Author: Brahma Chellaney
Publication: Hindustan Times
Date: March 18, 2008
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=3f44c623-a1cb-43ee-8b50-e421ec3d3bff
When Burma's junta last September killed at
least 31 people during monk-led protests in Rangoon, it triggered international
outrage and a new wave of US-led sanctions. Now the junta's closest associate,
the world's largest autocracy in Beijing, has cracked down on monks, nuns
and others in Tibet, with an indeterminate number of people killed. The muted
global response thus far raises the question whether China has accumulated
such power as to escape international censure over highly repressive actions.
For India, the Chinese crackdown on monk-led
pro-independence protests in Tibet - the biggest in almost two decades - is
an opportunity to highlight a festering issue that is at the heart of the
India-China divide. That divide cannot be bridged unless Beijing begins a
process of reconciliation and healing in Tibet by coming to terms with the
reality that nearly 60 years of oppression have failed to crush the grassroots
Tibetan resistance. By laying claim to Indian territories on the basis of
alleged Tibetan ecclesiastical or tutelary links to them, Beijing itself underlines
the centrality of the Tibet issue.
While China unabashedly plays the Tibet card
against India, such as by staking a claim not just to Tawang but to the whole
of Arunachal Pradesh - a state nearly thrice the size of Taiwan - New Delhi
fights shy to even shine a spotlight on the Tibet issue. Worse, India has
unwittingly strengthened China's Tibet-linked claims to Indian territories,
including occupied Aksai Chin, by recognising Tibet as part of the People's
Republic. Even when the Dalai Lama backs the Indian position on Arunachal,
New Delhi is too coy to translate such support into diplomatic advantage.
It is a testament to India's pusillanimity
that, even as Chinese security forces arbitrarily arrest and publicly parade
young Tibetans, New Delhi has received fulsome praise from Premier Wen Jiabao,
who, while calling the Tibet issue a "very sensitive one in our relations
with India", said, "We appreciate the position and the steps taken
by the Indian government in handling Tibetan independence activities masterminded
by the Dalai clique." The orchestrated attacks on the Dalai Lama are
a reminder that a line of moderation vis-à-vis Beijing is counterproductive.
Two decades after he changed the Tibetan struggle for liberation from Chinese
rule to a struggle for autonomy within the People's Republic, the Dalai Lama
has little to show for his 'middle way', other than having made himself a
growing target of Chinese vilification.
It is past time India reclaimed leverage by
subtly changing its stance on Tibet. It can do that without provocation. Indian
policy has been held hostage for long by a legion of panda-huggers, who bring
discredit to our democracy and comfort to our adversary. These Sinophiles
believe the only alternative to continued appeasement is confrontation. They
cannot grasp the simple fact that between appeasement and confrontation lie
a hundred different options. A false choice - pay obeisance to Beijing or
brace up for confrontation - has been used to block any legitimate debate
on policy options. Today, several developments are underscoring the need for
a more nuanced approach on Tibet that adds elasticity and leverage to Indian
diplomacy. These include China's frenetic build-up of military and transport
capabilities on the vast Himalayan plateau; its refusal to clarify the frontline
with India; and its latent threat to fashion water as a weapon.
Tibet's vast glaciers and high altitude have
endowed it with the world's greatest river systems. With global warming likely
to aggravate water woes, China's control over the riverhead of Asia's waters
carries major security implications for lower-riparian States like India.
As World Bank Vice-President Ismail Serageldin warned in 1995, "If the
wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will
be fought over water."
Tibet's forcible absorption not only helped
China to expand its landmass by one-third, but also has given it a contiguous
border, for the first time in history, with India, Bhutan and Nepal, and an
entryway to Pakistan and Burma. By subsequently annexing Aksai Chin, China
was able to link Tibet with another vast, restive region, Xinjiang, home to
Turkic-speaking Muslim ethnic groups and seat of a short-lived independent
East Turkestan Republic up to 1949. Today, China is recklessly extracting
Tibet's immense mineral deposits, unmindful that such activities and its new
hydro and railway projects are playing havoc with Tibet's fragile ecosystem
- critical to the climate security of India and other regional states.
Tibet's security and autonomy are tied to
India's own well-being. If the 'Roof of the World' is on fire, India can hardly
be safe. Tibet indeed symbolises that a sustainable regional order has to
be built on a balance among the market, culture and nature. Tibet is likely
to determine whether we will see a more cooperative or a more competitive
Asia - a stable, peaceful Asia that expands its economic and cultural renaissance,
or an Asia riven by Great Power rivalries and the continued suppression of
conquered nationalities.
Against this background, India needs to do
at least three things. First, softly put the focus on the core issue, Tibet,
including on China's denial of autonomy to that region, in breach of the '17-Point
Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet' imposed on the Tibetans in
1951. New Delhi could sugar-coat this by saying China's own security would
be advanced if it reached out to Tibetans and concluded a deal that helped
bring back the Dalai Lama from his long exile in India. The onus should be
placed squarely on Beijing to ensure that Tibet, having ceased to be a political
buffer, now becomes a political bridge between India and China.
The choice before India is to either stay
stuck in a defensive, unviable negotiating position, where it has to fend
off Chinese territorial demands, or to take the Chinese bull by the horns
and question the very legitimacy of Beijing's right to make territorial claims
ecclesiastically on behalf of Tibetan Buddhism when it still has to make peace
with Tibetans.
Second, if Tibet is to be the means by which
India coops up the bull in its own China shop, it has to treat the Dalai Lama
as its most powerful ally. As long as the Dalai Lama is based at Dharamsala,
he will remain India's biggest strategic asset against China. The Tibetans
in Tibet will neither acquiesce to Chinese rule, as their latest defiance
shows, nor side with China against India. If after the death of the present
incumbent, the institution of the Dalai Lama gets captured by Beijing (the
way it has anointed its own Panchen Lama), India will be poorer by several
army divisions against China. To foil China's scheme, India should be ready
with a plan.
Third, India has to stop gratuitously referring
to Tibet as part of China. From Nehru to Vajpayee, no Indian PM returned from
a Beijing visit without referring to Tibet, in some formulation or the other,
as part of China. Last January, Manmohan Singh became the first PM to return
from Beijing without making any unwarranted reference to Tibet to please his
hosts. The 'T' word is conspicuously missing from the joint communiqué
- a key point the media failed to catch. If this is not to be a one-shot aberration,
Indian policy has to reflect this, however unobtrusively.
Brahma Chellaney is Professor of Strategic
Studies at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
