India and China are two demographic and economic giants. Although they have been enemies and opposites for a long time, they begin cooperative actions. If this Beijing – Delhi alliance were to succeed, it would change a lot of things in the world order.
Hervé Juvin
« When China wakes up… » Napoleon’s phrase, repeated, with what success! by Alain Peyrefitte, is part of the rehashed evidence. Since the opening decided by Deng Xiao Ping, from 1978, shortly after the death of Mao Tse Tung and the liquidation of the “Gang of Four”, China has awakened so well that it is now first in the ranking of world economies established by the World Bank, and that it continues a course forward which leaves the European Union far behind – certainly, China has changed its growth regime and seems to follow a growth path around 5% annually – At at a time when everything points to a recession for 2025 in the Union, who would complain?
China and its integration into the global system
The new fact, and little noticed, is that China is not alone. OCS, Brics, are the best known acronyms which designate the multiple organizations of which China is the pillar – no less than twenty. Chinese diplomacy has become extraordinarily active, to the point of having succeeded in 2023 in negotiating an agreement between Riyadh and Tehran, in other words fire and water! And, for about a year, those familiar with Delhi and Beijing have observed frequent and discreet back and forths between representatives of the two countries. The pretexts were multiple; a Chinese expert was a guest at a global summit on Buddhism (September 2024), Indian researchers met with Chinese counterparts in Hong Kong, while business leaders negotiated deals, and even sensitive topics were on the table. the table; visas, information, cinema, etc. At the Eurasia Security Forum, held in Minsk on October 30 and 1is last November, the presence of Indian experts from Mumbai alongside those from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), under the benevolent gaze of diplomats from the Russian MGIMMO and Belarus was noted, as it had been at the Tashkent summit on the development of Central Asia through communication corridors (May 2024).
A major and new development is taking shape. It is indeed necessary to remember that Asia is far from integrating with itself; obtaining a visa for China is a challenge for the bearer of an Indian passport, and it is exceptional to meet a Chinese in India… The rigorous reminders of the historical links forged by Indian monks like Kumarajiva and Chinese monks such as Fa Hsien around 400, going to receive the teaching of Buddhist masters in India and bringing back with the Mahayana Sutras the art of the caves of Dun Huang, said very little about relationships frozen since the border incidents which caused around twenty deaths on the Indian and an unknown number of victims on the Chinese side, in 2020 – incidents followed by multiple clashes with stones and sticks, the use of firearms being prohibited – all at more than 5,000 m altitude, on the highest front line in the world… After many years where mutual distrust fueled a shared incomprehension – India suspecting China of aggressive intentions, particularly because it controls the sources of the rivers which give life to the northern plains, and facing for decades an armed rebellion claiming to be Maoism, the Naxal, China looking down on the Indian ferment and the upheavals of a democratic life quickly assimilated to disorder… – the thaw has begun , and progresses quickly.
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A thaw in China-India relations
In September, a statement from the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that “75% of the border problems” in the West, near Pakistan, had been resolved. It was the meeting of Xi Jin Ping and Narendra Modi, in Kazan, at the Brics summit, then the meetings of the two foreign ministers, Wang Yi and Jaishankar on the sidelines of the G20 in Rio de Janeiro, followed by exchanges in Vientiane in Laos between the two defense ministers, Rajnath Singh and Dong Jun. On November 19, a press release announced the withdrawal of troops from the border line in the Himalayas, and above all, the resumption of the Kailash pilgrimage for the Hindu faithful, with direct flights between India and China and facilities for visa applications.
The direction is careful, but clear. More than five years after an informal India-China summit, in Mahabalipuram in 2019, the symbolic place of the creation of India by the descent of the Ganges from the hair of the creator God, an agreement on all border issues opens the door to extensive cooperation between the two countries. And the press, on both sides, evokes a new era in the relationship between the two countries.
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Big consequences for France
All this may seem distant, and almost anecdotal to French people who have other concerns. They would be wrong to be indifferent. It should be remembered that India and China are the two most populous countries in the world, with India outstripping China since 2023 with 1,470 million inhabitants. 3 billion between them, and respectively 1st and 3rd world economies in purchasing power parity (and in GDP in 2030), India having recently overtaken Great Britain, and expected to overtake Germany and Japan in 2028. If they move, the world moves. They are also the locomotives of global growth, with China having contributed almost 40% to global growth over the last twenty years and India, with almost 8% annual growth now, playing an increasingly important role. central in global trade, whether energy, industrial, agricultural or financial. If companies from both countries cooperate, the centers structuring global trade will move. The historian of a long period will calmly conclude that these two countries, for a long time, and by far the first in the world, are regaining the place that has been theirs for centuries – Voltaire took the Chinese administration as an example, and Kant demanded that “missionaries “Chinese are coming to help Europe emerge from its backwardness! The light rises in the East; colony of its colonies, will the European Union choose to turn a blind eye? The geopolitical analyst will be more cautious, as are the authoritative commentators on both sides; the President of the India Foundation, Ram Madhav, published a column on November 23 which expresses both the immense possibilities offered by the cooperation which is emerging, and the caution required when giants cross paths on a narrow road, and strewn with traps (Indian Express, “Reading the Thaw”). Because evidence dictates that the former hyperpower, which demonstrated at the beginning of this year 2024 its capacity to cause harm, by organizing the overthrow of the elected Prime Minister, Sheikh Hassina, in Bangla Desh, by a military coup which brought to power the microcredit banker, Mohamed Yunus, and above all liberated Muslim extremism which is already asserting itself through pogroms against Hindus, intends to apply the British method of “divide for to reign” and maintain centers of unrest and subversion in a South-East Asia and an Indian subcontinent whose stability would change the global balance of power; the Ukrainian experience which brought Europe to its knees can be used again!
The economist, aware of India’s constant policy of “multialignment” or “plurialignment”, observer of the considerable investments of American funds in Gujarat, notably for the manufacturing of microchips and AI, but also of the displacement of certain production from China to India (Apple, etc.), will simply note that China’s industrial production capacities, if they served India’s immense infrastructure and equipment needs, would give both countries a ” more » significant growth. And it will signal Indian distrust of the new masters of the Americas (see the report published by Kutniki Foundation, “Starlink, a wolf in sheep clothes” about Elon “we overthrow who we want” Musk, Nov. 18, 2024 ) The financier will observe that the cooperation between these two countries, with little debt, holders of considerable reserves, of dollars for one, of gold for the other, and both major clients of Russian energy, could give even more substance to putting a bloc of countries determined to use all means, including using the dollar against the United States, beyond the reach of unilateral United States sanctions, to get out of an unfair and unbearable “double standard”.
The French citizen, for his part, will wonder where France’s interest lies. He will look in vain for an answer in the declarations of one or the other, who claim to represent it. And if he inquires, he will quickly convince himself, unfortunately, that if China and India ally, the face of the world will be changed. Eurasia, the Empire of the earth, will once again become the Empire of the world. France turns its back on him.
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