Author: Brahma Chellaney
Publication: The Japan Times
Date: September 26, 2005
URL: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?eo20050926bc.htm
The new foreign-policy subtleness that China
has displayed in recent years is a far cry from the coarse image its earlier
Communist rulers presented, especially when they set out, in then-Premier
Zhou Enlai's words, to "teach India a lesson" in 1962, or when,
to quote strongman Deng Xiaoping, they similarly sought to "teach a lesson
to Vietnam" in 1979.
Old habits, however, die hard. One example
of China's new velvet glove slipping off came when it menacingly scripted
anti-Japanese mob protests five months ago.
While pursuing a dynamic diplomacy to enhance
its political influence and build soft power, China faces the challenge of
containing the recrudescence of past-style crudity at a time when it is substituting
ideology with increasingly fervent nationalism. A reminder of that challenge
came recently when its Bombay-based consul general -- throwing diplomatic
norms to the wind -- audaciously talked down to the Indian defense minister
at a seminar and then received public support from his ambassador in New Delhi.
Beijing, far from recalling its consul general
for conduct that no other respectable nation would have found acceptable in
its representative, may have patted him on the back. The Chinese consul had
little reason to be invited or be present at a meeting on the Indian private
sector's role in defense production. In any case, he was only an observer.
Furthermore, political matters are outside
the domain of consular officials, who are neither full diplomats nor entitled
to equivalent protection, covered as they are by a separate international
convention. The 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and Optional
Protocols limits their role to "the development of commercial, economic,
cultural and scientific relations between the sending State and the receiving
State."
Indian Defense Minister Pranab Kumar Mukherjee,
in his address to the Bombay seminar, fleetingly referred to two plain facts
-- "the Chinese invasion of 1962" as a defining moment that set
in motion India's new thrust on defense production, and the still-festering
border problem with China, which has resolved its land-frontier disputes "with
all its neighbors except India and Bhutan." The Chinese invasion and
the continuing border dispute are routinely mentioned in the annual reports
of the Indian Defense Ministry.
Diplomatic propriety dictated that, if the
consul general found Mukherjee's articulation of facts offensive, he should
have written to his ambassador in New Delhi, who, in turn, could have sought
instructions from Beijing on whether to approach the Indian Ministry of External
Affairs. Instead, however, the consul general took his host nation's defense
minister head-on, castigating him at the seminar for using the term "invasion"
and claiming "China did not invade India." He then asked, "Are
you saying that China is a difficult country to negotiate with on this [border]
issue?" before replying himself: "Personally I think it is India
that is not willing to negotiate."
Despite the impudence, the defense minister
offered a polite and reasoned response, although he could have pointed out
that the consul had not been adequately schooled in diplomacy and ignored
his intervention. Yet, the Chinese thundered to the media after the seminar
that he will have to send "a report to the higher authorities in Beijing."
As if to show the consul's conduct was no
aberration, the Chinese ambassador implicitly criticized the defense minister's
reference to 1962, telling the press in New Delhi, "If you talk too much
of the past, it is out of fashion." While professing to be "sorry
to see misunderstandings among friends," the ambassador went on to assert,
"Whatever happened in the past is history and we want to put it back
into history."
What the incident reveals is the way China
contradictorily deals in history vis-a-vis its neighbors to further its foreign-policy
objectives.
While it wants India to forget 1962 or at
least consign it to history, it misses no opportunity to hit Japan over the
head with the history card. Its aim is not to extract more apologies from
Tokyo for its World War II atrocities but to continually shame and tame Japan.
In fact, visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao wantonly used Indian soil last
April to demand that Japan "face up to history squarely," setting
the stage for China's orchestrated anti-Japanese protests.
A third way China manipulates history is by
reconstructing the past to prepare for the future. This was illustrated by
the Chinese Foreign Ministry's posting on its Web site last year of a revised
historical claim that the ancient kingdom of Koguryo, founded in northern
Korea, was Chinese. This was seen as an attempt to hedge China's options vis-a-vis
a potentially unified Korea.
Then there is China's continued use of purported
history to advance extravagant territorial or maritime claims.
While the Sino-Japanese rivalry has deep roots,
dating back to the 16th century, the Chinese and Indian military frontiers
met for the first time in history only in 1950 when China annexed (or, as
its history books say, "liberated") Tibet, a buffer nearly the size
of western Europe. Within 12 years of becoming India's neighbor, China invaded
that country from two separate Himalayan flanks, with Mao cleverly timing
his aggression with the dawn of the Cuban missile crisis.
Beijing has yet to grasp that a muscular approach
is counterproductive. Had it not set out to "teach India a lesson,"
that country probably would not have become a significant military and nuclear
power that it is today. The invasion laid the foundation of India's political
rise.
Just a decade ago, Beijing was content to
see Japan as pacifist, China-friendly and a main source of low-interest loans.
Now, it is locked in a cold war with Tokyo, with the growing Chinese assertiveness
and ambition spurring a politically resurgent Japan. Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi's landslide election victory, aided in part by China's aggressive
use of the history card and its poll-eve gunboat diplomacy, opens the way
for constitutional revision and the emergence of Japan as a "normal"
military power.
Less noticed is the way a myopic China is
driving Japan and India closer. Tokyo is beginning to enthusiastically discover
India as an investment destination and a potential strategic partner. Reversing
an old pattern, it now provides more development loans to India than to China.
Bountiful Japanese investment inflows have
triggered a foreign-funded bubble in Indian equities that has seen the benchmark
index soar steeply in recent months, making it Asia's best performer. Japanese
institutional investors, psychologically rattled by China's anti-Japan protests,
have sought to hedge their risks by plowing more than $5 billion into the
Indian stock markets.
Not only has new Japanese buying of Chinese
stocks slowed, India has also emerged as Japan's new investment pick. This
is evident from the array of new India retail funds in Japan. In fact, the
Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. in Tokyo had to close its India-dedicated
fund just a day after its launch on June 22 because it collected more money
than it could invest without artificially shooting up Indian stock prices.
For this, New Delhi could send a thank-you
note to Beijing. It is this kind of continuing political shortsightedness
that could spell doom for the communist hold over China.
Even the consul general's impudence has counterproductively
put the spotlight again on an invasion that Beijing wishes to put out of public
discussion and about which it hides truth from its own people. The impertinence
only draws attention to the fact that China remains unapologetic for its major
stab-in-the-back that shattered India's pacifism and hastened Indian Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's death. China can never regain India as a friend
until it faces up to history and makes amends for 1962.
Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies
at the privately funded Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, is a regular
contributor to The Japan Times.
