“Chinese ‘gifts’ worry India” – Excerpts

Continuing on my China theme (See also this and this), a worrying report from rediff: “Chinese ‘gifts’ worry India“…as they should. Excerpts:

“…A senior Indian intelligence official has expressed concern over what he described as the “dramatic increase” in Chinese attempts to woo Indian politicians and business leaders with gifts, some of them “phenomenally lavish.”

Reacting to a story in Businessworld magazine, which refers to Chinese attempts to buy influence in India, the Indian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said while this is nothing new, what is of concern is the sudden and dramatic increase in the number of “influential Indians” being tapped by the Chinese.

The recipients of these gifts “spanned the political spectrum“, the official said, expressing his “serious worry over this alarming trend, which has increased in leaps and bounds over the past three or four years.”

…Admitting that this had been going on for “quite some time”, the official said of late, there has been a dramatic surge in such incidents. Politicians in India’s northeastern states and West Bengal are among the recipients of Chinese largesse, he said.

…The money involved is so large, the intelligence official charged, that it would “certainly influence the political scenario not just at the provincial level in some states close to the Chinese border, but even during the next Indian general election.”

…According to the official, who has been studying China for over two decades now, this influence had already led to strange spinoffs, including the government’s reticence “to support serious studies” on the border dispute with China.

“While there are several Chinese think tanks which are studying the issue for a long time, in India, there is not one Indian scholar that I know of who is engaged in similar studies,” he said, “simply because the government discourages such efforts and is reluctant to fund them.”