Gokhale's China

 Indians have been suckers for more than six decades. This was my main takeaway from Vijay Gokhale's recent book, "The Long Game - How the Chinese Negotiate with India".

In this elegantly written book, Gokhale traces the path taken by India-China relations from 1950 onwards - from the time when the government of India became one of the first to recognise the communist regime, of giving it a leg up to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, through its military take-over of Tibet, escape of the Dalai Lama, the 1962 war, nuclear tests, all the way to the border dispute that festers to this day. 

All through this, the author may have wanted to show the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in favourable light but seems to have just the opposite effect. One gets the impression that even though the  IFS may have had some of our brightest officers, as an institution it was slow on the uptake, and, as far as China is concerned, it has been incapable of guiding the political leaders through a prudent course of action. 

One of our weaknesses is that we love to talk. Combine this with our lack of meticulous preparations, the ease with which we can be flattered and what you get is a long line of ineffective negotiators. The Chinese, on the other hand, were always better prepared, weighed each word that was spoken and recorded everything and clearly saw that our eagerness to please, to play the 'good neighbour', was a weakness that could be exploited to tie us down with unilateral commitments.

Over the years, it seems some Chinese tactics have become predictable -- setting the agenda by insisting on 'principles' that suit them; things that they do not want to discuss are stonewalled through silence or deemed "not ripe for settlement"; the interpreter ploy of pretending not to know a language to gain time to think through and formulate a response, etc..

We also seem to have realised that that Chinese diplomats are ideological agents of the communist party- not government representatives amenable to logic or reason. Also their leaders, who prefer to stay in the background to "save face" are actually thin-skinned, and that unsettling them by impugning their self-image and how they want the rest of the world to view them can work to the other side's advantage.

Gokhale laments that the dignified and gracious Chinese negotiators of the past have been replaced by the assertive 'wolf warriors' who tend to display aggression, arrogance, irritation and other disagreeable traits. 

Maybe this is just as well because we seem to be better at handling in-your-face aggression rather than the gentle art of gracious negotiations. 

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LINKS

* Gokhale, Vijay (2021): THE LONG GAME - How the Chinese Negotiate With India, Penguin- https://www.amazon.in/Long-Game-Chinese-Negotiate-India/dp/0670095605

Fighting on the Himalayan Ridges

Thousands of Indian soldiers are now perched on the freezing ridges of Ladakh. With China continuing with its expansionist "salami-slicing" of borderlands, lakes and islands, with no signs of letting up even in the midst of a pandemic, these soldiers are likely to stay put for the rest of the winter.

How do fighting units sustain themselves through some of the toughest physical terrains? How do they deal with the long stretches of silence and boredom? What keeps them going? I was looking for a book that would dwell on questions like these, and that is how I ended up with Sabastien Junger's "War".

It is a short, sharp book which reminds you that you should not judge a book by its cover. The book cover you see here is not the one favoured by the publishers which has a close-up shot of a single eye on an effeminate, clean-shaven face. I thought this one was more apt for the story of one platoon in one valley of southern Afghanistan.

This is the story of KOP - Korengal Outpost in Kunar Province. Its a place where the deep valleys and high mountains provide an ideal cover for Pakistan-trained Taliban to infiltrate into Afghanistan, and in 2007 Junger stays out there with a platoon that is trying to prevent this infiltration. 

This is a battlefield where codes of honour clash. When a US patrol gets ambushed one of the survivors, a soldier named Luttrel, staggers badly wounded into a mountain village with the Taliban at his heels. He survives because "The people of Sabray were obliged to protect Luttrell under an honor code called 'lokhay warkawal' (?), which holds that anyone who comes to your doorstep begging for help must be cared no matter that the cost to the community." 

The Taliban, on the other hand, know that battles can be won when the villagers are made to suffer at the hands of the "enemy", the "infidel". Their strategy is to lure NATO forces to accidentally killing so many civilians that they lose the fight for the human terrain. The physical terrain would inevitably follow.

There is irony in the imbalance of military hardware. The Americans can call in their Apache helicopter gunships with 30mm chain guns, their drones, 155mm howitzers and AC-130 gunships, but thermal signatures can be blurred by Taliban fighters wrapped in blankets on a warm rock, and a flock of crows can give away the position of US soldiers. 

