It wasn’t that long ago when the leaders from India and China couldn’t even look at each other when they were in the same room. Today, the situation is very different. Ties between the two Asian powers have improved dramatically from a few years ago, when a violent conflict along their disputed border sent relations into a deep freeze.
But even though China and India have resolved a number of their differences in recent years, serious problems persist, none more so than their disputed border that remains one of the most heavily armed frontiers in the world.
Professor Jabin Jacob, associate professor at the Shiv Nadar University, Delhi National Capital Region, and one of India’s foremost China scholars, joins Eric to discuss why resolving the border dispute, in particular, is going to be very difficult.
Show Notes:
- War on the Rocks: The Limits of Rapprochement Between India and China by Chiara Boldrini
- Chatham House: India’s relationship with China is misunderstood – here’s why that matters by Chietigj Bajpaee
- Observer Research Foundation: China-India Rapprochement: A Reality Check by Antara Ghosal Singh
About Jabin Jacob:
Jabin T. Jacob is Associate Professor, Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, and Director, Centre for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar University, Delhi National Capital Region. He was formerly Fellow and Assistant Director at the Institute of Chinese Studies and holds a PhD from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His research interests include Chinese domestic politics, Sino-Indian border areas, Indian and Chinese worldviews, and centre-province relations in China. His latest publications included two special issues co-edited with Bhim Subba for the China Report on the Communist Party of China’s 100th anniversary (February and August 2022). His latest publications include, two co-edited special issues for the China Report journal on the Communist Party of China’s 100th anniversary (February 2022 and August 2022) as well as two volumes on How China Engages South Asia titled respectively, Themes, Partners and Tools (2023) and the recently released In the Open and Behind the Scenes (2025) for the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi.
Transcript:
ERIC OLANDER: Hello and welcome to another edition of the China Global South podcast, a proud member of the Seneca podcast network. I’m Eric Olander. Over the past several weeks, we focused a lot of attention on this show on the dramatic events in the China-India relationship.
Just a few weeks ago, there was the SCO summit in Tianjin, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was famously photographed with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and laughing and holding hands. For a lot of people, that is going to be the photo of 2025. Also, this year, we’ve seen a real rapprochement between China and India, with both sides pulling back their troops from contested border areas in the Himalayas and resetting relations to a basically normal functioning status.
Ambassadors are back in each other’s capitals. Flights between the two countries are resuming. The relationship is really starting to warm up after a five-year freeze.
And then of course, there’s Donald Trump. While the China-India reset was well underway before the president came back to power earlier this year, he took a sledgehammer to the U.S.-India relationship when he imposed a 50% tariff on Indian exports to the U.S. and soured what was once thought to be a special relationship with Modi. They say they’re trying to patch things up and a new U.S. ambassador to New Delhi is on the way, and that may help, but there’s definitely going to be some trust issues in New Delhi about the president’s intentions. So today, I want to step back from the day-to-day changes in this relationship and try and put the situation into a larger context. And the perfect person to help us do that is Professor Jabin Jacob, Associate Professor at the Shiv Nadar Institute of Eminence and Adjunct Research Fellow at the National Maritime Foundation in New Delhi. Professor Jacob is widely regarded as among the leading China-India scholars.
And together with Constantino Xavier from the Center for Social and Economic Progress, he edited a fascinating report on how China engages South Asia that features insights from a number of prominent South Asian scholars from across the region. Professor Jacob, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today.
JABIN JACOB: Thank you for having me.
ERIC OLANDER: It’s really wonderful to have you. And again, to step back from the day-to-day, I want to dive into the report that you did with Constantino.
One of the things that surprised me was when you noted that the field of China-India engagement is what you called under-researched compared to other regions where China is active in Southeast Asia and Africa. I think that’s going to take a lot of people by surprise as well, given the fact that these are two massive powers in Asia and both have huge numbers of research institutes and scholars, and yet you say it’s under-researched. Talk to us a little bit about that.
JABIN JACOB: Right. Well, this is partly a historical legacy. Actually, even before independence, Indian and Chinese leaders had a great deal of engagement.
