Abstract

Since the swearing-in of the third Narendra Modi administration in India in mid-2024, a debate has played out in Indian strategic circles – government, media and the think-tank community – about whether a degree of economic openness to China is necessary and if necessary, feasible. Indian efforts post-Galwan, to ban Chinese apps or restrict the activities of Chinese companies in India, and post-Covid, to reduce dependence on Chinese suppliers by scaling up and incentivizing domestic production have failed to yield the desired results. In the main, there is a realisation that reducing dependence is a long-term goal not an overnight possibility. The government’s own Economic Survey released before the presentation of the annual budget this year, has called for India to ‘plug into China’s supply chain’. What then of the security challenges that China continues to pose, including not least the incomplete disengagement and de-escalation process on the LAC in the wake of the conflict of 2020? This presentation assesses India’s China policy identifying its key features and examines its strengths and weaknesses. It argues that the Indian government has pursued a sub-optimal policy because of a lack of adequate knowledge or awareness of Chinese interests and foreign policy approaches on the one hand and the inability to achieve synergy and coordination both within its own institutions and with non-governmental institutions on the other.

About the Speaker

Dr Jabin T. Jacob is Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies at the Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence in New Delhi. He is also Adjunct Research Fellow at the National Maritime Foundation and Non-Resident Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi. He was formerly Fellow and Assistant Director at the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi. Jacob holds a PhD in Chinese Studies from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and has spent time as a student / researcher / faculty in Taiwan, Singapore and France. His research interests include Chinese domestic politics, China in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, Sino-Indian border areas, Indian and Chinese worldviews, and centre-province relations in China. Jacob’s latest publications included two co-edited special issues for the China Report journal on the Communist Party of China’s 100th anniversary (February and August 2022) and co-edited volumes titled, How China Engages South Asia: Themes, Partners and Tools (2023) and China’s Search for ‘National Rejuvenation’: Domestic and Foreign Policies under Xi Jinping (2020).