View from the Other Side

In the ongoing border disputes with China, we obviously see them as the aggressor. China obviously feels it is justified, so I am not interested in their reason, real or imagined. But have been curious as to how China views India on the border disputes.

 

I found Bharat Sharma and Anushka Saxena’s take on the topic based on Chinese articles quite informative. Not surprisingly, the Chinese feel India is trying to negotiate a border that is strategically to India’s advantage. Second, they believe/ fear/ suspect that India is in a “non-treaty alliance” with the US, and therefore they feel that India tries to pressurize China to make concessions on the border with the implied threat, “Otherwise India may have to pull in America”.

 

A corollary of the Chinese suspicion that India is in a “non-treaty alliance” with the US is that the Chinese view every aspect of the border dispute with India via the prism of an additional concern – will a concession to India help America?

 

Like us, they too wonder whether India is even serious about any of the repeated round of talks on the border. They also wonder why India, despite being a developing country, wants to get bogged down with disputes on its border? To be fair, they also feel the same about China – while it is more advanced than India, they too have miles to go. They too could focus their energies on internal development rather than India. But neither side backs down, so are both sides getting sucked into an endless, wasteful expenditure of money?

 

While I don’t buy all of it, I did come out with some sense of understanding. Just as we worry about a two-front war (Pakistan will attack if we ever have a clash with China), it is logical for China to worry that we would attack (or distract) China should they have a conflict on their east with America, in Taiwan or in the South China Sea. And just as we “know” that Pakistan will do “anything” for China when it comes to India, it makes sense for China to worry about the extent of the US-India friendship.

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