Rabindranath Tagore, our first Nobel laureate for literature, actually went to China in the mid-1920s, and his reception there was actually quite mixed. He was already talking about going beyond nationalism, but Chinese nationalists actually were quite skeptical of his vision for Asia. So there’s a great deal of opposition.
But Tagore actually came back to India, and with his Nobel Peace Prize money, he actually set up a university in which actually had the first dedicated center for study of Chinese language, literature, and culture. So, I mean, this center came into existence before independence. In one sense, we’ve actually had a long engagement with China, but it’s largely been in the literature, cultural sphere.
Subsequently, after independence and after the communist takeover in China in 1949, again, our first prime minister, Jalal Nehru, had the vision of Asia in which the two big countries, China and India, would work together, stand separately from what he already saw was the rise of global Cold War politics. But, you know, many of his hopes were belied. He sort of, I think, was too hopeful, whereas the Chinese communists under Mao Zedong had a very, very realist prism.
And, you know, I mean, you talked about the countries being neighbors, but, you know, we are fairly recent neighbors. We’ve always had Tibet in between. So, when the Chinese took over Tibet in 1950, that’s when I think the attitudes in India began to change, but did not change sufficiently.
I think Prime Minister Nehru still held out hope that India and China could work together. So, in 54, we very quickly signed an agreement with the Chinese where we pulled back Indian presence in Tibet. You know, we used to man the telegraph posts, banks, we even had troops there.
All of that came back and we accepted, you know, Tibet as part of China. Subsequently, of course, as Dalai Lama fled Tibet, came to India, we had to give him refuge and that was seen as a hostile act by Mao. And in 62, we had the first war.
And subsequently, what has happened is, you know, this was seen as a betrayal of Nehru and a failure of Nehru’s foreign policy with respect to China. And that historical legacy has sort of continued. The government in India has tended to keep a very strong control over China studies or, you know, exposition or discussions on China.
So, it’s sort of tended to limit access to actually what went on in the relationship. And I think we still suffer that legacy, which is why China studies is really underdeveloped in India. Except in the last maybe 10-15 years, it’s actually grown because of objective economic conditions.
The relationship has grown and so on.
ERIC OLANDER: And let’s talk about the relationship before 2020. In 2020, for a lot of people who don’t follow this, there was a very dramatic incident in the Galwan Valley in the Himalayas, where the forces from both sides faced off against each other. Dozens were killed in the incident.
And that’s what sent the relationship into a tailspin up until really last year, since there’s been this desire on both sides to rebuild the relationship. What was the ties like before 2020 leading up to the Galwan Valley incident?
JABIN JACOB: Look, India-China relations have always been tense after 62. And, you know, the Galwan Valley clashes, the casualties, were the first casualties since 1975. So in this period between 75 and 2020, what essentially happened was, you know, Mao passed from the scene, Deng Xiaoping opened up China, and India-China relations also started.
I mean, we started negotiations. In fact, our ambassador went back to China in the late 1970s. Even through this period, we’ve actually had ambassadors throughout, despite Galwan and so on.
But, you know, in the late 70s, we started negotiations on the boundary dispute. This boundary dispute is what essentially set off the 1962 conflict. But it’s also a larger issue than just the boundary dispute.
It’s essentially a question of Tibet’s place in India-China relations, and with the Dalai Lama’s presence in the government in exile in India. So the Chinese have continued to see this as an Indian provocation. And therefore, the boundary dispute remains live.
So after negotiations started in the 80s, the big groundbreaking visit was of Nehru’s grandson, Rajiv Gandhi, who was then Prime Minister visiting China in 1988. And that’s when I think we sort of had the impression in India, at least that the India-China relationship was on upward trajectory, that this was progressing, eventually we will resolve issues and problems, and that this was a linear progression. So we had several major boundary-related agreements in 93, 96, and the last major one in 2005, which was the Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles.
So this essentially is the first stage of the dispute resolution, which set out the principles by which we would agree to a boundary dispute resolution. The first stage, you know, things like we would not disturb settled populations, we would use modern cartographic methods to determine the boundary on the ground, because part of the boundary is actually something drawn by the British with a thick nib pen. And, you know, translating that what’s on a map on the ground, you know, you have a huge space, doesn’t make any sense in terms of the ability of troops to hold these positions and so on.
