How India is undoing china's string of pearls

[Urbanized Greyhound]

How India is undoing China's string of pearls

New Delhi's defence establishment has quietly put in place India's own counter-measures to woo and bolster China's neighbours as a long-term strategy, says Nitin Gokhale

One of the least understood and less scrutinised facets of India's diplomacy is perhaps New Delhi's 'Look East' policy, now nearly two decades old.

Launched during Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao's regime primarily to try and integrate India's newly liberalising economy with that of the Asian 'tigers', that policy is now quietly evolving into a more robust military-to-military partnership with important nations in that region.

Over the past three months alone, top Indian military leadership has made important trips to key nations in South-East and East Asia -- Vietnam, South Korea, Japan , Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Indian Army chief General V K Singh was in Vietnam in July, furthering an already strong strategic relationship. General Singh's visit was the first in a decade by an Indian army chief.

Apart from meeting his Vietnamese counterpart, Deputy Chief of General Staff Pham Hong Loi, the Indian army chief discussed with Vietnam's National Defence Minister Phung Quang Thanh, the road map to implement the 2009 memorandum of understanding between the two ministries of defence.

Two areas where India and Vietnam will focus their immediate attention were training of military personnel and dialogue between experts on strategic affairs on both sides.

General Singh's visit will be followed by Defence Minister A K Antony's mid-October trip to Hanoi when he will participate in the first-ever regional meeting of political leaders in the defence field.

As the current chair of ASEAN, Vietnam has invited India to the ASEAN+8 defence ministers meeting. The 10-member ASEAN will be joined by Australia , China, India, Japan, New Zealand , Russia , South Korea, and the United States at that important conclave.

Although Indo-Vietnam political and diplomatic ties can be traced back to Jawaharlal Nehru's [ Images ] time, it was only in the post 1990s that the two nations decided to build and strengthen military-to-military relationship.

This development was a result of two main reasons -- one historical, the other contemporary.

To begin with, both India and Vietnam had borne the brunt of Chinese aggression -- India in 1962 and Vietnam in 1979.

And two, the collapse of the Soviet Union, for long a security guarantor for both India and Vietnam in Asia, left New Delhi and Hanoi without an all-weather, all-powerful friend.

Both India and Vietnam, who have long-pending territorial disputes with China thus decided to unite against their common adversary. Located on the edges of South-East Asia, Vietnam is ideally placed to prevent China's expansion into the South China Sea.

So, for over a decade now, India has been providing Vietnam with assistance in beefing up its naval and air capabilities in an attempt to deny China total supremacy in the South China Sea.

Both New Delhi and Hanoi traditionally sourced majority of their military hardware from the erstwhile Soviet Union. That commonality has meant that both can share expertise and resources available with their respective armed forces in terms of handling and maintaining the Soviet-era weaponry.

India, for instance, has repaired and upgraded over 100 MiG 21 planes of the Vietnamese Air Force and supplied them with enhanced avionics and radar systems. Indian Air Force pilots have also been training their Vietnamese counterparts.

The Indian Navy, by far larger than the Vietnamese navy, has been supplying critical spares to Hanoi for its Russian origin ships and missile boats.

After Antony's 2007 visit to Vietnam, the Indian and Vietnamese coast guards have engaged in joint patrols, and both navies participated in a joint exercise in 2007.

But Vietnam is not the only nation India is inching closer to in China's immediate neighbourhood.

Antony, who is fast emerging as a quiet but effective player in India's military diplomacy, in early September became the first Indian defence minister ever to visit South Korea, a pro-US, anti-China nation in the vicinity.

He led a top-notch team of military and civil officials like Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar, Vice-Admiral RK Dhowan, Lieutenant General K T Parnaik, DRDA Chief Controller C K Prahlada, and Sundaram Krishna, special adviser to the defence minister.

The visit was a follow-up on the declaration issued by both countries during President Lee Myung-bak's state visit to New Delhi in January, when it was decided to elevate bilateral relationship to a 'strategic partnership'.

Although nowhere near the level of Indo-Vietnam defence cooperation, the newly evolving India-South Korea partnership is being seen as a vital component of India's game plan to counter China's increasing footprint in the subcontinent.

