Mao’s Folly

To err is human and Mao Tse Tung was no exception. He is known as a Chinese communist dictator who ruled China from the onset of communist revolution till his death in 1976. Chinese communist party has woven a web of fascinated stories around his political and personal exploits, but rest of the world has come to know Mao as a curse and a scourge that descended upon Chinese people and spilled death on an unprecedented scale , misery and depravation for all those, he ruled with an iron fist. The Chinese faced such dreadful years under Mao’s administration that once the country was opened by Deng Xiaoping, Chinese people traded their souls, spirits and freedoms for money. Communist party that has styled itself as people’s party is actually a large club where the those at top are more equal than others and Mao was the initiator of this process that is going to spell doom for Chinese people and the rest of the world will pay a price along with it. In light of Covid -19 crisis that originated in Wuhan, China we all have become accustomed to Chinese bullying, but this is not a new phenomenon. China, since its ascent to the world stage has always been a bully as Mao always was. Its overt participation in Korean war , gobbling up Tibet and its culture , declaring South China sea as its own by flouting all international treaties and rules, sparring with Vietnam, sponsoring of terrorism through a Pakistani proxy state against India, keeping the supply chain open for Afghan jihadis during American adventure in Afghanistan after 9/11, hostile takeover of Hongkong, belligerence towards Taiwan and willingness to annihilate them if need be, Uighur genocide, border disputes with almost all its neighbors, economic imperialism, debt trap diplomacy,  over aggressive foreign policy, curtailing freedoms of Chinese people in all manners possible, religious prosecution of Falun Gong, slapping of Chinese Han myth on numerous creeds and ethnic groups within china, environmental degradation through unchecked industry, wild life poaching and government’s reluctance to apprehend those who engage in it, use of banned substance  producers’ as a tool of foreign policy by not restricting their movements in and out of China , outright hostility towards those who criticize Chinese communist party within and outside of China, Chinese Cyber hacking are some of the tactics where communists in power have shown their tendencies of acting as a tormentor. Mao started harassing the world and the communist party has carried on with the strong-arm tradition. In this essay I will share my opinion about one such incident i.e. Chinese attack on India in 1962 which in my opinion was illogical and foolhardy. 

Readers may think why revisit this small detail of the Chinese history and my reply is that this attack in 1962 on Indian territory then governed by unprepared, inept, communist infested Indian administration will prove to be undoing on Chinese behemoth. As humans we all know, whenever we make mistakes and as governments are nothing, but macro organisms made up of human beings who govern, must realize when they are at fault. I am hopeful that Chinese Communist party is aware of it and if not, I as a concerned citizen of the world would like to remind them of it. I would also suggest that mistakes can be accepted, faced and amended if one is willing to do it before one gets to the point of no return. What I have come to observe that in 1962 China acted cunningly and attacked India with all the might it could muster. Historical texts can validate that Chinese had already occupied Tibet without any precedent in the past while India had forfeited its claim by not declaring it in 1947 after transition of Tibetan territory to India after British left Indian subcontinent. Most of the things for the Chinese were going well on the foreign policy front at that time. China had occupied and subjugated Tibet after Dalai Lama fled, Soviet-Sino split had begun which meant that Chinese communist party would pursue an independent foreign policy, Japan had been defeated not only in war but in spirit, America had agreed to the armistice in Korean peninsula and India had signed the Treaty of Peaceful Coexistence. With all its major borders secure and no visible or imminent threat in sight Mao could have pursued its own vision of communism. Soviet Union may have appeared like a threat to Mao but at least rhetorically both nations were communist and were supposed to go along against the west. Mao would also have been prepared to sacrifice countless Chinese people in case of a Soviet attack if it occurred as he had promised to do in case of an American attack. 

