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INDIA - AN INNOVATION POWERHOUSE?
Innovation takes place in almost every field, be it business models or how organisations are designed to be more efficient. However, innovation is ultimately technological.
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Rishikesha Krishnan, is Director and Professor of Strategy at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB).
Why is innovation important? The most obvious reason is, of course, strategic reasons. No one wants to depend on others and, in a sense, wish to chart their destiny. With globalisation, it was assumed that it was prudent to integrate components procured from across the globe without manufacturing them indigenously to produce the final product. Then came the supply chain disruptions due to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the shortage of chips etc.; it has increasingly become clear that domestically, a minimum capability is required across the entire value chain.
In the case of India, vaccine production is another good example when the Indian External Affairs Minister had to intervene at a point to get critical components that were essential for vaccine manufacture from the U.S.
DEVELOPING AN INNOVATION ECOSPHERE First, understand what are the kinds of inputs you require. You require people, money, basic knowledge resources, and good infrastructure. Those are very basic inputs which go into the Innovation process. Next, you need the incentive to innovate.
Historically, as nations traverse the typical trajectory of their growth and development, in the beginning, the emphasis is on how to kick start the economy, the manufacturing etc., to figure out how to commence production. In the 1950s, when India set up its basic industries-steel, petrochemicals, fertilisers and so on, it needed technical know-how to start production. This was done by importing technology from other countries, mainly the USSR and the eastern bloc. Once the production has started and you gain a degree of expertise, you realise that your peculiar climatic conditions, raw materials, and skill profile are quite different from the originator of the imported technology. So, you start fixing the technology to make the product better and more profitable. As the industry grows, you desire to be among the market leaders and through innovation, you try to gain the edge over your competitors.
To reach the same level of production or quality as your competitors on a global scale, you must improve your input materials and processes. However, a plateau is reached wherein there is no further improvement, and more fundamental innovation is required in various products and designs. In India, this phenomenon was visible post-economic liberalisation in the 1990s.
THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE
The innovation process was much slower in India compared to a country like South Korea, which went through all the steps of innovation in 10 to 15 years, while India took 25 to 30 years. Innovation and product improvement is a continuous process, not a start-and-stop one. An example is a company founded in the early 1970s to recondition black
INNOVATION IN EMERGING MARKETS:FIRM STRATEGIES & PROCESSES
and white picture tubes for TVs from Eastern Europe. In the 1980s, when colour TV arrived in India, the company was forced to set up a colour picture tube plant in collaboration with Japan. Yet they could never replicate the same productivity or yield as the Japanese company despite their previous experience producing black and white picture tubes. The Japanese company was not willing to transfer the entire technology. It was found that the same technology had been sold to a South Korean company, which, over time, figured out how to improve the yield through trial and error. So, the Indian company contracted South Korean technicians to resolve productivity issues. Innovation is not entirely in R&D and core knowledge creation; sometimes, it is just figuring out how to make your processes and your production more efficient.
Sometimes, some products rely entirely on brand value rather than developing the technology behind them. Micromax was a leading Indian brand of smartphones with a significant market presence. Sadly, the entire handset was just assembled from fully imported kits from China. Seeing the popularity of Micromax, the Chinese suppliers pulled the plug and decided to enter the Indian market themselves. We saw the entry of big Chinese brands like Vivo, Oppo, One Plus etc. Micromax is now history. This leads us to believe that unless you have mastery over the core technology and can grow the supply chain, you can easily be displaced by anyone who controls the technology.
There are many challenges in the Indian market, especially in the health sector. We need low-cost solutions to meet the demand across the entire strata of society. A good example is the rotavirus vaccine developed by Dr Bhan at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences. The rotavirus strain was isolated in 1986, but the vaccine came into production only in 2015. Bharat Biotech (producer of Covaxin) learnt the vaccine development process through this experience. In this case, indigenous knowhow and development helped produce a successful vaccine with global usage. Innovation capabilities are not created overnight but are built over time.
Another Indian success story is that of a tractor designed by the Central Mechanical and Engineering Research Institute in Durgapur, purchased by Punjab Tractors and later acquired by Mahindra & Mahindra to become the largest tractor manufacturer in the world.
Innovation gives the potential to achieve global leadership. Pharmaceuticals is one field in which India is considered a front-runner. The three pillars of the drug industry are Dr Reddy’s Labs, Ranbaxy and Cipla. The last was the world’s main supplier of low-cost anti-HIV drugs that put a brake on the HIV epidemic in Africa. A similar story exists in the motorcycle industry, where India produces 40 per cent of the world’s motorcycles by volume. Three Indian brands-Bajaj, Hero and TVS dominate the Indian market despite stiff competition from international brands like Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki etc. This was achieved as these companies were able to develop capabilities in manufacturing and technology development along with a deep understanding of Indian consumer behaviour. Bajaj was able to design the unique DTSi fuel-saving technology which made its Pulsar bikes a bestseller not only in India but also in overseas markets.
Domestic technologies in critical industries like semiconductors are gaining importance due to geopolitical contestations. Today Taiwan dominates the global market, while all big and small countries are reliant on the supply chain emanating from that island nation. If China disrupts that chain, a host of industries will collapse, as we witnessed recently when the white goods and automobile manufacturing industries were disrupted due to a shortage of chips.
Can India become an Innovation Powerhouse? To answer this question, three things must be kept in mind. First, understand what are the kinds of inputs you require. You require people, money, basic knowledge resources, and good infrastructure. Those are very basic inputs which go into the Innovation process.
Next, you need the incentive to innovate. Ever wonder why the Indian Ambassador car remained on the road for so many decades with minimum design changes? With so little competition in a closed market, there was little incentive to innovate, and no benefits were accrued from costly innovation. Therefore, there must be competition in the market, or the product will stagnate.
There must be a strong market for investors who value innovation and are willing to bet their money on it.
