India-China Relations: Some Reflections

[Deletedid1]

India’s China policy has been marked by friendship, sentimentalism, fear, diffidence, brinksmanship, wishful thinking and engagement. This mixture of attitudes reflects the complexity of the relationship, our difficulties in managing China’s challenge, the nature of the Chinese regime, China’s strategic advantage over India, and the fulgurating rise of China in recent years.

If we are entitled to be wiser with hindsight, then it could be affirmed that we committed many mistakes in dealing with China soon after independence and since. Not having governed ourselves for a long time, and therefore bereft of practical experience in dealing with foreign powers, and having developed a disposition towards negotiations, dialogue, compromise and moral positioning during our independence struggle, we were perhaps not fully equipped to deal with external threats with robust realism. Our China hands must have crafted, in their thinking, the best possible approach towards that country then, but those making history have to contend with history’s implacable judgment. It can’t be argued that with available information, and the perceived circumstances of the moment, the best possible was done. This would suggest, unacceptably, that mistakes are never made, but are only discovered later with the benefit of hindsight!

Some very far-reaching strategic mistakes were made in not comprehending the Maoist take-over of China and its implications for India. Mao seized China through revolutionary violence, India through a non-violent struggle. China’s leaders were communist, India’s were nurtured in democratic thinking. Mao’s China wanted to settle historical wrongs against the country, Gandhi and Nehru wanted to forget and forgive historical wrongs. In one country the militants had wrested power, in the other pacifists assumed power through a constitutional process. The political trajectories of the two countries and the nature of their leadership were so different, that a clash of thinking and ambitions should have been seen as likely.

The hand-holding of China by India at Bandung and elsewhere, in the romantic belief that these two Asian giants could together redress the balance of power in Asia, long dominated by the West, was an error of judgement. It is not clear why the rise of communism in China on the back of a peasant revolution, and the threat this ideology inherently presented to poor Asian societies riven by social injustice and deprivation and needing land reforms, should not have been factored into policy by a rural, socially fractured country like India. Why India chose to alleviate South-East Asian concerns about the communist leaders of China might have made sense in the context of notions of Asian solidarity, of breaking free of foreign policy bondage to the West, of de-colonising Asia, of rejection of imperialism, of carving a leadership role in Asia and beyond by newly independent India, it nonetheless denoted a degree of naivete on our part.

While India’s recognition of communist China was unquestionably right, India’s undeterred support for Communist China to take Taiwan’s place in the UN, and later in the Security Council, not to mention Nehru’s rejection of overtures to occupy China’s seat as a permanent member of the Security Council, today look piquantly ironical in the face of China’s opposition to India becoming its equal in a Security Council restructured to reflect the realities of 2007 and not those of 1945.

India could not physically prevent China from militarily occupying Tibet in 1950, but the dangerous strategic consequences of this for India’s security should have been flagrantly obvious. A political and geographical buffer was being removed for the first time in history. Given the absence of a formally demarcated border in the western sector and China’s position on the MacMahon line, China’s occupation of Tibet should have rung alarm bells in India, as it could have been foreseen that the Chinese would sooner or later assert their physical control over the entire Tibetan border as they saw it. India took Chinese protestations at face value that their maps showing large chunks of Indian territory as theirs were old KMT maps, which would be rectified in time. India also harboured the illusion that it could unilaterally demarcate the boundary on maps on the basis of historical data and earlier cartographic lines. This strategy, as events would show, failed disastrously.


In a case of remarkably poor investment in political futures, one of trading present concessions for future show of goodwill by the recipient, we gave up all our extra-territorial rights and gave legal recognition to Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, satisfying ourselves with a so-called autonomy for it which we would have no means to enforce, and failed to link these major concessions to a settlement of the boundary issue, or at least a clear framework for its resolution. In 1959, when the Dalai Lama flew to India , we rightly granted him asylum, but erred in laying a condition that he would not engage in any political activity on Indian soil. We gave up thus the Tibetan card voluntarily and despite the 1962 conflict with China and its grating claims on our territory based on Tibetan history, we have not retaliated by using the Dalai Lama’s presence in India, and his affinity with us, to pointedly pressurise China in Tibet.

