Don't embrace China blindly
G. Pathasarathy, The Pioneer
January 4, 2008

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh commences his diplomatic calendar for 2008 with a mid-January visit to China. The Chinese are perfect hosts. Meetings and banquets in the Great Hall of the People, sumptuous meals of 'Peking Duck' and visits to the Great Wall and the Forbidden City leave Indian leaders breathless, enthralled and prone to making tall claims of the 'breakthroughs' and 'successes' they have achieved.

Our 'leaders' should not forget that the Communist mandarins who rule the Middle Kingdom today are a hard-boiled lot, not given to sentimentalism, especially when dealing with neighbours whose rising international profile is not a welcome development.

A review of past high level visits by Indian leaders to China is in order.

Despite indications that China was on the verge of attacking Vietnam, then Foreign Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited China in March 1979. China not only attacked Vietnam during his visit, but Supreme Leader Deng Xiao Ping asserted that China had taught a "lesson" to Vietnam in 1979, as it had done to India in 1962.

The main 'breakthrough' during the visit of Rajiv Gandhi to China in December 1988 was the establishment of a 'Joint Working Group' on the border issue. But, within a year of this visit, China, which was then supplying nuclear weapons designs and know-how to Pakistan, commenced supply of nuclear capable M11 Missiles to Pakistan.

Similarly, PV Narasimha Rao's visit in September 1993 was followed by Chinese supply of ring magnets for Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme and nuclear capable DF9 Missiles, christened Shaheen 1 by the Pakistanis.

China also provoked India by testing a thermonuclear weapon when then President R Venkataraman paid a state visit in May 1992. Mr Vajpayee' visit in 2003 has been followed by China providing Pakistan with Cruise missiles and plutonium facilities for a new generation of nuclear warheads and conventional weapons ranging from fighter aircraft to frigates.

Following the visit of then Prime Minister Zhu Rongji to India and Pakistan in 2002, China agreed to build the Gwadar Port in Baluchistan. One day after this visit, Gen Pervez Musharraf told a Pakistani journalist, in the presence of his naval chief, that he would not hesitate to provide base facilities to China's Navy at Gwadar in the
event of tensions with India.

Much was made of the Wen Jiabao-Manmohan Singh summit in New Delhi in 2005. The agreement signed by the two Prime Ministers proclaimed: "In reaching a border settlement, the two sides shall safeguard populations in border areas."

The obvious reason for this provision was to clarify that the status of populated areas like Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh would remain unchanged. Repudiating the 2005 agreement, China's Foreign Minister now asserts: "The mere presence of populated areas (in Arunachal Pradesh) would not affect China's claims on the border". There has been growing stridency in Chinese claims to Arunachal Pradesh.

China has not hesitated to provide Pakistan nuclear weapons capabilities. Moreover, between 1968 and 1992 China denounced the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) as an instrument of hegemony.

But Chinese hostility to India's nuclear programme has been voiced repeatedly, while opposing the US proposals to end international nuclear sanctions against India.

This was reflected in the statement of China's Foreign Ministry spokesman on March 2, 2006, just before the visit of US President George W Bush to India.

The Spokesman said: "India should abandon nuclear weapons and strengthen atomic safeguards. India should sign the NPT and also dismantle its nuclear weapons. China hopes that concerned countries developing cooperation in peaceful nuclear uses will see that such cooperation should conform to the rules of international non-proliferation mechanisms."

China has approached nearly all members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to resist moves to end international sanctions against India. This hostility has been reinforced with Chinese opposition to India's 'Look East Policy' designed to expand cooperation with South-East and East Asian countries.

A commentary in the August 2007 issue of the Renmin Ribao journal notes: "The US-India nuclear agreement has strong symbolic significance (for India) achieving its dream of a powerful nation. In recent years India introduced and implemented a 'Look East' policy and joined most regional organisations in the East Asia Region." The expansion of Indian influence in Asia and the Indian Ocean region is not to China's liking.

Chinese determination to erode our ties with our eastern neighbours has been supplemented by continuing efforts to undermine our ties with Nepal and Bhutan. At a time when the entire international community led by India was seeking to end King Gyanendra's tyranny in Nepal, China joined Pakistan to provide weapons to the beleaguered monarch to undermine Indian efforts for political reconciliation and peaceful transition to democratic rule.

China has since intruded into Dolam in Bhutan and destroyed Indian Army posts in the Himalayan Kingdom, obviously aiming to erode Indian credibility in the eyes of Bhutan's leadership and people.

Chinese forces have advanced southward, bringing them closer to the strategic 'Siliguri Corridor', the narrow strip in north Bengal connecting the North-East to the rest of India. Article 2 of the India-Bhutan Treaty of 2007 states: "Neither Government shall allow the use of its territories for activities harmful to the national security interest of the other."

The Chinese intrusion in Bhutan has to be dealt within this treaty framework, if Indian credibility in Bhutan is to be sustained. Does the Manmohan Singh Government have the same resolve in dealing with this issue as Rajiv Gandhi showed in dealing with the Chinese intrusion into Sumdorong Chu and in countering China's attempts to undermine India in Nepal?

Our relations with China have elements of cooperation and competition. Apart from the potential to expand economic ties, China is an important partner in dealing with issues like climate change and global trade negotiations.

But it would a serious mistake to underestimate the security and diplomatic challenges that the Chinese policies of 'containment' of India pose.

A more pro-active policy in the Asia-Pacific, involving missile transfers and expanded maritime and military cooperation with Vietnam, raising the level of economic contacts with Taiwan to that practiced by ASEAN partners like Singapore and Thailand, and a more purposeful approach to cooperation with Japan are needed, apart from activating the existing framework of expanding ties with democracies in the Asia-Pacific region, if India is to effectively respond to the strategic challenges China poses.