These were the input and output sides of the problem. There are others in the middle, which include the capacity to do it, organisations with the right skills, the leadership and innovative people like Elon Musk who can take risks. Organisational structures play a vital role. Structures conducive to sharing ideas, putting them into practice, and going through the entire innovation cycle succeed. Hierarchical top-down organisations rarely take to innovation. Finally, the innovation cycle has to be completed by taking it to the market, for which someone has to pay for the innovation.
INDIA AS AN INNOVATION POWERHOUSE?
So, where does India stand in this entire Innovation Cycle? The environment for innovation and the incentive to innovate has improved in India with time, but many challenges remain. We still have a long way to go. What is the balance sheet for Indian innovation?
The strengths-a good network of government commodities, expertise, CSIR, DRDO and a diversified industrial base, recognition of the importance of industry, including tax breaks etc. Scientists have played a prominent role in policy-making changes related to science and technology. Patent laws have encouraged foreign investment in R&D and Global Technology Centres.
However, there are several red flags; we have a large education capacity, but the quality is a concern. The top 10 universities in China are ranked 17, 18 and 21 worldwide, and the top three in India are 177 and further down the list. The absence of a vibrant high-tech manufacturing base and limited impact of government support programmes whose scale remains low, looking at the size and complexity of the country. Many of our top scientists are from basic sciences and do not have an interest in technology and application. There is a little spillover of foreign R&D, which does not interact with the local ecosystem. Our talent development efforts are falling short of contributing to innovation. Lastly, there are broader societal challenges. In the Global Innovation Index (GII), over the last seven years, India moved
The Chinese strengths are different when you compare China with India in the GII. Their top universities rank very high globally, and there is significant output in terms of patents, industrial design etc. China scores high in basic literacy skills, especially in mathematics and sciences. Their weaknesses lie in the environment and inefficient use of energy resources.
India’s spending on R&D has been static and could also be declining as a per cent of the GDP. Our gross expenditure on R&D is about 0.7 per cent of the GDP, which is quite low by global standards. On the other hand, China spends close to 2.5 per cent of its GDP. The top two industries for India in terms of R&D spent are transportation and pharmaceuticals. Globally the trend is different -in electronics, Information Technology, and semiconductors.
Another important difference is, of course, who’s spending the money. In India, it’s largely being spent by the government even today. Whereas, in most advanced economies, R&D spending is happening in private industry; in the US, 73 per cent is by business enterprises, and in India, it is only about 41 per cent. Tata Motors (or its subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover Ltd) spends around 2 billion Euros on R&D. Huawei dispenses more than 17 billion Euros on its R&D alone!
Indian high-tech exports amount to over $21 million, not including IT services; for China, the figure stands at around $ 750 billion! In certain areas, like market sophistication, India compares favourably with China in the GII.
CHALLENGES FOR INNOVATION IN INDIA
Traditionally, Indians are reasonably okay at doing things in the lab but struggle to take things out of the lateral schedule. The problem is translating a prototype into production in a more physical context. This is true in the defence sector, where the challenges are to scale production numbers to make them profitable. A few successful examples exist, like the National Chemical Lab (NCL), which worked very closely with the public sector to profitably commercialise their processes. NCL developed a micro-encapsulated technology years ago, they got the patents, but they didn’t know how to use it or who to sell it to. Finally, Dr Senthil Kumar struck a deal with Procter & Gamble in the U.S., who came up with its application as a fabric softener. After another decade of application experiments, the technology was marketed as the Downy Fabric Softener, releasing a pleasant fragrance even when the clothes are stored in cupboards for a long period.
In the 1980s, India focused on its telecom sector and tried to create indigenous telecom switching equipment through the public sector. Some state-of-art developments did take place in the telecom switching sector, but the momentum could not be sustained. The Indian telecom switching industry would have rivalled Huawei if these efforts had been maintained. India fac-
INDIA’S TOP INNOVATIONS
The first one was Vaccines which have already been discussed. The second one is Aadhaar which triggered a whole new set of innovations, including the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), today perhaps the world’s largest integrated digital cable system with open access, and interoperability.
Innovation is also taking place on the government side, especially in its procurement processes, including an electronic marketplace like Amazon for government purchases. The Niti Aayog is running an ‘Aspirational Districts Programme’. The idea is to take the most backward districts out of 700 or so and focus on them using data compilation and digital technology. India’s Mars mission could also rank high as an innovation due to its efficiency and low cost.
The big change in India is the approximate 75,000 start-ups, many of which are emerging as major innovators. But even there, deep ‘technovation’, where we are going into a significant technological shift, is missing.
THE WAY AHEAD
To develop an innovation ecosystem, India must focus on four entities-the government, established companies, start-ups and academia. A good example in the government is the Department of Biotechnology, which has been running under the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) umbrella. It is perhaps the only end-to-end innovation support program existing in India. The BIRAC programme addresses all
Structural programmes for technology development would also help. Capability building is a long-term process with time frames of up to 15 years for new technology, and it requires patent capital for investment in the new technology. In 2004, the government launched the Collaborative Automotive Research group, which has begun to show results. Organisations like the National Biomedical Resources Indigenisation Consortium are needed as cross-cutting coordination mechanisms, which will help pool resources better to drive innovation.
Also, there is the need of regulators who are more tuned to the importance of innovation. For example, the Reserve Bank of India has been helping with fintech innovation by creating regulatory sandboxes, controlled environments where you can try out some of these new ideas because, without that, regulatory hurdles will just be too high to get into the space.
The biggest challenge for start-ups in India is working on the right problems. Many times, Indian start-ups work on problems that are not relevant or financially viable. Start-ups can also be successful by collaborating with giants. The success of MyLab, which was the first company to be certified for RT-PCR covid test kits, is well known. Similarly, academia and research institutions also need to choose the right projects. They must constantly be asking themselves whether they are working on projects which have the potential to change the world. Challenges are there for the Indian innovation scene, but there is also a lot of promise and opportunity. And a lot of hard work must be done to get anywhere close to that.
