Ignored! Indians in China

It was after the protests from the Indian community in Gulf that they got adequate representation at Pravasi Bharatiya Divas but since there are only about 20,000 Indians in China, they remain ignored. However considering the fact that India looks with suspicion at the Chinese and they seem to be disdainful of the Indian ambitions and ability it is all the more important that Indians in China play a more expanded role in people to people relationship.

by REPORTER@DAYAFTERINDIA.COM

For the sixth year in a row, India rolled out the red carpet for its diaspora. At the just-concluded Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (Indian Diaspora Day) in New Delhi, the government celebrated and serenaded some 1,500 Indians from about 50 countries. But Indians living and working in countries of key importance to its interests went unrepresented at the event.

Of the over 100 speakers that participated in the scores of panel discussions at the three-day event, there was not even one Indian from China.The Indian diaspora is 25-million strong and is spread out across 110 countries. It is the second largest in the world after China.

As in previous years, it was the Indian-American community that hogged the limelight at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas. The Indian-American community is roughly 2.6 million strong and is expected to cross 3 million by 2010. It is rich - the annual median income of Indian households in the US was $78,315 in 2006, 61% higher than the US average - and well educated, and its political influence in the United States is growing.

At this year’s jamboree, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh singled out the Indian-American community for praise. He lauded their efforts “mobilizing support of the political leadership in that country [US] for Indo-US cooperation in civil nuclear energy”.

Although the Indian community in the Gulf is larger - it is around 5 million strong - it was until recently sidelined in the Pravasi events. Indians in the Gulf complained that their contribution to the Indian economy through their remittances was not recognized adequately by Delhi. Of the $26 billion that overseas Indians remitted to India in 2006, 50% came from the Gulf Indians.

Since last year, the excessive attention heaped on Indian Americans at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas has been corrected. The contributions of people of Indian origin from regions like the Gulf and Southeast Asia are also being celebrated.

However, “Indians living in countries of key importance to India’s interests - like China or South Africa, for instance - continue to be sidelined, if not unrepresented at the Pravasi Bharatiya events,” complained a participant at Delhi.

Officials in the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs say that if Indians living in China did not participate in the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas it was because of the small size of the community. The number of Indians in China is estimated to be about 20,000 only.

Former Indian ambassador to China C V Ranganathan pointed out that most of the Indians living in China are not permanent residents, but those who have gone there to work over the past couple of years. There are people of Indian origin who have been in China for decades, but these too are only a handful. In Hong Kong their numbers are much larger, where they have contributed in a big way to Hong Kong’s reputation as a trading power.

Indians in China might not have participated at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, but they do figure on the Indian radar, claimed an official in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). They help build bridges between India and China.

Sino-Indian bilateral relations have witnessed much change in recent years. Trade and investment has grown dramatically. Bilateral trade between January and November 2007 was worth $34.23 billion, a 53% increase over the same period in 2006. In 2006, bilateral trade crossed $25 billion, a 33.8% growth over the previous year. In December, the Indian and Chinese armies participated in joint military exercises on Chinese soil for the first time ever.

Yet the bilateral relationship has been far from friendly or cooperative. The border dispute is yet to be resolved. This and the Sino-Pakistan missile and nuclear cooperation have cast a long shadow over bilateral relations.

Indian perception of China remains clouded by suspicion and a feeling that Beijing is determined to block India’s rise. Some Chinese look on Indians with disdain. These perceptions can be changed only with interaction and this is where Indians in China are contributing, says the MEA official.

Nayar points out that Indians working in China “can play a significant role in any radical transformation in Sino-Indian relations. There are close to 200 Indian companies now in China: most of them are staffed primarily with Indian personnel. In addition, there are many multinational corporations, which employ people of Indian origin from their headquarters, be it the United States of America or Europe. All these men and women are in constant and continuous contact with the Chinese and are actively engaging them in China’s new ideology of making money.”

Srikanth Kondapalli, China expert and associate professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, is skeptical about the potential of Indians in China to influence Chinese perceptions of India. “Indians working in China have created stakes in the economy and that Sino-Indian economic interaction will lead to economic interdependence and this is a good thing,” he says. Still, “it is not clear how Indians working there are contributing to India’s foreign-policy interests. Their numbers are too small to have much impact.”

Small their numbers might be, still they are shaping Chinese perceptions in significant ways. Indian software professionals and teachers are adding to capacity building in China, points out Ranganathan.

An executive from a leading Indian software company with a development center in Shanghai pointed out that Indian companies operating in China are hiring Chinese. “This is being noticed and appreciated by the Chinese,” he claims, pointing out “that in contrast, when Chinese companies go abroad they take their personnel and labor with them and are reluctant to hire locally”.

The joint venture spearheaded by India’s largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) with a consortium of Chinese companies and Microsoft as junior partners is helping China create its first world-scale software company “with Indian help”, the executive pointed out. “It gives the Chinese access to Indian skills and knowledge.”

Information Technology training provider, National Institute for Information Technology (NIIT) , has churned out tens of thousands of Chinese software students through its 165 education centers in China. TCS and NIIT have passed on expertise to the Chinese, which has not gone unnoticed in China.

In the process “the perception of India as a knowledge-sharing country has been advanced”, believes Ranganathan. The number of Indians in China is growing rapidly. Kondapalli recalls that a decade ago there were about a dozen Indians in Beijing besides thoseemployed in the Indian mbassy. Today, there are about 2,000 in the Chinese capital alone, he said. Indian officials feel that as the number of Indians in China grows their impact on China’s perceptions of India will increase.

Unlike the India-Pakistan normalization process, that between India and China has not been able to draw as much from contact between the two peoples. Cultural bonds that draw Indians and Pakistanis together are nowhere as strong between Indians and Chinese. “With the political leadership in India and China lacking the will and courage, and bureaucrats in both countries running out of ideas, India is clinging to straws – the small Indian community in China - to transform Chinese perceptions of India,” says a retired government official critical of India’s China policy.

Officials in the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)which partnered India’s Ministry of Overseas Indians in organizing the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas point out that the government must stop looking at the size of the Indian community in a country or the depth of its pockets in determining its guest list at Pravasi events. “Their potential in furthering India’s interests in adverse circumstances should be considered,” a CII official said. “And the Indians in China are doing this quietly. Why not recognize them?” Indians in China will be invited to receptions hosted by the Indian Embassy in Beijing during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s upcoming visit to China. Perhaps they will find themselves on India’s guest list next year.