Diplomats write for a small readership, at times a consequential one. For Indian diplomats, even the best work often lies buried in files, subject to a slow, cautious, and erratic declassification regime. On China: Reflections on Chinese Statecraft, edited by Vijay Gokhale and Chirayu Thakkar, brings nine papers by Jagat Mehta out of those files. Mehta was India’s chargé d’affaires in Peking from 1964 to 1966, and later foreign secretary. With India-China relations in hibernation after the 1962 war, he turned to study and set his young team to do likewise. The Indian mission was one of the best informed in the Chinese capital, a tradition we believe has continued.The nine papers, all written between 1964 and 1970, fall under four heads: grand strategy, the Sino-Soviet dispute, India-China relations and China-Pakistan ties. Gokhale, a scholar-diplomat himself, and Thakkar, a young historian, set the context well with their fine introductory chapters.The essays endure because Mehta explained Chinese behaviour through history, nationalism, power and statecraft, not through the ideological language of the moment. His central view, that nationalism would shape China’s conduct more than communist doctrine, has aged well. Long before Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping, he saw that Beijing’s quest for power, status and security would outlast leaders. The essays are valuable not because they were always right, but because they combine independent thinking with realism.The farewell despatch: It holds both his deepest insights and his plainest errors. He perceptively argued that nationalism, more than Marxism, drove Chinese policy, and that her ambitions would survive a change of leaders. But he missed the turmoil about to engulf China. He described “a remarkably stable and orderly society” and judged that its leaders would not risk “a second collapse as in 1958.” The Cultural Revolution began within weeks. His line that “unaided, China can become an international nuisance but not a world power” was a large forecasting error.The boundary question: Mehta held that the boundary was not the root of the India-China quarrel. He saw it as a sign of a wider strategic divergence, over India’s regional role and standing. Later history largely bears this out. If he erred, it was in underrating the political weight the dispute would gain in both countries.China’s bomb and India’s response: Writing within three days of China’s nuclear test of October 16, 1964, Mehta judged that the Chinese programme was mainly political, that her motive was to claim great-power rank and the lead of the Afro-Asian world, and that China had no effective delivery system yet. His prescription was weaker than his analysis. He favoured restraint and development over a nuclear response. K.R. Narayanan’s memo of November 25, 1964, argued for the nuclear option, anticipating India’s eventual decision.Story continues below this adThe Sino-Soviet schism: This was perhaps his best call. In November 1964, when many saw a communist bloc, he looked beyond the polemics, refused to treat the dispute as a family quarrel among communists, and saw the two heading towards a split. He read it as a power struggle between giants, and a clash of “rival national interests of two great neighbours” and rival claims to leadership, with ideology in a secondary role. However, he did not foresee the opening between China and the United States.China and Pakistan: Mehta rightly assessed China-Pakistan relations as a strategic partnership born of shared hostility towards India, rather than a deeply rooted alliance. However, he doubted the depth of the bond, and saw the challenge as “weaning Pakistan from the bear-hug of China.” Sixty years on, the bond has grown into one of the world’s most lasting partnerships.Mehta’s greatest contribution was seeing that nationalism, power, and calculation drive Chinese statecraft. Many of his assessments were prescient and have stood the scrutiny of time. There were errors of judgment, but these do not dim the value of the essays.Why the archives must open: These essays are archived and inaccessible. Mehta said the papers he and his team wrote at the Policy Planning Division were “never read.” When I was in government, we sometimes complained that scholars wrote about issues they did not fully understand. Yet the government must own its failure to open the archives.Story continues below this adThe Public Records Act of 1993 and the Rules of 1997 provide for periodic review of classified records and for transfer of permanent records to the National Archives after 25 years. In practice, release is patchy and unpredictable. Scholars must study Indian policy in archives in Washington, London, Moscow and at times Beijing. The late Avtar Singh Bhasin negotiated access to restricted collections, including the P.N. Haksar papers, and put five volumes on India-China relations, with several “Top Secret” documents, in the public domain. No harm came to the national interest.The remedy is simple: release records after 25 years, subject to a short list of exceptions, each justified in writing.The Ministry of External Affairs should revive a properly staffed Historical Division, giving Indian diplomats a well-researched historical perspective as they grapple with challenges, old and new.The oral history project undertaken by the Association of Indian Diplomats and the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) must be carried forward. Our new e-journal, the Indian Journal of Neighbourhood Studies, has a section called “The Oral Histories.” It will curate first-person accounts from diplomats, border communities, traders, and other stakeholders.Story continues below this adMehta’s farewell despatch urged India to form “an independent, objective judgment of our own,” to learn even from “our Chinese adversary,” and to build “a few centres of Chinese studies.” All of this needs institutional memory that does not rest on chance: a memoir, a stray report, one scholar’s access.One hopes this book begins a series of such archival excavations. Shivshankar Menon wants such work “extensively followed by others, and soon.” We need many more books like On China, and fresh thinking on how to manage our archives, learn from a correct reading of history and invest in understanding our largest neighbour.On China: Reflections on Chinese Statecraft, edited by Vijay Gokhale and Chirayu ThakkarRupa Publications₹600328 pagesThe author is Subhas Chandra Bose Chair Professor of International Relations at Chanakya University, Bengaluru and a former ambassador to China.