Feb 16-29, 2024 - Vol 4, Issue 14
INDIA NEWS
COMMUNITY NEWS
‘Issues of peace, stability, sovereignty & territorial integrity part of China factor in Australia-India relations’, says Prof Kondapalli Australia India News Newsdesk Eminent person's oration was organized by the Institute for Australia-India Engagement in Brisbane, recently. Prof Kondapalli Kondapalli was in Australia to attend the Indian Ocean Conference at Perth. Prof Kondapalli Kondapalli from Jawaharlal University, New Delhi was invited to deliver his speech on the issue of the impact of the Chinese factor on Australia-India relations. Kondapalli Kondapalli is Professor in Chinese Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He wrote two books (China’s Military: The PLA in Transition in 1999 & China’s Naval Power in 2001), two monographs, co-edited five volumes (Asian Security & China in 2004; China and its neighbours in 2010; China’s Military and India in 2012, China and the BRICS: Setting up a Different Kitchen in 2016, and One Belt One Road- China’s Global Outreach in 2017) and a number of articles in journals and edited volumes – all on China. He received the K.Subramanyam Award in 2010 for Excellence in Research in Strategic and Security Studies. Calling himself a student of China, Prof Kondapalli said that his presentation would be focused on China, because the China factor figures in AustraliaIndia relations. “This has become not really central in nature for the bilateral relations between Australia and India, but it has become one of the main forces. For example, China is the largest trading partner for Australia at around $267 billion, and about $136 billion with India. So it has become the largest trading partner, which means basically China has the leverage to control various aspects of the bilateral relations. Once you become the largest trading partner, there are many ways that you can fiddle with the bilateral equations. For instance, in relation to Australia, there is the weaponization of trade, weaponization of tourism, weaponization of FDI”, Prof Kondapalli said in his speech. He went on to elaborate further on how China uses ‘weaponization’ technique in its relations with Australia. Highlighting how China ‘coerces’ nations when its policies or acts of omissions or commissions are questioned, Prof Kondapalli said, “In many areas, China started doing this. For example, Australia raised the genuine issue of the origins of the virus. We all suffered from the virus, right? Many of our dear ones have passed away or had a very tough time between 2020 and 2022. So Australian leaders asked the Chinese to investigate, which is a very genuine concern, which is expressed in the international forum. Soon after Australia raised this issue on where the virus originated, China began restricting trade. Some 73% tariff
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increases took place on various products, and this resulted in the reduction in trade between Australia and China. Even today, Australian trade has not been restored to the previous levels when China used to trade. So China weaponized trade between the two countries.” However, he said that this has not happened between China and India so far in terms of the weaponization. “That is partly because India-China trade is just about 1% for the Chinese, so it's not really much for the Chinese. Second, there is a huge trade deficit in favor of China in the India-China trade. Out of $136 billion, some $89 billion is the trade deficit that India has towards China. In the past 15 years, India has lost about $1.4 trillion in trade deficits to China. So there is no reason for China to weaponize trade because they were having surplus trade with India. India is exporting iron ore. 60% of the entire Indian exports is composed of iron ore, and the Chinese were exporting all the manufactured goods and the power equipment and various other goods and services. So they were earning a lot of money out of the India trade, and this has happened compared to what East India Company used to trade in the 19th century. East India Company used to export a lot of opium to Burma when Burma was part of the British Indian domains. And they had a surplus at the time, but now it is reversed. For the past, say, 20 years, India has run into huge trade deficits. Trade is one area where they have been able to really put pressure on various countries.” But he cautioned that China can adopt similar tactics of ‘weaponization’ with India also. “Supposing if China weaponizes trade with India, we import something like 360 items which are high-valued, and if China blockades the API (application programming interface), the pharmaceutical ingredients, essential ingredients, then most of the generic drugs that Ranbaxy or other companies are producing, we will go into huge problems because the essential ingredients are coming from China at a very cheaper rate. Because it is coming at a cheaper rate, India has shut down many of these companies and given these contracts to China. But if China does the same thing as it did to Australia, there will be a tough time for the Indian economy because during COVID, China exported a lot of these oxygen concentrators because we were running out of oxygen in many hospitals during the peak time of COVID. So we imported some $82 billion worth of oxygen concentrator machines that were imported by India at that time during the COVID pandemic. So if there is a weaponization