NEW MODELS FOR SCALE-UP? FRAUNHOFER MODEL
A TALE OF PARADOXES
While the Indo-Bangladesh relationship has matured over the last 50 years, there is still much to be done to make it lasting.
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An old Danish proverb says, “no one is rich enough to do without a neighbour.” India and Bangladesh could do well to live by this wisdom as, historically, and geographically, their destinies are entwined.
Their relationship is defined not merely by shared borders but by a blood bond established during the war of liberation of Bangladesh and still valued by the large veteran community in both countries. Therefore, one would assume that the connection between the two neighbours would naturally transcend beyond governments to a vibrant people-to-people relationship, and sadly, that is not so.
Certain factors unconsciously control bilateral relations; first, the relations are majorly regime sensitive; second, there exists a deep mistrust among governments; and third, a visible difference in the perception of the benefits drawn from the bilateral equation. Also, the shadow of the Dragon is increasingly falling over it, although Dhaka has adroitly kept the two Asian rivals apart regarding its national interests. The Sino-Pak strategic partnership provides a good model wherein, irrespective of the government in power in Islamabad, the relationship remains on an even keel. Of course, the fact that regime changes in Beijing take place after decades helps matters.
REGIME SENSITIVITY
As Dr Ashikur Rahman, a Senior Economist at the Policy Research Institute [PRI] of Bangladesh says, the India-Bangladesh relationship is still regime sensitive. Soon after the creation of Bangladesh, the personal friendship between the then-Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the founding father of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, set the tone for the evolving relationship. Unfortunately, the tragic killing of almost the entire family of Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman on the fateful early morning of August 15th, 1975, changed the entire dynamic.
Fortunately, Sheikh Hasina survived as she was in Germany then, where her husband was completing his PhD and provided political asylum in India for the next six years, living incognito in New Delhi. Successive governments that came to power in Dhaka, including a brief stint of martial law, used an anti-India narrative as a political platform with some success.
However, since 1996 when Sheikh Hasina first came to power, the bilateral relationship has grown, albeit with a few hiccups now and then.
The fact that Sheikh Hasina holds the record of the world’s longest-serving female head of government has enabled the relationship to endure despite the challenges. Both countries have successfully negotiated their maritime boundaries and exchange of conclaves and, more recently, are cooperating on the development of Infrastructure, connectivity, and power.
The way forward is that the Indo-Bangladesh partnership must mature beyond a reflection of personal relationships between the heads of state. The Sino-Pak strategic partnership provides a good model wherein, irrespective of the government in power in Islamabad, the relationship remains on an even keel. Of course, the fact that regime changes in
India-Bangladesh relations have matured over the last half a century, so they should not remain hostage to a regime-sensitive affliction. The current dispensation in Dhaka has cultivated excellent working relations with New Delhi on several accounts. This should not be allowed to stagnate, especially considering the general elections scheduled next December.
REDUCING THE TRUST DEFICIT
Unchecked illegal migration from Bangladesh into India through the over 4000 km long porous border, despite the fencing, remains a major irritant. At various times, insurgent groups plaguing restive north-eastern provinces of India have found succour and shelter across the border in Bangladesh territory. The Mizo National Front had established a self-styled government in the Chakma Hill Tracts adjoining Mizoram with the full knowledge of Dhaka till as late as 1986 when it came overground and successfully won the electoral battle in Aizawl. On its part, Bangladesh accused India of aiding and abetting the Chakma rebels (Shanti Bahini) in its operations against the Bangladesh Army.
The security apparatus in India still suspects a degree of collusion between the establishment in Bangladesh and insurgent groups in Northeast India, including the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF), and National Democratic Front of Bodoland, where several of their top leaders have long maintained covert command and control facilities. The statements made by Julius Dorphang, the leader of the banned Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC), which fought the Indian state for an independent Khasi land in Meghalaya, further cemented Indian suspicions.
There are several reasons for such continuous infiltration, rooted in geography, history, and various socioeconomic factors. Around 30,000 people enter India illegally annually, greatly destabilising the country’s demographics. Large-scale illegal immigration occurs due to the border regions’ dense population—roughly 700–800 people per square km on the Indian side and 1,000 people on the Bangladesh side—which makes it simpler for anyone, especially criminals, to cross into the other country. The similarity in culture and language makes it difficult to distinguish among the population.
Ms Sheikh Hasina’s administration claims zero tolerance towards terrorism. Indian intelligence agencies contest this and accuse the Directorate General of Field Intelligence (DGFI) and other Bangladeshi authorities of turning a blind eye, if not open assistance, to Pakistani intelligence operatives using Bangladesh to foment trouble or conduct anti-India activities across the border. Several radical organisations with extremist underpinnings are known to be active in Bangladesh, including an offshoot of Al Qaeda and the Harkat-ulJehadi-e-Islam. Additionally, these organisations are closely aligned with Pakistan-based terrorist organisations like Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
On the issue of geopolitics, geoeconomics and geostrategies,I must highlight four things from my understanding of these concepts.One, humans create geostrategies, geopolitics, geoeconomics. Strategies don’t create humans, they can only influence humans. So the same position can be geopolitically important and the same place can be geopolitical unimportant.Only humans make the difference. The second important thing we must understand is that the world is moving from unipolarity to multipolarity and there is no way to stop that multipolar world from emerging. Two factors contributed to this transformation from unipolarity multipolarity - decolonization and globalization.
