Indo-China Diplomatic War Over Kashmir
By Zafar Iqbal
07 January, 2010
Countercurrents.org
Recent statement of Indian, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna about the development activities of China in Pakistan administered Kashmir has triggered growing antagonism between China and India. Indian Minister Krishna described Chinese activities in Pakistani side of Kashmir as "illegal" and said that ‘India has conveyed its concern over this as well as supply of Chinese weapons to Pakistan’. Reiterating India’s longstanding stance, he elucidated that “neither Pakistan nor China have a ‘locus standi’ in Kashmir”.
China and India have a long history of border disputes, however, the tension escalated over conflicts of Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh during the last few months. China alleges that India occupies 90,000 square kilometres of its territory. It also considers Sikkim as disputed state. On the other hand, India asserts its right to 33,000 square kilometres area of Aksai Chin near Kashmir,which was given to China by Pakistan through a 1963 agreement.
Because of their global and regional ambitions both emerging Asian giants have been trying to resolve their divergences and started a relatively peaceful phase of bilateral relationship since last two decades, however, tensions between Beijing and New Delhi flared last year when China objected on visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Arunachal Pradesh, claiming it as a ‘disputed area.’ In the same month, India expressed its discontent over the Beijing’s engagement in some major development projects in both parts of Kashmir. Yet, China stopped the construction of a road near a border village in Indian part of Kashmir, which was being built by locals under Indian government project for rural development.
Similarly, the issuance for special visas for Kashmiri citizens by China was rejected by India angrily and vigorously. Interestingly, China also issued similar visas for citizens of Arunachal Pradesh. These special visas for Kashmiri citizens have been viewed by New Delhi as an attempt by China to question status of Jammu and Kashmir as part of India, which claims over Kashmir as “as its integral part”, while her rival and another participant of the dispute –Pakistan, questions India’s description and advocates for plebiscite in Kashmir.
Considering the recent altercation on the border issues in Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh regions between two neighbours, observers perceive Chinese move as a deliberate ‘tit for tat’ action to counteract Delhi’s friendly behaviour with Buddhist spiritual leader Dalai Lama who on Tuesday, starting five day visit to religious city of Gaya in Indian Eastern Bihar state once again infuriated China by considering India “like his home” and described himself as “son of India”.
It is worth mentioning that India’s apprehensions about the Chinese’s development advancements in Pakistani Kashmir came recently, nevertheless, since many years China is engaged there in some massive economic activities. It has been working on upraising of Mangla Dam in southern Mirpur district of Pakistani Kashmir which aims to raise the level of Mangla reservoir up to 60 feet. As part of resettlement for dam affectees, Chinese firm China International Water and Electric Corporation (CIW&EC) is also working on the construction of a bridge over Jhelum River in same area.
India has also raised its umbrage with China about $US12.6 billion Neelum-Jhelum Hydroelectric Power Project in Pakistani Kashmir which aims the diversion of the water of Neelum (Kishan Ganga) river through a tunnel into Jhelum River. CGGC-CMEC Consortium China is working on the project.
Currently, Chinese firms are working on more than 15 mega projects in Pakistani administrated Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan in power sector which seems sound raison d'être for Indian worry over Chinese influence in the region.
Pakistan and China are so ‘determined’ in their joint ventures that Islamabad has neglected the routine official procedures in one of its mega projects to gratify their Chinese allies by issuing initial construction work on Kohala Power to a Chinese firm-The China International Water & Electric Corporation (CWE). Located on the border of Pakistan’s Punjab and NWFP areas and Muzaffarabad District of Pakistani Azad Jammu and Kashmir, $2.155 billion, the project has the capacity to produce 1,050 MW of electricity.
Furthermore, 12.6-billion-dollar Diamir-Bhasha dam is also being built by China’s Three Gorges Project Corporation on the Indus River in Pakistan controlled Gilgit-Baltistan area. Chinese firms are working on six other mega power projects in Pakistani Controlled northern areas of Kashmir. These significant projects consist of: 7.8 Billion US $ Dasu hydropower project, 70 million US $ Phandar hydropower project, 40.01 million US$ Bashu hydropower project, 44.608 million US$ Harpo hydropower project and 6 billion US$ Yulbo hydropower project.
China is also investing an enormous amount of 300 million US $ for the rehabilitation of various areas of Pakistani Kashmir where China International Water and Electric Corporation and China BEIXIN Construction and Engineering are working in housing, communication and rehabilitation sectors.
Historically, since the partition of British India, Kashmir has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan, who have fought four wars, in which China mostly remained on Pakistani side, nevertheless, recent Sino-India confrontation over Kashmir demonstrates that this lingering Kashmir conflict could also trigger the animosity between two emerging superpowers, which also poses alarming repercussions for the stability and peace of the region.
It is pretty interesting that amid this hostile milieu, both competitors supported each other during recent Copenhagen conference because of their economic and environmental needs and compulsions. It demonstrates that in spite of all confrontations and hostilities between Beijing and Delhi, the window of hope and good will is still exists. The people of the region hope that leadership of both neighbours would prefer to expand this opportunity to resolve long standing issues through peaceful modes which is the only way for sustainable peace and prosperity of the region.
(The Write is Executive Director of Press For Peace(PFP). He can be accessed via: www.pressforpeace.org.uk )
Friday, 8 January 2010
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
How India, China can mastermind the Asian century
The most important occurrence of the last year of the first decade of the 21st century was the Copenhagen climate summit. I am not referring to the non-agreement on climate change but to the unprecedented co-operation seen between China and India [ Images ].
The coming together of the two of the world's fastest growing economies was indeed an event of great significance. It showed the convergence of long-term interests of the two countries and also showed the kind of clout the two can wield together. Not surprisingly the 'dominant' Western media (and its slavish counterpart in India) totally missed the significance of this coming together of the Asian giants. Remarkably, this happened despite the heightened rhetoric between the two countries over Arunachal Pradesh and the Dalai Lama's [ Images ] visit to Tawang.
The first decade of the 21st century could well be called the wasted decade! Surely there have been even more miserable periods in world history, but in terms of human misery and lack of hope, the last decade comes quite close to the top.
The first decade started on a hopeful note with the dotcom boom and the end of the cold war era. But the attack on the US on 9/11 in 2001 eclipsed the optimism. The Afghan war and Iraq war hastened the economic decline of the US that plunged the world into a recession. But ironically, the world economic crisis (could also be described as the economic scams in the West) also showed the strength of the Chinese and Indian economies.
These two not only weathered the storm but have now emerged as the engines that would pull the world out of a recession. Indeed, the economic relations between the two countries are excellent.
The trust deficit
Unfortunately the economic relations are not reflected at the political level. Indians could possibly understand Chinese actions in the past when as part of the Cold War dynamics, it supplied Pakistan with nuclear weapons material and technology. But if the relations are to move forward China has to be restrained in using the Pakistani proxy to hurt India. It is instructive that while India accepts Tibet [ Images ] as an integral part of China, the Chinese do not reciprocate on Kashmir [ Images ].
The Chinese are peeved at the Indian support and asylum to the Dalai Lama and Tibetan refugees. But except for the 1960s and 1970s, when India actively colluded with the US to foster unrest and armed struggle in Tibet, this has ceased since the 1980s. Today the Chinese acknowledge this reality and have themselves been holding secret talks with the Dalai Lama's representatives.
Equally significantly, the Chinese support to insurgents in India's northeast is also now a thing of the past. My contacts with the Tibetans have convinced me that regional autonomy (not independence) will satisfy the majority of Tibetans and the Dalai Lama. The Chinese are wrong if they think that they can wait it out till the passing away of the present Dalai Lama, for the younger generation of Tibetans is even more radical. Chinese concessions on autonomy, on the lines of Kashmir, will remove this major irritant in relations between the two countries.
The border issue is another area that engenders lack of trust. The border war of 1962 itself has its genesis in Chinese suspicion that India was acting as the American cat's paw. Else it found it surprising that India made an issue out of Aksai Chin, an area of no strategic significance to India but vital to the Chinese (as a link between the restive provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang). An overbearing Jawaharlal Nehru [ Images ] and an opportunity provided by the Cuban missile crisis (of October 1962) were contributory causes.
Here the Chinese failed to understand the dynamics of Indian democracy that forced Nehru's hand. Although a minute reading of the Henderson Brooks Report does hint that a group within the Government of India was possibly responsible to provoke a war with China so that India should land in the American camp. (The sole surviving copy of the report was in my custody during the writing of that history).
In a sense both the countries were 'insecure' in their initial years. China suspected a Western design to undo it through Taiwan (then called the Republic of China and given a seat in the UN Security Council) and Tibet. In the words of Krishna Menon, Pakistan was an imperial outpost in South Asia to further Western interests. Nearly 60 years on, while China has dealt with Taiwan and Tibet, India remains insecure as ever.
For unlike China, the Kashmir issue and Pakistani intrigues continue to attempt to destabilise India. The trust deficit is therefore asymmetric, with India the greater loser.
India, China, US triangle
A triangular relationship, as in Euclidean geometry, is forever unstable. Any two sides if they come together will always be greater than the third. My research into the Kennedy archives in 2003 unearthed some interesting American research papers. Right from the early 1960s, the US has been concerned with a rising China.
The basic theme of the American policy papers was to follow a twin track policy vis a vis China -- economic engagement and military containment. Except for the disastrous Ronald Reagan era when this was abandoned and China received generous American help in military technology (that also created the Frankenstein of Islamist terror and Pakistan's nuclear arsenal) and this policy has continued.
China is deeply suspicious of the US, Japan [ Images ], India and Australia [ Images ] axis that seems to be emerging. The Chinese response has been to have its own naval bases around the Indian Ocean (the strings of pearls -- Gawadhar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka [ Images ] and Coco Islands in Myanmar).
A couple of years ago, out of the blue, I got a call from a foreign student doing her doctorate in a leading Chinese university. She wanted to discuss the impact of US technology transfer to India and it adverse effect on the 'Asian balance of power', as she put it. During my limited interaction with the Chinese, a few years ago, I also saw this issue being brought up again and again by the Chinese.
The main concern of the Chinese in the coming decade is likely to be the American attempt at military containment of China. For in the immediate future at least, the US is likely to remain a predominant military power.
Way forward for Chindia
The trust deficit between India and China is the main obstacle in the way of mutual co-operation. A prominent person involved in the border negotiations had once told me that the Chinese do not seem to be interested in resolving the border issue. I suspect that border issue is being kept alive by the Chinese as a convenient casus belli should it decide to intervene militarily in the subcontinent at some future date.
The border issue as an easy option has long gone past its expiry date. Any military expert would point to the Chinese that the days of easy 'victory' a la 1962 are long past. India is far too strong on the border as evidenced during the 1987 Somradong Chu incident near Tawang.
There are no strategic targets or natural resources for the Chinese to covet Arunachal Pradesh. The persistence of her claim is belied by the recent elections in Arunachal Pradesh where the people showed their preference to be with India. The periodic sabre-rattling by the Chinese over this issue seems to be a result of bureaucratic inertia that refuses to see the altered circumstances.
In the north, in Ladakh, the Chinese are already in occupation of the portion of Aksai Chin it wanted. India has never seriously challenged this status quo. But India may find it politically difficult to openly accept this. In the other sectors of Himachal Pradesh [ Images ] and Uttar Pradesh-Tibet border there is no dispute.
