I'm all for freewheeling discussion, but let's not cross the line into racial/ethnic slurs and stereotyping.
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I'm all for freewheeling discussion, but let's not cross the line into racial/ethnic slurs and stereotyping.
Honestly, I'm new, but lurked for a while so I'm aware of the forum's attitudes towards India and Indians. I'll just say my view regarding the recent de-escalation is that it is a welcome development. I know geopolitical analysts have their own takes on the strategic importance of the border area, but I still maintain my stance that it really is just frozen wasteland. Its sparsely populated, even if the unlikely scenario either army were to invade through there maintaining a supply line especially in this age of drones would be....not so fun, to put it extremely mildly.
Amidst all these clashes with literal sticks and stones as well as national pride resting on which side's soldiers took the first single step backward, economic cooperation between the world's two largest populations got stymied. Not least the obvious downside in that many Chinese companies lost oppurtunities to win market share in India. Normalization was always more desirable and this year's developments provided as good a time as any. Many in India see the overthrow of Bangladeshs' India friendly prime minister as America's doing however true that may be and ties with Canada continue to nosedive. On top of India's continued close ties with Russia, America is increasingly of the mindset that although it still needs India for its anti-China bloc, that they are increasingly more trouble than they're worth. Likewise for China, on top of the business cooperation and technical expertise in can offer to India, simply put if the BRICS's SWIFT alternative is to have any viability, they need the world's second (or first, I haven't been keeping track) most populous nation to be onboard.
India will never be a friend to China but it never had to be, it only needed to be a place that could be reasoned with and this is a positive step in that direction. What's more important after all than the securing of China's Western flank and increasingly that looks to be the reality on the ground. Yes there's still the annoying issue with terrorism, but Central Asia is drifting more and more into China's orbit away from Russia, engagement with the Taliban is increasing, relations with most South Asian states was already quite good and if India can go from being anti-China to neutral. Then, well, China can now focus all its efforts on the Pacific.
And also, this increases China's soft power. With the US Foreign Policy today basically being the airplane gun firesale scene from Lord of War on steroids, China continues to prove that it is the only major power today still willing to use diplomacy to settle disputes.
Amidst all these clashes with literal sticks and stones as well as national pride resting on which side's soldiers took the first single step backward, economic cooperation between the world's two largest populations got stymied. Not least the obvious downside in that many Chinese companies lost oppurtunities to win market share in India. Normalization was always more desirable and this year's developments provided as good a time as any. Many in India see the overthrow of Bangladeshs' India friendly prime minister as America's doing however true that may be and ties with Canada continue to nosedive. On top of India's continued close ties with Russia, America is increasingly of the mindset that although it still needs India for its anti-China bloc, that they are increasingly more trouble than they're worth. Likewise for China, on top of the business cooperation and technical expertise in can offer to India, simply put if the BRICS's SWIFT alternative is to have any viability, they need the world's second (or first, I haven't been keeping track) most populous nation to be onboard.
India will never be a friend to China but it never had to be, it only needed to be a place that could be reasoned with and this is a positive step in that direction. What's more important after all than the securing of China's Western flank and increasingly that looks to be the reality on the ground. Yes there's still the annoying issue with terrorism, but Central Asia is drifting more and more into China's orbit away from Russia, engagement with the Taliban is increasing, relations with most South Asian states was already quite good and if India can go from being anti-China to neutral. Then, well, China can now focus all its efforts on the Pacific.
And also, this increases China's soft power. With the US Foreign Policy today basically being the airplane gun firesale scene from Lord of War on steroids, China continues to prove that it is the only major power today still willing to use diplomacy to settle disputes.
Both of them are/were communist nations so no religious nonsense factor/delusions. India is so religious it's unironically making unnecessary enemies.
Both have a long history of neighbouring China. Meanwhile India was ruled by the Brits when it finally became a neighbour. It has only 70 years of real experience as an independent country.
Both are just general smarter nations filled with better quality people on average. India intends on keeping most worthless coz who else are brahmins gonna enslave?
In short, Russia/Vietnam have a pragmatic engineers mindset while there's a reason Indians do stuff even some guy living in the worst parts of Africa will think is odd.
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I read ind twitter before saying that China and Bhutan was already ready to sign a border agreement, but was India allegedly blocked bhutan from signing, well atleast temporarily for IND election... bcoz if bhutan signs, india will be left as the ONLY land border dispute w CN..
This works with any nation that works somewhat in good faith. Even the west who are high on their religious democracy will still give way to actual tangible benefits. America in a way ain't that bad to deal with because ultimately they care about money first so they will agree to a deal if they see themselves getting a lot out of it. That's why someone like Trump is probably easier to deal with than whatever democrat leader comes out because he is a businessman first and foremost.
