- In the 21st century; the rise in economic capabilities has led both China and India to showcase their civilizational heritage as an identity marker and as the centrepiece of their respective foreign policy discourses under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
- Mao Zedong also embraced the imagination of civilizational spaces in making territorial claims for the Chinese nation-state.
- Xi Jinping proposed the ‘China dream’ that defines the Chinese nation as the manifestation of the Chinese nation and urged China’s population to work to continue and develop China’s civilizational values.
- Modi’s civilization–state-based foreign policy approach can be categorized into three distinct themes; privileging cultural-civilizational narratives in diplomatic outreach, India’s connectivity projects based on ancient trade and cultural ties, and more active outreach to the Indian diaspora.
The Westphalian concept of the nation-state often leads scholars and students of international relations to utilise Western International Relations theories such as realism and neo-realism to analyse India and China’s approach towards foreign policy. A limitation of this Western-centric approach is that it is based on the assumption that India and China are driven only by material factors like other states in the Westphalian international system often ignoring the strong Civilizational aspect which drives the conduct of their foreign policy.
Concept of Civilization and Civilization-state
The term civilisation may be used in International Relations literature to represent ‘transnational, inter-human, and de-territorialized cultural communities’. These cultural communities are like imagined communities such as nation-states however unlike territorially bound nation-states civilizations span a much larger geographical and social expanse.
The concept of the nation-state is a relatively new concept that emerged in the 17th century when the 1648 Treaties of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years’ War in Europe by carving nation-states out of a warring Europe. Thus, the European concept of a nation refers “to a community of people which has one language, one religion (Catholic Christianity or Protestant Christianity) and one race “. When this community of people has one language, one community or one race when they form a nation with a government representing that nation it is called a nation-state. Thus, the concept of a civilization pre-dates the concept of the nation-state. A civilization state is a state that is both a nation and a civilization that considers itself to be the successor and inheritor of past civilizational heritage and glory whose influence is not necessarily confined to territorially defined limits of the Westphalian concept of a nation-state.
The Evolution of the Civilizational-state Discourse in India and China’s Foreign Policy
In the Post Second World War period, despite inheriting nation-states based on the Western Westphalian model and despite their radical plans for social reform and modernization when it came to state building both the Indian and Chinese political elite believed that they were inheritors of glorious and ancient civilizations. In their struggle to establish a socialist system in China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) expressed disdain for China’s cultural and civilizational legacies. Mao Zedong proclaimed anti-imperialism and anti–feudalism as the bedrock of Chinese nationalism and decreed socialist ideology and continuous revolution as the defining features of China’s national identity. However, Mao embraced certain civilizational and cultural aspects of China’s past to legitimize the CCP’s rule.
In the historical memory of the Chinese people order, peace and prosperity are associated with strong central authority while a weak and fragmented polity makes China vulnerable to attacks and even occupation by foreign ‘barbarians’. There is therefore an implicit Chinese cultural acceptance of a need for centralism and authoritarian political authority for securing the country. This belief among the Chinese masses in centralized power along with the two ancient Chinese philosophies of Confucianism and Legalism which called for a hierarchical society as well as a strong centralized state was tapped by the CCP to legitimize its absolute rule over the Chinese population. This ancient cultural civilizational influence was also extended to the management of China’s relations with the outside world.
A civilization state is a state that is both a nation and a civilization that considers itself to be the successor and inheritor of past civilizational heritage and glory whose influence is not necessarily confined to territorially defined limits of the Westphalian concept of a nation-state.
Most significantly Mao Zedong also embraced the imagination of civilizational spaces in making territorial claims for the Chinese nation-state. The non-Chinese speaking territories included by Mao in the Chinese nation such as Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia as well as China’s claims to Taiwan and other disputed islands in the East China and South China Seas are mainly drawn from China’s traditional and imperial history. Thus, despite his public campaign to dismantle China’s traditional cultural symbols, Mao relied heavily on those traditional representations to envision China’s territories.
India’s demographic diversity is much broader than China’s and while 79 % of the Indian population is classified as Hindus, there is no singular cultural and religious criteria that can amalgamate Hindus as one Homogeneous unit. Unlike China India has historically never been united as a single political entity for most of its history except for brief periods in its history such as the period of the Mauryan empire and the British colonial period. Unlike China post-independence, India also opted for the system of parliamentary electoral democracy.