So modern cartographic principles and so on. In the second stage, we were supposed to, which has been stuck since 2005, you know, we’ve been been able to decide on, okay, exactly what we give and take, let alone the idea of, I mean, demarcating things on the ground, putting it on map and then on the ground. Actually, even since 2013, we have noticed a change in the Chinese presence and activity on what we call the line of actual control, which represents the disputed boundary.
So, you know, we’ve had a bunch of, you know, the troops, the patrolling troops run into each other quite frequently. And this is actually natural, because both sides have built up infrastructure over time. So vast areas which were never ever accessed, you know, for years, for decades have now been, are now being accessed.
So 2013, we had a major incident, we had a standoff. 2014, we had an incident. 2017, in fact, we had a face-off between troops in Bhutanese territory, territory that the Chinese claim, but which is Bhutanese territory.
And because India has a defense pact with the Bhutan government, our troops were able to repulse the Chinese action there. And that again led to several weeks of standoff. So 2020, in a sense, is not really a surprise.
Troops are coming into contact with each other. You know, we’ve had nationalism or rising nationalism on both sides. These are young troops.
There’s a language problem. There’s a communication gap. We don’t, our troops don’t necessarily speak Chinese and their troops don’t necessarily speak English.
There might be one interpreter, you know, with a patrolling team, if at all. And so, well, 2020 happened.
ERIC OLANDER: And it’s within this larger multi-decade context. And I guess the question that I have is that, I think it was last year, maybe the year before, China published a new boundary map that not only for India, but for all of its boundaries, it set off a lot of frustrations in New Delhi, because again, there’s been this process to try and have a discussion about the boundaries. And here comes this new map slamming down saying, this is where the line is.
And this is part of the broader difference between India and China, where India has said that the settling the border issue is absolutely essential to restoring the broader relationship. And the Chinese have said, we want to compartmentalize the relationship. So let’s have the border issue over here.
And then we’ll talk about everything else. And that’s been a big difference. How can this relationship move forward if the Chinese have issued a map with a line that says this is where the boundary is, but that’s not necessarily mutually agreed on with the Indian side?
It seems to me that would be a sticking point.
JABIN JACOB: It certainly is. And it’s just, it’s not just the map. The Chinese have over time, over the last several years, I think since 2017 at least, issued a set of place name changes for territory that they claim in India, which is in India’s eastern sector, the state of Arunachal Pradesh, they claim it almost entirely.
And they’ve been putting out from the ministry of, I think it’s, I forget which ministry now, but they have been putting out this list of names, over 50 names now as on date, for places inside Arunachal Pradesh with Tibetan names, standardized Tibetan and Chinese names. So it’s not just the maps, but it’s also this practice, which we call lawfare, a way of sort of legalizing or putting it on paper, their claims. So yes, this is a sticking point, but our response has been, this does not materially change the situation on the ground.
Now that’s one response, but I would also argue that given China’s extensive media resources, propaganda abilities, what this does in effect is to sort of normalize a map of China, which Vietnam or the Philippines or India will object to, but which will fly on the Latin American continent or on the African continent, which countries don’t really have a stake in this dispute. So I think in many ways, China is also sort of winning a narrative battle here. And I think that is really a concern which has not really been addressed, I think, in India.
But so where do we go from here? Well, the latest meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi, I think before that meeting, the two special representatives on the boundary dispute met, Wang Yi on the Chinese side and Mr. Ajit Doval, the National Security Advisor on the Indian side. And essentially, what we’ve agreed to is to resume talks and to confirm that the disengagement process since 2020, the disengagement of troops is complete.
Essentially, there were three steps that are required, disengagement, which is the troops pull away from contact with each other. And there were five or six disputed points that arose from the Chinese transgressions in 2020. So that process has been completed, according to the government.
But troops still remain in place. I mean, we haven’t completed the de-escalation process and the de-induction of troops. There are about 50,000 troops on both sides of the LAC.
ERIC OLANDER: Both sides. So we have about 100,000 soldiers up along the line of actual control still today.
JABIN JACOB: And these are high altitude areas and they sort of dug in, in a sense, I think these are now, it’s very, very unlikely that these troops will move from the areas. I think we are in for the long haul. So, I mean, that’s, I think that’s also a reality.
