Dealing with the Chinese

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On hacking and other bilateral disputes, it is best that India adopts terms of pragmatic realism with China, says N.V.Subramanian.

7 April 2010: If media reports are accurate, India has not broached with China the highly controversial subject of Chinese hacking of sensitive offices and departments of the Indian government, including the PMO and the NSA's establishment, the defence ministry, missions abroad, and so forth. China has denied hacking by any of its entities. Should the Indian ministry of external affairs nevertheless raise the hacking issue with the Chinese, or drop it in the interests of warming Sino-Indian ties post Copenhagen and currently evident in the foreign minister, S.M.Krishna's visit to China, where establishing a dedicated hotline between the Indian prime minister and Chinese premier has been accepted?

The best of friendly nations (and China doesn't count among India's friends) spy on one another, because the commencing premise is itself erroneous. Nations remain friendly with one another so long they have common interests. Once those interests wane, or become opposed, friendships decline and may become adversarial. The history of the world is full of such examples. So what China has done or is reasonably certain to have done -- Chinese denials are part of standard operating procedure; consider the example of targeting Google -- is pretty de rigueur among nations. If you get caught, you get exposed. But non-exposure does not mean nations are not hacking into one another's state secrets. Hacking after all is another form of espionage.

This does not mean China should be tolerated for hacking, or that the external affairs ministry should not raise the issue with the Chinese. But before anything else, India must safeguard its secrets. It should accept that as a rising power, friendly and competing states both will want to know its secrets, its intentions, its forward planning, its strategic thinking, etc. If a state cannot protect its secrets, it will command no respect in the world. Think back to the Anthony Blunt-Kim Philby era when the United States, after a point, bluntly refused to share secrets especially related to Soviet espionage activities with the UK. It took a lot of cleaning for the UK to regain its credibility, and it never gained quite enough of it before it declined as a world power.

Strengthening home security apart, India cannot drop the Chinese hacking matter. But in taking up the issue with Beijing, Delhi should not indulge in a publicized slug-fest where the media feeds off the frenzy. That won't help relations but worsen it and perhaps worsen the hacking and other modes of Chinese espionage. India has to confront the Chinese with solid evidence of hacking (they can be obtained by Indian IT whizzes) and firmly impress upon them that it has to cease for relations to improve. Not taking up the hacking issue will encourage the Chinese to become more blatant. And since nations play hacking and other games all the time, there is no reason why India should not too, whilst ensuring that it does not get caught.

Which leads to the larger issue of how to deal with the Chinese. The Chinese understand pragmatic diplomacy and mistrust emotionalism. The principal problem in Nehru's dealings with the Chinese was that he got emotional which made them suspicious and lead to hardened attitudes. When he wanted to confront that hardness, it was too late and typically India was unprepared for 1962. US administrations since the historic Mao-Nixon entente have realized that the Chinese put the bite on them when they bent, as president Barack Obama most recently discovered. The best policy with the Chinese is to talk straight, explain the common benefits of friendly ties and the grave pitfalls in adversarial competition, and let hard pragmatism do the rest.

Certainly, Chinese polity is not monolithic. On national security policies, the PLA has huge clout. The PLA has a big say in relations with India, Japan and the United States (perceived by it as impediments to China's rise and capitalizing on Beijing's weaknesses related to Tibet and Taiwan) but this is countered with more moderate voices in academic circles, the diplomatic community and the globalized political-economic establishment. The politicians and academics perhaps are most conscious of China's shortcomings on the road to rise and glory and accept the interconnectedness of the world. They are likely reasonable constituencies for India to engage with (although interactive opportunities with the PLA where possible should be seized) but as an equal and on terms of supple pragmatism. The Nehruvian approach of Asian solidarity will not work and indeed may create suspicions. The Chinese understand the language of power and India must begin to speak it simply, factually, and without holding out threats.

N.V.Subramanian is Editor, www.NewsInsight.net, and writes internationally on strategic affairs. He has authored two novels, University of Love (Writers Workshop, Calcutta) and Courtesan of Storms (Har-Anand, Delhi). Email: envysub@gmail.com.