If the Chinese want, the two countries can begin the process of resolution of the border problem by accepting and demarcating the border in the central sector. This will create the necessary climate to resolve the Ladakh and Arunachal borders with some give and take or some creative solutions like permanent lease etc. The Chinese claim on Tawang town, based on the fact that it was once part of Tibet, can be countered by the Indian claim that Chumbi valley and Gartok were once part of Sikkim! Solution on the lines proposed above can build trust between India and China.
Rumour has it that in 1960, in order to resolve the issue of Aksai Chin, Chinese Premier Chou En Lie had offered a swap between Chumbi valley and Aksai Chin! Nehru missed that chance and rest as they say is history! China and India can ill-afford to let pass another opportunity to bury the past.
But no genuine rapprochement between the two is possible unless the Chinese tone down their support to their proxy in the subcontinent -- Pakistan. From the Chinese point of view there is sound logic in supporting Pakistan. Pakistan's raison d'être for existence is anti-Indianism. Thus it is a useful insurance against India.
In the last decade or so, China has replaced the US as its principal military supplier. To some extent, aided by a timid and unimaginative Indian approach to Pakistan, China has been successful in keeping India bogged down in the subcontinent. But common sense would dictate that the cost of insurance should not be excessive so that it bankrupts. Somewhat that situation has arisen vis a vis Pakistan. As India's power rises, the cost of keeping Indo-Pak parity would rise.
In addition the situation in Pakistan is such that its continued existence is itself in doubt. China has to seriously think if it wants to keep all its strategic eggs in the leaky Pakistan basket!
The takeover of Pakistan by extremists is a real possibility. In that situation it would become an international pariah. Would China then like to go against the world and support such a rogue state? China is also well aware of the virus of terrorism can infect its Muslim majority province of Xinjiang. Reagan created the monster of Al Qaeda [ Images ] to fight the Russians and the US paid the price on 9/11. Does China want to repeat this and pay a price at some future date? Chinese restraint in using Pakistan proxy against India will do much to create trust and move Sino-Indian relations forward.
Today China and India combined have emerged as the biggest users of cell phones and computers. The basic programmes used however are an American monopoly. It is time that India and China created an operating programme and their own wireless standards. The world has the option to switch to this if it wants to communicate to the two biggest markets and economies. India and China combined can break the American monopoly in software. This has obvious strategic implications and is a win-win situation for both the counties.
Does the leadership of the two countries have it in them to seize this historic opportunity?
Conclusion
It needs to be remembered that except for the last 300 years, during the previous 5,000 years of recorded human history, it was India and China that dominated world trade and technology. An excellent book by a Goan scholar Claude Alvares, Homo Faber is must-read for anyone to know the reality of Indian and Chinese excellence in technology before the advent of the industrial revolution.
In early 20th century, a few years before the first world war broke out, the US overtook the UK in shipping tonnage. That marked the decline of UK as the world power and rise of the US. The effect of this major shift however became visible only in the post second world war period in 1945. In 1971 under President Nixon, the US abandoned the 'Gold Standard' that had linked US dollar to gold ($ 34 to an ounce). Future historians will mark that as the beginning of the end of the American century. Like in case of the UK, the effects of this major shift in world economic power are becoming visible only now.
The coming together of India and China over the climate change issue is similarly an event of epic proportion and may well set the tone for the next decade of the 21st 'Asian Century', provided the nations do not sacrifice long-term interests due to the exigencies of the present.
(Colonel (retired) Anil Athale is coordinator of the Pune-based think tank Inpad and co-author of the official history of the 1962 Sino Indian War.)
The most important occurrence of the last year of the first decade of the 21st century was the Copenhagen climate summit. I am not referring to the non-agreement on climate change but to the unprecedented co-operation seen between China and India [ Images ].
The coming together of the two of the world's fastest growing economies was indeed an event of great significance. It showed the convergence of long-term interests of the two countries and also showed the kind of clout the two can wield together. Not surprisingly the 'dominant' Western media (and its slavish counterpart in India) totally missed the significance of this coming together of the Asian giants. Remarkably, this happened despite the heightened rhetoric between the two countries over Arunachal Pradesh and the Dalai Lama's [ Images ] visit to Tawang.
The first decade of the 21st century could well be called the wasted decade! Surely there have been even more miserable periods in world history, but in terms of human misery and lack of hope, the last decade comes quite close to the top.
The first decade started on a hopeful note with the dotcom boom and the end of the cold war era. But the attack on the US on 9/11 in 2001 eclipsed the optimism. The Afghan war and Iraq war hastened the economic decline of the US that plunged the world into a recession. But ironically, the world economic crisis (could also be described as the economic scams in the West) also showed the strength of the Chinese and Indian economies.
These two not only weathered the storm but have now emerged as the engines that would pull the world out of a recession. Indeed, the economic relations between the two countries are excellent.
The trust deficit
Unfortunately the economic relations are not reflected at the political level. Indians could possibly understand Chinese actions in the past when as part of the Cold War dynamics, it supplied Pakistan with nuclear weapons material and technology. But if the relations are to move forward China has to be restrained in using the Pakistani proxy to hurt India. It is instructive that while India accepts Tibet [ Images ] as an integral part of China, the Chinese do not reciprocate on Kashmir [ Images ].
The Chinese are peeved at the Indian support and asylum to the Dalai Lama and Tibetan refugees. But except for the 1960s and 1970s, when India actively colluded with the US to foster unrest and armed struggle in Tibet, this has ceased since the 1980s. Today the Chinese acknowledge this reality and have themselves been holding secret talks with the Dalai Lama's representatives.
Equally significantly, the Chinese support to insurgents in India's northeast is also now a thing of the past. My contacts with the Tibetans have convinced me that regional autonomy (not independence) will satisfy the majority of Tibetans and the Dalai Lama. The Chinese are wrong if they think that they can wait it out till the passing away of the present Dalai Lama, for the younger generation of Tibetans is even more radical. Chinese concessions on autonomy, on the lines of Kashmir, will remove this major irritant in relations between the two countries.
The border issue is another area that engenders lack of trust. The border war of 1962 itself has its genesis in Chinese suspicion that India was acting as the American cat's paw. Else it found it surprising that India made an issue out of Aksai Chin, an area of no strategic significance to India but vital to the Chinese (as a link between the restive provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang). An overbearing Jawaharlal Nehru [ Images ] and an opportunity provided by the Cuban missile crisis (of October 1962) were contributory causes.
Here the Chinese failed to understand the dynamics of Indian democracy that forced Nehru's hand. Although a minute reading of the Henderson Brooks Report does hint that a group within the Government of India was possibly responsible to provoke a war with China so that India should land in the American camp. (The sole surviving copy of the report was in my custody during the writing of that history).
In a sense both the countries were 'insecure' in their initial years. China suspected a Western design to undo it through Taiwan (then called the Republic of China and given a seat in the UN Security Council) and Tibet. In the words of Krishna Menon, Pakistan was an imperial outpost in South Asia to further Western interests. Nearly 60 years on, while China has dealt with Taiwan and Tibet, India remains insecure as ever.
For unlike China, the Kashmir issue and Pakistani intrigues continue to attempt to destabilise India. The trust deficit is therefore asymmetric, with India the greater loser.
India, China, US triangle
A triangular relationship, as in Euclidean geometry, is forever unstable. Any two sides if they come together will always be greater than the third. My research into the Kennedy archives in 2003 unearthed some interesting American research papers. Right from the early 1960s, the US has been concerned with a rising China.
The basic theme of the American policy papers was to follow a twin track policy vis a vis China -- economic engagement and military containment. Except for the disastrous Ronald Reagan era when this was abandoned and China received generous American help in military technology (that also created the Frankenstein of Islamist terror and Pakistan's nuclear arsenal) and this policy has continued.
China is deeply suspicious of the US, Japan [ Images ], India and Australia [ Images ] axis that seems to be emerging. The Chinese response has been to have its own naval bases around the Indian Ocean (the strings of pearls -- Gawadhar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka [ Images ] and Coco Islands in Myanmar).
A couple of years ago, out of the blue, I got a call from a foreign student doing her doctorate in a leading Chinese university. She wanted to discuss the impact of US technology transfer to India and it adverse effect on the 'Asian balance of power', as she put it. During my limited interaction with the Chinese, a few years ago, I also saw this issue being brought up again and again by the Chinese.
The main concern of the Chinese in the coming decade is likely to be the American attempt at military containment of China. For in the immediate future at least, the US is likely to remain a predominant military power.
Way forward for Chindia
The trust deficit between India and China is the main obstacle in the way of mutual co-operation. A prominent person involved in the border negotiations had once told me that the Chinese do not seem to be interested in resolving the border issue. I suspect that border issue is being kept alive by the Chinese as a convenient casus belli should it decide to intervene militarily in the subcontinent at some future date.
The border issue as an easy option has long gone past its expiry date. Any military expert would point to the Chinese that the days of easy 'victory' a la 1962 are long past. India is far too strong on the border as evidenced during the 1987 Somradong Chu incident near Tawang.
There are no strategic targets or natural resources for the Chinese to covet Arunachal Pradesh. The persistence of her claim is belied by the recent elections in Arunachal Pradesh where the people showed their preference to be with India. The periodic sabre-rattling by the Chinese over this issue seems to be a result of bureaucratic inertia that refuses to see the altered circumstances.
In the north, in Ladakh, the Chinese are already in occupation of the portion of Aksai Chin it wanted. India has never seriously challenged this status quo. But India may find it politically difficult to openly accept this. In the other sectors of Himachal Pradesh [ Images ] and Uttar Pradesh-Tibet border there is no dispute.
If the Chinese want, the two countries can begin the process of resolution of the border problem by accepting and demarcating the border in the central sector. This will create the necessary climate to resolve the Ladakh and Arunachal borders with some give and take or some creative solutions like permanent lease etc. The Chinese claim on Tawang town, based on the fact that it was once part of Tibet, can be countered by the Indian claim that Chumbi valley and Gartok were once part of Sikkim! Solution on the lines proposed above can build trust between India and China.
Rumour has it that in 1960, in order to resolve the issue of Aksai Chin, Chinese Premier Chou En Lie had offered a swap between Chumbi valley and Aksai Chin! Nehru missed that chance and rest as they say is history! China and India can ill-afford to let pass another opportunity to bury the past.
But no genuine rapprochement between the two is possible unless the Chinese tone down their support to their proxy in the subcontinent -- Pakistan. From the Chinese point of view there is sound logic in supporting Pakistan. Pakistan's raison d'être for existence is anti-Indianism. Thus it is a useful insurance against India.
In the last decade or so, China has replaced the US as its principal military supplier. To some extent, aided by a timid and unimaginative Indian approach to Pakistan, China has been successful in keeping India bogged down in the subcontinent. But common sense would dictate that the cost of insurance should not be excessive so that it bankrupts. Somewhat that situation has arisen vis a vis Pakistan. As India's power rises, the cost of keeping Indo-Pak parity would rise.
In addition the situation in Pakistan is such that its continued existence is itself in doubt. China has to seriously think if it wants to keep all its strategic eggs in the leaky Pakistan basket!
