Indian Defence Review

China’s history has been continuously tailored and retrofitted to its seemingly insatiable greed for territory. The ‘Great Wall of China’ is an indicator of how the country has gone beyond its frontiers and expanded its territory over the centuries through the expedient use of force.

Around 1760 BCE, Shang dynasty-ruled a patch of land along the Yellow River and that was China. Much later it was the Qin dynasty that established the first unified Chinese empire in 221 BCE but that was fraction of today’s China. A contemporary term – “Geographic Margins” conveys the impression that there is a geographic center. In fact, there is: China proper, includes the provinces of Shandong, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangzhou, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Sichuan. This geographically tiny fraction of the contemporary Chinese nation-state has been inhabited by people whose material cultural remains suggest continuity with Han culture since approximately 3000 BCE.

The majority of the population of the country is Han Chinese (91 percent as per the 2010 Census), and thus China is often characterised as an ethnically homogeneous country, but few countries have as wide a variety of indigenous peoples as does China. Even among the Han there are cultural and linguistic differences between regions; the only point of linguistic commonality between two individuals from different parts of China may be the written Chinese language.

Center (zhongyang) is a word used frequently in China to refer to the central administration; it also figures into the name for China (Zhonghua, Zhongguo). The sinograph or character for zhong, (center, middle) has long been considered an image of an arrow piercing a target, yet this pictographic etymology makes little sense unless the viewed as a cross section. According to Cecilia Lindqvist (1991, 324–325), in the earliest Chinese written texts (ca. 1200–700 B.C.E.) the graphic predecessor of zhong appears as a drum mounted on a pole.

The notion of China as the “Middle Kingdom” comes from a certain idea of civilisation. When the Chinese empire waxed the geographical stretch of its influence spread over the entire East Asian region surrounding China: Korea, Japan, Vietnam – all cultures which have been influenced by China to different extent and at different moments in history – is what is commonly called the Sinicization. Conversely, each time the Chinese empires waned due to a weak emperor not able to exercise control of local rebellious chiefs and persistent social chaos or invaded by “outsiders”, it was always assumed that the conquers would end up being transformed and adopting Chinese civilization and as a consequence being ‘Sinicized’ whereby its former glory being restored. Imperial China ordained itself not only as the centre of the world but also as an exclusive “civilizational entity”. It’s self-imposed insulation from the “barbarians” eventually proved counter-productive, resulting in it coming under attack from western powers in the second half of the 19th century. It was then constrained to consider itself as just one nation amongst others. It is the sense of universality of “China as a world” syndrome, which, is today, once again becoming a type of nostalgic self-representation and an inflated sense of self-importance and is becoming a factor in the revival of the ancient ideological notion of “All under Heaven”. This notion is reviving its predatory expansionist instincts that needs to be re-examined in a critical light.

Lebensraum

Lebensraum (living space) is a German concept of expansionism and Volkish nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularised around 1901, Lebensraum became a geopolitical goal of Imperial Germany in the First World War (1914–1918), as the core element of the Septemberprogramm of territorial expansion. The most extreme form of this ideology was supported by the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany. Lebensraum was a leading motivation of Nazi Germany to initiate the Second World War, and it continued this policy until its defeat in the war.

Following Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, Lebensraum became an ideological principle of Nazism and provided justification for the German territorial expansion into Central and Eastern Europe. The Nazi policy Generalplan Ost (‹Master Plan for the East›) was based on its tenets. It stipulated that Germany required a Lebensraum necessary for its survival and that most of the populations of Central and Eastern Europe would have to be removed permanently (either through mass deportation to Siberia, extermination, or enslavement).

This philosophy of Hitler seems to have been borrowed by Mao Zedong soon after proclaiming the foundation of the Peoples Republic of China on October 1, 1949. He would have visualised that with the increasing Han Chinese population there is bound to be a constraint of “living space” and that the limited space of the erstwhile “Middle Kingdom” would not be sufficient to accommodate them in times to come. Modern China would need the “living space” for its increasing Han population. So, he embarked on a territorial expansion mission taking in the areas of East Turkistan, Tibet, Mongolia (but could only absorb Inner Mongolia because of the Russian intervention) and even the “barbaric” state of Manchuria.

