NEW
DELHI - The successful conclusion of a meeting of Indian
and Chinese defense ministers this week reveals a subtle
but sure shift in the Sino-Indian relationship. Despite
the requirements of electioneering, the government of
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has refrained from
grandstanding: it has allowed a policy of quiet
pragmatism to take hold. The opposition, too, is not
seeking to derive political benefit by making Vajpayee
uncomfortable, something that could easily be done by
simply quoting from his earlier stand on China. A Hindu
nationalist leader, he used to be most vociferous in
demanding every inch of the thousands of square
kilometers of Indian territory that China captured in a
1962 war to be taken back before any negotiations could
start.
Indian observers believe that the
new-found enthusiasm on the part of both the hitherto
estranged neighbors to implicitly acknowledge the status
quo on the border is partly due to changing geopolitical
equations. The willingness to overlook each other's
territorial claims, at least for the present, is being
ascribed to India and China's wish for a multi-polar
world as the looming shadow of the US neo-imperialism
grows larger and its impact begins to manifest itself in
South Asia too.
India is also hoping that its
rapprochement with China will serve as an example for
Pakistan. India believes China is occupying thousands of
miles of its territory; but is focusing on sorting out
trade and other issues to create a congenial atmosphere
in which border questions can be discussed fruitfully.
This is primarily because India knows it cannot defeat
China and take back its territory in a war. Similarly.
Pakistan knows or should know it cannot defeat India
militarily and take Kashmir, regardless of the merits of
its case. So it should follow the policies India is
pursuing vis-a-vis China.
Leading by example;
but it isn't working so far. Bolstered by his country's
new status as a United States major non-NATO ally
(MNNA), Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf has
started flexing his muscles again. He has virtually
given an ultimatum to India. If there is no real
progress in talks on Kashmir by July or August, he will
withdraw from the nascent peace process. India is
furious, but not so much with Pakistan, more so with the
US, which is being roundly abused for double-crossing.
Official Indian response is muted. At first it
was dumb-struck with the announcement of the MNNA status
for Pakistan; now it has mustered the courage to say
that Musharraf's comments are "not very helpful".
But independent analysts are presenting all
sorts of conspiracy theories, one of which, proffered by
a respected former diplomat, is that the US may have
offered Kashmir to Pakistan in lieu of Osama bin Laden,
whose capture is perceived as vital for the re-election
prospects of US President George W Bush.
India
and China have agreed to increase contacts and
interactions between the defense establishments and
armed forces of both the countries. The first Chinese
defense minister to visit India in a decade, General Cao
Gangchuan, and his Indian counterpart George Fernandes
led the two delegations that decided to increase
friendly interaction between the border personnel at the
"Line of Actual Control" of the disputed territory and
granting of observer status to the military officers at
each other's military exercises.
The meeting
took place in the backdrop of already improved defense
ties. Fernandes visited China last year and signed a
number of agreements. The first-ever Sino-Indian joint
naval exercises, too, were held late last year.
Officials described Cao's five-day tour to various
Indian military establishments as part of the confidence
building measures. Cao is also the vice chairman of the
powerful Central Military Commission headed by the
former Chinese president, Jiang Zemin.
While
Fernandes mooted the proposal for joint military
exercises when he was in China, the offer for hosting
the Indian armed forces officers to observe future
Chinese military exercises was made by the visiting
side. Fernandes reciprocated the offer. It was also
agreed to initiate Chinese language training in defense
institutions in India and further sports and cultural
exchanges. "This would be in the interest of building
familiarity, trust and confidence so as to develop
bilateral relations as a whole. The tone and tenor of
the talks were open and constructive ... During the
talks, defense exchanges were reviewed and assessed
positively," an official statement said.
On the
boundary question, both sides expressed themselves in
favor of an early resolution and examined new proposals
to strengthen and develop defense exchanges and
confidence building. Cao presented a brief overview of
the international situation and the recent major
domestic developments, notably the recently-concluded
National People's Congress. Fernandes expressed the hope
that the momentum of high-level visits would be
sustained. While he was happy over Cao's visit within a
year of his own visit to China, Cao recalled Fernandes'
visit to China at the height of the SARS epidemic and
thanked him for the medicines sent by India.
A
new and propitious mood in India-China relations has
been seen since Vajpayee's six-day visit to China last
year. This has now been strengthened by the visiting
Chinese defense minister talking about China and India
becoming "eternal good neighbors, good partners and good
friends". And, above all, establishing defense ties.
Observers believe closer defense relations between the
two are the key to rapprochement as they would reduce
suspicions on both sides.
There are great
expectations in India from the burgeoning ties. The
Indian Express summed them up in an editorial: "Closer
Indo-China defense ties would help to complement the
burgeoning of political and economic/trade relations by
reducing residual mistrust on both sides, which have not
gone away in spite of the upturn experienced after Rajiv
Gandhi's landmark visit to China in 1988. The boundary
dispute would take time and patience to resolve. But the
demarcation of the Line of Actual Control at an early
date would help to formalize peace and tranquility along
the frontier and contribute towards the process of
building greater mutual trust. Above all, closer defense
contacts would help to forestall the risk of any
reversal in the positive tenor of the Indo-Sino
relationship that exists today, while ensuring a more
balanced assessment of the potential risks that could
bedevil it."
India's China policy of growing
rapprochement is, however, not without its critics. Much
of the criticism comes from a determined pro-US lobby
which wants India to remain firmly in the American camp,
regardless of how it is treated by the sole superpower.
This lobby would want India to be a part of US policy of
containing China.