BENEFIT DISPARITY
There is an existence of underlining disparity in the benefits drawn from the India- Bangladesh bilateral relationship. According to Dr Lailufar Yasmin from Dhaka University, India is at a better receiving end. Further, Bangladesh is landlocked by India on the three sides, leaving the south open to the Bay of Bengal, making its regional trade dependent on transit through India. For trade and better connectivity with the Indian North –Eastern states via Bangladesh, India and Bangladesh identified several transit routes that include-Chattogram/Mongla Port to Agartala (Tripura) via Akhura, Chattogram/Mongla Port to Dwaki (Meghalaya) via Tamabil, Chattogram/Mongla Port to Sutarkandi (Assam) via Sheola and Chattogram/Mongla Port to Srimantapur (Tripura) via Bibir Bazar.
According to Dr Yasmin, while Dhaka has granted transit routes from within its territory, Delhi has not responded in kind. Bangladesh still does not have access to trade via India’s Siliguri Corridor. Also, Bangladeshi goods receive differential treatment at Indian transit points and restricted entry even though goods are 100 per cent duty-free. However, on the Indian side, there are security concerns and fears of misuse of the facility to smuggle contraband goods into India’s sensitive border regions.
Commenting on trade and business between Ban-
PROF. IMTIAZ AHMED Professor of International Relations and Director, Centre for Genocide Studies at the University of Dhaka.
gladesh and India, Bangladesh foreign minister AK Abdul Momen, during his recent visit to India, said that trade is “ becoming a one-sided trade, so we need to balance it, and we need India to give us more flexibility because India has put anti-dumping [duty] on our jute goods... This duty should be lifted since Bangladeshi exports are not a threat to domestic after producers.
According to Dr Yasmin, in the present age of capitalism, a visible and countable profit for both parties must exist to determine growth in bilateral trade. Presently India has a comparative advantage for most goods exported to Bangladesh while the latter has it for only some goods. India’s exports to Bangladesh amounted to USD14.09 billion in 2021, while Dhaka’s exports to Delhi were valued at USD 2 billion. Both countries must look for new avenues for business and trade, not just in goods but in the services sector, with a special focus on facilitating more private investment into Bangladesh.
THE CHINA SHADOW
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Bangladesh is an enigma. China had committed to investing USD 40 Billion in Bangladesh when the MoU was signed in 2016, knowing India would not be a part of the BRI. This is the second largest commitment in South Asia after Pakistan (USD 62 Billion). Without connectivity through India, the project is a lame duck since the initiative’s objectives are based on seamless connectivity.
The continuation of Xi Jinping in power for the third term will see the renewed impetus to his brainchild, the BRI. China and Bangladesh have gone too far ahead to let the ambitious BRI projects fail, irrespective of what is happening in neighbouring Sri Lanka, where Chinese exposure is much smaller; for President Xi Jinping, a failure would be politically disastrous. On the other hand, post the pandemic, and a desperate global economic situation, Bangladesh is financially vulnerable, dependent upon Chinese investments and Indian and American goodwill. So far, Bangladesh has avoided the so-called ‘China Debt Trap.’
Tensions between India and China have remained high despite some progress on the northern Himalayan frontiers, where both sides have claimed to be de-escalating and lowering troop levels. This has a spillover effect on any trade connectivity that China and Bangla-
China and Bangladesh look at the strategic Chumbi Valley, a narrow Tibetan enclave into the ‘Chicken’s Neck’ or the Siliguri Corridor joining mainland India to its seven eastern states, as a potential conduit for their overland trade. Under existing circumstances, India is unlikely to concur with any such proposal.
Both countries should have interest not only in the India-Bangladesh bilateral, but must also think in terms of ‘IndiaBangladesh Regional’ and ‘India-Bangladesh Sub-regional.’ Then there is also the security situation between India and Bangladesh and economic / trade relations. However, overall it is the connectivity that is particularly important for spurring growth of both the countries.
THE WAY AHEAD
While India may continue to deny transit facilities to Bangladesh for its regional land trade, there are other ways it can improve Bangladesh’s external trade. As per media reports, discussions on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) are also underway. The significance of the CEPA with India is that Bangladesh does not have a trade pact with any country, despite China and Japan pressing them. This regional economic integration is a strong incentive for Bangladesh (especially the robust anti-India lobby within its polity) to maintain good relations with India.
While Bangladesh has been showing remarkable growth figures in its GDP, year to year, its future must look beyond its current dependence upon garment manufacturing. The future generation of Bangladeshis aspires to the sunrise fields of high technology, where India has much to offer, with the added advantages of proximity, lower living cost and cultural similarities. The youth, especially, are excited by India’s flourishing start-up ecosystem and wish to collaborate with Indian start-ups. Ambassador Veena Sikri, former high commissioner of India in Bangladesh, suggests that India and Bangladesh must strengthen cooperation on technology, such as collaborating on Bangladesh’s dream project, Digital Bangladesh. She also encourages greater cooperation in the Power Sector.
Dr. Yasmin suggests collaborating to increase connectivity and trade. In the age of climate change and demanding energy & environmental standards, Dr. Yasmin proposes to work towards securing the future, which will primarily include climate & water security. Further, India and Bangladesh, as a subregion, has the potential to become global garment production hubs. To this effect and as an incentive to connect the younger generations from both countries who are into fashion technology and design, the countries must collaborate
AMB. PROF. VEENA SIKRI is the Founder and Convener of SWAN (South Asia Women’s Network). She served as India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh from December 2003 to November 2006.
A STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT IN THE EAST?
The so-called Russia-China axis is transforming in its shape and dimensions post the Ukraine war.
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It may be recalled that as President Vladimir Putin geared up for his ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, he assiduously tried to win allies that would be useful once the uproar over his military adventure spilled into the international fora. On the sidelines of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February, much was made of the “no limits” strategic partnership between Russia and China. Both powers had been under pressure from the West and appeared as ‘natural allies’ against a common threat.
Now that Ukraine has become a sad fact of life, and fighting continues with destruction and death on both sides, the situation seems to have changed dramatically. Russia no longer seems to be on the winning side, with the surprisingly stubborn Ukrainians going into the offensive.