India has a problem with credibility and being disingenuous. Not to say the west isn't but the fact they are already acting like this despite not being in a position of power says it can only get a lot worse. China makes a deal, what's to actually keep India making sure they end of the bargain is held for a long period as agreed?
I talk about lack of Indian self awareness. But one thing I see they generally have a reaction to are opponents who are just as religious as they are. They can infiltrate and deal with less religious people who put capitalism first like the Brits. But when they come to Islam who are just as religious as they all, suddenly their tactics just don't work well for some reason. China shouldn't become religious but they should learn from this. For example the Qing emperors who were actually good were surprisingly irreligious but they looked at religion in regions and thought hmmm what can we learn from this and how we manage these regions
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How will the recent regime changes after the relations w CN? Also i read b4 that IN and CN had an joint statement or something 2020, but IN seemed to allegedly move away from their concensus atleast for a time, i dont know the contents tho .
I doubt anyone can remember something of that sort because that didn't happen, though I suppose on this forum, historical facts shouldn't get in the way of the repetitive rants about India that are seemingly every second post on certain threads. "Compensation" was a non-starter and if that had actually been demanded in the Deng era, or in any time period since 1949, there would likely still be no diplomatic or trade relations between China and the likes of Britain and France.
The historical fact that the People's Republic was able to wipe the slate clean of colonial vestiges without compensation is one of the core achievements of the new state and precisely the sina qua non that allowed all of China's re-engagement with the West to be done on its own terms in the Deng era.
Aron Shai's "The Fate of British and French Firms in China, 1949-54: Imperialism Imprisoned" concluded:
The increasing tendency by some members with indulging in chauvinistic monologues and near eugenicist tirades - often just short of bringing out the calipers at times - whenever India comes up as a topic seems to have made some members lose track of some of the actual reasons for China's comparative success over India, given their relatively level initial socio-economic starting positions in the 1950s.
As Shai's work notes:
The key difference between China and India is that China successfully broke free from external colonial ties and established a high level of state sovereignty. This allowed a future relationship with the West set on its own terms and, at the time, enabled the Chinese government to exert significant pressure on all colonial business holdings within China by increasing their operational costs, such as mandating actual living wages for their Chinese employees. As a result, foreign businesses in China not only struggled to turn a profit but began bleeding money, with the major multinationals literally bringing in revenue from other regions to pay off its finances in China.
Although these companies appealed to their home governments for support, the new Chinese state, having established true autonomy, rendered London and Paris powerless to intervene. Ultimately, these businesses were compelled to settle with China in order to exit the market, a process that can be described by Shai as the uniquely Chinese strategy of "imperialism imprisoned." This consensual exit precluded any future attempts by these foreign businesses or their governments to return to China with demands or expectations when the country eventually reopened.
This marked a significant departure for modern China from its own Qing era, during which the country was forced to bear the costs of imperialist conflicts against itself, such as the Opium Wars payments and the Boxer indemnity. For likely the first significant time in its history, the West was denied the opportunity to make its victims pay for the military expenditures incurred in subjugating them. This distinguishes modern China from historical cases like France's demand that Haiti repay "damages" for the Haitian Revolution to punish history's first black revolution, which ultimately bankrupted Haiti and contributed to its ongoing poverty.
This was achieved through China's total eradication of the centuries old colonial vested interests through its treatment of foreign capital in the 1950s and this hard reset of colonial economic relations and obligations was what allowed China to engage the West on a more equal terms when China began its Opening Up in the Deng era. This is one of the actual significant contributing factors that made modern China a success story without real parallels within the Global South today and it should be properly appreciated.
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Its easy to keep on with what ifs, and what ifs but the simplest answer is that all geopolitics is a risk, and you take that risk if all options are weighed and the benefits are worth it. Perhaps criticism can be levied on those who takes risk where the existing reality does not warrant any possibility of a conclusion that would favor the side taking the risk. An example would be Gaza and the PLO taking the risk to surrender to Israel in the hopes they'll have somewhat favorable terms in the ceasefire. Such a reality doesn't exist, since Palestinians would be surrending to a government with a defence minister so extreme he has a framed portrait of a mass shooter in his office and a population with an unquenchable thirst for revenge over Oct. 7th.
Considering the reality on the ground between China and India, ie. India's manufactering sector stalling due to lack of technical expertise and fraying relations with the West, I do think China is right to take the risk because therein lies the reasons why the risk might pay off and the benefits, ie. more global market share for Chinese companies and cooperation towards the inception of the BRICS's payment system, outweigh the negatives if the risk fails. And if it does fail what happens? A return military posturing on one of the most inhospitable places on the planet?
I guess this really then depends if Chinese leadership have done their due diligence properly. Obviously we do not know how they think or what info they have but Im hoping they have made the decision after doing a proper analysis.
So far it has worked but yesterday's return cannot predict what tomorrow's return will necessary be.
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