#4 🔌ChinaIndia Networked - Xi goes to Tamil Nadu
+ A new case study on Social Credit applications in China, and Chinese investments in Indian tech tracker.
ChinaIndia Networked is a newsletter by me, Dev Lewis, highlighting the networked relationship between the two regions at the intersection of technology, society, and politics. I’m a Fellow at Digital Asia Hub and Yenching Scholar at Peking University, where i’m conducting research on the Social Credit System. Follow me on Twitter @devlewis18 or write to me at devlewis@protonmail.com.
Chairman Xi Jinping visited Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu where Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted an informal summit on October 11, the second such summit following Wuhan in 2018.
Predictably this received a lot of fanfare in India, but in China this seemed to mostly pass by without much attention. I’ll go as far as saying this was the most muted coverage of any official Modi-Xi meet, a far cry from their first meeting in the heady days of 2014.
Beyond the official state/party media i.e. Xinhua, CCTV, People’s Daily, etc., who did what seemed like the bare minimum, pre/post reports and commentaries were sparse. A few India-focused Wechat accounts gave play to historic links between South India and China but the meet mostly passed by Sina Weibo without any chatter. Modi, who is fairly popular on the platform with 240k followers, made six posts, yet even the top one only got 674 likes last I checked, far lower than many of his previous posts over the past two years.
The #1 job of state media is to cover the visit and convey the official narrative, and there are plenty of signals readers of Chinese political tea leaves look for. For me, and this newsletter, what is more interesting is non-official media where you can find a variety of perspectives and more interesting content, that to some extent reflects the level public interest.
Its easy to see why it mostly passed by Chinese public. The trade war and Liu He’s DC visit for talks also on the 11th, the NBA fracas, and the deteriorating Hong Kong situation in general, means attentions are trained elsewhere. Given India’s own domestic headaches, from the situation in Kashmir to the economic slowdown, and taking into account the 11th hour official announcement of the summit, it feels as if both leaders met to agree to try and make it through the 70th anniversary year of PRC-India relations without kicking up any new (old) storms for each other.
What might be the next China-India showdown? I’d wager on something Huawei related with India set to open bidding for 5G spectrum next year.
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I’ve been tracking investments by Chinese companies and VC firms in Indian tech startups for a couple of years.
This is meant to be a resource open to anyone trying to make sense of it all. The google sheet open to edit, so if you see data in need of an update, incorrect, or know of a deal not reflected, please plug it in.
Liu Zongyi (刘宗义) Shanghai Institute for International Studies, South Asia Center, Secretary General. Translating one section:
(Due to the mutual understandings that made up the Wuhan Spirit) China did not postpone or cancel the summit despite repeated unreasonable demands on China, or actions that infringe on China’s territorial sovereignty such as in Indian-controlled Kashmir and Ladakh. That this meeting went ahead shows China's respect for India's great power status and awareness that territorial border disputes can only be resolved through mutual agreement—unilateral actions or the use of force or threats cannot lead to fundamental breakthroughs.
For India its goals may be different. This summit will be the most important foreign relations event in India following Prime Minister Modi’s re-election. After Modi’s overwhelming electoral success, India’s behaviour on the international stage is becoming increasingly aggressive, emerging as the third major player following China and the United States. Indian demands of China has increased even further raising the the bilateral trade balance issue to a political level.
One explainer is is the rise of Hindu nationalism in India. The other is related to the Sino-US trade war and geopolitical competition. India believes that in the face of tremendous pressure from the United States, China will be compelled to cooperate with India, and ensure neighborhood relations are positive in order to concentrate on the United States. Therefore, India hopes to use this situation to achieve some diplomatic goals, place requests that China support some of its internal and external policies, and that China give in to certain demands put forward by India — excessive as they may be— in the interest of enhancing India's international status, thus boosting national morale in the face of its own economic downturn towards .
Guancha also ran an interview ahead of the visit with Fudan University’s Lin Minwang (林民旺) a regular commentator on India-China relations. I’m translating some of the more interesting bits of the interview.