This brings you to a glimpse of the cost of war - "A javelin shoulder-fired rocket costs $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn't make that in a year at a guy who doesn't make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes war seem winnable."

Then there is the X-Factor that motivates smaller fighting units - "Perfectly sane, good men have been drawn back to combat over and over again, and anyone interested in the idea of world peace would do well to know what they are looking for. Not killing, necessarily, but the other side of the equation: protecting. The defence of the tribe is an insanely compelling idea, and once you've been exposed to it, there is almost nothing else that you'd rather do."

"In a crude sense the job of the young men is to undertake the work that their fathers are too old for, and the current generation of American fathers has decided that a certain six-mile-long valley in Kumar province needs to be brought under military control. Nearly 50 US soldiers have died carrying out those orders. I'm not saying that's a lot or a little, but the cost does need to be acknowledged."

The situation in Ladakh now is of course vastly different - especially the human terrain. Unlike US troops in Afghanistan seeking legitimacy and acknowledgement from a wider world, this is a place where a conquered people - the Tibetans - are looking for ways to settle scores with the Communist Party of China. This will be a different kind of fight on the ridges.

Swartz and the Free Internet

Until today I had not heard of the name Aaron Swartz. A dive down one twitter rabbit-hole led me to this documentary and I was quite amazed to learn about this child prodigy, this teenager who was one of the founders of Reddit, an architect of Creative Commons, the slayer of draconian legislations that restricted internet freedom, and conscientious young man who was driven to kill himself by MIT and the Obama administration. 

As if all these were not achievements enough for a lifetime, Swartz also gets the credit to enabling the discovery of a test that leads to the early detection of pancreatic cancer!

A friend who studied at MIT thought there was nothing new or shocking about MITs role in making a scapegoat out of Swartz. "It is difficult to admire MIT if you're a thinking person", he said, "Most of the research there is centred on war weapons and the best way to kill". So it may not be surprising that the Obama government wanted to make an example of a man whose principal crime was to get past the JSTOR paywall and download years of public-funded research papers.

Until last year I would have thought such a move went against the very grain of USAs self-proclaimed   position as a 'land of the free'. The aggressive rise of China, the Covid-19 pandemic, Galwan, and the nine-dash-line leads me to a more hardline position against authoritarian regimes who are trying to turn this freedom into some kind of liability.

If internet freedom and free access of research from US universities only leads to a one-way flow of information and technology, it may not be a bad idea to temper the zeal of youngsters, who, for all their deep knowledge, are unable to see the big picture of global geo-politics.

To OBOR or not to OBOR

A grand summit is now on in China. Around 65 countries are participating in the One Belt One Road (ORBOR) meeting which envisages construction of international trunk passageways and an infrastructure network connecting all sub-regions in Asia, and between Asia, Europe and Africa.

There is big money promised for these projects - China has committed a total of about $100 billion to three new infrastructure funds: a $ 40 billion fund to the Central Asia-focused Silk Road Fund, a $ 50 billion fund to a new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and a $ 10 billion fund to the BRICS-led New Development Bank.

India, however, has opted out. It is anything but enthusiastic about the CPEC, a highway that cuts through territory that has been illegally occupied by Pakistan.

What does this mean to countries that are enthusiastically participating in OBOR? Perhaps they expect a windfall by way of investments and market access. Or perhaps they will take a closer look at countries that have already borrowed tons of money from China, and ten contemplate - like Sri Lanka - whether they did the right thing.

Sri Lanka is currently in $58.3 billion debt to foreign financiers, and 95.4% of all government revenue is currently going towards paying back its loans. Of this, about $8 billion is owed to China alone, of which $1.4 billion was borrowed by the Sri Lankan government for constructing the Hambantota port.

Since these investments are not bringing in revenue as projected during the - rather hasty and secretive - planning & approval, the state is handing over its assets to Chinese companies on long-term lease:

• 80% of its Hambantota port has been handed over for 99 years, to China Merchants Holdings.
• Colombo’s South Container Terminal is a 35-year Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) arrangement with the same company
• IZP, a Chinese informational technology company, has been put forward as a potential purchaser of Mattala International Airport.

