Thursday, September 18, 2014

Lok Satta Times Sep 1st-15th, 2014

Lok Satta Times Sep 1st-15th, 2014 can be downloaded from the following link.

http://www.loksatta.org/cms/documents/lstimes/lstimes-2014-09-01-15.pdf
Posted by tnsatish at 2:55 PM
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 20, 2014 at 2:58 PM

    Loksatta is the single solution and platform to bring about true transformation in India. Learning from China’s growth story will help us in understanding and achieving Loksatta goals more quickly.

    So, would like to share this practical analysis of Sri R.Jagannathan “Why Modi can expect no quarter from Xi Jinping; China respects only power”…

    “Narendra Modi's spirited efforts to bring up the Ladakh border incursions with Chinese President Xi Jinping is unlikely to make much of a difference to what the Chinese have been doing so far – and will continue to do in future.

    To deal with the Chinese, we need to know what they want, what we want, what their geopolitical worldview is, how they see India-China power equations evolving over the next few decades, and what levers we have to counter them and they us. Above all we need to understand Chinese history and what drives them to do what they do.

    India wants status quo. And, what do the Chinese want? The Chinese want several things: they want to be the hegemons of Asia. This brings them in conflict with almost the whole of Asia, but having the whole world for your enemy does not deter them.

    Where does Pakistan fit into the India-China equation? Whatever China wants achieved coercively from India, it will do so through Pakistan. This does not mean Pakistan is a great ally or that the Chinese have any respect for Pakistan. Absolutely not. Just the reverse. The Chinese have only contempt for Pakistan because they know it is a basket case and a future danger to their north-western borders, where the Uighur Muslim minority is emerging as a more potent threat than restive Tibetans. The Chinese regard Pakistanis as "very useful idiots" in their strategy to keep India tied down and pressured to settle with them.

    It is thus in India's interest to let Pakistan break up and deal fairly with the remnant states. West Asian and Indian history teaches us that Islam has never been able to bind countries and people on the basis of religion. This is not just my view, but that of Maulana Azad - the only Indian Muslim who could see the damage partition would do to Muslims in India.

    Why is China such an aggressive neighbour? Partly it comes from their history. The Chinese have gone to great lengths to be a unified state, and they have fought brutal wars among themselves to achieve this end. Long before the world had heard of nation states, the Chinese created one as early as 221 BC, with the arrival of the Qin dynasty.

    In contrast, India achieved political unity only under the British – and more formally 67 years ago.

    Unification and state-building always is achieved through war. As Fukuyama writes: “In both China and Europe, state formation was driven primarily by the need to wage war…..

    What this tells us is that the Chinese went through many brutal wars to achieve unity and this means they are always willing to go to war to achieve a political purpose.

    Does this mean we will ultimately have to go to war with China?

    No, what this means is that they will do so if they perceive us as weak. The power equation is also heavily tilted in favour of the Chinese, even though, if it ever comes to war, we are unlikely to be as unprepared as we were in 1962. They only respect power, and India has to steadily build its economic and military power in order to deter the Chinese.

    The only other thing China respects apart from hard power is India’s soft power. India and China are two of the world’s oldest civilisations. As such, India’s soft power in the world can rival China’s. Moreover, given our completely different power trajectories, the world fears China but sees no harm, even welcomes, the rise of a more powerful India.

    The Chinese know that Indians have not traditionally been strategic thinkers. It is up to us to prove them wrong.

    The purpose of Xi Jinping’s visit was to test Modi’s nerves and check out what stuff he is made of. He landed in Gujarat to see if Modi can be flattered to go soft on China. Hopefully, he found out that was not the case.”

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