In a sense, that reflects the fact that there is no trust yet between the two sides. We are talking about talking. So in this latest set of meetings, it appears that we are now going to talk about delimitation.
What does that mean? Help explain delimitation. Delimitation essentially is like the second stage supposed to be, well, it’s supposed to be another stage in the boundary dispute resolution in which the two sides are supposed to agree what is it that they will actually give and take on the basis of the political parameters and guiding principles, put it on a map.
And then in the final stage, demarcate it on the ground. But, well, you know, different versions of this agreement on the Chinese side translated this as delimitation and demarcation. Both.
The official statements finally sort of settled on delimitation. But, you know, my concern is that, you know, the Chinese are usually very careful with words. And so the very casualness with which this has been mistranslated into English, I think sort of gives us a idea that maybe they are not serious about this.
And in any case, both sides said that they are going to talk about delimitation or explore delimitation. So it’s not really that that process is going to start anytime soon. So it’s sort of kicking the can down the road, as it were.
ERIC OLANDER: Well, help me understand, because Chinese ambassador to New Delhi, Xu Fei Hong, a couple of weeks ago said that when he was talking to the Indian press, he said that there’s reached a level of consensus. Now, I don’t really quite know. And again, as you point out, the Chinese are very, very strategic and careful in the language that they use.
So that word consensus, I think, was very intentional. What does that mean to you, given the difficulties that they’ve had in reaching some type of agreement and being able to communicate over these issues? What does consensus mean in this context that you think the ambassador was talking about?
JABIN JACOB: Look, I think the Chinese have been very free with the use of the word consensus. We have never used that expression. And, you know, they’ve put in 5 point, 6 point, 10 point consensus.
I mean, it’s just a way of them trying to pin us down, as it were, on these statements. And like you mentioned earlier on, that their idea is to compartmentalize the issues in the India-China relationship, put the boundary dispute on one side and let’s start with the economic relationship and everything else. So one of the things the Chinese had put forward a long time ago, which we finally agreed to, is the early harvest proposal on the boundary dispute.
For the longest time, including the 2005 agreement, we’ve always said the entire dispute would be settled all together at once, as a package settlement. The dispute is divided into three parts, the western sector, the eastern sector and in the middle, the central sector. So the harvest, early harvest project or the proposal seems to imply that we will settle sector by sector.
Now, the problem with the sector by sector resolution is that each side will be tempted to ask for maximum minutes each case, which makes it very unlikely that there will actually be a quick resolution or an early harvest. So this is something that is still up in the air. We don’t really know what it means.
So and that for that reason, we don’t also know what Ambassador Hsu or any of the Chinese mean when they say consensus, because clearly there isn’t consensus. If you look at the statements on the two sides, there hasn’t been a joint statement for a very long time on any of these issues. Each side prioritizes a different set of issues in their statements.
The order of issues or discussions is very different, which tells you that the priorities are different for each side.
ERIC OLANDER: Yeah. And I’ve noticed that in the recent media coverage in China and in India, whereas in China, a lot of the narratives now are, see, we’re repairing the relationship with India. The global south is uniting.
In many ways, the Chinese are focused on the US and they say, we’re pulling India away from the United States and we’re going to resolve this border issue. Don’t worry. Everything’s under control.
And in India, a lot of the media and a lot of the discussion from scholars and others is what you’re saying is like, wait, whoa, there’s a lot more to go here. We need to be careful. There’s a lot more skepticism in that approach.
And it seems like the two sides are not aligned in how they’re perceiving where they are in the current moment and how they got here.
JABIN JACOB: I agree. In fact, you use the word reset while describing the relationship. I know I would be very careful about using a word like reset.
This has been used before. You know, in 2018 and 2019, the two leaders, Modi and Xi, met for a series of informal summits after the 2017 clash. And the 2017 clash was at that point, you know, the lowest point in the relationship, because this was a clash in a third country.
But 2018 and 2019 were supposed to reset the relationship. The two leaders were supposed to have given what they call strategic guidance to their respective militaries to cease from confrontational behavior on the boundary. But, you know, a short six months later, from the 2019 summit in India, we had the Galwan clashes.
