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India's Dragon delusions
By Mohan Malik
In Sino-Indian relations, the
more things change, the more they remain the same. One
day after Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal beamed with joy
on the eve of Atal Bihari Vajpayee-Wen Jiabao prime
ministerial talks in Bali while waving a computer
printout to the Indian media showing the removal of
Sikkim from the list of countries from China's official
website, interpreting it to signal a change in Beijing's
policy over Sikkim and a new era of "peace in our time"
(a-la Neville Chamberlain), Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesperson Zhang Qiyue vehemently denied any such
interpretation.
She insisted that Sikkim - which
India and China claim - was an issue still to be
determined by historical facts and hoped that it would
be "resolved gradually". Zhang's refusal to confirm
Sibal's optimism showed the Vajpayee government as
gullible and in poor light. This was a repeat
performance by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which had
earlier denied China's acceptance of Sikkim as part of
India soon after Vajpayee's talks with his counterpart
in Beijing in June and India's reiteration of its stand
on Tibet as China's integral part.
Worse, the
People's Liberation Army (PLA) embarrassed Vajpayee by
intruding deep into Arunachal Pradesh and torturing a
group of Indian security personnel it had arrested and
disarmed even as Vajpayee was in China being feted by
the communist leadership and exulting over his visit.
This armed intrusion was in clear violation of the 1993
and 1996 "peace and tranquility" accords, as Vajpayee
later told parliament: "The behavior of Chinese
authorities with the Indian patrol in Arunachal Pradesh
was not dignified and in keeping with the agreements
between us."
That the PLA's intrusion was
premeditated was demonstrated by the official Chinese
reaction that was harsh, unpalatable and undiplomatic.
Instead of offering an apology or showing regret, it not
only put the blame squarely on India, alleging that
Indian security personnel had crossed into Chinese
territory, but added insult to injury by claiming that
Arunachal Pradesh was Chinese territory. The Vajpayee
government could have countered China's claims to Sikkim
and Arunachal Pradesh by repudiating Beijing's forced
and illegal occupation of Tibet itself, but it chose not
to do so in the larger interest of peace on the eastern
front.
One explanation is that the powerful
anti-India lobby of PLA commanders wants to continue the
policy of confrontation while the post-Jiang Zemin
political leadership is keen to forge closer economic
ties with India. Yet another explanation is that
incursions were timed to force India to induct more
troops into the region to preempt further Chinese
incursions - a move that further lessened the prospect
of India acceding to the US request for a division-size
force in Iraq.
A more plausible explanation is
that the real issue, in fact, is not so much about Tibet
or Sikkim or Arunachal Pradesh, but the intensifying
geopolitical power competition between China and India
and India's unwillingness to accept a secondary role in
a China-dominated Asia. Traditionally, the signs of that
competition come in the form of a seemingly endless flow
of "incidents" or "skirmishes" each arising over some
infringement or perceived slight. They are basically
trials of strength. In many ways, any pretext will do to
demonstrate one's military superiority over the other
and force the weaker side to give in.
In
addition, the Chinese seem to relish humiliating the
"Hindu-nationalist" Vajpayee every now and then,
apparently because Beijing has neither forgiven Vajpayee
for naming China as the reason behind India's nuclear
tests in 1998, nor has it forgotten his traditional
pro-Tibet stance.
It is worth recalling that
when Vajpayee went to China in 1979 as the foreign
minister in the Morarji Desai government, his hosts had
also embarrassed him by invading Vietnam, forcing
Vajpayee to cut short his visit. A quarter of a century
later, Vajpayee's second visit, this time as as prime
minister, "succeeded" in making a non-issue (Sikkim) a
major issue, much to the advantage of the Chinese.
Before Vajpayee's China visit in June, Sikkim was on the
backburner, and negotiations were restricted to the
border dispute. The Indian government had concluded that
it did not care if China wanted to be the only country
in the world that did not recognize Sikkim's accession
in 1974. However, in its zeal to show "progress", Sikkim
and Tibet were joined by the Indian side, and in return
for Tibet's recognition as a part of China, Chinese
recognition of Sikkim was sought. All the Chinese did
was to approve Changgu in Sikkim as a trade point with
Ranguinggang in Tibet, without recognizing Indian
sovereignty over Sikkim.
