Assessing China’s Global Governance Ambitions
In Chapter 6 of The Cambridge History of China, Volume 15, edited by Roderick MacFarquhar, John K. Fairbank, and Denis Twitchett (1991), Dwight Perkins, the Harold Hitchings Burbank Research Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University describes the impact of Chairman Mao Zedong’s The Great Leap Forward in these words: “… the enormous amounts of investment only produced modest increases in production or none at all... In short, the Great Leap was a very expensive disaster.”
The Great Leap Forward was among the first massive socio-economic campaigns launched by the Chinese authorities in 1958. Chairman Mao had but one objective — to transform China from an agrarian economy into an industrialised giant. But here’s where the law of unintended consequences kicked in.
To cut a long story short, thanks to Mao’s order that grain yields and industry in the countryside be increased, local officials began fudging data to meet the ideological demands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rather than reflect reality on the ground. They collected non-existent surpluses and left farmers to starve to death. They were so afraid of Mao that they never reported the economic disaster that resulted from these policies. National officials, blaming bad weather for the decline in food output, took little or no action.
The result? An estimated 50 million people starved to death, making the Great Chinese Famine the largest or second-largest famine in human history.
In another version of our newsletter, we have compared current Chinese President Xi Jinping to Chairman Mao for the sheer authoritarian hunger they share. In fact, Xi wants to go a few steps ahead of Mao in creating his legacy — he has set his sights on the globe, not just the confines of the Chinese political geography. What will this lead to? Is it a Mao déjà vu?
It is in that context that we need to see the launch of Xi’s Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI) and Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI).
Our China Dude Manoj Kewalramani has an enlightening assessment of the recent developments in China. He has analysed the speeches by Chinese leaders, policy publications, media, and analytical discourse in China, along with actual policy decisions, to provide a SWOT analysis of current geopolitical churn from Beijing’s perspective. His assessment document then places the launch of GDI, GSI, and GCI within this context, before detailing the elements of each initiative and distilling their stated and implicit agenda.
You can download the report here.
Manoj later provided a precis of this assessment document as a Twitter thread here.
The Chinese Drones Ecosystem
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, largely referred to as UAVs or drones, have become all the rage in performing a host of military and defence-related functions, including Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), ground attack, and countering electromagnetic interference from the enemy. Chinese military policy is paying significant attention to the development and deployment of drones around the world and is deploying its own ‘Military-Civilian Fusion’ (MCF) strategy to create a drone industry capable of meeting the demands of modern warfare.
This also includes equipping drones with autonomous and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled systems, in a quest to achieve the goals of ‘intelligentised’ warfare. Our Indo-Pacific Programme researcher Anushka Saxena’s latest discussion document assesses Chinese military policy on UAVs. It further details use cases of contemporary Chinese drone systems in military training, dogfighting, electronic countermeasures, and ISR, among others. It also identifies some Chinese drone systems with autonomous capabilities. In its annexure, the document discusses drone types and the stakeholders involved.
You can read Anushka’s full report here.
Anushka then followed up her discussion document with a podcast here and then a Twitter thread.
What happened to Dominic Greene, and Why is He Important to River Kaveri?
In the closing scenes of the 2008 James Bond movie, the villain Dominic Greene (played by the brilliant French actor Mathieu Amalric) is given a can of motor oil to drink in the middle of the Bolivian desert. Bond — James Bond — has successfully prevented him from staging a military coup with General Medrano over what could be the world’s largest aquifer. Greene does not want oil, he wants water, the most precious commodity the world will ever have.
Bond has both the poetic license and the license to kill. Therefore, he can do that to Greene, then kiss a beautiful girl and walk into the South American sunset. Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are not James Bond, even though when it comes to River Kaveri, they consider each other nothing less than Dominic Greene.
The latest quarrel between the two states threatened to disrupt lives again last week. In fact, on September 28, a group of Karnataka-based activists recently ambushed Siddharth, the Tamil Nadu actor who was in Bengaluru to promote a movie of his. He was forced to leave the venue.
The Kaveri River dispute is nothing new. It pertains to the allocation of water resources during periods of water scarcity, the distribution of water during regular years, and the establishment of reservoirs and dams along the river's course. Both states are vying for a greater portion of the river's water to cater to the needs of their expanding populations and agricultural activities.
Yet, every few years, it reaches boiling point.
Takshashila has not only been recording its views on this controversy, it has also been providing some solutions that could reduce the tension between the two states.
In this 2022 discussion document, we wrote:
“Instead of court-ordered administrative allocation of river water through tribunals, we propose a three-tiered system consisting of basic entitlement, overdraw entitlement, and super overdraw facility. The system will be managed by an independent water authority, set up with the help of the initial corpus contributed by the Union Government and the states involved. Subsequently, the capitalisation of the fund will take place through the charging mechanism described below. While a state may draw water up to its basic entitlement free of any charge, drawing water from the overdraw entitlement shall be charged at fixed rates.
Further, the super overdraw facility may be accessed only through competitive bidding in water auctions. And finally, states which draw less than their basic entitlement will receive a compensation benefit to the extent of less consumption, as an incentive for water conservation and promote the judicious use of water. The compensation benefit will also be given during the years when basic entitlement is not satisfied due to water scarcity.”
You can read our work here and here.
