India sees relations with China in a bilateral context, Beijing has never seen it that way: Vijay Gokhale

In an interview with The Hindu, author Vijay Gokhale, a former Foreign Secretary, explains his research into Chinese decision-making, how China deploys “grey zone coercion”, and the consequences for the future of its relations with India. A theme that emerges from the conflicts that you research in this book is that it has never been one single reason that led China to go to war, but rather a confluence of factors, especially the global context. I wrote this book because I thought I should write a companion piece to my earlier book The Long Game. That book was about how the Chinese negotiate with India in various situations. However, given our background, not just in terms of the conflict in 1962 but also because of the current situation where there is tension along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), I felt it was important to study how China engages in conflict, and what are the motivations that lead China to engage in conflict. The fact is after 1979, the Chinese have not really fought a hot war. But one of the key points I wanted to make in the book is that conflict is not simply a hot war. Grey zone warfare is also a form of conflict. It involves continuous tension with another country using military or largely military means, although not entirely military means because there are economic and psychological levers, and so on. That was the real objective of writing this book, also because I thought it would be helpful to the strategic and policymaking communities in India, as well as to the general public. Coming to the objectives, what appeared apparent to me after studying all the conflicts that China has waged, is that it was rarely, if ever, driven purely by operational or territorial objectives. Of course, these were important and continue to be so for China, but it was driven much more by political objectives. China looked at political goals vis-à-vis the other country rather than simply territorial or military objectives. The second point is that China has always viewed conflict in a wider global geopolitical context rather than in a narrow bilateral one. If you go through the book, you will see that in practically any conflict China has engaged in — both hot wars and grey zone conflicts — they have looked at where that conflict will place them in the context of the larger global balance of power. That is an extremely important element that I want to flag in my book, because we tend to see India-China relations only in a bilateral context. Beijing has never looked at it that way, and will never look at it that way either. Therefore, we need to study how Beijing looks at India in this much larger global context. One of the key elements of the book is looking at how China uses diplomacy and propaganda once it decides to enter a conflictual situation. This is not a reactive approach. The Chinese plan their diplomatic and propaganda initiatives as part of the larger operational strategy towards achieving the specific political objectives they have already identified. The book also looks at whether domestic politics has had any impact on how or when China wages war. I felt this was important because we know that in democratic societies, domestic politics inevitably impacts foreign policy. I presumed it was the same in the case of China. But China is such an opaque society and polity that this is not often written about, particularly in the context of China’s wars. As I did my research, I was surprised at how much of a correlation there was, and is, between China’s domestic politics and its decision to use force. This is what motivated me to write this book. I think the lessons I have drawn will be important for us going forward, because we are now in a globalised world. As we recently saw during the [China-U.S.] summit in Beijing, both sides recognise that the international order is collapsing. Both sides are looking to stabilise it in their own way. That is going to impact India as well. How China looks at us will be heavily impacted by how they deal with this collapsing international order. The first conflict you explore in the book is with Taiwan in 1958, which underlines your point that it was often different considerations coming together, domestically and globally, that shaped China’s decision-making, rather than one driving factor such as territory. The 1958 conflict, which involved the U.S. and is called the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, was actually the first big military engagement the Chinese had after the Korean War in 1950. And here they were involved with the most powerful superpower in the world. They had very clear political objectives. They never accepted the separation of Taiwan from China after 1949. They did not have any opportunity to take it back in the early 1950s because once the Korean War began, the U.S. declared Taiwan to be an unsinkable aircraft carrier and plied Chiang Kai-shek with a lot of military support and weapons. But China never gave up on its dream of seizing the is