Page 2 of 2 Triangulating an Asian conflict
By Chan Akya
Simply put, a Taliban government with nuclear capabilities is unlikely to treat
China any differently - better or worse - than it treats India over the longer
term.
The emerging economic slowdown - sparking talk of a government stimulus package
in short order - presents a casus belli for the majority Han. Frowning
on the subsidies and handouts to minority groups will become more prevalent
when millions lose their jobs in the manufacturing belts of southern China. The
majority group believes that the minorities are already spoiled in terms of
their ability to have more than one child as well as benefiting from a plethora
of handouts. That resentment will become palpable in the
face of any protests about human rights and the like in China - which is
exactly what has happened over the recent past.
The Beijing Olympics highlighted a sensitive weakness for Han Chinese, namely
how to reconcile to their existence when issues of trust are clearly paramount.
Taking the paranoia to its extreme, the government assigned Han children to
play the part of ethnic children in the opening ceremony in order to preclude
even the remote chance of someone whisking out and waving a Muslim or Tibetan
flag from under their costumes.
In turn, this resurgence of Han nationalism - that only the majority group can
be trusted to represent China and its interests - causes its own set of
complications. Getting along with minority groups requires vastly greater
amounts of trust than the current wave of Han nationalism seems capable of
showing. That will cause alienation of minority groups, with an automatic
feedback loop to perpetuating Han dominance. Needless to say, that puts Han
China in a direct path of conflict with any new Islamic power in South Asia.
Echoing the behavior of the Chinese during the Tibetan riots earlier this year,
India's Hindus have gone on the warpath in the eastern state of Orissa, against
Christian missionaries who they claim are illegally converting their members.
Even as the Han are pushing for greater dominance over their own affairs in
China, India's Hindus appear to be rebelling under a similar impulse in their
country.
Having already outlawed untouchability, India's approach to the problem needs
to be socio-economic. I have consistently argued that the key issue for India
is to pursue economic development and to destroy poverty in all its guises -
rural and urban - rather than the simplistic questions of handouts and welfare
payments that politicians seem to be prefer. That path, which necessitates
infrastructure building, better schooling and access to healthcare, is more or
less an afterthought in the current climate of short-term goal-setting by the
government.
It is these handouts that democratic India is up in arms about. With an
economic slowdown underway, various sections of Indian society are in greater
need of government attention, whether it is in the form of infrastructure
building or simple handouts. Conversions within geographically concentrated
groups create lobbying power, which has in turn led to policy intervention in
funding and budget allocations by politicians eager to capture votes. With an
election due by next year, political behavior has shifted up a gear in India,
with the almost inevitable result of sparking violent confrontations among
interest groups.
In the past, these confrontations used to be within the construct of Hinduism
but have now seeped out to encompass other religious groups. That is no
surprise given that Indians of all religions - including Christianity - still
observe caste segregation in one fashion or another.
The current wave of Hindu fanaticism isn't about putting the right-wing
political parties into power, seeing as they seem to have had little impact in
the matter. Rather, it seems like an incident in one part of the country that
has lit the fuse of Hindu nationalism elsewhere. This is where the echoes to
Han Chinese resurgence since the Tibetan events become more relevant.
Thus, the indomitable force of Islamic fundamentalism that emerges from
Pakistan will have to confront the immovable objects of Han and Hindu
resurgence. It is well likely that the first course of action will be against
the well-known enemy of India rather than the scarier opponent in China, but
that is a relatively minor detail in that it only applies over the relative
near term.
The last one?
As a postscript to the above, one thought that does strike a chord is the
likelihood that future US elections will matter a whole lot less to the rest of
the world. The decline of the sole superpower, along with a concurrent
emergence of alternative powers on the military, ideological and economic
fronts, means that parts of the global media could well be disengaged from US
election reviews - that is, regurgitating the latest specials from US media
outlets - to doing something a lot more productive in their own backyards.
The opposite side of that loop is that the column inches devoted to candidate
discussions could well decline in the US media itself, as the relative
importance of the rest of the world becomes increasingly apparent.
At least, I hope so.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
