This Thursday the Chinese Premier is expected to reach Delhi. His visit gains significance in the wake of China pursuing the Pakistani line on Kashmir, and India giving a tit-for-tat reply in the Northeast over Beijing’s militarisation of Tibet. Utpal Kumar examines all these and more
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As India gets ready to welcome Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who is due to arrive here on December 16, the Sino-Indian relationship has never looked so fragile in recent years. PV Narasimha Rao’s 1993 agreement on border peace is all but dead. So is the 1996 agreement on military confidence-building. There is so much distrust in the air that the Indian Army has upgraded the Chinese threat perception from low to medium, forcing the Government to resume Operation Falcon — Indira Gandhi’s 15-year border militarisation programme launched in 1980 and given up in 1993 — under a different name. The situation became so tense that External Affairs Minister SM Krishna had to inform Parliament last month that the Government was keeping “a constant watch” on all developments affecting national security.
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Wen’s visit gains significance from the fact that the two countries have, of late, been finding ways to outmanoeuvre each other. To Delhi’s discomfort, the Sino-Indian rivalry has shifted its epicentre from the eastern frontier to the west, with Beijing pursuing the Pakistani line on Jammu & Kashmir. This is a momentous shift for a nation that had refused to come to Islamabad’s rescue during the Kargil conflict, calling Kashmir a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.
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Not anymore! Today, Beijing audaciously offers to mediate between India and Pakistan. The shift became unambiguously clear when Chinese authorities began issuing stapled visas on separate sheets to applicants from Jammu & Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh. There is no record of stapled visa to those residing in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and the Northern Areas. This means, for Beijing, whereas Jammu & Kashmir is a disputed territory, POK’s forceful merger with Pakistan remains legitimate!
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The Chinese impudence came out in open in August when Lt General BS Jaswal, Commander of the Northern Command, was denied a visa. Beijing suggested that another Army official, presumably someone posted outside Jammu & Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh, could be nominated in his place. New Delhi promptly rejected the offer.
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Kashmir isn't Tibet
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India is expected to raise the stapled visa issue with Wen, but many experts believe the Government could have done more. They are particularly critical of Krishna, who at a recent meeting with his Chinese counterpart, said that Kashmir was a “core issue” for India just as Tibet and Taiwan were for China, thus urging Beijing to show greater sensitivity towards it. Security expert Brahma Chellaney tears apart Krishna’s argument, comparing Kashmir with Tibet and Taiwan. “By placing Jammu & Kashmir on par with Tibet, Krishna has indirectly called his country an ‘occupying power’ in Kashmir — the way China is in Tibet,” he says. “Also, by drawing a parallel between Kashmir and Taiwan, Krishna has made a ridiculous analogy between a State that is part of the Indian federation and an autonomous entity under a permanent threat of force from China.” Advising the country to cultivate friendship with Taiwan, Chellaney insists the latter can be to India what Pakistan is to China.
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PR Chari, Research Professor at the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, agrees. “China seeks to keep India off-balance all the time. So, a positive development in one direction is counter-balanced by negative developments in some other direction. In this way, China hopes to dominate the relationship. I wish we had the courage to pursue a similar policy by, for instance, making overtures to Taiwan, and establishing closer relations with Japan and South Korea,” he says.
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One also wonders why India didn’t give a befitting reply to China on its visa diplomacy. If Beijing, through stapled visa, can portray Kashmir as a disputed territory, why can’t India do the same on Tibet? Unfortunately, it might be a tough call for a country that has willingly forfeited its Tibet card to China.
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The Chinese game, however, didn’t stop with stapled visa. It took a more sinister form when, as reported by The New York Times, China, in the name of fighting calamitous floods in Pakistan, deployed 11,000 of its troops in Gilgit and Baltistan. Floods are long gone, but these soldiers remain well entrenched in these treacherous terrains. The fact that China is going to stay there for long got confirmed when media reports insisted that Beijing was heavily investing in infrastructure projects in POK and the Northern Areas. These reports peg the Chinese investment in hydro projects and road and railway construction at around $30 billion. Also, Beijing has undertaken a strategic rail project that will link the Xinjiang province with the Northern Areas. The plan is to extend this line to Gwadar Port, built in active guidance and support of the Chinese.
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INDIAN TIT FOR CHINESE TAT
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What has forced China to change its traditional Kashmir policy? The primary reason being India’s ‘assertive’ approach on the eastern front, which in turn was a late recognition of China’s massive deployment of forces on the Tibetan border.
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Delhi has deployed two new infantry divisions in the border areas of Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing claims as its own. Defence Ministry officials say the two divisions include 1,260 officers and 35,011 soldiers, and that they will be fully operational by 2011. Similarly, the Government is moving ahead with a plan to deploy within six months the first ‘son of the soil’ battalion of Arunachal Scouts.
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As if these moves were not enough, the Defence Ministry permitted the Indian Air Force to move a squadron of Sukhoi-30MKI warjets from Pune to Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, just to ensure a swifter and more lethal air strike into Tibet and even further north. And early this year, the 30 squadron of Sukhois flew into Tezpur, Assam, never to leave the place again. To further bolster the forces in the region, three Airborne Warning and Control Systems were also deployed, along with Agni-III missiles with a range of 3,500 km.