One of those strategic
thinkers who is most comfortable with a US-dominated
unipolar world and see the emerging scene in Asia as
that of unremitting India-China rivalry is Mohan Malik,
professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security
Studies in Honolulu. In a two-part article in Force, a
defense affairs magazine published from New Delhi, he
writes: "Notwithstanding India's desire to remain an
independent power, which sometimes results in India's
taking policy decisions contrary to the US (eg on Iraq),
India prefers a US-led unipolar world to a
China-dominated Asia - but ultimately seeks a multipolar
world with itself as a constituent pole."
Mohan
goes on: "India - much like Japan, Vietnam and Australia
- is unlikely to accept Chinese hegemony for historical,
cultural, civilizational and more importantly,
geopolitical and geo-economic reasons. These countries
were never part of the Sinic world order and would
prefer a US-led Asia-Pacific for the simple geopolitical
reality that the United States is a distant superpower
while China is right on their doorstep. Security
concerns regarding a rising China have already prompted
New Delhi to cultivate Washington, seeing the US
military presence as a factor of stability in Asia ...
in addition to establishing strategic ties with the US,
India's evolving Asia policy reflects a desire to build
an arc of strategic partnerships with 'China-wary' Asian
countries that would neutralize continuing Chinese
military assistance and activity around India."
Another argument made by the same author goes
like this: "Since there is no direct conflict of
interests between India and Japan or between the US and
India, both are likely to rely on India more than China
in protecting the sea lanes of communication and their
broader security interests in the Indian Ocean region.
The growing entente cordiale between India and Japan is
based on the understanding that united they contain
China and divided they are contained by China and its
allies."
Japan,
however, proved this theory wrong by proposing on
Thursday to form a trilateral axis with India and China
to enhance cooperation among the three Asian countries,
even as it announced a soft loan package of US$57
million to India under its development assistance
scheme. Japan's envoy to India, Yasukoni Enoki, said:
"The proposal has been discussed informally with the
Indian side and will help India correct its positioning
in Japan's diplomacy. It [the trilateral axis] is also
important for stability and prosperity of Asia. The
proposal was also taken up with senior Indian officials
during consultations held earlier this year between the
two foreign offices." Though, Mohan
claims at the end of the article that the views
expressed do not reflect the official policy or position
of the US Department of Defense, it is clear that
growing India-China proximity has rattled the US, or at
least the pro-US and anti-China lobby. It is resorting
to making wild claims about India's intentions and
policies.
A blistering attack on India's China
policy comes from Pravin Sawhney, the editor of Force.
He has a long list of grievances against both the
government of India and China: "Unable to humble the
nuclearized Pakistan, the government is content
maintaining the facade of cordial relations with China.
It does not want to do anything to displease Beijing's
blatant proliferation of nuclear weapons and missiles
technology to Pakistan, its refusal to support India's
case for a permanent membership in the UN, and its
vociferous demand that India roll back its nuclear
weapons program. All this is not worrying as it is
manageable, the serious issue is China's strident
improvement of its border management on the 4,056
kilometer long Line of Actual Control, and its
infrastructural development with military implications
in Tibet. India's political and military leadership have
dissimilar views about China's military threat. With an
undelineated and undemarcated disputed border, the
military believes that China's better border management
poses a military threat. There is a need for us to
improve our border management, something the political
leadership thinks may send wrong signals to Beijing.
Therefore, for the time being, matters have been pushed
under the carpet."
The fact of the matter,
however, is that India's China policy reflects a
consensus of informed political opinion in the country.
Not a single political party or major newspaper has
attacked it. Indeed, there is very little disagreement
with the Vajpayee government's attempts to seek a
rapprochement with Pakistan either, though few can still
bring themselves to trusting Musharraf.
The
foreign policy debate in India is largely centered on
the government's claim of having developed a "strategic
partnership" with the US. It is this claim that is
inviting all the ire and ridicule of critics,
particularly after Pakistan was conferred the MNNA
status without India being even informed. When India was
developing close relations with Iran, it had kept the US
informed and explained in detail the whys and wherefores
of its actions in view of American sensitivities about
Iran. But the US has violated the first principle of a
strategic relationship - no surprises - by giving India
not just a surprise but a shock while conferring MNNA on
Pakistan. A former diplomat and now leader of the main
opposition Congress party, Mani Shankar Aiyar, concludes
a column on the subject with the following remark:
"South Block [foreign office] is, therefore, left red
with embarrassment, green with envy, and white with
surrender. Substitute orange for red, and you have the
colors of the Indian flag. This is what the NDA
[coalition government] has done to India's honor,
independence and sovereignty."
India had offered
the US all its resources in its so-called "war on
terror" following the atrocities of September 11. New
Delhi, however, never agreed to play the US game
vis-a-vis China in Asia. It doesn't want to be used by
the US in its China-containment games. Nor does it look
on itself as rivaling Beijing for influence in the
Asia-Pacific region. This is not to deny that India has
a number of problems with China, but it knows that it
has to sort them out bilaterally. India may have
blundered in the case of Pakistan, though, by allowing
hostilities to develop to a point where it had to allow
the US to play facilitator. It is apparently realizing
now that here, too, it will have to sort out its
problems by itself. The US has its own agenda in which
obviously there is not much room for India's concerns.
However, now that some operatives of the Pakistan-based
Lashkar-e-Taiba, known for their militancy in the Indian
state of Jammu and Kashmir, have been discovered in
US-occupied Iraq, there is a possibility that Washington
may start taking a different view of the situation.
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