The ideational dimension of India’s China challenge

While the disengagement along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and the cordiality between India and China at the Brics summit in Kazan are encouraging, we must not confuse tactical relief at the LAC with a strategic rapprochement. Despite this agreement — whose finer details remain unknown to the public — for India, the China challenge will only grow over time. This is because, in grand strategic terms, China represents an intellectual challenge to India that goes beyond mere balance of power considerations and the growing power differential between the two countries. There was a time when Indian thinkers believed that two rising Asian powers and old civilisations, India and China, could coexist peacefully side by side. Today, that illusion holds little traction in contemporary India, and the recent agreement on the border may do little to change that recognition.
For the first time in India’s long history, an aggressive superpower is rising next door — something Indians are not used to. China’s ascent and its attitude toward India, there is little doubt, is aimed at relegating India to a secondary power in the region. This effort, both in the regional context and beyond, is also aimed at diminishing India’s ideational and strategic self-conception. The consequences of this intellectual diminution are far-reaching.
Second, Indians have long had a deeply held sense of civilisational greatness that is rooted in centuries of historical memories and mythology. This is nothing new — it was as persistent during the freedom struggle as it has been during the post-independence decades. Historically, China posed no threat to this self-perception, given its internal focus on East Asia and also because it was a recipient of India’s Buddhist heritage. Today, however, China’s rise challenges this history and legacy of co-existence and respect, not only through its growing material power but also by conveniently reshaping historical narratives to assert Chinese civilisational supremacy over others. In that sense, China’s rise not only threatens the regional balance of power but also the civilisational influence India has had in the region.
For the Chinese State that seeks to posit itself as a grand, old, superior civilisational State in Asia and beyond through instrumentalities such as the Global Civilization Initiative, the challenge of India, an equally grand civilisation, being next door is a problem. Therefore, while India accepts China as a peer civilisation, China refuses to view India as a civilisational equal. This new abrasive and superior sense of Chinese identity, which brazenly seeks to rewrite geopolitical equations, will continue to hinder stability in India-China relations.
Third, over the past decade, Beijing has fundamentally disrupted India’s regional primacy in South Asia by offering a political, economic, and normative alternative to States in the region and beyond. For trade, tourism, and education, China has become the preferred partner for many of India’s neighbours, except when it comes to refugees to whom China routinely shuts its doors. For sure, we can’t blame our neighbours for picking and choosing between compelling alternatives; after all, they, too, have strategic autonomy and needs. For India, which has historically held unquestioned primacy in the region, this shift presents a difficult reality and a profound intellectual challenge. The loss of primacy in South Asia is indeed the is the toughest intellectual challenge India has faced since its Independence.
China’s intent to diminish India’s civilisational and geopolitical stature, an enterprise in which it does not view India as a peer, also carries material consequences. For instance, it consistently avoids discussions on the big questions of strategic stability (e.g., nuclear questions) with India, thereby, albeit indirectly, signalling that it does not regard India as a power of equal standing. China prefers conflict management conversations with India, consistently avoiding broader discussions on regional or global stability — making it clear that it does not consider India worthy of great power conversations. In a sense, there is a striking parallel between India’s approach to Pakistan and China’s approach to India: Both India and China appear to have limited the nature and scope of their conversations with their weaker partners.
Finally, China’s attitude toward India is also increasingly shaped by the misguided perception that India acts as an American proxy in the region. Although this view is both ahistorical and dishonest, this tendency to view India through its rivalry with the United States (US) remains a persistent element of its strategic thinking. In the Chinese view, the closer India gets to the US, the less China will feel the need to engage in a direct strategic dialogue with India.
So, while there is good news from the LAC, the China challenge to India is a long-term one that has both material and intellectual/ideational elements. Therefore, our response must incorporate both material and intellectual elements, brought together into a carefully considered grand strategy.
We must trade with China as if it were an adversary and cooperate with China as if it were a competitor. Trading with China without defence is foolish; building defences against China without trade is self-defeating.
Happymon Jacob teaches India’s foreign policy at JNU and is the founder of the Council for Strategic and Defence Research. The views expressed are personal