Thread by @d_jaishankar

A short THREAD on Indian opinions about China, based on two recent surveys I was involved in.

A lot of commentary still mentions Indian ambivalence about competition with China, but that's not necessarily reflected in recent opinion surveys.

A couple of points to begin.

One, survey data about foreign affairs in India is limited. Pew, Gallup, and several others (including embassies) do conduct polls, but due to the high cost and high rates of 'no opinion' answers, they're not as numerous as one might expect.

Two, when I post survey data on Twitter, an inevitable response is "how significant is a few hundred or few thousand person sample in a country of over a billion."

To preempt such responses, let me just say: quite significant.

Here's a good explainer: online.stat.psu.edu/stat100/lesson…

The first survey was a public one conducted in Indian tier-1 and tier-2 cities, in eight languages, in 2017. Most (not all) of the same questions were asked to people in 5 other countries (China, Japan, RoK, Indonesia, Australia).

perthusasia.edu.au/getattachment/…

First thing to note is that Indian views about China's role (relative to the US) in the Indo-Pacific region were already quite sceptical in 2017.

Indians were also most likely to believe - among the 6 countries surveyed - that China would be "likely to start a conflict in the Indo-Pacific."

Only 14% of Indians believed that India should work more closely with China in the event of greater U.S.-China competition. Again, this was 2017.

Just 10% of Indians saw China as India's most important global partner, less than the U.S., Russia, and Japan.

The second survey, conducted in December 2018, was of India's strategic community: including current and former political leaders, diplomats, military officers, and intelligence officers, as well as university and think tank scholars, business, and media.
brookings.edu/wp-content/upl…

The big takeaway from this survey is that in December 2018, a majority of India's strategic community identified China's assertiveness as India's biggest external challenge.

The largest number of respondents also identified the boundary dispute as the biggest obstacle to better relations with China.

Even more starkly than the public opinion survey mentioned above, only 2% of those surveyed in India's strategic community identified China as India's most important partner on global issues.

While a majority (54%) believed that India should remain equidistant between the U.S. and China in the event of greater competition between the two...

...only 2% suggested closer collaboration with China (as compared to 43% who advocated closer collaboration with the U.S.)

However, as these results indicate, few expected immediate military conflict with China, with most believing that Indian military involvement in its extended neighbourhood or conflict with Pakistan was more likely (remember this survey was conducted before Pulwama/Balakot).

Not much to say in conclusion, except that it will be interesting to see the results of similar surveys are to be conducted in the near future. END