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Vajpayee claps
with one hand on border dispute
By
Sultan Shahin
NEW DELHI - India-China relations
continue to be fragile despite what was billed as a
"path-breaking" visit by Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee to China last month. This was underlined by the
consternation expressed by Indian members of parliament
and media over a border incident involving a brief
detention, disarming and interrogation of Indian
intelligence personnel by Chinese security forces inside
Indian territory that is claimed by China.
Clearly the Indian government's approach - put
the border disputes on the back burner and go ahead with
developing trade and other relations - may not work in
the climate of mutual suspicion and paranoia that has
prevailed since the 1962 border war, particularly as
China does not appear to be as keen to keep a lid on
contentious issues as India does.
On June 26,
while Vajpayee was still in China, a 10-man Indian team
comprising four Intelligence Bureau (IB) and six Special
Security Bureau (SSB) personnel were detained, disarmed,
interrogated and warned not to patrol an area that is 14
kilometers inside the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in
Arunachal Pradesh's Subhansari district.
Indian
intelligence personnel were on a routine mission when a
21-strong Chinese army patrol stopped them. "This is
Chinese territory and you should never come here," a
Chinese officer told them in English. They were at a
place called Neiphu, trekking toward their final
destination, Serela Top, an area sometimes visited by
Indian officials. They were finally released near the
Yume Bridge across the Yume Chu (river), three
kilometers deeper inside the LAC.
After detailed
internal discussions, the Indian government decided that
the issue would not be publicized, particularly as it
would put the Vajpayee visit in a bad light. But a
section of the government apparently did not agree and
leaked the incident to a section of the media.
Intelligence officials familiar with the border
area and the northeastern terrain cannot recall the last
time such an incident happened. But the Arunachal border
has always been a potential flashpoint. There are
several areas along it that both China and India claim.
And the Chinese are extremely suspicious of permanent
structures being built anywhere near the LAC. In the
mid-'80s, India decided to set up a permanent post in
Wangdung in the Tawang sector. The Chinese reacted
quickly and set up their own post in the region,
prompting India to send the 5th Mountain Division to
Tawang. That incident almost sparked a war.
Different sections of the Indian establishment
perceive the issue differently. The army is, for
instance, prepared to take a more conciliatory and
understanding line. Sandeep Dikshit of the Hindu
newspaper quoted sources in army headquarters as
downplaying the incident. Chinese "intrusions" into
India, they said, are routine occurrences. They involve
armed patrols crossing the LAC and returning
unchallenged, thanks to strict instructions to the
Indian Army not to precipitate matters. The "intrusions"
are not confined to the eastern part of the LAC, the
McMahon Line. Armed patrols come in also in the Western
Sector that marks the Ladakh border. In some areas,
vehicles carrying Chinese soldiers cross the LAC once
every three days. However, these sources said, India is
reluctant to record and acknowledge these violations.
The Hindu quoted a confidential army document to
point out that Trig Heights in Ladakh is one such area
where "vehicle-mounted Chinese patrol transgressed
[India's] own perception of the LAC" on at least 90
occasions last year. Such patrols have made 50 sorties
so far this year. Similarly in eastern Ladakh,
incursions occur on the northern bank of Lake Pangong
Tso frequently. Chinese patrols come in every week on
the east bank of the lake, which is also claimed by
India.
Clearly, the two countries have different
perceptions about the border. While maintaining that
incursions occur frequently at some places, the army
sources made two points. One, Indian troops too have
been crossing into China, though the sources will not
say how frequently. The Hindu merely quotes them as
admitting: "Our boys also do that sometimes. This should
not be treated as a major issue." Second, both countries
have sequentially implemented the agreement signed in
1996 on "confidence-building measures in the military
field along the LAC". As a result, say army sources,
"not a bullet has been fired by either side for over a
decade".
