The Hoover Institution hosted Xi Jinping’s Himalayan Overreach on Friday, January 15 from 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. PDT.
Chinese expansionism under Xi Jinping is injecting greater instability and tension into the Indo-Pacific region. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the relationship between China and India, which make up more than a third of humanity and over a fifth of the global economy. That relationship has come under severe strain following China’s stealth encroachments in the northernmost borderlands of Ladakh in 2020. The aggression promises to sharpen the rivalry between the two Asian giants and engender important changes in Indian defense, trade and foreign policies.
After his remarks, Professor Chellaney will join Hoover Institution Fellows Larry Diamond and David Mulford in conversation.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Brahma Chellaney is a professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi and a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin. He has held appointments at Harvard University, the Brookings Institution, Australian National University and the Nobel Institute, Oslo. He is author of nine books, including Water: Asia’s New Battleground (Georgetown University Press), which won the Bernard Schwartz Award.
Larry Diamond is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He chairs Hoover’s project on China’s Global Sharp Power. His most recent book is Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency (2019).
David Mulford is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. As US ambassador to India (2004-2009), he played a key role in fostering the growing partnership between New Delhi and Washington. Amb. Mulford has also served as chairman international at Credit Suisse, assistant secretary and undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs (1984-1992), and senior investment advisor to the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (1974-1983). He has a DPhil from Oxford University.
WATCH THE DISCUSSION
The Hoover Institution’s project on China’s Global Sharp Power presented a virtual program about China’s incursion into India’s northern border region of Ladakh in 2020, featuring remarks by Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. Chellaney’s remarks were followed by a discussion and audience question-and-answer period that also included Distinguished Visiting Fellow David Mulford and Senior Fellow Larry Diamond, the project’s chair. Research Fellow Glenn Tiffert, the project’s executive director, moderated the conversation.
Chellaney explained that China’s motives in Ladakh are based on cutting off the Himalayan borderland’s links to Tibet and constitute a form of territorial revisionism similar to their claims in the East and South China Seas. He stressed that India’s nationwide COVID-19 lockdown policies left the borderlands vulnerable to attack and that Beijing’s actions represented a broader threat to the freedom and openness of the Indo-Pacific region. Additionally, Chellaney predicted an Indian military buildup and further integration into the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) group of nations, which also includes the United States, Australia, and Japan; that China’s President Xi Jinping was sowing the seeds for an enduring conflict with India; and a drastic decoupling of commercial ties between India and China.
Mulford, who served as US ambassador to India from 2004 to 2009, asserted that the United States and its security partners have reached a critical juncture in which they need to define China’s status as either a competitor or adversary. He suggested that the free world needs to be unanimous in its decision so that Beijing cannot play countries off one another in pursuit of its ambitions. Diamond argued that China’s recent aggression is akin to Germany’s actions against Czechoslovakia in the run up to the Second World War. The discussion also covered China’s control over water and natural resources in Southeast Asia, the growing ties between China and Pakistan, and the impact of US troop withdrawals from Afghanistan on the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific region.