Unforeseen at that time, as the communists had not yet taken over in China and the thrust into Aksai Chin had yet to occur, India made another grievous strategic error, with long term consequences for our security, by not securing for itself the Northern territories in J&K state. The result is Pakistan’s geographical contiguity with China, permitting the Karakoram highway, a strategic artery, to be built, which today gives China access to the Indian Ocean, along with the possibility of linking a network of roads in Central Asia to this highway, and on to Gwadar. Ironically, the British empire, and later the West, fought for the control of Afghanistan to deny Russia access to these very warm waters that China has obtained without a fight, through the bounty of a country that allied itself with the West to fight against communism!

In the face of Chinese territorial claims, India’s so-called “forward policy” was an exercise in prudence at one level, and of imprudence at another, as it was not accompanied by adequate military preparations, of the kind that could withstand a Chinese reaction. If the judgement was that the Chinese would not respond militarily, it only demonstrated that instead of having our ears on the ground, we had our heads in the air!

The 1962 border conflict scarred us politically, militarily and psychologically. It made India look militarily feeble; it provided China reason to support insurgencies in our north-east; it damaged our standing in the third world as well as our leadership pretensions; it made China a potent player in South Asian affairs; it gave Pakistan an additional political and military crutch for confronting India; it gave space to our neighours to play the China card against us, not only Nepal, but Sri Lanka ,and later, Bangladesh.

The lasting effect of the 1962 debacle was the shattering of our self-confidence vis-a-vis China, our fear of China’s capacity to exploit our vulnerabilities, our over-cautious attitude towards it, and the loss of nerve even to forcefully protest against China’s provocative attitude and policies. We even hesitate to use the word “aggression” to describe the events of 1962. This would be understandable if 1962 was buried forever and the reasons why the conflict occurred have vanished. But the border issue remains unsettled and China continues to reiterate publicly its territorial claims on Arunachal Pradesh, but we are afraid even of semantic defiance! This psychological weakness via-a-vis China is a great handicap in fashioning a purposeful approach to that country.

The Chinese effectively exploit our democratic system and our free press to cultivate lobbies and use them to encourage the government to maintain its diffident posture. In our pluralistic society there is enough debate and self-questioning on government policy, as well as competition between political parties to project success or obfuscate failures, with public opinion in mind. A foreign country can always discreetly inject itself into this internal debate and try to steer it to its advantage. This is an unequal situation as outsiders can hardly penetrate the closed Chinese political system and its tightly controlled media. While China can use a section of our media and commentators to preach to our government the virtues of thinking out-of-the-box vis-a-vis China and making concessions to unblock the current impasse on the border issue, we cannot use the Chinese system to proffer similar advice to the Chinese government from within.

For a variety of reasons, Chinese actions on the border make big news in India as they awaken the ghosts of 1962. There are counter lobbies at work too, which feed reports of Chinese incursions across the border to the press so that the public remains wary of China’s intentions. The government is put on the defensive and tries to minimise these incidents, offering the convenient, and technically not wrong, explanation that they are limited to “disputed” areas and that the overall peace and tranquillity on the border has not been disturbed. No government in India wants to be put in a position of being accused of failure in its China policy. There is a kind of schizophrenia towards China at work-a strong fear of China and its posture on the border and in the region is accompanied by a mollifying discourse and unconscionable delays in developing the border infrastructure to requisite levels.

China’s disinclination to settle the border issue and our non-existing capacity to force it to do so in its own interest, left us no choice but to try to stabilise the situation on the border through the Agreements on Maintaining Peace and Tranquility and on Confidence Building Measures in the 90s. These have contained the border problem, but has also frozen it to India’s disadvantage. The status quo always favours the side not anxious for change. India wants peace on the border but also wants a border settlement. It suits China also to have peace as it defuses the border issue politically and militarily and gives  it a free hand to settle Tibet internally. This also helps it to make the claim of its peaceful rise more credible.

China, on the one hand, wishes the world to believe that it has pacified Tibet, with Tibet  riding the crest of prosperity under Chinese rule. It demonstrates confidence about its position by inviting outsiders, including Indian visitors, to tour the region and personally assess the positive transformations that have occurred there. This is paying dividends as sympathetic visitors, as well as skeptical ones, have produced favourable commentaries. And yet China takes ground decisions which reflect a sense of insecurity about its hold over the territory. The railway line it has built, at great expense, makes less economic sense and more military/security sense as it augments China’s capacity to move troops and munitions to the border and meet any future local challenge to its rule in Tibet.