Clearly, Western sanctions on Russia have seriously impacted the Russian economy, and Moscow has become more dependent on Beijing financially than ever before. So, President Putin does not have the same leverage with China that he had before. The Chinese, too, have been witnessing an economic downturn with its critics, internal and external, blaming President Xi’s unrelenting “Zero Covid” lockdowns.
To be fair, it has been quite evident from the beginning of the war that China was not entirely comfortable with Russia’s blatant invasion of a sovereign nation defying near-unanimous international calls for a negotiated settlement with Ukraine. in Uzbekistan was closely watched to detect the trajectory of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership under the shadow of a war that seems to be reaching nowhere.
WHY DOES RUSSIA NEED CHINA?
Today, China is more than just a strategic partner for Russia as it is the only significant global power that continues to support the Russians. Some would call it a comedown for the Kremlin, having been downgraded to the status of a ‘junior partner.’
Despite denials from Moscow, international sanctions have taken their toll on the Russian economy, severely reducing Russian access to the international market. The number of countries willing to take in Russian exports defying Western sanctions has fallen drastically. This is where the Chinese market has come into the picture to rescue the Russian market from complete collapse. Chinese imports from Russia have risen by 80 per cent in May this year from the same time the previous year. The major imports in this regard have been oil and natural resources, which Russia has plenty to offer. In return, the Russian market is swamped with Chinese goods as no international competition exists.
China is growing with every passing day. China has exploited the vacuum created by the Russian isolation by replacing the latter in many regions where earlier Russia was the main trading partner. The only post-Soviet country where Russian influence remains strong is Belarus.
STUDYING THE UKRAINE WAR
The Chinese have closely analysed the war from a strategic, as well as a military perspective. Aspiring to unite Taiwan by force, if need be, Ukraine is an ideal test bed for Beijing to wargame its theories on how to keep the U.S. and its allies out of any Chinese military move into Taiwan. The most obvious question that must be troubling the Chinese is how a militarily and economically third-rate nation can humble a major power like Russia. The geography, demographics and comparative military balance just do not match, yet the ground situation tells a different story.
Taiwan is a much harder nut to crack; surrounded by a formidable ‘defensive ditch’, manned by a nation of inspired people who have been expecting (and preparing for) an invasion since their inception, and a rugged mountainous terrain just off the landing beaches which will have to be wrested from the defender inch by bloody inch! Russia has had a launching pad into Ukraine since 2014, having de facto control over Donetsk and Luhansk.
As regards the biggest intangible, which is the fighting spirit of a nation, Ukraine has demonstrated this in ample measure. Will their stoic defence inspire the Taiwanese, and will they fight equally hard and long? These are questions that only time can tell. Ukraine has demonstrated that even if the Western allies demur from putting boots on the ground to save a neighbour, they can open their purses rather generously and pour in the best weaponry that money can buy to fight a proxy war. All these aspects will need to be factored into any grandiose plan that surely rests in locked cupboards of the PLA in preparation for the ‘reunification.’
THE INDIAN VIEW
Mr Narendra Modi’s statement that “This is not the time for war”, during an interaction with Mr Putin during the SCO summit went viral. This was picked up globally as a slight yet definite change in the Indian stance that so far had doggedly refrained from making any criticism of the Kremlin. However, the shift in the Indian perspective got stronger as the war was prolonged. India voted against the Russian proposal to deny Ukraine’s President the opportunity to address the UN Security Council. This is not surprising as, thanks to this unnecessary war, India has been facing unprecedentedly high inflationary pressures, and its post-COVID recovery is being seriously stymied.
Assessment
The SCO Summit turned out to be a damp squib. Its conduct was further sullied by the spike in the border skirmishes between two of its members -Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. No significant developments emerged from the summit.
However, in the absence of any concrete declarations, it can be assumed that serious deliberations must have taken place behind locked doors to convince Mr Putin of the futility of continuing with the war.
To astute observers, a subtle realignment between Russia and China is discernible. However, where this realignment will eventually lead to remains to be seen.
CHINA’S LONG MARCH TO HISTORIC GLORY
China considers linking the ‘East’ Sea and the ‘West’ sea under its maritime domination as the first step towards global primacy.
Dr Patrick Mendis is a former American diplomat, a military professor in the NATO and Indo-Pacific Commands of the US Department of Defence , and a non-resident senior fellow of the Synergia Foundation.
With its assertive foreign policy, China has been striving to become a maritime superpower to replace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region. It started with Beijing’s historical claims to the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands—called Diaoyu Islands by China—in the East China Sea. Then China began claiming the South China Sea and building artificial islands and military bases in the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands region.
Similarly, over the last 15 years, China has shrewdly been sending submarines and surveillance ships to the Indian Ocean. In Chinese literature and poetry, this body of water has historically been called the “Western Ocean” or the “West Sea” since the Ming Dynasty (1429–1644).
Notwithstanding that the Chinese government has not deliberately expressed it, Beijing might eventually rename the Indian Ocean the “Western Ocean” to impose its lexicon, as the historic pattern seems to suggest.
With his vision of national rejuvenation, Xi has a clear policy “connectivity” mission in the East, South, and West Sea regions that is interwoven with the thriving civilizational state returning to its old glory. Beijing’s covert strategy towards the CCP’s centennial goal is continuous but gradually “phased” to advance the critically integral components of the East China Sea, the “reunification” of Taiwan, the South China Sea, and eventually the Indian Ocean.
With his vision of national rejuvenation, Xi has a clear policy “connectivity” mission in the East, South, and West Sea regions that is interwoven with the thriving civilizational state returning to its old glory. Beijing’s covert strategy towards the CCP’s centennial goal is continuous but gradually “phased” to advance the critically integral components of the East China Sea, the “reunification” of Taiwan, the South China Sea, and eventually the Indian Ocean.
