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India and China to be
brothers again
By Sultan Shahin
NEW DELHI - India, in improving its relations
with China, is trying to practice what it preaches to
Pakistan: put more contentious issues on the back
burner, try to solve easier problems first, while
concentrating in the meantime on improving trade ties
and people-to-people contacts. This strategy, the Indian
leadership feels, will create an atmosphere conducive to
solving bigger, more divisive issues, such as the
Kashmir dispute with Islamabad.
Pursuing this
strategy, during Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's
six-day China visit that ended on Friday, India and
China have appointed special envoys to map out a
resolution of long-standing border disputes, thus in
effect putting this sensitive issue on the back burner,
and instead they moved on to iron out their differences
on issues such as the mutual recognition of Sikkim and
Tibet as inalienable parts of each others' territory. In
the meantime, they have given a big push to restarting
Sino-Indian trade through traditional routes.
Making light of deeply sensitive and complex
issues, seeking to get around them through semantic
jugglery, both Indian and Chinese leaders appear
determined to pursue their dream of making the 21st an
Asian century. Indeed, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao
reminded Vajpayee of Deng Xiaoping's famous remark to
Rajiv Gandhi, "The 21st century can only be the Asian
century if India and China combine to make it so."
India and China could be powerful partners while
still being sensitive to each other's concerns, Vajpayee
told Xinhua news agency before embarking on his trip.
"With commitment to peaceful co-existence, the two
countries can construct an enduring and powerful
partnership," he added.
He said he hoped his
interactions with the Chinese leadership would develop
better understanding and trust and give momentum to
broad-based bilateral cooperation. "My visit is the
first by an Indian prime minister in a decade. In this
period, the two countries have developed a wide canvas
of beneficial cooperation," he said. "Our dialogue now
addresses not only areas in which we can improve
cooperation, but also terrorism, security, environment,
sustainable development and multilateral economic
regimes," he said.
Vajpayee said the world has
changed dramatically over the years, and being two of
the world's largest and most populous developing
countries, India and China should remain in close touch
on issues concerning developing nations. "For the two
nations which have one-third of humanity, we have taken
the first few steps. We need to do much more to fulfill
our true potential in a multipolar world order, in
fashioning pragmatic responses to globalization and
promoting peace, stability and development in Asia and
the world," he said.
The Indian prime minister
quoted Deng in his speech and argued that while India
and China will always compete with each other ("there is
always a sense of competition between two close and
equal neighbors"), the two countries need to "understand
the difference between healthy competition and divisive
rivalry".
In Vajpayee's opinion, the India-China
relationship needs to go back to the cooperation of the
past, forgetting the "state of estrangement" and the
"dead end of mistrust". The India-China partnership need
to "transcend bilateral relations to encompass
international issues". Both countries have "overlapping
concerns on globalization", need "to restore the
authority of international organizations which have been
undermined in recent months", and want to develop "a
multipolar world order".
Stating that China's
remarkable success has many lessons for India, Vajpayee
expressed satisfaction that trade relations are moving
forward. "India and China are among the fastest-growing
economies. Though we have chosen different paths towards
development, we have complementariness, created by
technological development and human resources. Our trade
is growing rapidly. It nearly touched US$5 billion last
year and, at the rate at which it is growing, can easily
reach $10 billion in the next couple of years," he said.
"Though it is from a narrow base, the recent annual
growth rate of 30 percent in our bilateral trade
relations is quite significant. In the first four months
of this year, bilateral trade registered an astonishing
growth of about 70 percent."
He proposed on
Thursday in Shanghai an "effective alliance" between the
two countries in the information-technology (IT) sector
by channeling their "potent force" to bridge the digital
divide that is stifling economic and social development
in both the nations. "While India excelled in the area
of computer software, China has emerged as a major power
in the computer hardware sector," Vajpayee said while
addressed the biggest-ever IT event organized in that
city.
Vajpayee's speeches were not only
remarkable for what he said, but also for what he left
unsaid. He did not mention the vexed half-a-century
border dispute - China occupied a large chunk of
territory in Aksai Chin during the 1962 border war that
India believes to be its own. Nor did he mention another
equally sensitive issue - Chinese military and other
help to Pakistan, with whom India has already fought
three wars and has been engaged in a low-intensity
conflict for the past 13 years.
