Whatever state China and India are in today have strong roots when the became modern republics.
A country that comes on top is the one that is willing to dominate and get its hands dirty.
US grew because it grew at whatever cost and ripped out the talent out of Europe when it got the chance. It maximized its benefits and ruthlessly crushed Japan and kept it under check since then. Whenever any threat to its dominance appeared, it crushed the threat. There were mishaps, but generally, that's how US state behaved.
China too had the same ambition, if in a different flavor. Right since the days of Mao, China never really tried to be 'your friendly neighborhood country'. Mao might be called anything but he was a very good strategist. Unlike our coconut mulla, he had the foresight to see China would benefit by conquering Xinjiang, Tibet and other regions. China proper would be secured and China would only have to face the threat of USSR (if conflict ever arises).
Even as China grew rich, the slogan was to hide your light and bide your time. Bide your time for what? World Domination, in one form or another, had always been a Chinese civilizational dream so to speak. It's a unifying narrative that rings across all echelons of their society. They didn't have the resources to achieve even a fraction of that dream, but they always had the will and worked for the capabilities. This domination might not be a military domination per se, but more of a hegemony, like how US controls its vassals today in private but calls them allies in public.
For better or worse, US is China's bogeymen. Due to the very nature of its govt, CCP has to be cautious of US. So, US is their default enemy. Even if US does nothing but exist, China will try to dominate US, without inflicting major costs on itself.
So, regardless of what US does, China wants to advance forward. On one hand, it says the development is for people—which is true—CCP's social contract is economic development of its populace. But equally true is that China wants to grow so that it can remove the only threat it has—US. I think the Chinese are very clear on this. The target has always been the US.
According to some articles I browsed in the past, while China considered US to be its enemy, it also sought to learn from US' economic might. But the 2008 crisis brought a massive perception shift. After the disaster, US no longer 'qualified' to be China's teacher. By then, China reached top 3 in economy and was roughly a third of US in gdp.
With both changes in perception and new capabilities, Xi's ascent was the final nail in the coffin. The Civil-Military fusion, the rapid and massive modernization and the massive propaganda, spy network, debt diplomacy—all took place in just one decade.
China is in the next phase. In a way, it stopped 'catching' up with US and started competing with it in the cutting edge technologies. In some areas, it's actually doing better. US' key advantage has always been the massive talent and insane capital to invest in that talent to lead in cutting edge technologies. China is using its vast population pool and its own money as well as the global investors' to build its own technology to compete with the US.
While this cold war continues, an increasingly richer and stronger China will try to make permanent changes to the world. It might or might not be through a full-scale war. But if needed, China could possibly opt for a short but intense 'military operation' of sorts. If a much smaller Russia could shake Europe from sanctions, what would sanctions on a highly integrated Chinese economy result in?
The Galwan, violating Taiwan's airspace, or poking Japan's disputed islands—these are all done at a very precise measure. They're small enough to not warrant a major military response but large enough to achieve their targets.
Against India, China has the massive resources and technological advantages. They have the 'initiative'. When China likes, it can cause another galwan, clash with Indian soldiers, for whatever reason it might be—political, economic or just to distract its people or to check India's military preparedness.
These aren't big things for Chinese state because they are simply poking the elephant and seeing its response. They know we don't want war and they'll exploit that to the fullest.
India needs a strategic vision and honestly, a desire to dominate. I'm not saying we should be wishing for chaos, but to fulfill our strategic vision, we must be willing to resort to violence, overtly or covertly.
We're still playing catching up with China and US. Today, they're very far ahead of us. While it's good to celebrate that we're number 5 and would be reaching number 3 spot, we need a solid vision and the strategic thinking to become The Top Dog.
Our first trial is our own neighborhood. We need to dominate or at least, keep the subcontinent under control—especially pakistan and the radicalizing Bangladesh. Now, instead of thinking like we usually did—end terrorism in pakistan or make more ties with Bangladesh and improve economic ties and it'll solve all problems—we need to try solve these problems at the very root.
The root issue is simple. Muslims, at least, south asian muslims are very susceptible to mullas, medias and basically all brainwashing by anything 'Islamic'. It's probably illiteracy or poverty or maybe it's just the way muslims are. We should look for a way to put a full stop to the existing radicalization and also prevent any possiibility of radicalization in the future. Soviet Union comes to mind. So does Saudi. Or other countries that have successfully kept their population de-radicalized and even sort of immunized their society at large.
Anyway, what we need is Strategic Thinking and for the Long Run.
For all our strategic ambitions, we need to grow rich and grow rich fast. Being $6T economy when we have 2 or 3 countries with $3T or $4T won't put us in a different league from them. Our goal should be to cross EU at least. It's almost a static target, set at some $18 T. The day we cross the entire EU, there'd be no doubt about our economic prowess. We'd be in the big three.
If we keep the right mindset of thinking, then we'd be focusing on acquiring the critical technologies or at least having control over them. Make our own chips, weapons, electronics and big internet platforms like google, facebook & amazon. These big companies are ultimately American. We can't trust them in critical times. The fact that we rely on them so much now should be alarming. We need our home grown ecosystems. There are technologies we need to catch up in. Lots of them. It's a long, long journey, possibly for our entire generation.
At least by 2040, we should've caught up with them and start competing. For that, we need to plan and act from now.
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