Interview with Amb. Vijay Gokhale (former Foreign Secretary of India) on India-China ties
Summary:
I spoke with Amb. Vijay Gokhale about his recent book After Tiananmen: The Rise of China. Amb. Gokhale worked in key roles in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, serving as India’s Ambassador to Germany, Ambassador to China, and as the Foreign Secretary.
In the book, Amb. Gokhale examines China’s rise from 1990 to 2010, a crucial period during which China grew tremendously. Understanding why, and how, China rose is important, especially for India.
The conversation, centered on his book, touched on the political headwinds the Chinese leadership faced as they made tricky policy decisions in the 1990s, the lessons that India can draw from China’s rise (and missteps), how the India-China relationship has evolved, especially in the aftermath of border clashes, and what does the centralization of power in China tell us.
Key takeaways from the interview: i) understanding contemporary China is a matter of national importance, ii) China’s rise in the 1990s was not pre-determined, and its leadership made tough political decisions, iii), how India and China perceive the other determines bilateral ties, iv) the 2020s will be a “decade of uncertainty” for the India-China relationship, and v) recent events point to challenges to China’s political leadership.
Introduction:
For the first Indialog interview, I spoke with Amb. Vijay Gokhale about his most recent book After Tiananmen: The Rise of China.
Amb. Gokhale served as India’s Foreign Secretary (the top-most diplomat) from January 2018 to January 2020. Before that, he served as India’s High Commissioner to Malaysia, Ambassador to Germany, and Ambassador to China.
He also served as head of the India-Taipei Association, in Taiwan, from July 2003 to January 2007 and the Joint Secretary (Director General) for East Asia from March 2007 to December 2009.
In short, he has served in a number of key roles in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and is particularly well-placed to shed light on Indian foreign policy.
Since his retirement from the MEA, after a diplomatic career spanning 39 years, he has been extremely prolific, churning out three books, Tiananmen Square: The Making of a Protest (2021), The Long Game: How the Chinese Negotiate with India (2021), and After Tiananmen: The Rise of China (2022), along with many reports, working papers, and numerous articles.
The Interview:
Understanding China:
In After Tiananmen, Amb. Gokhale sheds light on China’s evolution from 1990 to 2010 [see Fig. 3]. This is a crucial period during which China laid the groundwork that allowed it to emerge “as the primary challenger to the United States for world leadership.” As Amb. Gokhale points out in his book:
“For an emerging nation like India which is geographically situated on China’s periphery, understanding its rise has become a matter of national importance. A Western perspective of China may not fully serve the purpose of building awareness and understanding, and greater research and writings by Indians will help in filling the gaps in our understanding of China from the Indian perspective.”
As I note in the interview, Amb. Gokhale is undertaking a different form of public service through his writings. He is adding to the non-Western perspective on China and in After Tiananmen, he guides readers through the tough policy decisions that Chinese leaders took in the 1990s. This is an especially crucial period as,
“it was precisely during these twenty years, before Xi became China’s president, that China experimented with bold ideas, demonstrated strategic vision, and laid the foundations for the pursuit of global power. It is because of what happened in China between 1990 and 2010 that President Xi Jinping is able to launch his global initiatives and seek Chinese hegemony” [emphasis added].
The importance of these two decades for China - and indeed, the world - can’t be overstated. There are many lessons to be drawn from China’s growth and Amb. Gokhale does a terrific job parsing key trends.
Key takeaways from the interview:
Understanding contemporary China is a matter of national importance: Amb. Gokhale points out [1:20-4:18] that despite China’s significance, there is limited understanding of China and the public debate in India is either “prejudicial or sensational, and it is episodic” [2:18-2:24]. His books, notably Tiananmen Square: The Making of a Protest and After Tiananmen: The Rise of China aim to shed light on contemporary China, in the crucial periods from 1980 to 2010. As he points out, “it is important for Indians to understand why China rose, and how it rose” [3:38-3:42].
China’s rise in the 1990s was not pre-determined, and its leadership made tough political decisions: Amb. Gokhale stresses the “political risks” that Chinese leadership faced as they went about undertaking reforms in the 1990s, especially after the Tiananmen incident [5:24-8:00].
How India and China perceive the other determines bilateral ties: A state’s perception of itself and others determines its relationships. Amb. Gokhale states that within Indian foreign policy, China was and is a “major Asian power” [14:28-14:32]. On the other hand, China believes that it could “shape the Asian order as the principal power” and that other nations like Japan and India might have “secondary positions” in the process of shaping the order [15:12-16:38]. Perceptions may not be rooted in reality; however, perceptions determine how states act and how their relationships evolve.
The 2020 Galwan border incident has led to a fundamental shift in how India thinks about China: The 2020 border clash over disputed territory, which resulted in the death of Indian and Chinese soldiers for the first time in decades, has fundamentally altered how India sees China. Amb. Gokhale notes that the debate in India, after the Galwan incident, is about how India is dealing with a “different China” and on that basis, India needs to develop a “whole different set of diplomatic, strategic, economic and other tools” to deal with its neighbor [18:12-18:34].
The 2020s will be a “decade of uncertainty” for the India-China relationship: Chinese statecraft tends to take a “prolonged period of time, testing the adversary” [20:04-20:30] and India-China ties will come under some form of pressure during the 2020s, in Amb. Gokhale’s assessment. This state of “armed coexistence” doesn’t mean that conflict is inevitable but rather means that there will be greater competition across a range of arenas [20:50-21:42]. He also adds that leadership in both countries recognize that conflict is not in their respective national interests and they will work to manage this relationship. The issue is that there is always the “possibility of a mishap when you’re in armed coexistence” [21:58-22:18].
Recent events point to challenges to China’s political leadership: In response to my question about the centralization of power within China, Amb. Gokhale noted that “in the century that it [the CCP] has existed, there has never been a leader so dominant that they have been able to completely dismiss all dissent or opposition” [33:50-34:04]. He went on to state that we “should not therefore imagine that because Xi Jinping has centralized power, that he is unchallenged within the system” [34:42-34:52; emphasis added]. This is all the more striking given Chinese protests against the state’s COVID policy in 2022, the economic headwinds China currently faces, and the string of recent purges within the top civilian and military leadership.
I learned tremendously from all of Amb. Gokhale’s books and this conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as well. I would urge you to share this conversation and read Amb. Gokhale’s works.