Indo-Chinese relations By Justice Katju

Prime Minister Modi’s forthcoming likely visit to China to attend the SCO ( Shanghai Cooperation Organisation ) meeting on 31st August and 1st September has stirred expectations that Indo-Chinese relations will now improve.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/pm-may-visit-china-for-the-1st-time-in-7-years-visit-amid-trade-standoff-with-us/articleshow/123148637.cms

I submit that these expectations are based on a total misconception, and without understanding the nature of the China of today.

 To understand this, one must know that China of today only pretends to be a socialist country, but in fact, it is capitalist and imperialist.

It is in the nature of capital to seek avenues for profitable investment, markets to capture, and cheap raw materials. After its industrialization has developed to a certain level, and its own markets saturated, a country turns imperialist, seeking overseas markets and raw materials. That is why England conquered India and other countries, France conquered Algeria and Vietnam, and Japan conquered Korea, Manchuria, and part of China.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Nazi German imperialism was the real danger to the world, not British or French imperialism. This was because German imperialism at that time was rising and expanding, hence aggressive imperialism, while British and French imperialism were on the defensive. While the latter only wanted to hold on to their colonies, the Nazis wanted to conquer and enslave other countries. Hence, the Nazis were the real danger to the world.

Similarly, today the danger to the world is not from America or Europe but from China, because the Chinese are on the road of aggressive expansionism. With their massive industry seeking markets for its goods and cheap raw materials, and with their huge $3.285 trillion foreign exchange reserve hungrily seeking avenues for profitable investment, the Chinese are today aggressive imperialists, and the greatest danger to the world.

It is true that the Chinese are not presently expanding militarily like Nazi Germany or fascist Japan, but they are aggressively expanding economically by penetrating and undermining the economies of many countries. In the last decade, Chinese overseas investment has skyrocketed. Today, the Chinese are almost everywhere: Asia, Africa, Latin America (despite the Monroe Doctrine), and of course, the USA and Europe.

Their Belt and Road Initiative is a network of roads, railways, oil pipelines, power grids, ports, and other infrastructure projects connecting China with the world. It aims at improving infrastructure and connectivity between China and the rest of Eurasia, with the intention of dominating and exploiting it. China’s focus is often on vital infrastructure like ports, e.g., Gwadar in Pakistan, Piraeus in Greece, and Hambantota in Sri Lanka, aiming to get a strategic foothold in these countries.

By selling goods at less than half the price at which the American or European manufacturer can afford to sell (due to higher labor costs in Western countries), the Chinese have destroyed many American and European industries. Now the Chinese are seeking to capture the markets and raw materials in underdeveloped countries like India, by dumping goods at very low prices, making the local product uncompetitive.

Pakistan, for instance, is flooded with cheap Chinese goods. While capturing foreign markets, the Chinese carefully protect their own by high tariffs. 

It is well known that the Chinese have no business ethics, which is why many American and European companies are reluctant to hire Chinese from mainland China, as they often commit espionage of industrial secrets.

Since I am an Indian, I would like to refer to China’s economic relations with India.

As is well known, India was a British colony until 1947, and British policy was not to allow setting up a heavy industrial base in India. Hence, our British rulers only allowed Indians to set up light industries like textiles and plantations.

However, after Independence, a certain degree of industrialization took place in India, and we started manufacturing many goods that we had to earlier import.

Now the Chinese have, to a certain extent, penetrated our market at the expense of our domestic industries. An article entitled “How Chinese Companies are Beating India in its Own Backyard,” published on December 12, 2017, in The Economic Times, gives some interesting details.

Indo-Chinese trade is heavily skewed in favor of the Chinese. Indian exports to China in 2017 were $16 billion, mainly of raw materials. But its imports from China were $68 billion, mainly of value-added goods like mobile phones, plastics, electrical goods, machinery, and its parts. This is typical of the relation between a colony and an imperialist country. Chinese companies use aggressive pricing, state subsidies, protectionist policies, and cheap financing provided by the Chinese government.

In 2021, imports from China grew by 45% in a single year, and the trade deficit vis-à-vis China crossed $100 billion, while India’s exports to China stood at a paltry $17.5 billion. India is now importing almost $6 worth of goods from China for every dollar worth of goods exported to that country.

In certain sectors, Chinese companies dominate the Indian market. For example, in the telecom sector, 51 percent of which has been captured by the Chinese. Indian homes are full of Chinese goods, such as fittings, lampshades, tubelights, etc. Now the Chinese want to go further. Their companies like Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Xiaomi, CSITEC, CMIEC, Haier, TCL, Jiangsu Overseas Group Companies, and FiberHome Technologies are aided by the Chinese government and aggressive diplomacy to spread all over the globe.

These companies are in high tech, intercom, computers, metallurgy, steel, etc., and have deeply penetrated India (and other countries).

75% of Indian smartphone parts come from China, as do 75% of active pharmaceutical ingredients crucial for the generic drug industry. India imports from China essential components, especially electronic vehicles, 25% of its auto parts, 80% solar modules and cells, and 30% of its textile inputs. Major Indian telecom players depend on Chinese equipment, Huawei and ZTE being primary suppliers. Chemical and industrial raw materials account for a substantial import share, with 40% sourced from China. One can go on and on.

Those who think, that the Chinese danger can be averted by sweet words and “Hindi-Chini bhai bhai” are labouring under a misconception, and fail to understand the nature of Chinese imperialism, based on certain iron objective economic laws which operate irrespective of one’s subjective personal wishes.

