THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 20 June 2020 (Beijing should note (Indian Express))

Beijing should note (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2:International Relations 
Prelims level: India-China relations 
Mains level: About recent clashes with Chinese troops in Galwan of Valley of eastern Ladakh and its implications on India China relations 

Context:

• In pushing India to a tipping point, China is close to losing the hard-won trust of the world’s second most populous nation and a large neighbour. 
• If the 1962 war saw the freezing of bilateral relations for the next quarter of a century, the current crisis could lead to a chill that lasts longer. 
• Keeping India’s trust, however, might look like a trivial matter to the current Chinese Communist Party leadership. 
• India might be the world’s fifth largest economy, but it is one-fifth the size of China’s. 
• Beijing is acutely sensitive to power differentials, and sees an India that is struggling to find an effective response to the Chinese manoeuvre in Ladakh. 
• Of course, Communist China’s disdain is not exclusively for India.  

Flexing muscles:

• By all accounts, Beijing feels confident that it can confront all the major powers simultaneously. 
• It bets that economic interdependence and political influence operations can easily break up any potential hostile coalition that might emerge within and among them. 
• Coming to the Asian neighbours, the CCP believes that it owes no explanation for taking territories and waters that it claims as its own. 
• It is convinced that China’s “historic rights” take precedence over international law and good neighbourliness — whether it is in the South China Sea or in the Himalayas. 
• The sensitivities of its neighbours — from Japan to Indonesia and...................

CLICK HERE FOR FULL EDITORIAL (Only for Course Members)

Learning from the past:

• Appealing to China’s better angels at this juncture, then, might be futile. 
• Yet, the CCP should know that China is not the first power to be overwhelmed by narcissism and hubris. 
• Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany believed they were unstoppable in Asia and Europe in the run-up to the Second World War. 
• Soviet Russia, too, believed in the late 1970s that America was in irreversible decline after its humiliating defeat in Vietnam and a string of socialist revolutions, from Cambodia to Namibia and from Afghanistan to Mozambique. 
• But the tide eventually turned against all the three great powers that ended up in history’s dustbin. 
• Just as India struggles to understand the power impulses that drive China, the CCP could never fathom India’s political culture.  

Conclusion:

• It has been easy for Beijing to underestimate India’s strategic resilience that produces unity amidst crises. 
• The CCP might also be under-estimating India’s tradition of “non-cooperation”. 
• If Beijing does not step back and restore the status quo ante that existed prior to the crisis that began in May, it will compel Delhi to embark on a radical reorientation of its China policy. 
• The CCP ought to have no doubt that the Indian people can and will step up to such a recalibration.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL EDITORIAL (Only for Course Members)

Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

E-Books Download for UPSC IAS Exams

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1)With reference to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s discussion paper on Governance in Commercial Banks in India, consider the following statements:
1. Board members should not be a member of any other bank’s board or the RBI and should not be either a Member of Parliament or State Legislature or Municipality or other local bodies. 
2. The board shall meet at least twelve times a year and at least once every 30 days.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer..............

CLICK HERE FOR FULL EDITORIAL (Only for Course Members)

Mains Questions:
Q.1)What are the measures that India can expect from China to improve their bilateral relations?