China's
upgradation of Pakistan's strategic capabilities,
growing military presence in the Indian Ocean and
construction of road, rail and air heads in the Tibet
Autonomous Region continue to cause deep concern in
India. India fears that the ongoing 1,118-kilometer
railway project to link Gormo in Qinghai province in
mainland China with Lhasa in Tibet will enhance the
induction and sustenance capability of Chinese troops in
Tibet. Costing a whopping $27.2 billion, it will in fact
connect Lhasa to four major Chinese centers, Gormo in
Qinghai (1,118km), Lanzhou in Gansu (2,126km), Dali in
Yunnan (1,594km) and Chengdu in Sechuan (1,927km). When
completed, this rail network is going to convert Tibet
into a region with overwhelming Chinese character, thus
rendering its so-called autonomy meaningless.
No
mention was made by Vajpayee of fears expressed by
Indian strategists that Jiang Zemin's "political
project" is in fact not exclusively aimed at finding a
"final solution" to the Tibetan problem. The railway
project is also going to add a highly reliable and
versatile network of defense feeder railway lines from
the mainland up to its international border with India,
rendering the current Indian defense preparedness
redundant by 2007, in which year the newly laid railway
line starts ferrying a new wave of Chinese settlers and
heavy military equipment to Lhasa and areas adjoining
India-Tibet borders.
Also absent from his
speeches were Indian fears that China is engaged in a
policy of encircling India through developing strategic
and military ties with all its hostile and
not-so-hostile neighbors, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nepal.
Indeed, Vajpayee's
speech was Nehruvian in its vision, reminding many of
the dream of Panchsheel, the five points of harmony and
cooperation and non-interference in one another's
internal affairs, of India's first prime minister
Jawaharlal Nehru, to oppose whose secular and liberal
policies Vajpayee first joined politics. A younger
Vajpayee used to consider these policies "naive" and had
forced parliament to pass a unanimous resolution
committing India to take back from Chinese occupation
every inch of territory acquired by the latter in the
1962 war. No wonder Vajpayee's spin doctors are using
terms like "paradigm shift", "quantum leap", "new era",
etc to describe his present mood of reconciliation and
the evident success of his visit. On the other hand, his
critics are denouncing the agreements signed in China
for having conceded too much, without getting enough in
return.
So have the Chinese mandarins defeated
Indian bureaucrats with their superior negotiating
skills? Has India accepted Chinese sovereignty over
Tibet without making the latter accept its own
sovereignty over Sikkim, as is being alleged?
One of the thorniest issues has been Chinese
non-recognition of Indian sovereignty over Sikkim, a
state that merged with India in 1975. Article I of the
memorandum on expanding border trade, signed on Monday
between India and China, states, "The Indian side agrees
to designate Changgu of Sikkim state as the venue for
border trade market; the Chinese side agrees to
designate Renqinggang of the Tibet Autonomous Region as
the venue for border trade market." Article II says,
"The two sides agree to use Nathu La as the pass for
entry and exit of persons, means of transport and
commodities engaged in border trade."
The fact
that trade between India and China through the Nathu La
Pass in "Sikkim state" has been officially described as
"border" trade is a clear indication that China has
accepted Indian sovereignty over Sikkim. However, though
China has consciously decided to accept the Indian
position that Sikkim is a part of India - you cannot
come to an agreement with India over trade across the
border of a third country - the fact remains that it is
reluctant to announce this formally, and maintains that
this "leftover problem of history" will take time to
resolve. It must be conceded that implied de facto
recognition is not the same thing as a de jure one. But
it is certainly an advance.
At any rate, the
people of Sikkim have been celebrating throughout the
week. Trade between India and China is expected to rise
to significant levels through Sikkim because the roads
are motorable, maintained as they are by the army, and
Kolkata port will facilitate access to international
markets. The Sikkim route is expected to help the whole
eastern region. The Indian army, however, remains
strongly opposed to the opening of the Old Silk Route
through the Nathu La pass on strategic grounds. Two
former prime ministers, P V Narasimha Rao and H D Deve
Gowda, had rejected Chinese proposals to open this
route. India's External Affairs Ministry thought of this
proposal as a way of getting China indirectly to accept
Sikkim as part of India and is passing this off as a
great victory. But the army fears that the trade route
could be used by the Chinese to infiltrate into Sikkim.
