Explained Ideas: What can India learn from China about statecraft?

As Britain recognises that China can’t be the anchor of its post-Brexit foreign economic and strategic policies, Delhi has a huge opening to restructure its relationship with London, writes C Raja Mohan.

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An illustration of the flags of India and China. (Getty Images)

In his latest column, C Raja Mohan, director of the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, points out the differences between the anti-imperialist traditions of Delhi and Beijing. He assures that the Communist Party of China (CCP) is no less anti-imperialist than the Indian nationalists but there is one big difference between Indian and Chinese anti-imperialism.

“The Indian elite is utterly comfortable, at a personal level, with its British peers,” he writes. “Communist China, on the other hand, began with multiple handicaps in engaging with Britain. But over the last two decades, the CCP has systematically advanced its strategic influence in Britain,” he states.

A recent British report, titled “Elite Capture”, outlines how Beijing is converting the British ruling class — from the Lords to senior bureaucrats, ministers to mediapersons and business tycoons to university dons into “useful idiots” in promoting Chinese interests.

So, what can India learn from China’s successful influence operations in Britain?

“First, the Chinese emphasis on separating anti-imperialist ideology and the pursuit of national interest,” writes Mohan.

“The CCP has never disowned its founding ideology nor has it forgotten China’s past conflicts with imperialist powers…It leveraged the partnership with the US in the 1980s to elevate its position in the global system and now challenges American primacy,” he explains.

Second, “instead of treating the West as a collective, China continually probed the ‘inter-imperialist contradictions’. The report on elite capture says that separating Britain from the US and weakening the Five Eyes alliance of the Anglosphere (the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) were among the major objectives of China’s influence operations in the UK”.

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Earlier this year, the UK had decided to break from the US and turn to Huawei for its 5G future. It is another matter that “coupled with pressure from the US, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has begun to review the relationship with China. He is expected to announce at least a partial British dissociation from Huawei this week,” writes Mohan.

The biggest lesson, however, is that Delhi should not write off Britain as a strategic priority in its foreign policy calculus. “If Beijing could nearly subvert London, Delhi has enough equities to promote a change in the British establishment’s attitude towards India”.

He concludes by underscoring the opportunity for India: “As Britain recognises that China can’t be the anchor of its post-Brexit foreign economic and strategic policies, Delhi has a huge opening to restructure its relationship with London”.