The 1996 agreement envisages the
removal of tanks, combat vehicles, surface-to-surface
missiles and anti-aircraft missiles from the vicinity of
the LAC. It also bars division strength (15,000 troops)
military exercises near the border. The implementation
of these measures and visits by senior Indian Army
officials, including the chief of the army staff, have
helped avoid the kind of direct confrontation that is a
regular feature on India's disputed boundary with
Pakistan.
Apparently the army has learned some
lessons from its humiliating defeat by China in 1962. It
had then claimed a Chinese incursion in the Thang La
ridge and was ordered to clear the Chinese from there.
But the IB perhaps hasn't learned the same lessons from
a leak of a similar incident in 1986 that brought the
country close to war. The issue then was reports of
Chinese occupation of Sumdorong Chu (river).
Analyst Manoj Joshi of The Times of India has a
sense of deja vu. In 1986, as now, the incident involved
IB personnel, rather than the army, which routinely
patrols the frontier in that region. It is also likely,
he says, that then, as now, the incident was a result of
the fact that Indian intelligence agencies have their
own interpretation of the LAC, different from that of
the Chinese and even the Indian Army. This puts the
McMahon Line in some areas somewhat north of where it
would be, if the Treaty of Simla of 1914 that created it
were to be literally interpreted. The Chinese have never
recognized this treaty, which was initialed, though not
signed, by its representative.
"There seems to
be something more to the recent incident than meets the
eye," said Joshi. "There have been reports in the recent
past of Chinese road construction in the Asaphi La
region. It's more than likely that the Indian group was
on a reconnaissance mission and deep inside the Chinese
side of LAC rather than in Indian territory as claimed
subsequently."
Giving the background of the
border dispute, he comments: "The problem has really
arisen from the IB's interpretation of the map. Since
the 1950s, it has insisted that the border was not the
literal McMahon Line as translated on the ground, but
the highest crest-line of the Himalayas in the region.
In 1985, on the basis of a 1983 directive to actively
patrol the border, an IB party began camping on a nearby
pasturage on the Sumdorong Chu. But when they returned
in 1986, they found the Chinese camping there. A story
leaked to the press alleging a Chinese incursion touched
off a crisis that nearly led to war."
It was
perhaps this fear of escalation, particularly during and
immediately after a prime ministerial visit, that caused
the government to downplay the incident. But opposition
leader and former union minister Ramjilal Suman raised
the issue in parliament, saying: "While the prime
minister was in China, the Chinese were making
incursions into Indian territory."
The media too
went to town. Headlines screamed of Chinese betrayal. An
editorial in The Hindustan Times, which originally broke
the story on July 23, was titled "Cross-border
duplicity", as if it were another version of
Pakistan-inspired "cross-border terrorism". It recalled,
as did almost every other observer, a previous incident
of Chinese "perfidy" and commented: "When Atal Bihari
Vajpayee went to China as the external affairs minister
in the Morarji Desai government [in 1979], his hosts
embarrassed him by invading Vietnam, forcing Mr Vajpayee
to cut short his visit. The Chinese have embarrassed him
again by entering Arunachal Pradesh while he was in
their country."
The timing of the incident has
caused widespread disquiet for another reason. It took
place at a time when, as the Hindustan Times put it,
"There is a vague feeling in India that the Chinese have
got more out of India during Mr Vajpayee's visit than
the other way around."
This was a reference to a
general feeling that while India gave an important
concession in reiterating Chinese sovereignty over Tibet
more explicitly, China did not reciprocate by
accommodating Indian sensibilities on the issue of
Sikkim or Arunachal Pradesh. China continues to claim
that Sikkim was illegally annexed by India in 1975.
Indian government spin doctors have interpreted the
Chinese acceptance of border posts in Sikkim for trading
purposes as meant to indicate Beijing's recognition of
the state as a part of India, but the Chinese have
clarified that they do not think so. Even in the matter
of Arunachal Pradesh, the Chinese have made their point
quite clear. They do not consider it Indian territory.