Has India explicitly accepted for the first time
that Tibet is part of China? A Chinese spokesman said,
"The Indian side has admitted that the Tibet Autonomous
Region is a part of the territory of the People's
Republic of China." Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant
Sinha said that India had said nothing it had not said
before. The External Affairs Ministry released a list of
statements India has made concerning Tibet at various
times in the past.
The first agreement between
India and China, in 1954, was on "trade and intercourse
between Tibet Region of China and India". Indeed, China
would not have taken the bilateral relationship further,
or even signed the Panchsheel with Jawaharlal Nehru at
Bandung in 1955, if India had not recognized Tibet as a
part of China. On August 2, 1958, India sent a formal
note to China in which it clearly stated that "the
government of India recognizes that the Tibetan region
is part of the People's Republic of China". A communique
on December 23, 1988, reaffirms this, as does another on
December 16, 1991.
In fact, the declaration made
on Monday, says M J Akbar, editor-in-chief of the Asian
Age newspaper, may have even circumscribed previous
commitments when it says that the "Tibet Autonomous
Region is part of the territory of the People's Republic
of China", since the portion of Kashmir that was handed
over to China by Pakistan in 1963 does not technically
form a part of the autonomous region that was created in
1965. "India has in that sense reserved recognition of
this disputed territory, and China has accepted the
Indian position," he adds.
The memorandum was
signed by Sinha and Chinase Commerce Minister Lu Fuyuan
on Monday. The first joint declaration between India and
China was also signed on Monday, in Hindi, Chinese and
English, by Vajpayee and Wen Jiabao. Both sides
congratulated themselves on a "win-win situation" and
called the agreements historic. The Chinese said this
visit marked a "new stage of development [and] a
blueprint for the future".
There was a flurry of
announcements on Tuesday, a busy day for Vajpayee, to
confirm that India and China were eager to set the past
aside as they built a new future. The key principle
mentioned in the declaration sums up the new equation
effectively, "The common interests of the two sides
outweigh their differences. The two countries are not a
threat to each other. Neither side shall use or threaten
to use force against the other." As President Hu Jintao
told Vajpayee during their meeting on Tuesday, "This
visit will have sent a message to the world that India
and China are coming closer together."
That
Indian leadership, too, is aware of the international
political context in which these two giants are coming
closer is apparent from comments in the daily Pioneer,
which usually reflects government thinking, "The global
context doubtless encompasses political developments.
The implications of a unipolar world, with the United
States as the sole superpower, which have been causing
some concern in countries like China, Russia, France,
Germany and India, have been sharply underlined by the
US-led coalition's victory in Iraq. The warmth informing
Mr Vajpayee's talks with the Chinese prime minister, Mr
Wen Jiabao, on Monday and the signing of nine specific
agreements that followed, clearly reflect an awareness
of the new realities - in some measure at least. India,
given its increasingly warm relations with the US, will
doubtless not adopt an anti-US posture. Also, neither
Russia nor China has shown any inclination towards
adopting a confrontationist line towards the US.
Nevertheless, more intense and frequent consultations
between the three countries on issues of common interest
will be beneficial, particularly since all three have to
contend with fundamentalist Islamist terrorism of which
the chief spawning ground is Pakistan. While China is
not as seriously threatened as India and Russia, it too
has to contend with the Islamist separatist movement in
Xinjiang, and would be making a major mistake if it
thinks that it can defeat the menace without destroying
its nursery."
No matter what the subject being
discussed, Pakistan is never too far from an Indian
strategist's mind. There is a lot of heart-burning in
India that Vajpayee has not been able to persuade
Beijing to whittle down its special relationship with
that country. Sinha argues his case in an exclusive
interview given in Shanghai to Vir Sanghvi, the editor
of the Hindustan Times: "Whatever they [the Chinese]
have done in terms of military cooperation with Pakistan
in the past is a done deal. We feel that if we manage to
come closer together, then the proclivity of China to do
something that is not in India's interests will
decline."