So is there a pattern here? Borrow on easy terms, belatedly discover that the revenue model was flawed, and grudgingly hand over your land and assets to the foreign lender?



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LINKS & REFERENCES


* (2017) ET - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/obor-summit-in-china-know-what-it-is-and-why-india-is-not-attending/articleshow/58656653.cms

* (2017) IE - http://indianexpress.com/article/what-is/china-one-belt-one-road-project-obor-4653564/

* (2017) IE - Belt Road Initiative - http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/china-belt-and-road-initiative-in-giant-trade-belt-road-to-new-growth-rush-4651727/

* (2017) FT - One belt, one road and many questions -- https://www.ft.com/content/d5c54b8e-37d3-11e7-ac89-b01cc67cfeec

* (2017) - Bloomberg - https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-17/can-china-afford-its-belt-and-road

* (2017) Wanda Bullish on India - http://m.indiatoday.in/story/china-one-belt-one-road-meet-india-boycott-wang-jianlin/1/955695.html

* (2017) Express edit - https://www.google.co.in/amp/indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/after-the-no-show-india-china-one-belt-one-road/lite/

* (2017) The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/15/eu-china-summit-bejing-xi-jinping-belt-and-road

* (2017) Dawn, Pakistan - CEPC for Pakistan - A Colonial Enterprise?  - https://www.dawn.com/news/1333244

* (2016) Wire -- https://thewire.in/40388/one-belt-one-road-shaping-connectivities-and-politics-in-the-21st-century/


Hanbantotta - China's own port in Sri Lanka

* (2017) Forbes - India Tells Sri Lanka: You Can Take Your Port And Shove It - https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/01/21/india-tells-sri-lanka-take-your-trincomalee-deep-sea-port-and-shove-it/#14a10f915f88

* (2016) Forbes -- https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/07/31/china-to-sri-lanka-we-want-our-money-not-your-empty-airport/#27d0ecb21beb

Solar: Upstream and Downstream

Amazing things are happening in India's renewable energy market - especially solar power.

Yesterday , it was reported that at an auction of a 250 MW capacity plant at Bhadla (Rajasthan), South Africa’s Phelan Energy Group and Avaada Power bid INR 2.62 (USD 0.04) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to win contracts to build capacities of 50MW and 100MW, respectively, at Adani Renewable Energy Park Rajasthan Ltd. This is a new record low. The bidding wars seem to have now reached a point where experts are wondering if it is commercially viable to produce produce power at these rates.

If the unit price is surprising, so is the sheer scale of the new 'solar farms' that are coming up. The current world record the world's largest solar project in a single location is now held by Adani's 648-megawatt Kamuthi plant (near Marurai, Tamil Nadu), which went online in September, 2016. The second largest solar plant, the Topaz Solar Farm in California, has a capacity of 550 megawatts.

For a country that located in the tropics, India has a huge potential for switching over to solar energy. Consider these facts -

• The solar  radiation incident over India is equal to 4–7 kWh per square meter per day with an annual radiation ranging from 1200–2300 kWh per square meter. 
• It has an average of 250–300 clear sunny days and  2300–3200 hours  of sun shine per  year. 
• India's electricity needs can be met on a total land area of 3000 km2  which  is  equal  to  0.1%  of  total  land  in  the country 
• Currently  India is  generating  4.59%  of solar energy  of  total  produced  renewable  energy  installed capacity in India

Over the past few years, thanks to a concerted push by the government, India has quadrupled its solar-generation capacity from 2,650 MW on 26 May 2014 to 12,289 MW in 10 March 2017.  Yet, behind all these impressive numbers, fact remains that present and future growth is completely hinged on the import of equipment from China. In 2015-16, the value of imported solar cells and modules tripled to $2.34 billion, with China accounting for 83 per cent ( $1.9 billion).

Despite having a dedicated Ministry for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) for the past 15 years, why is it that India has not been able to it own supply chains? Why is it that Indian manufacturers have no access to domestic upstream raw material supplies of poly-silicon and wafers?

