The Impending Great Asian War

I don’t believe in prophecies, but in my lifetime I think we will have to bear with the India-China power struggle moulding into the Great Asian War. Current times suggests that a cold war situation is already developing where China is kind of surrounding India by all means possible and India is scrambling to keep the national morale high and just managing to not give up so easily. This blog is about what is happening and what can go wrong!

The Great Chinese Boom

The Chinese economy and scientific prowess grew exponentially from the 1980s which is where India stands in 2020s. The communist regime despite being termed dictatorial by many took all the correct actions possible for their growth which is visible on any scale of choice. Be it economic, scientific research papers, innovations, no of companies, human development, poverty scales, currency in circulation, among others, one can name the barometer and will witness the great Chinese boom.

Uncle Peter Parker told us that with great power comes great responsibility, History taught that it comes great ambitions instead!

Chinese forces have expanded and with continued US-Sino struggle with power domination, India - the distant no 3 which may not even be qualified for that spot is under a threat. There are long-standing border disputes, constant allegations of spying, miscommunications and growing bonhomie with the arch-rival Pakistan. I can’t claim that China is an all-honest blameless kid of the class, rather the smartest one! It knows that only India has the potential to hammer its way to world domination. The US sits far and will always be so from Asia, and India is China’s biggest neighbour. If China has to make everyone submit, it has to first rule over India. And that is what the Chinese boom means for India.

The Boom also reflects Chinese naval and military strategies. There is a string of pearls, belt and road initiative, constant offers to drown countries under reckless debts. Examples are Sri Lanka & Pakistan, who both have gone to the path of no return into the smelly Chinese underarms. Smelly because now they are forced to lick any offer that China throws at them, lease the ports for several decades, buy everything from China and maybe in future eat only chow mein all your life.

Politics In India

India started its independent journey with the lowest point in its civilisation. India’s land was divided into multiple countries based on religion and yet the core stayed secular. God knows why, I am conflicted whether it was a proud moment or a civilizational submission to our foreign rulers - invaders/ancestors - depends on which side of politics one belongs! Now it neighbours Islamic countries with a proportion of public openly discussing how to conquer “the Hindu-land” on YouTube, wage a war on India called Gazhwa-e-Hind. China does not have any such problems, or atleast on the face of it unless you want to selectively pick out Tibet, Xinjiang and Mongolian dissatisfaction.

Our politics is more divided than ever before. We have not yet developed a culture to settle issues once for all ever in our national discourse and instead inculcated a habit to bury them down only to be rubbed upon later. There are plenty of issues which haunt us even now - be it internal security / divisive politics such as State Regionalism (shows up as state pride in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kashmir, Nagaland, etc), Factionalism (shows up as movements to break up states like Andhra Pradesh - Telangana split) or economic decision paralysis including a lack of will to de-nationalize government hold on airlines, banks, power generation, transport (railways), etc.

We already need a big shift like politics reflections, which was evident from the Anti Corruption movement of 2012 and the rise of Modi era afterwards. I think more political changes would happen as the time arises and the country would move closer together in terms of polity propelled by a fear of an external security threat or be driven by an immediate economic collapse. We continue to spend our political energy on firefighting daily issues such as containing diseases, university protests, farmer protests, union protests, etc and appease certain groups rather than thinking of the country as a whole. The key question is what if Chinese pressure comes right on our face!

Build up of Pressure

Honestly, I think the days of a full-fledged war is gone long back. No one can afford to win over any other country, because the other will try to defend till the last weapon and that may be Nuclear too. Nuclear is utter devastation and there is no purpose of anything on that route. I am convinced that the non-nuclear way is the only way to build pressure on others. China will try to subdue India. Either by conventional superiority or my economic might or by taking away the growth levers or by getting us to fight among ourselves or by using its proxy and China’s Israel namely Pakistan.

I do not think any other country will come forward to help us defend ourselves. We are short on time and resources. We will have to use the resources to ample advantage. In tough times, the best of national character will show up. It’s not Pakistan from which many Indians can sympathize. We have shown that if it comes to proving our might, we do that with great success. Just that it takes someone external to rile us to do that.

China can’t win the war because they read Sun Tzu but they may give a great lasting damage

Grim Future

We already see a pattern with democratic parties in different countries aligning together. There will be a better integration among countries and either we will be able to find a synergy with China or we will have the war sooner or later. Our politics is sadly no longer in our hands only, it will be shaped and refined by external factors like our GDP, Currency and opinions. And in future, wars will be fought to maintain economic hedge and lesser for territorial dominations. I had written about a framework of greater good but when times get sour, sanity gets thrown out of the window. India may have to compromise at several fronts to attract any external aggression or pay steep costs.