Three Things Government And Opposition Can Do To Build National Resolve And Deter China

The unedifying media and parliamentary slugfests over the adequacy (or inadequacy) of our response to Chinese provocations and ingress on our borders are not helping us.

It is pointless trying to blame either the government or the opposition for this spectacle, but clearly both are responsible — the government more than the opposition.

At least on matters of national security, we cannot have such energy and national will-sapping debates.

There are three things the government must do to remedy this.

First, stop blaming the opposition for our border issues with China, which are the result of both past and current failures to address the asymmetry in power and defence preparedness on our part.

It does not matter if Congress governments failed to build infrastructure in our border areas, or the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) has been found wanting on this score.

Both are to blame. But if the government stops accusing past governments of failure, the attacks on its own shortcomings, real or imagined, will reduce.

Second, and this is most important, dealing with China needs a whole-of-government and whole-of-nation approach.

The government can start by creating a group of ministers to deal with all aspects of the Chinese challenge, whether economic, military, cyber or misinformation threats.

We may not have a ministry specifically to deal with China, but the ministries of defence, home, finance, external affairs, roadways, railways and information technology must clearly be part of the China response group.

Only a fully-empowered group, with the Prime Minister and the National Security Advisor as key drivers, can deal holistically with the challenge China poses.

The Chinese threat is several times higher than the one Pakistan ever posed, even given that Pakistan is congenitally committed to destroying “Hindu India”.

Third, and this is a corollary to the first and second proposals mentioned above, there has to be a wider government-opposition group that will not only be briefed on the real state of affairs on the border, but also what the government is doing about it.

If the opposition can suggest better ideas, the government must be more than willing to adopt them as its own.

For example, the lack of a more aggressive military response to Chinese incursions, or the steep build-up in India’s trade deficit with China (which implies that we are financing their military build-up on our borders), may have real reasons behind them.

If not shared with the opposition, it will be inclined to blame the government rather than offer constructive suggestions for strengthening the national resolve to resist and defeat China’s designs.

The government can point out that it is playing the incursions down because any escalation will increase Chinese belligerence and precipitate a short war that can only cause economic damage to us.

Also, the build-up in the trade deficit is the result of the rise in global prices due to supply chain disruptions, and also because bringing the production of some high-tech products to India depends on Chinese components.

The big rise in India’s mobile phone production would have directly resulted in higher imports of Chinese components, and making component suppliers shift to India takes time.

It is perfectly logical for the trade deficit to rise during the interim when domestic production of final goods increases even while component companies take time to relocate to India.

The government should not assume that the opposition is just a nuisance, and the opposition should not believe that the government is sleeping on the job, when strategic responses to Chinese belligerence take time to develop and expand.

It is time the government shifted to a whole-of-government approach to dealing with China, and started giving regular and private briefings to key opposition leaders on what is happening on our borders and what we are doing about it. We need trust on both sides of the fence, and for that both government and opposition must move in tandem.