India ‘must learn to play Chinese checkers’

The UPA’s return to power may mean continuity in India’s somewhat strained relations with China, but if India is to reshape its destiny in Asia, it must decisively break from the past, say analysts and Sino-Indian scholars. 

“If the re-elected coalition wants to check China from expanding its influence in Asia, particularly South Asia, India must win the trust of other countries in the region,” says Claudia Astarita, a Sino-Indian political researcher at the University of Hong Kong. “That can be accomplished at a time when these countries too are looking for an alternative to counterbalance China.”

In the middle of the election campaign, Indian home minister P Chidambaram criticised China for “fishing in troubled waters” in Sri Lanka. It was the latest symptom of strains in bilateral relations, which could be further accentuated next week when a $2.9 billion development aid proposal comes up before the Asian Development Bank board; China has refused to give its consent to the plan because it incorporates a project in Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as its territory. 

China’s reluctance to compromise on matters of Indian political interest (such as sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh) and even the booming bilateral trade relationship is now weighted in China’s favour  has meant that New Delhi has had to move warily with China, points out Astarita. 

Chinese media and scholars responded on Saturday with detached wonderment to the dramatic re-election of the UPA coalition, although many aspects of the “world’s largest democratic exercise” evidently left them puzzled.

The official Xinhua news agency reported the “almost overwhelming” victory of the Congress(I)-led coalition with periodic news updates but without comment.   

Zhao Gancheng, director of research at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, said India is an “exceptional” case-study in political science. “Traditionally, it is believed that democracy can be built only in advanced, civilised and literate societies, but despite rampant poverty and low literacy levels, India has successfully implemented a democractic system,” he observes. 

From Beijing’s perspective, the poor electoral performance of the Left parties is a setback.