It is no longer commonly realised that there is an intense historic abyss between India and China. This conflict between two vast world-civilization blocs has been obscured since the creation of BRIC, as it was originally called, with an intergovernmental summit between Brazil, Russia, India, and China in 2009. South Africa joined in 2010. The organization has expanded to include Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, and is now at times referred to as BRICS Plus.

BRICS has established various subsidiary bodies, such as the New Development Bank (NDB), headquartered in Shanghai, which seems to be primarily a jackup between Chinese financial interests. Some see this as a push against globalization. However, the NDB works within the international banking system. Consequently, in 2022, in accordance with the Bank’s “sound banking principles,” transactions were suspended with Russia, due to the sanctions placed on Russia in reaction to the conflict with the Ukraine. So much for the BRICS alliance.

Here we might begin to appreciate the character of the alliance: during the 19th century, before it was reduced to vassalage by a combination of mostly White powers (Boxer Rebellion), China postured as the Celestial Kingdom before whose Emperor all sovereigns were expected to kow-tow. China again acts on the world stage as the centre of the universe. Alliances or collaboration with China are not based on equal reciprocity, but on China’s ancient self-perception of its world supremacy.

New Zealand’s Free Trade Agreement with China dates to 2008. New Zealand started a process of dismantling manufacturing in the 1980s, as a prelude to integration into an Asian economic bloc. What transpired was subordination to China’s economic development, which has enabled China’s highhandedness towards New Zealand regarding foreign affairs and trade relations. We have seen this whenever New Zealand deals with Taiwan or Tibet, and now India, its BRICS “ally.”

With New Zealand’s lightning-paced development of an FTA with India, we might discern the real character of geopolitical dynamics in the Indo-Pacific. When prime minister Luxon went to India and was feted by the Modi Government with declarations that an FTA would be concluded within 90 days, and then even 60, the smiling face of China’s diplomacy was dropped, and the snarling dragon gave a “warning” that it is either China or India. There cannot be a Ménage à trois between New Zealand, China and India.

China’s Indophobic Sentiments

Considering BRICS, one would assume that China would be jubilant that New Zealand would be drawing closer to China’s BRICS partner. This however is to misunderstand the historic enmity between the two.

The Chinese ambassador to New Zealand, Wang Xiaolong, issued a public statement on his “X” account that should disabuse assumptions based on lack of historical context:

In international relations as in perhaps any relationships, myopia and tunnel vision often means that rather than staying ahead of, or at least, on the curve, you will find yourself outpaced by events and longer term trends. More often than not, it hardly serves your best interests when you try to promote one significant relationship by damaging another.

Wang’s comment has deep significance, but not surprisingly received scant attention from the news media.

Wang alludes to factors that are not evident even to government functionaries, who are unlikely to have backgrounds in the deeper realities behind superficial appearance. These obscured factors are the seething tensions that shape the actual relationship between China and India, behind the façade of BRICS. The “longer term trends” referred to by Wang hint at the ever-present conflict between India and China, and indeed China and other states in the region, which makes the stability of BRICS problematic, as it does the position of Russia, whose hostile relationship with China has historically been of longer duration and intensity.

India a Bulwark

Asia is a seething quagmire of conflicts, that include economic and environmental instability, behind a veneer of growth. The control by China of the headwaters of the Tibetan plateau, sourcing most of the major rivers of Asia, is of crucial concern to many Asian states, particularly India. China could turn the taps off at will. China, far from being an economic juggernaut, is riddled with problems, and its jumping aboard an out-of-control growth treadmill will result in exhaustion. Facing collapse China could seek confrontation with enemies, including latent enemies, of which Russia is among the latter, while physical confrontations between Indian and Chinese soldiers over disputed border territories, despite BRICS, have never relented.

As for New Zealand’s newly developing relationship with India, as with Russia, India is a bulwark against Chinese expansionism, which remains a primary concern for the Indo-Pacific. India, moreover, is not part of Mongol “Asia.” Its heritage is within the context of the “Indo-European,” as the term itself should make obvious, but which is nonetheless forgotten or ignored by those who can only see the spectre of “dark faces.” In particular, the leadership strata remain closer to Europeans than to “Asians.”

China is no more a genuine and enduring ally of Russia than of India. China sees all the cards fold out in its favour in any alliance, and its “friendship” with Russia has been no exception, this “friendship” allowing China to push Russia back from traditional spheres, such as Mongolia. It has been one-way, as China still perceives itself as the centre of the universe. We should be cultivating alliances with both Russia and India, in what I termed in 2013 an “ANZAC-Russo-Indian Alliance,” in response to the multiplicity of problems that will shortly arise in the region. Hopefully, the FTA with India indicates a step towards such a new direction.