In Mein Kampf (1925), Hitler dedicated a full chapter—titled “Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy”—to outlining the need for the new “living space” for Germany. He claimed that achieving Lebensraum required political will, and that the Nazi movement ought to strive to expand population area for the German people and acquire new sources of food. Hitler rejected the restoration of the pre-war borders of Germany as an inadequate half-measure towards reducing purported national overpopulation. From that perspective, he opined that the nature of national borders is always unfinished and momentary, and that their redrawing must continue as Germany›s political goal. Hence, Hitler identified the geopolitics of Lebensraum as the ultimate political will of his Party.

If the above paragraph is read without reference to Hitler, Mein Kampf and Germany but substituted by Mao and China the rest would seem to be the basis of Mao’s thrust in the initial years in expanding and consolidating China in the 1950’s.

A Swedish political scientist and conservative politician Johan Rudolf Kjellén (1864–1922) coined the terms geopolitik (the conditions and problems of a state that arise from its geographic territory), œcopolitik (the economic factors that affect the power of the state), and demopolitik (the social problems that arise from the racial composition of the state) to explain the political particulars to be considered for the successful administration and governing of a state. Lebensraum encompasses these three elements and evidently Mao understood their importance for the future of China.

Irredentism

The term irredentism was coined from the Italian phrase Italia irredenta (unredeemed Italy). There is wide consensus that irredentism is a form of territorial dispute involving the attempt to annex territories belonging to a neighboring state. This desire can be motivated by ethnic reasons because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to the population of the parent state. Historical reasons may also be responsible, i.e., that the territory previously formed part of the parent state.

Usually, irredentism is restricted to the attempt to incorporate some parts of another state. In this regard, irredentism challenges established borders with the neighboring state but does not challenge the existence of the neighboring state in general. However, some definitions of irredentism also include attempts to absorb the whole neighboring state and not just a part of it. It also relates to maritime limits. While China says that the “Indian Ocean is not India’s ocean” it barks a different tune when it comes to the East and South China seas. These seas are claimed as its “own seas”! It is forcibly imposing the “nine-dash line” as its maritime boundary and perfidiously usurping the economic zones of the littoral states in that region.

Irredentism is a widespread phenomenon and has been an influential force in world politics since the mid-nineteenth century. It has been responsible for countless conflicts. There are still many unresolved irredentist disputes today that constitute discords between nations. In this regard, irredentism is a potential source of conflict in many places and often escalates into military confrontations between states

In the India-China boundary context, irredentism on the part of China is evident. By conquering Tibet and establishing it as an integral part of China the traditional and customary boundary between India and Tibet have, in a premeditated move, been discarded and China is hell-bent on unilaterally redrawing this border. The claim of Tawang and much later the whole of Arunachal Pradesh is part of the overall “Three Warfares” strategy – media, psychological and legal – to undermine India’s description and definition of the India-Tibet boundary alignment. During the course of the Officials Meeting constituted in 1960 to study the boundary issue in detail, China realised it had a weak case. It had since then embarked on various nefarious means to establish a credible case in this matter. Issuing new maps frequently, naming Indian areas and places with Chinese names are part of its toolkit. This naming game is a gimmick which Chinese practice regularly. India is called “Indu” in Chinese; Pakistan is called “Pachitan”. Likewise, even individuals are rechristened with a Chinese name which may not be anything like the persons actual name. It, probably, is a psychological way to dominate the interaction by making the person or counrty submit to their will.

A popular view combining many of the elements holds that irredentism is based on incongruence between the borders of a State and the boundaries of the corresponding Nation. State borders are usually clearly delimited, both physically and on maps. National boundaries, on the other hand, are less tangible since they correspond to a group’s perception of its historic, cultural, and ethnic boundaries as had been between India and Tibet. China’s irredentism is manifesting in its spurious claim of the State borders not corresponding to its perceived national boundaries. The objective of China’s irredentism is to enlarge and force a congruence between erstwhile India and Tibet’s traditional and customary borders and China’s perceived boundaries by manipulating the interpretation of the erstwhile India-Tibet borders.

