By Mohan Malik
In Sino-Indian relations, the more things change, the more they remain the same. One day after Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal beamed with joy on the eve of Atal Bihari Vajpayee-Wen Jiabao prime ministerial talks in Bali while waving a computer printout to the Indian media showing the removal of Sikkim from the list of countries from China’s official website, interpreting it to signal a change in Beijing’s policy over Sikkim and a new era of “peace in our time” (a-la Neville Chamberlain), Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhang Qiyue vehemently denied any such interpretation.
She insisted that Sikkim – which India and China claim – was an issue still to be determined by historical facts and hoped that it would be “resolved gradually”. Zhang’s refusal to confirm Sibal’s optimism showed the Vajpayee government as gullible and in poor light. This was a repeat performance by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which had earlier denied China’s acceptance of Sikkim as part of India soon after Vajpayee’s talks with his counterpart in Beijing in June and India’s reiteration of its stand on Tibet as China’s integral part.
Worse, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) embarrassed Vajpayee by intruding deep into Arunachal Pradesh and torturing a group of Indian security personnel it had arrested and disarmed even as Vajpayee was in China being feted by the communist leadership and exulting over his visit. This armed intrusion was in clear violation of the 1993 and 1996 “peace and tranquility” accords, as Vajpayee later told parliament: “The behavior of Chinese authorities with the Indian patrol in Arunachal Pradesh was not dignified and in keeping with the agreements between us.”
That the PLA’s intrusion was premeditated was demonstrated by the official Chinese reaction that was harsh, unpalatable and undiplomatic. Instead of offering an apology or showing regret, it not only put the blame squarely on India, alleging that Indian security personnel had crossed into Chinese territory, but added insult to injury by claiming that Arunachal Pradesh was Chinese territory. The Vajpayee government could have countered China’s claims to Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh by repudiating Beijing’s forced and illegal occupation of Tibet itself, but it chose not to do so in the larger interest of peace on the eastern front.
One explanation is that the powerful anti-India lobby of PLA commanders wants to continue the policy of confrontation while the post-Jiang Zemin political leadership is keen to forge closer economic ties with India. Yet another explanation is that incursions were timed to force India to induct more troops into the region to preempt further Chinese incursions – a move that further lessened the prospect of India acceding to the US request for a division-size force in Iraq.
A more plausible explanation is that the real issue, in fact, is not so much about Tibet or Sikkim or Arunachal Pradesh, but the intensifying geopolitical power competition between China and India and India’s unwillingness to accept a secondary role in a China-dominated Asia. Traditionally, the signs of that competition come in the form of a seemingly endless flow of “incidents” or “skirmishes” each arising over some infringement or perceived slight. They are basically trials of strength. In many ways, any pretext will do to demonstrate one’s military superiority over the other and force the weaker side to give in.
In addition, the Chinese seem to relish humiliating the “Hindu-nationalist” Vajpayee every now and then, apparently because Beijing has neither forgiven Vajpayee for naming China as the reason behind India’s nuclear tests in 1998, nor has it forgotten his traditional pro-Tibet stance.
It is worth recalling that when Vajpayee went to China in 1979 as the foreign minister in the Morarji Desai government, his hosts had also embarrassed him by invading Vietnam, forcing Vajpayee to cut short his visit. A quarter of a century later, Vajpayee’s second visit, this time as as prime minister, “succeeded” in making a non-issue (Sikkim) a major issue, much to the advantage of the Chinese. Before Vajpayee’s China visit in June, Sikkim was on the backburner, and negotiations were restricted to the border dispute. The Indian government had concluded that it did not care if China wanted to be the only country in the world that did not recognize Sikkim’s accession in 1974. However, in its zeal to show “progress”, Sikkim and Tibet were joined by the Indian side, and in return for Tibet’s recognition as a part of China, Chinese recognition of Sikkim was sought. All the Chinese did was to approve Changgu in Sikkim as a trade point with Ranguinggang in Tibet, without recognizing Indian sovereignty over Sikkim.