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It’s not just the Chinese militarisation of Tibet that turned India restless. What has made India more worried is China’s largest ever tactical exercises last year, showcasing the People’s Liberation Army’s capability to airdrop an infantry brigade of 3,000-plus in one airlift and an entire infantry division of about 15,000 troops in a single operation! Experts believe China can now move in two days an entire division into Tibet — and, in 30 days, about 10 divisions can be permanently shifted there.
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Highway to Confrontation
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China has, for quite some time, been upgrading its military infrastructure along the 4,000-km Line of Actual Control, by building roads and rail lines for fast mobilisation of troops. The Lhasa rail line is being extended to Xigaze on the China-Nepal border — eventually, this is supposed to reach Kathmandu. Not to forget the Chinese move to link Lhasa with Nyingchi, close to the Arunachal border, where Beijing is unilaterally building the world’s largest dam on the Brahmaputra, much to Delhi’s concerns.
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The development of infrastructure by China in its border regions with India was so rapid and effective, and the Indian response so tepid and lackadaisical, that a Member of Parliament from Arunachal Pradesh had to suggest the Centre to allow the State to get a rail link from China as even 60 years after Independence, India has failed to connect it to the nation’s mainland! The country, too, realised that mere presence of Sukhois or stationing of a few battalions wouldn’t erase China’s strategic advantage in the region, thus foregoing its age-old policy of not building roads near the border.
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In September this year, the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) told Parliament’s standing committee on defence, “Two years back the philosophy of our nation was that we should not make roads as near to the border as possible... It is only two to three years back that we suddenly decided a change in philosophy and said, ‘no, we must go as far forward as possible’.”
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Almost a month before that, on August 11, Defence Minister AK Antony had informed the Rajya Sabha that of the 73 roads on the India-China border, 61 roads in Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh were being built by BRO. “Out of 61 roads, 14 have been completed and work is under progress on 42 others,” he said. According to him, 41 roads are planned to be completed by 2013 and the remaining six later.
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Last year, Chinese troops made a few snooping intrusions in Ladakh, to which the country responded firmly by not only fast-forwarding the highway project in the region, but also activating landing strips at Nyoma, Fukche and Daulat Beg Oldi. Also, the Government has cleared the contract for building a tunnel in Rohtang, which would make it possible for the troops to move to Ladakh at any time of the year. At present, the Indian troops in Ladakh are supplied food and ammunition through two routes which are mostly blocked by snow in winter and one of them is often the target of Pakistani artillery.
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No longer an Indian Ocean
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With the largest Asian fleet — third largest in the world after the US and Russia — and a greater economic clout since the recent economic slowdown, the Chinese navy has started to flex its muscles in the region. Japan and South Korea have reasons to get apprehensive, but it is India that has to worry the most. After all, it is Delhi that’s the target of Beijing’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy.
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According to defence expert Harsh V Pant, in his book The China Syndrome, “this strategy of bases and economic ties includes Gwadar Port in Pakistan, naval outposts in Myanmar, electronic intelligence gathering facilities on islands in the Bay of Bengal, funding construction of a canal across the Kra Isthmus in Thailand, a military agreement in Cambodia and buildup of forces in the South China Sea”.
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China aims to claim the Indian Ocean. This became evident from a secret memorandum issued by the director of the PLA’s General Logistic Department: “We can no longer accept the Indian Ocean as only an ocean of the Indians... We are taking armed conflicts in the region into account.”
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It is, therefore, hardly a surprise that China is today Sri Lanka’s biggest aid donor and investor. It supports Kathmandu’s position in most disputes between India and Nepal, gaining sympathy among anti-Delhi elements of this Himalayan nation. Beijing is also the largest foreign investor in Myanmar’s energy sector, with Chinese companies holding stakes in 16 oil and gas blocks.
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China’s rising profile in the region is hardly a surprise. What’s astounding is the diminishing role of India and the rapidity with which Delhi is ceding its strategic space to Beijing.
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Yeh Dragon Maange More!
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It is believed among a section of the diplomatic circle that China is deliberately disturbing the Kashmir equilibrium to keep India’s attention away from its activities in the Indian Ocean. This argument can be contested, but everyone seems unanimous on why Beijing is so eager to turn the Indian Ocean into a Chinese one. In August this year, China ran past Japan as the second largest economy in the world, next to the US. Its booming economy is largely dependent on exports — well illustrated by the fact that Beijing today exports in a single day more than it exported in all of 1978!
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China consumes 30 per cent of what it produces and exports the rest through the Indian Ocean routes. Besides, according to an Economist report, 80 per cent of its annual 200 million tonnes of oil requirement — second-largest after the US — is brought through the Strait of Malacca. “India’s integrated command base in the Andamans controls access to the Strait of Malacca. The Chinese are worried that in the event of a war, the Indian Navy can interdict and sink Chinese oil tankers. This could impair the export-driven economy of China,” it says. China is, therefore, eager to control the Indian Ocean.
