A conversation for a deeper understanding of Indo-Chinese ties

Falah Faisal | NT
Bengaluru

China is the most powerful neighbour India has at the moment and relations in the last few years have been tense. China views India as an inferior state in terms of economy and military prowess. But one can only understand why it is so by looking into history. That is exactly what Shyam Saran and Ramachandra Guha explored during their discussion 'Through Chinese Lens' at Bangalore International Centre recently.

The talk was organised to promote Saran’s book 'How China Sees India and the World' which delved deep into history to better understand the present. “We think India and China share a large border but this wasn’ t the case until the 1950s when China annexed Tibet did this happen,” pointed out Saran to dispel the common misconceptions of Indo-China relations.

“There was a time before 1000 AD when China viewed India as an alternate center of civilisation because Buddhism was exported out of India and it had centers of great learning Chinese monks came to. But this view is long gone and has been replaced by deep ambivalence,” said Saran, stating that now China views India as a slave state that has lost its culture and is a teacher by negative example.

China’s negative view of India happens to do a lot with India’s role in China’s Century of Humiliation where Indians formed the foot soldiers of the British and it was Indian opium traders who pushed China towards addiction that led to the opium wars.

When Guha asked if China’s influence is limited by its lack of soft power and cultural exports Saran disagreed, saying “Soft power and hard power are linked. The US, UK, and Russia have had a long time to export their culture. And when you look at developing countries in Africa, China does have a lot of soft power.”

Things weren’t always tense though, in the first decade of the century things began to improve owing to India’s economic growth. Guha pointed out that when the Chinese premier visited India in 2005 he started in Bangalore and said, ‘You are the software. We are the hardware.’ But all that had changed by 2010 after the recession and India’s growth slowed down.Now, it sees India as a retreating image in its rear view mirror.

“Unless we see this gap diminish, we won’t see China change their perspective any time soon,” said Saran and added that “India’s great strength has been in managing plurality. India needs to stay true to its constitution if it hopes to succeed.”

Guha pointed out how similar the attempts of the two countries to rewrite history are “The RSS has a great inferiority complex when compared to the Communist Party of China. There are some in the RSS who would like to control people here the way China controls its people with its attempts at homogeneity.” Saran countered by saying “India’s future won’t be like China’s present as it is too diverse.”