India on the other hand was run by uninspiring and incompetent Nehru who, now we all know, was running India as its own fiefdom. In addition, Mao would have known that a large mass of Indian population was illiterate and uninformed, and the administration, Indian academia and literati was infested either by British legacy or Soviet influence. India was finally free of the direct foreign rule and despicable exploitation after many years and majority of the Indian top brass was self-professed socialist and border line communists. Even a part of the Indian press was compromised and later put on KGB payroll formulating Indian opinion and brainwashing Indian mind to such an extent that India lacked an Independent domestic and foreign policy until 1999.  Indians declared Soviet and Chinese to be their brothers and shied away from any meaningful contact with the western governments in terms of investment and exchange except Indian top brass’s unflinching loyalty to the British whose customs and language they used as their own. India was proclaimed a Socialist republic and stayed poor and backwards as long as so-called socialist leaders were leading it. In essence, India was not free because our domestic policy had been influenced by British in the beginning and later by the Soviet Union who had their own expansionist designs and a stronghold on Indian administration. Nehru was oblivious to any skill in statecraft and diplomacy and anti-Hindu as every decision he took bode ill for Hindu majority in India. Nehru did not envision any need of a strong armed forces, created border dispute with Pakistan when it was an outright aggression and should have been taken to the international court of justice, did not understand the need of a strong intelligence apparatus, joined a failed Nonaligned Movement and then aligned with Soviet Union in practice, overlooked all of the necessary steps that a leader of any newly freed nation needs to take to kickstart development, continued dynastic politics in India after British had left, lost Tibet, diminished Indian prestige and then got backstabbed by Mao. I am entirely sure that an avid reader and shrewd politician like Mao did not even consider Nehru as a stateman of equal stature. Hence, he employed Zhou Enlai to deal with an inferior and incapable Indian prime minster. I observe this stark difference because Mao had no qualms about hosting Richard Nixon who he must have treated as an equal. Nixon led the strongest democracy in the world and commanded respect. Nehru, on the other hand had lost entire Tibetan Plateau for India and brought Chinese army to the periphery of Indian mainland and centers of civilization and his ineptitude was on full display.

Mao acted as a regional hegemon who punished India by attacking Indian territory after Nehru was reciting slogans of Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai. Chinese attack on India was a limited war because Chinese themselves were very weak and thinly stretched. But they were better prepared, better armed and outnumbered Indians in terms of men and materiel. Mao practiced autocratic rule and dreamt of spreading his own brand of communism all over the world. Alas, he could not take it any further than North Korea and even China turned into an artificially managed robber baron capitalistic country after his demise though Maoism is still present in rhetorical form in few countries. Mao annexed Indian territory of Aksai Chin to give Chinese a psychological advantage and to strategically place his armed forces to encircle India. Nehru faltered as usual. There had been armed clashed between Indian and Chinese since 1959. This gave Nehru a window of three years to prepare but the situation on Indian side was so hopeless that Chinese attacked India and withdrew unilaterally and declared ceasefire after illegally occupying 38000 sq. kilometers of Indian land. Indian armed forces were sacrificed because Nehru did not know how to run a state. Mao had not only attacked but he even won on his own terms. This appeared to be a brilliant move and so it was till 2014. India was defeated and humiliated, but this cowardly act would give rise to Indian sentiment against China. Indian administration after Nehru were indignant towards Chinese but somewhat progress was made because of the public outcry. India after 1962 stayed like a sleeping giant and subsequent governments made no specific attempts to kickstart preparation and fortification of Indian boundary with Chinese. Even India’s Pakistan centric policy was neither preemptive nor strategic  but a result of series of  miscalculations that rogue Pakistani state had done in 1947, 1965, 1971, Kahlistani insurgency, Siachen ,proxy war against India in Kashmir, 1999 Kargil invasion and their acceptance of Chinese suzerainty after selling their country literally on the name of development and fulfillment of Chinese policy of strangling India. Policy of engagement that India has had with Pakistan and China has been a failure.

 There were millions of Indian nationalists whose voices were not entertained by Indian governments prior to 2014 except Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Indians were demanded to accept Chinese as their brother by the very administration that led India to defeat against China and the policy of dialogue and peaceful coexistence was practiced even after Mao had mocked us with viciousness. Arrival of Modi as an assertive and Nationalist leader has changed that equation. It is about time that Indian government has realized what true statecraft means. Chinese are deceptive, belligerent and calculating and India can give them the taste of their own medicine. Mao satisfied his ego when he punished India in 1962 in his mind. He underestimated Indian potential and failed to understand Indian culture and mindset. India has been around as long as China. Chinese are heavily influenced by Indians through the creed of Buddhism and not the other way around. India may have experienced 1000 years of outside rule and authority, but original Indian identity has survived. It is not by aggressive force but by sheer patience, philosophical understanding of life, strength of character, hard work, amicability and true secularism where other people and their beliefs are truly accepted by way of co-existence not just in name.  The world cannot understand Indian nationalism because the world is limited in their perspective. Confucius may have understood it, but Mao was a brute and he certainly did not. 

