As both India and China try and vie for increasing the influence in the African continent, the difference in the approach they adopted become evident. Both countries have been providing assistance in Africa amid the COVID pandemic. This article analyses the difference in the approach of the two countries.

Impact of covid pandemic in Africa

• Although African countries moved quickly to curb the initial spread, they are still woefully ill-equipped to cope with a public health emergency.
• They are facing shortages of masks, ventilators, and even basic necessities such as soap and water.
• Such conditions have meant that Africa’s cycle of chronic external aid dependence continues.
• Africa needs medical protective equipment and gear to support its front line public health workers.
• India and China have increased their outreach to Africa through medical assistance.
• Their efforts are directed to fill a part of the growing African need at a time when not many others have stepped in to help.

China’s donation diplomacy in Africa

• China, being Africa’s largest trading partner, was quick to signal its intent to help Africa cope with the pandemic.
• It despatched medical protective equipment, testing kits, ventilators, and medical masks to several African countries.
• The primary motive of such donations has been to raise Beijing’s profile as a leading provider of humanitarian assistance and “public goods” in the global public health sector.
• China’s billionaire philanthropy was also in full display when tech founder Jack Ma donated three rounds of anti-coronavirus supplies.
• Chinese embassies across Africa have taken the lead by coordinating both public and private donations to local stakeholders.
• However, the sub-optimal quality of China’s medical supplies and its deputing of medical experts have been a major cause for concern.

Let’s understand the objectives of China’s donation diplomacy

• Beijing’s ‘donation diplomacy’ in Africa aims to achieve three immediate objectives:
• 1) Shift the focus away from talking about the origins of the virus in Wuhan.
• 2) Build goodwill overseas.
• 3) Establish an image makeover.
• For the most part, it succeeded in achieving these ends until China faced widespread backlash over the ill-treatment of African nationals in Guangzhou city.
• The issue quickly grew into a full-blown political crisis for Beijing.

Let’s analyse the depth of China’s political influence in Africa

• For the most part, China has been successful in controlling the Guangzhou narrative due to the depth of its political influence in Africa.
• It is no secret that China relies heavily on diplomatic support and cooperation from African countries on key issues in multilateral fora.
• For example, Beijing used African support for securing a win for Chinese candidates as the head of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and in the World Health Organization (WHO).
• On Africa’s part, the problem lies in the deep disjuncture and credibility gap between Africa’s governing class, the people, the media and civil society.
• Even when criticisms have been levelled against Chinese indiscretions, it has hardly ever surfaced at the elite level.
• Overall, China’s donation diplomacy towards Africa during COVID-19 has received mixed reactions, but Beijing’s advantage lies in its economic heft and political influence in Africa.

Understanding India’s diplomacy in Africa: Responsible and reliable global stakeholder

• For India, the pandemic presents an opportunity to demonstrate its willingness and capacity to shoulder more responsibility.
• The fact that even with limited resources, India can fight the virus at home while reaching out to developing countries in need is testament to India’s status as a responsible and reliable global stakeholder.
• Nowhere has India’s developmental outreach been more evident than in Africa with the continent occupying a central place in Indian government’s foreign and economic policy in the last six years.
• Africa has been the focus of India’s development assistance and also diplomatic outreach, as evident in plans to open 18 new embassies.
• These efforts have been supplemented by an improved record of Indian project implementation in Africa.

Trade ties and cooperation amid pandemic

• India’s role as ‘the pharmacy of the world’, as the supplier of low-cost, generic medicines is widely acknowledged.
• Pharmaceutical products along with refined petroleum products account for 40% of India’s total exports to African markets.
• India is sending consignments of essential medicines, including hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and paracetamol, to 25 African countries in addition to doctors and paramedics at a total cost of around ₹600 million ($7.9 million) on a commercial and grant basis.
• The initial beneficiaries were the African Indian Ocean island nations of Mauritius, the Seychelles, Comoros, and Madagascar under India’s ‘Mission Sagar’.
• While transportation and logistics remain a concern, most of the consignments have already reached various African states.
• A timely initiative has been the e-ITEC COVID-19 management strategies training webinars exclusively aimed at training health-care professionals from Africa and the SAARC nations and sharing of best practices by Indian health experts.
• Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius, and Namibia have been beneficiaries.
• Across Africa, there is a keen interest to understand the developments and best practices in India because the two share similar socioeconomic and developmental challenges.
• There is also growing interest in research and development in drugs and vaccines.
• A few African countries such as Mauritius are pushing for health-care partnerships in traditional medicines and Ayurveda for boosting immunity.
• The Indian community, especially in East African countries, has also been playing a crucial role in helping spread awareness.
• Prominent Indian businessmen and companies in Nigeria and Kenya have donated money to the respective national emergency response funds.
• Country-specific chapters of gurdwaras and temples have fed thousands of families by setting up community kitchens, helplines for seniors and distributing disinfectants and sanitisers.

The contrast between approaches adopted by India and China

• Both India and China, through their respective health and donation diplomacy, are vying to carve a space and position for themselves as reliable partners of Africa in its time of need.
• Burnishing their credentials as humanitarian champions is the name of the game.
• But there are significant differences in the approaches.
• For China, three aspects are critical:
• 1) Money, political influence and elite level wealth creation.
• 2) Strong state-to-state relations as opposed to people-to-people ties.
• 3) Hard-infrastructure projects and resource extraction.
• India’s approach, on the other hand, is one that focuses on building local capacities and an equal partnership with Africans and not merely with African elites concerned.

