Wolf warrior Diplomacy

04 Jun Wolf warrior Diplomacy

BJP National General Secretary and Director of India Foundation wrote a piece in the Indian Express (Besieged with multiple problems, Xi seems to be returning to Mao’s Red Book) on the recent skirmishes in the LAC between India and China. It was rather surprising for a BJP ideologue to write such a defensive piece and showed a certain amount of weakness and fear – almost capitulation in a chess game like psyops war of attrition between the two countries.  Further, this piece which we found rather servile, seems to be in awe of China and aims to rationalise China’s actions. For E.g. the statement “China is a great civilisation. Yet, under the Chinese Communist Party (CPC), it is a nation driven more by history”.

We thought it would be good to pick up specific elements of this article and discuss and critique them dispassionately.

1. “When the Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated after 1956, leading to Mao calling Nikita Khrushchev a revisionist, China had used war with India, a perceived Soviet ally, in 1962 to convey to the Soviets its military superiority”

This statement may be misleading as it tries to portray the Sino-India war as an exercise of flexing muscles by China to send a message to USSR. It doesn’t take into account the antecedents including the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when India granted asylum to the Dalai Lama and other criteria that could have been larger triggers.

•  “Wolf Warrior diplomacy is a phrase popular in China nowadays”

The belief in China that “… aggression is the panacea for both domestic and international challenges” cannot be seen in isolation.  This in fact needs to be analyse with Deng Xiaoping’s “tao guang yang hui.” which loosely translates to –“keep a low profile and bide your time, while also getting something accomplished”. This would have clearly shown progress made by China over a period of time in terms of diplomacy. China now knows that it is powerful enough to effect change and this change in tack is something India needs to internalise while coming up with a response.

• “A mature China, that does not resort to 1962 tactics, this time replacing Khrushchev with Trump, nor is bent upon provoking nationalist sentiments back home to ward off leadership challenges, would help roll back the situation.”

When we first read this statement we had to re-read it again as it wasn’t just an incorrect analogy but also sounded rather defeatist – almost a plea to leave India alone. Khrushchev was de-Stalinising and rejecting the “cult of personality”. The fight then between USSR and China was about “which country appropriates the true Marxist legacy” and hence the allegation of “revisionism”. Today’s war with Trump quite ironically is not about ideology but power.