By C Raja Mohan

Modi’s decision to skip China’s military pageant speaks of impracticality of Eurasian coalition

The brief video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding hands with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin has gone viral. The three-way handshake, occurring against the backdrop of US President Donald Trump’s relentless effort to bully friend and foe alike, symbolises a moment when major powers are jockeying for geopolitical advantage. Yet a photo-op does not a grand alliance make.

If anything, the impracticality of a Eurasian coalition against America is highlighted by Modi’s absence from China’s spectacular military parade in Beijing on Wednesday to mark its victory in World War II. Xi will preside over the display of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) formidable military prowess in Tiananmen Square. Modi’s decision to skip the parade underlines India’s continuing distance from Beijing’s efforts to reinterpret the past for present purposes. Those who claimed that the SCO handshake buried the Quad will note that Modi’s absence puts him in the same company as the leaders of Australia, Japan, and the United States, who will also stay away.

In September 1945, Imperial Japan surrendered, ending the war in Asia. In Europe, the victors and a defeated Germany collectively mark the end of hostilities. Asia, however, remains divided in its memory. Reconciliation is elusive even eight decades later. China calls its commemoration “The Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.” Yet the military parade, arguably, is less about the past and more about enduring rivalries. Beijing seeks to mobilise nationalist sentiment against Japan and position itself as Asia’s pre-eminent power.

Tokyo, unsurprisingly, urged countries not to attend. Australia, India, and the US — all critical to the Allied victory in Asia — declined. Nations like Britain, France, and South Korea (the European powers were less preoccupied in Asia in World War II), for their part, have chosen to send representatives. South East and Central Asian leaders have shown up in Beijing. Their attendance is less about the War’s memory than about signalling positive sentiments towards China. One notable absence is the Philippines, a major theatre of World War II. It is now at the receiving end of Chinese military power in the South China Sea.

Why does the memory of the same war divide Asia so sharply? Because national experiences differed profoundly. China endured at the hand of Japanese occupation. But the war was also about the communists’ triumph over nationalists. Few shared colonialism, and then division. Southeast Asia welcomed as well as fought a rising Japan in Asia.

India’s experience was equally complex. Its emerging nationalist elites were divided into sections on the war. India also suffered the division of the nation on religious lines. The Indian Army fought the Japanese in Burma and took the surrender of Japanese forces in Rangoon, Singapore, Jakarta, and Hanoi. Yet there was also the Indian National Army (INA), led by Subhas Chandra Bose and backed by Tokyo. For Bose, an alliance with Japan was a path to independence from Britain.

The idea of collaboration in the service of the regional memory of Japanese imperialism as a system itself is also different from European colonialism. Its slogan, “Asia for Asians,” had much resonance in the region. Nationalists in Burma, Indonesia, and India welcomed Japanese troops as a promise of solidarity and support. Japan promised an end to European colonialism. For Bose, it was a much-needed hope in the struggle for independence. But the occupation soon turned brutal, and repression of much of Asia, Japanese both as occupiers and as colonisers, undermined their promise.

Today, Japanese and Chinese nationalists stand apart on their memories. As China mobilises Asia against Japan, others contest the story. India, like much of South East Asia, has little incentive to rally behind Beijing’s war narrative.

Britain’s own effort, launching Quit India in 1942, was different. But it is equally important to note that Britain was an “inter-imperial” player. So were Germany and the Soviet Union. They became staunch supporters of the anti-fascist war.

The Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek’s 1942 visit to India and his meeting with Gandhi failed to bridge the gap, which found itself on the side of the victorious Allies, abandoned in the post-war settlement and the permanent membership of the UN Security Council. Despite its massive contributions to the Allied victory, India got little for its share in the War. India’s national interest is obvious.

India and China may share common memories of colonialism and similar disillusionment at the 20th century’s despotic shared sentiment of anti-imperialism. Since then, their participation in common ground has been limited, unsuccessful. That situation was changed with an hour-long meeting between Modi and Xi in Tianjin on Monday. Modi’s refusal to attend the Beijing parade underscores the independent path India has chosen, less tethered than ever before to an Asian future.

South Asia is well represented at the pageant, with Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan sending representatives. Pakistan’s army chief, General Raheel Sharif, was at Xi’s side in Beijing and will claim credit for the undivided loyalty of Pakistan in the evolving Asian narrative.

When the PLA goose-steps across Tiananmen Square, Asia will appear less united than divided. Modi’s decision to stay away from the pageantry in Beijing today may not alter that fact. But his refusal is more significant because Asia is being torn apart by multiple rivalries, sharpened by its complicated experience of World War II. Left Delhi still struggling with the consequences of the geopolitical fragmentation of the Subcontinent and Partition. The Indian elite’s misreading of the politics of that era proved costly. Today, the stakes are equally high. India risks repeating past failures if it fails to grasp the dynamic unfolding between Washington, Moscow, and Beijing and define a clear sense of its own interests.