The takeover of Pakistan by extremists is a real possibility. In that situation it would become an international pariah. Would China then like to go against the world and support such a rogue state? China is also well aware of the virus of terrorism can infect its Muslim majority province of Xinjiang. Reagan created the monster of Al Qaeda [ Images ] to fight the Russians and the US paid the price on 9/11. Does China want to repeat this and pay a price at some future date? Chinese restraint in using Pakistan proxy against India will do much to create trust and move Sino-Indian relations forward.
Today China and India combined have emerged as the biggest users of cell phones and computers. The basic programmes used however are an American monopoly. It is time that India and China created an operating programme and their own wireless standards. The world has the option to switch to this if it wants to communicate to the two biggest markets and economies. India and China combined can break the American monopoly in software. This has obvious strategic implications and is a win-win situation for both the counties.
Does the leadership of the two countries have it in them to seize this historic opportunity?
Conclusion
It needs to be remembered that except for the last 300 years, during the previous 5,000 years of recorded human history, it was India and China that dominated world trade and technology. An excellent book by a Goan scholar Claude Alvares, Homo Faber is must-read for anyone to know the reality of Indian and Chinese excellence in technology before the advent of the industrial revolution.
In early 20th century, a few years before the first world war broke out, the US overtook the UK in shipping tonnage. That marked the decline of UK as the world power and rise of the US. The effect of this major shift however became visible only in the post second world war period in 1945. In 1971 under President Nixon, the US abandoned the 'Gold Standard' that had linked US dollar to gold ($ 34 to an ounce). Future historians will mark that as the beginning of the end of the American century. Like in case of the UK, the effects of this major shift in world economic power are becoming visible only now.
The coming together of India and China over the climate change issue is similarly an event of epic proportion and may well set the tone for the next decade of the 21st 'Asian Century', provided the nations do not sacrifice long-term interests due to the exigencies of the present.
(Colonel (retired) Anil Athale is coordinator of the Pune-based think tank Inpad and co-author of the official history of the 1962 Sino Indian War.)
Fourth dimension of India's intervention in Nepal
BIRAJ BAHADUR BISTA
Despite former Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s vociferous public outcry of foreign intervention in Nepal, it caught everyone by surprise when he called on India for talks to put him back in power. His demands might be legitimate, his protests worthy of sympathy, but to call on India is outright immature and only asking for more Indian intervention. We constantly talk about why India wants to have similar control over Nepal, as it does over Sikkim, or Bhutan. With probable motives being to control water resources in Nepal for an energy-hungry India, to divert Nepal’s water to India’s drought-prone areas, or in Nehru’s idea of the Himalayas being India’s frontier. These reasons are supported by experts and scholars on Nepal-India relations who claim that India’s prime interest in Nepal is due to reasons of security, politics and resources. This article outlines a fourth probable cause for Indian intervention in Nepal. The security interest that India seeks is not only Nepal-India vis-a-vis China, but also its internal security related to ethnicity in India.
India has a painful history of separation. A chunk of the Indian state in the East (Bangladesh) and West (Pakistan) was split on religious and ethnic grounds. India as a state remembers this bitter experience deeply and will enforce measures along the lines of Chinese policy to keep its territory intact. The North Eastern states of India – Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram and West Bengal – are like a house of cards. If one falls, then all will fall. India, which is a union of federal states with a multitude of ethnic diversity, will feel its wave all across the land. Nagaland alone has over 15 different armed outfit groups claiming an independent Nagaland and Manipur has over 30 groups including non-violent ones wanting independence from India. Similarly, Assam also has separatist groups. The Indian establishment requires special permission for outsiders to visit the eastern states of Manipur and Nagaland and any mention of the separatist movement in the North Eastern states of India is censored in both the national and international media. Nepalis in West Bengal are at present seeking a different state for themselves within India, which is perhaps a better bargain for the Indian State for now rather than the prospect of a secessionist Gorkha state or an allegiance to Nepal, which became visible during King Mahendra’s and Birendra’s reigns.
India employs various measures to keep Nepal virtually weak due to its own paranoia about yet another separation of a region from India.Both the former kings took a non-aligned stance during their reigns. Although their regimes are not above criticism, one could safely say that at least there was relative political stability and national unity during their time. Scores of Nepali intellectuals, artists, civilians and commoners from the Indian states of West Bengal and Sikkim flooded into Nepal and contributed not only to Nepali literature and art, but also to the promotion of Nepali nationalism within Nepal with a spillover effect to the Nepali in India. Nepal stood as an ethnic hub to all the Nepalis in India. Until the days of the British Raj in India, the Nepalis living in the former territories of Greater Nepal annexed to India enjoyed a comfortable status as Gorkhalis employed in the British army and in the tea gardens of Darjeeling and Sikkim. This balance tipped over once India gained independence and the status of Nepalis in India became that of secondary citizens. Given the choice of living as second-grade citizens in India as against to being Nepali in Nepal, the Nepalis in India identified themselves more as Nepali than being an Indian, thus the very nature of Indian citizenry under the Indian Union was challenged.
Mahendra’s reclamation and Birendra’s continuity of nationalism within Nepal, whether intentional or unintentional, spread across the former Eastern territories of Nepal. This phenomenon if unchecked could have a crumbling affect for the Indian state and lead to serious repercussions. The increased Nepali nationalist sentiment was a grave concern to India. Scholars around the world have postulated that economic and political stability of a nation leads to an increased sense of national identity and pride. The relatively stable political system and economically-progressive Nepal, as under King Mahendra’s and Birendra’s time, posed a huge threat to India because if the Nepali community in India re-associated with the greater Nepali ethnic hub, the threats of claiming an independent state on ethnic grounds became an imminent possibility. The other regions such as Nagaland, Manipur, Assam could be controlled from within and their voices hushed, but the Nepali movement has another dimension that has a historical and geographical link to Nepal and could thus be a major source of disintegration of the Indian state. Given political and economic stability of Nepal, allegiance of Nepali in the former territories could pose a direct threat to internal stability in India, thus it requires the Indian state to constantly meddle in the internal affairs of Nepal.
Time and again since Nepal’s agreement with a new-born India in the 1950s, there have been incidents of such Indian intervention to cause political and economic instability in Nepal. However, in this article, I would like to focus on some recent incidents to support my argument. It is a well-known fact that the transition of governments since the ousting of King Gyanendra has been administered by India and it also stands true that if there is any transition to come in the near future then India has prior knowledge and stamp of approval on it. Former PM Dahal’s call to India is an apt example and so is the rat race of Nepali politicians to India. Apart from these mediums of direct intervention, the Indian state also employs physical mediums to weaken Nepal.
Border encroachment is at large across the Nepal-India border and there is yet another trend in the border usually of Nepali nationals being regularly harassed by the Border Security Forces of India (BSF). About a month ago, at the Birgunj border, a man and a pregnant woman were beaten by the Indian BSF. Approximately three months ago, a Nepali national was beaten to death and then there was the mass hounding in Dang by India’s BSF about six months ago. The Indian Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon left Nepal denying any involvement of the BSF in the Dang incident while implying that these issues happen in border areas. The scale of displacement was clearly ignored. What is astonishing in India is the fact that The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) does not even record crimes at the hands of BSF along the border lines. The BSF is an infamous paramilitary unit stationed in areas of political instability in India and also along the borders of Nepal and Bangladesh. It is accused of committing crimes including rape, torture and murder wherever they are posted in India, notably in North-Eastern states like Manipur and in West Bengal. The Indian state clearly ignores cases along the border lines to the extent that it legitimizes criminal activity of the BSF and police personnel. Menon clearly hinted that what happens along the India-Nepal border is legitimate and that these issues that take place along its border line will be unrecorded to the extent that injustice will continue, as will the Indian State’s insensate policy, a policy to wear out and perpetually weaken Nepal.
India employs various measures to keep Nepal virtually weak, due to its own paranoia about yet another separation of a region from India. India as a state is in constant strain, due to ethnic and religious divide. India’s history of separation has left a deep scar and it would do anything within its means to prevent any further disintegration of its states. An economically- and politically-stable Nepal could stir nationalistic allegiance in the former Nepali territories in India as during King Mahendra’s and Birendra’s time. Our leaders talk against intervention and protest Indian aggression and at the same time engage in advocating political policies on behalf of India. This sort of dual policy approach is not only keeping Nepali people bewildered, but it is also advancing the Indian agenda to keep Nepal in a weakening whirlpool. Senior political leaders and Indian scholars have regularly promoted for federal states in Nepal along the lines of the Indian model. Recently, some Nepali political parties’ leaders have also advocated the breaking up of Nepal into smaller states along the lines of ethnicities. However, it would definitely be in the better interest of Nepal to remain as a small unified State, rather than break off into smaller states along the lines of ethnicities as this would only further serve India’s purpose.
(Writer is a PhD student, Department of Political Science, Seoul National University.)
BIRAJ BAHADUR BISTA
Despite former Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s vociferous public outcry of foreign intervention in Nepal, it caught everyone by surprise when he called on India for talks to put him back in power. His demands might be legitimate, his protests worthy of sympathy, but to call on India is outright immature and only asking for more Indian intervention. We constantly talk about why India wants to have similar control over Nepal, as it does over Sikkim, or Bhutan. With probable motives being to control water resources in Nepal for an energy-hungry India, to divert Nepal’s water to India’s drought-prone areas, or in Nehru’s idea of the Himalayas being India’s frontier. These reasons are supported by experts and scholars on Nepal-India relations who claim that India’s prime interest in Nepal is due to reasons of security, politics and resources. This article outlines a fourth probable cause for Indian intervention in Nepal. The security interest that India seeks is not only Nepal-India vis-a-vis China, but also its internal security related to ethnicity in India.
India has a painful history of separation. A chunk of the Indian state in the East (Bangladesh) and West (Pakistan) was split on religious and ethnic grounds. India as a state remembers this bitter experience deeply and will enforce measures along the lines of Chinese policy to keep its territory intact. The North Eastern states of India – Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram and West Bengal – are like a house of cards. If one falls, then all will fall. India, which is a union of federal states with a multitude of ethnic diversity, will feel its wave all across the land. Nagaland alone has over 15 different armed outfit groups claiming an independent Nagaland and Manipur has over 30 groups including non-violent ones wanting independence from India. Similarly, Assam also has separatist groups. The Indian establishment requires special permission for outsiders to visit the eastern states of Manipur and Nagaland and any mention of the separatist movement in the North Eastern states of India is censored in both the national and international media. Nepalis in West Bengal are at present seeking a different state for themselves within India, which is perhaps a better bargain for the Indian State for now rather than the prospect of a secessionist Gorkha state or an allegiance to Nepal, which became visible during King Mahendra’s and Birendra’s reigns.
India employs various measures to keep Nepal virtually weak due to its own paranoia about yet another separation of a region from India.Both the former kings took a non-aligned stance during their reigns. Although their regimes are not above criticism, one could safely say that at least there was relative political stability and national unity during their time. Scores of Nepali intellectuals, artists, civilians and commoners from the Indian states of West Bengal and Sikkim flooded into Nepal and contributed not only to Nepali literature and art, but also to the promotion of Nepali nationalism within Nepal with a spillover effect to the Nepali in India. Nepal stood as an ethnic hub to all the Nepalis in India. Until the days of the British Raj in India, the Nepalis living in the former territories of Greater Nepal annexed to India enjoyed a comfortable status as Gorkhalis employed in the British army and in the tea gardens of Darjeeling and Sikkim. This balance tipped over once India gained independence and the status of Nepalis in India became that of secondary citizens. Given the choice of living as second-grade citizens in India as against to being Nepali in Nepal, the Nepalis in India identified themselves more as Nepali than being an Indian, thus the very nature of Indian citizenry under the Indian Union was challenged.
