China has been accusing India of being “hijacked by domestic radical nationalism and that it has failed to manage it” since New Delhi took steps to economically counter Beijing after the India-China border clash in eastern Ladakh.
As reported earlier by EurAsian Times, after banning a total of 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, the government listed several Chinese companies including Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei, Xindia Steels Ltd. that it considers were linked with the Chinese army and may face action by the government.
According to an opinion piece by Zhang Sheng and Long Xingchun, research fellow and president of the Chengdu Institute of World Affairs – unlike India, there is “hardly any obvious” anti-India sentiment that can be seen in China.
“The status quo of China has a sharp contrast with India. Not only the Chinese government did not use any administrative measures to restrict the development of Indian companies in China, but the Chinese people also did not launch any high-profile “boycott India” campaigns,” they wrote.
They further said that they understand such a reaction by India and sharply point that it is “actually a tragic and victim mentality of being a weak country”. They described the sentiment by relating it to the China-Japan dispute that broke out over the Diaoyu Islands, ten years ago.
“At that time, Japan was stronger than China, it was inevitable to feel under confident when facing Japan, so China naturally chose to use strong means to protect the dignity of the country,” they explained adding that many Chinese cities also saw large-scale protests and a wave of boycotts of Japanese goods, at that time.
While lashing out at the Indian government’s actions, the authors said that it is trapped by this nationalist fervour, and is seeking to use people’s anti-China sentiment politically to gain votes.
Criticising the “Indian nationalists”, they said that they know that “their country is the weaker party in the current power structure, so they [Indian nationalists] are very sensitive to any form of “Chinese aggression” and are prone to take extreme actions.”
After the violent clash in June, New Delhi has become wary of every step taken by Beijing. However, China has limited its moves and haven’t let the tensions spill in any other regard besides the military.
Reimposing faith in the Chinese government, the authors have said that since China has an advantage over India in economic, political and military domains, the Chinese people have faith in their government and trust it to adopt the best strategy to protect China’s interests.
“The anti-China wave attempted to worsen an ordinary face-off in the Galwan Valley into a complete economic decoupling between China and India,” they claimed.
They concluded by mentioning that India and China’s relations were established on the principle of “seeking common ground while reserving differences”. They acknowledged that India and China have always had different positions on border issues but asked for economic and cultural cooperation that “bonds the two sides”.
“Maintaining the common foundation of peace, stability, and prosperity between the two countries is a unshirkable responsibility of both countries. The Indian government, which is currently on the wrong path, needs to be aware of this.”
