Chanakya and Sun Tzu

The great debate at the November Mumbai Lit Fest was on the proposition India and China must be friends.

- R GOPALAKRISHNAN

Fiercely argued with a rhetorical emphasis on "friends", the opposition wondered how a double-crossing and unreliable neighbour could be a friend. Meanwhile, management guru Ram Charan wrote in The Sunday Guardian, London (November 23, 2025), that the future of India-China relations could be guided by a measured partnership with autonomy, discipline, and wisdom.

What did the original strategists advise? Chanakya advocated scoring a decisive win whereas Sun Tzu advocated patient encirclement: India must learn to play Weiqi (known as GO), not chess. Let us unpack the spaghetti of issues by choosing those that matter.

The Chinese have the concept of tianxia, which visualises the world as being under the canopy of heaven; everything coexists in natural order. They also refer to their own country as Zhongguo (Middle Kingdom), which means that they are the centre of the civilised world, while others are referred to as yemanren (barbarians). China is the centre of the civilised world, surrounded by barbarians. They don't wear their exceptionalism in day-to-day behaviour, but many foreigners discern an air of superiority.