BANGALORE - At first glance, the visit to India
last week of the governor of Xinjiang, Ismail Tiliwaldi,
could be dismissed as a trip by just another leader to
promote investment and bilateral interaction with India.
Though largely ignored by the Indian media, the visit
was of some significance - evidence of the deepening
relationship between India and China.
Xinjiang
is China's "Wild West". In 1949, when the communists
came to power in China, the Uighurs - the local
population of Xinjiang - declared an independent East
Turkestan state. Beijing quickly crushed the Uighur
rebellion. Since 1955, the region has been known as the
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, but despite Beijing's
best attempts - it has altered the demographic
composition of the region and tried to assimilate it -
its integration into China has never been easy or
complete. The region remains restive to date and
Islamist militants believed to have links with the
Taliban are said to be active here.
It is
the first time in several decades that a leader
from Xinjiang has visited India. Vibrant trade
relations between India and Xinjiang, a key center on the
Silk Route, date back centuries. Independent India used
to have a trade mission in Kashgar until the 1950s,
but after its closure, commercial and other
links gradually declined. With India's relations with
China freezing after the 1962 war, the ties with Xinjiang
were not revived.
Tiliwaldi's visit to
India focused on economic issues. His delegation and
the Confederation of Indian Industry have decided to
study the feasibility of laying a natural-gas pipeline from
Xinjiang to India. Tiliwaldi's delegation also expressed
interest in a land link with India. India and Xinjiang
have identified four areas for potential cooperation -
agriculture and food processing, traditional medicine
and herbs, energy and oil production, and tourism.
Analyzing the significance of Tiliwaldi's visit, Dr C
Raja Mohan, a leading strategic-affairs analyst and professor at
Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, points out in
an article in Indian Express that it signals that "New
Delhi has given up its traditional defensiveness about
Xinjiang and is now ready for an expansive engagement
with a region, just north of Jammu and
Kashmir [J&K]".
"The closest parallel
that would help explain the political significance of
Tiliwaldi's visit," he writes, "would be, say, a trip to
Beijing by the chief minister of J&K, Mufti Mohammad
Sayeed!"
The
absence of interaction between India
and Xinjiang in recent decades was in part the result
of the frosty relations between Beijing and New
Delhi. China inflicted a humiliating defeat on India in
the 1962 war. Relations between the two remained frozen
for years. The visit has become possible because of the
gradual normalization of relations between India and
China that was set in motion in the early 1980s and
which has gathered momentum in recent years. It signals
that Sino-Indian relations, despite the deep suspicion
and rivalry between the two Asian giants and their
unresolved border dispute, has reached a level where the
two countries are willing to engage, even in what is a
sensitive region, if it will take forward their
commercial and trade interests.
Another reason
for Delhi's reluctance to engage with Xinjiang was that
territory India lays claim to and which is now under
Chinese control is shown on Chinese maps as part of
Xinjiang. This is the case with the Aksai Chin region
that borders northern J&K. The Shaksgam Valley, a
part of the princely state of J&K that Pakistan
occupied and subsequently gifted to the Chinese in 1963
and which India lays claim to, is also part of Xinjiang
now.
The economic boom in Xinjiang and the
proximity of Xinjiang to resource-rich Central Asia
appears to have prompted India to set aside its earlier
reluctance to adopt a proactive approach to engaging
Xinjiang. Now, it seems, India is geared up to woo
Xinjiang. Inviting Tiliwaldi appears to be a significant
step in this direction.
While an air link between
Delhi and Kashgar is in the cards, it is a road link
that could transform the two economies. With a reliable
land link through Pakistan to Central Asia
still a distant dream, analysts have suggested linking
Ladakh, which is in eastern J&K and borders Tibet,
to Xinjiang and then reaching out to Central Asia. Of
course, all this demands an early settlement of the
territorial claims that India and China have along their
disputed border.
Efforts to negotiate a
settlement to the border dispute have been going on for
several years at the official level, but things have
moved at a glacial pace. The Chinese blame India's
intransigence for the slow pace of progress. A proposal
China put forward that envisaged an "east-west swap" - under
this China would abandon its claims on India in the
eastern sector, recognizing Indian sovereignty over that
area, in exchange for India giving up its claim to Aksai
Chin, recognizing Chinese sovereignty over that area
- was rejected by India years ago but is now gaining
support in Delhi. Sections in India's strategic community
seem in favor of a settlement of the border along
the lines of the east-west swap, in essence a
recognition of the situation on the ground.
Tiliwaldi's visit to India signals the start of
a new area of Sino-Indian engagement. In recent years
Beijing and Delhi have shown that they are willing to do
business with each other in spite of their deep
differences and mutual suspicions. India's economic
interaction with Xinjiang is based on the same
principle. But for the full potential of the
India-Xinjiang relationship to be realized, the border
dispute, especially over the western sector, would need
to be settled.
Sudha Ramachandran is an
independent researcher/writer based in Bangalore, India.
She has a doctoral degree from the School of International
Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New
Delhi. Her areas of interest include terrorism, conflict
zones and gender and conflict. Formerly an assistant
editor at the Deccan Herald (Bangalore) she now
teaches at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.
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