme of India and undergo extensive training, they are each seen as capable of assuming vast authority. What is more, the services exclusive admissions policies mean that a tiny cadre of officers must take on large portfolios of responsibility. In addition to their advisory role, they have significant leeway in crafting policy. This autonomy, in turn, means that New Delhi does very little collective thinking about its long-term foreign policy goals, since most of the strategic planning that takes place within the government happens on an individual level.

My interviews with top officials revealed that there are few, if any, top-down guidelines for the making of Indian foreign policy.

The absence of grand strategic thinking in the Indian foreign policy establishment is amplified by the lack of influential think tanks in the country. Not only is the foreign service short-staffed, but its officers do not turn to external institutions for in-depth research or analysis of the countrys position.

they are still not seen by the government as useful sources of advice. This is true even for Indias best-known think tanks, including the Centre for Policy Research, which houses first-rate experts, and the Ministry of Defensefunded Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

Is this tactics without strategy?

Countries that aspire to great-power status usually look beyond tactical challenges, imagine a world that best suits their interests, and work to make that vision a reality. The problem for New Delhi is that its foreign policy apparatus is not yet designed to do that. Indias inability to develop top-down, long-term strategies means that it cannot systematically consider the implications of its growing power. So long as this remains the case, the country will not play the role in global affairs that many expect.

Are there good reasons for India to step back from power?

New Delhis caution about raising expectations is tied to its fear that a growing India might have to take on responsibilities commensurate with its power. Officials who have worked with the foreign ministry and the prime ministers office told me that the disadvantage of the international discourse on Indias rise was that the West, particularly the United States, might pressure India to step up its global commitments. India might have to abandon its status as a developing country and could be forced to make concessions on environmental issues, such as limiting its carbon emissions, and on trade, such as opening up the Indian market further to U.S. exports.

New Delhis strategic thinking may be strengthened by the recently proposed expansion of the Indian Foreign Service, the growing number of Indian think tanks, and the increasing interest of the Indian diaspora -- which has come to play a large role in New Delhis economic diplomacy -- in Indian foreign policy. In the meantime, if the West wants India to play a larger international role, it needs to offer the country concrete incentives and assurances that discussions of its rise are not simply excuses to force it to make concessions.

Indian Strategic Thinking about East Asia

DAVID BREWSTER

Nehruvian strategic doctrine formed the intellectual foundation of Indian strategic analysis. At its core was the concept of nonalign-ment, which brought together several long-running strands of Indian strategic thought. As Nehru claimed, I have not originated non- alignment: it is a policy inherent in the circumstances of India.8 The key principles of non-alignment were non-violence, international cooperation and the preservation of Indias international freedom of action through refusing to align India with any Cold War bloc.

This led India to avoid any strategic leadership role in East Asia until very recently.

There have been several attempts to characterise and define the various ideological schools in Indian strategic thinking as they have developed since the end of the Cold War. Bajpai identifies three paradigms of Indian strategic thinking: Nehruvianism, neoliberalism and hyper-realism, each characterised by differing attitudes towards internal security, regional security and relations with great powers and each of which are broadly associated with differing political ideologies. Sagar proposes a categorisation between moralists (who uphold the Nehruvian tradition), Hindu nationalists (who advocate protecting national values through building strength), strategists (secularists who advocate developing strategic capabilities) and liberals (who emphasise attaining security through trade and interdependence).

various underlying themes in Indian strategic thinking relevant to East Asia. One might see Indian strategic thinking in terms of a mosaic of many different threads and contrasting themes and influences which often cross ideological boundaries.

Key themes in Indian strategic thinking relevant to its engagement with East Asia include its objectives of

strategic autonomy and a multipolar order;

dependence on no other state

requires system of many equal powers

concepts of an Asian balance of power;

To what extent is the development of Indias strategic relationships in East Asia driven by a strategy of forming a balancing coalition against China?

Avoid provoking China

Fear entanglement in US organized system

Great power status means acting like a great power

the ideological dimension;

Use the threat of democracy to discipline China

Has limited appeal to potential partners

the development of a maritime strategic outlook;

reorientation from land-based threats

Indian Ocean as basis for power, threat and opportuntiy

Requires preponderance over the Indian Ocean (China) as a basis for dominance over Asia

and ideas about an Indian sphere of influence.

India does not seek an exclusive sphere of influence, but a shared sphere of mutual development and cooperation.

India is commonly perceived in Southeast Asia as essentially a benign power and not a would-be hegemon, often in contrast with other powers such as China, the United States and Japan.

expand its presence in the region as a benign and cooperative maritime security provider.

Sphere as a basis for counter-encirclement of China

Indian strategic thinking about East Asia is best understood as a mosaic of perspectives and pragmatic goals which often cross ideological boundaries. It is, however, possible to identify two key factors that are driving Indian strategic thinking about East Asia: rivalry with China (which is essentially a reactive dynamic) and Indias ambitions to achieve great power status (essentially an active dynamic).