The boundary between India and China extends
over 2200 miles. The boundary of Sikkim with the Tibet region of China extends
over 140 miles while that of Bhutan extends over 300 miles. The entire length
of this border has been either defined by treaty or recognised by custom or by
both and until the present controversy no Chinese Government had ever protested
against the exercise of jurisdiction by the Government of India upto the
customary border. The problem is due to the long Sino-Indian border 4,057
km is disputed.
The Government of the People’s Republic of
China contends that this boundary is entirely undefined. This is wholly
incorrect. The traditional border has been well-known for centuries. It follows
the geographical principle of the watershed which is in most places the crest
of the Himalayan mountains. Moreover, in most parts the boundary has the
sanction of specific international agreements.
On April 15,2013 Chinese troops are about 10
kms inside Ladakh (Depsang area) and
have made a remote camp as well. Even Chinese helicopters entered Indian
territory.India continues to say it hopes to resolve issues with China
peacefully !
Repeated entry inside Indian territory by Chinese has become a normal news ,
may be for us and the government too. So let them enter and take up all our
country and we will see when we can schedule a meeting with their officials to
solve the issue peacefully.
The China-Indian clash served to confirm the
suspicion that China had grown power drunk because the boundary question was
opened by the Chinese when they were strong enough to inflict their will upon
India. Till then the Chinese refused to be drawn into discussion on the ground
that the time for the negotiations was not ripe.
What is the Government up to, only they know the best? Feels so helpless to
realize someone is capturing our country slowly since decades and claims our
part of land as theirs and we let them do so? The government prefers to remain
silent on the issue as it prefers on any other topics. The opposition is
helplessly accusing as they always do and all goes to deaf ears. We the Mangoes
of India, we are busy watching IPL, or at the most discussing Chinese invasions
over office coffee breaks , office gossips and over a peg or two. Rural mangoes
probably may not even know about the news. Looks like no one is bothered.
If the East India Company can what is the harm if China ends up ruling us or
even taking away half our country? Who cares !! In India nobody cares , capture
a 5 year old girl or parts of country nobody cares .
India is planning to extend a red carpet
treatment to the new Chinese Premier, when he arrives next month for a summit
meeting with his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh. It is his first overseas
trip, and Li Kiqiang will attempt to show how serious and sincere China is in
dealing with India. He will emphasise the great importance it attaches to this
relationship, at least outwardly.
There have been reports of consultation
between the giant neighbours on counter-terrorism and the first ever dialogue
on Afghanistan.
Across the eastern Ladakh border,
however, Chinese troops have moved some 10 km inside the Indian territory and
both sides are facing each other at the Line of Actual Control.
Fortunately, no clash has taken place so far, and no injury or death reported,
on either side. Flag meetings are said to be in progress.
Apparently, their move was met with no
resistance, and Indians were taken by surprise. This unexpected move by
the People's Liberation Army and the flag meetings are expected to produce the
stale result of both sides claiming for “status quo”, as the perception of Line
of Actual Control would differ.
On the TV news channels, however, it
was reported that the Chinese have demanded that Indian troops to dismantle the
structures built by them (how long ago, we do not know) as a precondition for
talks to resolve the issue amicably!
In the last few years, ever since the Chinese
became a financial super-power house, it has relentlessly attempted to expand
its overseas activities, in all fields. Without declaring a war it is at
loggerheads with its ASEAN neighbours. It has its navy patrolling the South
China and Japanese Seas and has threatened everyone on the Spartleys Island,
where it is involved in some construction activities. Other claimants, whether
it is the Philippines, Indonesia Malaysia and others have not been able to do
anything.
Japan, though has the US support, does
not feel as safe as it was before. And China is obviously using its proxy of
North Korea to threaten South Korea. It is also eyeing at the possibility of
entering Afghanistan when US troops are withdrawn. This is more likely to be a
move engineered by Pakistan which is averse to Indian influence in that
country.
It must be borne in mind that China is
already building an all-weather port in Baluchistan and is fully entrenched in
Myanmar. The Chinese expansion policy is slowly, but firmly, enlarging in our
neighbourhood, ably and silently supported by Pakistan.
Chinese influence in Pakistan, Myanmar,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and attempts to break-through in Afghanistan with
financial assistance are increasing. It made inroads in Nepal and possibly
considers Bhutan as a harmless spectator.
Pakistan is an annexe of China, a shift
from being a handmaid of USA. Only question is do we have a credible strategy
of nullifying this reality and do we still tie our defence forces in shackles
of finance, policy and support rooted as the Govt. is in 2 or 3 year electoral
thinking always?
But more than Mao, it was Nehru who contributed to his own disgrace by
blundering twice on China. His first blunder was to shut his eyes to
the impending fall of Tibet even when Sardar Patel had repeatedly cautioned him
in 1949 that the Chinese communists would annex that historical buffer as soon
as they installed themselves in Beijing. An overconfident Nehru, who
ran foreign policy as if it were personal policy, went to the extent of telling
Patel by letter that it would be a “foolish adventure” for the Chinese
Communists to try and gobble up Tibet – a possibility that “may not arise at
all” as it was, he claimed, geographically impracticable!