Seoul is a perfect counter balance to the China-North Korea-Myanmar-Pakistan axis that New Delhi and US regard as a major irritant in the Asia-Pacific region.

Moving eastward, India is actively pursuing deeper defence cooperation with Japan. Last week, for the first time, India is expanding its defence ties with Japan, a newfound strategic partner in the region.

Air Chief Marshal P V Naik, chairman of India's Chiefs of Staff Committee, the senior-most Indian military officer, led an Indian delegation to Japan on September 28 to participate in the first military-to-military talks between the two countries.

Naik's visit comes just weeks ahead of a trip by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Tokyo in late October.

Naik's visit is a follow-up to Antony's discussions in Japan last year, when the two countries expressed their commitment to contribute to bilateral and regional cooperation, which in other words is an effort to build regional partnerships to counter the growing influence of China.

High level visits apart, the Indian Navy has been quite active in its friendly forays into the Pacific. A flotilla of Indian warships is about to complete a month-long deployment to the Pacific that included visits to Australia, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam.

So while Indian strategic thinkers have been busy sounding frequent alarms over China's increasing forays into the Indian Ocean and have often overstated the fears of Beijing's [ Images ] 'String of Pearls' around India, New Delhi's defence establishment has quietly put in place India's own counter measures to woo and bolster China's neighbours as a long-term strategy.

Whatever the consequences of this strategy and counter-strategy, one thing is sure: The Indian Ocean and its periphery are poised to become the new playground for the 21st century version of the Great Game in the years to come.

Nitin Gokhale is Defence Editor, NDTV.

most of the Chinese members on the forum tend to view The String of pearls as unrealistic and far fetched....which is in sharp contrast to what almost all Indian defense analysts....Bhandarkar,Chelleney,Aroor,Shukla think.....

Guys please share your views ....is such a counter strategy viable on the part of the GOI ?.....
How effectively/ineffectively can such a strategy be really followed from an Indian perspective.....

 

[Abhishek_]

It is a good initiative by GOI to forge alliances with countries which share similar concerns in regards to China.
However, in fairness to China they are only making economic alliances while we are developing military ones. How does GOI justify this?

As far as my personal opinion goes, I'd much rather prefer GOI focus on settling issues with China and avoid unnecessary war mongering. There is much to gain if we develop friendly relations with China.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

I think it's fair enough.

It's just geopolitics after all, it's nothing personal.

This initiative is a good, rational strategy. The "implementation" might be tricky though, considering that there are many influential players in these regions who already have a foothold.

 

[StingRoy]

Why can't we term this as "India's String of Pearls" rather than naming it "Undoing China's String of Pearls".

Do we always have to see China as a threat to our existence? I agree that we were at war in 62, but things have changed so much... they have lunged ahead while India is playing catch up and unnecessarily trying to view China's dominance as a threat. China is desperately trying to create a larger market for its manufacturing industry, such that it will be less reliant on US in the future. After the economic incentives by the CCP dies down, they need to still have a large enough market for Chinese products to keep up with their GDP targets... hence they are moving strategically.

India should also keep its intentions clear and transparent when trying to create new markets for its economic growth. If we start approaching everything from a military point of view, it will only create distrust and lack of solidarity in the region.

 

[Patrician]

India and China will be much more peaceful neighbours when both realize that each one has a very high stake in the others' stability.

I'm very hopeful that this will happen. I have very high regard for the Chinese rulers (except for a few silly provocations here and there) for they have demonstrated what an enlightened ruling elite can do for its country.

Indians today look at China with very high amount of respect for what it has achieved and would like to imitate the success but in our own way with democracy and all.

Issues are handled much better once both sides are aware of the dangers of unnecessary enmity.

Why be enemies when we can be friends.

As for the string of pearls, India has every right to do whatever it deems right just like China has. The important thing is that, both sides have to see that things do not get beyond the threshold of annoyance.

If I'm sensible and you are sensible and if I know you can harm me and you know that I can harm you, none of us will harm each other.

 

[Abhishek_]

^^patrician sir, did you get banned sometime ago?? Welcome back!

 

[Patrician]

^^patrician sir, did you get banned sometime ago?? Welcome back!

Ya that's right. Eevryone gets carried away once in a while and so did I.