To foster a sense of common nationhood across such a diverse and vast geographical landscape in the immediate aftermath of India’s partition in 1947 India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru invoked Hindu cultural imagination to portray the Indian civilizational space. Even before India’s independence Nehru argues in his book The Discovery of India (1946) that the 8th-century Hindu philosopher Shankaracharya by establishing four great monasteries in the north, south, east and west of the Indian subcontinent encouraged the conception of a culturally united India.
There are clear similarities between Nehru’s idea of India’s geographical expansion and the Hindu idea of the Sacred geography of India. The ancient Hindu text the Vishnu Puran defined ‘The land north of the seas and south of the Himalayas as Bharata where the descendants of King Bharata live’. These territorial imaginations also highlight the contradictions in Nehru’s thinking as he also simultaneously considered India to be a secular nation-state where the state would officially maintain neutrality in matters of religion.
The prevalence of Hindu symbolism in the political and geographical imagination of the Indian nation is a recurrent theme, witnessed in the Constituent Assembly which was tasked with drafting Independent India’s constitution. Article 1 of the 1950 Indian constitution declares “India that is Bharat shall be a Union of states. Thus, while the post-colonial Indian state may take precedence in political power, the name Bharat mentioned in ancient Sanskrit literature defines the nation at its cultural foundation.
China under its first Communist leader Mao Zedong and India under its first socialist secular Prime Minster Jawaharlal Nehru, both chose to construct their national-territorial expanses based on ancient civilizational imaginaries. The Chinese and Indian territorial perceptions of their national boundaries based on their civilizational imaginations were contradictory and led to territorial disputes which culminated in the 1962 India – China war.
Resurgence of the Civilization-state and its influence on Indian and Chinese foreign policy under Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping
In the 21st century; the rise in economic capabilities has led both China and India to showcase their civilizational heritage as an identity marker and as the centrepiece of their respective foreign policy discourses under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping proposed the ‘China dream’ that defines the Chinese nation as the manifestation of the Chinese nation and urged China’s population to work to continue and develop China’s civilizational values. Xi Jinping’s iconic foreign policy initiative, the Belt and Road, reflects his perception of China as a civilization rather than a nation-state; accordingly, his grand infrastructure-building campaign in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America relies on the revival of the ancient Silk Road networks.
On the other hand, Narendra Modi as India’s Prime Minister has engaged with religious, sacred and spiritual events and rituals as part of his domestic and foreign policy. Influenced by his political Hindutva ideology Modi’s idea of India identifies the country as a civilization-state, and he believes it is both his destiny and duty to restore India to its glorious civilizational status as a Vishwa Guru.
While every Indian prime minister since 1947 has referred to the glorious civilizational inheritance in his / her foreign policy discourse, Modi has elevated the narrative of India’s civilizational grandeur to the centre of his foreign policy discourse. Modi’s civilization-state-based foreign policy approach can be categorized into three distinct themes; privileging cultural-civilizational narratives in diplomatic outreach, India’s connectivity projects based on ancient trade and cultural ties, and more active outreach to the Indian diaspora. While these ideas precede Modi’s tenure, the real difference is the visibility, vigour and vitality that Modi has brought to these ideas and practice.
(Dhruv Ashok is a PhD Scholar at the Department of International Studies and Political Science. Christ University, Bangalore. Views expressed are the author’s own)
References and Further Reading:
- Bajpai, R. (2018). Civilizational Perspectives in International Relations and Contemporary India- China Relations. Retrieved from: https://www.e-ir.info/2018/04/26/civilizational-perspectives-in-international-relations-and-contemporary-china-india-relations/
- Bajpai, R (2024). Civilization-States of India and China: Reshaping the World Order. Bloomsbury Academic India
- Coker, C (2019). The Rise of the Civilizational State. Polity
- Deepak, J (2021). India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution. Bloomsbury India
- Jain, M (2023). The Hindus of Hindustan: A Civilizational Journey. Aryan Books International
- Nehru, J (1946). The Discovery of India. Penguin India
- Saran, S (2022). How China sees India and the World. Juggernaut
Dhruv Ashok is a PhD research scholar from Christ (Deemed to be University), Bangalore. He writes on current affairs and international politics. His areas of interest include conflict resolution and historical narratives. Views expressed are the author’s own.
Balaji Subramanian 
Aayush Pal