So clearly, and I think from the Indian perspective, that was the, you know, that was the final straw. There’s absolutely no trust that remains or exists between at least the militaries. Now, for political reasons, given that President Trump has imposed these sort of unreasonable tariffs, unfair tariffs on India, we’ve had to sort of maneuver and pivot a bit.
But fundamentally, the India-China relationship is beset by distrust. And even if, you know, the boundary dispute were to be resolved, let’s say, there are structural problems in the relationship. These are two large countries with ambitions of their own that are running up against each other in Asia and the rest of the world.
At the SCO summit, for example, in Tianjin the two leaders met. China has always called for a multipolar world, but India has always called for a multipolar world and a multipolar Asia. For India, it’s very clear that Asia also needs to be multipolar if the rest of the globe has to be multipolar.
But for the Chinese, it’s a very narrow definition of what multipolar is. So, you know, when you talk about global South unity, yes, this is a great photo op for the Chinese. I mean, and like I said, using their media resources, their propaganda resources, they’re milking it for what it’s worth.
For us, for the moment, in order to send a signal to the Americans, I think this was important. It was necessary. But this is not the end of the signaling process.
You know, our commerce minister has already been on record saying that of the first phase of a Indo-U.S. trade deal is likely in November. So, you know, things are already changing.
ERIC OLANDER: And also there’s been reassurances that the Quad security partnership will remain intact. There was concerns that maybe the Indians would lose interest and pull out of that. And the Indian side has reaffirmed that its commitment to the Quad, which was one of the major Chinese priorities, is to try and weaken the Quad.
Let’s broaden our focus out to other areas in South Asia, because there’s a perception in India that any time the Chinese are making encroachments in Pakistan, in Nepal, in Sri Lanka, in the Indian Ocean region, in Bangladesh, that it’s done as part of an effort to contain India or to weaken India. This is a sphere of influence in South Asia that the Indians have really felt that the Chinese are encroaching in, especially in the Indian Ocean region, and particularly in Pakistan, where the China-Pakistan relationship is one of China’s closest relationships. And that probably too also causes quite a bit of distrust in New Delhi.
Can you talk to us about the periphery of India and China’s engagement in those countries and how it’s perceived and where it’s going?
JABIN JACOB: Okay. So let me make maybe two or three quick points about China and South Asia. Number one, South Asia neighbors China.
And I think this is something that we understand in India, in Delhi. It’s taken us a while to get there because, as you said, there’s this sense of a sphere of influence and so on. But I think we’ve moved in a sense away from this classical sense of a sphere of influence to saying that, look, the region’s problems become India’s problems soon enough.
I mean, if you go back to 1971, when the East Pakistan crisis erupted, what West Pakistan did in East Pakistan had an impact in India with millions of refugees pouring across the border into India. So this became an Indian problem. Now look at what’s going on in Nepal right now.
There are immediate consequences for India because we have an open border with Nepal. So in a sense, because India is central, unlike in other regions where there can be contenders for dominant power status, India and South Asia sort of connects every other country. And each of these countries borders India and therefore it becomes our problem.
So that’s one concern we have with respect to what China is doing. But China is also filling a gap. And I think we have to acknowledge that, you know, in terms of infrastructure development, in terms of provision of, I don’t know, tech, even if it is low tech and so on and so forth, services.
So in that sense, this has also been a wake-up call for India that, you know, if we don’t get our act together, if we don’t improve our implementation, then somebody else, China, the European Union, the United States is gonna come in and do what needs to be done. So in that sense, China’s presence in South Asia has helped up India’s game, right? India has become much more respectful, much more considerate of its neighbors.
And I think in that way, it’s a good thing. But three, I think China has also begun to intervene in domestic politics in these countries much more confidently. We saw the Chinese ambassador in Nepal trying to mediate between factions of the Communist Party of Nepal.
We see in Pakistan, you know, with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, they also have a joint coordination committee in which the Chinese now engage with Pakistani provincial chief ministers and officials. So in a way, you know, the Chinese are sort of ensuring that they are not reliant only on a small political and military elite, but they are reaching out to other sections, communities, down to the popular level, in order to solidify and strengthen its presence. It’s a risky strategy.
