面对印度激进的经济攻势，中国为何选择克制应对？

以中印为方法   以世界为目的

From China and India

to the world as a whole

文/宋亦明

by Song Yiming

Why does China respond with restraint in the face of India’s radical economic initiatives? 

印度的对华经济攻势必然伤及自身。但即便如此，印度政府并未表现出克制，而是激进地接连出台可能致使局势升级的对华限制性举措。与之相反，中国并未采取“针尖对麦芒”的报复性举措，而是相对隐忍克制地寻求缓和中印紧张关系的新路径。

These measures will certainly backfire. Even so, the Indian government has not shown any restraint but continuously announced restrictive measures against China, which has had deleterious effects for bilateral relations. On the contrary, China has not taken tit-for-tat measures but remained restrained to seek for new ways to alleviate bilateral tensions.

印度之所以采取激进的举措，原因在于：一方面，上述举措对印度的负面影响主要由全民共同分担，致使单个企业与个人对其利益受损不够敏感。例如，2019年印度从中国进口的电力设备约占其全部的30%，这些设备具有明显的价格优势，对降低印度用电成本、提高其电网稳定性具有积极作用。虽然印度政府对进口中国电力设备施加各种限制将迫使本国电力部门选择更为昂贵的替代产品，但这些额外的成本将被印度民众所分摊，因而印度民众很难第一时间感受到本国政府对华经济攻势对其自身的负面影响。印度民众对自身利益受损缺乏痛感，其政府开展对华经济攻势也就没有顾忌。

India has several conditions to be aggressive. Firstly, the negative impacts caused by above-mentioned measures burden the whole Indian people, which makes any single company or individual not so sensitive to the loss. For instance, India imported 30 percent of its power generation equipment from China in 2019, which is competitively priced and can help India lower its electricity costs and stabilize its power grid. After India imposed many restrictions on imports from China, its power sector has to choose more expensive substitutes. As the extra costs will be shared by the large Indian public, they can hardly feel the negative impact resulting from India’s retaliatory moves toward China. Consequently, the Indian government can launch economic attacks on China without scruple.

印度民众对自身利益受损缺乏痛感，其政府开展对华经济攻势也就没有顾忌。图为印度新德里郊区一家中资制衣厂内工作的印度员工。

另一方面，加勒万河谷地区冲突所造成的印军伤亡极大激发了印度的民族主义情绪，印度政府只能以激进的对华姿态来回应这种情绪。传统观点认为，印度长期的被殖民统治历史、分散的土邦治理结构、种姓制主导的社会分层并非民族主义滋生的理想土壤。然而需要认识到，在反抗英国殖民统治和三次印巴战争中，印度已基本实现了其民族建构，近年来印度自身发展所激发的自豪感和对中国崛起的担忧又为印度民族主义注入了新的动能。可以说，当前印度国内的民族主义已经发展为一股社会思潮。值得注意的是，今年5月一款名为“删除中国应用”的手机应用程序一在印度上线便成为爆款，400万次的下载量也意味着大量由中国企业开发的应用程序已被印度民众自行删除。在此背景下印度政府大范围地禁用中国企业开发的应用程序就不足为奇了。

What’s more, the Galwan Valley clash caused casualties of Indian border troops, arousing a wave of nationalist sentiment among the Indian people. In this context, the Indian government was forced to take an aggressive attitude toward China. Traditionally, India isn’t considered a hotbed of nationalism due to its long history of being colonized and its loose governance structure with native states and caste-dominated social structures. But during its fight for independence from British colonial rule and three India-Pakistan wars, India has gradually set up its own national ego, which has been intensified by the country’s development in recent years as well as its worries about China’s rise. It can be said that nationalism has become a domestic trend in India. A mobile app called “Remove China Apps” became a hit in India as soon as it was launched in May this year. Its four million downloads means that many apps developed by Chinese enterprises had been voluntarily deleted by Indian users. Against this backdrop, it is no wonder that India dares to ban Chinese apps on a large scale.

