SPEAKING
FREELY India reveals flawed Tibet
policy By Abanti Bhattacharya
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
The recent decision
by India's ruling United Progressive Alliance
government to bar ministers from attending a
felicitation ceremony for the Dalai Lama is an
indication not only of the blunders committed by
the government in its foreign policy
decision-making, but more perilously it exposes
the flawed nature of India's
policy towards Tibet.
India has so far failed to understand the
nuances in Chinese diplomatic practice and
negotiating tactics. It has time and again fallen
into the Chinese trap, sacrificing its national
interests in the process.
Clearly, China
is tackling its Tibet problem at two levels. One,
it is involving the Dalai Lama's representatives
in fruitless talks on the resolution of the
Tibetan problem, while also disparaging him as a
"splittist" who aims to disintegrate China. Two,
it is arm-twisting India on the border dispute by
raising the Tawang district issue and asking India
to remove its army bunkers from its outposts at
Batang La near the India-Bhutan-China
tri-junction, while at the same time mesmerizing
the Indian leadership with rhetoric on India-China
joint leadership in bringing about an Asian
renaissance.
China's Tibet policy forms
the linchpin of its nationalist project. Its
sovereignty over Tibet has significant
ramifications not only for its national integrity
but also for stability in its other minority
areas, particularly Xinjiang. If Tibet falls from
China's grip, Xinjiang would follow suit. The
bottom line of China's Tibet policy thus has been
the maintenance of its sovereignty over Tibet
through military and economic means, whereby the
region is fully integrated with the mainland and
Tibetans are reduced to a minority in their own
province.
More importantly, China's Tibet
policy has significant external security
ramifications owing to the entanglement of the
Tibet issue in the Sino-Indian border dispute.
India inherited the British policy of sustaining
Tibet as a buffer zone and Tibet's de facto
independent status under Chinese suzerainty suited
its national security interests. In the post-1949
period, when the People's Republic of China came
into being, India urged China to let Tibet be an
autonomous region, as this would be in line with
its historical status, its religious, cultural and
political identity, and minimize China's military
presence in the region.
However, the entry
of 20,000 PLA (People's Liberation Army) troops in
1950-51 into Tibet ended its independent status.
The Chinese occupation of Tibet brought to the
fore the issue of India-China border. During his
visit to China in 1954, Jawaharlal Nehru raised
the issue of inaccurate border alignment in some
Chinese maps to which Chinese premier Zhou Enlai
replied that those maps were reproductions of the
old Kuomintang maps and that the Chinese
government had had no time to revise them.
Ironically, these two developments formed
the undercurrent of the Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai era
(India and China are brothers)when India signed
the agreement with China on trade and intercourse
between India and Tibet on April 29, 1954. Under
the agreement, India gave up all extra-territorial
rights and privileges that it had inherited from
the British Indian government and recognized Tibet
as part of China.
The first official
Chinese statement on the Sino-Indian border
dispute came on January 23, 1959, in response to
Nehru's letter of December 14, 1958, in which he
had drawn Chinese attention to the incorrect
Sino-Indian border alignment shown in Chinese
maps. Zhou Enlai wrote saying that the Sino-Indian
border was never delimited and that China had
never recognized the McMahon Line.
It may
be recalled that the British had delineated the
McMahon line as the boundary between India and
Tibet following a tripartite agreement among the
British India, Tibet and China in 1914 but the
treaty was not ratified by China. After the
India-China 1962 war China went on to claim about
90,000 square kilometers of Indian territory in
the eastern sector and 38,000 square kilometers in
the Aksai Chin area. China's Tibet policy thus had
brought to the fore a serious border dispute
between India and China, and it has remained
intractable till date.
Indeed, China's
claim over Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh) on the basis
of old Tibetan religious and monastic links is a
reminder of the fact that the Tibetan issue is far
from over. In fact, the 11th round of the meeting
between the special representatives of the two
countries in September 2007 ended on an
inconclusive note partly because of the Tawang
issue.
