Hindi-chini bhai bhai: not quite, not yet

Good fences make good neighbours or as the Economist of London once put it in the context of US-Mexico border, "good neighbours make fences". Yet India and China, the two most populous countries of the world, with the largest standing armies, growing economies in competition, and, with two nuclear weapon powers aligned against us in a higher-than-the-Himalayas friendship, we do not even have the 4,057-kilometre land frontier delineated. Demarcation is a long way off.


It is wishful thinking that the burgeoning trade between the two countries will compensate for any lack of political depth in our relationship despite all the talk of strategic partnerships, a joint mechanism on counter-terror and joint military exercises. The hope held out is that improving trade and economic ties will pave the way for future reconciliation. If it were that simple then the China-Japan political relationship would have been qualitatively different today. Despite the massive bilateral trade and despite massive Japanese investments in China, the underlying political suspicions and age-old animosities have not disappeared.


So also with India and China. We do not seem to have recovered from our 1962 trauma and China is determined to keep us that way, psychologically and strategically handicapped. Even before India began to grow economically, China was intent on keeping India boxed in within its national boundaries. And now with growing competition for markets and resources, there is greater Chinese need to restrict India's reach and influence as a possible alternative and successful model of growth and governance. For long, Pakistan has been a low cost hedge for Chinese policymakers and the recent US-India warmth may worry Beijing even though it will continue to pretend public disdain.


China can be expected to maintain this posture so long as the Dalai Lama and the Tibet issue is not firmly solved in their favour. There are India China differences on Chinese nuclear, missile and military assistance to Pakistan. China will not give India the space it needs neither in the search for energy resources, markets or what India deems its rightful place on the High Table. Given the Chinese global position, its economic might and the US-Chinese interdependent relationship which neither will jeopardise for India's sake, the Chinese will not be in a hurry to resolve the boundary dispute.


It is India, therefore, that will have to set the pace. But this can only be done once there is a clear and honest appraisal of the nature of the problem, the issues involved and then think of possible solutions. This continued ambivalence sets in a lethargy that can be strategically self-defeating and India, therefore, needs a lasting solution. This is what Mohan Guruswamy and Zorawar Daulet Singh set out to do in their book India China Relations: the Border Issue and Beyond. The book is the result of a joint venture between the Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Observer Research Foundation, and its main advantage is that it is lucid, objective and well-argued; and the authors succinctly state their argument in about 140 pages apart from the appendices.
Quite early in the book, the authors make the point that the crux of the problem is the Aksai Chin which the British eventually left un-demarcated after following various boundary delineations that were largely dependent on how they saw the advance of the Russian threat into Tibet and Asia. Arunachal Pradesh was a later add-on following Indian reluctance to discuss Aksai Chin with the Chinese. The Chinese inability to handle the Tibet issue and the effects of the Cold War in South Asia had heightened Chinese fears. Further, India forward policy without thinking this through militarily and strategically aroused Chinese suspicions. Nevertheless, the Chinese have accepted the McMohan Line with Burma and have reached agreements on land frontiers with its other neighbours except India and Bhutan.


Having laid out the Legacy of the Great Game where the authors show how 19th and 20th century London viewed problems differently from how New Delhi saw, much like Washington and New Delhi see things differently today, the discussion then revolves around Tibet, China and India, how India inherited fuzzy frontiers leading on to the debacle of 1962. But it is time to move on and follow what Zhou Enlai had said in 1960 and later Deng Xiao Ping had suggested in 1981 - a package proposal calling for concessions on both sides. The authors have a way forward, which includes Indianising Tawang much more systematically than at present.


A great deal would depend on Indian self-confidence and the authors recommend that India is making too much out of the so called string of pearls strategy of the Chinese. They argue that "New Delhi's assessments should critically evaluate the economic and military rationales behind such moves. Imputing solely the latter and assuming it to be directed primarily against India, is too narrow an interpretation, stimulating equally insular policy options." India needs to take advantage of the geo-economic options by gaining connectivity to new economic and resource centres. There is realisation in New Delhi that the Chinese have now begun to rely on "its non-coercive and 'remunerative power' to advance its influence'' and recommend that it would be good policy for India to integrate the South Asian periphery with the Indian economic system and simultaneously to increase its economic interaction with Beijing. If only that this was so simple. There is no exclusive non-coercive infrastructure. China has improved its strategic position with the development of Gwadar and all the rail road linkages into Xinjiang that will follow, the Gormu Lhasa rail link that would be developed into Kathmandu and Chinese infrastructure linkages from Yunnan into Burma. India has nothing remotely comparable to this, inside Indian territory or in our neighbourhood.


It is more than just economics of course and Chinese scholars say that China sees India as what they call four in one with India falling into all four categories - of developing countries, neighbouring countries, rising powers and influential actors on the international stage. That being so there should be reason enough to settle the boundary problem. The 1914 Mcmahon Line is the natural non-negotiable Indian interest in the east just as the Aksai Chin is a similar non-negotiable Chinese interest in the western sector. The authors assert that the usual zero sum game is debilitating and counter-productive and recommend the broad acceptance of a de facto position as the de jure settlement is eminently doable. They have, therefore, suggested a way out of the logjam by accepting historical truths, ground realities and strategic requirements so that India does not miss the technological and economic revolution of the 21st century.

The main thrust of the book is that it is set in the present reality and prescribes a future course without letting the past be a burden. The book is forward-looking in its recommendations and it would be to our collective advantage to debate the issues they have raised.


Source : Asian Age , 30th March 2009 ( Book Review of the book titled " India-China Relations : The Border issues and Beyond , by Mohan Guruswamy & Zorawar Daulet Singh )