Mahendra’s reclamation and Birendra’s continuity of nationalism within Nepal, whether intentional or unintentional, spread across the former Eastern territories of Nepal. This phenomenon if unchecked could have a crumbling affect for the Indian state and lead to serious repercussions. The increased Nepali nationalist sentiment was a grave concern to India. Scholars around the world have postulated that economic and political stability of a nation leads to an increased sense of national identity and pride. The relatively stable political system and economically-progressive Nepal, as under King Mahendra’s and Birendra’s time, posed a huge threat to India because if the Nepali community in India re-associated with the greater Nepali ethnic hub, the threats of claiming an independent state on ethnic grounds became an imminent possibility. The other regions such as Nagaland, Manipur, Assam could be controlled from within and their voices hushed, but the Nepali movement has another dimension that has a historical and geographical link to Nepal and could thus be a major source of disintegration of the Indian state. Given political and economic stability of Nepal, allegiance of Nepali in the former territories could pose a direct threat to internal stability in India, thus it requires the Indian state to constantly meddle in the internal affairs of Nepal.
Time and again since Nepal’s agreement with a new-born India in the 1950s, there have been incidents of such Indian intervention to cause political and economic instability in Nepal. However, in this article, I would like to focus on some recent incidents to support my argument. It is a well-known fact that the transition of governments since the ousting of King Gyanendra has been administered by India and it also stands true that if there is any transition to come in the near future then India has prior knowledge and stamp of approval on it. Former PM Dahal’s call to India is an apt example and so is the rat race of Nepali politicians to India. Apart from these mediums of direct intervention, the Indian state also employs physical mediums to weaken Nepal.
Border encroachment is at large across the Nepal-India border and there is yet another trend in the border usually of Nepali nationals being regularly harassed by the Border Security Forces of India (BSF). About a month ago, at the Birgunj border, a man and a pregnant woman were beaten by the Indian BSF. Approximately three months ago, a Nepali national was beaten to death and then there was the mass hounding in Dang by India’s BSF about six months ago. The Indian Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon left Nepal denying any involvement of the BSF in the Dang incident while implying that these issues happen in border areas. The scale of displacement was clearly ignored. What is astonishing in India is the fact that The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) does not even record crimes at the hands of BSF along the border lines. The BSF is an infamous paramilitary unit stationed in areas of political instability in India and also along the borders of Nepal and Bangladesh. It is accused of committing crimes including rape, torture and murder wherever they are posted in India, notably in North-Eastern states like Manipur and in West Bengal. The Indian state clearly ignores cases along the border lines to the extent that it legitimizes criminal activity of the BSF and police personnel. Menon clearly hinted that what happens along the India-Nepal border is legitimate and that these issues that take place along its border line will be unrecorded to the extent that injustice will continue, as will the Indian State’s insensate policy, a policy to wear out and perpetually weaken Nepal.
India employs various measures to keep Nepal virtually weak, due to its own paranoia about yet another separation of a region from India. India as a state is in constant strain, due to ethnic and religious divide. India’s history of separation has left a deep scar and it would do anything within its means to prevent any further disintegration of its states. An economically- and politically-stable Nepal could stir nationalistic allegiance in the former Nepali territories in India as during King Mahendra’s and Birendra’s time. Our leaders talk against intervention and protest Indian aggression and at the same time engage in advocating political policies on behalf of India. This sort of dual policy approach is not only keeping Nepali people bewildered, but it is also advancing the Indian agenda to keep Nepal in a weakening whirlpool. Senior political leaders and Indian scholars have regularly promoted for federal states in Nepal along the lines of the Indian model. Recently, some Nepali political parties’ leaders have also advocated the breaking up of Nepal into smaller states along the lines of ethnicities. However, it would definitely be in the better interest of Nepal to remain as a small unified State, rather than break off into smaller states along the lines of ethnicities as this would only further serve India’s purpose.
(Writer is a PhD student, Department of Political Science, Seoul National University.)
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Invention and reinvention of ethnicity
M. S. Prabhakara
Many tribal communities in the northeast have reinvented themselves by assuming new nomenclatures, though the reinvention has not meant any substantial change in their social status.
The word “ethnic” (with its derivative, ethnicity), like “colonial,” has acquired a soft focus patina permeated with quaintness and romance, something beautiful to long for. The other side of this idealised image is its successful marketing. Thus, one finds that ethnic food, ethnic clothes and ethnic jewellery are among the most assiduously marketed, and hankered after by those with the wherewithal in metropolitan areas — for, these things do not come cheap. Similar is the love and nostalgia for things colonial, especially on the part of those who have no memories of colonial rule.
Just as colonialism in action was one of the cruellest and most rapacious commercial enterprises that profoundly damaged its victims, ethnicity in action, and the uses to which it has been put, have their ugly side. This is certainly so in Assam and its environs where ethnicity has gone beyond being merely an idea and a word used to describe things strange and exotic, once viewed as supposedly unique to the tribal people on the margins. One nowadays speaks routinely of “ethnic Assamese.” “Ethnic Assamese” restaurants are a thriving business. Traditional Assamese attire worn by women is sold at “ethnic Assamese boutiques” at very high prices which few “ethnic Assamese” can afford.
Questions about ethnicity and ethnic identity are now a constant in any discussion of the ferment as much among different sections of the tribal and non-tribal people in Assam and its neighbourhood as among the people of the Brahmaputra Valley, the “ethnic Assamese.” The idea as much as the word has become part of a new political vocabulary of power, whose defining elements in their more extreme forms of expression are exclusion and hatred of the ‘Other.’
This is perhaps natural since underlying the present exclusionary ideologies whose other side is hatred of the ‘Other’ is the historic reality that those presently driving such exclusionist agendas were themselves despised, excluded and marginalised by communities that have always viewed themselves as part of society’s mainstream.
Ethnicity and ethnic consciousness are, however, a universal phenomenon. Every people possess specific identity markers, though in popular usage ethnicity is considered a unique feature of tribal societies. The family, the home, the kinship group, gender, caste, religion, language, race, even the physical space that a people occupy — any and each one of these could be and indeed is a coordinate of a people’s identity. These identity markers of their nature criss cross, with the result that every people have multiple identities.
And yet, identity politics and ethnic, now ethno-nationalistic, assertions articulated in singular and exclusive terms have taken some of the most violent forms not merely in Assam and its neighbourhood but worldwide. There is hardly any country, from the economically most advanced to the most backward, where such ethno-nationalistic mobilisations have not taken place with a political agenda of separatism whose objective is to carve out an exclusive territorial and political space, excluding the ‘Other’ who has historically been part of the same territorial and political space, and has shared the same or similar ethnic identity. Often, the ‘Other’ is indistinguishable from the self, as in civil wars whose key component is ethnic cleansing, the other side of violent ethnic assertion.
There may be an element of subjectivity in such ethnic identity assertions. One is not merely what one is, one is also what one thinks and feels one is; and no one, certainly no know-all journalist or even better qualified scholars can dismiss even the most subjectively held perceptions of a people as merely reductionism. The problem arises when such assertions seek to deny, diminish and, if possible, destroy the ‘Other,’ who is very often of one’s kind but in this process of exclusionary mobilisation is cast beyond the pale.
A most curious feature of such ethnic mobilisations is the plasticity of identities in whose name such mobilisations are done, with such identities constantly invented and reinvented. When an element of fabrication enters this process of construction and invention, one has to question the very authenticity of such rigid identity assertions. One recalls that a key element in the destruction of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the invention, in addition to the Serb, the Croat and Bosnian nationalities (the Montenegrins and the Slovenes were still in the making, in political and territorial terms, during those fraught years) of the Muslim as a ‘nationality,’ virtually replacing the Bosnian, though historically there were (and are) Serbian Muslims, Croatian Muslims and Bosnian Muslims.
This phenomenon of invention and reinvention of identities is widespread in Assam and the northeast. In Assam, the process where a tribal person by going through some simple and nominal ritualistic processes would become part of the caste Hindu Assamese society, albeit at its lower levels, has been well documented. Many tribal communities have reinvented themselves by assuming new nomenclatures, though the reinvention has not meant any substantial change in their social status, but only the restoration of a nomenclature replacing the old that had pejorative connotations. There has also been a singular case of a tribal identity being ‘fabricated,’ a creation out of airy nothing both a name and a local habitation (see Manufactured identities, Frontline, 7 October 2005).
Manipur presents some of the most striking examples of such invention and reinvention of identities. Thirty-two tribal communities (till recently 29), broadly classified under two heads, the Kuki and the Naga, are recognised in the State. However, the exact number of those classified under the two heads has never been clear because of an element of fluidity in this categorisation. What is clear is that while there are few instances of a Naga tribe switching its identity to Kuki, traffic in the reverse direction is not uncommon. A well documented case is that of the Anal, a tribal people inhabiting Chandel district, who were once classified as Kuki and are now classified as Naga.
One of the most interesting cases of such plasticity is the Monsang, once considered a Kuki tribe and now identified as a Naga tribe. In a conversation with this correspondent in Imphal recently, Professor Gangmumei Kamei, historian of Manipur, referred to Ng Mono, former MLA and leading person from the Monsang community who was at one time the general secretary of the Kuki National Assembly, and who later became a leading member of the Naga Integration Council, which wants the integration of contiguous Naga-inhabited areas under one political and administrative set-up — in short, the break-up of Manipur. Professor Kamei himself presents a most interesting transition. Once known as Gangmumei Kabui, he is now the leading ideologue of the Zeliangrong movement that seeks a homeland for the Zeliangrong community, which is literally a construct made up from the names of three Naga communities of Manipur (and Nagaland) — ZEme, LIANGmei and RONGmei. There have been similar constructs in the region.
During the Kuki-Naga clashes in parts of the State in 1993-94, the Chiru and Kom tribes who did not see themselves as part of either of the two broad categories, nevertheless chose to identify themselves as Kuki or Naga depending on the vicinity they lived in. When the clashes abated, they reverted to their original status. However such strategies of survival have not always worked. The clashes that broke out on July 24, 1997 in Churachandpur (Lamka), headquarters of the district of the same name in southwest Manipur, and persisted for nearly a year involved, both as perpetrators and victims, two of the major communities of the town and the district, the Thadou Kuki and the Paite, both part of the great Kuki-Chin family, and virtually indistinguishable from each other. These clashes were one of the most extreme examples of the ‘Other’ and the self becoming indistinguishable.
One may well ask, in the words of Shakespeare: Hark in thine ear. Change places and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?
Who is the self, who is the Other?
SOURCE; tHE hINDU
M. S. Prabhakara
Many tribal communities in the northeast have reinvented themselves by assuming new nomenclatures, though the reinvention has not meant any substantial change in their social status.
The word “ethnic” (with its derivative, ethnicity), like “colonial,” has acquired a soft focus patina permeated with quaintness and romance, something beautiful to long for. The other side of this idealised image is its successful marketing. Thus, one finds that ethnic food, ethnic clothes and ethnic jewellery are among the most assiduously marketed, and hankered after by those with the wherewithal in metropolitan areas — for, these things do not come cheap. Similar is the love and nostalgia for things colonial, especially on the part of those who have no memories of colonial rule.
