India Needs to Relax About China

Until the calming words out of Chinese foreign minister's visit to India this week, the two countries seemed on a collision course. The People's Daily chided India for its border provocation and "dream of hegemony" while the Indian media, especially the echo chamber of 24/7 cable TV, behaved as if 'the Chinese are coming'. Some even predicted a date for the impending Chinese invasion. Scary stories about a Himalayan confrontation hit the world press. All this would be merely amusing sensationalism if not for the risk of generating a nationalist hysteria and an international crisis potentially spiralling out of control.

Indian public opinion has shown great maturity towards Pakistan because it is well-informed about that country's complexity. It is time for cooler editorial heads to prevail in dealing with China. This is not a call to turn one's gaze away from the northern border or to ignore the implications of a rising China and its growing military might. But one needs a realistic assessment of China's power, as well as its weaknesses and insecurities so as not to be obsessed with a hypothetical 'China threat'.

Three hundred years ago, China and India produced half of the world's gross domestic product. They are making a comeback, India more slowly. By building upon its thousands of years experience and opening its economy to the world, China has achieved record growth. It has lifted a quarter of its population out of poverty and is today sitting on a record $2.3 trillion reserve. Its double-digit growth in defence spending for the past two decades has endowed it with impressive military muscle - from long-range nuclear missiles to a blue-water navy.

But this rise has come at a price: growing income inequality and grave environmental degradation with clean-up and health costs amounting to nearly half of its annual GDP growth. Many of the growing numbers of protests in the country 58,000 officially counted "mass incidents" in first quarter of this year alone express anger at corruption and pollution.