相反，中国之所以相对克制地加以回应，原因在于：一方面，印度对华经济攻势将对部分中国企业造成直接且明显的冲击，因此缓和而非升级局势成为了中国对印度经济外交的当务之急。譬如，当前TikTok母公司字节跳动在印的单日损失约为50万美元，各类损失总计可能要超过60亿美元。当前，中国企业不得不面对经营受限、份额丢失、收益减少甚至被逐出印度的残酷现实。为了避免这些企业遭受更多损失，中国政府并未实行可能会导致局势进一步恶化的报复性政策。

On the contrary, the reasoning behind China’s restrained response is: On the one hand, India’s economic offensive against China has had a direct and obvious impact on some Chinese companies. Therefore, easing rather than escalating the situation has become a top priority for China’s economic diplomacy with India. For example, the current single-day loss of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance in India is approximately US$500,000, and the total losses of various types may exceed US$6 billion. At present, Chinese companies have to face the cruel reality of limited operations, lost market shares, reduced profits and even being expelled from India. In order to prevent these companies from suffering more losses, the Chinese government has not implemented retaliatory policies that may worsen the situation.

另一方面，在新冠疫情全球大流行的背景下，维护全球产业链稳定、应对美国对华经济压力，已成为中国经济外交的主要议程。采取对等的报复措施、升级与印度的经济摩擦不仅有悖于中国经济外交的优先方向，还会将中国拖入与印度相互报复的无限循环中，进而恶化中国的外部经济环境。中国政府对印度此轮经济攻势的克制是为缓和中印经济摩擦、稳定两国经济关系的审慎选择。

On the other hand, in the context of the global spread of the coronavirus, maintaining the stability of global industrial chains and responding to the U.S. economic pressure has been top of the agenda of China’s economic diplomacy. Taking retaliatory measures and escalating economic friction with India would not only go against the priority goal of China’s economic diplomacy, but also drag China into an endless cycle of mutual retaliation with India, thereby degrading China’s external economic environment. The Chinese government’s restrained attitude toward India’s current economic offensive is a prudent choice to ease the economic friction between the two sides and stabilize their economic relations.

中国国是印度棉花最大出口国，每年从印度进口的棉花达20万吨以上。图为印度古吉拉特邦一家棉花加工厂内工作的印度工人。

中印两国同时崛起所带来的国际政治结构性矛盾、两国间存在的边境争端与几十年来曲折发展的双边关系，均意味着中印经济合作不可避免地被两国政治关系和边境局势所左右。可以预见，在中印边境冲突得到管控、两国政治互信得以重塑之前，中印经济关系还将持续承压。然而，20世纪以来的大国经济纷争与地缘政治博弈历程为中印两国留下了宝贵的历史教益：和则两利，斗则俱伤。因此，发动经济攻势、加剧经济“去中国化”不应成为中印经济关系的主基调。相反，寻找缓解当前经济合作困局的政治性解决方案才是中印双方唯一正确的选择。

The structural contradictions in international politics brought about by the simultaneous rise of China and India, the boundary question between the two countries, and the tortuous development of bilateral relations over the past decades all mean that China-India economic cooperation is inevitably affected by the political relationship and border situation of the two countries. It is foreseeable that unless the border tensions between China and India are properly managed and the political mutual trust between the two countries is rebuilt, China-India economic relations will continue to be under pressure. However, the economic disputes and geopolitical games of the major countries since the 20th century have left a valuable historical lesson for China and India: peace benefits both, and conflict hurts both. Therefore, launching an economic offensive and intensifying economic decoupling should not become the main tone of China-India economic relations. On the contrary, finding a political solution to alleviate the current dilemma in economic cooperation is the only correct choice for the two countries.

本文作者为《中国经济外交蓝皮书》副主编，中国人民大学国际关系学院博士研究生。

The author is deputy editor-in-chief of China Economic Diplomacy Blue Book and a PhD candidate of the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China.

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