China Center Program Manager Shane Leary joins Miles Yu to discuss Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States and how India fits into the struggle between the US and China. They then talk about the anniversary of the Hong Kong National Security Law and its enduring ramifications for freedom in Hong Kong, before turning to a new human rights report, which ranks China dead last globally across multiple dimensions. Follow the China Center's work at: https://www.hudson.org/china-center
China Center Program Manager Shane Leary joins Miles Yu to discuss Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States and how India fits into the struggle between the US and China. They then talk about the anniversary of the Hong Kong National Security Law and its enduring ramifications for freedom in Hong Kong, before turning to a new human rights report, which ranks China dead last globally across multiple dimensions.
Follow the China Center's work at: https://www.hudson.org/china-center
Miles Yu:
Welcome to China Insider, a podcast from Hudson Institute's China Center.
Shane Leary:
It's Wednesday, July 5th, and we have three topics for today. The first is a look back at the recent visit to the US by Indian Prime Minister Modi and how India fits into the strategic struggle between China and the US. The second is the anniversary of the Hong Kong National Security Law and its enduring ramifications for freedom in Hong Kong. And the third is a new report from the Human Rights Measurement Initiative, which ranks China dead last in the world across multiple dimensions for human rights. Miles. How are you?
Miles Yu:
Very good, Shane.
Shane Leary:
Wonderful. Well, let's jump right in. So I'd like to touch on something we didn't talk about last week, which was Prime Minister Modi's visit to the US. India, of course, plays a pivotal and complicated role in the international system today and in US foreign policy for an outside observer who maybe doesn't follow India as closely, it may appear as if there are some contradictions in our relationship with them and how they fit into the changing international landscape. So on one hand, our relationship with India has been strengthening and our hope is that they will serve as a potential counterweight to China. On the other, they have this long established defense relationship with Russia, and they're also a member of BRICs with obviously both China and Russia. And moreover, they've faced some criticism from sectors of Washington for what is perceived as flirting with authoritarianism or undermining democracy. Despite Modi being widely popular with the Indian electorate, just this past week 70, democratic lawmakers signed a letter urging Biden to put democratic values and human rights front and center in response to troubling signs in India. Could you pull this apart for us? What are your impressions of how this trip went and how should we understand India, particularly in the context of the struggle between the US and China?
Miles Yu:
First of all, the Indian delegations visitor, Washington DC had a very high expectation from Washington point of view weeks before that there were two simultaneous visits of significant importance going on when Prime Minister Modi visits Washington DC, that is his visit to Washington, and of course, Secretary of State Blinken’s visit to China. So from the White House obviously we actually said the Prime Minister Modi's visit to the United States is much more significant. So maybe that's the way to lower the expectation of Blinken’s visit to China. And it's actually very true because India is a very important country in the world, and India has become a powerful nation in terms of not only its economic growth, but also it's a geopolitical position. We criticize India for its dalliances with countries like Russia, but India has a very complicated history, has a very rich national sense of national sovereignty, and most importantly, India is a very plural and vibrant democracy.
That is a very important, it's hard to imagine that for a country like India we will see some kind of dictator like Russia or China because the foundation of Indian democracy is pretty solid. It's based upon democratic regionalism and the vibrant press, and so it's open society. I think India is a very important partner and friends with the United States on most issues. India and United States see eye to eye, particularly after 2001, the terrorist attack on the United States. United States abandoned its traditional alliance with Pakistan and moved much closer to India. And so the US and the India have a great potential to develop into something that's much bigger than what is today.
Shane Leary:
Could you talk a little bit about India's current relationship with China? We know that there's been ongoing tensions over the border there. How does India fit into what you have framed as an epic struggle between freedom and tyranny between the United States and China?
Miles Yu:
I think the relationship between India and China is very bad. The two countries are right now reaching the point of near direct kinetic fight. So in 2020, particularly when the Chinese and Indian troops had a terrible clash, deadly clash along its long shared border, and in the Ladakh area, that's when India has gone completely defensive and highly alert about the Chinese imperial ambition for India. So I mean, right now I think the two countries share a long border, it's disputed and I don't see any progress, even though China tried to sort of modify India's anger, but the ship has sailed. I mean, I think China absorbed India into its alliance system, particularly the Shanghai Cooperative Organization, SCO as well as BRICs, China trying to sort of get India on its own political orbit by India. It's finally independent major geopolitical moves.
India is not playing along with Chinese design and demands. So seemingly it's really about the border dispute. The border dispute has long, long history, but India and China were able to sort of talk it over peacefully until 1959 when the Dalai Lama fled Tibet and went to India where he was granted a refuge sort of government in exile in India. That's when the relationship became really, really bad and ultimately culminated in the full-blown war in 1962 where China beats India hands down. And that kind of a shame resentment against China has never died out. So that's why India has embarked on several decades of rearmament India for many, many years, if not still now the number one spender on defense modernization. So that's why China and India are getting ready for a final showdown. Basically, we're talking about war.
