HARSH LESSONS
- China has outmanoeuvred India on the Ladakh crisis
Kanwal Sibal
The state of our bilateral relations with China has been projected more positively during the visit by the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, than the reality of our differences would justify. The Depsang valley face-off in Ladakh had clouded the atmosphere prior to the visit, but the panorama has been brightened with sunshine rhetoric during the premier's sojourn in India.
By its unexpected territorial assertion in Ladakh, unmindful of its own premier's visit, China has taught us, once again, a lesson which we are conveniently overlooking in our anxiety to avoid confrontation. The lesson is not dramatic as in 1962 because the circumstances then were different. China already occupies as much Indian territory as it needs geopolitically and the rapport between the forces on the border is less unequal today. The lesson is a limited one, but it has been effectively administered.
China has conveyed that it will react to Indian patrols and border dispositions aimed at acquiring or consolidating tactical local advantage. It will decide where the Line of Actual Control lies and expects India to conform to Chinese perceptions of it, not its own. It has re-affirmed that it treats territorial and economic issues in separate baskets with no trade-offs between the two. For those who believe that trade is a political emollient, they need to remember that China settled its border differences with Russia, Myanmar, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and others when it had no worthwhile trade ties with them, and is currently asserting its territorial claims on Japan and other Southeast Asian countries when its trade and investment ties with them are flourishing.
India's inability to effectively deal politically and militarily with China in any direct stand-off has been driven home as a major lesson. Faced with the Ladakh challenge, our leadership babbled politically, confessed it could not read Chinese motives, gave China the benefit of doubt, implicitly accepted part of the blame for the stand-off, showed keenness to maintain the proposed high-level engagements, including Li Keqiang's visit, and was compelled to dismantle a position in Chumar in return for Chinese withdrawal from Depsang.
It would be wrong to view our withdrawal from a post in Chumar as symbolic, as a card that we created for ourselves and gave up without real cost. The Chinese, too, can characterize their intrusion into Depsang as intended to symbolically assert their territorial claim, and their withdrawal as a goodwill gesture to defuse the issue without conceding that the area lies beyond China's LAC.
While the Ladakh incident may well not slow down plans to improve our border infrastructure, raise additional army formations and increase our air capability in the north, the cutting edge of our presence in the areas of contested control will be blunted. We have been warned by the Chinese that they will react on the ground to what they consider are LAC violations. Our inability to handle the latest Chinese challenge will inevitably make us doubly cautious about avoiding another border stand-off, as our impuissance will be exposed, once again, at great political cost. In short, the lesson taught by the Chinese this time is that we should learn to "behave" ourselves on the border.
It is important to note, therefore, that the joint statement on Li Keqiang's visit covers no new ground on the boundary question, limiting itself to familiar cliches. The special representatives are "encouraged" to push forward the "process" of negotiations and "seek" a framework for an agreement, pending which the two sides will work to "maintain peace and tranquillity" in line with previous agreements. Satisfaction is expressed at the fruitful meetings to date of the new Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on Border Affairs, without addressing the need to prevent future incidents that would obviate the use of the new mechanism by clarifying the LAC as agreed under the peace and tranquillity accords. Significantly, the new border defence cooperation agreement proposed by the Chinese side, the discursive text of which we have redrafted, does not find mention in the joint statement. In such an agreement, India would need to ensure that the objective of stabilizing the situation on the border further does not interfere with our plans to improve our defence infrastructure on the ground.
Soon after assuming power, President Xi Jinping reiterated the statement made by the former Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, in Delhi in 2010 that the border issue will take a long time to be resolved. In his Durban meeting with our prime minister, he alluded to an early conclusion of the framework agreement, which was misread by some to signify an opening in the Chinese position. The joint statement puts to rest such speculation. China is unwilling to move forward either on clarifying the LAC or reaching a breakthrough on the framework agreement as the gap between the positions of the two countries after 15 rounds of discussions by the SRs remains unbridged. The Chinese are, essentially, unwilling to give up their territorial claims in the east.
Manmohan Singh had reportedly sensitized President Xi at Durban on India's expectation that as a lower riparian it should be kept informed of Chinese plans to build dams in Tibet through a joint mechanism rather than newspaper reports. This point appears to have been rightly raised again with Li Keqiang, without, however, an adequate Chinese response as the joint statement merely mentions "further cooperation on trans-border rivers"— a rather vague and non-committal formulation.
Our prime minister in Durban and Salman Khurshid in Beijing had rightly urged the Chinese not to allow any country to use its relationship with them to India's detriment, an allusion to China's relationship with Pakistan, including their nuclear cooperation. Oddly, the joint statement has formulations that go counter to our concerns as it commits the two sides "to taking a positive view of and support each other's friendship with other countries," proposing that they should "support each other in enhancing relations with their common neighbours for mutual benefit and win-win results". This suggests India's benevolence towards not only China's relations with Pakistan, but also Nepal and, eventually, Bhutan.
According to the joint statement "the two sides will carry out bilateral cooperation in civil nuclear energy in line with their respective international commitments." This is surprising as it deflects our objections to nuclear cooperation between China and Pakistan and indirectly suggests that this cooperation is in conformity with China's NSG commitments. On the other hand, the agreement between the two sides to hold discussions on non-proliferation is a welcome advance, and so is the reference to China's support for a greater role for India in the United Nations security council.
Our diplomatic negotiators are to be commended for excluding from the joint statement the usual one-sided references to Tibet, the Dalai Lama and one-China. The formulation that "the two sides will not allow their territories to be used for activities against the other" is much more balanced and covers arms supplies from Yunnan to insurgents in the Northeast.
All in all, we are being out- manoeuvred by the Chinese who are cloaking their unwillingness to yield on substance with forward looking rhetoric and softening their hard jawline with smiles.
The author is former foreign secretary of India
[email protected]
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130529/jsp/opinion/story_16936456.jsp#.UaVmREDI02w
***********************************
This article enumerates the harsh realities of the standoff and the manner in which China approached the issue given her strategic intent.
The whole issue hinges around the fact that in our anxiety to avoid confrontation, we have accepted that China can react to Indian patrols and border dispositions aimed at acquiring or consolidating tactical local advantage. And taht China will decide where the Line of Actual Control lies and India is expected to conform to Chinese perceptions of it, not its own.
And interestingly, many Indian has been fooled and lulled ny Li Keqiang's Hail Fellow Well Met charade!
One must read between the lines of Chinese pronouncements and body language. They are not straight and it hides much without giving away the intent.
Then there were those who crowed glee over the increasing of trade would lead to better understanding, and in the process, a border understanding.
However, for such people they should not forget that that China settled its border differences with Russia, Myanmar, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and others when it had no worthwhile trade ties with them, and is currently asserting its territorial claims on Japan and other Southeast Asian countries when its trade and investment ties with them are flourishing.
The silver lining to this sordid tale is the latest India Japan jaw jaw that has without any ambiguity sent a clear message to China that India and Japan will shore up and cement a strong strategic relationship as also trade ties. This will also strengthen the India Japan Australia US Diamond that the Japanese PM Abe had enunciated.
It is natural that this has spooked China, and the Peoples' Daily has cautioned India against Japanese 'petty burglars'!