It’s something that you would not imagine an authoritarian country like China doing. But you know, the Chinese in this sense are extremely nimble, extremely focused in ensuring, and they have the capacities for it. We talked earlier about the lack of capacity on China and India, but the Chinese capacity and understanding of different parts of the world, their study of foreign languages, et cetera, is extraordinary.
Whereas in, you know, developed countries like the United States, Australia, they are actually losing language capacity and interest in global politics. China is going the other way around.
ERIC OLANDER: How much of what we see is because both of these countries in the 1970s were at a very similar level of development. China has clearly advanced significantly, in many ways much faster than India. When you go to, you know, Chongqing or Shanghai or Beijing, these are some of the most modern advanced cities in the world.
China is now the second largest economy in the world. And the mood in some Chinese nationalist corners, you talked about nationalism rising, is that, well, India is just jealous of us. India did not advance the same way.
We have India still as poor as they were back in the day. We have now modernized. We have become more civilized, if you will.
How much of that perception gap that exists between the two countries in terms of their development trajectories impacts the way they see each other?
JABIN JACOB: Look, I agree, you know, there’s a great deal of dictator envy in India. But, you know, this is actually an elite preoccupation in India. Like everywhere else, I think, you know, once you reach a certain level of well-being, so also in India, everybody just wants to keep that going.
But India, China, these are still extremely unequal societies. And one thing that Indians don’t realize with respect to China’s economic growth is that, you know, it’s not the glass and chrome that they see in Beijing, Shanghai or Chongqing, as you mentioned, but there’s a lot else that’s happening in the countryside. There’s a great deal of inequality.
And China’s growth, I mean, I think China’s own economists admit this, that if you grew at 10%, you know, for several decades, you got a discount three or 4% given the environmental costs, the health costs and so on. And they’ve paid a very high price in China for that. Exactly.
I mean, I think a whole generation spent their lives on 18-hour workshops. So, and I think there are advantages to the India model. It might not look like it.
We certainly have poor infrastructure and, you know, we still have a lot to get our, to do to get our act together. But, you know, man does not live by bread alone, you know. So I think the Chinese model is one of trying to sell the success stories while covering up the weaknesses, the fault lines, the problems, whereas the Indian model is out in the open.
What you see is exactly what the situation is. This does not mean that, you know, we can’t do better. Like I said, China’s presence in South Asia has in many ways been a wake up call for India.
There is better and greater demand for services, better quality infrastructure, not just from the elites, but also from ordinary people. So we have our way. It might not look the most elegant or the most efficient way, but it is our way.
And I think the more people understand India or more people understand China, the better they will appreciate the advantages of the Indian model. I mean, even the Pakistanis, you know, it’s a very tight relationship, iron brother relationship the Chinese and the Pakistanis have had for a very long time. But that was a relationship at the elite level.
Ordinary Pakistanis today have much more concerns about the Chinese model. China’s FTA with Pakistan, the China-Pakistan economic corridor, you know, officials all across South Asia have genuine concerns, serious concerns about the impact that China has. See, one part of the China model that we tend to forget when we talk only about the development experience is the impact on politics.
So while the debt trap is maybe overstated, the real consequence, I think, is what I would call an accountability trap. The fact that China offers leaders, especially in South Asia, because we are talking about South Asia, but I assume that this is true of other parts of the world as well. China offers leaders an alternative in a sense that they can ignore best practices, accountability mechanisms in their own countries as well as with other countries.
So in a sense, engagement with China encourages bad behavior. And we saw that happening in Sri Lanka with the Rajapaksas, where they just assumed that China had their back and eventually the Chinese didn’t. Finally, when Sri Lanka hit the economic crisis, you know, the Chinese were refusing to renegotiate their loans and so on.
I mean, they, of course, took the Hambantota port on a 99-year lease, which is irony because the century of humiliation starts with a 99-year lease on Hong Kong, right? So, I mean, it’s astonishing how they decided a 99-year figure was okay with Hambantota.
ERIC OLANDER: I mean, the symbolism is ironic. My understanding was that the Chinese actually didn’t want it back, but that was the only outcome that they had because the Rajapaksas basically had nowhere else to go and they weren’t going to repay the loans. And the Chinese reluctantly took it back is my understanding of it.