Shane Leary:
Pushing a little bit further on India's arming itself, modernizing its military and its sort of security commitments or concerns. There's been concern from the US the degree to which India has hedged on the Ukraine question their longstanding relationship with Russia. On the other hand, we've seen quite a bit of positive action in terms of India's involvement in the quad security dialogue and its attention in the Indo-Pacific. Should we be at all worried about India's position as a potential partner for the US in a future conflict?
Miles Yu:
I don't worry too much about it. The India has obviously a very proud history of non-alignment during the Cold War. The legacy is still there, but India's dalliance with Russia has much more to do with the practical concern of its reliance, heavy reliance on Russian weapons. Russia has been the primary weapons supplier for India, particularly on big item issues like big item weapons such as ballistic nuclear missiles, as well as ballistic nuclear submarines. So those are very important area of cooperation. So India is not ready to ditch that good relationship with Russia in terms of arms trade. On the other hand, a senior Indian official told me that they obviously disagree with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but they don't want to put Russia as the worst number one threat to India. Russia is not India's number one threat. China is. So that's basically a very interesting way of understanding India's position in the Ukrainian war.
And you can see as Putin dig itself deeper and deeper into Ukrainian quagmire, India is moving away gradually and at a faster rate pace from Russia position. So that's a good sign. And I think on the Chinese side, China has been conducting some kind of a contaminant of its own by forming a very powerful alliance with Pakistan and over the decades, and I think Pakistan is fully armed by the Chinese and for the purpose of containing India. So China has been doing this thing for decades, and I think China also has been dramatically re-arming itself in the areas next to India, particularly in Tibet, the deep hostility between the two nations or just that very deep, very deep. And it is not going to go away anytime soon. And that's something that really is a driving force on Indian side through the United States and the EU in particular.
So you can see India is more and more open accepting American's positions and our military to military exchange has been very, very fast. And India is buying a lot more American weapons technologies to people of these defense capabilities. So I see a very rosy future between India and the US cooperation. After all, this is one of the world's oldest and largest democracies, shared value do matter matters like this. I might want to also add one, an aspect of the Indian-American cooperation and friendship. That is India has a very powerful and highly educated immigrant diaspora in the United States. The Indian-Americans are like a model immigrants, in my view. They are very patriotic in terms of defending the United States American democracy, but also they never forget their deep cultural heritage back from India. So it raises American as an immigrant country. So it shows this a very strong and powerful cultural bond between the two nations, not just on the government level, but also at the social and the cultural level.
Shane Leary:
I hope so too. You made a convincing case. Switching gears to an important anniversary, this past Friday was the third anniversary of the National Security Act in Hong Kong, which was the moment when the CCP really took the gloves off in exercising their role in the domestic politics of Hong Kong, sparking nationwide protests and really putting a nail in the coffin of the idea of the so-called one country two systems approach. And the idea that that could be desirable for the people of Hong Kong or even Taiwan coinciding with this past Saturday was the 26th year anniversary of the British handover of Hong Kong to the PRC. For our listeners, the China Center has just recently released a virtual event, a conversation between Miles and Benedict Rogers, one of the foremost experts on Hong Kong politics and the PRC’s human rights abuses. He's the founder of Hong Kong Watch, an organization dedicated to monitoring human rights abuses in the province. It was a great event and I would encourage any of you to go check it out on our website if you're interested in hearing a longer, more in depth conversation about this topic. But today, miles, why don't you tell us a bit about the enduring significance of the national security law in Hong Kong, and in particular, I would be interested to hear what your perspective was as someone who was in the State Department when this law was passed.
Miles Yu:
Well, the national security law for Hong Kong marked the death of China's much touted the one country two systems formula. It was China's top selling political propaganda for decades, and that basically is gone. And this basically also marks the complete loss of CCPs credibility because this one country two systems formula was based upon China's promise in 1984, when China and the UK sign a joint agreement, it's called a Sino-British Joint Declaration. China promised that for 50 years China would allow Hong Kong's basic system, social and public system intact. And that will last presumably 50 years from the 1997 handover. That would be 2047. But halfway through China completely ruined it and basically added its own words. This is a very, very bad sign. But then for those of who studied China, there's nothing surprising here because the Chinese government has never suffered from indigestion, from eating its own words.
This is a historical pattern. So the national security law for Hong Kong that passed three years ago also marks the awakening of the Hong Kong citizens because in 1997, Hong Kong citizens were showered with this tremendous emotion of patriotism. And that is Hong Kong after 150 some years of British colonial rule, even though there are basic freedoms in the human rights rule of law, but there's no democracy. So people were hoping that when the colony returned to Chinese sovereign domain and democracy will also return as China promised, but that was never the case. So right now, people in Hong Kong with the passage of the national security law was facing this choice of patriotism versus freedom. And I think you can from Hong Kong, people's action in 2019 and 2020, people, obviously they're patriotic Chinese, but also their value, freedom and democracy more. I mean in 2019, 2020, you see millions of people went to the street.