THE GRAB OF ‘EAST’ SEA
Beijing started claiming the Tokyo-administered five uninhabited Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea nearly 50 years ago. Xi intensified China’s claims since Japan purchased the islands from a private owner in 2012. Ever since, Chinese coast guard vessels and military aircrafts have regularly entered the territorial waters of the disputed Senkakus.
For China, the strategically valuable “unsinkable” Taiwan and Senkaku islands would also make a difference in its historical claims and economic relations. All these islands are of significance to China amid emerging Sino—American tensions, especially in a potential military conflict with
Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway province. President Xi has repeatedly claimed that “resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China’s complete reunification is a historic mission and an unshakable commitment of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Beijing has also claimed the portrayal of the dotted U-shaped line engulfing the greater part of the South China Sea as its own. It was originally an “eleven-dashed line” claimed by the Republic of China (Taiwan) in 1946. The People’s Republic of China revised it to a “ninedashed line,” which was used by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai to officially declare Beijing’s claim to the South China Sea in 1958.
Since President Xi came into power, China has intensified the artificial island building in the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands region. China has now fully militarized at least three of several islands—arming them with “anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems” as well as “laser and jamming equipment and fighter jets” while threatening all nations operating in the South China Sea.
During Xi’s first state visit to Washington in September 2015, Xi claimed that the “islands in the South China Sea since ancient times are Chinese territory” and China has “the right to uphold [its] own territorial sovereignty and lawful, legitimate maritime rights and interests.”
In July 2020, the Trump administration announced China’s claims and coercions are “completely unlawful.” Following President Donald Trump’s China policy initiative, the Biden administration issued a detailed report on China’s “Maritime Claims in the South China Sea” in January 2022. It outlined Beijing’s “unlawful” claims that have put China on a “collision course with the Philippines, Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian nations.” It also rejected “the geographic and historic bases for its vast, divisive map” of the dashed lines.
THE PASSAGE TO THE “WESTERN OCEAN”
Beijing has similarly launched its most ambitious maritime phase in the historically claimed “Western Ocean.” It is the last frontier of the great rejuvenation for China’s naval strategy in the Indo-Pacific region.
Sri Lanka is pivotal to the master plan of the 2049 centennial goal of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the completion of its great rejuvenation. Throughout two millennia, the Han, Tang, Ming, and other dynasties have enjoyed a long line of cultural, diplomatic, military, and commercial interactions with Sri Lanka. The ancient legacy has now been elevated to a new height with President Xi’s “China Dream” and his means of achieving it through BRI.
For China, the rejuvenation of ancient culture and the renaming of the Indian Ocean into the “Western Ocean” would hardly be completed without Sri Lanka. In 2015, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi branded Sri Lanka as a “dazzling pearl on the Maritime Silk Road” in the southern strategy of BRI, reviving the Ming legacy of maritime superiority. The northern strategy associated with the cosmopolitan Tang Dynasty has become the Terrestrial Belt that expanded throughout Southeast and Central Asia to Europe. The Belt is connected to the Indian Ocean by the economic corridors of oil and gas pipelines in Pakistan and Myanmar. The “unsinkable” Sri Lanka is central to connecting these peripheral land-based economic corridors to China while encircling India.
The Ming history of the “Western Ocean” has ostensibly been veiled but discreetly revived when President Xi inaugurated the China-backed $14 billion Colombo Port City during his historic visit to Sri Lanka in September 2014. The Chinese company that invested $1.4 billion has been given 43 per cent of the 269-hectare (665 acres) of land reclaimed from the Indian
Ocean on a 99-year lease. It is noteworthy to disclose that a Chinese submarine and a warship was not docked at the Sri Lankan government-controlled port facility in the
Colombo Harbor in October 2014; instead, China purposefully chose to berth them at the Colombo South Container Terminal, a facility controlled by a Chinese developer.
The entire episode has a subtle historical precedent with the Ming-Kotte war of 1411. In his third voyage, when Admiral Zheng He’s massive citylike flotilla arrived on the island, the unexpected conflict led to the capture of the defeated King Alakeshvara and the taking of him, his family, and the inner circle back to the Imperial Ming Court in Nanjing as “prisoners.”Likewise, the fear of Chinese reprisal may have prompted the Rajapaksa administration to welcome the ships; however, the deliberate incident raised geopolitical concerns in India, the United States, and beyond.
THE LAST FRONTIER WITH YUAN WANG 5
In its annual report to Congress in 2021, the United States Department of Defense stated that China was “pursuing additional military facilities to support naval, air, ground, cyber, and space power projection” and had “likely considered a number of countries as locations” for People’s Liberation Army facilities, including Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka has elevated its bilateral “strategic partnership” with Beijing to enhance China’s involvement in the island’s infrastructure projects. When Yuan Wang 5 docked at the Chinese-built port at Hambantota, Sri Lanka also allowed the Chinese-built Pakistani warship to berth at Colombo Port. New Delhi quietly viewed the coincidence of a Chinese surveillance ship and a Pakistani warship permitted in Sri Lanka as double diplomatic and military strikes on India.
In August 2022, both the United States and India asked the Sri Lankan government that it not allow the Yuan Wang 5 ship to dock in Sri Lanka. With its struggle to pay the mounting debts to China, the Colombo administration conceded to Beijing’s pressure and allowed the “spy ship” to berth at the China-built Hambantota Port, which is similar to the Colombo Port City and has had a 99-year lease to a Chinese company since 2017.
THE WARFARE OF THE MINDS
In his article in August 2022, the Chinese ambassador to Sri Lanka Qi Zhenhong wrote about the “great history of the island” and highlighted the history of aggression from its “northern neighbour 17 times” and “colonization by the west for 450 years.”
