CCP Congress: Xi’s posturing hides anti-India sentiment; expect unrelenting focus on use of force, says leading sinologist Kondapalli

China President Xi Jinping

There were enough indications in President Xi Jinping’s speech at the opening of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that the big dragon’s hostility towards India will continue unabated.

"Xi reiterated in the work report to the PLA modernisation and to 'safeguard China’s dignity and core interests’. This has major implications for India as with other countries. The Chinese president's speech had an estimated 73 times mention of security and protecting national security,” leading sinologist Srikanth Kondapalli told Moneycontrol.

While strategically China never refers to India by name, instead preferring to call it a 'regional power’ in an attempt to downgrade New Delhi to one of the local powers, that India remains a top-of-the-mind subject for the CCP bosses, even in an event as important as once-in-five years Congress, cannot be overlooked, he said.

"The circulation of Galwan-related videos in mainstream media in China in addition to the attendance of Galwan skirmish participant, Qi Fabao, at the event, suggest that the embers of the 2020 border conflict have not only not doused but kept alive for future contingencies,” said Kondapalli, Dean of School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a fluent Mandarin speaker.

What Xi's speech signifies

According to him, some broad areas were identifiable in Xi’s two-hour-long speech delivered before 2,300 delegates at Beijing’s historic Great Hall of the People.

"Firstly, Xi's assertion that 'momentous changes of a like not seen in a century are accelerating across the world’ and that 'significant shift is taking place in the international balance of power, presenting China with strategic opportunities’ point out to two possibilities for India – one of tentative collaboration in multipolarity phenomena such as in the BRICS, SCO and other platforms, specifically in renminbi internationalisation process and opposing the US or the risk of intensifying conflict on the borders and in the Indian Ocean region,” he said.

The other – and strategically significant for India, given the two-year-plus face-off in Eastern Ladakh – was the Chinese President’s stress on PLA modernisation and his pledge to 'safeguard China’s dignity and core interests.'

This has major implications for India as with other countries, Kondapalli said, adding that it is a sure-shot pointer "to the unrelenting focus on the use of force, threat of use of force and enhancing deterrence capabilities."

Conventional deterrence capabilities were displayed by China in the Galwan incident in June 2020 even though it had promised, through various agreements inked between the two sides in the 1990s, to abide by the confidence-building measures and border stability.

With China earmarking $23 billion for infrastructure in its 14th five-year-plan, including roads, there is going to be no letting up on swift movement of defence hardware to its border areas.

Indian students, travellers hit

What also bodes ill for India is Xi's assertion, during his address, that China’s `dynamic zero Covid’ policy, of putting the `people and their lives above all else’ is the touchstone of domestic health policy. Its implication is that border controls will not be relaxed anytime soon - leading to continued hardships for thousands of Indian students and businesses.

"China has hiked air tickets from Rs 30,000 to Rs 6 lakh. How many Indian middle-class students can afford this steep jump,” questions Kondapalli, who studied Chinese language at Beijing Language and Culture University and was a postdoctoral researcher cum visiting fellow at the Peoples’ University, Beijing, between 1996 and 1998.

Direct passenger flight services between the two countries are unlikely to resume soon unless Beijing modifies its policy of sudden cancellation of scheduled flights every time some passengers test positive for Covid on arrival at Chinese airports.

Flight services have been disrupted since coronavirus was first reported in Wuhan in late 2019. It has meant that the return of close to 23,000 Indian students, mostly studying medicine who were stranded in India due to China's Covid visa bans, has been made difficult due to the absence of direct flights.

The flight disruptions have not just hit the students but also the families of Indians working in China and businessmen, who were used to smooth travel to the neighbouring country, even though Beijing has eased visa restrictions after about three years.

China could have relaxed these selectively for its benefit but it wishes to keep the Indian pot boiling.

Kondapalli also believes that Xi’s widely reported belligerence on Taiwan hides its assertive posturing towards Senkaku islands, South China Sea disputes and the Sino-Indian border.

Significantly, Xi’s posturing comes in the light of recent official assessments, which suggest a weakening of the US influence, China’s burgeoning trade and investments with the US and other countries, despite the recent tariff wars and semiconductor ban.

(Edited by: Jaiprakash)