India has Fully Walked into the Trap laid for it by China
China has emerged as a global manufacturing hub becoming the second largest economy, well set to overtake United States of America which currently is the largest economy. US is getting impatient with this, and instead of regarding it a strategic competitor, it is targeting China as an enemy.
India-China stand-off has been going on since March this year. Apparently China has brought reinforcements in the area which is strategically crucial to the security of its national highway 219—the road connecting Tibet with Xingjiang—-, and of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor(CPEC). China being conscious of its rising power status, is securing its borders on, both, land and sea, and its entrenchment in border area of Ladakh is part of that. However, there is a greater game being played out here, and that is this:
China has emerged as a global manufacturing hub becoming the second largest economy, well set to overtake United States of America which currently is the largest economy. US is getting impatient with this, and instead of regarding it a strategic competitor, it is targeting China as an enemy. After Corona Virus pandemic anti-China rhetoric and campaign to encircle China have intensified. India is being groomed as one of the future manufacturing hubs of the world, and US is pushing it as a frontline state to confront China with other collaborators such as Australia and Japan. Since India was earlier thrashed by China in 1962, and although India has since then built up a lot of military muscle, it is still nowhere near being a match of China in its military capabilities, particularly, the high tech side of it. So China does not regard India a military threat, and India too has no will to militarily confront China, its political class has yet to overcome the nightmare of 1962 defeat. However, China does consider India a potential rival, if not threat, to its global workshop status. It is because of India’s population, its formidable pool of scientific and technological personnel, and above all, India’s enmity towards China and its clear willingness to become an active player in the West’s ongoing anti-China power games. Indian leaders and media stalwarts have been going over roof tops shouting India is going to be the future hub for world manufacturing because, as they saw it, China was globally discredited because of hiding facts on Corona. This was a pure Trump line India was toeing as a poodle. So India trying to outsmart China in manufacturing was not just a worry on part of China, it was a real prospect. The strategy Chinese have chosen to counter this is to engage India in a war hysteria. China is firmly decided not to launch a full-fledged war against India, and neither to nibble Indian territories for the sake of it, but to create in India a psychology of being at war with China. This, as Bruno Maceas, author, political scientist, and former Secretary of State for European Affairs in Portugal, so eloquently argues in his June 20 piece here , is meant to condition India’s mind and tie its hands. India’s national power thus gets directed at a point where it becomes useless and unproductive because war is not going to happen—-China will not start, and India is scared to even face. We all know what the hell broke lose in India after its 20 men were killed in Galwan on 15/16th June, but as Bruno says one would see nothing, no India related public discourse in China, because “The possibility of war was not created and managed for domestic consumption. It was created for the Indian mind, a strategy of war psychology”.
Ladakh ‘adventure’ did achieve a purpose: it pushed the Indian mind further deeper into the state of being at war with China. And also, let us not forget, this anti-China war hysteria at its core is a vehement hate sentiment primarily directed at Islam and Muslims, China is targeted as friend of Pakistan. Since India has got into the China-laid trap, it is missing the point, so all what it is doing is not merely unproductive; it is very much counter-productive: it is creating serious obstacles in the way of what really should be India’s strategic objectives, namely further developing its manufacturing capacity to compete with China. Hatreds vitiate social peace which adversely affects economic productivity. So India having walked into the trap is working against its interests as far as its dealing with China is concerned.
About Blogger:
Dr. Syed M. Inayatullah Andrabi is the founder convenor of Mahazi-Islami, Occupied Kashmir. He is an intellectual-political activist from Srinagar, capital city of occupied Kashmir.
