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India's China Panic: Seeing a 'Red Peril' on Land and Sea
By Ishaan Tharoor Sunday, Sep. 20, 2009
In recent weeks, public attention in India has reached feverish levels over what is perceived to be the growing threat lurking north of the border. Tensions along the Himalayan frontier with China have spiked noticeably since a round of Sino-Indian talks over long-standing territorial disputes this summer ended in failure. In their wake, the frenetic Indian press has chronicled reports of nighttime boundary incursions and troop build-ups, even while officials in both governments downplay such confrontations. Elements in the Indian media point almost daily to various signs of a Beijing plot to contain its neighbor's rise, a conviction aided by recent hawkish editorials from China's state-run outlets. This week, leading Indian news networks loudly catalogued Chinese transgressions under headlines such as "Red Peril" and "Enter the Dragon."
India and China fought a war in 1962 whose acrimonious legacy lingers even while economic ties flourish (China is now India's biggest trade partner). Beijing refuses to acknowledge the de facto border demarcated by the British empire and claims almost the entirety of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as part of its own territory. Indian strategic analysts believe Beijing's stance has hardened in recent years, perhaps as a consequence of its increasing economic and military edge over India as well as growing Chinese influence in smaller South Asian countries like Nepal and Bangladesh. Comments made last month by India's outgoing navy chief that the country could not hope to match China's hard power capabilities set off a bout of national hand-wringing. "There's a nervousness among some policy makers that the Chinese see India as weak and vulnerable to coercion," says Harsh Pant, professor of defense studies at King's College, London, and author of a forthcoming book on India's China policy. "Indians feel they can't manage China's rise and that they are far, far behind."
FULL STORY: India's China Panic: Seeing a 'Red Peril' on Land and Sea - TIME
By Ishaan Tharoor Sunday, Sep. 20, 2009
In recent weeks, public attention in India has reached feverish levels over what is perceived to be the growing threat lurking north of the border. Tensions along the Himalayan frontier with China have spiked noticeably since a round of Sino-Indian talks over long-standing territorial disputes this summer ended in failure. In their wake, the frenetic Indian press has chronicled reports of nighttime boundary incursions and troop build-ups, even while officials in both governments downplay such confrontations. Elements in the Indian media point almost daily to various signs of a Beijing plot to contain its neighbor's rise, a conviction aided by recent hawkish editorials from China's state-run outlets. This week, leading Indian news networks loudly catalogued Chinese transgressions under headlines such as "Red Peril" and "Enter the Dragon."
India and China fought a war in 1962 whose acrimonious legacy lingers even while economic ties flourish (China is now India's biggest trade partner). Beijing refuses to acknowledge the de facto border demarcated by the British empire and claims almost the entirety of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as part of its own territory. Indian strategic analysts believe Beijing's stance has hardened in recent years, perhaps as a consequence of its increasing economic and military edge over India as well as growing Chinese influence in smaller South Asian countries like Nepal and Bangladesh. Comments made last month by India's outgoing navy chief that the country could not hope to match China's hard power capabilities set off a bout of national hand-wringing. "There's a nervousness among some policy makers that the Chinese see India as weak and vulnerable to coercion," says Harsh Pant, professor of defense studies at King's College, London, and author of a forthcoming book on India's China policy. "Indians feel they can't manage China's rise and that they are far, far behind."
FULL STORY: India's China Panic: Seeing a 'Red Peril' on Land and Sea - TIME