Just as colonialism in action was one of the cruellest and most rapacious commercial enterprises that profoundly damaged its victims, ethnicity in action, and the uses to which it has been put, have their ugly side. This is certainly so in Assam and its environs where ethnicity has gone beyond being merely an idea and a word used to describe things strange and exotic, once viewed as supposedly unique to the tribal people on the margins. One nowadays speaks routinely of “ethnic Assamese.” “Ethnic Assamese” restaurants are a thriving business. Traditional Assamese attire worn by women is sold at “ethnic Assamese boutiques” at very high prices which few “ethnic Assamese” can afford.
Questions about ethnicity and ethnic identity are now a constant in any discussion of the ferment as much among different sections of the tribal and non-tribal people in Assam and its neighbourhood as among the people of the Brahmaputra Valley, the “ethnic Assamese.” The idea as much as the word has become part of a new political vocabulary of power, whose defining elements in their more extreme forms of expression are exclusion and hatred of the ‘Other.’
This is perhaps natural since underlying the present exclusionary ideologies whose other side is hatred of the ‘Other’ is the historic reality that those presently driving such exclusionist agendas were themselves despised, excluded and marginalised by communities that have always viewed themselves as part of society’s mainstream.
Ethnicity and ethnic consciousness are, however, a universal phenomenon. Every people possess specific identity markers, though in popular usage ethnicity is considered a unique feature of tribal societies. The family, the home, the kinship group, gender, caste, religion, language, race, even the physical space that a people occupy — any and each one of these could be and indeed is a coordinate of a people’s identity. These identity markers of their nature criss cross, with the result that every people have multiple identities.
And yet, identity politics and ethnic, now ethno-nationalistic, assertions articulated in singular and exclusive terms have taken some of the most violent forms not merely in Assam and its neighbourhood but worldwide. There is hardly any country, from the economically most advanced to the most backward, where such ethno-nationalistic mobilisations have not taken place with a political agenda of separatism whose objective is to carve out an exclusive territorial and political space, excluding the ‘Other’ who has historically been part of the same territorial and political space, and has shared the same or similar ethnic identity. Often, the ‘Other’ is indistinguishable from the self, as in civil wars whose key component is ethnic cleansing, the other side of violent ethnic assertion.
There may be an element of subjectivity in such ethnic identity assertions. One is not merely what one is, one is also what one thinks and feels one is; and no one, certainly no know-all journalist or even better qualified scholars can dismiss even the most subjectively held perceptions of a people as merely reductionism. The problem arises when such assertions seek to deny, diminish and, if possible, destroy the ‘Other,’ who is very often of one’s kind but in this process of exclusionary mobilisation is cast beyond the pale.
A most curious feature of such ethnic mobilisations is the plasticity of identities in whose name such mobilisations are done, with such identities constantly invented and reinvented. When an element of fabrication enters this process of construction and invention, one has to question the very authenticity of such rigid identity assertions. One recalls that a key element in the destruction of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the invention, in addition to the Serb, the Croat and Bosnian nationalities (the Montenegrins and the Slovenes were still in the making, in political and territorial terms, during those fraught years) of the Muslim as a ‘nationality,’ virtually replacing the Bosnian, though historically there were (and are) Serbian Muslims, Croatian Muslims and Bosnian Muslims.
This phenomenon of invention and reinvention of identities is widespread in Assam and the northeast. In Assam, the process where a tribal person by going through some simple and nominal ritualistic processes would become part of the caste Hindu Assamese society, albeit at its lower levels, has been well documented. Many tribal communities have reinvented themselves by assuming new nomenclatures, though the reinvention has not meant any substantial change in their social status, but only the restoration of a nomenclature replacing the old that had pejorative connotations. There has also been a singular case of a tribal identity being ‘fabricated,’ a creation out of airy nothing both a name and a local habitation (see Manufactured identities, Frontline, 7 October 2005).
Manipur presents some of the most striking examples of such invention and reinvention of identities. Thirty-two tribal communities (till recently 29), broadly classified under two heads, the Kuki and the Naga, are recognised in the State. However, the exact number of those classified under the two heads has never been clear because of an element of fluidity in this categorisation. What is clear is that while there are few instances of a Naga tribe switching its identity to Kuki, traffic in the reverse direction is not uncommon. A well documented case is that of the Anal, a tribal people inhabiting Chandel district, who were once classified as Kuki and are now classified as Naga.
One of the most interesting cases of such plasticity is the Monsang, once considered a Kuki tribe and now identified as a Naga tribe. In a conversation with this correspondent in Imphal recently, Professor Gangmumei Kamei, historian of Manipur, referred to Ng Mono, former MLA and leading person from the Monsang community who was at one time the general secretary of the Kuki National Assembly, and who later became a leading member of the Naga Integration Council, which wants the integration of contiguous Naga-inhabited areas under one political and administrative set-up — in short, the break-up of Manipur. Professor Kamei himself presents a most interesting transition. Once known as Gangmumei Kabui, he is now the leading ideologue of the Zeliangrong movement that seeks a homeland for the Zeliangrong community, which is literally a construct made up from the names of three Naga communities of Manipur (and Nagaland) — ZEme, LIANGmei and RONGmei. There have been similar constructs in the region.
During the Kuki-Naga clashes in parts of the State in 1993-94, the Chiru and Kom tribes who did not see themselves as part of either of the two broad categories, nevertheless chose to identify themselves as Kuki or Naga depending on the vicinity they lived in. When the clashes abated, they reverted to their original status. However such strategies of survival have not always worked. The clashes that broke out on July 24, 1997 in Churachandpur (Lamka), headquarters of the district of the same name in southwest Manipur, and persisted for nearly a year involved, both as perpetrators and victims, two of the major communities of the town and the district, the Thadou Kuki and the Paite, both part of the great Kuki-Chin family, and virtually indistinguishable from each other. These clashes were one of the most extreme examples of the ‘Other’ and the self becoming indistinguishable.
One may well ask, in the words of Shakespeare: Hark in thine ear. Change places and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?
Who is the self, who is the Other?
SOURCE; tHE hINDU
INDIA - CHINA RELATIONS -A MILITARY PERSPECTIVE
INDIA - CHINA RELATIONS -A MILITARY PERSPECTIVE
by:V. R. Raghavan
It is never less than a challenge to attempt to understand the cultural factors which influence a nation’s conduct in the international arena. When that nation is China and the subject of introspection is its relations with India, such an endeavour can at best be fraught with far too many variables. The two have had the longest uninterrupted existence as nations. Their combined size and population makes them the largest geographical and human resource mass on the planet. India and China have had cultural, religious and trade links going back centuries in history. They also came into being as nation states almost simultaneously in this century, They also share a past of colonial and imperialist subjugation from which freedom had to be won with a major struggle, Paradoxically enough, the two countries fought a war with each other over disputed frontiers. That conflict episode, the continuing border dispute between the two countries and China’s rapid growth in military power, not unsurprisingly create anxieties about the future relationship. China’s aggressive foreign policy postures also do not encourage a benign view of it. There are enough strategic thinkers in India who reckon China to be the major future threat to India. This short essay attempts to focus on the military perspective of Sine-Indian relations.
The means adopted to secure freedom by China and India provide some indication of the approaches adopted by them to cope with the international order. They explain the methods the two nations brought to bear on their responses to the geo-political situations. The basis of relationships established by the two states bilaterally with other states were also founded in that historical context. China had won its freedom through an armed struggle of epic proportions. Its military was unlike any in history in its struggle against overwhelming odds and its commitment to an ideology. Its military leaders were living legends, but they were also simultaneously ideological and political leaders. Marxist-Leninist revolutionary thought provided the underpinnings to much of China’s post independence policy. The notion of military power as an instrument of internal and external policy, formed a not insubstantial part of the Chinese policy framework. This was not an entirely new element in Chinese political management. China had a long history of strong military involvement in the management of political issues. The Marxist theology provided a perfect patina for a widespread and traditional military content in China’s national life.
India chose the route of non-violence and of political struggle through constitutional means to wrest freedom from colonial rule. Its leaders brought to bear on the freedom movement a long tradition of negotiation and debate instead of armed struggle. There was no military content to the freedom movement other than stray incidents of bomb throwing and use of explosives. The better part of the struggle for independence was guided by the insistence on non-violent means and adherence to constitutional norms. As for the Indian military, its leaders were expressly advised by the political leadership to keep well out of the freedom struggle that was being waged. There was no military content in India’s highly successful mass mobilisation against the British rule.
In the post-independence period, China preferred to use military power extensively in pursuit of its geopolitical aims. A confrontationist and belligerent image of China was therefore inevitable. China’s choice of the military option in a series of cases confirmed the image of a militarist state willing to use its power to settle issues by force. Formosa (Taiwan), Korea, the conflicts on the Sino-Soviet borders, the war with India in 1962, China’s open espousal of the Pakistani cause during 1965 in what was a purely bilateral conflict, China’s actions in the South China Sea, its role in Vietnam-Cambodia-Laos make a very long list of contributive factors compounding the image. China’s assistance over decades to sub-national and ethnic groups with ideology funds, and weapons, retarded the progress of newly independent states in her neighbourhood. Its acquiring of nuclear weapons capability has evoked admiration but has not reduced concerns about its future employment, given China’s record in managing international relations. The image is not made any less adverse by the continuing growth and modernisation in China’s military capabilities during the last decade.
The Indian picture over the same period is a contrast in many ways. India was tireless in its support to China’s cause in the international arena from the very beginning. India’s attempts to grapple with the enormous task of nation building, of social and distributive justice, of security against external military and terrorist threats, of economic development through democratic processes, were monumental in size and in the investments required. These were not helped by China’s support through the decades of the 1960s and 1970s to insurgent groups. They were made positively worse by China’s assistance programme to Pakistan in nuclear and conventional weapons. It is ironic that China which willingly embraced the concept of Panchsheel in the 1950s with India and other newly independent states, discarded its principles so soon and so comprehensively.
Attempts have been made to view the contrasting positions, postures and processes used by China and India through the lens of cultural history. The ancient cultural contacts between the two nations were through a transfer of religious thoughts, Intrepid travellers of ancient times carried images of India to China. There is little to indicate that a reverse flow of images, religious beliefs and learned treatises occurred. There is also inadequate evidence of images about India and its thoughts and beliefs influencing the policy choices of the ruling elites in China. It is useful to remember that much of the India-China interaction took place through geographic areas in the western reaches of ancient India and which no longer form part of India. Trade between India and China formed a very small part of the totality of their relationship. In military terms, the two nations shared no commonalities in doctrine and organisational concepts. Perhaps the only shared military experience between India and China was the Mongol invasions of their territories.