The Yuan Wang 5 crisis sent a chilling message to New Delhi at the time of a long-standing military standoff between India and China along their shared Himalayan border that has claimed many lives on both sides. Since Sri Lanka defaulted on international debts earlier this year, India has provided $4 billion in credit lines to ameliorate the island’s food, fuel, and medicine shortages. With the multi-billion dollars invested in the Chinese projects in Sri Lanka, China has increasingly larger stakes on the island for reaching its long-march strategic goal by 2049.
Overall, China’s expansion has been successfully phased and strategically gradual from the East and South China Seas to the Indian Ocean. As the military strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu (545–470 BC) counselled in his Art of War, Beijing has thus far effectively used its ancient wisdom that “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Suppose a triumphant China dominates the Indian Ocean. In that case, Beijing might then rename it the Western Ocean for posterity to seal the success of its “great rejuvenation” and restore historical glory.
FAKE NEWS: MAKING NO DISTINCTION!
When even the redoubtable Xi Jinping can be ‘toppled’ by malicious peddlers of fake news, it is time to sit up and take notice.
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Fake news can generate its own momentum, spinning around the globe at the speed of light, convincing many and leaving a trail of panicked confusion in its wake. This was amply demonstrated recently when social media was set ablaze by news of a ‘coup’ in China with President Xi Jinping, at the cusp of his historic third term, under ‘arrest’. While the Chinese public must have been terrified at the prospect of uncertainty and violence marring their peaceful existence, many of China’s vast legion of enemies were sorely disappointed when the news turned out to be fake!
HASHTAG STRESS!
The #ChinaCoup story first started trending on Twitter as a hashtag. This quickly led to sharing funny memes and messages against President Jinping. It was even reported that the Chinese Army General Li Qiaoming had taken over as the new president! The story evolved over three stages-beginning in domestic circles before being translated into English by influencers opposed to the Chinese government. Unsurprisingly, India’s large user base on Twitter soon made the story viral! Social media later reported that as an aftermath of #ChinaCoup, 60 per cent of domestic flights in China were grounded! This, too, could have been fake news as there was no independent confirmation and the Chinese government refrained from giving further credence by issuing an official statement. world (at least momentarily) demonstrates the power of social media. In the mass of information available on the net, an average surfer may find it difficult to separate the chaff from the wheat. Social media giant Twitter has been claiming that it is robustly fighting fake news. It claims to have suspended over 20,000 pro-Beijing accounts and an additional 150,000 handles that helped further spread the pro-Chinese government messages. Predictably, Chinese spokespersons condemned Twitter’s action and denied official patronage of such accounts. In fact, it demanded Twitter come down heavily on accounts smearing Chinese reputation on social media. Twitter has taken similar action in Russia by suspending over 1000 accounts linked to a Russian media website engaging in state-backed political propaganda. Turkey, too, was under a cloud, with some 7000 accounts being dealt with as fake/compromised for ``cheerleading’’ the ruling party.
China has a complex relationship with mega social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube; all are blocked in China but are used by the Chinese government / Communist party to spread their narrative. Fergus Hanson, Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre, claims that social media is extensively used by the Chinese Communist Party to “sow
SCAMS GALORE!
Social media is called, rather justifiably, ‘a gold mine for scammers;’ reportedly, one in four persons who have lost money in a cyber fraud did so on social media. The scams are not restricted to money alone. Twitter accounts have a minefield of old photos, videos, tweets, and personal messages linked to your account. Your account also links to other friends and family who could fall victim to these frauds.Crypto-related scams have come about as the topmost twitter scam. Scammers steal people’s crypto or use crypto as an allure to get people to part with their sensitive data. A close second to crypto-related scams are phishing scams which steal your Twitter username and password. This enables the fraudster to post inappropriate Tweets under your name, message friends and family posing as you, gain access to your messages, and delete pictures, videos, or even your Twitter account itself!
Social media accounts of celebrities and public figures are prime targets for hackers, including those of Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Kanye West, Elon Musk, and Kim Kardashian. Scammers can host fake crypto and NFT giveaways and raffles after gaining control over a famous personality’s account.The data breach has assumed significant proportions. In July, the data of over 5.4 million Twitter users were put up for sale on an underground internet forum for $30,000. The data contained email addresses and phone numbers irrespective of whether they had configured their privacy settings to hide this information. Twitter has since then taken care to manage this data breach, but a Twitter account makes you vulnerable to hackers and scammers will use leaked data to conduct wide-scale scam campaigns.
THE “BOTS” ANGLE
A new facilitator of misinformation has appeared in the form of bots which are automated systems that can share information online. A research study found that bots seem to have an equal impact on propagating true and false news, so they might not be skewing the headlines entirely.
New research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge by a data scientist tried to uncover the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The lead researcher Soroush Vosoughi found that a great deal of the material on social media regarding the incident was false and even implicated totally innocent persons. Vosoughi found this tantalising and researched deeper into the subject of fake news on Twitter that can significantly impact people’s lives. The researchers uncovered 12 years of data from Twitter since 2006 which was then correlated with factual news from six independent fact-checking organisations—websites like PolitiFact, Snopes, and FactCheck.org. The comparison threw up alarming facts; the truth rarely reached more than 1000 Twitter users, while false news stories reached well over 10,000 people. The spread of false news was most vicious in the case of political matters. However, bots were not primarily responsible for the flare-up of false news. False news spread at an alarming rate even when bots were eliminated from social media shares. By default, this left only human beings responsible for the proliferation of fake news. This led to the assumption that spreaders of fake news had cultivated more followers, but this also led to a dead end. These accounts had fewer followers, not more.
The tweets themselves turned up as the deciding factor. Tweets containing false information were apparently more novel as they contained new information which a Twitter user hadn’t read before. This naturally meant they evoked greater response and stronger emotion. “If something sounds crazy stupid, you wouldn’t think it would get that much traction,” says Alex Kasprak, a fact-checking journalist at Snopes in Pasadena, California. “But those are the ones that go massively viral.” There is clearly a viral trend which supports untruths, as research reveals that Tweets containing falsehoods reach 1500 people on Twitter six times faster than truthful tweets.