In 1962, Nehru, however, had to admit he had been living in a
fool’s paradise. “We were getting out of touch with reality in the modern
world and we were living in an artificial atmosphere of our creation,” he said
in a national address after the Chinese aggression.
Nehru had ignored India’s military needs despite the Chinese
surreptitiously occupying Indian areas on the basis of Tibet’s putative
historical ties with them, and setting up a land corridor to Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir through Aksai Chin. Although Indian military commanders after the
1959 border clashes and casualties began saying that they lacked adequate
manpower and weapons to fend off the People’s Liberation Army, Nehru ordered
the creation of forward posts to prevent the loss of further Indian territory
without taking the required concomitant steps to beef up Indian military
strength, including through arms imports. Nehru had convinced
himself grievously that the Chinese designs were to carry out further furtive
encroachments on Indian territory, not to launch major aggression.
The world is changing through
information technology, and economic interdependence. India and China both
realise the need to adapt to these tectonic changes, if they hope to develop as
economically stable and politically lasting entities. The leadership in both
states is aware of the need to ensure the social and economic well-being of
their peoples. In that lies real security and stability, the two essential
conditions for development. They realise that autonomous behaviour in internal
and external relations is no longer feasible in international arena. The need
to assure neighbours of their interests through confidence building measures,
placing ancient disputes in correct perspective, reaching for consensus instead
of conflict resolution by force are the need of the day. India and China both
realise the need for military strength commensurate with their security and the
anxieties of neighbours. The reality after the Cold War is of a world order
based on equity amongst states and constructive engagement through trade and
economic development. Even as some hegemonic and other similar mindsets are
still to be seen, the future of inter-state relations is well set on the course
of cooperation. China and India realise the need for cooperation and for moving
away from old animosities through mutual agreements. They have resolved to find
solutions to their disputes through negotiations. Indian initiatives in South
Asia and Chinese efforts in finding solutions to its issues of contention with
Russia, Japan, USA and in the Asia Pacific are evidence of their new awareness.
In some ways China is adding a healthy dose of “Idealist” balance to its
policies. India on the other hand is introducing an element of “Realist”
pragmatism to its policies. They are in the process going beyond the culture
constraints of the past. Kautilya and Sunzi would have both approved of such a
reorientation.
In the military perspective, the best way to
remove the prospect of war remains the removal of the bone of contention. There
has never been a better time than the present to take cooperation between India
and China to the levels they are capable of reaching. The need of the time is
to formally and finally resolve the disputes between the two giant sized
states. The conflicts of the past between China and India were not of nations
but between states following different policies to secure themselves. Now that
the two states are in a better environment of “Realist-Idealist” mix, specific
measures can be looked at. The border dispute should now be formally and
finally settled. This will need accommodation from both sides and that should
not be an insurmountable problem given the new circumstances. The larger issue
of weapons rivalry between the two states and through either of them into the
region is another issue which requires urgent attention. If these two vexing
issues are taken in hand, the way ahead in the 21st Century would be free from
the compulsions of the past and pave the way to a stable future. If that is
achieved, the military perspective which so dominated the India-China relations
in the last years would be balanced by
the larger contexts of economy, trade, and international cooperation. China and
India would then be partners in providing a lead through the principles of
Panchsheel and in moving the world away from military conflicts. It would be a
condition which both Kautilya and Sunzi would have approved.
The Daulat Beg incursion is just a posturing
from the Chinese which is meant to be sorted out in a few days after it has
served its diplomatic purpose and rationale. However, China committed a mistake
by hoisting a war on India in 1962 over the territory issue. The 1962 war
virtually formalized and sanctified the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the
eyes of the world just as Pakistan’s misadventure in imposing the Kargil War on
India in 1999 virtually sanctified the Line of Control (LoC) before the
international community.
Borders have become mostly irrelevant today
as the two nations are well-integrated economically. But disputed borders have
been the greatest problem in healthy relations in any region of the world and
therefore it warrants a solution, as soon as possible. In this case, a solution
is not possible unless the public is willing to understand the problem.
Politicians will always engage in grandstanding over this issue and may even be
willing to sacrifice more Indian lives again if it is able to fetch them votes.
But the public needs to understand.
The biggest problem in solving territorial
disputes is that people attach their emotions and sense of patriotism with the
land, and not with the people living there exactly in the case of Kashmir. Finding a solution is difficult because
convincing the people that they have always been disillusioned by political
experts, is difficult. Can India go for a war and put thousands of lives and
years of development at stake for a place which has no strategic significance,
where nobody lives and which was never even our own? Only the masses hold an
answer to that.
Siddhartha
Shankar Mishra,
Sambalpur,
Odisha