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China’s export-driven economy also needs the consistent supply of raw materials. China, after all, accounts for about a fifth of the world’s population, yet it gobbles up half of its cement, a third of its steel and over a quarter of its aluminium. It is spending 35 times as much on imports of crude oil as it did in 1999, and 23 times as much importing copper. What is more, China is getting hungrier. The International Energy Agency expects China’s imports of oil to triple by 2030!
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In order to maintain this constant supply of raw materials, China is venturing into virgin terrains of Africa and Latin America, coddling, if needed, dictators and warlords. No wonder one-third of China’s total crude imports come from Angola, Sudan, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Chad and Nigeria. Beijing’s huge purchases of oil and other resources have made it Africa’s third-largest partner, after the US and France.
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Trade between Latin America and China also jumped up from $10 billion in 2000 to $140 billion in 2008, driven largely by Beijing’s demand for raw materials.
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In his book The Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria quotes Moises Naim, editor of Foreign Policy magazine, telling a story about the Nigerian Government negotiating a $5 million loan for train systems with the world Bank in 2007. The bank had insisted that the Government clean up the notoriously corrupt railway bureaucracy before it approved the loan. The deal was almost done when the Chinese stepped in and offered the Government a whopping $9 billion loan to rebuild the entire train system — with no democratic and human rights strings attached. The World Bank was sent home within days!
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This is how China works. And, it’s helping dragon gain some diplomatic points as well. After all, while more than 20 African countries recognised Taiwan in the early 1990s, only four do so now. Herein lies a lesson for India, caught up in the narrow terror-centric mindset and obsessed with ‘idealistic’ foreign policy.
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The Chinese Enigma
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The biggest challenge facing the world, particularly India, is how to deal with dragon. After all, China holds what is antithesis of the generally accepted (Western) norms of statecraft. If talks can bring peace in the rest of the world, in the case of China, only the preparation for war can ensure tranquility along the border!
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Why is China such an enigma? To get this answer one must comprehend the fundamental nature of the Middle Kingdom that has mostly eluded the outsiders.
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Portuguese missionary Matteo Ricci, too, faced this dilemma in the 1590s when, in an effort to present himself as an honoured figure, he shaved his head and beard and shrouded himself in the robes of a Buddhist, only to find out that monks were not held in high esteem in China. He, then, began travelling in sedan chair as men of rank will do. And it worked. In no time, he found quite a few converts in the Middle Kingdom!
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India must understand that China may be a Communist nation, but it is still Confucian in nature. It is this Confucianism that makes China so practical — a nation that understands the measure of power. It is this Confucianism that enables Beijing to forge deals with blood-thirsty dictators across the world. It is this mindset that makes China encourage a large number of Hun population to settle down in Tibet, so much so that the very Tibetans are turned into minority in the land of their own — quite unlike in India where outsiders are constitutionally prohibited from settling down in Kashmir, thereby further strengthening the separatist mindset in the Valley.
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The Indian leadership must keep in mind this unique trait of China while holding talks with Wen. Delhi should cease to be defensive. It must understand that Confucian China will take India seriously only when the latter starts taking itself seriously.
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As for Beijing’s support for India’s candidature for the permanent UN Security Council seat, Delhi should stop being a pleader; such requests will only make China more obstinate. “Every time India asks for China’s support and gets a negative reply, it only puts Beijing on a high pedestal of the pre-emptive Asian power that reserves the right to grant Delhi the privilege of being in the Security Council,” says an External Affairs Ministry official, seeking anonymity. China’s support on the issue will come when India’s rise becomes a reality that Beijing can no longer afford to ignore.
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As for the ongoing India-China tension, this is a test of the nation’s character. India needs to pursue its militarisation plan along the border. As they say in Roman, “If you want peace, prepare for war,” this is the best antidote to strife along the border. After all, Beijing proceeded to teach India a lesson in 1962 when the country under Jawaharlal Nehru preferred to use its arms factories for coffee production!
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Tawang to Kashmir
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In 1993, India and China sign a peace agreement, following which Delhi withdraws its troops from the border
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In 1996, the two countries sign an agreement on military confidence-building
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In 1998, India conducts nuclear tests; calls China a threat
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In 2008, Chinese forces move into Tibet to suppress riots. Troops pull back later, but permanent infrastructure remains. Troops also gain mobility for quick induction into Tibet
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India moves Sukhois to Bareilly (Uttar Pradesh); China finds Tibet rail line vulnerable
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China builds airfields and roads to move troops
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India retaliates by building roads in Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh
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In 2009, China stages Operation Stride; shows it can move thousands of troops at short notice
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India, in reply, fortifies Tawang by raising two new divisions; moves Sukhois to Tezpur, Assam
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Focus shifts west; China intrudes into Ladakh. Calls J&K disputed; offers to mediate over it
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In 2010, India starts building Rohtang tunnel to enable quick reinforcement of Ladakh
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In August this year, China denies visa to a J&K commander; it also moves troops in POK
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