China in 2011: Through the Indian Looking Glass

Originally published: Jabin T. Jacob, “We are not that different, you and I,” DNA, 27 December 2011, p. 12.

With the exception of the 1962 conflict almost everything else about China is seen and understood in India through Western eyes. But, isn’t China, like India, a country of over a billion people? Why then suppose that anybody could understand the Chinese and their problems better than we Indians could? Who but Indians can really grasp the incredible complexities and myriad problems of a billion people living under one flag?

As Shakespeare’s Shylock might have continued asking, does China not have corruption and police brutality, unemployment and inflation, farmers committing suicide and migrant workers shivering in the cold? Does China not have a weak government and coalition politics, ethnic conflict and environmental protests?

“It does?”, you ask. Yes, it does. Continue reading “China in 2011: Through the Indian Looking Glass”

Xi Jinping – China’s Leader-in-Waiting

Originally published: Jabin T. Jacob, “The man with a dragon tattoo,” DNA, 27 December 2011, p. 12.

Xi Jinping, currently Vice-President of China, is slated to take over as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the 18th Party Congress in October 2012. He will thus be part of the ‘fifth generation’ of Chinese communist leaders to take power since 1949, following in the line of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and current CPC General Secretary and state President Hu Jintao. Continue reading “Xi Jinping – China’s Leader-in-Waiting”

Q&A: The India-China Border Conflict

This interview was originally published by the World Politics Review‘s Global Insider on 23 November 2011.

WPR: What are the core unresolved issues regarding the India-China border?

Jabin T. Jacob: The main point of contention in the Sino-Indian boundary dispute was originally the Aksai Chin area in the Indian northwest. China had built a road to Lhasa through the area, setting off the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962. This area remains in Chinese possession. In the late-1980s, however, the core of the dispute shifted eastward to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which the Chinese claim and call “Southern Tibet.” It is not clear what set off this new Chinese emphasis, but there seem to be at least two factors. First, Arunachal is rich in mineral, water and timber resources and is therefore important for the economically underdeveloped Tibet Autonomous Region. Second, Tawang, a Buddhist-majority town in Arunachal, is the birthplace of the 6th Dalai Lama and is believed to have paid taxes to the traditional Tibetan administration in Lhasa. The emphasis on Tawang — which has come to symbolize the dispute — appears to be part of a Chinese attempt to reinforce its legitimacy in Tibet and to be seen as capable of defending Tibetan interests better than the present Dalai Lama.

WPR: What is driving India’s decision to increase its security infrastructure and troop presence along the border?

WPR: What diplomatic avenues are being used to address the issue, and how effective have they been?

See the full interview World Politics Review – Q&A – Sino-Indian Boundary Dispute

Buddhism in India’s Soft Power Quiver

Originally published: Jabin T. Jacob, “A tale of two coalitions,” DNA (Mumbai), 8 December 2011.

The Special Representatives talks on the Sino-Indian boundary dispute slated for the end of November were called off after the Chinese objected to a Buddhist gathering in India that would have hosted the Dalai Lama. The incident has been viewed in different lights among New Delhi’s strategic community – as a diplomatic gaffe signifying lack of coordination within the government, as standing up to China by refusing to pressure the organizers of the Buddhist gathering, and as having meekly surrendered to China by cancelling plans to allow the Indian President and Prime Minister to address the gathering. Continue reading “Buddhism in India’s Soft Power Quiver”

Emerging Regional Architectures in Asia

This is a presentation I made during the 11th Russia, India and China (RIC) Trilateral Conference held from 15-16 November 2011 at Beijing, China. The RIC is a Track-II initiative that involves the Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi, and the China Institute of International Studies, Beijing.

The presentation titled, “Emerging Regional Architectures in Asia-Pacific and the Greater South Asia” is presented here in a slightly modified version and divided into five parts:

A. Regional Architecture

B. New Regional Architectures Emerging in Asia

C. What are the Fundamental Bases of an Effective Regional Architecture?

D. Domestic Political Systems and Regional Architectures

E. Conclusion

  Continue reading “Emerging Regional Architectures in Asia”

China’s Defence White Papers: A Political Reading

An extract from Jabin T. Jacob, “China’s Defence White Papers: A Political Reading,” in Gurmeet Kanwal and Dhruv C Katoch (eds.) China’s Defence Policy: Indian Perspective (New Delhi: Lancer Publishers, 2011), pp. 33-42.

China’s white papers on national defence (WPs) are intended to shed light on the country’s defence capabilities and plans. However, just as importantly, these are documents that reflect the current thinking within the corridors of power in China on important political considerations – domestic and international. While the WPs are ostensibly released by the State Council, that is, the government of the People’s Republic of China, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that represents China’s armed forces is not beholden to the state but to the Communist Party of China (CPC).

By virtue of being the Party’s army rather than the state’s, the PLA is a far more important actor in China’s foreign and security policymaking than counterparts in democratic countries such as India. At the same time, given that it seeks popular legitimacy by association with the masses and by implication the CPC, the PLA is also not as overwhelming a presence as armies in straightforward military dictatorships or in military-dominant countries like Myanmar or Pakistan.

Each of these distinctions is important and needs to be kept in mind while reading the WPs or trying to understand civil-military relations in China. This short essay examines a few political aspects of China’s WPs from both the external and internal angles. Continue reading “China’s Defence White Papers: A Political Reading”

Integrating the Outlier: Arunachal Pradesh as Development Project and Dilemma

What follows is a summary of a presentation that I made at the 4th All India Conference of China Studies held from 8-9 November 2011 at the University of Hyderabad:

Arunachal Pradesh’s disputed status, unique socio-cultural makeup and difficult geographic location have elicited multifaceted responses from Indian policymakers. First, its disputed status and the shock of the 1962 border conflict have given it some features in common with other disputed territories bordering China, namely, a legacy of poor physical and communications infrastructure. Second, Arunachal’s demographic composition of minority ethnic groups has meant that it has like other states in Northeast India been protected from a demographic influx from the rest of India and its citizens enjoy special economic rights. Finally, the difficult geographic location of the Arunachal Pradesh has meant that it largely remains exoticized in the mainstream Indian imagination and hence little studied, and even lesser understood by those in government and those outside. Continue reading “Integrating the Outlier: Arunachal Pradesh as Development Project and Dilemma”

The Age of the Lilliputians

There has been a flurry of visits over the past few months by leaders of the smaller South and East Asian nations to either or both of the Big Two of Asia, namely China and India.

In the space of a few weeks, the presidents of Vietnam and Myanmar and the Prime Minister of Nepal have come visiting India. Pakistan’s top ruling elite have increased the frequency of their visits to China in recent years while in August, the Sri Lankan President made his second trip to Beijing in less than a year.

What is interesting about these visits as well as return visits by Chinese and Indian leaders is that the old paradigm of the smaller countries being the supplicants is changing. Continue reading “The Age of the Lilliputians”

Reimagining Tibet in Sino-Indian Relations

The Tibetan government-in-exile has a new political leader. Lobsang Sangay took over not only as the new Kalon Tripa or Prime Minister but also stepped into the Dalai Lama’s shoes as political leader of the Tibetan exile movement. This handover of power to a younger generation of Tibetan leaders – democratically elected by the Tibetan community in exile – is an important milestone in the Tibetan struggle and has significant implications for China. Continue reading “Reimagining Tibet in Sino-Indian Relations”