The pre-eminent written texts on national policy and security in the two nations were the Arthashastra written by Kautilya in India, and Art of War or Bingfa by Sunzi (Sun Tzu) in China. The latter is more widely known in the western translations as “On War”. A comparison of the two provides some fascinating insights in the two nations’ approaches to state policy. The differences become apparent early in the titles given to the books. While Arthashastra literally means the science of wealth (or of economy, in modem parlance), Bingfa focuses on the ways of gaining victory in battles. Notwithstanding their titles there are commonalites. The former effectively emphasises the importance of military means in ensuring the safety and well being of the state. The latter even as an emphatically military treatise gives importance to the loyalty and well-being of the people, if wars are to be won. On the other hand, the former dwells at length on matters of state-craft, economic resources, political and other relations with other states, and the military component forms only a part of the whole gamut of chapters. The latter is emphatically militarist with a focus on conquests, victory in battles, the techniques of achieving victories through surprise, strategems and so on. In its philosophical foundation the Arthashastra is strong on defensive modes, e.g., forts, and safe borders, while the Bingfa is vehement on the need for offensive action.
The two justly famous texts were products of their times, The Arthashastra is attributed to about the middle of the second century AD, while the Bingfa is estimated to be from around 500 DC. Traditional thoughts run deep in civilisational responses. Consequently, they indicate through the approaches and emphasis of state policies, a deeper and psychological national preference. The Indian text leans heavily on the defensive while the Chinese emphasises on the offensive. As Kautilya saw it, the army was only one amongst seven major elements of the state’s power. He recommended alliances and coalitions as the means to stabilise the state’s security. Sunzi saw war as ‘a matter of vital importance to the state . ..“. He warned the ruler against allowing the state into fighting a protracted war.
Indian responses to internal and external policy stimuli were a continuation of the cultural traditions. The initiative on Non-Alignment, the choice of the UN as a forum to settle the Jammu and Kashmir issue even when it was winning the war, the restraint in the nuclear weapons field, the initiatives on MARC, are indicative of the underlying Indian belief in negotiation and tolerance as the essential element of state policy. The Chinese approach stands out in contrast. It is of victory by use of force in pursuit of its objectives, an unwillingness to tolerate dissent in internal policies, of using protracted wars in other countries through encouragement to dissident groups and the preference for demonstrated military strength in its neighbourhood. Arthashastra and Bingfa provide the clues from the past to the two nation’s policy preferences of the present., One might even say that China has been the true “Realist" state and India the “Idealist” in the use of power to further national interests.
At the turn of the millennium, the world is changing through information technology, and economic interdependence. India and China both realise the need to adapt to these tectonic changes, if they hope to develop as economically stable and politically lasting entities. The leadership in both states is aware of the need to ensure the social and economic well-being of their peoples. In that lies real security and stability, the two essential conditions for development. They realise that autonomous behaviour in internal and external relations is no longer feasible in international arena. The need to assure neighbours of their interests through confidence building measures, placing ancient disputes in correct perspective, reaching for consensus instead of conflict resolution by force are the need of the day. India and China both realise the need for military strength commensurate with their security and the anxieties of neighbours. The reality after the Cold War is of a world order based on equity amongst states and constructive engagement through trade and economic development. Even as some hegemonic and other similar mindsets are still to be seen, the future of inter-state relations is well set on the course of cooperation. China and India realise the need for cooperation and for moving away from old animosities through mutual agreements. They have resolved to find solutions to their disputes through negotiations. Indian initiatives in South Asia and Chinese efforts in finding solutions to its issues of contention with Russia, Japan, USA and in the Asia Pacific are evidence of their new awareness. In some ways China is adding a healthy dose of “Idealist” balance to its policies. India on the other hand is introducing an element of “Realist” pragmatism to its policies. They are in the process going beyond the culture constraints of the past. Kautilya and Sunzi would have both approved of such a reorientation.
In the military perspective, the best way to remove the prospect of war remains the removal of the bone of contention. There has never been a better time than the present to take cooperation between India and China to the levels they are capable of reaching. The need of the time is to formally and finally resolve the disputes between the two giant sized states. The conflicts of the past between China and India were not of nations but between states following different policies to secure themselves. Now that the two states are in a better environment of “Realist-Idealist” mix, specific measures can be looked at. The border dispute should now be formally and finally settled. This will need accommodation from both sides and that should not be an insurmountable problem given the new circumstances. The larger issue of weapons rivalry between the two states and through either of them into the region is another issue which requires urgent attention. If these two vexing issues are taken in hand, the way ahead in the 21st Century would be free from the compulsions of the past and pave the way to a stable future. If that is achieved, the military perspective which so dominated the India-China relations in the last 50 years would be balanced by the larger contexts of economy, trade, and international cooperation. China and India would then be partners in providing a lead through the principles of Panchsheel and in moving the world away from military conflicts. It would be a condition which both Kautilya and Sunzi would have approved.
source: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi
by:V. R. Raghavan
It is never less than a challenge to attempt to understand the cultural factors which influence a nation’s conduct in the international arena. When that nation is China and the subject of introspection is its relations with India, such an endeavour can at best be fraught with far too many variables. The two have had the longest uninterrupted existence as nations. Their combined size and population makes them the largest geographical and human resource mass on the planet. India and China have had cultural, religious and trade links going back centuries in history. They also came into being as nation states almost simultaneously in this century, They also share a past of colonial and imperialist subjugation from which freedom had to be won with a major struggle, Paradoxically enough, the two countries fought a war with each other over disputed frontiers. That conflict episode, the continuing border dispute between the two countries and China’s rapid growth in military power, not unsurprisingly create anxieties about the future relationship. China’s aggressive foreign policy postures also do not encourage a benign view of it. There are enough strategic thinkers in India who reckon China to be the major future threat to India. This short essay attempts to focus on the military perspective of Sine-Indian relations.
The means adopted to secure freedom by China and India provide some indication of the approaches adopted by them to cope with the international order. They explain the methods the two nations brought to bear on their responses to the geo-political situations. The basis of relationships established by the two states bilaterally with other states were also founded in that historical context. China had won its freedom through an armed struggle of epic proportions. Its military was unlike any in history in its struggle against overwhelming odds and its commitment to an ideology. Its military leaders were living legends, but they were also simultaneously ideological and political leaders. Marxist-Leninist revolutionary thought provided the underpinnings to much of China’s post independence policy. The notion of military power as an instrument of internal and external policy, formed a not insubstantial part of the Chinese policy framework. This was not an entirely new element in Chinese political management. China had a long history of strong military involvement in the management of political issues. The Marxist theology provided a perfect patina for a widespread and traditional military content in China’s national life.
India chose the route of non-violence and of political struggle through constitutional means to wrest freedom from colonial rule. Its leaders brought to bear on the freedom movement a long tradition of negotiation and debate instead of armed struggle. There was no military content to the freedom movement other than stray incidents of bomb throwing and use of explosives. The better part of the struggle for independence was guided by the insistence on non-violent means and adherence to constitutional norms. As for the Indian military, its leaders were expressly advised by the political leadership to keep well out of the freedom struggle that was being waged. There was no military content in India’s highly successful mass mobilisation against the British rule.
In the post-independence period, China preferred to use military power extensively in pursuit of its geopolitical aims. A confrontationist and belligerent image of China was therefore inevitable. China’s choice of the military option in a series of cases confirmed the image of a militarist state willing to use its power to settle issues by force. Formosa (Taiwan), Korea, the conflicts on the Sino-Soviet borders, the war with India in 1962, China’s open espousal of the Pakistani cause during 1965 in what was a purely bilateral conflict, China’s actions in the South China Sea, its role in Vietnam-Cambodia-Laos make a very long list of contributive factors compounding the image. China’s assistance over decades to sub-national and ethnic groups with ideology funds, and weapons, retarded the progress of newly independent states in her neighbourhood. Its acquiring of nuclear weapons capability has evoked admiration but has not reduced concerns about its future employment, given China’s record in managing international relations. The image is not made any less adverse by the continuing growth and modernisation in China’s military capabilities during the last decade.
The Indian picture over the same period is a contrast in many ways. India was tireless in its support to China’s cause in the international arena from the very beginning. India’s attempts to grapple with the enormous task of nation building, of social and distributive justice, of security against external military and terrorist threats, of economic development through democratic processes, were monumental in size and in the investments required. These were not helped by China’s support through the decades of the 1960s and 1970s to insurgent groups. They were made positively worse by China’s assistance programme to Pakistan in nuclear and conventional weapons. It is ironic that China which willingly embraced the concept of Panchsheel in the 1950s with India and other newly independent states, discarded its principles so soon and so comprehensively.
Attempts have been made to view the contrasting positions, postures and processes used by China and India through the lens of cultural history. The ancient cultural contacts between the two nations were through a transfer of religious thoughts, Intrepid travellers of ancient times carried images of India to China. There is little to indicate that a reverse flow of images, religious beliefs and learned treatises occurred. There is also inadequate evidence of images about India and its thoughts and beliefs influencing the policy choices of the ruling elites in China. It is useful to remember that much of the India-China interaction took place through geographic areas in the western reaches of ancient India and which no longer form part of India. Trade between India and China formed a very small part of the totality of their relationship. In military terms, the two nations shared no commonalities in doctrine and organisational concepts. Perhaps the only shared military experience between India and China was the Mongol invasions of their territories.
The pre-eminent written texts on national policy and security in the two nations were the Arthashastra written by Kautilya in India, and Art of War or Bingfa by Sunzi (Sun Tzu) in China. The latter is more widely known in the western translations as “On War”. A comparison of the two provides some fascinating insights in the two nations’ approaches to state policy. The differences become apparent early in the titles given to the books. While Arthashastra literally means the science of wealth (or of economy, in modem parlance), Bingfa focuses on the ways of gaining victory in battles. Notwithstanding their titles there are commonalites. The former effectively emphasises the importance of military means in ensuring the safety and well being of the state. The latter even as an emphatically military treatise gives importance to the loyalty and well-being of the people, if wars are to be won. On the other hand, the former dwells at length on matters of state-craft, economic resources, political and other relations with other states, and the military component forms only a part of the whole gamut of chapters. The latter is emphatically militarist with a focus on conquests, victory in battles, the techniques of achieving victories through surprise, strategems and so on. In its philosophical foundation the Arthashastra is strong on defensive modes, e.g., forts, and safe borders, while the Bingfa is vehement on the need for offensive action.
The two justly famous texts were products of their times, The Arthashastra is attributed to about the middle of the second century AD, while the Bingfa is estimated to be from around 500 DC. Traditional thoughts run deep in civilisational responses. Consequently, they indicate through the approaches and emphasis of state policies, a deeper and psychological national preference. The Indian text leans heavily on the defensive while the Chinese emphasises on the offensive. As Kautilya saw it, the army was only one amongst seven major elements of the state’s power. He recommended alliances and coalitions as the means to stabilise the state’s security. Sunzi saw war as ‘a matter of vital importance to the state . ..“. He warned the ruler against allowing the state into fighting a protracted war.
Indian responses to internal and external policy stimuli were a continuation of the cultural traditions. The initiative on Non-Alignment, the choice of the UN as a forum to settle the Jammu and Kashmir issue even when it was winning the war, the restraint in the nuclear weapons field, the initiatives on MARC, are indicative of the underlying Indian belief in negotiation and tolerance as the essential element of state policy. The Chinese approach stands out in contrast. It is of victory by use of force in pursuit of its objectives, an unwillingness to tolerate dissent in internal policies, of using protracted wars in other countries through encouragement to dissident groups and the preference for demonstrated military strength in its neighbourhood. Arthashastra and Bingfa provide the clues from the past to the two nation’s policy preferences of the present., One might even say that China has been the true “Realist" state and India the “Idealist” in the use of power to further national interests.