Consider the question “Both India and China have been playing an active role in the African continent and vying for the outreach there. But there is a fundamental difference in their approach. Comment.”

Conclusion

As these two powers rise in Africa, their two distinct models will come under even greater scrutiny. And both New Delhi and Beijing might find that they need to adapt to the rising aspirations of the African continent.

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Yet again, India and China are engaged in a standoff on the border. But why the issues persist even after four agreements with a view to solve the boundary problem? This article explains the problem in wording of the agreement. And also explains the lack of intent from China’s part.

Four agreements: vision of progress or strategic illusion?

•  At the heart of India’s and China’s continued inability to make meaningful progress on the boundary issue are four agreements.
• Those agreements were signed in September 1993, November 1996, April 2005 and October 2013 — between the two countries.
• Ironically, India and China keep referring to these agreements as the bedrock of the vision of progress on the boundary question.
• Unfortunately, these are deeply flawed agreements.
• And also make the quest for settlement of the boundary question at best a strategic illusion and at worst a cynical diplomatic parlour trick.

Let’s look into LAC provision in 1993 and 1996 agreements

• According to the 1993 agreement, “pending an ultimate solution”, “the two sides shall strictly respect and observe the LAC between the two sides… No activities of either side shall overstep the LAC”.
• Further, both the 1993 and the 1996 agreement—on confidence-building measures in the military field along the LAC— say they “will reduce or limit their respective military forces within mutually agreed geographical zones along the LAC.”
• This was to apply to major categories of armaments and cover various other aspects as well, including air intrusions “within ten kilometres along the LAC”.

Okay, but where is the LAC?

• The specification of this phantom LAC as the starting point and the central focus has made several key stipulations and articles of the four agreements effectively inoperable for more than a quarter of a century.
• In fact, many of the articles have no bearing on the ground reality.
• Article XII of the 1996 agreement, for instance, says, “This agreement is subject to ratification and shall enter into force on the date of exchange of instruments of ratification.”
• It is not clear if and when that happened.
• Nowhere in the 1993 agreement is there the provision to recognise the existing lines of deployment of the respective armies, as they were in 1993.
• The agreement does not reflect any attempt to have each side recognise the other’s line of deployment of troops at the time it was signed.
• That would have been the logical starting point.
• If both armies are to respect the LAC, where is the line?
• The ambiguity over the LAC has brought a prolonged sense of unease and uncertainty and thus exponentially contributed to the military build-up in those areas.
• The absence of a definition of this line allows ever new and surreptitious advances on the ground.

What could have been done?

• Had the 1993 agreement begun the exercise with the phrase “pending an ultimate solution, each side shall strictly respect and observe the line of existing control/deployment” instead of the “LAC”, it would have been more possible to keep the peace.
• In such a case there would have been two existing lines of control on the map — one for the physical deployment of the Chinese troops and the other for the physical deployment of the Indian troops.
• This would have rendered the areas between the two lines no man’s land, and would have ensured that the two armies were frozen in their positions.

The issue of two LAC in the eastern and western sector

• The LAC is two hypothetical lines in the following two sectors-
• 1) In the eastern sector, where the Chinese have not accepted the loosely defined McMahon line which follows the principle of watershed.
• 2) The western sector, which is witnessing another episodic stand-off.
• The first is what Indian troops consider the extent to which they can dominate through patrols, which is well beyond the point where they are actually deployed and present.
• The second is what the Chinese think they effectively control, which is well south of the line they were positioned at in 1993.

Why map exchange didn’t happen for the western sector?

• It is in this theatre of the militarily absurd that we should look at the outcome of the attempted exchange of maps in the western sector.
• It is the sector where this round of confrontation continues between India and China.
• This came after the exchange of maps in the middle sector.
• In the middle sector, divergences were the least, i.e., the existing line and the Chinese and Indian idea of the LAC were more or less the same (in 2002).
• The Foreign Secretary India and the head of the Chinese delegation, met in New Delhi in 2003 for sharing the map of the western sector.
• It had been agreed that both sides would exchange maps to an agreed scale on each side’s perceptions of the location of the LAC in the western sector.
• The idea was to superimpose the maps to see where the perceptions converged and, crucially, where they diverged.
• Due to the contentious nature of the sector, it would provide a starting point, not the end point, to discuss how to reconcile divergences presumed to be significant, given Chinese military behaviour on the ground there.
• Each side handed over its map to the other.
• But, head of the Chinese delegation gave it a long, hard look, and wordlessly returned it.
• They provided no reason for their action.
• The meeting effectively ended there.

Consider the question “Examine the reasons for the persistent nature of the India-China border issue.”

Conclusion

By disregarding the map, China is not bound in any way by New Delhi’s perception of the LAC, and therefore does not have to limit liberty of action. This was evident then and is especially evident now. Because the nature of the terrain, deployment, and infrastructure and connectivity asymmetries in the border areas continue to be so starkly in China’s favour that it is clear that the Chinese are in no hurry to settle the boundary question. They see that the cost to India in keeping this question open suits them more than settling the issue.

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