FACING THE CHINESE CHALLENGE

FACING THE CHINESE CHALLENGE 

We need to ally with the US despite our differences if we wish to face the Chinese challenge to our sovereignty. Arunachal and Ladhakh both face existential threats from expansionist China.

Long ago Swami Vivekananda had forewarned that soon after independence India might lose her independence to China. His words came almost true in North-eastern India during the 1962 Sino-India conflict when President John F. Kennedy came to our rescue. Otherwise, the whole of the North-east might have fallen to the Chinese.

Now, sixty years on we are again facing the Chinese threat but we are not quite facing it the way we should. The QUAD may not be adequate defence for us for it is not an alliance but a loose strategic defence partnership with the US, Japan and Australia.

And we are averse to making US our ally at any rate because of historical complications, with Russia remaining our long-term strategic defence partner since Indira Gandhi signed the Soviet-India defence pact with Leonid Brezhnev.

Now the Soviet Union is no more and a significantly weakened Russia is almost junior partner to China which is a superpower of six times financial strength with respect to India, four times more expending on defence and pursuing a dangerous policy of encircling India from all sides which is dubbed the 'String of Pearls' design to overcome India in a potential future war. Russia running junior partner to China can hardly be relied upon to come to India's aid in any future Sino-India conflict.

Hence, our only hope is to strike some sort of an agreement with the US that will ensure our safety in such an unseemly eventuality. A US-India defence pact will surely deter China from engaging in such a misadventure of attacking India. But the Indian leadership, long habituated to non-alignment in a polarised world, cannot as yet get over the inertia of the past and come to terms with present realities on a pragmatic basis. The dragon-danger looms large and India needs to quickly address the threat. Else, one shudders to think what might perchance in an unequal full-scale war with the superpower that China is. In such an eventuality we will have to seek American help to save us. Why not now when time there is yet?

Written by Sugata Bose