At the turn of the millennium, the world is changing through information technology, and economic interdependence. India and China both realise the need to adapt to these tectonic changes, if they hope to develop as economically stable and politically lasting entities. The leadership in both states is aware of the need to ensure the social and economic well-being of their peoples. In that lies real security and stability, the two essential conditions for development. They realise that autonomous behaviour in internal and external relations is no longer feasible in international arena. The need to assure neighbours of their interests through confidence building measures, placing ancient disputes in correct perspective, reaching for consensus instead of conflict resolution by force are the need of the day. India and China both realise the need for military strength commensurate with their security and the anxieties of neighbours. The reality after the Cold War is of a world order based on equity amongst states and constructive engagement through trade and economic development. Even as some hegemonic and other similar mindsets are still to be seen, the future of inter-state relations is well set on the course of cooperation. China and India realise the need for cooperation and for moving away from old animosities through mutual agreements. They have resolved to find solutions to their disputes through negotiations. Indian initiatives in South Asia and Chinese efforts in finding solutions to its issues of contention with Russia, Japan, USA and in the Asia Pacific are evidence of their new awareness. In some ways China is adding a healthy dose of “Idealist” balance to its policies. India on the other hand is introducing an element of “Realist” pragmatism to its policies. They are in the process going beyond the culture constraints of the past. Kautilya and Sunzi would have both approved of such a reorientation.
In the military perspective, the best way to remove the prospect of war remains the removal of the bone of contention. There has never been a better time than the present to take cooperation between India and China to the levels they are capable of reaching. The need of the time is to formally and finally resolve the disputes between the two giant sized states. The conflicts of the past between China and India were not of nations but between states following different policies to secure themselves. Now that the two states are in a better environment of “Realist-Idealist” mix, specific measures can be looked at. The border dispute should now be formally and finally settled. This will need accommodation from both sides and that should not be an insurmountable problem given the new circumstances. The larger issue of weapons rivalry between the two states and through either of them into the region is another issue which requires urgent attention. If these two vexing issues are taken in hand, the way ahead in the 21st Century would be free from the compulsions of the past and pave the way to a stable future. If that is achieved, the military perspective which so dominated the India-China relations in the last 50 years would be balanced by the larger contexts of economy, trade, and international cooperation. China and India would then be partners in providing a lead through the principles of Panchsheel and in moving the world away from military conflicts. It would be a condition which both Kautilya and Sunzi would have approved.
source: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi
CHINA BECOMING A SUPERPOWER
AND INDIA'S OPTIONS
By Sreedhar
A general impression going around amongst the Indian strategic community is that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is becoming superpower in the next 20 years. It may even offer a challenge to the US by that time. It is further argued that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is going to be a formidable force in the years to come because of the ongoing modernisation plans. Some even argue that now is the correct time to resolve the Sino-Indian border question and establish cordial relations as quickly as possible with China. Whatever may be reasons for this Indian mindset, whether it was the 1962 debacle or the 1964 Chinese nuclear explosion, these arguments need a closer examination.
The Wars the PLA Fought
Korean War of 1950-51
Before we examine Sino-Indian relations, the first question that needs to be asked is whether the PLA is really militarily so superior as compared to the Indian armed forces or not? A close scrutiny of the PLA’s performance during the past 47 years indicates that at every given opportunity, the PLA flexed its muscle and its performance can best be described as a mixed kitty. During the late Chairman Mao’s years, the PLA went into action five times - three times to fight a war with neighbours, once to fight the US “imperialism” and once to occupy the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. The first was in 1950-Y when the PL4 clashed with the US forces in the Korean Peninsula. Whatever may be the claims made by the Chinese, the PLA was defeated and suffered heavy casualties. Many would argue that the technological superiority of the US armed forces played a decisive role in the defeat of the PLA.
Sino-Idian War of 1962
A decade later, after the failure of Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward Programme, in October 1962, China decided to resolve the Sino-Indian border issue by the use of force. In October 1962, the PLA moved in swiftly, defeated the Indian Army and declared unilateral ceasefire after taking possession of approximately 30,000 sq km of Indian territory. Though no official history of the war from the Indian side has been published as yet, the Chinese official version is that they repulsed the Indian attack on Chinese territory. Various versions of the people associated with that war from the Indian side, however, indicate that the Chinese succeeded largely due to the failure of the politico-military leadership of India to assess correctly the PLA’s capabilities. Way back in 1974 itself, people like K. Subrahmanyam, who were associated with China during that crucial period in India’s Ministry of Defence, argued that had the Indian Air Force been pressed into action, the course of the Sino-Indian war of 1962 would have been different. In fact, at the time of the war itself elder statesman of India, C. Rajagopalachari, advocated the deployment of the Air Force by India to destroy the supply lines of the Chinese Army.
Nathu La of 1967
Three years later, in 1965, two significant events took place on the Sine-Indian border. The first was the warning issued to India about Chinese sheep not being allowed to graze on their side of the border by India. This happened in September 1965 when the Indo-Pak war was simmering on India’s western border.
At the same time, in September-December 1965, the PLA sent probing missions on the entire Sikkim-Tibet border. According to one account, there were seven border intrusions on the Sikkim-Tibet border between September 7 and December 12, 1965, involving the PLA. In all these border incursions, the Indian side responded “firmly” without provoking the other. Though details of casualties of these PLA border incursions are not reported, there were reports indicating that the PLA suffered “heavy” casualties against “moderate” loss by India.
Two years later, in September 1967, in spite of their setbacks in 1965, the PLA launched a direct attack on the lndian armed forces at Nathu La, on the Sikkim-Tibet border. The six-day “border skirmishes” from September 7-6 to 13, 1967, had all the elements of a high drama, including exchange of heavy artillery fire, and the PLA soldiers tried to cross the border in large numbers.
The attack was repulsed at all points, According to an account of this incident, from the details of the fighting available, it appeared the Chinese had received a severe mauling in the artillery duels across the barbed wire fence. Indian gunners scored several direct hits on Chinese bunkers, including a command post from where the Chinese operations were being directed. The Chinese were also known to have suffered at least twice as many casualties as the Indians in this encounter between Indian and Chinese armed forces.
The important point to be remembered in this context is that the late Chairman Mao launched his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in 1965 and it reached its peak in 1967 to weed out all ‘anti-socialist elements” from the Chinese polity. Though many Sinologists would not like to describe the GPCR in any other manner, for an outsider like me, it was essentially a power struggle between Chairman Mao and his adversaries.
However, for the purposes of this essay, three significant things emerged from the Nathu La episode on the Sikkim-Tibet border. First, the Indian armed forces demonstrated beyond doubt that the PLA is not as strong and motivated as it was made out to be. In fact, there were rumours, around September 10, 1967, that the PLA was planning to bring in the Air Force to escalate the conflict. Sensing that the Indians were getting ready for such an eventuality, the Chinese official news agency, Xinhua, denied having any such plans.
Second, the Indian politico-military leadership quickly realised this myth about the PLA. This was clearly reflected in the unconditional ceasefire proposed by India in a note delivered to the Chinese on September 12, 1967, all along the Sikkim-Tibet border from 05.30 hrs on September 13. Though officially, the Chinese rejected this unilateral ceasefire offer by India, except for an occasional salvo by the PLA on September 13, 1967, there was a lull all along the border. Many observers felt India scored a psychological victory over the Chinese for the latter’s unilateral ceasefire in 1962.
Lastly, the Indian political leadership also realised that the PLA’s behavioural pattern on the border had something to do with the domestic turmoil then going on in China.
Ussuri Clashes of 1969
By March 1969, the GPCR entered its final phase and at that time the PLA decided that it could decide the border with the former Soviet Union by the use of force. On March 2-3, 1969, there were “border skirmishes” in the area of the Nizhnemikhallovka border post on the Ussuri River. The intruding PLA men were confronted by the Soviet Red Army and their attack was repulsed.
Again, on March 15, 1969, the PLA launched a fresh attack with an infantry regiment strength (estimated to be 2,000 men) with support units at Damansky Island on the Ussuri River. According to the details of the war available, initially the Chinese succeeded in penetrating the island under cover of artillery and mortar fire from their side of the river. But a massive retaliation by the Red Army made the PLA beat a hasty retreat.
Like they had to bring in the Air Force to meet the Indian armed forces’ challenge, this time too, the PLA is reported to have “activated” their North China Sea fleet, but nothing happened; it turned out to be an empty threat.
Again there were border skirmishes in August 1969 in the Xinjiang sector of the Sino-Soviet border between the PLA and the Red Army.
It is a part of history now that the PLA could not take on the Red Army and the Chinese were forced to come to the conference table to resolve the issue through peaceful negotiations.
Capturing of paracle Island in 1974
After the end of the GPCR in 1969.70, it is still a debatable question, whether Chairman Mao eliminated all his adversaries or not, but radical changes came into the structure and hierarchy of the PLA. Apparently the aging Chairman Mao, in a swift move, ordered the PLA to go and capture the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. With the ongoing conflict in Indo-China al that time, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Vietnam. who also claimed part of these islands, did not offer any resistance to the PLA’s occupation of the islands.
Virtually without firing a shot, the PLA had a total success in this operation.
An assessment of these five PLA actions indicates that it had a total success in two operations and suffered defeat on three other occasions. The PLA success story is also due to the timing of the campaign like in the Paracel Islands. Whenever the PLA confronted an adversary without any element of surprise, or an adversary who challenged them, its performance was poor. This was obvious from the Korean war, and the Nathu La and Ussrui incidents. In fact, in the Nathu La and Ussuri incidents, the PLA did not offer even stiff resistance. From all accounts, it made a hasty retreat the instant the adversary offered stiff resistance or acted “decisively”.
All these five actions of the PLA also clearly indicate three things: (a) the late Chairman Mao, wanted to consolidate his country’s boundaries as quickly as possible, and in that exercise, advantage China should be the guiding principle; (b) also, he pressed the PLA into action, whenever his plans to accelerate the peace of economic developments failed; and (c) in all these wars/engagements, the PL4 was not as professional as it was made out to be.
Sino-Vietnam War of 1979
In the post-Mao period, after the initial years’ power struggle was over and Deng Xiaoping managed to place himself firmly in the saddle, he too looked to the PLA to resolve the outstanding claims of China on its borders. The first was, of course, the now famous February 1979 war with Vietnam. Deng wanted “to teach a lesson” to the Vietnamese. In that Sine-Vietnam war, the PLA was badly mauled and forced to retreat. The battlehardened Vietnamese with better strategy and motivation were able to take on the PLA and inflict heavy casualties. According to one strategic commentator, The only thing the Chinese are not interested to discuss is the Sino-Vietnam war of 1979.”
Deng realised that there was need to improve the technological superiority of the PLA. Consequently, the military modernisation segment of the Four Modernisations Programme (the other three being agriculture, industry, and science and technology) was acelerated. Accordingly, we notice greater allocations for defence in the Chinese budget since then.