Many aggressors have come and gone, and China would be no different. A bully is usually convinced that he is the strongest and dictates what is right. What a bully fails to understand is being able to push people is the ultimate weakness and not strength. It is for everyone to see that European colonialism has almost fizzled out and breathing its last. Colonizers think in terms of greed and material wealth and China is the newest bully on the block. This colonizing and robbing mindset will be China’s undoing. Chinese expansion was in part made possible by Mao’s authoritarian rule where he wiped out Chinese intelligentsia on the name of communist ideology. Chinese communist party has always been nothing but a bunch of bullies who are pushing everyone around convinced that they know the best. Keeping the lid on their own people and their opinions is an evidence that Chinese bully is scared of imploding. Economic gains are keeping everyone quiet but that is always temporary.

India, on the other hand has grown steadily.  The world media is hardly independent and acts as a mouthpiece for interested parties and governments. The problems in India are highlighted and India is usually shown as a third world country. Carefully curated financial system and managed world order sees India as a weak, poor and upcoming nation. Mao’s assessment of India was limited to his interactions with the Indian government only. He must have been fed the information that he expected to hear as all bullies do. He saw Nehru to be a weak politician and a divider in chief and Indian government to be dependent on British thought and imagination which they were. He saw a poor nation, ravaged by British rule, weak, tired Indians who could not withstand Mao’s wrath. Mao observed a few Muslims getting a separate country and thought Indians to be like them. What he did not observe that people who demanded Pakistan represented Judeo-Abrahamic value system and not that of the Indian majority. He, just like, present day media did not take into account the Indian resilience and ability to withstand unimaginable pressures as a society. He failed to contemplate the tensile strength of India as a nation. It is not just the political boundaries that bind Indians, it is the freedom of expression through religious beliefs and atheism, freedom of sexuality and its articulation, a greater role of women in society, the universalism that even the Chinese travelers experienced. Indeed, I am talking about the India that existed before Islamic invasions, but that India is ever present in many Indians even today is eager to burst out in practice on a large scale. These social subtilties give India a foundation that Mao could not foresee. 

India is one nation that has understood live and let live. India has never been the aggressor. The natural bounty given to Indian heartland in terms of river deltas, monsoon rains and diverse flora and fauna have produced surplus societies from the beginning. Last 1000 years were an anomaly where those who ruled created artificial scarcity and especially British who ruined Indian agriculture and industry and then kept records of how poor the Indians were. Indian surplus gave ample time for Indian thought to be developed and thence India came to understand life and practiced universalism. What we see today is India experiencing dynamic change and as it reaches the surplus stage, the original belief system will reassert itself to its original form in thought i.e. to accept and absorb the outside and make it a part of its own as all are one. 

Even during this metamorphosis, India could have been one neighbor that stays in peace and is willing to let others go first. Pakistan imposed war on India and lost many times. The reason they exist is not Indian weakness but compromised Indian leadership of the past. Indian nationalist, however, would have absorbed Pakistan and they eventually will because what Pakistan is today has always been India. Same goes for Mao and his myopia. It is not the Chinese communism but the Indian pliability that will prevail. The so called and revered art of war describes war in its extreme form and in short term. What India has been practicing is the expansion in terms of social evolution. Indian thought is universal in nature and minor belief systems come and go or get absorbed with the tides of time. It is the flexibility of Indian belief system that is bound to outlast others because it accepts all and willing to adapt. Once again, Buddhist influence on Chinese is a burning example. 

I call Chinese attack Mao’s folly because he woke Indian sentiment up. India would have stayed like a sleeping giant, grown economically and a regional behemoth in demographic terms passing the message of peace and coexistence for ions to come. Deceptiveness that Mao displayed prepared India for not accepting another foreign rule. Again, the compromised Congress rule kept India weak for years and gave Chinese a head start, but the Chinese must realize that the only country that can match them in numbers is India. Technology and industrial might is something that India or any large country can match once they put their mind to it. Chinese so called pearls of a string strategy is going to be a noose around China. Had Mao envisioned correctly and chosen India as a friend, Chinese economy and universal aspirations would have flourished. Mao and China could have won if they understood the Indian mindset and engaged India and not attacked it especially when Indian leadership was contemplating not having armed forces. 

