An Indian admiral and a Chinese blogger

By Hari Sud

Toronto, ON, Canada, — Two persons, one in India and the other in China, have independently created a ruckus about India’s existence as an independent country.
In India the retiring chief of naval staff, Admiral Suresh Mehta, at a public function in New Delhi on Aug. 10, described China’s power as beyond India’s match and suggested that India stop chasing the mirage of equaling it.
In China, a recent article by a relatively unknown but well-connected author, Zhan Lue, suggested that India should be broken up into 20 to 30 smaller states – in other words, “Balkanized.”
Both men directly and indirectly declared that India has no future. While India is yet to discipline its admiral, China immediately described the article as unauthorized.
Mehta is a well-known and outspoken person. Last year he openly asked Russia to arrange the delivery of the aircraft carrier Gorshkov or refund the US$500 million India had paid for it. In the Indian military establishment such outbursts are uncommon.
Mehta is a highly professional and disciplined military commander. It is extremely rare that someone in his position would step into the political and diplomatic limelight while still in office. But sometimes people on the verge of retirement do have political ambitions, which may explain Mehta’s outspokenness.
Everybody knows that China’s navy is twice as big as India’s. But is it modern enough to pass the Strait of Malacca and fight a well-equipped Indian navy?
India’s navy has the most modern land-based air surveillance capabilities, aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, P-8I submarine hunters and Brahmos missiles. China’s navy is all about stolen technology; reverse-engineered missiles and a handful of modern Russian-built ships. Its aim is numbers, not quality. Moreover, if the Chinese were to leave their flanks undefended they could find the map of China completely altered by their enemies.
The good admiral in India was politicking and wished a larger piece of the defense budget for the navy. He took the opportunity at the National Maritime Foundation for a swipe at the political establishment.
He is not the first admiral to publicly undermine his own country. The late Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., chief of U.S. naval operations under former U.S. President Richard Nixon, complained about the state of the U.S. fleet to a Congressional committee. Nobody believed him. When asked whether he would prefer to command the U.S. or the Soviet naval fleet, he replied the latter. Within a year he was retired.
The Indian admiral went far beyond his role as a naval officer, suggesting that cooperation rather than conflict should be the core Indian policy toward China. He did not realize that China through the millennia of its history has never compromised. It has faced defeat and subjugation from outsiders but never compromised. Cooperation with the Chinese is possible on their terms only.
The trust deficit between India and China to which Mehta referred is the outcome of China’s occupation of Indian territory since 1957, although the Bandung Conference declaration of 1955, to which China is a signatory, emphasized non-interference and non-aggression.
As for Zhan Lue’s point in China’s Global Times, it seems he borrowed his thought process from Pakistani intellectuals who wish India to be a weakened state for Muslim hordes to rule again. Zhan wrote that India’s sense of unity is weak and China’s best option would be to remove India as its rival in Asia. He even suggested that India be broken up into 20 to 30 sovereign states along the lines of its current provinces, and argued that China and India cannot co-exist.
The Chinese intellectual expressed his views under a pseudonym, although the hand of official Chinese policymakers in the publication cannot be ignored. It is typical for Chinese officials to float an idea to test its reception, and later deny it.
The Chinese have become paranoid about India’s fast growth in the last ten years. They have been making noises about India’s bad economy, bad political state and bad infrastructure. In fact, India’s economy has grown at about 9 percent for the last seven years.
For many Chinese like Zhan, India is a thorn that needs to be removed. But few see China’s major weakness – an economy completely export-dependent and earnings deposited in U.S. banks. Many do not realize how bad their economy could be hit if the West decided to cut back on Chinese imports and do away with borrowed Chinese money.
The timing of Zhan’s article is also critical. It coincided with the commissioning of India’s domestically built nuclear submarine in July. The Indian submarine is superior to China’s and makes its goal of dominating the Indian Ocean harder, which explains Zhan’s outburst.
The Indian admiral’s outburst and the Chinese unofficial statement put together lead to one conclusion: India must increase its defense budget by double digits every year for the next ten years. This will ward off any Chinese menace and make Indian admirals and generals happy.
Even today, soldier for soldier, India’s defense budget is comparable to China’s. India’s defense spending is US$30 billion for its 1.2 million troops. China’s budget is close to US$65-$75 billion for its force of 2.6 million.
China’s offensive capabilities in the Himalayas are limited. Its lifeline – one railway line passing over 300 miles of permafrost – cannot support a big military force. Its current force is insufficient to mount a successful attack on India through the Himalayas.
What is driving China’s overconfidence? With the United States as its debtor, China feels it has neutralized the United States. This is true to some extent, but China has a tendency to overestimate its power.
China also dislikes the Russians, except for their military hardware. For 60 years Russia’s focus was Western Europe and the United States. With the Cold War over, that focus has now shifted. Presently, the Russians will not take kindly any Chinese moves of the type they staged in the Ussuri River in 1967. The same is true with Vietnam.
Taiwan is a separate matter, as the Chinese have cooled the issue a bit to win the U.S. export market.
China’s trump card against India is Pakistan – although its own permanent troubles with tribesmen in the Northwest Frontier Province have dealt a deathblow to its India ambitions. But still, China can hobnob with Pakistan against India.
The United States has been making noises about India being a regional power. Both U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during her recent India visit, and Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke have said the same. Somehow India has to align with the United States and get over all the issues that dampen their relationship. The recent climate change spat or the ongoing Indo-U.S. nuclear reprocessing problems and other issues have set the clock back. But with China breathing down its neck, India has to find allies.
India should raise its defense budget to US$50 billion in five years, which it can afford. Its economy in five years will hit the US$1.6 trillion mark. Similarly, one can expect China’s defense budget to increase in the same proportion.
India’s success will be determined by its alliances with other powers, which is the key to its future. If in doubt, take the example of Britain, which allied with the United States to win two world wars in the last century; otherwise it might well have become a Nazi state since 1945.
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(Hari Sud is a retired vice president of C-I-L Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. ©Copyright Hari Sud.)