Apparently, this
"progress" can be attributed to the Indian side's
neglect of advice offered by Richard Solomon in his
Chinese Negotiating Behavior , which cautions
against two Chinese tactics: (a) The Chinese adopt a
tough "no compromise" stance until the eleventh hour,
thereby putting the other side under intense pressure to
yield in order to make the visit successful; and (b)
Raise a non-issue or an issue that is already settled
and ask for more concessions. The Chinese leadership
thus exploited Vajpayee's yearning for a successful
visit to extract unilateral concessions. Even if the
Sikkim irritant is eventually removed, a sour taste will
remain over Chinese tactics, rooted in the Middle
Kingdom's attitude of being a dominant power dealing
with lesser mortals.
With China continuing to
speak with two voices - one moderate, one menacing - New
Delhi often finds itself caught on the back foot,
largely because India's China policy is based on
unrealistic expectations and faulty assumptions.
The first assumption is that the time is ripe
for a "kiss-and-make-up" with China as there are signs
of a "change in Chinese thinking and attitude towards
India". The reality, however, is quite different.
Despite growing interaction at all levels, the gulf
between the two countries - in terms of their
perceptions, attitudes and expectations from each other
- has widened over the past half century. Indian and
Chinese leaders are often talking at, rather than
talking to, each other. Chinese leaders are loath to
admit that their policies and actions are seen as
threatening to their neighbors. They insist on India
"changing its attitude towards China" without
acknowledging any need for China to do the same. As US
research professor Andrew Scobell points out, "Few, if
any, of China's strategic thinkers seem to hold warm or
positive views of India for China's future."
In
their dialogues with Asian and Western leaders, Chinese
leaders and officials are often very contemptuous of
India's socio-economic achievements, India's courting of
the US to contain China, and dismissive of New Delhi's
claims as "the world's largest democracy". In a recent
meeting with American academics, Vice Foreign Minister
Wang Yi dismissed as meaningless all talk of learning
from India's democratic experience, describing India as
"a tribal democracy which poses a serious threat to
India's existence in the long term". There exists in the
Chinese mind a deep distrust of India - with the
converse also holding true. There seems to be little
give-and-take in bilateral relationship. Though many
Indians claim that China's five-decade-long "contain
India" policy has failed because China has not succeeded
in its strategic objective of either unraveling India or
boxing it within the sub-continent, the Chinese are
convinced that it has paid rich dividends by keeping
India preoccupied with sub-continental concerns.
One cliche in vogue these days is that the
"Sino-Indian partnership will produce an Asian century"
(not different from Jawaharlal Nehru's dream of joint
Sino-Indian leadership of Asia) . But this is unlikely
to be realized. The Chinese Communist Party has set the
year 2049 - marking 100 years of the founding of the
People's Republic - when China will re-emerge as the
global superpower, overtaking the United States
economically and militarily, if not earlier, and it
would hate to see any country, least of all India, spoil
the Middle Kingdom's celebration party.
Another
assumption is that since India has two monkeys on its
back - Pakistan and China - it makes sense to get at
least one monkey off. Having failed to budge the
Pakistanis, Vajpayee is trying to get the Chinese monkey
off India's back. This assumption flows from the
argument that growing India-China economic links could
serve as a positive inducement to China that it could
gain more from a more even-handed policy in South Asia
than it would by supporting Pakistan against India. For
example, China, like other countries, realizes that
India's information technology (IT) products and skills
could further boost the booming Chinese economy.
However, the reality is again somewhat different. Even
in the IT software sector, many Chinese policymakers are
contemptuous of India's growth prospects over the long
term, believing that just as they left India behind in
the nuclear sector (where India had an edge in the
1950s), they would be able to steal a march over India
in the IT sector as well.
Besides, India's
desire to wean China away from Pakistan is nothing but
wishful thinking because Beijing has made it clear that
it will not improve ties with India at the cost of
Pakistan. Interestingly, the PLA's General Xiong
Guangkai, who calls Pakistan "China's Israel" and is
said to have brokered Islamabad's nukes-for-missile deal
with Pyongyang, was back in Pakistan to sign new defense
deals two weeks after Vajpayee's return from China. On a
cost-benefit calculus, the combined strategic and
political advantages that China receives from its
alliance with Pakistan (and, through Pakistan, other
Islamic countries) easily outweigh any advantages China
might receive from a closer relationship with India.