1962 was the opportunity lost for China. They won the battle, but they will lose the war. They misappropriated Indian character as their own and engaged Pakistan. Common sense dictates that engaging regional player like India would have been a far better approach than hosting smaller states like Pakistan and others. World history has taught us that small states are economically not feasible until aided by a fragile peace maintained by larger nations, are a political liability and open to vile machinations of the bigger powers. Europeans have understood this and that is why they have created European union. Mao seems to be intelligent enough to have understood this as he unified China, but his reliance on smaller states instead of directly appealing India casts doubt on his vision.  The proxy state, Pakistan will start exporting terrorism back to the Chinese through the economic corridor that China has built.  Muslim genocide in western China, Pakistan’s failure as a state and lack of economic prospects for the madrassa trained youth will take care of that. Economic imperialism that Mao laid foundation of is going to turn Chinese colonies against the master as already evident in Africa. USA is the strongest nation as of now, is geographically distant and even the best navy in the world can be vulnerable but is an ever-present threat to the Chinese. Russia will turn against the Chinese because of their departure from communism, reemergence of religion and racial differences. Europe is just a fancy place that Chinese travel and Europe will be an accessory to whosoever in power, but European protectionist policies and thought of democracy is entrenched deeply enough to maintain appropriate distance from China strategically. India has allied itself timely with United States, Australia and Japan and is the only country that has enough boots on the ground to match China in terms of labor and manpower reaching military age. It is not the battlefield that will defeat China and its might. It will be Indian thought, freedom and universalism that will trump Chinese domination and strangulation. Had Mao understood it, he would have made India an ally. India would have been a peaceful neighbor, the biggest market, and probably a comrade nation in arms but Mao and his ego ruined all that. Chinese are ascending and they are dying to reach the pinnacle of the world stage. What Mao and China could have learnt from India is that we all belong to the same species and whole point of technology and coming together is not forcing ones will on others, but to find a way to co-exist. Mao’s insistence on bashing thought and ingenuity is one of the main reasons that Chinese growth depends on intellectual theft and hacking. His quashing of the dissident movements led to one party rule that will leave China a powder keg waiting to explode as internal pressure builds in. Chinese policy of building a digital curtain is an evidence that Chinese populace yearns for freedom and political change as observed in Hongkong. Chinese people may be quiet now, but the economic surplus will eventually lead to thought provocation, critical analysis and self-introspection. As Chinese travel the world, they are bound to pick up new ideologies and I can project that Chinese people will defy artificial control. Mao’s policy of uncalled aggression that continues to date will be the harbinger of China’s fall. China faces an adversary in India which would be the last nail in the coffin. With Indian nationalism and self-confidence on the rise, two powers are on a collision course that Mao could have easily altered. Biased commentators and analysts usually speak ill of India and praise Chinese because they are used to evaluating countries on a monetary basis, and currently Chinese are on the rise. India will find its place on the economic scale as it has a robust economy and one of the largest populations in the world. Readers must remember that every country face dilemmas and challenges. Internal communist movements, misplaced ideologies in the guise of liberalism, radical islamists and corruption at many levels of society are obstacles India needs to surmount. Fortunately, India happens to be a nation who is willing to address country specific issues for the first time in a millennium. Indian ascent has begun and once the internal course of the country is corrected and remaining Maoist trojan horses, misguided youths, ideologues and traitors are dealt with, India will attain regional supremacy. As the Chinese market saturates and world starts opposing Chinese persistence on controlling society and suppressing criticism, they will look towards India. Indian insistence on self-reliance in industry, vigorous domestic economy and demographic bounty, accentuated with time honored tradition of respecting others will fill the void created by Chinese deception and swindling. As India grows and streamlines its manufacturing and generates more revenue, its military might will increase and Mao’s folly will come full circle.  Chinese threat will assure that India becomes an equal or better power and once India begins to flex its muscles, Chinese proxy states in Indian neighborhood will be the first to fall and only the time will tell who comes next?

May24th, 2020

LAcolumnist