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India, China not quite blood brothers
yet
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - While India and China have still a
long way to go to resolve their border dispute, things
on the bilateral front have never looked brighter.
Indian officials are hoping that the small step taken by
the two countries on Tibet and Sikkim during Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's six-day visit to China
that ended on Friday will provide the great leap forward
for relations between the two Asian giants.
The
two sides signed a number of agreements that are
expected to smooth interaction, increase cultural
exchanges, boost business and expand cooperation in
areas such as education and research. However, it is the
references to Tibet and Sikkim in the joint declaration
and memorandum on trade that is the high point of
Vajpayee's visit.
In India, the decision to open
a new border route through Sikkim has been interpreted
as an implicit recognition by China that Sikkim is a
constituent of the Indian Union. Sikkim's accession to
India in 1975 is not officially recognized by Beijing.
The text of the memorandum on border trade says,
"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."
The Chinese might not have accorded recognition
to Sikkim being an integral part of India, but they
appear to be on their way to doing so. The memorandum's
preamble says that the two sides agreed on "opening
another pass on the India-China border" for trade. Later
in the memorandum, this is identified as Nathu La in
"Sikkim state". Indian officials are hoping that the
Chinese will add "of India" to "Sikkim state" soon.
Officials from both sides have been engaged in
talks on the Sikkim issue for some time. Chinese
officials have insisted on India recognizing Tibet as an
"inalienable" part of China. Tracing how the deal was
struck, Jyoti Malhotra writes in the Indian Express that
nearly seven drafts were rejected before both agreed on
a compromise formula, that India would recognize the
Tibet Autonomous Region as part of the People's Republic
of China. "The deadlock had been broken. With India
using the same phrase as the one that the Chinese use
for the Tibetan territory it controls with such an iron
hand - the Tibet Autonomous Region - Beijing now agreed
to the Sikkim quid pro quo."
India, points out
Malhotra, "had decided that if changing the 'semantics'
of the reality on the ground in Tibet was going to make
such a difference to the Chinese, so as to make the
difference between a historic visit of Prime Minister
Vajpayee an anodyne one, then 'nothing could be better
for India'."
The joint declaration says that
India "recognizes that the Tibet Autonomous Region is
part of the territory of the People's Republic of China
and reiterates that it does not allow Tibetans to engage
in anti-China political activities in India".
By
referring to Tibet in the same language as the Chinese,
New Delhi gave the Chinese the opportunity to claim that
India had "finally and for the first time" fully
recognized Tibet as being part of China. In the process,
the Chinese took a step toward recognizing Sikkim as an
integral part of India.
But while the deadlock
has been broken, officials are reluctant to describe it
as a breakthrough and prefer to refer to it as the start
of a long process. Incidentally, since both countries
are wary of possible negative reactions back home, the
Sikkim-Tibet deal has been couched in the form of a
border trade agreement. And both sides were at pains to
point out that the trade agreement was not a significant
shift from their long-held positions.
"The
question of Sikkim is an enduring question which cannot
be solved overnight. We hope this question can be solved
gradually," a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson told
the media. Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha
pointed out: "What we have said on Tibet is consistent
with what we have said in the past, and I don't think
the question of the Dalai Lama leaving India or asking
to leave India arises at this time."
Indian
officials insist that the "new formulation" on Tibet is
not so new. Indeed, since 1954, India seems to have
acknowledged in one way or another that Tibet is a part
of China. In the 1954 agreement between the two
countries it was called the "Tibet Region of China". In
1958 it was said that the "Tibetan region is part of the
PRC" (People's Republic of China); in 1988 when Rajiv
Gandhi visited Beijing and in 1991 when Li Peng came to
Delhi, Tibet was referred to as an "autonomous regime of
China".
Leaving aside the semantic jugglery and
one-upmanship, the deal is still of significance. Indian
officials are pointing to the spirit of the declaration.
Instead of haggling on the historical baggage, the
as-is-where-is formula was adopted to reach the deal,
underscoring this as a desirable basis of resolution of
other problems, for instance those with Pakistan over
Jammu and Kashmir.
More important, the
Sikkim-Tibet deal has opened the door, albeit slightly,
to future give-and-take on the larger border dispute
between India and China. They claim vast swathes of each
other's territories along their 3,500-kilometer border.
In the 1962 War, China occupied 38,000 square kilometers
of land in the remote Aksai Chin plateau on the western
stretch of the border, using it to build a road into
Tibet. India said that the occupation was illegal. India
also says Beijing is illegally holding 5,180 square
kilometers of land in Kashmir ceded to it by Pakistan in
1963.
China claims 90,000 square kilometers on
the eastern sector of the border. Some analysts believe
that China's claim on the eastern sector is to use it as
a bargaining chip in order to keep control of the
strategically important Aksai Chin. Efforts to negotiate
a settlement to the dispute have been going on for
several years at the official level, but things have
moved at a glacial pace. Of the three sectors, the
central sector is said to be the least complicated. But
even here the two countries have been unable to reach a
settlement.
The long frontier with India remains
China's last major border dispute. The Chinese blame
this on Indian intransigence, its refusal to accept the
"east-west swap proposal". Under this swap, China would
abandon its claims in the eastern sector, recognizing
India sovereignty over that area. In exchange, India
would give up its claim to Aksai Chin, recognizing
Chinese sovereignty over that area.
India's
argument is that it does not make sense for Delhi to
relinquish some of its own territory to China in order
to get China to drop its claim to other pieces of Indian
territory. Delhi blames the slow progress on China's
energy-sapping and time-consuming style of negotiations
aimed at wearing out the opponent. Officials point to
the delay in exchange of maps. The first exchange of
maps occurred seven years after the 1993 agreement to
maintain peace and tranquility along the Line of Actual
Control (LAC).
During the Vajpayee visit, the
two neighbors decided to appoint special representatives
"to explore from the political perspective of bilateral
relationship the framework of a boundary settlement".
This, writes Manoj Joshi in Times of India, "is an
acknowledgement that the key issue in resolving the
dispute is political and discussion at a purely official
and technical level may have reached a plateau". That
the two sides immediately announced their nominees for
the position seems a positive signal that things might
speed up on the matter of settling the border dispute.
The agreement to allow border trade through
Sikkim and Tibet has economic implications too. Overland
trade between India and China is expected to increase
because neither of the current points of border trade -
Shipki La in Himachal Pradesh and Lipulekh in
Uttaranchal - have motorable roads. Changgu in Sikkim
through the Nathu La pass has a road already.
Both sides are hoping that the expansion in
bilateral business, cultural exchange and so on will
lessen the suspicion and mistrust that has dogged
bilateral relations for years. The development of
economic stakes in each other will raise the need to
improve ties. That in turn will facilitate resolution of
the border issues.
There are indications that
China is wary about India's deepening engagement with
the United States, just as India has for years been
concerned about Beijing's military ties with arch-enemy
Pakistan and Myanmar. While these worries could prompt
the two neighbors to settle bilateral differences, at
the same time the underlying suspicions of each other's
intentions could hamper ties.
It is unlikely
that the two Asian giants could ever become friends or
allies, given the fact that both have ambitions, and are
competing for, status and influence in the same fields
and frequently in overlapping turf. However, they appear
to be looking at transforming their relationship from
one of conflict into one of cooperation where possible,
and competition where that cooperation is unrealistic.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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