BEIJING - One geopolitical spotlight at
the start of the New Year will focus on "Chindia",
with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gearing up for
his January 13-15 visit to the Chinese capital. In
the 21st century, India and China have emerged as
two of the world's fastest growing economies. With
a combined population equal to a third of the
world's total, the appetites and interests of
these two countries have an increasing influence
in shaping the new and as yet unsettled, post-Cold
War order.
Formidable as both potential
collaborators and equally fearsome
as
competitors, the neighbors find themselves facing
similar challenges and opportunities. Scouring the
world for the oil and other natural resources
needed to feed their burgeoning economies, both
countries are concerned with developing new
foreign policies that match their changing
aspirations and status. To this end, they are
seeking to modernize their militaries and increase
their regional influence through soft power.
The relationship between any two nations
is not simple, but Sino-Indian ties are subject to
added layers of complexity. India and China not
only share a disputed border that is thousands of
kilometers long but are also attempting to spread
their wings in overlapping areas of influence.
Manmohan's visit to China will be the
first by an Indian premier in almost five years.
Given the significance of the Sino-Indian
engagement this might seem like a long gap, but it
is nonetheless an improvement over previous
occasions. The last Indian prime minister to
travel to Beijing, Atal Bihari Vajpayee in June
2003, made the trip after a space of 10 years.
At the time, cross-Himalayan relations
were notable mainly for their friction, with the
single issue of the boundary predominating. When
India tested a nuclear device in 1998, it pointed
to the ostensible strategic threat posed by China
as justification. Until March 2002, the two
countries had lacked a direct flight connection.
Bilateral trade that same year stood at a paltry
US$5 billion.
Since then, however, ties
have grown. Trade and investment is on the rise,
and steps towards cooperation on a broad spectrum
from energy to the military have been undertaken.
During Vajpayee's 2003 China trip, special
representatives from both sides were appointed to
seek a political solution to the border dispute.
Two years later in 2005, Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao visited New Delhi and a series of political
parameters and guiding principles for the devising
of a framework to settle the dispute were
announced. Simultaneously, the decision to upgrade
ties to a strategic and cooperative partnership
was also taken.
In the past year itself
several milestones in Sino-India relations were
reached. From January-November bilateral trade
rocketed to $34.2 billion. In December, the armies
of the two countries conducted their first-ever
series of joint exercises, taking a long stride
away from the bitterness and suspicion that
followed in the wake of the 1962 war.
Earlier last year, a special hotline
between the foreign ministries of the two
countries was set up, even as new consulates
opened in Guangzhou, the capital of China's
southern Guangdong province and Kolkata, capital
of India's West Bengal. Fresh flight routes were
added, connecting eastern India with southern
China, taking the total number of weekly direct
flights between the countries to 22.
Congress party president Sonia Gandhi made
a high profile visit to Beijing in October. Two
months later, the third India-China strategic
dialogue was held in the Chinese capital, Beijing.
Moreover, India and China found several
opportunities for common cause on a variety of
global issues, including climate change and World
Trade Organization negotiations.
However,
despite the visible upswing in bilateral ties,
unresolved tensions continue to simmer, even as
new areas of potential contention have emerged.
On the economic front, a widening trade
deficit for India threatens to mar positive
business engagement. In the January-November
period for 2007, the Indian trade deficit with
China widened to $9.02 billion, compared to the
$843 million trade surplus New Delhi enjoyed as
recently as 2005. India is also yet to grant China
market economy status and is reluctant to enter
into the free trade agreement for which Beijing is
pushing.
Geostrategic developments have
also caused tensions. For example, Beijing's
official reaction to the India-US deal on civilian
nuclear energy cooperation has been lukewarm, with
the Chinese media accusing the accord of hurting
the global nuclear non-proliferation cause.
In the meantime, China has continued to
extend military and nuclear cooperation to its
"all-weather" ally Pakistan, including major arms
sales and energy assistance. Beijing's "string of
pearls" strategy involving the building of naval
bases all along the Indian Ocean has the Indian
military establishment nervous, as does the
country's new push towards developing high quality
infrastructure along the southern border of Tibet.
Suspicions have in turn been aroused in
China by India's growing closeness to the United
States and Japan. The quadrilateral initiative, a
dialogue between India, Japan, the US and
Australia, has raised the specter in Beijing of an
attempt to squeeze and isolate the mainland within
an "arc of democracy".
Moreover, rather
than any positive breakthroughs in the border
dispute, the boundary in recent months has emerged
as the center of considerable controversy, with
the Chinese ambassador making a public statement
reasserting China's claim to the whole of
Arunachal Pradesh only days before President Hu
Jintao's India visit in November 2006. Although
this was in fact a reiteration of China's
traditional claim to the state, government
officials have refrained from restating historical
positions in recent years, referring instead to
the need to make "mutually acceptable
adjustments".
While the Chinese government
sought to play down the significance of the
ambassador's comment, the matter was back in the
limelight a few months ago when Beijing refused a
visa to an officer from Arunachal Pradesh. Reports
of incursions across the Line of Control that
separates the two Kashmirs of India and Pakistan
have also made regular appearances, demonstrating
how far the neighbors in fact are from the
strategic and cooperative partnership that is
their stated goal.
The reality of
Sino-Indian relations thus remains complex and
will be unaltered by Manmohan's brief visit to
Beijing. In addition to meeting with China's top
leadership, Manmohan will address scholars at the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and attend a
meeting of business leaders. He will also join
with Wen for a ceremony at the Great Hall of the
People to commemorate the work of Dr Dwarkanath
Kotnis, a member of an Indian medical mission sent
to China in 1938 to provide assistance in the face
of the Japanese invasion.
In sum, the
visit is likely to be high on symbolism but low on
substance, a condition that has characterized most
recent developments in bilateral ties.
Thus, for example, while the recently
concluded joint army exercises were in many ways a
public relations coup, military analysts say
little information of actual defense value was
exchanged. The focus of the exercises was on
counter terrorist operations, but the cold fact
remains that India's major terrorist threat
emerges from China's old ally, Pakistan.
Again, while 2007 was celebrated by both
sides as the "Year of Friendship through Tourism",
India was only able to attract some 67,600
visitors from China in the year, out of a total of
over 35 million outbound Chinese travellers.
Experts in China say the thrust of the
joint communique signed during Manmohan's visit
will likely be on common stances on global issues
pertaining to the environment and international
trade negotiations. The reason they say is that
bilateral issues like the border have entered a
substantive phase and there is thus less scope for
dramatic declarations there.
The next
stage of Sino-Indian relations will in many ways
be the most crucial. While ties have undoubtedly
improved since the start of the new century, they
have hit a plateau. Deft diplomacy, patience and
skill will be required to transition from the
current emphasis on "managing" bilateral ties, to
substantially strengthening the relationship. This
will entail not only the balancing of competing
interests but also the changing of ossified
mindsets.
Manmohan's visit is thus best
seen as one more step forward on this long and
twisting road.
Pallavi Aiyar is
the China correspondent for The Hindu.
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