Since I’m seeing that this isn’t general knowledge, here goes.
Pakistan and India have a profound dislike of each other. They are both nuclear nations, and India has a gigantic population. The US is propping up a somewhat friendly regime in Pakistan to prevent a nuclear conflict between Pakistan and India. The main goal is to make sure that fundamentalist fanatics don’t take over Pakistan and start lobbing nuclear warheads at India for the glory of Allah. Because then India would respond, and China would stand up for Pakistan, and so on. It’s not pretty.
China hates India. The main fight for global dominance right now is between China and India. Americans can’t process it because they think they are the center of the universe when, in reality, the rest of the world has its own stuff going on. China doesn’t mind bringing Pakistan under the control of crazed fundies to terrorize India and beat it in the competition for global dominance.
So here we have on the one hand pressure from China to give Afghanistan and Pakistan to crazy Talibs to intimidate India. On the other hand, in terms of possible global leadership, I personally think India is a much better bet. They are so diverse and complex that China-style totalitarianism is not really possible. They are a lot more open to adopting Western values. So I’m for India. I mean, I’d happily root for the US but they decided to sit it out, dismantle every advantage, and make itself very uncompetitive.
Americans are #MeTooing and #BLMing themselves into being completely at the mercy of some pretty crazy, nuclear-armed people because we can’t take our heads out of our asses for two seconds and notice that other people exist not only as spectators of our narcissistic, exhibitionist tantrum but as agents of their own self-interest as they themselves understand it.
Clarissa's Blog 
You’re missing the gigantic issue that China has been the victim of Islamic Fundamentalism and will do anything to prevent them obtaining nuclear weapons. It’s the whole reason they locked down Xinjiang. Why in the world would China be happy to see these same ilk obtaining nuclear weapons? These Islamists would not blink for a second at the chance of nuking China.
Pakistan is now China’s problem, and that’s a good thing. Let them drain resources there like we did. The fact of the matter is China, Russia, etc. will now have to pay to provide security and stability now that the US is gone. They have to, since they actually border Afghanistan, unlike the US:
https://apnews.com/article/europe-russia-asia-afghanistan-central-asia-37d10979075a6f143af078676f860c19
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I have serious doubts India can best China in this battle. But hey, there’s nothing Americans love more than an underdog.
While obviously I’d prefer Americans remain top dog forever, if we pass on the crown to India that wouldn’t be too bad. Though I’ve noticed that Indian society lacks a certain kind of…ethical thinking. I’m not attributing this to all Indian people, but it’s like while people here are debating whether something is a wise idea, India is already doing it because they didn’t spend three seconds thinking about it. And it’s hardly as if America is a very thoughtful country.
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“The main fight for global dominance right now is between China and India”
Very true. Both have advantages and handicaps in the struggle but I think China is the better overall bet. China is following (in rough terms) the old nation state model. This is imposed and maintained at tremendous economic and human cost but… it does have a lot of advantages in the longer term in ability to get. things. done.
India is following the newer Canadian model whose motto seems to be:” Nothing could possibly unify us!” Which means greater social and educational capital outflow and less domestic investment in education and social services (though it has made massive progress). It’s chasing a post nation-state model without ever being a well-functioning nation state and the model itself is already failing in terms of ability to project force (the US abandoning the model is why it’s no longer in the thick of things).
Also, China is very strong in future time orientation. Every major event in China over the last 100 or so years has been about leaders trying to make China ready for the future. Often enough they got it horribly wrong (great leap forward, cultural revolution) but from 1977 or so to 2010 or so they mostly got it right which puts them in a good position. Xi is awful and it remains to be seen how strong his grip on power is…. his control is a major disadvantage for China, so there’s that.
India is not as… strong in that area.
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I’d also add that unlike China, Europe, Russia, or the USA, India just plain does not seem to have ever been interested in “dominating” anything outside their immediate sphere of influence and I doubt this will change in the future.
China still faces serious problems, especially with their demographics and they also don’t see to have a strong globalist tradition/mentality required to really become a global hegemon like the United States.
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“India just plain does not seem to have ever been interested in “dominating” anything ”
Very true. You’re not gonna win if you’re not gonna play….
“China still faces serious problems … don’t see to have a strong globalist tradition/mentality required to really become a global hegemon”
That was an American goal but I don’t think that’s China’s goal. We don’t really have a mental model for understanding China’s goal but we can get ideas here and there….
It seems to be setting itself up as an absolute power domestically and they want their authority to prevail over other legal/state systems for everyone who can be described in some way as ‘Chinese’.
They expand but aren’t interested in assuming responsibility for the places they expand to though they expect to be the ultimate authority and not be challenged.
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China today is where the US was in the early 1950s. It wants to dominate for economic purposes but not replicate its system elsewhere.
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“India is following the newer Canadian model”
— I wonder why you call it that. As I see it, the conflict within India is between Nehruvian cultural nationalism and the RSS led Hindutva ethno-nationalism. Both provide alternate visions of what unites India. In practical terms, the Modi governments success in expanding territorial integrity and his party BJPs success in regional polls show that support for a unified India is strong among the population. The polity rarely questions the government in terms of authority. What the Indian state lacks is competence. The basic machinery of state operation was never fully installed and continues to falter even after 75 years of independence. Modi has completely failed to deliver is on his economic promises. India has failed to capitalize on manufacturing growth – Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign was a big failure.
A conflict with China at this time will be a shitshow. The Indian army lacks resources to fight on two fronts – Pakistan and China. Nuclear capability and jingoistic electoral politics will make it a very volatile situation.
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“I wonder why you call it that”
Basically a cheap hit at Pretty-Boy Trudeau and his comment about Canada being the first post-national country, held together by a bunch of undefined and undefinable platitudes….
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OK, I will acknowledge right away and I know next to nothing about this. However, the whole issue of harsh religious persecution (for example, it is against the law to bring children younger than 18 to a church in China) and concentration camps for Uyghurs, make me extremely uneasy about the potential of Chinese dominance.
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“make me extremely uneasy about the potential of Chinese dominance”
Me too! And I’m not religious at all…. Nothing I wrote should be taken as any kind of endorsement or support of China – just an appraisal of its prospects for the rest of this century…
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Good analysis Clarissa
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