Apparently, this “progress” can be attributed to the Indian side’s neglect of advice offered by Richard Solomon in his Chinese Negotiating Behavior, which cautions against two Chinese tactics: (a) The Chinese adopt a tough “no compromise” stance until the eleventh hour, thereby putting the other side under intense pressure to yield in order to make the visit successful; and (b) Raise a non-issue or an issue that is already settled and ask for more concessions. The Chinese leadership thus exploited Vajpayee’s yearning for a successful visit to extract unilateral concessions. Even if the Sikkim irritant is eventually removed, a sour taste will remain over Chinese tactics, rooted in the Middle Kingdom’s attitude of being a dominant power dealing with lesser mortals.
With China continuing to speak with two voices – one moderate, one menacing – New Delhi often finds itself caught on the back foot, largely because India’s China policy is based on unrealistic expectations and faulty assumptions.
The first assumption is that the time is ripe for a “kiss-and-make-up” with China as there are signs of a “change in Chinese thinking and attitude towards India”. The reality, however, is quite different. Despite growing interaction at all levels, the gulf between the two countries – in terms of their perceptions, attitudes and expectations from each other – has widened over the past half century. Indian and Chinese leaders are often talking at, rather than talking to, each other. Chinese leaders are loath to admit that their policies and actions are seen as threatening to their neighbors. They insist on India “changing its attitude towards China” without acknowledging any need for China to do the same. As US research professor Andrew Scobell points out, “Few, if any, of China’s strategic thinkers seem to hold warm or positive views of India for China’s future.”
In their dialogues with Asian and Western leaders, Chinese leaders and officials are often very contemptuous of India’s socio-economic achievements, India’s courting of the US to contain China, and dismissive of New Delhi’s claims as “the world’s largest democracy”. In a recent meeting with American academics, Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi dismissed as meaningless all talk of learning from India’s democratic experience, describing India as “a tribal democracy which poses a serious threat to India’s existence in the long term”. There exists in the Chinese mind a deep distrust of India – with the converse also holding true. There seems to be little give-and-take in bilateral relationship. Though many Indians claim that China’s five-decade-long “contain India” policy has failed because China has not succeeded in its strategic objective of either unraveling India or boxing it within the sub-continent, the Chinese are convinced that it has paid rich dividends by keeping India preoccupied with sub-continental concerns.
One cliche in vogue these days is that the “Sino-Indian partnership will produce an Asian century” (not different from Jawaharlal Nehru’s dream of joint Sino-Indian leadership of Asia) . But this is unlikely to be realized. The Chinese Communist Party has set the year 2049 – marking 100 years of the founding of the People’s Republic – when China will re-emerge as the global superpower, overtaking the United States economically and militarily, if not earlier, and it would hate to see any country, least of all India, spoil the Middle Kingdom’s celebration party.
Another assumption is that since India has two monkeys on its back – Pakistan and China – it makes sense to get at least one monkey off. Having failed to budge the Pakistanis, Vajpayee is trying to get the Chinese monkey off India’s back. This assumption flows from the argument that growing India-China economic links could serve as a positive inducement to China that it could gain more from a more even-handed policy in South Asia than it would by supporting Pakistan against India. For example, China, like other countries, realizes that India’s information technology (IT) products and skills could further boost the booming Chinese economy. However, the reality is again somewhat different. Even in the IT software sector, many Chinese policymakers are contemptuous of India’s growth prospects over the long term, believing that just as they left India behind in the nuclear sector (where India had an edge in the 1950s), they would be able to steal a march over India in the IT sector as well.
Besides, India’s desire to wean China away from Pakistan is nothing but wishful thinking because Beijing has made it clear that it will not improve ties with India at the cost of Pakistan. Interestingly, the PLA’s General Xiong Guangkai, who calls Pakistan “China’s Israel” and is said to have brokered Islamabad’s nukes-for-missile deal with Pyongyang, was back in Pakistan to sign new defense deals two weeks after Vajpayee’s return from China. On a cost-benefit calculus, the combined strategic and political advantages that China receives from its alliance with Pakistan (and, through Pakistan, other Islamic countries) easily outweigh any advantages China might receive from a closer relationship with India.
