GUEST COLUMN

Understanding the Chinese Mind

By Brig (retd) Harwant Singh

The recent denial of a visa to an Arunachal Pradesh born AIS officer, as part of a 107 – strong team intending to visit China, on the ground that Arunachal was part of China and that being a Chinese citizen he did not need a visa, is the latest attempt by China to reiterate its claim to the territory which we consider ours and is now under our effective political, administration and military control.

Earlier also their Ambassador had made a similar claim even though the timing was not very opportune for a seasoned diplomat to do so. Whether we like it or not, the fact is that China is our neighbour, a giant one at that. It is imperative that we understand this giant so tat we can safeguard our interests.

To further safe guard itself from “barbarians”, China constructed over generations a 4,000 km long wall, the world’s greatest example of human effort in its entire history.

Safeguarded from foreign invasions and resultant disruption of its way of life, China developed a great civilization, even though they had periods of internal turmoil, but those did not adversely affect their civilizational advancement.
You name any invention or discovery in the ancient and medieval period, it originated in China- be it silk, ink, paper, gun power, rockets, hot air balloons, magnet and its use in navigation, etc.

China considered itself the “center of the world” the “middle kingdom”, as the greatest civilization. It was due to this greatness of civilization that the Chinese have a great sense of superiority. Even in their decay in the 19th century they treated the rest of the world with contempt.

It was this “sense of superiority”, that made them challenge, the might of the USA as early as 1950 in the Korean War. It is pertinent to note that at that time China was a backward, undeveloped country with a primitive army. This aspect of their (perceived) sense of superiority needs to be factored in all our calculations while dealing with China.

Due to their great civilization the Chinese, like all highly cultured people have a great sense of shame. The Chinese would go to any extend to “save their face”. This is a saying to the effect that a Chinaman would go any extent to “save their face”. There is a saying to the effect that a Chinaman would not mind losing his head to save his face.

While they have a tremendous sense of shame, they have not sense of guilt. This lack of sense of guilt emanates from their feeling of superiority. Having convinced themselves of being superior to all other races, they perceive that they can do no wrong and hence have no sense of guilt.

If needed, the Chinese are temperamentally capable of evaporating the while of, lobe without feeling a wee bit of sense of guilt. The Nazis, due to their (so-called) sense of superiority has no sense of guilt for sending six million Jews to gas chambers. Now contrast this with the American scientists, who felt guilty on seeing the horrendous destructive power of the atomic bomb after testing the same.

The Chinese concept of time is entirely different from the rest of the world. Psychologically, they think in terms of ages and eras rather than in some specific units of time e.g. months and years. This concept of Time gives them a tremendous sense of patience and time tolerance to resolve their problems and just do not get worked up even if there are enormous delays.

That is why they are not in hurry to resolve the border dispute with us and can wait indefinitely for an opportune time to come to give them the visualised advantage. It was this concept of time that enabled them to construct the Chinese wall spreading over hundreds of years.

While they have great patience and can wait endlessly, they never lose their focus. Its most modern example is the focus they have shown in developing their country through “four modernisations” – agriculture, science and technology, and military – introduced by Deng Xiao Ping in the late 1970s. They have not wavered a bit since then. Even though they want to develop trade and other relations with us, they have never lost focus on our territory and keep on reiterating their claims even on most inopportune times and on most frivolous occasions.
Their great civilizational background, the concept of time (patience) and the sense of focus have made the Chinese great strategists and past masters in state craft, right from ancient days. Sun Tzu’s treatise on planning, preparation and conduct of warfare is not only masterly but still valid despite the vastly changed circumstances an mind-boggling modern technology.

It is their this sense of strategy that has made China to create a nuclear armed proxy in the form of Pakistan, which is bleeding us white, thus keeping us weak. China has almost encircled us in form of Pearls (naval bases and outposts) around us.

It is their strategy to contain us and keep on weakening us so that we are not able to develop our full potential to dominate South Asia and convert the Indian Ocean into India lake. The Chinese know most of their oil passes though Indian Ocean, hence they must try to neutralise the Indian geo-strategic advantage.

Hence, a clash of interest with China is a certainty, which can only be ignored at out own peril. We must prepare for this clash in all fields-economic, political and even military. We must not forget that. To safeguard us from the Chinese onslaught, before it fully manifests itself, we must launch our version of economic, technological and military modernisation. We must have our own Pakistan against China and Vietnam is a ready-made proxy for this purpose. However, do we have the vision and the will to do so? That, my countrymen, is a billion yuan question.