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China Feels 'Highly Vulnerable' About India

Aziz Haniffa
India Abroad correspondent in Washington

China feels "highly vulnerable" only in its relationship with India in the region and not so any more with either Russia or the Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam and North Korea, says a US Institute of Peace study.

According to the USIP -- a think tank funded by the US Congress -- "This vulnerability may be exacerbated by several major developments, including India's control of large chunks of territory that China claims; the disruption of recent bilateral efforts to alleviate border tension and resolve territorial disputes; by India's recent testing of nuclear weapons, which has created another obstacle in improving their relationship; the operation from India of an active Tibetan independence movement, which is quite successful in internationalising the Tibet issue and enhancing an independence consciousness within Tibet; and a relatively low-level of bilateral investment and trade."

The study was done for the USIP by a leading Chinese-American scholar, Dr. Nan Li, who currently teaches political science at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. He's also taught courses on international relations and Asian politics at Dartmouth College, the University of Massachusetts, and Eastern Kentucky University.

Li argues that in addressing its vulnerability with India, "China is most likely to take a defensive position that focuses on conserving what is in its possession, rather than an offensive posture that place an emphasis on acquiring what it claims."

The study, From Revolutionary Internationalism to Conservative Nationalism: The Chinese Military's Discourse on National Security and Identity in the Post-Mao Era, predicts that "such a defensive position may entail stockpiling material and improving communications and road linkages at forward positions along the borders and developing infrastructure that links these positions with the rear so that reinforcements may be more swiftly deployed in the event of conflict.

"Some intermediate-range ballistic missiles may also be redeployed to enhance nuclear deterrence," it says, and such efforts would "most likely be accompanied by providing military aid to Pakistan, which may in turn deflect Indian military pressure on the Sino-Indian border."

This defensive stance would be conditioned by several factors, "including India's acquisition of nuclear weapons; difficult logistics to sustain an offensive operation on high, remote, and geographically harsh plateaus; and the general perception of the disputed territories as barren mountain ranges that have little economic value."

But it notes that "an exception to this perception is land in Arunachal Pradesh under Indian-control, which China also claims as its territory."

However Li, a former USIP fellow and a specialist on Chinese civil-military relations and military doctrine, acknowledges that the "Chinese claim may be used more as leverage in negotiating with India over territories that are under Chinese control, but also claimed by India, than as an agenda item to be acted upon.

"Chinese security analysts at least privately acknowledge that it may be immensely difficult for China to recapture this land in the near future," he says. .

Richard H Solomon, President of USIP and a former senior State Department official who headed the East Asia bureau, says in a foreword to the study that, "If China's new national security doctrine focuses on more proximal threats, this should not obscure the fact that the country has geopolitical concerns as well."

He notes that "indeed, China's proclaimed 'strategic partnership' with Russia and arms sale to Pakistan and Iran underscore the fact that the PRC has not retreated to a 'Fortress China.' Yet these foreign policy initiatives can still be considered regional, and they are most likely pursued according to a collective worldview that the management of regional security issues should not be left to its two old rivals -- the United States and Russia -- alone."

Thus, Solomon states that, "Like any other powerful nation-state on a realist global chessboard, China follows the logic of balance of power in international politics."

Li's study acquires special significance in the current context, with the Bush Administration seeking to develop a strategic partnership with India and the conservative Republican leadership in Congress urging that this be done as a counterbalance against China.

India argues that it would prefer to be recognised purely on its own merits and not in terms of a zero-sum game with China or any other country. This is what US officials also publicly acknowledge they would like to see develop, although privately there are several policymakers who still see an advantage in playing one against another, usually as a means for Washington to gain maximum leverage.

Solomon himself notes that Li's study as part of the USIP's "congressional mandate" is one of a number of the institute's "contributions on political change in the PRC and its implications for regional security."

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