More than a military parade in Beijing

Today is a rare public holiday in China to allow the broad participation of its citizens in a parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of Japan's formal surrender on September 2, 1945, after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that marked the end of World War II.  India will mark a low-level presence in junior Minister V.K. Singh, with no participation by an Indian Army column. This is in contrast to the May 8, Victory Day parade in Moscow where a smartly turned out contingent of the Grenadiers marched down the Red Square while President Pranab Mukherjee shared the podium with Russian President Vladimir Putin, UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon and other Presidents and Prime Ministers who turned up despite a western boycott protesting the continuing civil war in Ukraine. 

 

As many as 17 foreign army contingents will march past the heart of Beijing but the cynosure of every strategic eye will be a secret weapon China has kept under wraps for five years. This is the East Wind missile that threatens to upset the suzerainty of American aircraft carriers around the Chinese coastline. It can also hit the three American military bases at Guam, five hours away by air from Hongkong, and till now considered out of reach for Chinese weaponry.

 

China's expected admission of this “(Aircraft) carrier killer” missile sends a message about its military readiness to the US-led alliance attempting to checkmate its influence in South China Sea and the Sea of Japan. The message should also be noted in New Delhi as India is struggling with its version of an intercontinental missile. The showcasing of the missile in Beijing also underlines its military disparity with China. The stark disparity in military preparedness is in synch with the economic gulf between the two countries — China's annual gross domestic product has remained five times larger than that of India.

 

China is pulling out all stops to ensure the focus is firmly on the parade, from clearing the skies of birds and clouds to shutting down its currently volatile Shanghai stock exchange. Unlike Moscow, why did India then opt for a token presence in Beijing? The reason may lie in the official name of the public holiday: The 70th anniversary of Chinese People's Anti-Japanese War and the World Anti-Fascist War Victory Commemoration Day. In other words, the event's focal point will be Japan's wartime legacy — the deaths of over a crore Chinese in the its eight years of occupation topped by the Nanjing massacre that killed up to three lakh, the large-scale abduction of women for the pleasure of the Japanese army and forced labour all over China and South East Asia. The Japanese have already flagged their displeasure over UN Secretary-General's attendance at the parade, a criticism that has been answered by the invitee himself. “It is important to look to the past, what kinds of lessons we have been learning, and how we can move ahead to a brighter future based on the lessons learned. That is the main purpose,” Mr Ban explained.

 

The crucial point, however, is China viewing Japan as the American surrogate in the region which has been mustering the might of other nations for “collective self defence” against it. Till the regime changed in Delhi, India remained sympathetic to China's apprehension about a ring of belligerent nations trying to box it within its national boundaries. It never held a trilateral naval exercise involving Japan and the US after its maiden attempt in 2007 drew Chinese ire. It chose to step up diplomatic engagement while simultaneously making the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China more impregnable. Just as the military parade concludes in Beijing, Indian Navy planners will be putting the finishing touches on a joint naval exercise with Australia. Days later, Japan will be invited to join the traditional Indo-US Malabar naval exercises amidst commentaries that after eight years of trepidation, India is once again enthusiastic about expanding this show of strength in the Asia Pacific to also include Australia in the near future.

 

Elsewhere too, India is fast-tracking plans for a Japan-US-India initiative to check Beijing's influence among the South-East Asian nations girding China's southern underbelly. As the Chinese race to drop north-south communication links into Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, the trio is putting in place an east-west transport artery that could checkmate these plans. Level-headed economists have already done a sobering reality check on the gloating in India over China's economic troubles. India's undeveloped infrastructure and the several impediments over doing business, to mention two, are inadequate for both countries to swap places in the world economic hierarchy. The economic literature coming out of China hardly ever mentions India as a worthy competitor in economic growth and exports. India's higher GDP growth rates in the next few years will not lead to it suddenly becoming economically more powerful than China.

 

China need not trumpet the obvious difference in economic clout with India. It is competing with the US for the top slot among the comity of nations and has already displaced Japan. The message from the parade in Beijing is on the same lines. China has set its military sights much higher and is preparing to achieve parity in destructive potential with the US and any other ally that might wish to join forces. The unveiling of the missile is thus a sobering wake-up call for the section of India's strategic planners plotting to pressurise China with military alliances. While India must refurbish its military, there is no other alternative to better ties with China other than diplomatic engagement that has already earned the promise of billions of dollars in investment, ensured a largely tranquil border and enabled a partnership on, challenging the discrimination practised by the Bretton Woods institutions.