External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar claims a sense of realism underpinning India’s present ties with China while the approach towards China during the Jawaharlal Nehru era was one of “romanticism.” Nehru’s Panchsheel pact with China proved to be a total failure as China bluntly violated such principles. The architect of modern India had his strong points, which helped the nation grow on a sound footing, but his friendly overtures to China were not reciprocated in equal measure. Nehru allowed China to take the UN Security Council (UNSC) seat on a platter, saying “China first.” Today, China singularly stands in the way of India getting an SC seat. Ignoring history, Prime Minister Narendra Modi played host to Chinese president Xi Jinping in a grand manner just months after he assumed power in Delhi. The wooing continued in their Mahabalipuram meeting too, but Modi learned a bitter lesson from Xi later. In between, the Doklam standoff also happened.
Relations between India and China remain strained. It’s very unlikely that this grim scenario can ever change for the better. China let down India repeatedly, and most recently in 2020, when it encroached into Galwan in Ladakh and faced resistance from the brave Indian soldiers. The casualties on the Indian side were painfully high. In 1962, Chinese PLA annexed large swathes of Indian land along the northern border. These still remain with China, but Rajiv Gandhi re-engaged China. Later, India opened its markets to China. This was an ‘invasion’ too. China is encircling India by wooing our neighbours and building its ports, one after another, all around by offering these nations financial enticements. All these because China’s economy and military strength are roughly five times larger than India’s, though at the turn of the century, both were on an equal footing. China is today the world’s second largest economy and India the fifth largest. The Chinese society progressed by virtue of the hard work put in by its leadership that, in turn, engaged the masses to contribute their mite to the productive sectors of the economy. Work, they must. India, on the other hand, effectively discouraged work by offering its poor subsidized food by way of ration.
India, on its part, has never been an aggressor also for the reason that, under the democratic system, this nation never had the privilege of having strong leaders. The hoi polloi at the forefront of the election process select their representatives and leaders on the basis of their whims, not based on any rationale. This is unlike China where the leader of the nation is decided on the basis of a rationale and consensus among the seasoned veterans of the Communist Party. For them, the nation comes first.