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REPORTS
from China on the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh are so much full of clichés like
“positive,” “breakthrough”
and “meeting of minds” that it is
difficult to get the real picture. Both countries,
giants in their own way, follow different ideologies
and have done well economically. But they are
suspicious of each other. Has Manmohan Singh’s
trip allayed the distrust which the two have harboured
for years?
The cooperation in civil nuclear field, the 60
million-dollar mutual trade, the support for the
Security Council’s membership or the 11
bilateral documents is welcome. They indicate
progress and the economic prowess which one is
beginning to recognise in the other.
The litmus test is how far China has given in
on the border dispute. Here the score is zero.
In fact, China has resiled from the earlier understanding
given to India. The formulation at Beijing this
time was that both sides “seek a fair, reasonable
and mutually acceptable resolution” on the
basis of the political parameters and guiding
principles announced in the past. This is nothing
more than a pious statement.
The understanding given to New Delhi was that
the line of demarcation would not go through the
populated areas. It meant that China had moved
away from its claim on Arunachal in the northeast.
New Delhi wanted this to be written down. Now
China has talked in terms of small, medium and
dense pockets. Another thing agreed upon earlier
was the exchange of maps. There was not even a
mention of that.
It is no use getting euphoric over gestures like
the private dinner given by the Chinese Premier
to Manmohan Singh. The hype was bigger when India’s
first Prime Minister Jahawarhal Nehru visited
China in 1954. One million people had turned out
to welcome on a 12-mile-long route from the airport.
It was described as a “Roman triumph.”
We who were following the visit got equally involved
emotionally like the media personnel covering
Manmohan Singh’s trip. We too refused to
report odd border incidents that had cast a shadow
on the sun-lit mountain tops. New Delhi will be
committing the same mistake by minimising the
dispute for the sake of good relations.
The progress on the dispute has been dismal. The
meetings of different Indian prime ministers with
their counterparts and the unending rounds of
talks between the officials of the two countries
have not made China withdraw even an inch from
the Indian territories it nibbled at during the
fifties and occupied after the 1962 war.
China has not responded even to the Colombo proposals
which the six non-aligned countries, led by Sri
Lanka, had formulated in December 1962 to keep
the two sides disengaged after hostilities. The
Colombo proposals suggested the withdrawal of
Chinese forces by 20 kilometres from the line
of actual control on November 7, 1959.
As days went by, India accepted the status quo
on the border and took steps to have economic
and trade contacts with China. Incidentally, the
same kind of arrangement was offered to Pakistan
which it rejected. India had proposed that both
countries could have trade and economic ties and
not let the dispute on Kashmir come in the way.
Islamabad said that unless the Kashmir issue was
settled, there was no question of having business
relations with India.
The problem India faces with China is that the
status quo on the border is 45 years old. What
is de facto looks like becoming de jure. I concede
that all the claims of India cannot be justified.
There has to be a give-and-take policy. But, at
least, China should implement the Colombo proposals
to prove that it is willing to go beyond the status
quo. By all means, we should move on and overcome
the hurt of the past. Yet the aggression should
be “a permanent piece of education,”
as Nehru said, lest emotions should make us one
day write off the occupation of Indian territories.
Nehru went to the farthest to accommodate China.
A CIA report of the sixties, now available from
the archives, says that Nehru was “so afraid”
of annoying China that he went on overlooking
its intrusion into India. The report says that
he would rather accommodate China than confront
it. This is factually correct. Even when some
soldiers of Indian patrol into the Aksai Chin
road were killed by the Chinese, Nehru did not
register any serious protest. He went on saying
that it was a clash of wills, not of arms. All
border violation reports which were forwarded
to Nehru ended up in a “border file”
in the Home Ministry.
The bureaucrats would laugh at Nehru’s inaction,
particularly in the Home Ministry where I worked
as Information Officer. I too felt let down by
my hero, Nehru. However, when I now analyse events
of those days I feel that Nehru, although disappointed
over the behaviour of China which he projected
to the world, wanted to go to the maximum limit
to stay friendly with China. He could visualise
the dangerous fallout if the two were to clash.
He wrote to the chief ministers: “It is
a little naïve to think that the trouble
with China was essentially due to a dispute over
some territory. It had deeper reasons. Two of
the largest countries in Asia confronted each
other over a vast border. They differed in many
ways. And the test was as to whether anyone of
them would have a more dominating position than
the other on the border and in Asia itself. We
do not desire to dominate any country and we are
content to live peacefully with other countries
provided they do not interfere with us or commit
aggression. China, on the other hand, clearly
did not like the idea of such a peaceful existence
and wants to have a dominating position in Asia…”
Whatever distance we span with China and however
close ties we develop with it – Manmohan
Singh’s trip has done that – we should
never forget that at the height of Hindi-Chini
bhai-bhai relationship, China crossed India’s
border to defeat it. Nehru too tried to give China
a new vision. But it was at that time opposed
to the path of “cooperation” for the
development and peace and had opted for “self-reliant
detachment and confrontation.” Times have
changed. China has now a stake in peace because
it does not want any obstruction in its soaring
growth rate.
Manmohan Sing, too, has given another angle to
the relationship: the two countries can dislodge
the West as the centre of global economic gravity.
But confrontation, as he said, has to be avoided.
This may persuade China not to insist on India
accepting the status quo as a border. Beijing
should realsie that Manmohan Singh cannot sell
that. It has political overtones which can disturb
the economic rhythm.
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