On India's policy changes towards China and Indo-Pacific strategy:
I do not see any major transformation in India's China policy outside of tactical tweaks towards solving bilateral problems. Since the Doklam incident in 2017 India has made small small adjustments, and following Modi's re-election in May 2019 he made some more (adjustments) but the overall structure has not really changed.
As for India's Indo-Pacific strategy, its very much about maintaining balance with the major powers while also extracting gains from all. Within its strategy one substantiate item is pushing forward its maritime exploration activities, something it has always been conducting. India has also elevated the Quad dialogue to the foreign minister level and has set up a Indo-Pacific department within its foreign ministry,.
On Nepal vis-a-vis China and India
In truth Nepal has always tried to play the role of a bridge between China and India. In reality Nepal also has its own concerns—its economy is completely dependent on India, and due to the open border the two countries share, a large number of Nepalis live, work in India and marry Indians too.
Therefore this is a strategic concern for Nepal, and so China is trying to play the role of a balancer in the face of this strategic concern. What Nepal is attempting to do is lower its dependence on India. Yes, India may feel threatened, but this is the new normal and India must slowly get used to it.
On Nepal, author Amitav Ghosh’s short Twitter thread is🔥
All Carrots and No Sticks: A Case Study on Social Credit Scores in Xiamen and Fuzhou
A new report, by me, published on Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and Digital Asia Hub.
In 2018 Xiamen and Fuzhou, two cities in Fujian province, a region on the coast in the southeast most famous for its historic trader links and global diaspora population, became one of just a handful of cities in China with their own city-level personal credit scores (个人信用评分). These are algorithmically created scores, using data gathered by the local government to assess citizens’ level of “promise keeping” (守信), that can be used at places like hospitals and tourist sites, or when paying school tuition fees and borrowing books. However, a look under the hood reveals a reality far from any utopian or dystopian picture.
This report comes after months of work that included two trips to Fuzhou and Xiamen to conduct interviews with government officials and companies, citizen surveys, and analyses of activity on Sina Weibo and Baidu search.
While these applications are novel digital tools for integrating data into governance and delivery of government services I have doubts about their actual utility towards inducing law-abiding behavior among citizens, one of the stated goals. What is interesting the is the kind of data collection and digitisation of records that makes these apps tick. In time, with more comprehensive and diverse data sets, it may open a window to wave of new use cases. In fact, in my conversations I was taken aback by the level of interest and admiration at developments in India, particularly Aadhaar, UPI and India Stack. Issue #3 of this newsletter talked about open data platforms in China and government efforts around data governance. Its a theme we’ll return to often in future issues, not least because i’m working on a podcast on the Social Credit System (stay tuned).
🔌Get Networked
📢 Call for Papers —China India: Comparisons, Connections, Convergence
The emergent field of China India studies approaches the study of Asia in an integrated fashion, allowing scholars to exceed limits imposed by national boundaries. Engaging recent debates over world literature, global cinema, transnational history, the history and future of area studies programs, and cross-cultural anthropology, scholars engaged in China India studies examine connections and convergences between the two spaces. This conference, hosted by the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC, invites paper and panel submissions that put China and India into conversation. The conference will feature keynotes by Tansen Sen (NYU Shanghai), and Engseng Ho (Duke University). We welcome papers from various disciplines, including but not limited to comparative literature, film studies, anthropology, religious studies, history, and political science.
250-word abstracts should be submitted in English to cpltconf@mailbox.sc.edu by November 15. Panel proposals (with abstracts for 3-4 papers plus an additional 250-word abstract for the panel) are also welcome. More details.
This newsletter will be short, fortnightly dispatches from Krish Raghav and Josh Feola, featuring links, tunes and drawings connected to alternative music from China. You can read chapter 1 Hang on the Box: The Illustrated Story of China’s Female Punk Pioneers of a forthcoming non-fiction comic book / graphic novel about underground music in Beijing, covering the halcyon years between 1999 and 2019.
Thanks for reading.
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The views expressed in this newsletter are mine and not representative of Digital Asia Hub as an institution.