The Pioneer newspaper, too, defends
the government on this score: "While Mr Vajpayee did
mention Pakistan's continued sponsorship of cross-border
terrorism against India, New Delhi must not expect a
dramatic change in Beijing's attitude towards Islamabad
given the close ties between the two. India and China
must continue to develop their relations independently.
This realization is clearly reflected in the joint
declaration establishing 'goals and principles' between
the two countries, reportedly laying down a
comprehensive framework for developing mutual ties and
furthering cooperation. One hopes that the feeling of
trust and confidence generated by the closer engagement
that will follow, will help in resolving specific
issues, particularly the border dispute, which seems to
have entered a rather squally stretch. By providing the
basis for it, Mr Vajpayee's visit may well mark the
beginning of a new phase in India-China relations which,
in turn, will not be without an impact on the global
arena."
Former prime minister I K Gujral, famous
for his Gujral doctrine that advocates harmonious
relations with all neighbors, including Pakistan,
appears to be happy with the agreements: "We have not
conceded the interest of India, our policy on Tibet only
follows what Dalai Lama has already said, we have
attempted to add tranquility to our relationship."
But critics of the government are not assuaged.
"We have compromised on the central principle of
diplomacy that is reciprocity, India has made
concessions to China on major issues like Tibet, and on
the border issue by agreeing to talk on the political
aspect which the Chinese wanted," said strategic-affairs
analyst Brahma Chellaney. What made the Vajpayee team
change its mind after reaching Beijing? he asks. Not
only did it forget that reciprocity is fundamental to
diplomacy, it also agreed to part with whatever leverage
India had been left with.
He added, "A more
refined Indian position on Tibet has become necessary
because of the Chinese unyieldingness and intransigence
on Sikkim, Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh, as
well as reluctance to settle the Indo-Tibetan frontier
issue or define a line of control at least on maps, if
not on the ground."
In his view, at the root of
the boundary problem is India's 1954 one-sided
acceptance of China's annexation of Tibet without
Beijing's acceptance of the Indo-Tibetan border. Having
gotten Indian recognition of its occupation of Tibet,
China then laid claim to Indian territories on the basis
of Tibet's putative historical links with those areas.
Such creeping encroachment has led Beijing to expand its
claims on Indian territories.
A reality check on
Vajpayee's China visit is needed because of the hype,
says Chellaney. First, no breakthrough has been achieved
or claimed on the core issues. China has neither agreed
to present maps of its version of the full line of
control nor has it pledged to forswear further
weapons-of-mass-destruction transfers to Pakistan or
stop strengthening its flank against India via Myanmar.
Second, in the absence of political progress, India has
settled for window-dressing to showcase the visit.
Third, such is the uneasy state of relations that the
visit has centered not on substance but on defining mere
principles on how to move ahead. And the last-minute
accords on general principles and Sikkim-Tibet border
trade were sealed entirely because of Indian
concessions.
Sinha is, however, hopeful that
settlement of the long-standing border issue will be
speeded up, now that the process has moved to the
political level. It was Vajpayee who first suggested
this when he visited China as foreign minister in 1979.
On Tibet, he argues that India has only restated "what
has been our constant position". He said he regarded the
signing of the agreement on cross-border trade as major
step because it marked the Chinese acknowledgement of
Nathu La as being on the Indian border.
Vajpayee
is a seasoned politician, not easily ruffled by
criticism. He seems to know what he is doing. Tibetan
leadership living in exile in India is itself happy at
India seeking to improve ties with China. Some young
Tibetans have accused India of a sellout. But mainstream
Tibetan leadership doesn't take them seriously. The
Dalai Lama is himself in touch with the Chinese
leadership and there is persistent talk of his visiting
Tibet.
Mainstream Indian opposition groups, too,
have reacted with circumspection. Even the more militant
Hindu fundamentalists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
(World Hindu Forum) are no longer shouting from rooftops
their determination to take thousands of square
kilometers of Indian land back from the Chinese at any
cost. The peace constituency in India seems to be
growing.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co,
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