15 December 2022, NIICE Commentary 8436
Dr. Pavan Kumar & Aarushi
China has emerged as an important country of this century. You can support its rise or criticize it. But you can’t ignore it as its rise is real. With the rise of China, it also brings threats associated with its rise. And the threats become more dangerous when it is immediate, nearer, and more apparent. And no country should fear it more than India. If the United States is worried about its rise, it is because it is concerned about its projection of power and not the threats at the borders. If Europe is worried about China’s rising military capabilities, then it is concerned about its business and investments worldwide and not its territory. But for India, it means the threat of the territory.
Realist wisdom should guide India to balance the rise of China. India should balance China at the earliest possible: internally or externally. Balancing is generally aimed at deterring or preventing an aggressor’s power by acquiring more military capabilities or by making alliances with other powerful countries. And if a country fails to balance, it would amount to appeasement. It would mean under-balancing. And we all know the costs of appeasement and under balancing. Randal Schweller defines under balancing as a condition or policy “when the state does not balance or does so inefficiently in response to a dangerous and unappeasable aggressor, and the state’s efforts are essential to deter or defeat it. In this case, the under-balancing state brings about a war that could have been avoided or makes the war more costly than it otherwise would have been”. In this process of under-balancing, a state brings about a war that could have been avoided. It further increases the costs of war for the defendant country. For this reason, under-balancing is categorized as a theory of mistakes. In under-balancing, the state concerned either fail to see the threatening intentions of the rising power and consider it more benign or if the state concerned correctly perceives the threat, it does not adopt prudent policies to protect itself for reasons of domestic politics. Thus ending up under-balancing.
The Indian state is one classic case of under balancing. It has ignored or evaluated the Chinese threat as less than it actually is. And it is not something new. This under-balancing has historical roots. Nehru also misperceived China’s intentions when calculating the costs and possibilities of war. The present government is also doing the same by avoiding China rather than facing it.
The current under balancing is costing India at multiple levels. Firstly, it signals to China that its threatening activities will not be balanced. When CPEC was planned through PoK, India protested softly. These soft protests signalled the threatening power that the power would not balance their threatening activities. Moreover, India did not even recognize this threat.
Secondly, under-balancing encourages the threatening power to enter your territory again and again. The threatening power can sense your disinterest in dealing with it and, therefore, will try to come back to you again as and when it sees an open corridor. The recent episode at Tawang is a harsh reminder of this reality.
Thirdly, this would give a weak signal to the other threatened and weak power in the region. The states in the Indo-Pacific are aware of the threat China poses to them, but in the absence of any strong voice in the region, they would instead like to remain silent because speaking might cost them a lot. So, India should instead act fast and give a signal to other small and weak states that it is ready to face China if required. Otherwise, the threatened powers would not dare to come to you; instead, they might bandwagon with the threatening power in the absence of a genuine balancer.
Additionally, as India occupies major positions in the multilateral groupings, it has to balance its cost of under-balancing China. This is because various small powers in the region look up to India to set an example for them when it comes to leading, where many big players also hold positions. This under-balancing might lead to harming your interests at the international forums.
Moreover, India needs to recognize the fact that the other great and strong power would invest in its friendship only when they see potential in it. Because why would a state waste its resources on an under-balancing power? If India is serious about the friendships and gains from the US and other major European powers, it needs to show intent by first showing courage and giving the signal that it is not under-balancing.
Lastly, your enemy would be friendly with your other enemies. And you certainly don’t want to be surrounded by them. China’s friendship with Pakistan is well known. If India does not want to be contained in a narrow enemy circle, it needs to strongly and strategically respond to the threats from China. This would help India kill two birds with one stone as it would help in countering China’s increasing threat and also by giving a strong message to Pakistan regarding its ‘friendly policies’ to contain India.
Dr. Pavan Kumar is an Assistant Professor, School of Modern Media, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, India and Aarushi is an Independent Researcher in India.
