Will China and India become best friends?
What do Spengler's predictions say about the rapprochement of China and India, today rivals. Marco Orioles's article
Are we about to witness an unprecedented alignment between two historical strategic rivals such as China and India at the expense of the traditional alliance between Beijing and Delhi's main enemy, namely Pakistan?
The prediction of "Spengler"
What appears as a risky prediction – made by an analyst, David P. Goldman, who hides under the suggestive pseudonym of Spengler – turns out instead to be a real fact deriving from the iron laws of demography which, while they are condemning the population to decline China will see India maintain its current Asian giant levels and Pakistan explode.
The socio-cultural dimension is added to the demographic trends, which makes societies with a high level of education and consequent low fertility such as those of China and India more similar to those of a Muslim Asia still immersed in the archaisms of tradition.
China and Pakistan
If you look at it through the lens of history and current events, relations between China and Pakistan appear stronger than ever, Goldman recalls.
There is not only the Chinese investment of 62 billion dollars as part of the maxi project of the Silk Roads which involves the construction of the economic corridor between the two countries. There is also the concrete reality of Beijing's military supplies, which allow the Islamabad air force to show off, in addition to the US F-16s, the Chinese J-10C fighter.
Furthermore, it cannot be forgotten that it was the People's Republic that made the know-how for its nuclear program available to Pakistan. A collaboration continued with the support of both countries for another extremely dangerous nuclear program: that of the Kim dynasty of North Korea.
And who, if not China, did former Prime Minister Imran Khan turn to over a $ 9 billion bailout that last February prevented Pakistan from defaulting on loans maturing in June?
According to the IMF's calculation, Islamabad has a mountain of debt to repay to China, worth $ 18.4 billion.
China and India
In view of China's embrace of Pakistan, but also of Beijing's border disputes with Delhi, which were reignited violently with deaths on both sides just last year, the alignment of the Communist superpower with the world's most populous democracy has all the air of being the most unlikely of predictions an analyst would put his signature on.
Spengler, however, is convinced of this because, just as the philosopher author of The Sunset of the West did at the dawn of the twentieth century, he tries hard to look beyond the surface.
And what can be glimpsed back there, what future scenario? Unassailable facts are being glimpsed that will force China to make profound reflections and reassessments of its international position.
The iron laws of demography between opportunities and threats
It will happen that, as the 21st century progresses and the inexorable effects of demographic decline appear, an increasingly aging China with a steadily diminishing workforce will have to decide who to relate to: whether with a populous, young and cultured Indian society that offers endless investment opportunities or that of a country like Pakistan, whose macroscopic demographic growth is the result of backwardness and persistence of a cultural and religious nature which – the harsh reality of radical Islam teaches – represent a formidable threat to Beijing's priorities.
For China, the choice should therefore not be difficult. Having to manage, in Xinjiang and beyond, a substantial and problematic Islamic minority that already sees it in the international spotlight for the well-known case of Uyghur re-education camps, China can only look with fear at the massive demographic growth of Muslim Asia, which soon – according to UN forecasts – it will have a population equal to that of India and China combined.
The UN forecasts
It is therefore an invitation, that of Spengler, to look at tectonic shifts, at the underlying megatrends as a formidable element of evaluation.
Once again, the UN warns: the Chinese population aged between 15 and 49 will halve over the course of the century, while that of India will grow, albeit slightly, and those of countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan will explode.
But while the traditional societies of Pakistan and Afghanistan will continue to exhibit third world literacy rates, that of India will retain its current characteristics that make it dynamic and advanced.
Who to stay with?
A relatively prosperous but aging society like China needs to find destinations for its savings. The now saturated US market will soon no longer represent the traditional safe haven for Chinese wealth.
From this point of view, the choice of partners should be obvious. Certainly not unstable regimes like that of Pakistan where never, in 80 years of history, has a prime minister finished his mandate, or that of Taliban Afghanistan. Rather, it is the evolved Indian society, with its literacy rate currently equal to 77%, much higher than that which Pakistan (58% of men and 43% of women) or Afghanistan (55% and 30%) are currently facing. .
India: towards a hug (unloading Pakistan)?
Given these premises, it is easy to reach conclusions. “India – writes Spengler – is the only country in the world with a large population and an adequate system of government capable of absorbing Chinese savings. For its part, China does better than other countries exactly the things India needs, that is, material and digital infrastructures ”.
India, continues Spengler, "still relies on a railway system built by the British at the beginning of the 20th century … it needs railways, highways, ports, power plants: all of which China has learned to build more efficiently. of others in the world ".
Here is the alternative to pharaonic but risky investments, given the inherent political instability of Muslim Asia, such as that of the Belt and Road .
He uses?
Spengler's predictions are also a warning to the US which, although it plans to incorporate India into its own orbit, has bad relations with Delhi.
We have even reached a half diplomatic crisis on human rights with mutual accusations of violations: not exactly the viaticum for a strategic alliance.
America will therefore do well to evaluate its future steps to prevent the China-India bond that demographics would herald next.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/cina-india-spengler/ on Thu, 05 May 2022 05:10:14 +0000.