When we say string of pearls, we are referring to all strategic locations of the world around the Indian ocean as China is focusing a lot on India from last few decades, it’s weird that China perceives India as a natural enemy for all practical purposes but also wants to build good trade relation on the other hand. This is not a dichotomy as everyone wants more profit and less of competition, India has been such kind of market for very long, a perfect market with less competition and many advantages, the only thing that bothers China was the young population of India, which the govt has not rightly invested into for some reasons. Well, let’s not digress from the current topic; let’s get back.
What is String of Pearls???
Well, the strategic Geo-political locations, like all the choke points viz, strait of Malacca, strait of Hormuz, Lombok, and other maritime centers in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, etc these locations are very important in a Geo-political perspective as these are all choke points. With these locations in control, any country can just choke and stop the supply of essential services. The essential services like oil and medicines via cargos and ships can be stopped at these choke points, and this will bring any nation to its knees. To make it more simple to understand let us consider an example, let us say there is a house with 15-20 doors, out of which 5-8 door are in such a strategic position that blocking them would make the access to other door more difficult or cumbersome and expensive, in such a case the one who has control over these 5-8 strategic door will be considered as a big brother in the house for all practical purposes. In today’s context, China is trying to be that big brother, but in doing so, China is also making sure that India doesn’t become the next potential power sharing partner in the whole scenario, so the whole string of pearls are aligned in such a fashion that it tackles India from multiple fronts.
Why is India a threat?
While many people may say that India is acting rather more pompously, China has no interest in a developing country like India which has no say in major decisions of the world, Indians are just conjuring things up to make them feel more important and become more pompous in many senses, while these accusations are very often made by experts and pundits on various spectra of political expertise. I beg to differ, I refuse to buy this argument that India is trying to be pompous in this scenario because the empirical data shows otherwise, China considers India its natural enemy for many historic reasons, where social psychology also played a vital role, well that is a topic for another day and an interesting story but for now let’s focus on other front, India for all practical purposes is a better alternative to Chinese technology for the following reasons;
1. India has a democratic form of govt. And this gives a lot of confidence to foreign investors and companies to invest in India rather than invest in any totalitarian country, and the judiciary also lends and protects the rights of all companies and intellectual property of the world. India is also a signatory to various conventions like TRIPS. India is also a signatory to other conventions of the WTO, which ensure free and fair trade practices.
2. In addition to the above point India also provides cheap labor and manufacturing facilities due to huge gap in economies, which is in the favour of foreign countries, which means they will be secured due to India being signatory to all those treaties and being a democracy the faith in India is naturally higher than any totalitarian country, so China fears that in upcoming years if India is seen as an alternative to it, there will be a huge competition.
3. India love for change and technological adaptation is high, and on top of it, India is also a huge market, both of these facts are a bonus point for any industry who wants to sell its product, let us understand this with a small example, suppose you are a salesman and you have to sell any product, the first thing that come to your mind is that I need to sell the product where there are more people, and I need an attractive strategy and a good plan to give economical options to the people. Sell the product to them at their convenience. There is a lot more to selling than just these points, but these are the initial things, and India happens to have all these things, so it becomes a natural place that attracts many companies to sell their products.
4. Gullible audience: - Young and easily influenced population, it looks like the Chinese have cracked a unique code, which is something related to a success mantra. Indian youth are very easy to influence (actually, every adolescent and young person is easy to manipulate). The manipulation rate of an Indian child just seems to be a little high. Thanks to the unfettered devotion of Indians towards their Bollywood starts who are treated as gods, you can sell pretty much anything from a non-essential cold drink to an essential item with a small endorsement from their favorite and popular Bollywood star, and the mindless movie stars also endorse these products without giving it a much though. In this tussle, the foreign companies profit.
How is China doing it?
We all have always been so astonished at the declaration of the strategy of string of pearls, as if we were all unknown to it, yes we might have had our delays due to excellent bureaucratic system of India and not to mention the kleptocratic politicians who are always ready to sell the nation and last but not the least the blind and unaware people of this nation. All are equally responsible for this situation.
Nonetheless, without digressing, let's see what China does
Offering soft loans
China has been indirectly through its consulates and embassies in various nations tried to influence and offer soft and lucrative loans to small, weak and strategically well placed nation, slowly they turn this soft loan to a commercial loans with high interests, and when the country isn’t able to return the loan then china takes an important location where the money was being used to develop a project will be taken under control by china with opaque laws and always on its terms, the best example of this unique expansionists theory is the incident of famous Hambantota port of Sri Lanka (whole analysis by the new York times), well if you think that china has taken only one port this way then you are wrong. This has been happening for so long, and it has become so common that people might have turned a blind eye to it until it happened right in front of their eyes, those who succumb to their pressure and accept loans from china they are treated like ally and those who refuse they are harassed by various means.
Intimidation
Bhutan is being harassed by China by demanding a huge piece of land as its territory (op ed by Sudha Ramachandran on The Diplomat, 23 Jul 2020). Like some Bollywood antagonists, China is trying to get what it wants by hook or by crook, in short, using the saam daam dand bhed strategy, as said in India. China has used its muscle power and it continues to do so on the nations it thinks are weak and shall give in easily if shows power, While Bhutan’s incident is new and completely relatable, there are other instances like Nepal-China border, Bhutan-China border, in Eastern China Sea there are countries like Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, North &south Korea, Russia, Singapore, Laos, Tajikistan, Cambodia, Magnolia and of course Tibet. While many times we wonder if the claims of China are legitimate and backed by historical facts and figures, looking at the pattern, it doesn’t seem so.
Counter Strategy of India
So, what is India doing about this cakravyuha, which is being made and meticulously planned out by the neighboring country, China?
India from past few years has made excellent relations with other world leaders and countries which are strategically very important to Indian in the context of not getting intimidated by the ambitious to-be-big brother of the world “China” so Modi-Shah led govt started reaching to the countries like Iraq, Iran, Philippines, Vietnam, sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Oman, Kenya, etc.,
Over the past few years, we might have criticized the government for having many expensive foreign trips and meeting international delegates from other governments. Lest we fail to understand the motive behind these trips and visits, these visits were strategic rather than being tacit, while China is trying to encircle India on multiple fronts the Indian govt isn’t sleeping, it is simultaneously building parallel ports to go defensive-offensive at times and block any actions from Chinese backed ports and locations.
What more can be done?
It is said that enemy of an enemy is a friend, using this same logical conclusion nay syllogism we can go and meet all the nations who are harassed by the “Big Brother” China and form a strong group by retaliating or say devising a ways to retaliate China and form a strong group which can be form by India thus also play a role of being a leader of these groups. These shall be a sustainable, mutually beneficial relationship with India and these countries. Apart from this, India can find other unconventional ways, viz blocking Chinese applications in India was a good plan, and now boosting the Indic manufacturing process and plants also sounds great plan, which will lead India in a different direction and project India as a better and efficient alternative to China.
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