When asked in 1924 why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, the British mountaineer George Mallory is reported to have replied, “Because it’s there.” He would disappear on Everest later that same year during an attempt to reach the summit. Many of India’s attempts to study and understand China evoke aspects of both the Mallory story and his final reality.
It is obvious that India needs to study and understand China simply “because it’s there” – an overhanging military threat to India’s northern borders, a coercive economic power seeking to limit Indian economic growth and competitiveness, a competing political model and development partner in India’s neighbourhood and beyond, and a civilizational power with a conceit matching or exceeding India’s own. And yet, the study and analysis of China in India leaves much to be desired.