“There is one thing much better than putting mountain divisions on the border with China. We can go to Congressmen in Washington and say that we are a democracy.” It was an Indian Colonel who spoke these words during one of my visits to Delhi in 2010, another eventful year along the Himalayan frontier. His comments still make sense. In the latest BBC World Poll, 43 per cent of Americans considered India's influence to be a good thing, compared to 23 per cent for China. The study by Gilboy and Heginbotham comes as a welcome corrective of this binary friendly-elephant-versus-angry-dragon narrative.
The central argument in this book is that China and India are not very different as international actors, and that the US should weigh its options for cooperation carefully. Siding with India without considering its complicated security environment is reckless, the authors insist, and a better alternative is a pragmatic policy that consists of clear red lines when it comes to key interests, the promotion of common interests and incentives for cooperation.
Gilboy and Heginbotham build that argument on 250 pages of rigid research. The book does not allow for a leisurely read and it is often laborious to get through all the tables and references. Yet, it provides interesting insights even beyond the debate about how Washington has to engage the two Asian juggernauts. The first chapter, concerning strategic culture, is probably the weakest. It correctly asserts that classical strategists from India can be as unscrupulous as practitioners of power politics as their Chinese peers. Moreover, China's strategic tradition is often more subtle and balanced. Yet, the authors limit themselves to only a very limited number of these strategists and hardly compare how strategic thought has evolved in those two countries in the last century or two.
The following chapter provides important and convincing evidence that, between 1980 and 2001, China did not necessarily resort more frequently to force than India. Echoing Taylor Fravel's authoritative study, they also remark that China has done a good job in settling its continental border disputes, in contrast to Delhi's habit of fencing its borders with barbed wire, and that the two states loathe the US Navy's meddling in their exclusive economic zones (EEZ).
The subsequent three chapters dwell lengthily on military power. It comes as no surprise that the authors find India and China to spend heavily on their armed forces, with India making a greater financial effort in comparison to its smaller economy. Drawing from a very wide range of policy documents, it is demonstrated convincingly that Chinese and Indian doctrines do not differ that much. While defensive in their broad aspirations, they consist of offensive tactics and a growing tendency towards high-tech joint operations. What both countries also share, though, is a persistent gap between their objectives and their actual capabilities. Similar doctrines lead, expectedly, to similar arms procurements. Chapter six explains this very methodically with ample accurate data for the different forces. One recurrent observation that is less convincing concerns India's lack of political coordination in comparison to China's top-down steering. I do not find a lot of evidence backing this claim. I also regret that the authors did not elaborate on the threat of nationalism and more particularly the way nationalism could inform strategic decisions and military posturing.
The chapter on economic behaviour is not so well developed as the parts on strategy and defence. The authors decided to focus mostly on the energy sector, which they do well. But economic policy is more than that. I miss, for example, an accurate comparison of their industrial policies, the use of financial aid in advancing trade interests, efforts to shape regional supply chain, policies of trade diversion, the use of regional organizations for the sake of national economic interests, and the like. These policies are less easy to decipher than military strategies, but they are crucial in shaping the future of China and India as regional powers – and economic partners of the US.
The concluding chapter with policy recommendations flows smoothly from the analysis in the previous parts. Its suggestions are concrete, sobering and sophisticated. The authors rightly urge decision makers in Washington to put the Sino-Indian relationship in a broader regional context and state that if they are sincere about maintaining stability in Asia, they have an interest in working with both countries. One can only hope they get the message.
