🇨🇳🇮🇳🔌Ending ChinaIndia Networked🔚

A short personal reflection and thank you for subscribing and supporting the work.

Dear readers,

Its now been a year since you last received an issue of ChinaIndia Networked. This will be the last. To conclude the newsletter I share this short personal reflection and thank you for subscribing and supporting the work.

ChinaIndia Networked was a passion project. Living in China and donning various hats in academia, policy, and industry settings over the years, the newsletter was a natural extension of the work I was doing i.e. trying to build bridges and networks through dialogue and analyses. I was living the most fun and interesting life that I could have ever envisioned for myself and laying the infrastructure to grow this project into something much larger. I did not expect to find myself increasingly unhappy, losing interest in the work. 

In the time since I've been able to reflect on the changes. 

A combination of changes in the external environment and internal assumptions I had about my own life gave rise to a core question within me: do I really want to spend much of my life trying to be a bridge between two countries that hold deep seated hostility and ignorance of each other? This seemed to then dovetail with significant inflection points in my personal life and I made the decision to leave China a week to this date in 2021. The newsletter was one of my favourite projects and I desperately wanted to rejig it after. But perspectives had shifted and the CIN lense was no longer reflecting the points of inquiry I had into the world anymore. Without that this newsletter had no life anymore.

I’ve always tried to be transparent about the assumptions that makeup my world view. Looking back, the fallout from the 15 June 2020 Galwan clash between the two militaries led to a shift in my thinking of what was possible in the China-India space and the incentives for a networked relationship. In the last issue I wrote back in April 2021 I expressed how ‘my motivation to build a platform on the premise of exchange and dialogue evaporated’. It never returned. 

In my view the Modi government’s reactions— the app bans, military strategy, rejection of Chinese investment exemplified head in the sand behaviour that did very little to benefit Indian citizens (let alone India’s physical sovereignty for that matter). The PRC’s military actions and rhetoric reflected the CCP’s own sense of power in the world and disregard for Chinese business or citizen’s interests. People on both sides of the border lose while the States play their own game of nationalist narratives of victimhood, morality, and superiority, drawing power and legitimacy domestically from bilateral hostility. I see very few incentives for this status-quo to change.

Narratives and public opinion are highly influenced by the state in any country. The CCP holds a monopoly within China. India is more pluralistic but the outcomes are increasingly similiar. The “anti-national” branding of anyone sharing critical opinions of the state seems firmly engrained. On foreign affairs this is even more stark. Media and think tanks comfortably align to these incentives as recognition, influence, and money eventually follow. Data and facts existing to serve policy and preset narratives. This was my experience working on several issues, from foreign affairs to tech policy and Social Credit across the China policy space in Europe and the US too. Of course i’ve had the privelage of working with and learning from many incredible people but they are the exceptions fighting this same tide. Policy analyses centered around the state not people is something I never resonated with and seeing it weaponised is not an information war I want to be a part of.

I was first drawn into the field of International relations and then policy because I bought into the liberalist vision that global connectivity would lead to less conflict and more empathy between people and I wanted to be a part of that process. I still believe this is possible. But I no longer have the trust in the mainstream International system and its institutions to bring about this change. It feels clear to me the incentives are geared towards interstate conflict, militarism, and colonialism. A system where xenophobia, fear, and exclusion of other communities are critical to holding up the fictions of national identities. A global economic system and vision of modernity that relies on infinite consumption of resources and mindless consumerism. Many of us have been conditioned by IR theories of realism and realpolitik: “the strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must”, this is the natural state of the world and people. But are these assumptions about human nature and consciousness that underpin these knowledge systems really true? Can we really promote empathy and reduce conflict within the framework of nation states?

These are some of the questions and directions that I am drawn towards. Spending some time away from Twitter and the information spaces, and bringing some eastern philosophy practises into my life has had a transformative effect on how I see myself. It helped me find that clarity within me that I did not want to continue doing doing this work.

While I am ending the CIN phase of my life I am not withdrawing. My interest in China and affinity for the people and culture remains. So too the opportunities to shape new kinds of communities and institutions. When I look around the world I sense a similar sense of dissatisfaction and loss of trust in the institutions and systems that govern us. New technologies offer tools for people to organise around new identities and build new systems.

My work with Digital Asia Hub has always been centered on building more human centered tech futures and that's what I will be focussing more on in new projects I undertake. I’m extremely grateful to the many people that gave me platforms to learn and share my work and encouraged me with this newsletter. It seems foolish to end this after gaining 568 subscribers (and a beautiful cover artwork by my friend Krish). CIN reflected my thinking and inquiry at a particular phase in my life. Letting go is necessary to create space for new endeavors and thinking.

Thank you for being a part of this journey so far 🙏🏼 .