To keep thinking that one can improve relations between India and China is just wishful thinking and living in La-La Land. It is like imagining that a fox and a chicken can coexist in the same pen. Ignoring this danger is behaving like an ostrich, similar to Neville Chamberlain, who thought Hitler was no danger and only needed to be appeased until it was almost too late.

The Chinese of today are imperialist ravenous wolves, and only if the countries of the world realize the danger and put up a stout united opposition to them can the Chinese be stopped from swallowing up other nations.

 China today is not a socialist but an imperialist country, and is, like Nazi Germany, an expanding imperialist power trying to dominate over, enslave, and exploit the whole world. Therefore, China is today the greatest danger to the world, as Hitler was in the 1930s and 1940s.

I have given my detailed reasons in the articles below, hence I am not repeating the same :
https://www.punjabtodaynews.com/the-chinese-menace-to-the-world/

https://www.outlookindia.com/opinion/trumps-opposition-to-chinese-imperialism-overshadows-his-defects-news-316451

https://justicekatju.com/india-and-china-5bf52a7b7096

https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2024/08/02/opinion-china-poses-the-world-s-biggest-threat-india-beijing-justice-markandey-katju.html

https://www.dailypioneer.com/2020/columnists/chinese-are-the-neo-imperialists.html

Just as Hitler needed a propaganda expert like Goebbels to propagate his lies, so also does China, to propagate its lies that it wants prosperity for all nations, and is a force for good, peace and stability. China has found its own Goebbels in Victor Gao, who regularly peddles lies about Chinese good intentions towards other countries, and sings paeans and hosannas to his God, Chinese President Xi Jinping.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Gao

It was interesting to see Victor Gao’s recent interview, given below :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZqCvNCoRh8&pp=ygUrdmljdG9yIGdhbyB0cnVtcCB3aWxsIGxvc2UgaXQgd2hlbiBoZSBoZWFycw%3D%3D

In this interview, Victor Gao says that China does not want to dominate other countries, instead it wants to share the benefits of its modernization and development with other countries. These statements are blatant lies, as explained in my articles above. Far from sharing anything with other countries, China has today become like a hungry, rapacious wolf, an imperialist which wants to loot, dominate, and enslave other countries, particularly the underdeveloped countries. Its $ 3.285 trillion foreign exchange reserve is a huge amount of hot money hungrily looking for avenues for profitable investment in foreign countries, and for foreign markets and foreign cheap raw materials to capture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign-exchange_reserves_of_China

Gao sings panegyrics and hallelujahs for Chinese President Xi Jinping for “promoting the Commonwealth of the interest of mankind as a whole”, an expression which reminds one of imperialist Japan’s slogan in the 1930s and 40s of ‘The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’, which was just a camouflage and euphemism for Japanese intention to dominate and exploit large parts of Asia, as a fascist imperialist power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperity_Sphere
The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICs, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, etc are some of the tools the Chinese have created and are using for world domination and plunder of other countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Pakistan_Economic_Corridor

The basic fallacy in Victor Gao’s propaganda depicting China as a benevolent country which wants to help other countries is this : China today is not a socialist country ( though it proclaims itself as one ) but a capitalist country. Capitalism works for profits, not for doing philanthropy or for helping others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_imperialism

When industrialization in a capitalist country reaches a certain level, the country tends to become imperialist, as it must seek foreign markets and cheap raw materials in foreign countries, because its domestic market is saturated, and also because much higher profits are available in backward countries.
This is the reason why the British conquered India and other countries, France conquered much of North Africa and Vietnam, and Japan conquered Korea, Manchuria, and parts of China.
Similarly, China has built up a massive industry and accumulated about $ 3.285 trillion Foreign Exchange Reserve, for which it is hungrily looking for markets, raw materials, and avenues for lucrative investment. For this, the Chinese are now everywhere ( as mentioned in my articles above), capturing markets ( e.g. most of the telecom sector in India ), ports ( e.g. Gwadar in Pakistan and Hambantota in Srilanka ). They are in Africa on a large scale, and even in Latin America ( thus flouting the Monroe Doctrine ).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwadar_Port

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambantota_International_Port#:~:text=The%20Hambantota%20International%20Port%20is,lease%20to%20China%20Merchant%20Ports.

A typical technique adopted by the Chinese is to give loans to underdeveloped countries, knowing that the country will not be able to to repay the loan. Then when the time for repayment comes, and the country is unable to pay, the Chinese demand that instead of money, the country hands over a port  or some other facility, or a certain section of its economy, to the Chinese
So far from being the benevolent philanthropical country, and a helpful big brother, which the sweet tongued Victor Gao has sought to portray China as being, the truth is that China is today a ruthless imperialist power, seeking markets and cheap raw materials to capture everywhere, and for this end it subverts the economic independence of countries where Chinese companies operate.

https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article7401

Chinese imperialism, like Hitler’s imperialism, is therefore the greatest danger to the world today, including India, which the Chinese are seeking to convert into an economic colony. 

Apart from that, the Chinese have illegally captured 38,000 sq.kms of Indian territory in Ladakh

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/china-continues-illegally-occupy-38000-sq-km-of-indian-territory-govt-1908990-2022-02-04

How then can there be any improvement in Indo-Chinese relations ?