From 13–15 February, the world’s strategic elite gathered at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
What unfolded was not merely another annual security dialogue but a revealing exercise in narrative construction—particularly by China.
India was present in force. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar participated in key sessions, articulating India’s positions on Ukraine, multipolarity, and Global South agency. Alongside him were senior Indian policymakers, diplomats, and strategic thinkers engaging Europe at a moment of flux. The conversations were serious, layered and, at times, quietly competitive.
Also present was my close friend, Professor Wang Yiwei of Renmin University of China (People’s University), Beijing, where I delivered a lecture last year. In Munich, he met several senior leaders, including the President of France and the British Prime Minister, as well as influential European strategists. His interventions, and the mood surrounding them, offered a revealing window into Beijing’s current thinking.
What is emerging is a carefully layered Chinese narrative—one that India must read with clarity, not sentiment.
A recurring Chinese framing at Munich was that both India and China are not mere nation-states but “civilisational states”, shaped by millennia rather than modern treaties. In Chinese discourse, this is increasingly described as wenming guojia.
For Indian readers, this idea is not new. The concept of the “geocivilisational state” was articulated decades ago by my nanogenarain guru, Professor Tan Chung—one of India’s foremost scholars of India–China narratives. A recipient of the Deshikottam honour from Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, and the Padma Bhushan from the Government of India, Professor Tan Chung argued that India and China are not simply geopolitical actors but civilisational continuities interacting across history. Long before it entered Beijing’s strategic vocabulary, the idea had intellectual roots in Indian scholarship.
Yet the subtlety lies here. When China invokes the civilisational state, it is not merely asserting cultural parity. It is also constructing a hierarchy.
In Munich, Chinese voices emphasised that India and China, as ancient civilisations, should not be trapped in Western geopolitical binaries. They rejected the framing of a Global West versus Global East versus Global South. On the surface, this resonates. India too has championed Global South agency. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is not a slogan but a civilisational ethos.
But embedded in this discourse was a telling assertion: India, it was suggested, is preoccupied with China, whereas China’s real strategic focus is the United States. The hierarchy is implied. US–China is framed as systemic rivalry; India–China as a secondary theatre.
For India, this need not provoke anxiety. It should sharpen clarity. When Beijing downplays India’s strategic weight in European forums, it is shaping perception. Narrative, after all, is power.
On the boundary question, the familiar argument resurfaced: that the dispute is a legacy of British colonial cartography—lishi yiliu wenti, a problem left by history. While historically accurate in origin, this explanation avoids post-2020 realities along the Line of Actual Control. The colonial frame externalises responsibility and reduces contemporary tensions to inherited technicalities rather than strategic choices. India cannot afford such simplification.
China’s disappointment that India remains outside the Belt and Road Initiative was evident. The narrative presented was that India’s refusal limits regional integration and economic growth. Projects such as the BCIM corridor were framed as developmental rather than geopolitical. Yet there was silence on India’s sovereignty concerns over the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor. The message is subtle but consistent: Beijing will continue to portray India as self-excluding. Delhi must counter this not through defensive rhetoric, but through credible alternative connectivity models.
An intriguing strand in Munich discussions was China’s articulation of feeling strategically encircled by nuclear powers—Russia, North Korea, India, Pakistan, and potentially Japan. Historical references to Soviet nuclear tensions in 1969 were invoked. This is not casual storytelling. It builds intellectual justification for ongoing Chinese force modernisation. For India, this has direct implications for deterrence stability.
Despite visible transatlantic frictions, Chinese strategists conveyed confidence that US–Europe structural alignment remains intact in security and finance. Europe’s strategic autonomy, they implied, remains aspirational. More concerning for India is the emerging global narrative of a US–China duopoly. In such a frame, others risk marginalisation. If the world is described as a contest between two elephants, India must ensure it is not treated as terrain.
China’s confidence in its industrial ecosystem was also striking. It sees itself as indispensable to global supply chains. Export controls on critical minerals are framed as defensive responses to containment. Artificial intelligence was presented not merely as technology, but as national rejuvenation—minzu fuxing. AI fused with manufacturing scale is Beijing’s long game.
India’s response cannot be rhetorical. Strategic autonomy demands ecosystem depth—digital capability integrated with industrial strength.
Munich 2026 made one reality clear. China seeks to manage India regionally while contesting America globally. It wants multipolar rhetoric without multipolar dilution of its own centrality.
India’s response must reflect what Kautilya would recognise as calibrated statecraft: firmness on sovereignty, acceleration of AI–manufacturing integration, deep engagement with Europe as an autonomous pole, and confidence in our own civilisational narrative—without being subsumed into another’s hierarchy.
India is not a secondary theatre. Nor is it terrain between elephants. We are, and must remain, a shaping power.
As we say in Hindi, aatmavishwas hi rananiti ki pehli shart hai. (Confidence is the first condition of strategy).
The world is being narrated. The question is simple: will India author its own chapter?