Joining the Dots on Kautilya’s Arthashastra and the India-Canada Imbroglio
Prof Kajari Kamal is one of the country’s best-known experts on Kautilya’s Arthashastra. It is natural, therefore, that she joined the dots on the ancient Indian treatise of economics, politics, military strategy, and statecraft, and the current diplomatic row between India and Canada.
In an op-ed for ORF, Prof Kamal writes:
“The current diplomatic row between Canada and India over Sikh separatism in general and the killing of the Sikh extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in particular, can arguably be read in the context of an ‘outer-outer’ scenario. The ‘outer’ of the kingdoms in the ancient past referred to countryside, frontier and forest areas, and vassals. Importantly, the association ‘at one end only’ identifies the problem (‘dosa’ translated as treachery by Patrick Olivelle) as residing in the instigator to sedition, and not with the general populace.
It would be fair to conclude that there is no widespread Sikh insurgency in India today and Sikhs are proud to be Punjabi and Indian. The situation on the ground is characteristically different from the Sikh separatist movement in India of the 1970s and 1980s, which grew in a complex and entrenched set of ethno-religious, socio-economic, and political factors. But what has been common (though different in scale) is the ideological and logistical support provided by the Sikh diaspora often in tune with domestic and international interests of the patronising overseas nation.”
You can read her assessment here.
Well, it is Not Just About Canada and India
The Hardeep Singh Nijjar killing in British Columbia in Canada in June this year has put a wedge between the northern neighbour of the United States and India, just when India’s diplomatic charm offensive at the New Delhi G20 summit was universally hailed.
But the India-Canada diplomatic row is not just about them; it is as much about India and the US, and the US and Canada.
In his op-ed for The Quint, Takshashila’s Amit Kumar expertly analyses the current man-on-wire kind of situation. “India-US relations are driven more by shared interests rather than shared values,” he writes.
To quote Amit:
“New Delhi’s wavering commitment to the notions of "free society” and "democratic values” has been a subject of concern for the Congress and the civil society in America. Often, reservations about democratic backsliding, press freedom, minority rights, and majoritarianism in India have been expressed through various working committees and media reports. But while these issues have remained a matter of public and private discussions, it has not prevented cooperation on pressing issues between the two countries. Relations with India are too vital a cog in the US’s Indo-Pacific strategy to be damaged beyond repair by an incident such as this one.”
Read his piece here.
Lt Gen Prakash Menon Weighs in on India and Canada
Why are Khalistani activists found mostly in Canada? Lt Gen Prakash Menon has a possible answer:
“Granting asylum on grounds of human rights violations also allowed the entry of hardliner Sikhs in Canada. The Sikh population doubled in the last two decades and is now 2.1 per cent of Canada’s population. They consist mostly of economic migrants. The present lot of Khalistani supporters in Canada as fringe elements, who are mostly second-generation migrants brainwashed by stories of continued atrocities against the Sikhs in India.”
His insightful op-ed for The Print provides an in-depth look at the roots of the current tension between Ottawa and New Delhi.
You can read the piece here.
Wait, There’s More
Net neutrality is back in the news, thanks to TRAI’s consultation paper on regulating OTT platforms and proposing to make them pay for network usage. And our researchers are on top of the hot topic. Earlier last month, Bharath Reddy & Rijesh Panicker published our responses to TRAI’s paper. And last week, Bharath and Rijesh joined Sridhar Krishna for an episode of All Things Policy, where they discussed the issue of selective banning of OTT apps by telecom networks. You can listen to it here.
The latest edition of the country’s only newsletter on geospatial research for strategic affairs is out. This time on Takshashila Geospatial Bulletin, Dr. Nithiyanandam uses satellite imagery to analyse the rapid infrastructure build-up by China in the Tibetan region. He writes, “China has made substantial investments in the Western Theatre Command, including constructing new airbases and heliports and improving existing infrastructure” and “China's rapid construction pace and utilisation of cutting-edge technology indicate its commitment to maintaining a long-term presence in the region”. Read it here.
Last weekend, we organised the Takshashila Academic Conference for the September 2023 Graduate Certificate in Public Policy (GCPP) cohort. An excellent and diverse range of speakers including Dr. Kajari Kamal, Jayesh Ranjan, Prof. Ashish Kulkarni, Amb. P.S. Raghavan, Jason Crawford, Dr. Rajeev Gowda, Krish Ashok, Lt. Gen. Prakash Menon Nitin Pai, and others spoke and interacted with our students over the course of the conference. Students also took part in ‘unconference’ sessions on policy topics of their choice. Read the updates from the conference here and here. To become part of the awesome GCPP experience, look no further than here.
Block Your Calendars Please
We have two exciting book events lined up this week which are sure to awaken the bookworm in you.
First, Pranay Kotasthane (author of Missing in Action: Why You Should Care About Public Policy) and Devashish Dhar (author of India’s Bling Spot: Understanding and Managing our Cities) will be performing a Policy Jugalbandi (yes) on Wednesday at the Bangalore International Centre.
Second, Shoba Narayan (author of Namma Bangalore: The Soul of a Metropolis) will be in conversation with Sowmya Nandan from Takshashila on Friday at our office on Church Street, Bengaluru.
That’s all for this week. Take care!