that China does, which is quite possible because the Chinese Communist Party decides when to switch off the tap and when to switch on the tap. And so there is a concern that India had in relation to the China trade.” “As far as Australia is concerned, $120 billion worth of goods and services like wine, beef, timber, lobsters, many of these were banned by China or tariff rates have been increased substantially. Anti-dumping duties were imposed on Australian products. So Australia suffered in the immediate aftermath of the ban in April 2020. So China became a kind of central piece here. For both Australia and India, peace and stability are major areas of concern. If there is uncertainty, the stability issues are problematic because Australian and Indian economies are dependent on how much peace, how stability issues can be furthered. So that is the primary goal for both Australia and India,” Prof Kondapalli said. Referring to the pressing issues in India’s relations with China, Prof Kondapalli said, “Peace and stability are essential for maintaining the economic growth rates. Second area more concerned with India is sovereignty and territorial integrity. We have the Doklam incident in 2017, which is actually a Bhutanese land but chased by the Chinese in Chumbi Valley, which is closer to the West Bengal, Nepal, Bhutan border areas. And this has become a concern in 2017. Now in 2020 there was a clash between Indian soldiers and Chinese soldiers and 20 Indian soldiers were killed by the Chinese. The Chinese never gave accurate figures of how many of them were killed. But incidentally, the TASS news agency, which used to be the KGB, Russian KGB publication, gave a figure of 45 Chinese soldiers killed. The official figure that the Chinese gave was only four soldiers killed. So there is the obfuscation here on the figures. But most importantly, since June 2020 when the incident took place, till now we have had no bilateral relations between India and China. So this has become a very major problematic area. Sovereignty and territorial integrity issues meant there are no bilateral relations.” He highlighted the extent to which India’s relations with China have deteriorated. “We (India and China) used to have about 30 dialogue processes between India and China, including strategic dialogue between two foreign ministries, strategic and economic dialogue between NITI AAYOG and NDRC, (National Development Reform Council ) in Beijing. There is also the youth dialogue, there is the financial dialogue, there is the steel dialogue, iron and steel
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dialogue. We used to have about 30 dialogue processes. So these were all shut down and as of now, we have had a stalemate between India and China in the last three and a half years since June 2020. So sovereignty and territorial integrity issues are very important.” Talking about an aspect of Australia-China relations, Prof Kondapalli said, “But I also wanted to connect here with Australia. Some of you may have gone to the Australian War Memorial. You may have come across a Chinese publication there, which says that Chinese started coming to Australia in 1788. There is no evidence to show that. Yet the book which is placed in the Australian War Memorial mentions this. But most importantly, Hu Jintao, the former president of China, addressed the Australian Parliament in Canberra, where he said that the Ming dynasty expeditions have come to Australia. This is 1327-28-29 during that time. So what the Chinese were driving
at and what President Hu Jintao, although he did not use the word that the Chinese have discovered Australia, like Vasco da Gama did of India or Columbus did to South America or other islands, other areas, the tone that Hu Jintao had was, we were the ones who first discovered Australia. And this has become a discourse within the Chinese-Australian community in Australia.” Talking about the basic contours of China’s foreign policy, Prof Kondapalli said, “ So what it basically means is that the Chinese have a five-pillar foreign policy strategy. First is relations with major powers, with neighbouring countries, developing countries, multilateral forums, and soft power. So the second one, relations with the neighbouring countries. Australia is a neighbour for China. They have considered, they have in their classified documents, considered Australia as a neighbour. By being a neighbour, probably here maritime neighbour, by being a
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