INDIA’s stand that its dispute with China ‘isn’t a matter of territory but forward deployment by both’ goes against New Delhi’s core interests. The entire bilateral issue originated from the October 1950 invasion and occupation of independent/sovereign Tibet by the Mao Zedong-led Communist Party of China (CPC).
India’s prescient Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel had precisely dubbed the Dragon’s invasion as an act of ‘malevolence and perfidy’. The then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, came up with a bold statement in the Lok Sabha on November 20, 1950: “Our maps show that the McMahon Line is our boundary and that’s our boundary, map or no map. That fact remains and we stand by that boundary.” This demonstrated that both Patel and Nehru had the courage of their convictions.
Thus, territory was a primary and fundamental issue between New Delhi’s democratic rule of law and Beijing’s rule by ‘fight, fright and might’, to be spread in all possible directions by the ‘forward deployment’ of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to create a firewall of ‘defence-in-depth’ for vast stretches of Central Asia.
Barring India, China’s land-border neighbours today face the prospect of occupation or conquest through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which is nothing but ‘forward deployment’ and quick mobilisation of CPC-PLA brigades, penetrating resource-rich, sparsely populated terrain. The situation is so bad that small, poor and weak nations are succumbing to the BRI lure. The biggest hurdle for China is India, notwithstanding the latter’s democratic tradition of policymaking. In the New Delhi declaration issued at the end of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit held earlier this week, India refused to extend support to the BRI, unlike other member states.
The CPC has taken a cue from the truism that land has been the name of the game since the dawn of human history, being a permanent feature of war as well as peace. Territorial acquisition, possession and conquest constitute a core human ambition, which China itself faced during the invading Mongols’ Han-crushing forays in the 13th century. Hence, the central goal of CPC leaders, right from Mao Zedong to his 21st-century reincarnate Xi Jinping, is gobbling up territory through all means — aggression, invasion, conquest, subjugation of territories extending towards the Himalayas, with special reference to India from 1962 onwards. The bedrock of the Communist state policy became evident 73 years ago in Tibet.
One, therefore, just has to look at the fundamentals of two important subjects — economics and political science — under which falls the ‘land of the nation-state’. In both cases, the supreme, sole and lowest common denominator is territory. Thus, four factors shape the economics of production — territory, labour, capital and organisation — whereas the four key factors for a nation-state are territory, people, government and sovereignty.
Hence, the history of international relations or diplomatic exchanges and the future of humans will always be focused on land, no matter which extraneous factors influence bilateral ties.
As things unfold, the CPC’s seven-decade-old aggression has grown to acquire its nastiest form by targeting Indian territory through several means — military, economic, the charm offensive, trade, BRI, CPEC, BRICS, etc.
Indians, therefore, need to draw rudimentary lessons from world history of land conquest, which is deeply embedded in the psyche of those aspiring to be mighty and powerful and also those who already are a ‘great power’.
India has to note that the essential and fundamental dispute with China pertains to the latter’s territorial ambitions. China knows well that once it captures parts of Indian territory, the field will be wide open to enter deep into the hinterland and take over whatever comes along the way. The East India Company came here for doing business, but soon realised the potential to capture land to enable it to rule, plunder and ruin India.
Virtually the whole continent of Africa succumbed to the European powers based in London, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Brussels, Lisbon and Madrid in the 19th century. Till 1875, less than one-tenth of Africa had been colonised by European powers; by 1895, only one-tenth remained unappropriated. It’s because each of the seven European nations was hungry for land, without which none of its aspirations of ‘greatness’ could have been fulfilled, just like China in the 21st century.
Indeed, the expansion to capture territory was always the pivot of the West — capture, control aliens’ trade, settlements, and export people, capital, finished goods. Territory denoted a profitable market. Thus, 20th-century Germans resorted to an eastward drive (Drang nach Osten) towards Russia for ‘Lebensraum’ — done in the 19th century by Napoleon in Europe and by European settlers across mainland US, expanding into the vast West by suppressing or eliminating the indigenous population.
At every stage and in every age, the prime motive and aim has been territorial expansion, occupation and conquest for prosperity through any means without caring for the adverse consequences for the conquered or the vanquished. China has been aping the West in a big way. For India, territorial loss appears endless, along with the loss of trade and a humiliating diplomatic defeat at the UN owing to China’s brazen terrorist-supporting moves. Wake up, India. Follow the Bhagavad Gita to face a brutal neighbour.