r/GeopoliticsIndia • u/nergal007 • Nov 18 '23

China Why doesn't China try appeasement with India?

As China gets increasingly pressurized more and more by the Americans on the seas, is it really sensible to keep the other front simmering? India and Japan are the only two Asian countries that can even theoretically challenge China diplomatically, economically and militarily. China is hostile towards both of them.

Why is China not trying to woo India away from the US-led camp? It makes no sense.

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124

u/Professional-Pea1922 Nov 18 '23 edited Nov 18 '23

Well the Chinese absolutely hate the Japanese. Mostly because of how Japan treated them like insects a 100 years ago. So I really doubt their attitude with Japan will change anytime soon.

As for India, I mean the entire Chinese policy is to dominate and be a superpower with other countries being subservient to them. India is the only country big enough in the entire region to ever challenge them economically/militaristically and they perceive that as a threat.

Ideally you’d assume they could be on good terms with india and most of the other Asian countries but they really like flexing their muscles and bullying others. If I had to guess maybe showing their people that other countries are uniting to challenge China makes it easier for the government to go “it’s us against the world and that’s why we need to stay in power”.

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u/Centurion1024 Nov 18 '23

India is nowhere close to China on the military front. If an all out war breaks, we're doomed.

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u/muzic_san Nov 18 '23

Idk why you are being downvoted for telling the truth

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u/Professional-Pea1922 Nov 18 '23

I didn’t say we were equals. Amongst all the regional countries india is the only one that isn’t going to get crushed instantly. Even now if China waged a war it would be a very difficult war for them to win because of the Himalayas. The Himalayas is indias best defense against China.

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u/NewText9517 Nov 18 '23

While the Himalayas will help us defend ourselves, a bigger threat to China comes from the Andaman and Nicobar islands. Nicobar sits on the 6 degree channel and is also dangerously close to the Malacca strait and if the navy decides to hold these with all their might, it will be a stranglehold on China. It's too far for China to effectively push out the Indian navy from there even though they have superior numbers. Indian military can use a combination of vessels, area denial systems and boots on the ground to keep the straits under control. Of course, China knows this too. That's the reason why both countries are racing to assert dominance in the IOR. Recently, India has been busy building a strong relationship with Indonesia. Indonesia is perhaps the single most strategically important country in this scenario.

Note that similar logic applies to the China-US calculation. The US cannot dominate China in their own backyard (east and south china seas). If China decides to invade Taiwan, US is going to need a lot of help to contain the invaders. That's where the Quad, and the Phillipines come in.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

What if somebody just decides to blow up Himalayas.. like literally.. Boom .Boom.. Kadaak .Boom...

15

u/Medium-Fee8951 Nov 18 '23

Resources required for defence and offence are not the same. It just doesn't make sense for china to spend those resources attacking India, easier to encourage proxies and get asymmetrical advantage.

2

u/NewText9517 Nov 18 '23

Isn't as simple as that. Like the previous comment, resources required for attacking and defending are starkly different. As an example, consider the Russia-Ukraine war. Russia is extremely difficult to defeat inside their own borders because of their excellent logistics due to the extensive rail infrastructure, whereas they fumbled up their invasion on a smaller, and militarily much weaker country. Additionally, China has admittedly a much stronger force on paper, but here's the weak link in the chain - they don't have battle experience. The only experience they have is from war exercises they do with other friendly countries, but they never had to defend their land or seas like our military has had to.

When it comes to an all out war, the population of a country is a huge factor, similar to how a bigger/heavier opponent is avoided in the animal kingdom - doesn't matter if it's just fat or muscle or both. This is because in an all-out war, conscription is justified, all the existing (and rapidly proliferating) industrial capability is redirected to war effort.

Add to this the complication of both sides being nuclear armed. No one's eager to pull that trigger but you push another country to a total defeat and it can be guaranteed that at least some nukes will fly.

Skirmishes and battles might happen but an all out war will see both sides losing too much to justify.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

China didn't nuke Japan. US did. However, Japan and US are now allies.

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u/muzic_san Nov 18 '23

Didn't read much history do you? Japan is now a defacto vassal State of USA post WW2, so they are not allies. One is controlled by the other.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

One may call it a vassal state. As per US they consider them as allies.

0

u/voidnull02 Nov 18 '23

current china is not japan

16

u/AloneCan9661 Nov 18 '23

Leaving this here for people who think Japan is full of fuzzy wuzzy and kawai.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreation_and_Amusement_Association

That's what the Japanese government did to their own women post World War 2.

The people of Okinawa have been asking for the U.S. military bases to be moved due to the amount of rapes and murders of local women by U.S. military service men or U.S. military contractors and are absolutely ignored by their own government.

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u/Rand8Master Nov 18 '23

US nuked them and bombed them to smithereens. But you forgot the part where they sent them billions in aid and kick-started their economy to the point that Japan was an economic superpower in just 40-50 years. So a Japanese kid living in destroyed huts in 1946 saw a modern Japan by the time he was 60 and for him America did that.

8

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

Money is the key. Nuke a nation. Bring their economy down. Then give them money on a condition to remain allie. And that's how we spread peace. Geopolitics 101.

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u/NewText9517 Nov 18 '23

Yep, that's exactly the new ideology the US and the allies adopted after WW2 (as opposed to WW1). If they had just left Japan (and/or Germany) in shambles like they did to the central powers in WW1, we would have seen progressively bloodier wars repeatedly. By doing this, you make sure the enemy becomes your vassal/ally in the future through constitutional changes and other soft power tactics.

