:: Inder Malhotra

Wanted: Coherent, viable, long-term China policy

Back to Forward /Inder Malhotra

There is something highly appropriate in the timing of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to China. For, the start of 2008 calls for not only a candid dialogue with the top Chinese leadership, but also a coherent, viable and long-term policy on this country’s largest, most powerful and astonishingly dynamic neighbour. Especially because, in the developing pattern of international order, the relationship between the two Asian giants cannot but be a complex mixture of cooperation and competition, even rivalry. The time of ad hoc, episodic exchanges, devoid of a long view, is long past.

Doubtless, 2007 has been, in every sense of the expression, China’s year. Beijing had begun it with a flexing of its military muscle in space, and has ended it with mind-boggling economic achievements. During the year gone by, China excelled the United States in contribution to global growth, something that no other country has been able to do since the Great Depression of the early Thirties. No less strikingly, China has also eclipsed the mighty US as the world’s largest consumer of energy and commodities. The flip side of this attainment is that China has left America behind as an emitter of carbon gases. Furthermore, in 2007, Petrochina became the world’s first trillion-dollar company. More remarkably, of the ten largest and wealthiest firms across the globe, today, five are Chinese. Unlike America, which is mired in Iraq and also bogged down in Afghanistan, China has coped with its external and internal problems by the use of soft power alone.

Along with the rest of the world, China has taken note of India’s impressive economic rise, too. But our 9 per cent rate of growth cannot compare with China’s sizzling rate of 11.6 per cent over a much longer period. What seems to have struck China even more is the sudden surge in relations between India and the United States, which has had contradictory and paradoxical consequences. On the one hand, only after America’s declaration of intent to "help India become a major power in the 21st century" did China recognise this country’s global role. Until then, in Chinese eyes, India was merely a "major South Asian power." On the other hand, China quietly joined others to scuttle India’s claim to a permanent seat in the UN Security Council and has protested strongly against the "quartet of democracies," consisting of India, Japan, Australia and the United States and the joint naval exercises by these countries in the Bay of Bengal. As to what Beijing would do in relation to the Indo-US nuclear deal can be known only if and when the matter reaches the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

An even more glaring contrast is the one between the economic and politico-strategic relations between India and China. Economic relations between the two have flourished conspicuously, their trade having soared from a measly $300 million not long ago to a whopping $30 billion, and is still growing. Fears of China swamping the Indian market have disappeared. Indeed, this country has a trade surplus with the northern neighbour. Yet, as some point out, the bulk of Indian exports to China consist of iron ore and other raw materials. At the same time, politically, 2007 has been a year of contention, especially over the vexed boundary issue over which negotiations have gone on since 1981. Beijing has spent the year in raising the ante. The vehemence of its claim on Tawang — and indeed the whole of Arunachal Pradesh — has taken Indian negotiators by surprise.

Against this mixed, indeed mixed up, backdrop, let me take up just four major points, beginning with the reality that China has never considered India to be in the same league as it. The message was first delivered in October 1954 when Jawaharlal Nehru, in his own words, was taken to meet Mao Zedong and "ushered in as if to a presence." Secondly, it ought to be crystal clear that the Chinese do not want a settlement on the border question, or else they wouldn’t have pressed their claim on Tawang so stubbornly, knowing that no Indian government would cede it to them. So the question is, why can’t we also play it cool as long as Arunachal Pradesh remains under our control just as Aksai Chin is under theirs and peace and tranquillity prevails?

What needs to be done, however, is to insist on what is charmingly called "clarification and confirmation" of the Line of Actual Control — a task that, according to the original joint schedule, should have been completed during Jaswant Singh’s tenure as minister of external affairs. The "grey areas" along the line that Henry McMahon drew, with a thick nib, on the map accompanying the Simla Convention of 1914 cause about 120 "incidents" every year that need to be avoided.

Thirdly, with the border unsettled and the LAC having so-called grey areas, the appalling gap between the super-slick infrastructure for border management on the Chinese side and the pathetic one on the Indian must be bridged immediately. It seems the belated construction of 72 border roads has been taken up. But who knows when these would be completed.

Fourthly and finally, this country’s greatest handicap in its dealings with China is that its dialogue with the Chinese remains stilted, slurred and indeed mealy-mouthed even on such vital issues as China’s nuclear and missile aid to Pakistan and its use of other neighbours to hem in India. This must end. Why can’t we be as forthright with the Chinese as they are with us?

Mercifully, there have been two encouraging developments in recent days. One, defence minister A.K. Antony’s recent visit to Hanoi, strengthened relations between India and Vietnam and he has undertaken a similar mission to Malaysia. It would make sense to promote greater cooperation with other immediate neighbours of China.

Two, in the discussions at the level of top officials, preparatory to the Prime Minister’s China visit, Beijing is reported to have indicated its acceptance of the Indian assertion that this country is not doing in relation to the US anything that China is not doing. If so, let this find expression in the joint statement at the visit’s end.