Author: Harsh V. Pant
Publication: The Japan Times
Date: December 26, 2008
URL: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20081226a1.html
This year is ending with some troubling signs
of future instability in Asia, as two of the most powerful states are increasingly
at odds with each other.
China's lack of support to India in the aftermath
of the Mumbai terror attacks and its attempts to block approval of the U.S.-India
civilian nuclear energy cooperation pact at the Nuclear Suppliers Group have
reinforced perceptions in India that China will do everything possible to
halt India's emergence as a major regional and global player.
Tensions over the boundary between the two
sides are escalating. A few months back, China opened another front by raising
objections over an area previously thought to have been settled. It contested
Indian control of a 2.1-sq.-km area known as the Finger Area, in the northernmost
tip of the Indian state of Sikkim.
Despite occasional rhetorical flourishes about
an India-China partnership, the reality of Sino-Indian relations is getting
more complicated by the day as the two Asian giants continue their ascent
in the global interstate hierarchy.
In 2003, when then Indian Prime Minister A.B.
Vajpayee visited Beijing, a bilateral agreement was signed in which India
recognized Tibet as part of the territory of China and pledged not to allow
"anti-China" political activities in India.
China in turn acknowledged India's 1975 annexation
of the former monarchy of Sikkim by agreeing to open a trading post along
the border with the former kingdom and, later, by rectifying its official
maps to include Sikkim as part of India. Although this was hailed as a major
breakthrough in Sino-Indian ties, Beijing did not issue a formal statement
recognizing Sikkim as part of India.
Five years later, things appear murkier with
each passing day. Last year Chinese forces destroyed some Indian army bunkers
at the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet junction and, more recently, has threatened to
undertake cross-border forays to destroy stone demarcations in the Finger
Area.
The Indian government has informed Parliament
that Chinese forces have stepped up regular cross-border activities over the
past year. Most recently, Chinese soldiers encroached 15 kilometers into India
at the Burste post in the Ladakh sector along the Sino-Indian Boundary and
burned the Indian patrol base.
According to some estimates, intrusions by
Chinese forces into Indian territory have escalated to 213 incidents, up from
170 reported last year. China persists in refusing to recognize the Indian
state of Arunachal Pradesh as part of India, as it lays claim to 90,000 square
kilometers. Having solved most border disputes with other countries, China
seems reluctant to move ahead with India. The entire 4,057-km, Sino-Indian
frontier is in dispute. India and China are the only neighbors known not to
be separated by a mutually defined Line of Control.
Sino-Indian boundary talks seem to go on endlessly
and the momentum for the talks seems to have flagged. China has adopted shifting
positions on the border issue, time and again enunciating new principles but
not explaining them. This deliberate opacity amid the tendency to spring surprises
is typical of Chinese negotiating tactics to keep the interlocutor in a perpetual
state of uncertainty, even as the facade of negotiations continues.
The real problem, however, is that India has
no real bargaining leverage vis-a-vis China and negotiations rarely succeed
in the absence of leverage. India, moreover, is not making any serious effort
to get any economic, diplomatic or military leverage vis-a-vis its neighborhood
dragon.
India seems to have lost the battle over Tibet
to China, despite the fact that Tibet constitutes China's only truly fundamental
vulnerability vis-a-vis India. India has failed to limit China's military
use of Tibet despite the implications for Indian security, even as Tibet has
become a platform for the projection of Chinese military power.
Not only has China pumped in infrastructural
investments in developing roads, railways, airfields, hydroelectric and geothermal
stations, leading to a huge influx of Han Chinese to Tibet, it is also rapidly
expanding logistic capabilities of its armed forces in Tibet.
India's tacit support to the Dalai Lama's
government in exile has failed to have much of an impact either on the international
community. Even the Dalai Lama has given up his dream of an independent Tibet
and is ready to talk to the Chinese, as he realizes that in a few years Tibet
might become overwhelmed with the Han population and Tibetans themselves might
become a minority.
Encouraged by the growing isolation of Tibetans,
the Chinese government now seems to have little interest in a genuine dialogue
with the Dalai Lama, who now concedes that his drive to secure autonomy for
Tibet through negotiations with the Chinese government has failed, thus strengthening
the hand of younger Tibetans who have long agitated for a more radical approach
and who have demanded independence.
It is possible that recent turmoil among the
Tibetans in China may be hardening Chinese perceptions vis-a-vis India. During
the last visit of the Indian foreign minister to China, the Chinese government
reportedly raised objections to the amount of media prominence given to the
Dalai Lama and his supporters in India. The Indian government can do little
about how the media treats the Tibetan cause, but the treatment will inevitably
impact Sino-Indian ties. The Indian government has not been able to summon
enough self-confidence even to allow peaceful protests by the Tibetans and
to forcefully condemn Chinese physical assaults on the Tibetan minority and
verbal assaults against the Dalai Lama.
China seems concerned about India's pro-active
foreign policy in recent years and its ability to play the same balance of
power game that the Chinese are masters of. India's growing closeness to the
United States and the idea that democratic states in the Asia-Pacific such
as India, Japan, Australia and the U.S. should work together to counter common
threats is generating a strong negative reaction in Beijing.
Whatever the cause, the recent hardening of
positions on both sides does not augur well for regional stability in Asia.
Sino-Indian ties will likely determine the course of global politics in the
coming years. The consequences of this development remain far from clear.
It is probably true that India-China relations
will be one of the more significant factors that determine the course of human
history in the 21st century. If present indications are anything to go by,
human history is in for some tough times ahead.
- Harsh V. Pant teaches at King's College
London and is the author of, most recently, "Contemporary Debates Indian
Foreign and Security Policy."
