|
|
|
|
India sits pretty with US and
China
By B Raman
There
has been considerable spin from Islamabad as well
as New Delhi regarding the results of the visit of
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to the two
countries. The fact that the Chinese have
carefully refrained from joining this race for
spin and have not been as articulate as the
Pakistanis and the Indians over the true
significance of the results does not necessarily
mean that the Pakistani and the Indian spins are
unfounded. It only underlines the need for caution
and a healthy dose of skepticism in assessing the
results of the visit.
A careful reading of
the statements of US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice during her visits to the two
countries last month and of those of Wen during
his just-concluding visits once again indicates
certain common constants in the policies of the US
and China in respect of their relations with India
and Pakistan.
First, their desire for the
continuance of President General Pervez Musharraf
in power as the head of Pakistan. Both of them
accept his sincerity when he talks of his
determination to make Pakistan an enlightened and
moderate Muslim state. For the US, his continuance
in power and the success of his policy are
essential for political stability and progress in
Afghanistan, for preventing another September 11
in the US homeland, for ensuring that Pakistan's
nuclear assets do not fall into the hands of
jihadi terrorists and for neutralizing Iran's
nuclear capability.
For China, his
continuance and success are essential for
political stability in the Muslim-majority region
of Xinjiang, for giving the Chinese navy a
strategic presence on the Mekran coast in
Balochistan overlooking the supply routes for oil
needed to keep the Chinese economy growing and for
checking what they have always looked on - but
which they no longer openly say so - as India's
hegemonistic ambitions.
Second, their
anxiety to reduce Pakistan's feelings of
vulnerability vis-a-vis India by bolstering its
military strength - conventional in the case of
the US and conventional as well as nuclear in the
case of China. The US looks on an insecure
Pakistan as a factor for instability and their
military supplies to its armed forces as an
investment for strengthening their influence over
the Pakistani armed forces and preventing them
from indulging in adventuristic actions, such as
their pre-September 11, 2001, support to the Taliban and
al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and their military
conflict with India over Kargil in 1999.
US policymakers have convinced themselves
that it was the termination of the military supply
relationship between 1990 and 1995 and again from
1998 to 2001 due to Pakistan's clandestinely
acquiring a military nuclear capability which
contributed to its adventuristic acts. For the
Chinese, a militarily-strong Pakistan would serve
their objective of keeping India preoccupied on
two fronts and thereby safeguard their national
security interests.
It is in this context
that one has to view the resumption of US military
supplies to Pakistan since September 11 and its
recent decision to meet Pakistan's request for
F-16s, overriding India's concerns, and China's
continuing nuclear and missile supply relationship
with Pakistan and its assistance to Pakistan for
strengthening its navy and air force.
China's role in strengthening the
Pakistani navy and air force was once again
highlighted during and immediately before Wen's
visit, and its role in strengthening Pakistan's
nuclear capability was underlined by its decision
to help Pakistan in the construction of a second
nuclear power station at Chashma. It is noteworthy
that the US, which has been opposing Russia's
civilian nuclear assistance to Iran and had tried
to come in the way of Russia's assisting India in
the construction of new nuclear power stations at
Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu, has remained discreetly
silent on the continuing Chinese assistance to
Pakistan in this field.
The
significance of
the Treaty of Friendship concluded by China and Pakistan
during Wen's visit has also to be seen in the
context of Beijing's desire to reduce Pakistan's
sense of vulnerability, externally as well
as internally. Its internal sense of vulnerability
arises from the growing unrest in Balochistan
and the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan)
bordering Xinjiang. The unrest creates in
Pakistan's mind fears of what happened in what was
then East Pakistan in 1971, leading to the
creation of Bangladesh.
These two
constants will continue to influence the pace and
the quality of the development of the relations of
the US and China toward India. However, whereas
before the late 1990s, the two countries were
relatively unconcerned over the likely
consequences of their policies toward Pakistan to
their relations with India, since 1996, one has
been seeing a greater sensitivity in Beijing as
well as in Washington to the concerns of India and
a greater understanding of the need to alleviate
Indian concerns, even while maintaining their
traditional policies toward Pakistan. This
sensitivity and understanding was first reflected
in the quality of their political relations with
India.
China's adoption since the visit of
its former president Jiang Zemin to India and
Pakistan in 1996 of a neutral stance on Jammu and
Kashmir, instead of every time automatically
supporting Pakistan, as it used to do before 1996,
and the almost similar stand taken by the US and
China during the Kargil conflict in 1999, when
they exercised diplomatic pressure on Islamabad to
stop its military adventure and respect the Line
of Control in the state by withdrawing its troops
from the territory occupied by them in stealth,
have to be seen in this context.
Since 2001, one has been
seeing
in Washington as well as in Beijing a realization of
the growing importance and capability of India as
a military and economic power and of the advisability
of not allowing their stakes in Pakistan to
stunt the growth of their relations with India. The
newly acquired importance of India in
the eyes of the US arose from the desire of
the administration of President George W Bush to
facilitate the growth of Indian power to balance
the emerging Chinese power, without creating fresh
concerns in the minds of Islamabad.
