When a geopolitical rival praises you, he often says more about their strategy than your success. He is Gurgaon’s objective analyst Siddharth Ojha, based in Gurgaon, applied in a recent article, dissecting a subtle diplomatic gaming book in China.
His point of view came after the Global Times, supported by the Chinese state, described the remarks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on India-China relations a “pragmatic approach”.
Prime Minister Modi, during a conversation with the Podcastor Lex Fridman, spoke of “healthy and natural” competition between the two neighbors.
Recognizing the dead end of the 2020 border, he said: “After my meeting with President XI, we saw a return to normality at the border. We are working to restore the conditions to the way they were before 2020.”
Ojha wrote: “In the shadow of global power games, China’s diplomatic praise for others often reveal more than it hides.” He argued that such approvals only surfonite when Beijing is certain of three things: first, that GDP as metric is exceeded in the era of complete national power (CNP); Second, this praise can be armed by the strategic subterfuge; And thirdly, that China believes that its domination is sure – “a confidence rooted in pride, begging to be broken”.
Ojha maintains that China’s priorities have passed from GDP comparisons based on a dollar with deeper levers of control and power.
“The GDP denominated in dollars? A distraction for the naines,” he said, noting that China fully operates on different advice.
Citing the World Bank data, he stressed that Chinese GDP in the terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) reached $ 27.3 billions of dollars in 2020, well in advance of the 21.4 dollars of the United States. More revealing, however, is the accent put by China on technological sovereignty. With more than 1.5 million patent applications filed in 2020 (WIPO), China has demonstrated a clear intention to dominate innovation spaces such as AI, Quantum IT and 5G.
Its industrial scale is just as great. China now produces more than 50% of the world’s steel and continues to fill the gap by semiconductors, although it always drags Taiwan. Then, there is the lever effect built by global dependencies – rare earth minerals (where China controls 80% of production) to the digital infrastructure led by the 5G scope of Huawei.