Revanchism

Revanchism (French: revanchisme, from revanche, “revenge”) is the manifestation of the political will to reverse territorial losses incurred by a country, often following a war or social movement. As a term, revanchism originated in 1870s France in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War among nationalists who wanted to avenge the French defeat and reclaim the lost territories of Alsace-Lorraine. China is seeking to live down it’s “Century of Humiliation” and therefore expand its territory to the maximum it ever ruled over.

Revanchism draws its strength from patriotic and retributionist idea and is generally motivated by economic or geopolitical factors. Hawkish revanchist exponents would often advocate that their desired objectives can be achieved through victory in another war. Irredentism and revanchism are two closely related phenomena because both of them involve the attempt to annex territory which belongs to another state. They differ in their basic motives. Irredentism has a motive of expanding the existing state so that it that the boundary of the State and the Nation become co-terminus. It aims to unify people because of their shared identity based on ethnic, cultural, or historical aspects. For revanchism, on the other hand, the goal is more negative because it focuses on taking revenge for some form of grievance or injustice suffered earlier. In this regard, it is motivated by resentment and aims to reverse territorial losses due to a previous defeat – the Chinese narrative of “Century of Humiliation” is a case in point.

Revanchist politics often rely on the identification of a nation with a nation state, mobilising sentiments of ethnic nationalism to claim territories outside of where members of the ethnic group currently live. Such claims are often presented as being based on ancient or even autochthonous occupation of a territory since “time immemorial.” Saddam Hussein justified the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 by claiming that Kuwait had always been an integral part of Iraq and only became an independent nation due to the interference of the British Empire. The same is also the basis on which China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of Tibet – “South Tibet”. It is propounding the ideology of “Manifest Destiny” – a cultural belief in the US in the 19^th Century that the American settlers were destined to expand across North America!

Conclusion

China has international land borders with 14 States totaling to 22,117 Km. Its major disputes exist only along the old traditional and customary borders between India-Tibet, Tibet-Nepal and Tibet-Bhutan. China’s disputes with Nepal and Bhutan have a basis on the relationship of these two countries with India since 1947. The day these two countries submissively kowtow to China their boundary disputes will be resolved overnight.

China had mischievously involved Pakistan into the boundary dispute by it signing a treaty in 1963 under which Pakistan handed over 5180 square Km of Shaksgam Valley, which is, undeniably, the territory of erstwhile state of J&K. China has, thereby, made Pakistan its permanent ally. By instigating Nepal to dispute the existing Western Tri-Junction of India-Tibet-Nepal boundary it has succeeded in alienating Nepal from India. Also, by its action in 2017 in the Doklam area and disputing Batang La as the actual Western Tri-Junction of India-Tibet-Bhutan boundary it has caused a rift in the harmonious relation that had always existed between India and Bhutan.

As far back as November 1959 China had accepted the boundary in Arunachal Pradesh running along what Chou Enlai called “the so-called McMahon Line”. However, it contended its alignment and did not accept the geographical principal of it running along the “highest watershed” in consideration to the primitive tools for survey and consequently in the preparation of accurate maps. In keeping with this principle India unilaterally gave up any claim of the areas which fell North of the “Highest Watershed” where the McMahon Line had been marked on the very large-scale map. Since China did not agree with the “Highest Watershed” principle it did not give up its claim of those areas where the McMahon Line ran South of the watershed due to the poorly surveyed and prepared maps. On the contrary it has insidiously expanded its claims to include the whole of Arunachal Pradesh!

China will continue to use every tool and ruse to keep India engaged in this Border dispute. India cannot sit back waiting for the next bag of tricks to be opened on this issue and then react defensively with half measures. Firstly, India should widely circulate regional maps south Asia in the public domain depicting Tibet as a country under occupation by China. Similarly maps of Asia should show East Turkestan, Inner Mongolia and Manchuria as territories under Chinese subjugation and not part of the country. Secondly, India should openly court relations with Taiwan and disregard the “One China” diktat that China expects all the world to acknowledge and follow sheepishly!