According to a KPMG report (2015), India has not been able to create economies of scale in solar manufacturing, mainly due to insufficient government support - loans, tax holidays, subsidized utility services, easy access to land and technology support.

Is that a rather simplistic view?


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REFERENCES & LINKS

* (2017) Wire - Why Increasing India’s Solar Energy Capacity Won’t Work -- https://thewire.in/116842/solar-energy-india-capacity/

* (2017) Mint - http://www.livemint.com/Industry/MKI7QvOhpRoBAtw3d4PM5K/South-African-firm-bid-takes-solar-power-tariffs-to-new-low.html

* (2017) - Solar panel imports - https://www.zauba.com/import-solar-panel-hs-code.html -- HSCode - 39209919

* (2017) - http://indianexpress.com/article/business/economy/pm-modi-calls-for-all-solar-power-city-model-stresses-job-creation-4648770/

* (2016-Dec) -- http://indianexpress.com/article/india/indias-87-per-cent-solar-cell-imports-from-china-in-april-september-piyush-goyal-4417312/

* (2016) - BL - Import of solar panels triples in 2015-16 -  http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/import-of-solar-panels-triples-in-201516/article8788743.ece

* (2016) - Adani's Kamuthi Solar Power Project - http://www.ecowatch.com/india-solar-market-2118202661.html

* (2016) - India's solar energy push to generate 1 mn green jobs -- http://www.business-standard.com/content/b2b-manufacturing-industry/india-s-solar-energy-push-to-generate-1-mn-green-jobs-116021500523_1.html
- Report by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) -- ‘Filling the skill gap in India’s clean energy market: Solar energy focus’
- The country will need new skilled workforce & training to achieve its ambitious national target to add 100 gigawatts (GW) of installed solar energy by 2022
- one million new engineers, technicians, solar installers, maintenance workers and performance data monitors
- International Solar Alliance (ISA) -  alliance of more than 120 solar-rich countries aims to facilitate widespread deployment of solar power and supporting knowledge exchange on manufacturing and skills.

* (2015) - DTE - WTO rules against India in Domestic Contents Reqirements for the Solar Industry -- http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/wto-rules-against-india-s-domestic-content-requirements-in-solar-power-50977
- Indian manufacturing capacity of solar cells and modules is limited to 1,386 MW and 2,756 MW respectively. The Mission's target at the time of the complaint stood at 10,000 MW to be achieved in the period from 2013 to 2017.
- Since the solar target has been revised to 100,000 MW or 100 GW by the Modi government, the target now stands at 29,000 MW.

* (2015) - Research Paper - Potential of Solar Energy in India - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306034848_Potential_of_Solar_Energy_in_India_A_Review
-  The solar  radiation incident over India is equal to 4–7 kWh per square meter per day with an annual radiation ranging from 1200–2300 kWh per square meter.
- It has an average of 250–300 clear sunny days and  2300–3200 hours  of sun shine per  year.
- India's electricity needs can be met on a total land area of 3000 km2  which  is  equal  to  0.1%  of  total  land  in  the country

Potential of Solar Energy in India
- Currently  India is  generating  4.59%  of solar energy  of  total  produced  renewable  energy  installed capacity in India

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* India Solar Resource Maps - http://mnre.gov.in/sec/solar-assmnt.htm
* NREL - National Renewable Energy Lab - http://www.nrel.gov/international/ra_india.html

* International Solar Alliance (ISA) - http://intsolaralliance.org/

* (2016) Yes Bank - Compendium of Global Success Stories in Solar - http://intsolaralliance.org/docs/CompendiumofGlobalSuccessStoriesinSolarEnergy.pdf

* (2015) - KPMG Solar Manufacturing Report - http://www.energetica-india.net/download.php?seccion=articles&archivo=3Eksv7L8BosildPLOdK84G1zZk6Ew1co6BVp8hm0LThwxw9APH9HOx8.pdf

* Wiki - List of solar manufacturing companies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaics_companies

An Appetite for Steel

Recent newspaper headlines proclaimed that India is now poised to overtake Japan as the “second largest producer of steel in the world”. This sounds quite impressive - until you see the numbers in perspective. The largest producer of steel in the world - China - produces over 800 million metric tonnes (mmt) while India’s 'record production' was less the 90 mmt in 2015.