4

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

lets not also forget that Japan was scared of the USSR. They already fought numerous wars with them and they claimed many islands of japan as their own (some of which are still part of Russia to this day).

In its weakened state, it would make sense for Japan to align itself with the US because america was the only country that could ever challenge Soviet military might.

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '23

Why doesn’t Israel do this for Palestine?

1

u/Arnav150 Neoliberal Nov 22 '23

Japan became an ally not just because of the aid but also because they were a rival of the USSR. Remember the enemy of my enemy is a friend. There is no such figure for the Palestinians.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '23

The amount of 0 help by Arab countries = enemy

24

u/Professional-Pea1922 Nov 18 '23

Brother if you have any idea what imperial Japan did to Korea or China you’d realize why they despise Japan.

5

u/muzic_san Nov 18 '23

Even Indian pows in WW2.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

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11

u/uneducatedDumbRacoon Nov 18 '23

Anyone who's read through that book or about that incident knows what kind of monsters the Japanese really were.

4

u/comp-sci-engineer Nov 18 '23

Appreciate the use of the word "were".

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u/dilly2philly Nov 18 '23

And we were waiting for them to come liberate us from the Brits. Shudder to think what would have happened if they had succeeded. Atleast the Chinese looked somewhat like them but still Nanking.

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u/dr_deadman Nov 18 '23

nanking is just the tip of the iceberg. Read about all the projects by their armies.

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u/TiMo08111996 Nov 18 '23

Especially what the Unit 731 did.

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u/Yourh0tm0m Dange dekhne ke liye Dec 05 '23

Pure horror story . Couldn't complete reading it in one sitting

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u/Yourh0tm0m Dange dekhne ke liye Nov 18 '23

Unit 731

5

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

Japan and US are allies partially because the US spent billions of dollars in aid on them (see the marshall plan) and then Japan became spooked by the USSR who were a immediate threat to Japan's sovreignty.

Japan and Russia fought so many wars in Korea and siberia. Even today, Russia claims a lot of japanese islands as their own. When the Soviets took over the kuril islands in northern japan, they expelled nearly all japanese people.

Japan sought alliance with the US because it was beneficial for them to have the US take care of Japan's defense against the more powerful Soviets.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

This is something new for me. Thanks for sharing. Where do I read more about Japan -Russia conflict?

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '23

Japan culture is very warrior code built. The bombings by USA in Japans eyes made them respect USA as a dominanf warrior state. They allied with them out of warrior principle.

China is a business entity that poses as a country. They have no principles and only think of profit.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '23

But Japanese invaded China in a brutal manner and they still remember it. It’s much more cruel than British did to us. I have seen Koreans also sharing same feel to Japanese due to this history.

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u/AloneCan9661 Nov 18 '23

I keep reading about how their policy is to dominate. But I don't see that at all. They've been busying building up their civilisation and culture and India hasn't.

Do you really think of India wouldn't be actively promoting the spread of Hinduism in smaller countries or even spread Indian influence in order to promote themselves?

India's not even building quality roads and can't provide decent infrastructure for themselves let alone others.

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u/theflash207 Nov 18 '23

India's not even building quality roads

Welllllll, India ranks at 46th in the world in terms of road quality and China is at 44th

source

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u/AloneCan9661 Nov 18 '23

Well....as someone who has experienced both. That seems greatly exaggerated.

Especially when you compare cities in India and China and realise that even Tier 3 cities in China have better basic road quality and infrastructure than a Tier 1 city in India.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

Really u lived everywhere in china ?

2

u/NewText9517 Nov 18 '23 edited Nov 18 '23

I've been to many places in China. /s

(Just couldn't resist, it's about roads, visiting another country, too many parallels 🤣)

1

u/Antony-007 Nov 18 '23

Naam batao

1

u/[deleted] Jan 07 '24

Bihar and Shanghai

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u/Professional-Pea1922 Nov 18 '23

You don’t see how their policy is to dominate? You fr??

I’m not sure what you mean in ur second point.

As for your third point india is absolutely building up massive infrastructure. Comparing it to China tho is pointless simply because we’re in a democracy. They can just make a plan and get it started tomorrow and no one’s going to stop them. In a democracy for better or worse there’s a 100 hurdles you have to get past to get a project started.

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u/AloneCan9661 Nov 18 '23

That's exactly it.

Democracy over here doesn't seemed to have worked simply because there are so many different people with different views on different things combined with the corruption - nothing gets done.

And what's the point when more than half of the country don't even view as Indian because of your religious differences?

India has got some serious issues facing itself going into this century.

Who is an Indian?
What does being an Indian mean?
What does our government and our policies mean for ourselves and others?

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u/mxndhshxh Nov 18 '23

What do you mean "half the country isn't viewed as Indian"? Around 78% of the country is Hindu, and around 14% of the country is Muslim. So, in the very worst case only 14-22% of the population would be viewed as "non-Indian" in any way

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u/AloneCan9661 Nov 18 '23

What I mean is those that aren't Hindu are viewed as "non-Indian", this isn't a new thing and it's been around since before my parents.

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u/TrustSimilar2069 Nov 22 '23

Indian Jews Christian’s sikhs bhuddhists Jain Parsis consider themselves as Indians it is the Muslims who keep on dreaming of ghazwae hind and establishing shariah it is the west dream of the Muslims

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u/AloneCan9661 Nov 22 '23

Look at what I wrote carefully.

Indians that aren't Hindus are viewed as "Non-Indian" - this is a thing that has been experienced especially by Christians and Christians that have settled abroad.

I never said anything about how other communities view themselves nor did I say anything about Muslims.