Hello and welcome to Best of Business Standard Opinion, our wrap of the day’s editorial page.
Shyam Saran looks to recently, but briefly, accessible Chinese Foreign Ministry archives to shed light on a potentially consequential diplomatic opening before the 1962 India-China war. At meetings in Geneva in July 1962, Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon reportedly proposed territorial adjustments, followed by temporary arrangements to prevent clashes, including limits on military posts and maintaining distance between them. Chinese Vice Premier Chen Yi initially objected but then expressed willingness to explore such confidence-building measures and suggested a joint communique. Menon, however, referred the proposal back to the governments. Saran notes that Nehru’s Cabinet subsequently ruled out further talks, with the episode offering a revealing historical “what-if” about whether diplomacy might have delayed or prevented war.
The extraordinary scale of current AI investment raises the question of whether the sector is experiencing a bubble, even as its technology increasingly permeates other industries. Devangshu Datta recalls how Demis Hassabis chose Google over rival suitors partly because he recognised AI’s potential to subsume technologies such as virtual reality, self-driving cars, and 3D printing. Today, proposed AI valuations and infrastructure spending dwarf earlier technology booms, with planned investment potentially reaching $10 trillion over five years. Datta suggests AI’s valuations can be justified only if it ultimately orchestrates innovation across the economy. If that “subsumption” thesis fails, he warns, the consequences of a bubble bursting could be catastrophic.
Shekhar Gupta challenges the notion that post-Independence India has been a “soft state”, tracing a consistent willingness to use military force from Kashmir in 1947 to contemporary conflicts. He highlights Mahatma Gandhi’s little-known endorsement of military action in Kashmir, when he told Brigadier Lionel Protip Sen that force was justified to protect civilians and property. Subsequent governments, from Jawaharlal Nehru’s use of the Army in Hyderabad and Nagaland to Indira Gandhi’s 1971 war and Rajiv Gandhi’s interventions abroad, repeatedly exercised hard power. Gupta contends that even current Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decisions to halt hostilities can represent strength, rather than weakness, when objectives have been achieved, making restraint part of state power.
The recent Xi-Trump summit produced little substantive progress, but Mihir S Sharma suggests its elaborate ceremony may itself have conveyed an important message about the emerging US-China relationship. Trump’s willingness to accord Xi exceptional status reflects, the column notes, a transactional view of power in which both leaders recognise each other’s ability to impose economic costs while preferring negotiation to confrontation. This risks signalling that Washington now sees the world primarily through a US-China lens, relegating allies, partners, and smaller powers to secondary roles. This contrasts with the earlier Obama-era notion of a G-2, which envisaged cooperation on global problems, warning that today’s version could instead entrench an exclusive duopoly.