Anyways, stop 'sirring' me. I hear that enough in my office.

 

[Nomenclature]

One can stop reading the article after encountering such non-sense as 'South Korea, a pro-US, anti-China nation'.

It's true that the great China-RoK honeymoon has came to an end and SK has reversed its early trajectory of moving toward China and away from the U.S after the conservatives came into power in Seoul. But to say South Korea is 'anti-China' is complete non-sense.

The problem with Indian diplomacy in East Asia and nearby is you do not have the economic clout of China or military might of the U.S. There's an article on the this year's first issue of Asian Security on India-Japan relation, and concluded despite much talk the relationship is still mostly symbolic and the lack of economic ties being a major reason for that.

Chinese economy is far more integrated with the rest of Asia than the Indian economy. For example, even in India's strongest field, software/outsourcing, a recent IDC KPMG report named China as the region's top outsourcing destination.

IMO India should to do what China did, developing economic ties first then move to political/military if it's appropriate. Overemphasizing military and geo-political dimensions will not help furthering India's interests.

 

[anathema]

The fact is we are so god damn good at playing the catch up game !! For once there should be some pro-active thought if we indeed are serious about countering Chinese might and strategy.

 

[Hafizzz]

How India is undoing China's string of pearls



most of the Chinese members on the forum tend to view The String of pearls as unrealistic and far fetched....which is in sharp contrast to what almost all Indian defense analysts....Bhandarkar,Chelleney,Aroor,Shukla think.....

Guys please share your views ....is such a counter strategy viable on the part of the GOI ?.....
How effectively/ineffectively can such a strategy be really followed from an Indian perspective.....

India siding with USA to encircle(a string of Samosa) China but yet denies it :

US accused of strategically encircling China
Is the US strategically encircling China?: Rediff.com India News

An article titled 'US Plot Against China', written by Air Force Colonel Dai Xu, an influential Chinese strategist, carried by the Chinese language edition of the official Xinhua News Agency on May 27, has come down heavily on the US for its 'crescent-shaped strategic encirclement' of China.

Intriguingly, the write-up, a reproduction of an earlier one by the same author three days ago in another publication (Huan Qiu Shi Ye -- Global Vision, May 24), has appeared close to the second round of Sino-US Strategic and Economic Dialogues (Beijing, May 24-25) and is naturally making the analysts ponder over the question as to how to interpret its timing and content.

Dai Xu has alleged in his article that during the Cold War, the US objective was to 'contain China hard', for the purpose of 'strangulating the Soviet Union softly'. After the Cold War, its strategy was reversed -- containing Russia [ Images ] hard for the purpose of 'strangulating China softly'.

Touching on what he calls the 'US dollar trap', Dai Xu takes what Professor Zhang Wuchang, of the Beijing University of Finance said several years back as basis, to disclose that in China, the US controls 21industries out of a total of 28, after 'hollowing out' China economically, at a time when the country's focus for years remained on achieving GDP growth through trade.

The US reinvested in China the money it got from China, eradicated Chinese brands and dominated China's mineral resources, shares of the Bank of China and China's stock market. Dai Xu has added that at the same time, the US does not allow China to buy American companies and denies China any of its hi-tech weapons.

All that US wants is that China invest heavily in US treasury bonds, leaving it with no money to buy technology, build modern industry, develop armament potentials and build defence capabilities. The American humour is that the US should sell 'toxic debt' to China in return for the Chinese sale of 'toxic toys' to them.

Assessing that the US 'diplomatic clamp' strategy aims to totally isolate China, the Chinese expert has acknowledged that Southeast Asia is more and more becoming politically dependent on the US. In Northeast Asia, Vietnam is becoming pro-US. The US strategy in North Korea, Myanmar and Pakistan, the three 'true friends' of China, is meant to challenge China. The US indirectly stimulates North Korea's nuclear weapons programme so as to hurt China's image internationally and force South Korea, Japan [ Images ] etc to get closer to Washington in response.

The growing interests of the US in Myanmar serve the purpose of controlling China while Myanmar itself may develop no trust on China and opt for support of India [ Images ] and ASEAN to balance China. In the case of Pakistan, that nation has already come under the US control due to Afghan war. In the Indian Ocean, there is US-India collusion against China.

