False steps in India-China tango

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Was it a coincidence that Indian and Chinese troops were involved in a standoff on the heights of Ladakh when President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were talking?

The appearance of discordant notes, when governmental leaders hold crucial meetings, are not unusual. They are often the result of calculated moves by state or non-state actors to create hurdles.    

According to Indian media reports, the confrontation on the disputed border began when Chinese troops moved forward at three places in Chumar in eastern Ladakh on September 10 just as Xi left on a nine-day tour of Tajikistan, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India. They attributed it to renewed Chinese efforts to establish a presence in Chumar, which had been foiled earlier.

Chinese reports insinuated that the tension was engineered by India. They accused India of instigating border incidents as it wanted the talks, which are focused on trade and economic cooperation, to cover the border issue also. They recalled that there was a three-week standoff in the western part of the border ahead of Prime Minister Li Keqiang’s visit to India last year.

In the Chumar area, China is laying a track and India is constructing a canal. Each side considers the other’s activity prejudicial to its interests.

Indian media reported that Modi drew Xi’s attention to the border developments at their New Delhi meeting. Xi told him he was sad that they had cast a shadow on his visit and that he had passed on a message to the Chinese army to disengage. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said later that the situation had been “controlled and managed” through immediate and effective communication.

Before leaving India, Xi said the border dispute with India would be resolved early to promote peace and cooperation between the two countries. China had the determination to work with India and settle the boundary question through friendly consultation at an early date, he added.

However, after the Xi visit ended, Chinese soldiers entered the Chumar area again, although in smaller numbers than before.

Apart from being the President, Xi is the General Secretary of the Communist Party and Chairman of the Military Control Commission. That his message for disengagement did not evoke a full response suggests that other players are also active.

The dispute over the 3,380-kilometre long India-China border had precipitated a brief war in 1962. Chinese troops poured down through the Himalayan passes, causing Indian soldiers to scatter in disarray. The Chinese then made a quick, unilateral withdrawal.

The Line of Actual Control, which resulted from the conflict remains undefined. Since 1996, the two sides have been holding talks to resolve the border dispute but all that has come out of the exercise so far is an agreement to maintain peace along the LAC.  

Xi’s commitment to early resolution of the dispute represents a big advance. After his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the BRICS summit at Durban last year, he had said the boundary question was a complex issue left over by history and since solving it won’t be easy the two countries should focus on boosting relations without being held back by it.

Significantly, Global Times, the English-language sister daily of the party organ, the People’s Daily, which published Xi’s statement that China was determined to work with India to settle the boundary issue at an early date, also carried a statement by an unnamed Chinese expert on South Asia that there wasn’t much chance of a settlement under the regimes of Xi and Modi.

Despite the border distractions, the Xi-Modi talks yielded some positive results. The two countries signed a dozen agreements providing for cooperation in a wide range of fields from manufacture of power equipment and automotive parts to joint  audiovisual production.

However, there was disappointment in India that China only committed itself to an investment of $20 billion in the next five years, as against a figure of $100 billion mentioned by one of its diplomats a few days earlier.

In a public speech in New Delhi, Xi reiterated his views on the importance of strategic coordination between India and China, which have a combined population of over 2.5 billion. “If we speak with one voice, the whole world will listen, and if we join hands the whole world will pay attention,” he said.

It takes two to tango. Clearly there is still a long way to go before India and China can move in step. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 23, 2014.

Xi, Modi cosying up to each other

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

China-India relations appear set to enter a new stage, overcoming the mutual distrust left behind by the 1962 border war and presumed rivalry.

Both countries have new helmsmen who are ready to work together. Xi Jinping became president last year, and has a 10-year term under the succession formula the Communist Party of China has lately evolved.

Having secured a comfortable majority in the lower house of Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has an assured term of five years. Given the demoralised state of the opposition, as of now, he can reasonably look forward to a second term.  

Modi’s electoral victory led to a race by foreign leaders to woo him. Xi had an advantage over US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin since Modi had been to China and was an admirer of its development. Although he made some harsh remarks on China during the election campaign, the Chinese reckoned that economic considerations would temper his hard nationalist line.

The China Daily, which often takes an ultranationalist position, wrote that Modi’s preoccupation with development, which echoes China’s own experiences and development philosophy, had inspired unprecedented optimism in the country over India’s growth potential.

“Western rhetoric about China and India,” it added, “is seldom free from a conception that the two countries are rivals, as if the two were destined to stand against each other. But the fact that Beijing and New Delhi have, by and large, managed their differences well over the decades is proof they do not have to be.”

Modi’s first month in office saw an exchange of high-level visits. Xi sent his Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, to New Delhi with a message in which he spelt out his vision of India-China relations. Noting that the two countries’ dreams of building their strength and improving the condition of their peoples had a lot of commonalities, he said they should make an in-depth convergence of their development strategy, support each other with their respective strengths, build a close development partnership and hold hands to realise peaceful, cooperative and inclusive development.

Pre-scheduled visits to China by India’s Vice-President, Hamid Ansari, and Army chief, Gen Bikram Singh, came in quick succession thereafter.

Xi told Ansari that India, as an important strategic partner, is a priority for Chinese diplomacy. Three agreements negotiated while the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance was in power were signed during Ansari’s visit. One of them envisages setting up industrial parks in India for Chinese investors.

Gen Bikram Singh’s discussions in China covered regional security and other issues of common concern. Although the border dispute which precipitated the 1962 war remains unresolved, the two countries have been holding joint military exercises since 2007. Last week Xi and Modi had their first meeting when they were in Brazil for the BRICS summit. What might have ended up as a meeting on the sidelines of the summit turned into an 80-minute exchange of ideas.

Xi reiterated his perception that, judging by bilateral, regional and global perspectives, China and India are longlasting strategic and cooperative partners rather than rivals. The Chinese news agency Xinhua quoted him as saying: “If the two countries speak in one voice, the whole world will listen attentively. If the two countries join hand in hand, the whole world will watch closely.”

In response, Modi said he was willing to maintain close and good working relations with Xi.

The Xinhua account indicates that Xi repeatedly used the term “strategic” while talking of China-India relations. The term was first used in the joint declaration issued by Prime Ministers Wen Jiabao and Manmohan Singh in 2005. In it they said the incremental improvement in the relations between the two countries had acquired a global and strategic character and they had, therefore, agreed to establish a strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and prosperity.

Wen’s successor, Li Keqiang, chose India for his first foreign visit as prime minister last October. He and Manmohan Singh signed an agreement establishing a framework to manage any situation that may emerge in the disputed border region. This has cleared the way for the two countries to proceed confidently with measures to improve bilateral relations.

The benefits to be expected from increased economic cooperation are a major factor that is bringing the two countries closer together. The recent decision to hold a joint anti-terrorism exercise later this year shows they are aware of the need to extend cooperation to other areas as well. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 22, 2014