I mean they were talking about in a little tiny city state of 7 million people. So that is a tremendous awakening. So I think even though freedom and democracy and the rule of law are gone in Hong Kong, but I think the power kindled by the protest by the events in 2020 to 2022 still alive, you can see a lot of overseas Hong Kong diaspora communities, and they were still holding their banners high and they're still singing their songs of liberty and democracy. So that's really important. And also I think for the Chinese government, it also marks the complete failure of the Chinese way of ruling. That is they try to rule through elites. China's approach to Hong Kong for 20 some years had always been capturing the elites of Hong Kong, the tycoons, the business executives, the lawyers, and the leading artists, and the rule Hong Kong through this elites at the very top, what happened in 2019, 2020 was the rebellion against this elitism, against this Chinese united front approach of working on the elite, and it was genuine, popular uprising.
So I think that is a very important, it is hard to imagine China can continue this top down governance in Hong Kong, and particularly in Taiwan for whom the one country two systems formula was created. The Hong Kong model's death with the passage of national security law of Hong Kong also marks the complete death of the exemplary impact of Hong Kong on Taiwan. Nobody in Taiwan right now believes in China's one country two systems formula anymore. So that has a lot to do with the implementation of the national security in Hong Kong. People see with their own eyes that there's the liberty in Hong Kong. So I think it has profound impact on Taiwanese politics,
Shane Leary:
Certainly, and I mean they would be a fool to trust that after seeing what happened in Hong Kong. For our last topic, a new survey from the human rights measurement initiative has been released, which ranks human rights along a number of dimensions in countries across the globe. China scored as the worst country in the world for safety from the state and right to assembly, as well as freedom of religion and belief. For our listeners of the China Insider, this should come as no surprise who at this point you're intimately familiar with the CCPs oppressive practices. The survey was conducted in a rather sophisticated and trustworthy way, relying on encrypted anonymous online forms as opposed to say less intellectually rigorous methods from past studies such as those employed by Harvard University who simply contracted out polling to CCP owned firms. Perhaps more surprising was Hong Kong's ranking, which has sunk dramatically now ranking close to countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, and particularly their rankings for freedom of assembly and association opinion and expression and participation in government have fallen almost as low as mainland China's. What do you make of this report, miles in particular? I might just add, it can be easy for us to forget that we're really not that far away from a time in which Americans perhaps naively were optimistic about China's future prospects for liberalization. How do rights in China today compare to say 2012 and before Xi Jinping took power?
Miles Yu:
China as the political rights have never been in existence in a real sense, because those rights were not constitutionally guaranteed, those rights were not even openly touted, promoted. The Chinese Communist Party has total monopoly over all political power, and the Chinese people in a real sense have literally no rights whatsoever. So talking about rights itself, even it's a crime in China. So it's either punishable by this sort of promotion of the sabotage against the state or by some kind of criminal act. It is called picking quarrels and provoking trouble. This is basically, you cannot even talk about rights. So China is a country of enormous size. China's country of great consequence to the world, and the power of the state is such that they can basically categorically deny the whole social, ethnic and religious groups rights. For example, China's persecution of the Falungong movement, China's locked up over a million ethnic Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang within a matter of a year, shows that the arrogance and arbitrary of the state is really, really deeply concerning.
We're not talking about China as a number two economy in the world alone. The economic side of that is obviously something that we like to see, but the rights abuse side is equally, equally deep and massive. So I hope through human rights organizations like this report should really wake up the world's conscience to treat the human rights issue, not as a side issue, as some kind of political campaign issue as real. Because when a fellow man is not free, nobody's free. In a sense, China's governance model, China's abuse of human rights will continue. And I think sooner or later this kind of model will spread to all of us. Right now we have to be careful about what we say on the internet, on the open forum about China, and because China can basically either sanction you or punish you or cut off your economic engagement with China. So this is a very, very concerning, and I think human rights abuse, again is at scale and it was really, really severe and in a way despicable, if you understand the Chinese prison system, understanding Chinese repression system, and it's pretty amazing. I think that every citizen in the world should be aware of this.
Shane Leary:
I think that's all the time we have for today. Thank you so much Miles, and I'll talk to you next week.
Miles Yu:
Alright, looking forward to it.
Thanks for tuning into this episode of the China Insider, a podcast from the China Center at Hudson Institute. We appreciate Hudson for making this podcast possible follow miles and all of the additional great work we do at www.hudson.org. Please remember to rate and review this podcast and we'll see you next time on the China Insider.