The
equal importance of India in the eyes of China
arose from its desire to checkmate what it
perceives as the long-term US designs against it
by calming India's concerns over Chinese policies
and by providing incentives for India to
reciprocate its overtures. These overtures came in
the way of its decision of 2003 to recognize
Sikkim as a part of India and the post-2003 signs
of a greater flexibility and adaptability in its
negotiations with India on the border question,
which has bedeviled bilateral relations.
The incentives came in the form
of galloping bilateral trade, which has proved
more beneficial to India than to China due to
the large-scale purchase of Indian raw materials
by the Chinese to meet the growing demands of
their economy. The new proposals emanating from
China for working toward the ultimate objective of
a free-trade zone involving the two countries and
for making them the twin towers of the global
information technology power - China in hardware
and India in software - also have to be seen in
this context.
The agreement signed by the
two countries during the visit of Rajiv Gandhi,
the then Indian prime minister, to China in 1988
underlined their intention to negotiate a solution
to the border dispute on the basis of the
principles of mutual friendship, mutual
understanding and mutual accommodation. This led
to expectations that in due course the two would
accept the status quo and make it de jure -
with India reconciling itself to the
Chinese-occupied Aksai Chin region of Ladakh in
Jammu and Kashmir remaining a part of China, and
China reconciling itself to the
Indian-administered Arunachal Pradesh in India's
northeast remaining a part of India.
The
continued reiteration of the Chinese claims to
Arunachal Pradesh during the past 17 years came in
the way of any significant forward movement in the
border negotiations. While the Aksai Chin area was
unpopulated when the Chinese occupied it,
Arunachal Pradesh is populated. Both India and
China have national security concerns in Arunachal
Pradesh - India because of its importance in
safeguarding its sovereignty over the entire
northeast and China because of its lingering
memories that it was largely through this area and
Nepal that the US Central Intelligence Agency,
with the suspected support of India's Intelligence
Bureau, allegedly armed the Khampas of Tibet and
instigated them to rise in revolt against Beijing,
and its lingering fears that Arunachal Pradesh
could once again become a platform for joint
Indo-US destabilization operations in Tibet, if
there is fresh unrest there following the death of
the Dalai Lama, when the Chinese are expected to
designate a Dalai Lama of their choice.
The greater flexibility now shown by
China, as marked by its agreement to seek a
solution to the dispute on the basis of the
principles of mutual consideration to each other's
strategic and reasonable interests and mutual and
equal security and safeguarding the interests of
settled populations, reflects its growing
confidence in its hold on Tibet. From all
accounts, the people of Tibet have immensely
benefited from the economic development of China
and the Dalai Lama himself is showing signs of
having reconciled himself to the impracticability
of his former vision of an independent Tibet. His
representatives are already once again in touch
with the Chinese authorities to pick up the
threads of negotiations on the future of Tibet as
a continuing part of China.
Fears of a
possible destabilization in Tibet, jointly
instigated by the US and India, after the Dalai
Lama are no longer as strong a motivating factor
as hitherto in determining Chinese policies
vis-a-vis Arunachal Pradesh. What has been agreed
to during Wen's visit are only the broad
principles which would govern the future
negotiations. The future scenario as envisaged now
by the two countries might again come unstuck
should there be unrest in Tibet. Large sections of
the Tibetan youth in the diaspora in India and the
West are not yet reconciled to giving up their
dreams of a free Tibet, as one saw during a daring
demonstration by a lone Tibetan youth during Wen's
visit to Bangalore.
While the agreement on
the broad principles to guide the negotiations on
the border dispute was expected, what was a
pleasant surprise was the reported statement of
Wen to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that
China would be happy to see India as a permanent
member of the United Nations Security Council.
Until now, China had been non-committal on this
issue, partly because of its reluctance to share
the political primacy in Asia with India and
partly because of its receptivity to Pakistani
concerns over the implications of India becoming a
permanent member of the Security Council.
If the Indian version of the talks on this
issue is correct, it marks a significant departure
in Chinese policy. It shows that Pakistani
sensitivities on this issue no longer influence
China's policy. India's aspirations of becoming a
permanent member are, however, likely to remain
unfulfilled so long as the US remains in the way
of major reforms of the UN, and the Islamic
ummah continues to insist on the right of
Indonesia, as the largest Muslim country, to
become a permanent member to represent the
ummah.
The visits of Rice and Wen
show, first, that India figures more and more in
their policy calculations and formulations in this
part of the world, second, that the
sensitivities of Pakistan, while continuing to be
important to them, will have a lesser role in
determining their policies toward India, and
third, that there is increasing maturity in
India's relations with the US, as well as with
China.
B Raman is additional
secretary (retired), cabinet secretariat,
government of India, New Delhi, and currently
director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai,
and distinguished fellow and convener, Observer
Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter. Email:
itschen36@gmail.com.
(Copyright 2005 B Raman.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
|
|
|
