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2 SINO-INDIAN WAR: 50
YEARS ON Beijing, Delhi tread fine
line By Chietigj Bajpaee
Fifty years ago this month, China and
India went to war. Historically, the conflict that
began on October 20, 1962, was a blip, lasting
only a month with hostilities confined to their
disputed border and even limited to the use of
both countries' armies with a minimal role for
their air force and navies. On the world stage,
the conflict was overshadowed by a superpower
stand-off between the United States and Soviet
Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
However, India's humiliating defeat is
etched in its national psyche as the greatest
foreign policy disaster suffered by the country
since it became an independent nation-state in
1947. Moreover, despite being confined to their
disputed border, it was a strategically
significant conflict as it symbolized the end of a
short-lived campaign to
forge an Asian brotherhood of nations, which had
begun with India's first prime minister,
Jawaharlal Nehru, hosting the Asian Relations
Conference in April 1947.
China and India
played a pivotal role in laying the groundwork for
defining the rules of regional interaction in
post-colonial Asia when they forged the "Five
Principles of Peaceful Co-existence" or
"Panchsheel", which became the antecedent to
subsequent norms of Asian interaction, such as
Treaty of Amity and Cooperation of the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
However, this phase of Asian solidarity
perished in the Himalayan conflict in the autumn
of 1962, after which Cold War rivalries superseded
regional identities and superpower-led security
treaties such as the Southeast Asian Treaty
Organization became the core of the regional
security architecture during the Cold War.
International cooperation The
fact that there has been no renewed outbreak of
conflict between China and India in the half
century since the war is a positive achievement.
Aside from a few brief conflagrations, notably in
the Sumdorong Chu Valley in 1987, bilateral
tensions have been confined to rhetoric and
symbolic posturing. Both countries have a shared
interest in maintaining a stable regional and
international environment in order to maintain
their growth and development trajectories and
consolidate their "comprehensive national power".
Both countries' nuclear weapons
capabilities have also served to deter the
outbreak of an all-out war. While lagging behind
China, India's fast developing nuclear
capabilities, including the expanding range of its
ballistic missiles (as illustrated by the test of
the Agni V inter-continental ballistic missile in
April this year) and development of a nuclear
triad (confirmed by the launch of India's first
indigenous nuclear-powered submarine, the INS
Arihant in 2009) has maintained a credible nuclear
deterrent between both states.
Furthermore, conflict has been restrained
by the fact that their bilateral frictions have
been largely strategic rather than
ideological,unlike the US-Soviet rivalry during
the Cold War. The bilateral relationship lacks the
historical animosity seen in the Sino-Japanese or
Sino-Vietnamese relationship, with the only
recorded conflict between both countries before
the 1962 war occurring in 649 CE, when the Chinese
carried out a limited incursion into the Gangetic
plains.
At the international level, both
countries have cooperated on issues ranging from
climate change to opposing agricultural subsidies
in industrialized countries, adopting a joint
position on the Arab Spring and relations with
pariah regimes such as Iran, Sudan and until
recently, Myanmar (Burma).
Several forums
have emerged to capture this cordial international
relationship, including the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, where both states have called for
the emergence of a "multi-polar world", and the
BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa)
forum, where both states have deepened economic
integration, as noted by an agreement for settling
intra-BRICS trade in their local currencies.
The year 2005 was a pinnacle for the
bilateral relationship as both countries declared
themselves to be "strategic and cooperative
partners for peace and prosperity", which has been
reaffirmed by confidence-building initiatives,
including joint military exercises and diplomatic
exchanges.These include the Annual Defense
Dialogue, codenamed "Hand-to-Hand", which began in
2008; the establishment of direct hotlines between
the premiers of both countries in 2010; and the
establishment of a new bilateral boundary
coordination mechanism earlier this year.
Territorial trouble However, at
the regional level their relationship has been far
more precarious. Notably, the fact that both
states have been unable to resolve their
long-standing territorial dispute is a cause for
concern. [1] While China has resolved 17 of 23
territorial disputes since 1949, limited progress
has been made in the dispute with India under the
special representatives' framework, which has been
in place since 2003. Aside from a few symbolic
gestures, such as opening up border trade along
the Nathu La and Jelepla passes, recent events
appear to indicate backtracking in the limited
progress that has been achieved. This includes the
2005 "Political Parameters and Guiding Principles"
that recognized the interests of settled
populations.
The relatively simple
solution of recognizing the de facto borders -
with India retaining control of Arunachal Pradesh
and China of Aksai Chin - has been hijacked by the
expanded tools and platforms available to both
countries as a result of their rise as major
powers.This was made evident in 2009, when China
attempted to block an Asian Development Bank loan
to India as it included a package for the Indian
state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as
"Southern Tibet". Similarly, Chinese investment in
infrastructure projects in Gilgit-Baltistan (in
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir), adds an economic
dimensions to the territorial dispute.
Added to this has been the changing
strategic significance of the territorial dispute
for both countries. For China, this refers to
instability in ethnically Tibetan areas following
riots in 2008, which has been fueled by concerns
that the passing of the aging Dalai Lama may pave
the way for the rise of a new generation of more
radical Tibetan leaders who are likely to adopt
less conciliatory positions toward the Chinese
government.
