Book Review | Communists & ultranationalists: China, India fell out 6 centuries back

Having read and reviewed many books on China published since the Wuhan Virus outbreak and then reading this one and chatting with its author even as this writer finishes writing his own book on the subject, the thought arises that perhaps it would not be wrong to tag the Communist Party of China as the greatest threat to mankind.

Red Fear: The China Threat catalogues, evaluates and infers the consequences of the political and military confrontations between India and China from the 15th through the 21st century. Contrary to the diplomatese about a congruence of values and interests between these two nations, the relationship has been confrontational and antagonistic throughout this span.

Having learnt the lessons of history better than India, China bided its time and positioned itself to humiliate India whenever possible as retribution for the perceived harm India and Indians did to its society and economy during the infamous Chinese century of humiliation between 1839 and 1940.

The 2020 Galwan situation is reminiscent of the challenge India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru faced in 1962 and the identical challenge India’s 14th Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces in 2020. Vedic philosophy argues that time is cyclical, not linear, and by this argument the year 2020 completes a 60-year cycle that began in 1960. How Mr Modi responds to this challenge will define India’s relationship with China as well as its position in the world.

The book is unique as it packs some very important, significant, eye-opening and fascinating events.

The first Chinese incursion into India was in September 1420 when a naval armada commanded by the eunuch Admiral Hou Xian sailed up the Ganges to threaten the king of Jaunpur, Raja Ganesh. Did India defeating the Chinese Qing Empire’s troops in 1840 and crushing the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 deeply prejudice the first-generation leadership of the Communist Party of China and influence their actions towards India after they assumed power in 1949? How did the Indian Army keep China subdued between 1839 and 1939?

What role did the three highly classified British seismic and acoustic nuclear monitoring stations called “Stowage”, “Tagday” and “Beaver” located in the Gilgit Agency by the banks of the Indus river close to the Hindu Kush range play in the de facto partition of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in October 1947? What role did they play in the transfer of the Shaksgam Valley by Pakistan to China?

Were the orders for the invasion of Aksai Chin issued by Mao Zedong from Moscow in December 1949 at Stalin’s behest? The PLA’s 15th Regiment, originally a part of the 359th Brigade of the PLA, had crossed into Aksai Chin at Haji Langar east of the Karakash river sometime in March 1950 to secure the region and start construction of a road to Rutog in Tibet.

On October 14, 1962, did Soviet leader Khrushchev assure outgoing Chinese ambassador Liu Xiao of Soviet support for a Chinese invasion of India?

Khrushchev had confided in Liu Xiao that he had been secretly installing nuclear missiles in Cuba and he hoped for Mao’s support in return. Both the Chinese invasion of India and the Cuban missile crisis kicked off on October 20, 1962.

Was Lt Gen. Sagat Singh’s move to hold Nathu La first in 1965 and then again in 1967 the basis for Gen. K. Sunderji’s bold moves at Sumdorong Chu in 1986 and 1987? These victories did redeem the honour of the Indian Army that was lost in NEFA (North East Frontier Agency) in 1962.

And finally, is China using the Wuhan virus as a weapon of opportunity against the US, India and the nations dependent on free passage through the South China Sea? Is this weapon a part of the Chinese strategy of unrestricted warfare?

The book also reveals that the partnership that the UK had with its Indian colony in subjugating and destroying the Qing Empire and later enslaving over a quarter of its male population to the addiction of opium created an unresolved angst within the psyche of the Chinese leadership. The book encompasses the sweep of history in its revelation of hitherto classified truths so that impacted thinkers and leaders develop strategies to keep their nations free from dominance by a single emerging hegemon.

Another major revelation in the book is the compulsion behind China’s hunt for water and “the web of deceit and lie” behind China’s land grab and water theft in the Himalayas and Karakoram mountain ranges since 1950.

This is Iqbal Malhotra’s second book after his bestseller Kashmir’s Untold Story: Declassified he co-authored in 2019 with Maroof Raza, who has written the introduction in this book. A member of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Malhotra, who served on the panel of jurors for the Emmys, is currently the chairman and producer at AIM Television Pvt. Ltd. and directed three award-winning feature documentaries. The book is a must-read for China watchers.