The current situation is like that of a huge kitchen that needs to keep itself busy. Excess production capacity is now at odds with low appetite. Over the past 40 years there has been a massive increase in global steel production - especially in China. A country that produced just 37 million metric tonnes (mmt) in 1980 produced more than 21 times that amount - 803 mmt in 2015!

Similarly, on a much more modest scale, India which had been producing 9.5 mmt in 1980 , increased its production to about 90 mmt in 2015.

China’s domestic appetite has been a bit satiated now, so now we are seeing a sharp increase in its steel exports. As with numerous other Chinese products its prices are super competitive, and this is triggering “anti-dumping” measures from other countries, including India. About two years ago, India’s DGFT set a Minimum Import Price (MIP) for 66 types of iron and steel products, while at the same time, imposed duties up to 20% on a number of steel products.

The main countries affected by these measures were China, South Korea and Japan, which accounted for 63.6% of total imported steel volume, and 54.6% in terms of value. As expected, Chinese imports are the largest at over 37%.

Yet, strangely, it is not China or South Korea, but Japan that is at the forefront of the campaign against the restrictions imposed by India. It has threatened to take India to WTO over the import restrictions, and various interpretations of the provisions of GATT 1994 and the Agreement on Safeguards.

What explains this unusual stance?

Some commentators claim that for Japan, India is  just the proxy country used to fight a larger war against MIPs and other border taxes. According to others, this is just a reflection of political clout wielded by steel exporters in Japan. Either way, one thing is clear - higher steel prices is not good news for downstream industries, or for the consumers who end up paying more for cars and cooking utensils.

Lobbies like the Indian Steel Association (ISA) and their counterparts in Japan will always try their best to influence governments for their own benefit. Ultimately, it is for the government to strike a balance between the long term costs and benefits of bowing to the pressure of industry lobbies. And that, unfortunately, is linked to election funding...

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LINKS & REFERENCES

https://www.investing.com/analysis/india-and-japan-take-their-steel-row-to-the-wto,-but-it%E2%80%99s-really-a-proxy-200173645

(26Jan17-BL) - http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/policy/russia-says-steel-exports-to-india-dipped-by-a-third-due-to-curbs/article9503240.ece

(25Jan17, BT - India to be global no.2 steel producer by 2020) - http://www.businesstoday.in/current/corporate/india-closes-japan-second-largest-steel-producing-country/story/244963.html

Reuters (23Jan17) - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-india-steel-idUSKBN1541DX

Forbes (23Jan17) - http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/01/23/japan-threatens-india-with-wto-action-over-steel-good-it-should-to-benefit-indians/#561e021a53ae

(22Jan17 - Taiwan) -- http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/policy/taiwan-wto/article9496340.ece?ref=relatedNews

Hindu (22Jan17): JAPAN THREATENS TO DRAG INDIA TO WTO ON STEEL AS TRUMP ERA HERALDS TRADE TENSIONS

DGFT Notification on MIP (4Aug16) - http://dgft.gov.in/Exim/2000/NOT/NOT16/noti2016.pdf

(4Dec16, IE) - Indian Steel Association (ISA) for extension of MIP for 6 months - http://indianexpress.com/article/business/business-others/extend-mip-on-steel-products-for-six-months-indian-steel-authority-4409972/

(30Mar16 - VCCircle - Timeline on MIPs) - http://www.vccircle.com/news/engineering/2016/03/30/india-extends-safeguard-duty-steel-imports-till-march-2018l

COKE

* http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Trends/Japanese-steelmakers-switching-to-lower-grade-raw-materials?page=2
- Japanese steelmakers (Nippon, Sumitomo) use better technology to lower costs. They process cheaper, low grade coke to better quality before replacing 50% of high-grade imported coke...this keeps their steel competitive in the world markets.

