Does India Have Agency When Dealing With China? Some Examples From Indian History

Chanakya or Kautilya, India’s answer to Sun Tzu; Rajput kings Rana Pratap Singh and Raja Man Singh; Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi and Maharajah Sayyaji Rao Gaekwad III of Baroda.

When debating with Indian friends over the right approach that India should take towards China, I first try to find common ground by asking a simple but crucial question:

Does India have independent agency when it comes to dealing with China?

In other words, can India make its own choices that can have significantly different outcomes, or is it just a helpless player forced along a certain path by forces of history, powerless to choose how to view and approach other countries?

You, the reader, should probably ponder this question and answer it for yourself before reading further. But before I talk about the answers I have heard in response to this question, I would like to reach back into Indian history to discuss some interesting tidbits.

Friends and enemies of the kingdom

Around 300 BCE, there lived an Indian scholar and thinker called Chanakya or Kautilya, who was an advisor to two emperors of the Maurya dynasty. His well-known treatise on statecraft called Arthashastra (literally “Economics”) contains sage advice to rulers on how to recognise and deal with adversaries. In this respect, the treatise can be considered India’s answer to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Kautilya had a rather cynical view of a kingdom’s friends and enemies. As he saw it, any kingdom that shared a border with one’s own was a natural enemy and hence a threat. The only allies of a kingdom were to be found on a neighbouring kingdom’s other borders, or in other words, “an enemy’s enemy is a friend”.

If one applies Kautilya’s reasoning to present-day India, Pakistan is a natural enemy for the simple reason that it shares a border with India. India’s allies are then to be found on Pakistan’s other borders, such as Afghanistan and Iran.

In similar fashion, China is India’s natural enemy on account of the two countries sharing a border. India’s allies are to be found on the “other” side of China, such as Japan, the US and Australia. If Kautilya were around today, he would probably have approved of The Quad. That grouping reflects classic Kautilyan thinking.

Subjects of the kingdom

Fast-forwarding to the mid-16th century CE, we find the Mughal empire of Emperor Akbar dominating the Indian landscape. Adjoining his colossal empire were two small kingdoms. One was Mewar, ruled by the Rajput king Rana Pratap Singh. The other was Amer (or Amber), ruled by another Rajput king, Raja Man Singh. Akbar approached both kings seeking their cooperation in his federalist vision. His vassals would support the Mughal empire, which in turn, would protect them from their enemies.

The two Rajputs made opposite choices.

Rana Pratap’s pride would not allow him to become a Mughal vassal. He chose to fight Akbar’s empire.

Raja Man Singh allied with Akbar, even giving his sister in marriage to the emperor. He became one of Akbar’s trusted commanding generals in many campaigns, including one against Rana Pratap.

Indian history textbooks glorify Rana Pratap as a brave patriot who fought an invader. Raja Man Singh is barely mentioned.

What is interesting to consider is the fate of the subjects who lived in these two kingdoms.

The subjects of Mewar suffered the expected tribulations of a long war, as their king was first defeated and later fought his way back to some of his lost territories in a series of guerilla campaigns.

The subjects of Amer lived in relative peace and prosperity. Amer fort is just outside the modern city of Jaipur, and I had the opportunity to visit it. An interesting architectural feature of the fort is the Ganesh Pol, a huge archway built in the (Muslim) Mughal style, but with a picture of the Hindu god Ganesha at its crest. It indicates that Raja Man Singh was not forced to convert to Islam, but that he and his subjects continued to practise their religion even though they were a vassal state to a Muslim empire.

Ganesh Pol at Amer fort — a unique example of Hindu theology coexisting with Mughal (Muslim) architecture

Fast-forward again to the 19th century, when the British were extending their rule over India. The kingdoms of Jhansi and Baroda provide a similar contrast in terms of the choices they made in dealing with the British empire.

Jhansi’s queen, Rani Lakshmibai, is the heroine of Indian history textbooks. She died fighting the British when they attempted to annex her kingdom.

Baroda’s king Sayyaji Rao Gaekwad III did not openly defy the British. He agreed to be a vassal king (although he had his own passive-aggressive ways of thumbing his nose at his British overlords). Indian history textbooks rarely mention him.

One can imagine what the subjects of Jhansi went through as a result of their queen’s choice. When Jhansi finally fell, the British spared no one, not even women and children. A British army doctor, Thomas Lowe, wrote, “No maudlin clemency was to mark the fall of the city.”

Baroda’s citizens, in contrast, enjoyed the modernisation ushered in by their king under the peace he had negotiated with his British suzerein. In many ways, Baroda enjoyed a far more advanced society and lifestyle than the rest of British India.

History celebrates plucky and defiant rulers as heroes, and contemptuously ignores those who reach an accommodation with a superior power. Yet the lot of the common citizens of those rulers may have been quite the opposite of what the headlines of history mislead us into believing. (The plight of Ukrainians today under their indomitable leader President Zelensky is a topical example of this. Would ordinary Ukrainians have been better off if Zelensky had reached some sort of understanding with Russia instead of choosing confrontation?)