The impressive road infrastructure that China has built along Tibet’s border with India, along with expansion of airfields in Tibet in recent years, is surely intended not for border trade but for border domination, behind which Tibet will be held secure. The Chinese, credited with a lot of common sense, would have long concluded that India has not made military preparations to back up any political intention of wanting to settle the border dispute by force or provoke an uprising in Tibet. If India has increased its military capacity along the border compared to the past, it is essentially defensive in character and calculated to avoid a repetition of 1962. China’s military posture, it would seem, serves a trio of purposes; to secure Tibet as the sense of being occupied will not leave the Tibetans no matter what the semblance or reality of economic progress; to put military pressure on India and impose economic costs on the nation; and extract a favourable border settlement eventually by entrenching in the Indian mind a sense of inferiority and insecurity.

The importance of the Dalai Lama factor should not be underestimated, no matter China’s posturing about his growing irrelevance to the reality on the ground in Tibet. It might have seemed at one time that the only supporters of the Dalai Lama were Hollywood heroes. Lately, many governments have opened doors to him, though there is reluctance to make Tibet a political issue of self-determination and human rights. India, as the most concerned party, has always had a timorous policy towards him. The Dalai Lama has himself said publicly that India is over-cautious in dealing with China. There is no international pressure on China to negotiate with the Dalai Lama; China can revile him as a “splittist”, even when he has publicly reaffirmed on various occasions his acceptance of Chinese sovereignty and has limited his demand to real autonomy.

China realises that once, on the back of an agreement with him, the Dalai Lama were to return to Tibet, their position in Tibet would become complicated as would their policy towards India. The reported Chinese manipulation of monastery politics along the Himalayas would also become problematic with the Dalai Lama restored to his religious role with Chinese consent. Reconciliation with the Dalai Lama means in effect reconciliation with India. Concessions to the Dalai Lama imply concessions to India. The Dalai Lama has enjoyed Indian hospitality for the last 48 years and the Tibetan identity and aspirations are being kept alive by the 100,000 or so Tibetans in our country. The solution to the Dalai Lama problem will come through a solution to the India-China problem.

China’s claims on Indian territory, and indeed, China’s military pressure on India is on account of its direct military occupation of Tibet. The extent of Chinese cynicism and lack of complex towards India is reflected in its claim on Tawang because of its Tibetan links and the fact that one of the earlier Dalai Lamas, an institution that they have tried to destroy politically, not to mention the destruction of the Lamaist order and Buddhist monasteries during the Cultural Revolution, was born there. The Chinese unabashedly play the Tibetan card to the hilt against India. Yet we are reluctant to play the Tibetan card against China. And it is not a question of cynically playing a political card for short term gain. On the contrary, a reasonable settlement between the Dalai Lama, the recognised spiritual head of Tibet, and the Chinese is good for China, good for the Tibetans and good for India. It will resolve a festering issue of denial of political and cultural rights of a distinctive people and the suppression of their separate identity.

Equally importantly, the example of Dalai Lama leading a peaceful, non-violent struggle to redress grievances and injustice, is deeply relevant in the context of the rise of extremism and terrorism to fight real or imagined grievances and injustice by people and communities elsewhere in the world. Mutual understanding and mutual accommodation and the principle of a fair and reasonable settlement are not to be limited to the India- China differences on the border; they should be equally applicable to the root cause of these differences-Tibet-where a reconciliation along these lines, while respecting overall Chinese sovereignty to which the Dalai Lama is committed, will be beneficial all round.  The world needs to press China to deal with the Dalai Lama with transparency and sincerity. 

There are two possible approaches to the border issue. One is to envisage a settlement which will involve fairly substantial give and take, in favour of India in the western sector and China in the eastern sector. The border would be settled not on the basis of actual  ground control but based of complex agreed principles. China could easily make “concessions” in the western sector as they are occupying territory much beyond their own  historical claims. For India making “equal” concessions in the eastern sector would be impossible  for political and security reasons. India cannot but seek to move back China in Aksai Chin in view of their very advanced positions, which gives the Chinese a handle to raise the ante in the east. The other approach would be that to have a realistic solution, it would be necessary to work on the basis of the hard realities on the ground.

