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POLITICAL DIARY
India Goes Overboard
KOWTOWING TO THE CHINESE
By Poonam I Kaushish
New Delhi, April 22, 2008
The security said it all. Seventeen thousand policemen,
National Security Guard commandoes, Chinese security
personnel, clogged roads, lakhs stranded, over 45,000 man
hours lost, 3 lakh cars burning 1.3 lakh litres of extra fuel,
50 flights cancelled and over 200 passengers stranded. All to
keep away the Tibetan protestors and the Indian public from
the Olympic torch run on New Delhi’s Rajpath stretch and its
onward journey to the airport on Thursday last. So much for
keeping alive the Olympian spirit!
Worse, New Delhi’s lack of self esteem was on full national
public display when it kowtowed to the Chinese paranoia about
the safety of the Olympic torch from protesting Tibetans. It
is all very well to assert that New Delhi as the host country
was only trying to securitise the safe passage of the torch
along with trying to do a balancing act: Of maintaining ties
with China while preserving the "unique" relationship with the
Tibetans and continuing to host the Dalai Lama.
However, by playing both ends against the middle it ended up
with egg on its face. Heavens would not have fallen if the
Tibetan protestors had been allowed to protest on the
sidelines of the Olympic ceremony. Specially, after the Dalai
Lama had given a clarion call to his followers to abhor
violence. Till date the Tibetan protests have been peaceful.
Moreover, India is a democracy with strong fundamentals of
free speech and expression unlike Communist China gagged by
its Government. Remember, the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Also, recall, that Beijing did not raise the ante against the
UK and France when the Olympic torch was snuffed out and
carried away by Tibetan protestors in London and Paris. What
prevented New Delhi from following the American lead? Fearing
that Tibetan protestors would try to abort the torch ceremony
in San Francisco, it changed the venue at the last minute.
If truth be told, New Delhi allowed itself to be outmaneuvered
by Beijing yet again. Asserted a China watcher: “I appreciate
high idealism, the ideals of democracy. But I think what one
has to look at is, ‘What is your leverage? What is your
possibility of bringing about change in Indo-Sino ties?’”
“Zero.” Raising a moot point: Why do we always kowtow to the
Chinese? Are we scared?
Specially against the backdrop that Beijing has shifted the
goalpost on the border issue immediately after the Prime
Minister’s return from China early this year. First, it took
strong exception to Manmohan Singh’s visit to Arunachal and
accused India of building bunkers on the Sikkim borders. It
claimed that Indian troops were transgressing into the Chinese
side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and building
structures along it and the Indo-Bhutan border. No matter the
Chinese had destroyed bunkers on the India-Bhutan-Tibet
tri-junction in November 2007.
Not only that. In the last few weeks Beijing has got New Delhi
to cancel the Vice President’s meeting with the Dalai Lama,
summoned our Ambassador past midnight to protest against
storming of its Embassy in New Delhi. Chinese hackers have
broken into External Affairs Ministry’s computer network
possibly accessing e-mails through which officials communicate
policy and decisions across the ministry’s offices in India
and in our foreign missions.
Topped by an anti-India article on the China Institute of
International Strategic Studies website titled ‘A Warning to
the Indian Government: Don’t Be Evil!’ and replicated in the
People Liberation Army’s journal. Calling India “arrogant”, it
states: The present situation is just like in 1962, when India
“misjudged the situation” and initiated a war “with the
support of two superpowers”. It is on the “same old path of
confrontation with China. To realise its ambition of becoming
a regional and global power India was stationing its troops
along its borders, particularly the Siliguri Corridor and
borders it shares with Nepal and Bhutan.”
Clearly exposing Beijing’s thinking on strategic affairs viz
New Delhi. Let’s face it. The genesis of the Sino-Indo border
dispute is not Arunachal or the LAC but the strategically
important Tibet, sandwiched between India and China, which
acted as a buffer and was regarded as an impregnable barrier
to security threats from India's north-east. Till the Chinese
invasion of Tibet in 1950 changed the equation between Beijing
and New Delhi for all times to come.
