Beijing plans to build new highways along the LAC. The FBI is investigating Huawei for listening in to the US’s most secure government communications. Xi Jinping asked European leaders to visit China, but the foreign ministry says he didn’t. Didi Chuxing was fined $1.2 billion after a year-long investigation. Chinascope brings you top news stories and expert views from China for this week.
China has cited concerns over India’s infrastructure projects as one of the reasons behind its military buildup in Ladakh. Now, the Beijing government has announced for the construction of a new highway through Aksai Chin to boost economic productivity. On 1 July, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced the plan under which Beijing will build 461,000 km of highways and motorways by 2035. Last week, Beijing released new details of areas where the national highways will be constructed. Two new planned highways will spark concerns in New Delhi – G695 and G684. The proposed highway G695 will connect Lunzhe County in Tibet with Mazha in Xinjiang. However, we don’t have the exact route of the planned highway. But a popular science blogger claims that the G-695 will pass through Depsang plains, Galway Valley, Kongka Pass, and Pangong Tso.
The new highway will pass closer to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) than the existing G-219 highway, which connects Tibet with Xinjiang. The bridge under construction on the Pangong Tso will be part of the G695, according to the science blogger with over two million followers on Weibo. For a moment, let us assume that there is a widespread political disease called “freebies”. If so, anyone concerned about it should ask the following questions: How serious is this disease? Must it come up on top of my list of priorities? Is this curable and is the cure affordable? Or must I learn to live with it, if the cure is more costly than the disease? If it must be cured, who is the right doctor? And what is the correct medicine? Now, even a minute’s reflection would tell you that depriving the political parties of their symbol, and thereby any chance of electoral success, is a medicine worse than the disease.
No one should wield such an axe in a democracy, for that person or institution would become more powerful than the people. The Election Commission of India must never be given such powers if we do not want it to lose its credibility more than it already has. The ECI’s affidavit to the Supreme Court is quite right to say that this is “a question that has to be decided by the voters”. News reports say that the CJI-led bench considered if the Finance Commission can be tasked with this responsibility. The fact is that no institution can ever use such power in a non-arbitrary manner. Let us not forget that one of the most common methods of killing democracy is to disqualify political opponents from contesting elections under one pretext or another. Such a window does not exist in our country. It must never be opened. Also read: Can Congress-BJP sway state polls with freebies or are they failing to read voters’ minds?
How else can the disease be cured, then? Before we press ahead with this question and search for another cure, let us entertain a thought: in a democracy, politics has to be a self-governing activity. You can safeguard democracy from external threats, momentary lapses, and individual whims, from majoritarian excesses. But you cannot safeguard democracy from the people. If “freebies” attract people, you can educate them. You can mandate higher disclosure requirements so that the hollowness of these promises can be exposed. You can empower the media to interrogate these parties and leaders who make impossible promises. But if an overwhelming majority of the people prefer a course of action over a long term, there is nothing you can do about it, without shutting down democracy itself.