What China is actually holding, it will not cede in negotiations, and so would it be in India’s case. This implies a very limited give and take, only to make the border more rational and remove anomalies here and there. If one is to proceed on the basis of what each country is holding, then the delineation of the Actual Line Of Control(LAC) on the maps becomes necessary. In some areas, the two sides have conflicting views of where the LAC is and in these pockets both sides do patrolling to assert their claim. Periodic reports about Chinese incursions relate to their patrolling in the areas we claim are under our control, bearing in mind that the entire length of the border is not permanently manned on both sides.

The agreement between the two sides to exchange maps of their respective perceptions of the LAC in order to identify the physical extent of the disputed areas, was important. On completion of this exercise in the middle, western and eastern sectors (in this order) the process of actual negotiations of give and take in these areas was to have begun. After exchanging maps in the middle sector, and after India presented its map of the western sector in 2002, the Chinese halted the exercise without any cogent explanation. During Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit to China in 2003, we decided to abandon the earlier agreed approach and proposed a “political solution” to the issue.

To this end, Special Representatives of the two countries were nominated and given a mandate to establish a set of guidelines (which they have done) for proceeding towards resolution. The Chinese, having rejected the approach of first delineating the LAC as an attempt to maintain the status quo, are making the subsequent approach unworkable by demanding significant territorial adjustments in the east, laying claim to Tawang, not-withstanding the proviso in the guidelines on not disturbing settled populations. China’s Tawang claim shows absence of any real desire for a border settlement and the tactic is to contrive an issue so as to transfer the responsibility for an impasse on to the Indian side.

In 1962 China had captured Tawang and yet it withdrew from it and the rest of Arunachal Pradesh largely to what is the MacMahon line, thereby de facto accepting its validity. In the western sector, it did not go back to the pre-1962 line and retained the fruits of its aggression. If they needed to hold Tawang for religious or security reasons, or felt that their legal claim was rock solid, they would not have withdrawn. 45 years later, to demand Tawang is sheer political effrontery. It is understood that the Special Representatives have set up a Joint Working Group and two drafts of a Framework Agreement are under discussion, and that once a joint document is finalized, the next step of demarcation can begin.

The Chinese are tough, unyielding negotiators and have no public pressure on them to show results. If we have 21 objections to their draft, they would have to be convinced to give up their position on 21 points. The question is what they will demand in return. Negotiations with them will be a long haul and an early border settlement  can be ruled out. With Russia and its Central Asian neighbours , as well as with Burma, China has reached border settlements without any significant territorial give and take, despite initial Chinese demands. The lesson for us is that we have to be resilient and firm.

It is correct on India’s part to allow the process of normalisation of relations with China to proceed despite the border problem. Whatever the differences, the leadership of the two countries must maintain a constant dialogue and find common ground as much as possible. China’s inexorable rise makes it a formidable and indispensable interlocutor.  Better India- China relations also serve our diplomatic needs well in South-east Asia and beyond. The South-east Asian countries, despite their apprehensions about China’s phenomenal rise and their interest in India playing a larger role in the region, would find any deterioration of Sino-Indian relations disconcerting as it would impact negatively on the regional political atmosphere and the economic synergies being built up from which all, including India, are benefitting.

The phenomenal growth of India-China trade(almost $40 billion) is a welcome development as it contributes to increasing mutual prosperity. It is important to note that on the Indian side, the decision to boost economic exchanges is a political one based on the logic that the border issue should not stand in the way of normalisation of relations in other fields. Its political character is underlined by the completely opposite attitude of Pakistan, i.e., no normalisation of relations with India, including in trade, unless the core issue of Kashmir is settled. For the Chinese the decision is not political. China controls what it wants on the border and claims more as a pressure point.

China has strategically neutralized India by supplying Pakistan with nuclear and missile technologies. It is the biggest defence supplier of Pakistan. While it is extremely sensitive on the issue of “one China”, on which it has extracted support from us, its position on Jammu and Kashmir, veering from support of Pakistan’s position to a quasi-neutral position, and notable for the absence of any endorsement of our legal position, stands out as a contrast. Its claim on vast swathes of Indian territory, in any case, makes mockery of “one India”.