(2Dec2016) - http://www.infracircle.in/indias-coke-import-financial-year/
> India imported ~ 3 million tonnes of metallurgical coke in 2015-16 --- of which 2 million was from Chine alone!...Metallurgical coke, a key raw material for the steel sector, is used for smelting iron ore in the blast furnace. Around 0.7 tonne of coke is required to produce 1 tonne of steel and it constitutes 40-50% of the total cost of crude steel.
The government on 25 November imposed anti-dumping duty in the range of $16.29-$25.2 per tonne on imports of low ash metallurgical coke from countries such as China and Australia for a period of five years.

Steel Production in Perspective

Staying up-to-date is a quite a challenge these days. There is so much information floating around in the print media, and in cyberspace that its a constant struggle to separate the wheat from the chaff; the signals from the noise.

Take for instance the recent headlines in the Financial Express on global steel production. According to the news report, India has "registered a 6% growth in steel output in Jan-Sept... India remained the only bright spot among major steel-producing nations in the world."

Quite impressive to be the 'only bright spot' -- until you notice a graphic tucked away. Now this tells you that a growth of nearly 6% actually translates in an increase in production from 67 million tonnes to 71 mT. The exalted position of the "third largest producer of steel in the world" looks quite pathetic when you realize that the guy in the fist position has produced 604 mT of steel -- nearly 10x times the Indian production during the same period!

An increase of 4mT gives India an "impressive" 6% growth while just about the same increase (3mT) gives China a growth of "only" 0.4%.

Is there a better case of comparing watermelons and lemons?

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REFERENCES & LINKS

- Financial Express (22Oct16) - India registers 6% growth in steel output in Jan-Sept. http://www.financialexpress.com/markets/commodities/india-registers-6-growth-in-steel-output-in-jan-sept/426301/
- World Steel Association - https://www.worldsteel.org/
- Top Steel Producers (2015) - https://www.worldsteel.org/statistics/top-producers.html

Reconsidering North Korea

Think North Korea and what are the images that come to your mind?

A 'hermit kingdom' full of goose-stepping soldiers, precision parades and ballistic missiles. Of anachronistic 'great leaders' who spend so much on their military that they have little left to feed their own people. Images of a generous and prosperous South Koreans trying hard to be nice - only to be thwarted by their petulant siblings across the 38th Parallel.

What if this picture is  incorrect? What if you turn around and realize that all this while you've been hearing just one side of the story?

An American author, Bruce Cumins, has been trying to do just that - presenting the other side of the story - through his book, "Korean War - A History".

Cumins starts by pointing out that Korea had most prerequisites for nationhood long before most other countries: common ethnicity, language and culture, and well recognized national boundaries since the tenth century. Over the last 1000 years it has also developed the Yangban - one of the world's most tenacious aristocracies, which had survived because it "fostered a scholar-official elite, a civil service, venerable statecraft, splendid works of art, and a national pastime of educating the young."

Trouble started with the Japanese warlord , Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion.  As a performance incentive to his soldiers he linked their rewards to the number of noses they severed and brought back home. Then, in a gesture that is touching, sensitive and callous at the same time, the Japanese erected lovely memorial mounds for this vast collection of chopped cartilage.

A few centuries later, the Japanese returned again. This time they stayed longer, and left in their wake a deep sense bitterness and suspicion that lasts to this day.

Cumins's narrative runs completely contrary to popular notions about North Korea. In this version, a new picture emerges of a proud people who stood up to bullies; Of leaders who gladly sent their men to help China in its fight against the combined strength of the European and Japanese imperialists.

If it were not for the tactical error of leaving Incheon undefended in the summer of 1950, North Korea could have easily routed the quislings who dominated the South Korean ruling elite. US intervention would have come to naught, and the history of neighboring countries like Vietnam too would have taken a completely different turn.

 Bruce Cumins's book, "Korean War - A History" reminds you that history, even if it is written by victors, needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Daulat Beg Oldi

 WikiMap: The Tibetan plateau

Daulat Beg Oldi. The first time I head about this place I readily assumed that it had been named after a soldier who died in action. I thought "Oldi" was a nickname.

Much like the Bana Post on the Siachin Glacier, I pictured a small stone memorial  standing dwarfed by the barren, inhospitable Himalayan heights -- the Karakoram range on one side and the Kunlun mountains on the other.

