Chindia Doklam Standoff

“Strength respects Strengths” quote by APJ Abdul Kalam, holds true amid Doklam Standoff between India and China.
Though India is not same as 1962, China is also not same as 1962. China is now world’s second largest economy and India touted as one of the largest economies. However, the aspiration of India to become a global super power is conflicted by the failure of the state to provide basic amenities to its citizens. The grim reminder is the recent Gorakhpur incident. Except for China, the vibrant democracies of South Korea, Japan, and Singapore have been success stories, we missed as a country to become one of those stories. Japan’s rise as a super power is an unbelievable feat after its humiliating defeat in World War 2. The democratic experiment with world’s second-largest populated country is no less than a miracle. The adoption of socialism in the initial years by our first Prime minister and continuation of the license raj until we had crises to put off, in this process, we had lost a great opportunity to lift India from clutches of poverty. China under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping had opened its economy and reaped benefits by utilizing its human resources by becoming the manufacturing hub of the world.

Though it was the compulsion, the way PVN steered India from the brink of bankruptcy under minority government is commendable. India is bearing the fruits of that visionary leadership now. However, there is still a lot of ground to cover in aspects of development, India ranks miserably in Human Development Index.
India’s GDP growth is robust and its bubbling youth is a great asset if it is capitalized properly then it is the only country that can replace and become the manufacturing hub of the world as China’s population is aging and one child one policy has been a major disaster to China’s demographic dividend. However, there are challenges to grab this opportunity.
Why is dragon breathing fire against India?
1) Containment of India: With the rich demographic dividend and robust economic forecast. India is touted as one of the largest economies in the world. Perhaps, China sees India as a threat to its hegemonic status in South Asia.
2) Refusal to participate in OBOR project: India refused to participate in China’s ambitious One Belt One Road project. The reason for India not attending the project’s meeting is the contentious CPEC(China Pakistan Economic Corridor), which is part of OBOR project. The road to the CPEC passes through POK (Pakistan occupied Kashmir). India will have to agree with China’s position on CPEC if it accepts OBOR initiative. China is investing more than 50 billion dollars in that project. India will never accept this project as it challenges its sovereignty.
3) To isolate India with its neighbors: China is giving huge loans to India’s neighbors. It is using its economic might to counter India. It has invested heavily in Srilanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Myanmar. To pay off the debts, Srilanka had to surrender Hambantota port for 100 years.
4) A reason to meddle in POK
Bhutan is the only neighbor which didn’t surrender to the Chinese. So to test the waters of friendship between India and Bhutan, China is deliberately building a road in the tiny Himalayan kingdom’s land. For sure, China is aware of fact that India will come to the rescue of Bhutan. With this reason, China perhaps can meddle on behalf of Pakistan in POK (Pak occupied Kashmir) and other places.

Way forward…
Meritocratic society will pave the path to development.
One of the major weaknesses of India is that it has failed to create meritocratic society. Meritocracy will inspire people to come up with inventions, innovations, and discoveries. India has utterly failed to provide universal quality grassroots level education. Reservations in education will haunt until we provided quality education.
In name of skilling, education is killing the creativity. The grassroots level quality education should consider the creative potential as a gift that can be milked for the countries’ betterment and should work to make pupils realize their creative assets.
Eventually, this will lead to de-congestion of the traditional educational options for Indian students such as Engineering, Medicine, etc. one need not have to depend on reservations anymore.
The creative potential will certainly unleash discoveries, inventions, and innovations that would strengthen India and the hostile countries would think twice to mess with India