COMBATING FAKE NEWS
Science, which has enabled the rapid spread of fake news, must now be harnessed to eliminate its scrouge. At the receiving end of maximum criticism for being the harbinger of fake news, Twitter has taken several steps to stop this malaise. Now users in the U.S., South Korea, and Australia will have the option to flag a Tweet as ’It’s misleading’ after clicking on Report Tweet.” The company expects that this experiment will “identify trends’’ that can help to scale and speed up its broader anti- misinformation work. There is clearly a future for algorithms to flag fake news in social media.
Writing in the Indian Express, Mr Tobby Simon, President of Synergia Foundation, says, “Fake news must be countered instantly by developing counter-narratives and disseminated ideally through the same channel through which it originated. The protagonist of such news always remains dubious. Fake news has both a human and technical side, and so does any potential solution. Solutions to misinformation need to involve the users themselves.”
Assessment
Social media platforms must police their content in imaginative ways. Twitter’s attempt at introducing a mechanism for users to flag such posts is an example which should be given wide traction.
We are potentially witnessing a trend of policing content which lies contrary to the overall momentum for free speech. Under the garb of killing fake news, platforms (and governments) should not be allowed carte blanche to control the dissemination of news and opinions on social media. An independent regulatory body must be created, nationally and internationally, to enable public participation in such an overwatch mechanism.
SILICON PHOTONICS: THE NEXT TECH REVOLUTION?
The photonics industry has the potential to drive technology in the post-law Moore’s era, making silicon photonics a critical technology.
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The world’s thirst for data is rising exponentially. This is being driven by applications ranging from social networks and streaming video to genomics-driven medicine and the proliferation of linked devices under the “Internet of Things.”
The expansion of mobile computing is particularly pronounced with the UN’s telecommunications agency findings that mobile phone subscribers had surpassed the total number of people on Earth by 2013. Photonic Integrated Circuits, better known as PICs, could soon replace electronic integrated circuits (ICs) as the favoured technology for a wide range of applications as ICs reach the limit of their integration capacity.
A PIC is a chip containing photonic components which work with light; an integrated circuit contains electronic components to form a functional circuit, like those embedded inside your smartphone, computer, and other electronic devices. In an electronic chip, electron flux travels through resistors, transistors, capacitors and inductors. In contrast, photons travel through optical components like polarizers, phase shifters, and waveguides, which are analogous to resistors or electrical wires.
THE FUTURE Silicon Photonics technology uses optical signals via single-mode optical fibres that have the built-in capability to use multiple light colours to travel in the same optical fibre. This, in turn, boosts the overall data capacity. Besides apparent advantages like expanded storage and bandwidth per fibre, silicon photonics technology holds precedence over existing technology.
abundance of options afforded by these technologies and services and anything that comes after them. However, this increasing data utilization has a price. Google stated in 2009 that a single Internet search uses approximately one kJ of energy. Data rates are beginning to outpace the capacity of traditional interconnect technology, which presents another difficulty for our data-intensive environment. For instance, the latest high-definition televisions’ exceptional pixel density and fast frame rates make standard copper HDMI cables almost useless in transmitting the required data quality.
Silicon Photonics technology uses optical signals via single-mode optical fibres that have the built-in capability to use multiple light colours to travel in the same optical fibre. This, in turn, boosts the overall data capacity. Besides apparent advantages like expanded storage and bandwidth per fibre, silicon photonics technology holds precedence over existing technology.
duction can be done at a much lower cost. In addition, a hardware-verified process design kit enables the entire chip design flow using tools of the highest industry standard.
WIDE APPLICATIONS
Delivering free-space emissions to sense or manipulate external objects is a recent extension of the uses of silicon photonics. The silicon optical phased array is the most known example, which can direct a free-space beam to produce a chip-scale solid-state LiDAR (Laser Detection and Ranging). Other examples include optogenetic probes, quantum photonics, imaging systems, and free-space optical communication. Using silicon photonics, an optical system is miniatured into a photonic chip with numerous functional waveguiding components, unlike the traditional optical system, which consists of bulk optics.
MARKET POTENTIAL
According to a recent Fortune Business Insights report, the Silicon Photonics market is expected to show significant growth. This is due to its ability to produce at a lower cost using standard semiconductor fabrication techniques. According to the third edition of a study on Photonics conducted by the European Union, the global photonics market is predicted to cross US$900 Bn in 2024 from around US$600 Bn in 2018. North America is projected to be the leader in the Silicon Photonics market owing to the early adoption of technological advancements, government support, and a greater demand for higher data transfer rates. The market is further expected to propel the growth of the silicon photonics market during 2019-2026.
On-chip optical transceivers are suitable substitutes for power-hungry electronic transceiver circuits for low-energy budget interconnections. These will also enhance the data movement among the processors, memory, and peripheral hardware, indicating clearly that the advancement in the technologies required to make optoelectronic chips a workable reality is already here.
The photonic core is excellent at drastically enhancing computing performance by utilizing the benefits of light in linear matrix calculations. At the same time, electronic circuits are required to carry out non-linear operations like driver circuits, arithmetic and logic, data storage, and activation function. “We believe that silicon-based optoelectronics is a promising and comprehensive platform for general-purpose matrix computation in the post-Moore’s law era,” claimed Pengfei Xu and Zhiping Zhou, two academics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Peking University, showcasing the advancements made by China in this emerging field.
Assessment
Silicon photonics could trigger the birth of “disaggregated” data centres built on optical interconnects partly enabled by it. Such architectures could provide more power and efficiency for highperformance computing and data communications.
With its lightning-fast data transport between and within microchips, silicon photonics will play a key role in determining how quickly computers will advance in the future and whether Moore’s law will persist.