Beijing needs to prop up India's bete-noire
because Pakistan is vitally important to China's energy
security (by providing access to and bases in the
Persian Gulf), military security (by keeping India's
military engaged on its western frontiers), geopolitics
(given its geostrategic location at the intersection of
South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East), national
unity and territorial integrity (control over Tibet and
Xinjiang), maritime strategy in the Indian Ocean, as a
staunch diplomatic ally (in international fora,
including the Islamic world), a buyer and supplier of
conventional and unconventional weaponry. And above all,
a powerful bargaining chip in China's relations with
India and the United States.
Beijing also shares
Islamabad's deep mistrust of India's strategic ambitions
and sees India as a rising power that must be contained.
The Chinese believe that as long as India is preoccupied
with Pakistan on its western frontier, it will not stir
up trouble on the Tibetan border. Through Pakistan,
China also retains the option of continuously creating
momentum that sap India's military power. Since Pakistan
is the only country that prevents Indian dominance of
southern Asia, it fulfills a key objective of China's
Asia policy.
In addition to Pakistan, the
Chinese have lately tightened their embrace of India's
neighbors - Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the
Maldives - partly to counter India's "Look East" policy,
which clashes with long-term Chinese objectives and
interests in East Asia, and partly to gain access to
naval bases in the Indian Ocean. If during the 1970s and
1980s, Beijing used Pakistan's enmity with India to
transform it into its surrogate, Myanmar's isolation was
exploited during the 1990s to transform it into China's
client state. The same pattern now seems to be repeating
itself with respect to Bangladesh in the first decade of
the 21st century. At a time when India-Bangladesh ties
were strained over issues such as trade, transit,
illegal immigration and the alleged presence of al-Qaeda
in Bangladesh, Beijing concluded a comprehensive Defense
Cooperation Agreement with Dacca in December 2002.
Chinese and Pakistani generals were recently
invited as observers at military exercises in Myanmar.
Their next stop is likely to be Bangladesh. China's
naval encirclement of India would be complete if and
when Beijing is successful in persuading the
strategically located Indian Ocean island nation of the
Maldives to grant a naval base at Gan in the Indian
Ocean. In what is tantamount to playing the "Islamic
card" to secure naval bases, Chinese leaders and PLA
generals visiting the Maldives have stressed that the
Islamic island nation, much like Pakistan and
Bangladesh, should be "in China's camp because China has
always had close, special ties with the Islamic world".
Notwithstanding the recent decision to upgrade
border talks between India and China to the political
level, the prospects of a negotiated settlement in the
near future seem remote because China cannot brush aside
third party (its ally, Pakistan's) interests in the
territorial dispute. This was not the case with the
settlement of China's territorial boundaries with Russia
or Vietnam. For a resolution of the Sino-Indian border
dispute would lead to the deployment of India's military
assets on the India-Pakistan border, thereby tilting the
military balance decisively in India's favor, much to
Pakistan's disadvantage. This would deprive Beijing of
powerful leverage in its relations with Pakistan and
undermine its old strategy of keeping India under
strategic pressure on two fronts.
The harsh
reality is that an unresolved territorial dispute with
India suits Chinese interests more than a settled
boundary. That is why China has declined to exchange
maps, despite 22 years of border talks, to present even
its version of the full line of control. An unsettled
border gives China the opportunity to expose India's
vulnerabilities and weaknesses. At the same time,
following the demarcation of China's land borders with
nearly all its neighbors, Beijing's propaganda machinery
also milks it for what it's worth by blaming India's
"unreasonable and uncompromising attitude" for lack of
progress on the dispute.
Historically, China has
negotiated border disputes with neighbors in their
moment of national despair (Pakistan, Myanmar in the
1960s; Central Asian republics in the 1990s) or only
after the regional balance of power has shifted
decisively in China's favor and/or after they have
ceased to be a major threat (land settlements with
Russia and Vietnam in the 1990s). But not with those who
are perceived as present rivals and future threats
(India, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan).
Dr Mohan Malik is Professor at the
Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu,
Haiwaii. The views expressed in this article do not
reflect the official policy or position of the
Asia-Pacific Center, the US Department of Defense, or
the US government.
(Copyright 2003 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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