Within China, the US is strategically focusing on Tibet and Xinjiang and manipulating the situation there. In conclusion, Dai Xu has asserted that the US is carrying out 'soft attack' on China and its grand strategy is to encircle China.

Colonel Dai Xu is a known hawk on defence matters and had recently supported Chinese development of overseas bases. The Chinese official English language media like the Global Times are giving international publicity to his views.

What looks important is that he is not alone in the People's Liberation Army hierarchy to question US strategic motives vis-à-vis China in recent times. Another senior PLA officer Colonel Liu Mingfu of the National Defence University, in his book on China Dream, released just prior to the March 2010 National People's Congress, has asked China 'to cast away illusions and get ready for the duel with the United States for global domination in the 21st century'.

In contrast to the nationalistic stand and hard-line position against the US of the PLA experts mentioned, Chinese comments on the subject in general have so far remained cautious. State Councillor Dai Bingguo, while admitting the lack of Sino-US consensus in the latest dialogue, has been optimistic on long term bilateral relations. He has described the ongoing dialogue as beneficial to further development of 'positive, cooperative and all-round' partnership between China and the US in 21st century. Xinhua's Washington correspondent Liu Hong has described the dialogue as symbolising 'more and more equal Sino-US partnership'. Professor Chen Dongxiao of the Shanghai Centre of International Studies has hoped (Qiu Shi, February 2) that the 'situation of Sino-US mutual dependence in strategic interests would be maintained for a long-term as both sides need each other in the interest of strategic balance'.

The foregoing leads to a key question -- how to interpret the anti-US outbursts coming from experts like Dai Xu at this juncture? The situation somewhat looks similar to what happened in November 2004 when Qian Qichen, considered then as China's foreign policy Czar, right on the eve of US polling in which President George Bush [ Images ] contested for second time, blamed the US strategy for its aim to encircle China, in his article for China Daily. It was another matter that China Daily disowned that article ultimately.

The least that can be said is that the views on the US strategy towards China, coming from military analysts like Dai Xu, may represent the thinking prevailing at least among some sections of opinion makers in China. Such opinions seem to have a domestic dimension too -- by implication, they appear to disapprove the present pragmatic approach of Beijing to Washington.

The patronage being given to the views by official agencies like Xinhua indicates that the concerned writers are influential. Having said that, there seems to be no direct evidence so far, to prove any leadership divisions on the subject; in particular, any rushing to conclusion that the Chinese military is not in agreement with the current US policy of the country's foreign policy establishment, could be erroneous. The Chinese system allows reconciliation of differing approaches -- in the domain of external relations, the party's leading group on foreign affairs plays a role to this effect.

The views from military experts in any case seem to have potential to put pressure on the present collective leadership functioning in China on relations with the US; especially the fifth generation leadership to take over in 2012 may have to address what perhaps looks like a policy debate with respect to ties with the US.

Has the leadership come under such pressure already? The answer could be yes, judging from the formal introduction of a new criterion by the Hu Jintao regime for conducting the Sino-US relationship -- protection of China's 'core interests'. The message is that 'core interests' principle, providing for 'no compromise' on issues of territorial integrity and national sovereignty, will from now on drive China's strategic course towards foreign powers including the US.

The criterion has received emphasis at the Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi's press conference during the March National People's Congress session; specific references were made on the occasion to Taiwan and Tibet. A broad picture emerges -- in Beijing's view, a strategic partnership with the US can be established only if core issues like Tibet and Taiwan dividing them can be solved.

Both China and the US know that such a thing cannot happen soon and as such, it can be expected that their bilateral relations will continue to be based on pragmatism for years to come.

Beijing has so far not formally applied the 'core interest' criterion into the ambit of its relations with countries having land and sea territorial problems with China. Especially, the disputed border with India has not so far officially been brought by it under that principle.

China may not deviate from this position, as its inclusion of the disputed border with India under the 'core interest' category, if happens, could undermine its 'mutual accommodation' formula with inherent provision for some compromise on the boundary question. In this regard, it would in any case be necessary for New Delhi [ Images ] to keep a close watch for future trends in China.

When India or USA does it , they want the world to see it as it is not a
threat but when China does the same then it is called a threat or A string of Pearl. Double Standard at it's best.