Agency, or the lack of it

Returning to the subject of agency, Kautilya’s model of statecraft admits of no choice at all on the part of a nation in deciding its enemies and allies. Geographical and political boundaries are held to determine these, and the rulers of a nation are mere receivers of a situation that is laid out for them.

If Indians accept the Kautilyan model of statecraft, then they implicitly acknowledge that India has no agency in determining who its enemies and allies are! In that case, continuing down the path of using the Quad to defend against China is an unavoidable strategy, no matter the consequences.

This argument is an uncomfortable one for many Indians, who like to have their cake and eat it too. They are proud of Kautilya for having given them a homegrown treatise on geopolitics and statecraft, but also insist that their country has independent agency!

OK, so let’s explore that angle as well. If India does have independent agency, then it has to choose how to deal with a much more powerful neighbour that expects deferential allyship. In many ways, India can see China as similar to Akbar’s Empire in terms of the deal it offers its neighbours — prosperity and internal autonomy in exchange for alignment and non-defiance. Should India defy this power, or seek an accommodation with it? In other words, should the Indian government act like Rana Pratap or Raja Man Singh? Like Rani Lakshmibai or Maharajah Sayyaji Rao Gaekwad? Accommodation does not have to mean surrender or appeasement, but the ability to negotiate a deal that wins autonomy for oneself while offering a non-threatening and cooperative relationship to the other.

As a democracy, it would be good for India’s government to make such a decision based on the likely outcome for India’s people. Defiance, as we have seen, often leads to hardship for common people. Accommodation, on the other hand, can result in peace and prosperity.

In sum, these would seem to be India’s choices today as it deals with an ever more powerful and assertive China — (1) accept the Kautilyan view that antagonism with a neighbour is inevitable (no agency), (2) exercise agency and choose defiance, or (3) exercise agency and choose accommodation.

As an ordinary citizen, which of these approaches would you like your government to take?

The Perils Of A Post-Trump World

Ding, dong, the witch is dead!

Much of the world, not just the blue part of the US, is celebrating the exit of the obnoxious Donald Trump. This was a man who managed to offend practically everyone, while appealing only to the insecurities and base emotions of his supporters.

But now that he's gone, what can we expect from his successor?

I think it would be a good idea for those who wanted to see Trump gone to step back a bit from the polemical view of Trump as the devil incarnate and Biden as an angel in white. The situation is far more nuanced, especially for those of us in the rest of the world outside the US.

What I wish for is a geopolitical stalemate where the US and China keep each other honest, and the rest of the world stays safe as a consequence. What I fear most is a cosy backroom deal between Biden and Xi that carves the rest of the world up between two rapacious superpowers.

For a start, Trump was a refreshingly different president from all of his predecessors, because the ugliness and naked self-interest in US foreign policy was laid bare for all to see. There was no pretence that the US stood for anything higher than its own self-interest. In being so famously transactional, Trump reduced the image of the US from its historical projection of exceptionalism to one where it was just another country with its own axe to grind. It was a bit of unwitting honesty from an American president not seen since the days of "Honest Abe".

That image may not altogether vanish, since the world cannot unsee what it has once seen.

Biden and his team will of course do their best to show that the US is back in the hands of the adults in the room, and the old, familiar lectures on freedom, democracy and human rights will once again be selectively heard whenever the US wants to effect a regime change to its advantage.

Even as things return to the old normal, disquieting aspects to the Biden administration are already beginning to be seen.

The first few appointees of Biden's team have been lobbyists and insiders of the Pentagon and the arms industry. His secretary of state is a known hawk. 

Watch the easy camaraderie between Antony Blinken (Democrat), and his interrogator Sen Lindsey Graham (Republican) during the former's confirmation hearing as incoming Secretary of State. US foreign policy stays constant, with bipartisan consensus.

For those with hopes of a more peaceful world, this is bad news. The arms industry thrives when there are conflagrations around the world, and so it is unlikely that President Biden is going to wind back the wars.

Right on cue, there have been bomb blasts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, Yemen and Syria. If an American president ever wanted an excuse not to draw down overseas troops, he will not want for options.

That's not the only piece of bad news.

One of the things that Trump should be given credit for was his recent approach to China. After some leniency in the earlier part of his term, Trump swung around to suspicion and hostility towards China, especially after Covid. He began to push back on China in every sphere. He did not blink on trade, and he began to unabashedly cultivate "the Quad" (consisting of the US, Japan, India and Australia) to signal his willingness to confront China militarily. His accompanying rhetoric was harsh and aggressive too.

China under Xi has been a bully, and in the manner expected of bullies faced with credible threats, the dragon blinked. Surprisingly meek and conciliatory statements issued from Beijing. The wolf warrior diplomats went into retreat.

China has no intention to pick a fight with the US
-- Wang Yi, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister - Dec 18, 2020

It remains to be seen whether Biden will keep up that pressure. As a realist, I try to follow the money. The US arms industry gains from the forever war in the Middle East. China wants the freedom to expand its tentacles throughout Asia and up to the doors of Europe through its Belt and Road Initiative. It's not so much "free trade" as the ability for China to sell to every corner of the globe. The trade war between the US and China is hurtful to both.