The structure of the Chinese economy, its export dependance, the economies of scale that operate, its capacity to dump surpluses, its opaque system of pricing, heavy government subsidies, including through non-performing assets of banks, and huge foreign investment that has made China a global manufacturing base, draws China to the large Indian market. The expansion of India-China trade is a consequence of China’s huge growth rates and hunger for raw materials, as well as its massive export capacities for which markets have to be found. Early indications were that India could stand up to Chinese competition and the balance of trade was initially in India’s favour. In 2006-7 our trade deficit with China amounted to $9 billion; in 2007-8 it is likely to go up to $14 billion. Concerns are now growing in India about China’s unfair trade practices.

The basket of Indian exports is also strikingly limited, with iron ore forming the bulk. China is exporting manufactured goods to us. Even Russia is smarting at the situation that a manufacturing, technologically advanced country like it, is now exporting raw materials to feed China’s industry and  importing manufactured goods in return! A new point of concern is the systematic effort by China to capture a commanding share of the Indian market in some sectors, creating problems of over-dependance on Chinese supplies. China’s push for an FTA with India is raising concern in our business circles. Indian companies have also begun to complain about difficulties in investing in China. India has concerns about Chinese investments in certain sectors and locations because the ownership of Chinese corporations is not transparent, with suspicions that the Chinese armed forces control them.

China’s intelligence activity is massive and intrusive, and it is worth recalling German Chancellor Merkel’s public expression of concern about China’s effort to undermine Germany’s cyber security. It is prudent for India to be cautious about China’s penetration in sensitive areas and internal criticism of this in some quarters is misplaced.

China is becoming stronger economically and militarily year after year. Given its size, its view of itself in historical terms, its claims on India, on Taiwan, in the South China Sea, etc, its rise has implications for the region and beyond. As China grows muscles, it will flex them. China’s opaque political system adds to concerns as it makes its conduct unpredictable. Countries hope that prosperity and integration with the global system will make China more responsible and more transparent internally, adding to confidence levels abroad. While a policy of containing China would be imprudent, yet it cannot be given a free hand in Asia. Other players in the region have to caution China about political and other costs of seeking domination. It is hypocritical of China to have reacted so sharply to the joint naval manoeuvres of US, Japan, Australia, Singapore and India in the Bay of Bengal.

Each of these countries have a robust economic relationship and a strong policy of engagement with China. But engagement does not mean acquiescence to Chinese hegemony in Asia. It was perfectly in order for India, as it strengthens its ties with China and holds the beginnings of naval and army exercises with it, to seek to strengthen relations with Japan in particular, including through joint exercises. China shows scant respect for India’s security in the sub-continent; indeed it threatens it in various ways directly and indirectly. There is no call upon India to defer to China’s sensitivities with regard to its own relationship with the US or other important Asian countries.

Indeed, China’s calculatedly ambiguous position on India’s permanent membership of the Security Council as well as on opening doors of international co-operation in India’s civilian nuclear sector indicates a serious adversarial posture towards our rising aspirations. If Russia, Britain and France can support India’s candidature, and these countries with the US in the lead can support us on the nuclear issue, why shouldn’t China, if it wishes to build a  strong, forward-looking, co-operative relationship with India as the second biggest Asian power.

The satisfaction we seem to derive from semantic play by the Chinese on these two issues reflects our mental acceptance of an inferior status vis-a-vis China and our readiness to be patronized by that country. We should not demand equality from China, we should behave as equals. We should protect our interests more forcefully. Our border infrastructure should be developed rapidly. Our strategic programmes must be accelerated. The Prime Minister’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh in January is a very welcome development. It should signal to the Chinese that Tawang will remain ours.

[challapalli Raja]

try and present lesser word count, i personally fell hard to read all those paragraphs

[Deletedid1]

$t@rw@r[quote author=challapalli Raja link=topic=158499.msg1888248#msg1888248 date=1298336090]
try and present lesser word count, i personally fell hard to read all those paragraphs
[/quote]
!q# !q# !q# !q# nenu vayyanu ani cheppi aa Echessu veyyamannadu baaa  sSc_hiding2 sSc_hiding2

[htnamus]

very very goood post and thanks for posting on my request

[challapalli Raja]

[quote author=BENZBABU link=topic=158499.msg1888259#msg1888259 date=1298336402]
$t@rw@r !q# !q# !q# !q# nenu vayyanu ani cheppi aa Echessu veyyamannadu baaa  sSc_hiding2 sSc_hiding2
[/quote]


thats ok mate, those who feel easy will read and understand, needed patience