The furor in the media and parliament finally
forced a reluctant External Affairs Minister Yashwant
Sinha to admit that the government was aware of the
transgression of the LAC by a Chinese patrol on June 26
in the Asaphila area of Upper Subansiri district of
Arunachal Pradesh. This and earlier such incursions
could have been avoided if the two countries had a
common perception of the LAC, he said. Responding to
Suman's adjournment motion, he told the House that the
government had taken up the issue of the latest
incursion with China and a response was awaited. This,
he said, "is an area where there are differences in
perception of the LAC between the two countries".
Sinha said the Chinese patrol had not observed
the specific provision laid down in the 1996 agreement
between the two countries that concern situations
involving face-to-face contact between patrols of the
two sides. He said the process of clarification of the
LAC was under way and that "the government regularly
took up with the Chinese authorities the violations of
the LAC, according to our perception, by the Chinese
side through the established mechanism".
The
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has reportedly come
to the conclusion that the border incident wasn't
premeditated by the Chinese. It is of the view that the
Chinese patrol couldn't have stage managed the incident,
as it had no advance information on the movement of
Indian intelligence personnel. It was thus sheer
accident, in its view, that the two patrolling parties
ran into each other - as often happens along the 4,000km
LAC between the two countries - while the prime minister
was in China. However, the MEA also contends that the
Chinese patrol's action in disarming and detaining the
Indian personnel constituted a breach of the November
29, 1996, agreement on confidence-building measures in
the military field.
India also responded in a
similarly restrained manner to comments made by the
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman that Arunachal
Pradesh was not a part of India and that it was the
"Indian side" that had crossed the LAC in the eastern
sector. In response to questions on the issue, the
Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman said India
had made its position clear on the June 26
"transgression" of the LAC by the Chinese side.
While the spokesman did not offer a detailed
response to the Chinese Foreign Ministry's comments,
official sources said there was no exchange of fire
during the June 26 incident. They added that the
"encounter" in Arunachal Pradesh should not be blown out
of proportion given the fact that the LAC is a lengthy
one. This, again, pointed to the urgent need to clarify
the LAC, the sources added. They said that just because
the Chinese had a certain view about the status of
Arunachal Pradesh it did not mean that the state was not
a part of the Indian Union.
Vajpayee's mature
response to Chinese "provocations", whether in the form
of incursions into Indian territory or in statements on
Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, may succeed in containing
any adverse fallout on Indo-Chinese relations and help
keep his peace initiative in place, but it may well
snowball into a major controversy in India and harm him
politically in an election year. The opposition has not
taken up the issue yet in a major way, preoccupied as it
has been with more urgent and sexy domestic issues such
as the government's role in downgrading charges against
Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani in court cases
dealing with the demolition of Babri Mosque in 1992.
But fortunately for Vajpayee, there are some
powerful voices in India who support his line on the way
to normalize relations with China. India's
largest-circulated newspaper, The Times of India, for
instance, said: "Rather than a media-driven frenzy, what
the incident demands is the creation of a regular
mechanism of interaction between senior military
officers on both sides of the LAC, which will boost
mutual confidence and localize the problem in a way
where the two governments can get on with more important
business. For far too long, the focus of Sino-Indian
bilateral relations has revolved around the border
question. But it's not in expanded territories but
expanded trade and economic relations that the future
lies." Another influential newspaper, the Statesman,
commented in a similar vein.
Yet the prime
minister cannot ignore the fact, least of all in an
election year, that China remains a very sensitive
emotional issue for the vast majority of Indians. The
Sino-Indian border dispute goes back to 1914 and was
vastly aggravated by the 1962 war, regardless of who was
at fault. A whole generation in India was reared on the
notion that the top national priority was to take back
from China every centimeter of the 38,000 square
kilometers of land it occupied in the remote Aksai Chin
area in 1962 and the 5,180 square kilometers of northern
Kashmir it is illegally holding, ceded to it by
Pakistan.
Vajpayee cannot clap with just his own
hand. Normalization of relations is hardly possible
without China too wanting it. And if does, the least it
can do to demonstrate that is to refrain from needlessly
aggravating tensions by reiterating its claims to 90,000
square kilometers of Indian land in the eastern sector.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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