Beijing's growing respect for
India By Pallavi Aiyar
BEIJING - Even as China has become a
"model" that India's political and business
classes look to emulate whether it comes to
special economic zones or urban planning, the
Chinese until recently were usually too busy
matching themselves against the Americans to pay
their southern neighbor much attention. But as
Chinese President Hu Jintao gets ready to make his
first official visit to India next Monday,
India-watchers in China argue that a major shift
in Beijing's assessment of its southern neighbor
is
ongoing.
Professor Ma Jiali, a veteran South Asia
expert at the China Institute of Contemporary
International Relations (CICIR), says India's
recent economic performance combined with its
growing importance in international affairs has
led to a rethink in Beijing of India as zhong
he guoli, a Mandarin term that translates
roughly as a "comprehensive national power".
For Beijing, relations with India are now
considered the highest priority, according to
Professor Ma, given that India is what he calls a
"four-in-one" country. "India falls into each of
the four major categories of countries that China
wants to focus its diplomatic energies on," he
explained. The four categories are: Developing
countries, neighboring countries, rising powers,
and influential actors on the international stage.
Rong Ying of the China Institute for
International Relations, a government-think tank
in Beijing, added: "China realizes that its ties
with India will be key to ensuring stability in
Asia and that given its checkered history, this
relationship requires personal care at the highest
level." According to Rong, the proof for his
observation lies in the fact that Hu Jintao is the
second top leader to visit India in a year and a
half, Premier Wen Jiabao having made the trip last
year.
Hu's visit to India will be the
first by a Chinese president in a decade, but
expectations regarding outcomes are somewhat muted
in Beijing. Most analysts here say that the visit
will help to keep the momentum of improving ties
going, but that no major breakthrough should be
expected.
"I don't think that any huge
announcement on our outstanding problems like the
border will be made," said Hu Shisheng, the
director of the South Asia department at CICIR.
"But in many ways this shows that our bilateral
ties have now become more mature and normal. It's
only when a relationship is immature that
breakthroughs are expected from every high-level
visit."
Professor Hu said the Chinese
president's visit will focus on improving
relations on the economic front. New trade targets
are likely to be set, as is an agreement to
protect mutual investments. This latter agreement
is particularly significant in the context of
recent moves in India to restrict Chinese
investments in certain sectors, such as telecoms
and port development, on security grounds.
On the unresolved boundary issue, analysts
in Beijing are uniformly cautious. "The general
principle of 'give and take' is the guiding one
when it comes to the boundary," said Rong Ying,
referring to the political parameters and guiding
principles for the settlement of the boundary
dispute that were agreed on during Wen's India
visit last year.
The idea of a territorial
"swap" exchanging Aksai Chin in the west with
Arunachal Pradesh in the east as the basis for a
boundary settlement is the one thought to be the
most viable. India, however, has ruled out any
"populated areas" as part of a border deal, which
makes concessions in Arunachal Pradesh
unacceptable. The area of Tawang is a particular
sticking point, since the Chinese claim it to be a
part of Tibet, pointing to the fact that the sixth
Dalai Lama was born there.
The entrenched
positions of the two sides thus make the idea of a
"swap" enormously complicated. However, few new
ideas on resolving the dispute seem to have
evolved.
"I think the point to keep in
mind is that while the border is an important
issue in bilateral ties, it is no longer the only
issue," said Rong. "The negative impact of this
problem exerts much less influence on our
relationship that it once did because both sides
have agreed to live with it while seeking a
political solution."
Professor Ma believes
that both sides will express a "more active stance
to speed up negotiations" on the border during
President Hu's visit, but others say that given
the seemingly intractable nature of the issue, the
leadership is keen on putting border talks on the
back burner, to be resolved by the next generation
of leaders.
If this is indeed the case,
full normalization of Sino-Indian ties remains
impossible. Even progress on the economic front
will eventually run up against the limits imposed
by the unresolved boundary dispute. The
controversy over restrictions on Chinese
investments is one example.
Professor Hu
agrees that until the border is clearly
demarcated, a true "strategic partnership" between
New Delhi and Beijing will remain wanting, but
like the other analysts he is unable to suggest a
way to break the deadlock.
Chinese Deputy
Foreign Minister Cui Tiankui recently said that
active progress on the boundary settlement is
taking place and that a framework agreement is now
being explored. But given the closed-door nature
of the negotiations, little information is
available on the details of what if any progress
has taken place.
Rong said hope should be
drawn from the fact that the recent rounds of
talks have been taking place in a friendly and
relaxed atmosphere, in marked contrast to more
strained discussions in the past.
"There
are signs of slow progress on the border,"
concurred Hu. However, he said that rather than
dwelling on the boundary, the two countries should
spend more energy focusing on economic relations
and regional issues aimed at maintaining stability
and promoting the development of their shared
neighborhood.
But with New Delhi concerned
about Beijing's "all weather" relationship with
Pakistan and China discomfited by India's growing
closeness to the United States and Japan, there
are several regional issues that remain
contentious as well.
President Hu will
visit Pakistan directly after his India trip, and
it is expected that while in Islamabad he will ink
a wide-ranging energy deal that would assure
Chinese assistance to Pakistan's nuclear-power
ambitions. New Delhi is understandably watchful.
Professor Hu claimed that India "places
too much emphasis" on China's relationship with
Pakistan, a relationship he said is no longer that
of a "military ally" but a "normal one in a
post-Cold War scenario".
Added Professor
Ma, "Beijing has de-linked its relationship with
India and Pakistan. We are friends of both but,
whereas we are upgrading our ties with India, our
ties with Pakistan remain the same as always.
There is no upgradation of the relationship with
Pakistan."
According to Rong, China's
close ties to Pakistan are not directed toward
India but toward ensuring the security of China's
western borders. There are, in fact, a range of
explanations offered by Chinese analysts
concerning Beijing's military and nuclear
relationship with Islamabad, but to New Delhi
these are cold comforts.
What is
increasingly clear is that in many respects India
and China face similar foreign-policy challenges.
It is the stated objective of both countries to
maintain an independent foreign policy with
regards to specific nations on the basis of their
national interests - in other words, to build
trust and create healthy bilateral ties with
countries that might themselves hold reservations
about each other. Thus China wants to develop a
strategic relationship with India even as it
continues its close friendship with Pakistan.
India, in its turn, must balance its relationships
with China, Japan and the US.
Just as it
is difficult for New Delhi to accept China's close
ties with Islamabad, in Beijing too there are
widespread fears that India's
civilian-nuclear-energy deal with the United
States is a ruse for the US to ally itself with
India in a bid to contain China. As a result,
Beijing has been lukewarm in its reception of the
deal and is reportedly working against its
acceptance at the Nuclear Suppliers Group in
Vienna.
A consequence of all these factors
is that despite the ostensible "strategic
partnership" India and China established last
year, a serious trust deficit between the
neighbors remains. "The strategic partnership we
have is less a reality and more an orientation,"
concluded Rong.
In this context, the task
of greatly strengthening Sino-Indian ties will
require painstaking work, changing ossified
mindsets and balancing a complex set of factors.
It will also take courage and political vision on
both sides. President Hu's visit is just one more
step on a long road.
Pallavi
Aiyar is a correspondent based in Beijing.
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