Beijing needs to prop up India’s bete-noire because Pakistan is vitally important to China’s energy security (by providing access to and bases in the Persian Gulf), military security (by keeping India’s military engaged on its western frontiers), geopolitics (given its geostrategic location at the intersection of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East), national unity and territorial integrity (control over Tibet and Xinjiang), maritime strategy in the Indian Ocean, as a staunch diplomatic ally (in international fora, including the Islamic world), a buyer and supplier of conventional and unconventional weaponry. And above all, a powerful bargaining chip in China’s relations with India and the United States.
Beijing also shares Islamabad’s deep mistrust of India’s strategic ambitions and sees India as a rising power that must be contained. The Chinese believe that as long as India is preoccupied with Pakistan on its western frontier, it will not stir up trouble on the Tibetan border. Through Pakistan, China also retains the option of continuously creating momentum that sap India’s military power. Since Pakistan is the only country that prevents Indian dominance of southern Asia, it fulfills a key objective of China’s Asia policy.
In addition to Pakistan, the Chinese have lately tightened their embrace of India’s neighbors – Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives – partly to counter India’s “Look East” policy, which clashes with long-term Chinese objectives and interests in East Asia, and partly to gain access to naval bases in the Indian Ocean. If during the 1970s and 1980s, Beijing used Pakistan’s enmity with India to transform it into its surrogate, Myanmar’s isolation was exploited during the 1990s to transform it into China’s client state. The same pattern now seems to be repeating itself with respect to Bangladesh in the first decade of the 21st century. At a time when India-Bangladesh ties were strained over issues such as trade, transit, illegal immigration and the alleged presence of al-Qaeda in Bangladesh, Beijing concluded a comprehensive Defense Cooperation Agreement with Dacca in December 2002.
Chinese and Pakistani generals were recently invited as observers at military exercises in Myanmar. Their next stop is likely to be Bangladesh. China’s naval encirclement of India would be complete if and when Beijing is successful in persuading the strategically located Indian Ocean island nation of the Maldives to grant a naval base at Gan in the Indian Ocean. In what is tantamount to playing the “Islamic card” to secure naval bases, Chinese leaders and PLA generals visiting the Maldives have stressed that the Islamic island nation, much like Pakistan and Bangladesh, should be “in China’s camp because China has always had close, special ties with the Islamic world”.
Notwithstanding the recent decision to upgrade border talks between India and China to the political level, the prospects of a negotiated settlement in the near future seem remote because China cannot brush aside third party (its ally, Pakistan’s) interests in the territorial dispute. This was not the case with the settlement of China’s territorial boundaries with Russia or Vietnam. For a resolution of the Sino-Indian border dispute would lead to the deployment of India’s military assets on the India-Pakistan border, thereby tilting the military balance decisively in India’s favor, much to Pakistan’s disadvantage. This would deprive Beijing of powerful leverage in its relations with Pakistan and undermine its old strategy of keeping India under strategic pressure on two fronts.
The harsh reality is that an unresolved territorial dispute with India suits Chinese interests more than a settled boundary. That is why China has declined to exchange maps, despite 22 years of border talks, to present even its version of the full line of control. An unsettled border gives China the opportunity to expose India’s vulnerabilities and weaknesses. At the same time, following the demarcation of China’s land borders with nearly all its neighbors, Beijing’s propaganda machinery also milks it for what it’s worth by blaming India’s “unreasonable and uncompromising attitude” for lack of progress on the dispute.
Historically, China has negotiated border disputes with neighbors in their moment of national despair (Pakistan, Myanmar in the 1960s; Central Asian republics in the 1990s) or only after the regional balance of power has shifted decisively in China’s favor and/or after they have ceased to be a major threat (land settlements with Russia and Vietnam in the 1990s). But not with those who are perceived as present rivals and future threats (India, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan).
Dr Mohan Malik is Professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu, Haiwaii. The views expressed in this article do not reflect the official policy or position of the Asia-Pacific Center, the US Department of Defense, or the US government.