This picture just fell apart when I came to know that Daulat Beg lived & died long before anybody demarcated India or China on any map, and even a few centuries before the "Great Game".  It turns out that he was a merchant from Yarkand who could not take the stain of crossing the Karakoram pass, sometime in the 16th century...

Somehow this puts the recent India-China standoff in an altogether different context. It opens your mind to a world of silk traders who risked life and limb in search of profit,  and of monks who trekked across these very mountains to introduce Buddhism to Central Asia...

And what does "Oldi" mean? Simple - its just meant to tell you that 'Daulat Beg Died Here'!

WikiMap: DBO is at the junction of the pink and grey zones

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LINKS

http://library.thinkquest.org/10131/ladakh_shyok_burtsa_ao.html

Travels of Sven Hedin - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Hedin

Asian Voices in the Colonial Tide

A few days ago, when I requested the librarian at CPR for a copy of Pankaj Mishra's recently released book, "From the Ruins of Empire", I didn't really expect it bring back memories of Prof. Liang Pan's remarkable course at the University of Tsukuba.

Mishra's book goes well beyond the scope of Prof. Pan's sessions which were mostly centered on the dynamics of Meiji Restoration and the consequent transformation of Japan. It explores how the contemporaries of the Meji aristocrats in 19th century Turkey, Egypt, India, China and the Philippines responded to the challenges coming from Western missionaries, traders, soldiers and diplomats.

It follows the life and times of some remarkable individuals: Jamal al-Din Afghani, Liang Qichao, Fukuzawa Yukichi (of the Yen 10,000 note fame) and Rabindranath Tagore. As the drama unfolds, many others make a cameo appearance but play roles that anything but marginal, and these include Qichao's mentor, Kang Youwei; A traditionalist philosopher, Tan Sitong who famously discarded a chance to escape by saying that China would never renew itself until men were prepared to die for it.

Also rather revealing is the role of Japanese intellectuals who sharpened the contradiction between the nation's 'imperative to expand and dominate...and the pan-Asianist desire to express solidarity with other Asian countries.

One of them, Okuwa Shumei, 'Japan's leading scholar of Indian and Islamic cultures' was said to have converted to pan-Asianism after reading a book India's dire state under the British....which book was this?

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LINKS

* Mishra, Pankaj (2012): FROM THE RUINS OF EMPIRE, Allan Lane  Penguin, London, 2012

Legalism for Latecomers

In ancient China there was only one punishment for reporting late for government work - death.

This, and various other interesting facts tumbled out a book I've been reading: Paul S. Ropp's "China in World History".

During the Warring States Period (403-221BCE), the Qin 'First Emporer' of China and his brilliant minister Li Sim instituted what was to be the first built on iron-clad Rule of Law and the promotion of meritocracy over feudal aristocracy. As in the case of late reporting for work,  strict laws and punishment were based on the theory that harsher the punishment, the less it would have to be used.

This was statecraft based on a philosphy called Legalism.

The state of Qin was also the first to abolish serfdom and hand over land to the farmers. It also promoted soldiers and officials purely on merit.

Perhaps this is something to think about when one drives around central New Delhi, and sees hundreds of government officials lolling about on the lawns, chatting and sipping chai during working hours..

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REFERENCE:

Ropp, Paul S (2010): CHINA IN WORLD HISTORY, Oxford University Press 2010

Year of the Dragon

Pic source: Getty Images from Daily Mail

The new year has started with an interesting headline in the Western media - "China's New Dragon Stamp Breathes Criticism". What is it about this piece of artwork that inspires such a big fuss? Why This Kolaveri Di? :-)

Designed by Chen Shaohua the postage stamp shows a fiery, beautiful dragon splayed out as if on a dissection board, staring out with its dead black eyes, mouth frozen in a grimmace.

Chinese dragons have always reminded me of the "Yali" motifs that adorn the entrances to ancient temples in Kerala. The first thought that crossed my mind when I saw Shaohua's design was, 'This is how a Yali will look if it got accidentally electrocuted!'


One positive outcome of this - completely overblown- controversy is that that it draws more attention to the wonderful creations of artists like Shaohua.

