Dragon’s Debt

China’s geopolitical arrogance thrives on economic entanglements and Western inaction, but India is emerging as a formidable counterweight.

For a nation that has not fought a war in decades, China’s muscle-flexing is alarmingly effective. Small nations such as the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea treat the looming shadow of its military might with deference or dread. Boasting the world’s largest standing army, a sprawling navy, squadrons of advanced fighter jets, thousands of tanks, and an ever-growing arsenal of nuclear warheads, China has built itself into a formidable hard power. Its ambitions are global: Beijing competes with America on almost every front, from fifth- and sixth-generation fighter jets to intercontinental ballistic missiles, artificial intelligence and space technology.

Much of this projection is, admittedly, a carefully managed spectacle. With an iron grip on domestic media and information flows, China has cultivated a narrative of unassailable progress and omnipotence since the 1950s, when it annexed Tibet with little consequence. The Dalai Lama’s appeal to India for assistance went unanswered, although New Delhi did offer him asylum. China’s assertiveness since then has steadily increased. Even America, the bastion of democracy and leader of the liberal world order, has yielded at times, notably by adopting a ‘One China’ policy that tacitly recognises Taiwan as part of the mainland.

Nowhere is the price of Western acquiescence more visible than in Hong Kong. Once a thriving outpost of democracy and laissez-faire capitalism under British rule, the city has been swallowed by China’s authoritarian machinery. Despite promises of autonomy under the ‘one country, two systems’ agreement, Beijing’s slow encroachment has culminated in the dismantling of civil liberties, the silencing of dissent, and the imprisonment of pro-democracy activists. The West’s response has been conspicuously muted - no decisive sanctions, no diplomatic retaliation, only murmurs of protest drowned out by economic interests.

It is not cowardice but calculus that keeps America and Europe tethered to China. Their research and design powerhouses like Apple, Dell and others depend heavily on Chinese manufacturing. Dismantling this global supply chain overnight is unthinkable, and relocating production elsewhere is unlikely to be as cost-effective. Beijing understands the leverage this offers and is not shy about exploiting it. It uses its heft to browbeat smaller neighbours like the Philippines over contested islands, and has made clear its intentions to dominate the South China Sea, jeopardising the sovereignty of nations from Vietnam to Japan. Even Australia and New Zealand have grown wary of China’s belligerence. The formation of the Quad (comprising India, the US, Japan and Australia) is a direct response to China’s growing threat in the Indo-Pacific.

India, often underestimated, has quietly built its own deterrent. Denied access to supercomputers in the 1970s and later to cryogenic engine technology, India responded by building its own as exemplified by ‘Param,’ our indigenous supercomputer and its cryogenic launch capabilities. Over time, India’s defence programme has produced weapons systems such as Nag, Prithvi and BrahMos, thus closing the qualitative gap with China, if not the quantitative one. Though China may remain sceptical of these developments, experts suggest that the world, especially Beijing, must be quietly apprehensive, particularly in the wake of Operation Sindoor where India’s indigenous armaments made mincemeat of Pakistan’s China-supplied defence systems. Now, India’s capabilities may not only deter, but also threaten to upset China’s regional supremacy.

The West, while reluctant to say it aloud, likely views India as a strategic bulwark against Chinese dominance. For some, the hope is that India could be lured into countering China directly, perhaps in a wider conflict across the Indo-Pacific. But New Delhi has no desire to be anyone’s proxy, given as we are on achieving superpower status on our own resourcefulness.

In wake of the Aprill 22 Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor, there is strong speculation that China, wary of India’s rising might, had encouraged Pakistan to needle New Delhi into conflict. The theory is that China would use such a confrontation as a laboratory to study India’s weapons systems in action. If so, it has miscalculated. India has not shied from demonstrating its prowess which has stunned global observers.

In showing its hand, India may have told China all it needs to know: that the balance of power is no longer as lopsided as Beijing would like to believe.