JABIN JACOB: But again, the key point remains, which is the Rajapaksas did what they could or what they did because they thought the Chinese had their back. So, at some level, there is a lack of accountability that the Chinese encourage.
ERIC OLANDER: Yeah. And it’s also interesting you brought up the debt trap. Of course, that is a meme that started in India by Brahma Chellaney back in 2017.
There’s been a lot of research on that and no empirical evidence to support that it’s happening, but it has been a very durable narrative that, as you point out, you said that the report was aimed to fill a void in the discourse in India, particularly about the China-India relationship. What is that void? In part, because you’re in a society where the discussion about China is often very polarized, like from Brahmachalini and others like that, who are decidedly negative about China on all aspects, certainly the media oftentimes is.
Well, the media up until recently, more BJP tilting media seems to be more positive now about China. But up until recently, it was predominantly all negative. What is that hole in the discourse that you wanted this report to try and fill?
JABIN JACOB: The biggest problem, I think, in the India-China relationship is the gap between perceptions and reality. I think one of the problems with the media portrayal of China is that, you know, you have an objective first and then you decide to sort of push a particular narrative. It might not necessarily always be based on facts on the ground, as it were.
We don’t have enough reporters in China. We do not have enough reporters or analysts speaking Chinese. So often, our view of China comes through the English language, and often English-language press from the West.
We haven’t developed yet our resources, our independent resources to study China. While we do this in our universities, you know, the media is a different creature entirely. I mean, maybe they call on a few of us from the academic world to come on their TV shows, etc.
But, you know, it’s an entirely, I mean, it’s a circus. Unfortunately, the media, the television media, which is what most people consume, has lost a great deal of credibility. So, I mean, this is a very different exercise when it comes to studying China.
But look, I think, by and large, the government has a handle on what’s going on. The government knows what’s what, as far as China is concerned. The problem is a lack of resources and a lack of attention.
And I would say, you know, in a democratic setup, unless ordinary people wake up and decide to pay attention to China, the government is also not going to be able to do much about it, which is why our focus has really always been on Pakistan rather than China. So the report, essentially, we wanted to come out with a report that was based on empirical facts, and that was not based on fear-mongering or pre-set narratives, which is why the report relied for country studies on scholars from those countries. So if it was, you know, Sri Lanka, we had Sri Lankan scholars.
Bangladesh, we had Bangladesh scholars. Pakistan, we had Pakistani scholars. So we thought that we needed to hear what they themselves were saying.
And, you know, the evidence is very clear. It’s not all smooth sailing for the Chinese. The more China gets involved in these countries, the more people are able to see what is going on on the ground.
China’s soft power is not as straightforward. China’s influence in these countries is not as straightforward as is often made out to be. There are several challenges the Chinese face, and people are wisening up.
Now there are capacities, even on China, India’s neighbors, smaller countries in on China. And paradoxically, a lot of that capacity has been built up because the Chinese themselves sponsor these students and scholars and fellowships and scholarships to China. So there is expertise building up in these countries, which we decided to tap for the report.
ERIC OLANDER: The report is how China engages South Asia in the open and behind the scenes. I think it’s absolutely essential reading because the way that it’s laid out, as Professor Jacobs said, was it’s a complex story. It’s not binary.
It’s not that China’s good or China’s bad. China’s complex, which is, of course, the way we approach China at the China Global South Project. Professor Jacob, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about the report and to share some of your insights into the history of the China-India relationship, which is, again, very, very complex.
We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
Professor Jacob is an associate professor at the Shiv Nadar Institute of Eminence and an adjunct research fellow at the National Maritime Foundation in New Delhi. Again, we’ll put the link to the report in the show notes. I want to thank everybody for joining us today for yet another conversation on China-India relations, one we’re going to continue throughout the year and also as part of our ongoing coverage on the website at ChinaglobalSouth.com.
If you would like to support the work that we’re doing, go to ChinaglobalSouth.com slash subscribe and you can sign up for a daily brief that we get. Subscriptions are very, very modest. And if you are a student or teacher, email me eric at ChinaglobalSouth.com and I will send you the link for the half-off discount rate. That’ll do it for this edition of the China Global South podcast. I’m Eric Olander. Thank you so much for listening and for watching.