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LINKS

Shaohua at Deutchland China 2010 - http://www.biennale-decn.com/de/offenbach-2010/vortragende/chen-shaohua.html

China's New Dragon Stamp Breathes Criticism, Fear - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/06/chinas-new-dragon-stamp-b_n_1188232.html

Chinese Whispers for Indian Importers

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Thanks to the incessant power outages in Kerala, I needed a rechargable battery for my emergency lamp. At the electrical shops lining Thakaraparambil road in Trivandrum, the battery is easily available . A shopkeeper unpacks a set and I take a look at the product code - it is the correct one. How much does it cost?

"Rs.185", says the shopkeeper.

I turn it over and see that it has a printed sticker marked - "Rs. 75 Maximum Retail Price (MRP)". I protest.

The shopkeeper removes the product from the counter and puts it back on the shelf. "Take it or leave it", he says, "Chinese products always come this way. Even the caller-id machines come with an MRP of Rs.5 but we never sell it for less than Rs.50". Needless to say, there is no proof-of-purchase here - the shops flatly refuse to provide receipts for Chinese goods.

Obviously somebody has cleared the imports based on the MRP, and made a killing. If you consider the fact that just about everything in the electrical goods market is now Chinese, how much is the net excise-duty & tax evasion on account of Chinese imports to India?

Two-in-One: A Borrower & A Lender

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Last March, we had wondered about the quantum of Chinese ODA and come across an intresting paradox -- even while continuing to receive concessional lending from multilateral institutions, China itself had become a big lender & ODA player, globally.

At the time, the actual volume of lending was not revealed even by visiting Chinese academics, but now, the Financial Times has come up with some dramatic figures. According to its `China Special` report published yesterday, `China Development Bank and China Export-Import Bank signed loans of at least $110bn (£70bn) to other developing country governments and companies in 2009 and 2010, according to Financial Times research. The equivalent arms of the World Bank made loan commitments of $100.3bn from mid-2008 to mid-2010`.

If one assumes that the `equivalent arms of WB` here refers to IBRD and IDA, it would be interesting to know what the bank thinks of its customer who is a bigger lender!

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LINKS

• China`s Lending Hits New Heights (FT 17 Jan., 2011) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/488c60f4-2281-11e0-b6a2-00144feab49a.html#axzz1BXYaHP4s
• A Strategy to Straddle the Planet (FT 17 Jan, 2011) - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b852a826-2272-11e0-b6a2-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html#axzz1BXYaHP4s
  (Excerpt - One Indian executive reflects that his country ships plastic pellets to China that are then made into buckets. If India cannot even make plastic buckets competitively, he implies, its battle will be tough.)

Jha on the Chinese Worldview

Interesting thoughts from an article in Tehelka - "Confronting China - How could ancient China’s worldview pose a threat to modern India? " by Prem Shankar Jha

The European nation state came into being under the spur of capitalism. Borders were first hardened by the capitalists to keep out competing products and later by labour to restrict the sharing of the gains in productivity to the nationals of the country. Education was homogenised to meet the technical and managerial skill-requirements of an increasingly nation-wide market and production system....

...In China, the hard state developed out of a very different compulsion. This was the need to ensure the safety of the realm in a land that had no natural barriers to ingress. This required the State to ensure rapid mobility for troops and supplies and freedom from political obstacles inside the country.

...An anguished Han Chinese woman in Urumqi told the BBC (in a change of policy Beijing allowed foreign journalists into Xinjiang), “We have turned this place into a heaven. Why are these people destroying it?”

...In the Confucian scheme of things, individuals and, by implication, states that are not “reasonable” and do not respond to “kindness” are not ruled by “virtue.” They are, therefore, fit subjects for “persuasion.”

After reading article I wonder if Jha is any different from the Chinese blogger who created this huge furure with his sweeping, simplistic generalizations.

Other Articles:

Why India Fears China - Jeremy Kahn, Newsweek, 10 Oct., 2009

"...All these moves are best understood in the context of China's recent
troubles in Tibet, with Beijing increasingly concerned that any acceptance of
the 1914 border will amount to an implicit acknowledgment that Tibet was once
independent of China—a serious blow to the legitimacy of China's control over
the region and potentially other minority areas as well."