This has prompted Beijing to
reaffirm its sovereignty over the Tibet Autonomous
Region while adopting a more stringent position
over its claim to all of Arunachal Pradesh,
including the symbolically important town of
Tawang, which is home to the largest Tibetan
monastery outside Lhasa.
Other provocative
actions, such as denying visas to residents of
Arunachal Pradesh and issuing stapled visas to
residents of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir
provide further evidence of China's increasingly
hard-line position on the territorial dispute.
This runs contrary to China's earlier position of
adopting a neutral position on the Kashmir dispute
(which was demonstrated during the Kargil conflict
between India and Pakistan in 1999).
Both
countries' strengthened military positions along
their disputed border have contributed to a
growing number of border frictions. Indian
authorities have reported 550 border
"transgressions" by Chinese troops along its three
sectors - western (Ladakh), middle (Uttrakhand,
Himachal Pradesh) and eastern (Sikkim, Arunachal
Pradesh) - since 2010. The most recent occurred in
July this year when soldiers from both sides came
face-to-face in the Chumar Sector of Eastern
Ladakh. However, this alludes to the fact that the
Line of Actual Control (LAC) distinguishing the
Indian and Chinese sides of the border remains
undemarcated with no mutual agreement on the exact
alignments of the border.
Economic
imbalances Adding to their longstanding
territorial dispute is the emergence of new
theatres of competition between both countries. On
the economic front, rather than rhetorical claims
of Indian services complementing Chinese
manufacturing and Chinese hardware complementing
Indian software a climate of mistrust persists.
This has been fueled by a trade imbalance in
China's favor and three-quarters of Indian exports
to China comprising commodities and raw materials
with little value added, in contrast to China's
export of manufactured goods to India.
Bilateral trade has grown rapidly,
crossing US$70 billion in 2011with a target of
$100 billion by 2015. However, it still remains
relatively low with India accounting for a mere
3.8% of China's total global trade as the
country's 10th-largest trade partner, though China
is now India's third-largest trading partner in
goods, and the biggest if Hong Kong is included.
One-fifth of India's total trade deficit emanates
from China, rising to half of India's total trade
imbalance when excluding India's oil imports.
Mistrust in their economic relationship
has also been fueled by the persistence of
non-tariff barriers, such as stringent Indian
guidelines for investment in strategically
important sectors such as telecoms and ports and
in sensitive areas such as the Mannar Basin off
the coast of Sri Lanka, and the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands at the mouth of the Strait of
Malacca.
China has also been slow to admit
access to sectors where India retains a
comparative advantage, such as information
technology and pharmaceuticals. India remains one
of the leading initiators of anti-dumping
investigations against China, with some 35
complaints and 22 duties against Chinese firms in
the last three years, most recently for
Chinese-made solar panels.This has prompted
India's reluctance to grant China "market economy"
status.
Maritime rivalry The
rise of both countries as major trading and
resource-consuming powers has in turn elevated the
strategic importance of the maritime domain and
led both countries to pursue increasingly
aggressive military modernization initiatives
supported by growing defense budgets.
More
than 95% of India's exports are seaborne compared
with 60% of China's exports, while 70% of Indian
hydrocarbons emanate from offshore blocks and 80%
of China's oil imports transit the sea lanes of
the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. This in turn
has transformed the nature of their bilateral
relationship from a land-based rivalry toward a
competition increasingly taking place in the
maritime domain.
China's navy has three
times more combat vessels and five times more
personnel than the Indian navy. Nonetheless, the
Indian Navy - the world's fifth-largest - has
ambitious plans to establish a 160-vessel fleet
including three aircraft carrier groups by 2025.
The fact that China and India are two of only six
countries with a nuclear submarine capability and
two of only 10 with aircraft carriers points
toward both countries' growing power projection
capabilities beyond their littoral regions.
China's pursuit of "new historic missions"
that entail increasing overseas deployments
coincide with the Indian Navy's ambitions to
transform itself into "a brand new
multi-dimensional navy" with "reach and
sustainability". This will ensure that both
countries' militaries cross paths more frequently.
This was demonstrated in July 2011 when an
Indian Navy vessel, the INS Airavat
received alleged radio contact from the Chinese
Navy demanding that the vessel depart disputed
waters in the South China Sea after completing a
port call in Vietnam. Similarly, the 2009
deployment of a People's Liberation Army Navy
(PLAN) naval taskforce to the Indian Ocean has
brought China's military into closer contact with
India's strategic backyard and turned the
hypothetical debate over China's blue water naval
ambitions into a reality.
Third-party
complications Finally, several structural
factors are facilitating the persistence of mutual
mistrust between both nations. At the inter-state
level, limited people-to-people contact rooted in
cultural barriers and infrastructure deficiencies,
such as the absence of direct flights between
Shanghai and Mumbai - the commercial centers of
both countries - has fueled a climate of mistrust
and misunderstanding.
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