China’s red hawk aims at India

Who authored the controversial Chinese article that advances a strategy for ‘balkanising’ India and how far does it reflect the official Chinese position?

The over-the-top hawkish article, which appeared on the Chinese-language website of a strategic affairs thinktank, was attributed to ‘Zhan Lüe’, which is evidently a pseudonym. In Chinese, the name means ‘strategy’. Over the past few months, the same author has kept up a steady stream of jingoistic and provocative articles directed at India, always writing in Chinese for domestic consumption.

For instance, in November 2008, days before the Mumbai terror attacks, ‘Zhan Lüe’ built up a scenario for a ‘partial war’ between India and China, citing Indian “provocations” and opposition to China’s diversion of water resources. On other occasions, he has talked of the need to “contain” India if it “meddled with” Pakistan, a country which China considers an “all-weather” ally.

There’s been some speculation that ‘Zhan Lüe’ is a high-level Communist Party cadre, but it’s impossible to verify his identity. In the past, his articles have showcased some intimate knowledge of Chinese strategic affairs, although his latest — on the balkanisation of India — perhaps reflects an inadequate understanding of the capacity of the Indian polity to bring secessionist movements into the political mainstream.
The official Chinese line is to disassociate itself from any such shrill war-mongering.

“Such views reflect low political wisdom,” Fudan University professor Shen Dingli told DNA. “Don’t take these things seriously.” Such rhetoric in the Chinese media, he added, “is wrong”.