The former Chinese ambassador to
New Delhi, Zhou Gang, said that as the Chinese
people would never accept the "McMahon line",
India would have to make substantial adjustments
in the Eastern sector by giving Tawang to China.
India's policy towards Tibet has suffered
because of its many dilemmas. In the 1950s, though
India opposed China's invasion of Tibet, it
refused to sponsor a Tibetan appeal to the United
Nations, turned down US proposals for cooperation
in support of the Tibetan resistance and persuaded
the young Dalai Lama not to flee abroad but to
reach an agreement with the Chinese government.
All this forced the Dalai Lama to sign a
17-point agreement with Beijing in May 1951. This
Indian policy stemmed from the need to preserve
Tibet as an autonomous region within China, while
simultaneously advancing ties with Beijing.
Consequently, India signed the 1954 agreement with
China on Tibet, in which it virtually surrendered
its Tibetan card. The 1956 uprising in Tibet
exposed the insincerity of the Chinese towards
granting autonomy to Tibet and in an effort to
retrieve the lost ground India granted asylum to
the Dalai Lama in 1959.
But Beijing saw
the granting of asylum to Dalai Lama and enabling
him to mobilize international support as an
anti-China policy. Consequently, in all subsequent
India-China joint statements, it ensured the
insertion of a clause on India's acceptance of
Tibet as a part of China.
By repeatedly
reiterating over the years that Tibet is a part of
China, India diluted its leverage not only in
shoring up the Tibetan cause but also in its
border negotiations with China. At the same time,
China continues to fear that India might use the
Tibetan card at some point in the future. Despite
these Chinese fears, India has steadfastly avoided
using the Tibetan card as a bargaining strategy.
Given its tradition of pursuing an
independent foreign policy, it is incomprehensible
why India is buckling down under Chinese pressure
on Tibet. It is well known that given the present
dynamics of India-China relations with greater
synergy as the goal, New Delhi is not likely to
take up the Tibetan cause actively. But at the
same time, it is well within the parameters of
Indian foreign policy to regard the Dalai Lama as
Tibet's spiritual leader. When China hosted the
World Buddhist Forum, no eyebrows were raised
though the event had significant political import.
India, being the land of Buddha, should take the
initiative to felicitate the Dalai Lama. After
all, the Dalai Lama is not demanding independence
but is only legitimately demanding the
preservation of Tibetan identity, religion and
culture within Chinese frontiers.
India
lacks the political will to creatively use the
Tibetan card and is losing an important leverage
in its negotiations with China. India has the
Tibet card if it chooses to use. The very presence
of the Dalai Lama in India along with 120,000
Tibetan refugees spread across 35 settlements is
leverage for India.
Further, the Dalai
Lama recognizes the 1914 Simla agreement, in which
case the Chinese claims on Tawang on the basis of
history do not hold ground. In any case,
historically, the Tawang tract did not belong to
China. The Chinese side in their dialog with the
Tibetan Task Force have tried to persuade the
Tibetans to accept Arunachal Pradesh as Chinese
territory, to which the Tibetans have firmly
refused.
Interestingly, while the Chinese
are trying to solve the border dispute with India
through special representatives group meetings,
they are also simultaneously holding talks with
the Tibetans on the Tibet issue.
This
indicates entanglement of the Tibetan issue with
the India-China border dispute. Therefore, the
problem of Tibet including the fate of Tibetan
refugees in India and the border dispute cannot be
solved effectively without a tripartite
participation of India, China and Tibet.
India should explore ways to involve the
Tibetans in the border resolution. In fact, an
effective solution to the India-China border
dispute would depend on involving the Tibetans as
representatives in the ongoing border
negotiations. It may be similar to the
Sino-Japanese history issue where a joint
committee has been set up to resolve the history
question. India-China-Tibet need a joint
historical research to resolve the "leftover" of
history.
Dr Abanti Bhattacharya,
associate fellow, Institute for Defense Studies
and Analyses (IDSA), Delhi.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
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