A new administration in Washington is an opportunity for both countries to reset their relationship to mutual advantage. What I fear most is a backroom deal to avoid the trap of a new Cold War and to instead establish a cosy duopoly. The US keeps its existing backyards of the Americas and Europe, and gets to play its deadly war games in the Middle East. China gets untrammeled overlordship over all of Asia, including the Indian subcontinent. A new agreement is signed between the two superpowers of the East and the West that ends their bruising trade war.

[For countries like India, this would be unqualified bad news. The US has been an unreliable ally to India even at the best of times. (At the worst of times, it has been a vicious and vindictive enemy, as Nixon and Kissinger demonstrated during the 1971 Bangladesh war.) Abandonment of India by the US following a duopoly deal would mean that any putative hyphenation between India and China would disappear at a stroke. With the role of the US abruptly switched from security guarantor to the ally of an adversary, India's strategic options would narrow precipitously, and its fate would be left to the tender mercies of China. India would have to make significant territorial amends for its recent show of resistance to China's border incursions, and would have to very publicly accept China's suzerainty over all of Asia, including its own neighbourhood. It would be an unprecedented cultural humiliation in addition to being a permanent economic impost on future growth.

Australia, as part of the Anglosphere's "Five Eyes" alliance, will probably continue to receive US protection, but India will be jettisoned without a second thought. The fate of Taiwan and Japan is uncertain.]

Not all aspects of the US-China duopoly deal are likely to be settled quickly and amicably. The most interesting item on the negotiating table would be Africa, I imagine. There is no clear early winner between the US and China in terms of influence over Africa, and the continent could turn into a battleground. I see Africa as the new Poland for two schemers to pretend to agree on, before one of them betrays the other.

To sum up, it may be too early to go, "Ding dong, the witch is dead!" The main peril of the post-Trump era is the possible start to the new joint reign of the Wicked Witch of the West and the Wicked Witch of the East. The rest of the world should hunker down for a long and harsh winter.

Stratfor CEO George Friedman Seems Eerily Prescient

I've been reading a most fascinating book, "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century" by George Friedman, the CEO of Stratfor (which stands for Strategic Forecasting).

Among other predictions that Friedman makes based on geopolitical considerations is a rather dramatic one about war between the United States and a Japanese-Turkish alliance in about 2050. According to him, the war will begin with a Japanese Pearl Harbour-style attack on US Battlestar satellites. The attack will be launched from Japan's lunar base, Friedman adds.

Today, I read this news item in the papers. Japan plans to sends a robot explorer to the moon by 2020, and a human astronaut by 2030.

It's 2009, and Japan has seemingly begun its baby steps towards war with the US. It was an eerie feeling to read today's newspaper, knowing what I know of Friedman's prediction.

Obama's Right - The US Should Lose its Militaristic Mindset

"I don't want to just end the war. I want to change the mindset that got us into this war in the first place."

Breathtaking words. Spoken by Barack Obama. I think I said before that Barack Obama doesn't need "detail" when he talks about change. His vision is so broad, so far ahead of the rest of the field, he has the potential to transform the US and the world. Details can be worked out in time. But if you don't have vision, your mastery of detail qualifies you to be nothing more than an accountant, certainly not the next President of the US.

Of course, talk about changing the American militaristic mindset probably resonates so well because it just hasn't delivered. A superpower, and every time it goes to war on its own against a small country, it gets its nose bloodied. Most embarrassing. Yes, time to change that mindset. It's making the US the laughing stock of the world. To paraphrase Pyrrhus, one more Vietnam or Iraq and the US will be finished as a world power, with smaller countries going into convulsions of laughter whenever the Seventh Fleet sails into view. ("Hit me, hit me! Ha, ha, ha!")

Less dramatically than Vietnam or Iraq, has aggressive US support for pliant military dictators won it anything?

They supported Batista in Cuba. It's been staunchly communist ever since.
They supported Somoza in Nicaragua. Nicaragua went on to elect a communist government.
They supported the Shah of Iran. Iran is now part of the 'Axis of Evil', seemingly lost to the US forever.
They supported dictator after dictator in Pakistan. Pakistan is now a "front-line state in the war on terror", but it's not very clear on which side of that line it sits.
They supported Marcos in the Philippines. They lost Clark airbase and Subic Bay naval base when a more independent government came to power.

You can surround yourself with weapons, but that won't buy you security. You will be far more secure if you just surround yourself with friends. That holds just as true at the level of the individual American (who doesn't realise that the Second Amendment has probably caused more deaths than all their wars combined) as it does at the level of the US vis-à-vis other countries.

My word of advice to US policy makers: Stop thinking that countries that disagree with you are your enemies. France, for instance, will disagree with you at every turn, but will never do you harm. Your dictatorship friends, on the other hand, will never say a word to displease you, but when the dictator inevitably goes, you will find a bitter enemy in his place.

Super Tuesday is nigh, and it remains to be seen if Obama's latest visionary gem will win him the votes required to clinch the Democratic nomination. And if he wins in November and carries through on his promises, the world may finally drop the 'hate' part of its love-hate relationship with the US.