China racing ahead in critical technologies: How innovation is the only solution for India

There are multiple disruptions that are taking place currently. The Cold War did provide some kind of stability, though it witnessed multiple conflicts wherein warring sides were either supported by the US or by the Soviet Union or Russia. With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US emerged as the sole superpower, and its fragile stability still continued. With China undertaking major strides in all domains, coupled with its new-found ambition of becoming the sole superpower of the world, the international narrative of dynamic equilibrium is witnessing a major change.

With Chinese incursions having entered their fifth year in eastern Ladakh, the Russia-Ukraine war continuing in the third year, and the Israel-Hamas conflict continuing in the eighth month, with no end in sight for any of these conflicts, global uncertainties continue. As this emerging geopolitical situation becomes more and more fragile with every passing day, new political alignments are emerging. Russia-China has already entered into a ‘no limit’ friendship, with a new alignment emerging in the form of Russia-China-North Korea-Iran. More nations could join this alliance, including Pakistan.

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The balancing act expected from India on the geo-political front is an important challenge, but India has been walking a tight rope efficiently so far. India has also been managing the economic issues, including the challenges of the supply chain, reasonably well in the national interest. The biggest challenge that is most disruptive stems from technological disruption, which is more alarming as compared to geopolitical and geoeconomic disruptions.

In fact, technological disruptions shape even geopolitical and geoeconomic disruptions. The Houthi attack in the Red Sea using drones and missiles resulted in the US and some other NATO countries mobilising their resources to counter this threat. Technology to be effective need not result in high-end, sophisticated weapons, but low-end, cost-effective weapons using simple technology are also potent tools for the strategic impact that happened consequent to this attack by Houthis in the Red Sea. Another technological impact can be gauged from the fact that Ukraine, with a non-existent navy, has caused asymmetric damage to Russian vessels and has become a headache for the Russians in the Black Sea as they were forced to move more eastward.

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India is currently faced with two major adversaries who are in active collusion with each other, viz, China and Pakistan. It is therefore essential that technological challenges emerging from Chinese technology focus be factored into the development of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) in the Indian Defence Forces to address this new challenge. Any technological process with China can be deemed to be available with Pakistan as well, and therefore India needs to prepare for handling such technology based emerging conflict situations on both fronts.

China has put in substantial effort into technology development and is leveraging it for warfighting in multiple domains. There are close to 20 niche technologies in which China has become the world leader, even surpassing the US. These technologies include anti-satellite weapons (ASAT weapons) as well as hypersonics. Both of these are being weaponised by China, along with other niche technologies. In addition to weaponising these technologies, which are of strategic importance, China is setting its own standards as international standards, as international standards have yet to be formalised in most of the cases. As a leading developer of these niche technologies, China is affecting a large number of nations by making them adopt these standards. Once more countries adopt these Chinese standards due to their associated benefits, the world may be forced to accept them as international standards, thus changing the entire ecosystem.

To counter such a technological prowess by China, India needs to take quick and multiple steps to preserve its national interests. It is quite challenging to match up the growth of niche technologies as technology does not develop in a linear fashion. Though substantial effort is underway towards the development of these technologies, more focused, out-of-the-box effort is needed to handle this technology challenge.

Some of the steps needed could be:

· Enhanced R&D budget with output-linked incentives.

· Besides taking the product development to the prototype stage, it must also be taken to the procurement stage in all successful cases.

· A complementary approach among all the stakeholders.

· Making all the ‘transfer of technologies’ (TOT) to the developers and manufacturers available free of charge.

· Leveraging advanced technologies from friendly countries for joint ventures for co-development, co-production, and co-exports.

· Involve technical establishments both in the public and private sectors for not only the development of niche technologies but also the operationalisation of them.

· All three defence services are developing their technical capacities independently. Before integration is achieved for the operationalisation of joint theatres, these service wise capacities must be integrated.

· Though interaction with academia has increased, these need to be further reinforced.

· Service think tanks must come up with likely scenarios indicating the prioritised technology-led warfighting situations based on which DRDO as well as other organisations must develop the required technologies.

· Innovation is the only solution.

While India has done well to manage the emerging geopolitical and geo-economic challenges, it has to gear up to handle the technological challenges emerging due to niche technologies. There are no options but to innovate, as China is leading the world in this domain in some of the critical technologies.

The author is Director General, CENJOWS, and Kargil war veteran. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.