By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE – The recent Chinese intrusions into the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh underscore the need for Delhi to afford more urgency to the delineation of its disputed frontier with Beijing.
Although officials from both sides have met about 15 times over the past two decades to discuss the border, progress has been painfully slow. The two sides have so far exchanged maps only in the middle sector, the least contentious of the three sectors. Beijing and Delhi lay claim to huge chunks of territory in the eastern and western sectors of their disputed border.
India lays claim to around 38,000 square kilometers of land occupied by China in the icy and barren Aksai Chin plateau on the western stretch of the border. In addition, India accuses Beijing of illegally holding 5,180 square kilometers of land in Jammu and Kashmir ceded to it by Pakistan in 1963.
China lays claim to around 90,000 square kilometers of Indian territory on the southern slope of the eastern wing of the Himalayas. This roughly corresponds to the State of Arunachal Pradesh. It is here that Chinese intrusions into India were reported recently. Denying the report, China clarified that it did not recognize Arunachal Pradesh as part of India.
China has in the past suggested an “east-west swap” to resolve the border dispute. Under this swap, China would give up its claims in the eastern sector recognizing India’s sovereignty over that chunk of territory. In return, India would have to give up its claims on the Aksai Chin, recognizing Chinese sovereignty over that area. The logic behind the swap is that the Aksai Chin being of strategic importance to China’s control over Tibet and the southern slopes on the eastern sector being critical to India’s control over its restive states in the Northeast, an “east-west tradeoff”, in addition to resolving the tricky part of the border dispute would address the vital security concerns of both countries.
Both in 1960 and 1980 when the Chinese put forward the swap proposal, India turned it down. In 1960, the Indian leadership was deeply aggrieved with the way the Chinese had seized Indian land in Aksai Chin. To accept the swap would have meant accepting the seizure of Indian land. After the 1962 war, accepting this became even harder.
The general feeling among decision makers here was that acceptance of the swap would entail concessions only on the part of Delhi. Explaining the Indian position on the swap, John W Carver writes in his book Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century that India felt it “would be making a major concession by relinquishing land in the western sector which rightfully belonged to it but which had been stolen by China. China would gain that land and give up nothing, since it had never administered the southern slope, while India’s claim and de facto administration of that region was incontrovertible. India had not occupied any Chinese territory, nor did it claim any Chinese territory. It did not make sense to suggest that India relinquish some of its own territory in China in order to get China to drop its claim to other pieces of Indian territory. A more earthy way of saying this was formulated by one of India’s leading legal experts on the Indian-Chinese border dispute: If a thief breaks into your house and steals your coat and your wallet, you don’t say to him that he can have the coat if he returns the wallet. You expect him to return all that he has stolen from you.”
The Chinese have not offered the swap since 1980. Moreover, there has been a significant shift in their position thereafter. For one, they started asserting claims in the eastern sector, which had been downplayed hitherto. During the sixth round of talks in October 1985, Chinese negotiators pressed claims in the eastern sector. The following year, serious clashes broke out between the two countries in the Sumdurong Chu. India saw this as an attempt by China to assert its new claims in the eastern sector. Since then, there have been several intrusions by the Chinese into Arunachal.
Why the shift in the Chinese position? Why was the swap not offered in the 1990s and thereafter? A part of the explanation lies in the declining value of the Aksai Chin in Chinese strategy. Control over Aksai Chin was very important for China’s control over Tibet, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. The strategic importance of the Aksai Chin to China in that period must be seen in the context of Beijing’s deployment of tens of thousands of officials and troops in Tibet and the need to keep them supplied with food, equipment, fuel etc. Of the three main routes into Tibet from the rest of China, the one crossing the Aksai Chin was the most convenient as the terrain through which it ran was the least rugged and unlikely to be blocked by snowfall.
A number of factors resulted in the Aksai Chin road becoming less important to China in the 1980s and 1990s. These include Beijing’s success in quelling the Tibetan uprising and bringing Tibet under its iron grip, the building of a robust transport network into Tibet, and the crushing defeat it imposed on India in 1962.
Some analysts believe that with Aksai Chin’s value to its Tibet strategy declining, the swap proposal was put in cold storage. A more confident China now saw more gains in adopting India’s approach to the border dispute – independent, non-linked treatment of each sector, for it gave the Chinese room to push for maximum in all sectors.
Another section of analysts believe that Aksai Chin remains vital to Chinese strategy and that China’s mounting pressure on India in the eastern sector is to push Delhi to concede Chinese claims over the Aksai Chin. It is also aimed at making clear to India that China does have claims in the eastern sector and would therefore be making concessions, too, in the event of a swap.
Unlike in the past when regaining every square inch of Indian territory from the Chinese dominated discussions on the border dispute, there is a recognition that the border needs to be settled in a spirit of give and take and that the two countries should look for a “pragmatic solution”.
Increasingly, it appears that the “east-west trade off’ is seen in India as the pragmatic solution. An influential Indian strategic affairs analyst, Dr C Raja Mohan, points out that the Aksai Chin for Arunachal swap “involves a basic assumption that the Himalayas are a natural boundary between the two countries. In yielding on Aksai Chin, India would concede Chinese primacy north of the mountain range. In giving up claims for Arunachal, China will accept India’s control of the southern slopes of the Himalayas. This realistic settlement has been there for the taking for a long time. But a peculiar mindset about China had gripped India since the late 1950s and led to unsustainable public posturing on the boundary dispute and an unwillingness to come to terms with the reality.”
During Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to China, the two countries decided to appoint special representatives “to explore from the political perspective of bilateral relationship the framework of a boundary settlement”. While India appointed National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra, as its special representative, China appointed Senior Vice Minister Dai Bingguo.
It has been recognized for some time now that recourse to historical claims and treaties cannot resolve the Sino-Indian border dispute. A negotiated solution it is felt will be possible only through a decision at the highest political level. With Mishra’s appointment as India’s special representative, the Prime Minister’s Office has now taken charge of exploring a framework for the settlement of the boundary.
Settling the Sino-Indian border is facilitated by the fact that it runs through largely unpopulated areas. A settlement of the border will not involve resettlement of populations. Besides, no third parties are involved.
The question is whether the government will be able to sell a border settlement involving a swap. Raja Mohan observes, “India as a whole has largely overcome the trauma of 1962 and is looking outward with much greater self-confidence. With the business community now tantalized by the prospects in the China market, Mr Vajpayee is now in a position to successfully sell a boundary settlement to the Indian people.”
As for the political parties, the left will not oppose any settlement with China. The Congress Party is unlikely to oppose a reasonable settlement. Opposition if any will be from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) own right-wing fraternal organizations.
The recent Chinese intrusions in Arunachal did evoke outrage in India. But while cries of Chinese “perfidy” dominated newspaper reports and television discussion, there was a simultaneous acknowledgement that the incident took place because of the absence of a clearly demarcated border. Whether or not the Chinese are perfidious, the absence of a mutually accepted border will give rise to such intrusions in future as well. That underscores the need for the two countries to reach a quick settlement.
