EDITS | Thursday, September 17, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Rhetoric is best avoided
G Parthasarathy
One abiding feature of our relations with China is our propensity to swing from elation and ecstasy to despondency and despair. Shortly after the visit of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to India in April 2005, our media, China scholars and sections of our Mandarin speaking Mandarins proclaimed that the festering ‘boundary question’ with China was all but resolved. The Manmohan Singh-Wen Jiabao Declaration asserted that India-China relations had acquired “global and strategic significance” and that the two countries would establish a “strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and prosperity”.
An Agreement laying ‘Political Parameters and Guiding Principles’ for resolving the border issue said that while respecting the Line of Actual Control, India and China would reach a boundary settlement which shall “safeguard due interests of their settled populations in the border areas”, while using “modern cartographic and surveying practices and joint surveys”. Our ‘scholars’ and media ecstatically proclaimed that the reference to settled populations in border areas meant that China had given up its claims to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. They were in for a rude shock. Within a year, China started regularly and aggressively asserting that the whole of Arunachal was a part of ‘South Tibet’.
While talks on resolving the border issue have continued regularly after the visit of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to China in December 1988, the problem of Chinese intrusions into our territory arises from the fact that while the Line of Control is defined and demarcated by mutual agreement between India and Pakistan in Jammu & Kashmir, the Line of Actual Control, which both sides have pledged to determine and respect, along the China-India border has never been demarcated. It was decided that the issue of demarcation would be addressed by India and China exchanging maps about the precise location of the LOAC and reconciling differences through negotiations.
But, while maps were exchanged on the Central Sector (adjoining Uttarakhand) and India provided its maps on the LOAC in the western sector (Ladakh) to China in 2002, the latter has refused to provide maps outlining its version of where the LOAC lies, either on the western sector or on the eastern sector (Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh). In the face of this impasse, it was decided in 2003 that the two countries would seek a political solution to the border issue.
Despite having agreed in principle that there could not be any change in the status of populated areas in 2005, China is now insistent that it would expect territorial concessions in Arunachal Pradesh, if it is to agree to Indian claims in Ladakh. It is because of the importance of Tawang as a Buddhist Monastery town where the sixth Dalai Lama was born that China seeks control of this area to secure a fig leaf of legitimacy for its rule in Tibet.
India has firmly rejected Chinese claims to Tawang with senior Government leaders like Mr Pranab Mukherjee asserting: “Any elected Government in India is not permitted by our Constitution to part with any part of our land that sends representatives to the Indian Parliament”. Thus, as long as China remains insistent on its claims over Arunachal Pradesh, there can be no settlement of the border issue. India has also indicated that it intends to improve communications along its road borders with China, boost its military presence in Arunachal Pradesh and strengthen its eastern air defences.
The entire problem of border intrusions today arises because China wishes to keep its options open by not spelling out where in its view the LOAC lies so that it can continue to intrude into populated areas in Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh at a time and place of its choosing and undermine public confidence in our border areas in New Delhi’s will and ability to defend our territorial integrity.
Apart from border issues, China has made every effort to undermine Indian security interests in recent years. Pakistan is being assisted by China in its boosting of nuclear weapons capabilities by supply of Plutonium reactors and reprocessing facilities. Chinese supplies of ballistic and cruise missiles to Pakistan continue, as does the supply of fighter aircraft and frigates. China assists Pakistan-sponsored terrorism by blocking moves in the UN Security Council for action against the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h and the head of the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed.
While pledging aid for hydro-electric projects in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, China sees to block assistance for economic development in Arunachal Pradesh in the Asian Development Bank on the ground that its status is ‘disputed’. More ominously, there is now evidence that China is using areas controlled by its protégés in the Kachin State of Myanmar to arm and train north-eastern insurgent groups in Manipur and elsewhere. In its Yunnan Province, China similarly seeks to undermine India’s relations with Nepal. Despite this, our Mandarins talk glibly of a ‘strategic and co-operative partnership’ with China.
There are areas like climate change, WTO issues and the development of a multi-polar world order, where India and China have shared interests. China’s actions along and across India’s borders and its efforts to undermine India’s regional influence by its policies in countries like Pakistan and Nepal will, however, remain sources of differences. We courted disaster in 1962 because we glossed over realities and misled public opinion, domestically and globally. Our Mandarins in South Block will do well to remember this when misrepresenting and avoiding a focus of attention on the realities of our relations with China.
We should, however, avoid resorting to rhetoric that escalates tensions. Rather than talking about how we propose to increase troop levels, or modernise our defences along our borders with China, we should upgrade road communications along our borders and expedite the long-delayed procurement of essential items like fighter aircraft and artillery, so that China and the whole world recognise our determination to safeguard our territorial integrity. In the meantime, there needs to be continuing dialogue with China to ensure that incidents do not occur along our borders that could escalate tensions.
We should remember that China still has festering disputes on its maritime boundaries with Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia and that China settles its border disputes only when a weakened neighbour succumbs to its pressures. The Chinese respect national power and will respect India only if our economic and military strength warrants respect for us as a people and as a nation.
Email | Print | Rate:
|