Sadly, the romanticist Nehru committed the crucial blunder of
seeing the Maoist takeover of Tibet as heralding a new era of
Asian renaissance and compounded it by signing a border trade
agreement with China, categorically acknowledging Tibet as a
‘Region’ of China. Without any clue of where the ‘Region’s’
borders extended to. Predictably, a few months later, Chinese
maps surfaced showing large parts of Ladakh and Assam (now
Arunachal) as parts of Tibet. When Nehru asked his Chinese
counterpart Chou en Lai, he said that the maps were "old" and
that he would have them reviewed. It never happened.
Over 58 years later, we find the continuance of Nehru’s soft
approach smacking of appeasement. Manmohan Singh, like Nehru
not only seems to be bending over backwards to appease the
Chinese but also appears to be following his disastrously
flawed China policy. Like his predecessors, he too has assured
Beijing that the Tibet is a part of China. Neither has it
protested over the building of a railway link to Lhasa, which
will improve its capacity in case of a conflict with India.
Reminiscent of the massive road building in the 50s to
liberate Tibet. Even as the Chinese persist in declaring
Arunachal (specially Tawang) and large chunks of Ladakh as
parts of Tibet and, therefore, an integral part of China.
Also, according to a top security expert, China may be tempted
to engage in cross border military moves in Arunachal to
divert attention from Tibet in the future. Towards that end it
has started construction on its side of the old Stillwell road
connecting Arunachal with its Yunnan province through Myanmar.
It wants New Delhi to reopen this link, even as India plums
for the road linking Manipur to Myanmar.
With water likely to emerge as a major security-related issue
in southern Asia in the years ahead, India can hardly ignore
the fact that the Indus, Sutlej and Brahmaputra originate in
occupied Tibet. Importantly, not many are aware that China
controls the origin base of many Indian rivers that originate
in the Tibetan plateau. While the country is facing a severe
water crisis, Beijing has already anticipated future water
shortage and planned for it. Towards that end, it has
constructed a dam at the headwaters of the Sutlej and the
Brahmaputra to divert their waters to its parched provinces of
Xingian and Gansu. Thus aggravating India’s water woes.
Beijing has been so loath to clearly define the frontline with
India that it broke its 2001 promise to exchange maps of the
eastern and western sectors by the end of 2002. It continues
to occupy 43,180 sq kms of J&K including 5,180 sq km illegally
ceded to Beijing by Islamabad under the Sino-Pakistan boundary
agreement in 1963. China accuses India of 90,000 sq km of
Chinese territory, mostly in Arunachal Pradesh
Scandalously, China continues to adopt double standards in
regards to the McMohan line. While on the Indo-Sino border it
regards the line as illegal, yet it recognizes the line
demarcating its border with Myanmar. As Myanmar is no threat
to Chinese influence in the region unlike India. On Sikkim
too, China may have ceased its cartographic aggression on it
through its maps, but the important point, often overlooked,
is that it has yet to expressly acknowledge that Sikkim is
part of the Republic of India, while Arunachal is shown as a
part of China and J&K as disputed. Interestingly, the areas
currently in occupation of Pakistan and China are conveniently
left out.
Of great concern to New Delhi are Beijing’s moves to make
inroads in the Indian Ocean region. It has strengthened its
presence in the blue waters surrounding India. It has built a
port in Gwadar for Pakistan, is financing port projects in Sri
Lanka and Myanmar, is helping Bangladesh build its N-energy
plan. Effectively rounding up India, while keeping New Delhi
in good humour.
Time to take the Chinese bull by the horns and repair the
damage from the blunders of Nehru and successive Prime
Ministers. One way for New Delhi to get Beijing to give up its
claims on Indian territories and formalise the present borders
is to build counter-leverage by quietly reopening the Tibet
annexation issue by China and its subsequent failure to grant
autonomy to the Tibetans, despite an express pledge contained
in the 17-point agreement it imposed on Tibet in 1951.
Manmohan Singh must remember that there is no place for
rhetoric in dealing with China. Nor repeat the Olympic torch
fiasco when in its eagerness to appease the Chinese, New Delhi
scorched its national honour. This one act carries with it a
huge cost and a cross that India would have to bear for years
to come. Clearly, our leaders need to proceed cautiously and
realistically in their dealings with the inscrutable Chinese.
--- INFA
(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)
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