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India and China profess brotherhood
By Sreeram Chaulia
On the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, multi-page color
supplements in Indian dailies showcased its giant strides in industry, commerce
and technology.
Fronted with a special message from the Chinese ambassador to India, these
advertorial-like releases waxed eloquent about the rising volumes of bilateral
trade and mutual investment, including quotes from Chinese honchos that they
are committed to India's economic development.
The splash and splendor of the supplements, which included a preview of Expo
2010 in Shanghai and a mention of mushrooming Confucius Institutes, typified
the enlarged Chinese efforts to
mould public opinion in India.
Joshua Kurlantzick of the New Republic maintains that China's soft power "charm
offensive" is "transforming the world". In India, though, the massive Chinese
investment in public relations has not easily transformed the cagey
news-consuming public.
From the older generation of Indians who can remember the calamity of the 1962
border war with China to a younger lot who wish that India could compete and
surpass China in economic and military greatness, there are few takers of the
publicity blitzes of the Chinese mission in India, which is known to befriend
and shower lavish favors on selected media persons.
The 60th anniversary newspaper supplements proudly declare that the era of Hindi-Chini
Bhai Bhai (Indians and Chinese are brothers) "is deeply rooted in the
hearts of the two peoples". But they make short shrift of the permanently
intractable border dispute, now subject to the 13th round of bilateral talks,
which is a legacy of the failure of that very era.
A stock response of Chinese diplomats about how the two countries could enjoy a
"strategic partnership" amid rising political tensions is to cast blame on
spoilers allegedly rupturing the bilateral "harmony". The implication of such
comments is that a small minority of "China-bashers" (insinuated as
pro-Western) is projecting horror stories of otherwise cooperative relations.
But the Pew Global Attitudes Surveys show that the percentage of Indian
respondents with negative feelings about China rose from 20% in 2002 to 43% in
2007. A 2008 poll by the same organization found that 62% of Indians considered
China's growing military power a "bad thing" and 45% of them rated China's
growing economy the same way. These figures summarize a massive trust deficit
that no amount of sugarcoating can sweep under the carpet.
Appearances of bonhomie are proving a hard sell as tensions are rising both
along the 3,500 kilometer border and in symbolic verbal exchanges over
territorial rights and threats. In May 2009, when the then chief of the Indian
Air Force, Fali Homi Major, dubbed China "certainly a greater threat than
Pakistan", it resonated with Indian public opinion in general. Likewise, the
British Sunday Times reported on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the
Communist Revolution that "not everyone in Beijing speaks in the silky language
of the foreign ministry [and] the enemy most often spoken of is India".
The bitterness has been reinforced in recent times by a running semantic battle
of wits between the two countries. For all the homilies of good neighborliness,
China has of late not shied away from reasserting its claims over India's
northeastern parts - specifically Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.
In May 2008, China officially resurrected an old claim over the Finger Point
area in northern Sikkim after apparently renouncing it in 2003. In June,
Beijing unsuccessfully attempted to block Asian Development Bank (ADB) funds to
India on the grounds that they included $60 million worth of projects for the
"disputed area" of Arunachal.
The Sino-Indian equation is so terribly dotted with sleeping dogs being rousted
for strategic warfare that Beijing kept lobbying the ADB and secured a
consolation victory in August. With the backing of Japan, Australia and some
Southeast Asian states, China won a narrow vote preventing the bank from
formally acknowledging Arunachal as part of India in the "Disclosure Agreement"
that notifies new projects.
This diplomatic shadowboxing has kept in step with Indian strategists'
contentions that Chinese cross-border incursions have been escalating year by
year. According to Professor Brahma Chellaney, India's leading China
specialist, "Chinese cross-border forays nearly doubled from 140 in 2006 to 270
in 2008 and have kept that level in 2009."
Polemical clashes between Beijing and New Delhi reached a high point just as
China was unveiling its 60th anniversary fanfare. Indian authorities discovered
that the Chinese embassy in Delhi is issuing visas on separate sheets of paper
for Indian applicants domiciled in Jammu & Kashmir state. All other Indian
citizens wishing to travel to China get their passports stamped directly, but
Indian Kashmiri students and businesspersons have been given "stapled visas"
for the past few weeks.
India's Ministry of External Affairs says that it has "taken a serious view" of
the matter since the implication is that China is questioning the legality of
Kashmir's accession to India (another old row that was seemingly resolved in
the 1990s).
Interestingly, the just-published monthly statement of the Indian Home Ministry
refers to progress on road construction "on the Indo-Tibetan border". This is a
departure from the standard Indian formulation for decades of the "India-China
border".
For years, Indian strategic elites have argued that Tibet is a card that India
must play to offset Chinese irredentism. Much to their chagrin, Indian
policymakers in government have avoided reopening the folder on Tibet's status,
inviting a chorus of dissenting voices chiding them for "spinelessness".
Professor Chellaney has even drawn an analogy that bolsters the Indian case for
questioning China's control over Tibet. He avers that China is "doing a Taiwan"
on Arunachal, that is, attempting to grab Indian territory via the ethnic
Tibetan character of some of India's northeastern states, and adding another
"reunification with the mainland" agenda item.
For Indian thinkers, Delhi must turn China's core claim over Tibet into an
issue in order to ultimately defend Arunachal or Sikkim. Already outmatched by
China's military buildup on its side of the border, Indian strategists worry
that remaining "sheepish" on Tibet is to be pushed permanently on the back
foot.
On Wednesday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh congratulated China for the
60th anniversary as an "important milestone" of a "great nation".
Formalities aside, the real message India appears to be sending is that the
Communist Revolution and its custodians are only welcome if they respect Indian
sovereignty and reciprocate the solicitousness that Delhi believes it has
accorded. Booming trade, after all, is no substitute for respect in
international relations.
Sreeram Chaulia is associate professor of world politics at the OP Jindal
Global University in Sonipat, India.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
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republishing.)
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