Sumdorong Cho Valley incident of 1985
Six and half years later, Deng decided to flex China’s muscles again with India. In mid-1986, it came to the notice of India that the PLA had built a helipad at Wandung in Sumdorong Chu Valley in Arunachal Pradesh. India reacted swiftly and the PLA had an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the India Army in Sumdorong Chu Valley of Arunchal Pradesh in August 1986. After a week of tense moments both sides mutually agreed to withdraw their forces inside their respective territories and create a no man’s land. The Chinese posture at that time clearly indicated that Beijing quickly realised that 1962 cannot be repeated. Afterwards, we saw some writings in the PLA’s official organ, Liberation Army Daily, about the professionalism the Indian armed forces.
Sine-Vietnam Clashes in the South China Sea
Called the Truong Sa Archipelago by Vietnam, and the Nansha Islands by China, the Spratlys consist of about 150 reefs, sandbanks and islands in the South China Sea, 350 km from Vietnam’s coast and 1,000 km tram China. They straddle busy shipping lanes and are, therefore, strategically important. In addition, the preliminary geological surveys have shown that this area has vast deposits of crude oil and natural gas.
Both China and Vietnam claimed the Spratlys for centuries, but up to 1987 had been content with a war of words. However, from early 1967 onwards, the Chinese started putting markers on some of these islands, making it clear that they had asserted their sovereignty over them. Simultaneously, the PLA also started strengthening its presence and started conducting naval exercises in and around the Spratlys.
This brought a sharp reaction from Vietnam and in the subsequent protest notes exchanged, both sides accused each other of provocation, and claimed that the other side would bear the responsibility and consequences of its actions.
On March 14,1988, the PLA’s Navy clashed with the Vietnamese Navy for the first time. Though it was a very short confrontation, both sides suffered considerable casualties. But the tension continued up to the end of the month. In late March 1988, the war-weary Vietnam proposed bilateral talks with China to resolve the issue. As usual, the Chinese rejected the offer initially, but later agreed to the Vietnamese proposal.
However, fresh tensions erupted in May 1992, when the Chinese authorities leased an oil concession to an American Firm, Creston Energy, for oil exploration in and around the Spratlys, and Vietnam took strong objection to it.
From 1993 onwards, both China and Vietnam realised that they could not resolve the issue militarily and started negotiations.
Invincible PLA ?
Like Mao, Deng also tried to use the PLA to settle the border issues by use of force but had no success. With the Deng era coming to an end, what his successors would do can only be a matter of speculation. They may or may not continue this policy of using force to settle the “Middle Kingdwn’s” boundades.
But the lessons others can draw from the PLA’s past engagements is that the PLA’s conventional armed forces are not an invincible force as they are being made out to be by a section of the Indian strategic community. As far as China’s nuclear capabilities are concerned, the Chinese have given a solemn undertaking to the international community that they will not be the first to use nuclear weapons. And the doyen of India’s nuclear programme, Dr. Raja Ramanna, in October 1996, observed that the country has acquired the nuclear weapon manufacturing capability. In other words, we have the needed nuclear deterrent capability.
The other aspect of the PLA is its equipment. Right from the liberation of mainland China in October 1949, the Chinese strongly believed in self-reliance. At the height of the Sine-Soviet friendship, in the early 1950s, a considerable amount of Soviet technology was transferred to China. One can say that the Chinese arms industry was built on this in the subsequent years. The Soviet technology stopped coming from the mid-1950s onwards. With the embargo and containment policy of the West up to 1971, the Chinese arms industry, it is generally agreed upon by China watchers, remained, more or less, stagnant.
In other words, for about 16-17 years, China had no access to any rapidly changing conventional arms technology in the international arms market. In addition, how much the social engineering experiments of the late Chairman Mao affected the overall technological standards in the PLA and outside is a debatable question. Some Western scholars have observed that the PLA was insulated against the social upheavals created by the late Chairman Mao. Still, at least two generations of young people were affected by Chairman Mao’s experiments in the 1950s and 1960s. This must have automatically resulted in a low level of technological base in the Chinese society. It certainly affected the civil sector, We can see this by the low quality of Chinese consumer products. And, therefore, its impact on the arms industry cannot be ruled out.
Whatever may be the actual position, there has been a scramble for weapon related technology since 1971, from the international market by China - how much they are able to absorb is an open ended question and can be debated.
The performance of the equipment the Chinese are selling in the international market leaves much to be desired. For instance, some of the biggest recipients of Chinese arms like Pakistan, North Korea and Iran have bought this equipment as a last choice, when it was denied to them from others or they were cash starved. In fact, the Pakistani arms acquisition pattern over the years indicates that their first preference is arms from the West and the last choice is China. This is in spite of an indepth relationship with China, and the fact that Chinese equipment is cheap and available on easy credit.
In this part of the world, the Chinese equipment saw action in war in recent years only in the Iraq-Iran war of the 1990s. The Iranians used the Silkworm missiles from China quite successfully to confront Iraq, but in the later stages of the war only, when Iraqi ammunition was almost depleted.
Therefore, one need not be unduly alarmed at the technological level of the PLA’s weapon systems.
Myth of Economic Miracle
The other myth that is perpetuated by a group of China watchers is that Beijing is likely to become an economic superpower in the next two decades, that is, by about 2015 or so. And to support their argument, the World Bank report on China and the Economist (London) are liberally quoted. One is tempted to compare this Chinese miracle with the 1970s’ assessments of the West about China’s crude oil reserves, There used to be screaming headlines in the mid-1970s in the Western Press saying that China’s crude oil reserves are bigger than Saudi Arabia’s, We, at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis, were the first to question these assessments, and the late Mr. Mirchandani, then General Manager of the United News of India promptly carried it on his wire services, Within a few months, that bubble burst.
The Chinese economy witnessed some spectacular development (but not development in the broad sense of the term, that is economic, cultural, social, etc, which India is attempting) of 10-t 1 per cent growth in recent years. This has been achieved largely due to heavy doses of foreign investment. Here one should not forget the fact that the foreign investor will continue to make investments only if his profits are assured. One more factor needs to be borne in mind here, international capital has no nationality and concepts like nationalism and patriotism have no relevance to it. The overseas Chinese who made the bulk of investments in China may not continue to do so. Already reports are appearing in the international media that investors in China are not happy with their returns and are looking for greener pastures. This means that the flow of foreign investments into China is going to slow down in the years to come. And in the long run, the Chinese economy may have to settle down for a 5-6 per cent growth rate. Anything beyond that requires at least a couple of trillion dollars of investments in the next two to three decades, First, that type of capital is not available in the international capital market. The $80 billion foreign investment of the past decade created such regional and social imbalances in China that the Chinese authorities have been forced to take a fresh look at the process of liberalisation of the economy.
Therefore, in these circumstances, China becoming an economic superpower, say in the next 20 years, can at best be described as wishful thinking by members of a China admirers’ club. And, in fact, a couple of Chinese scholars with whom I interacted with in 1993 were surprised at these assessments. They said that like in any planned economy, they too fixed some target; and if they can achieve even 50 per cent of those targets, they would consider their planning process successful. This is understandable. In fact, any student of economics will be able to tell that a developing country with a population of one billion plus cannot sustain a 10-l 1 per cent growth rate for too long.
Indian Policy Options
It is in this backdrop that we must examine India’s policy options vis-a-vis China in the short and medium terms. To discuss long term perspectives at this stage is not feasible as there are so many imponderables.
At one level, the current phase of Sir-m-Indian relations started some time in the early 1980s by the late Indian Prime Minsister, Mrs Indira Gandhi, progressed satisfactorily, except for the 1985 aberration mentioned earlier. In fact, from 1987 onwards, efforts were on from both sides to ensure that 1995 is not repeated. Both sides took a number of confidence building measures, including high level political visits, armed forces to armed forces contacts, dialogue at various levels, etc. The Sine Indian joint working group has been meeting regularly. Even the bilateral trade which was at a low level, started picking up. In other words, both India and China have engaged themselves in a constructive dialogue which proved to be mutually beneficial.
Can we take this relationship forward? This is the question haunting many policy analysts. In this context, one needs to look into three broad ‘areas. Foremost among them is the border question. This issue has two dimensions. First, some-boundary specialists would argue that at the end of 1994, there were more than 100 disputed boundaries around the world. This is a vexed problem of the international community and there are no fixed ground rules for this. And these experts feel that after the 1958-59 India-China boundary talks, it became clear that this issue has no academic solution.
Second, India is not in a position to cede any territory to others except for a few kilometers this way or that. Therefore, to resolve the vexed boundary issue and establish cordial relations with India, China has to vacate the occupied territory.
In addition, both Jiang Zemin and Atal Behari Vajpayee are new to the centre of power in their respective countries.
Neither of them are charismatic personalities like Pandit Jawaharfal Nehru, Mrs. Indira Gandhi , Chairman Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. They have limited political clout in their respective countries. Therefore, to expect the governments of these two leaders to find a solution to the decades-old India-China boundary question is just not possible. Hence, status quo will continue and this may remain as one of the unresolved boundary questions, which will be carried into the 21st century.
Second is the economic cooperation between the two countries. Both China and India are developing countries, and each side enjoys some advantage over the other in trade. Incidentally, both are exporters of primary commodities and semi-manufactured goods. At the moment, in the international market, India enjoys a marginal advantage over China, because of its being a member of the World Trade Organisation.
Otherwise, both the economies are competing with each other in the international market. Therefore, the scope for a larger volume of India-China trade is rather slim. The existing volume of India-China trade at around $1 billion may at best grow into $4.5 billion by the turn of the century In percentage terms of foreign trade of India and China, this is less than one per cent of each country’s trade. I am not arguing against increasing trade between China and India. But as I mentioned earlier, the ground realities are different. Any expectation of faster growth of India-China trade is nothing but wishful thinking.
India-China joint ventures in third countries is once again a low feasibility proposition because of the reasons mentioned above.
Therefore, we can assume that in the immediate future, say in the next ten years, both sides should reconcile to the fact that the existing level of economic cooperation cannot be improved dramatically, and efforts to improve upon it may result in some changes, but marginally only. In fact, here one should also note that China is mixing politics with economics to a certain extent. For example, China would prefer the US to India in awarding a contract.
Lastly, the option to improve people-to-people level contacts between India and China. This, undoubtedly, is one area where more interaction can take place between the two countries. But, the spirit of Hindi-Chini Bhai Thai of the 1950s cannot stage a comeback for obvious reasons.
To conclude, for their own strategic interests, both China and India broke the impasse that had set into their relations from 1962 onwards, in the early l980s, and continued to do so even in the 1990s. The political leadership of both these nations have, over the last 15 years, evolved a mature relationship which is mutually beneficial. To take it beyond this level in the immediate future does not seem possible at this point of time. However, both nations would continue the existing level of relationship in future also in their own interest.
AND INDIA'S OPTIONS
By Sreedhar
A general impression going around amongst the Indian strategic community is that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is becoming superpower in the next 20 years. It may even offer a challenge to the US by that time. It is further argued that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is going to be a formidable force in the years to come because of the ongoing modernisation plans. Some even argue that now is the correct time to resolve the Sino-Indian border question and establish cordial relations as quickly as possible with China. Whatever may be reasons for this Indian mindset, whether it was the 1962 debacle or the 1964 Chinese nuclear explosion, these arguments need a closer examination.
The Wars the PLA Fought
Korean War of 1950-51
Before we examine Sino-Indian relations, the first question that needs to be asked is whether the PLA is really militarily so superior as compared to the Indian armed forces or not? A close scrutiny of the PLA’s performance during the past 47 years indicates that at every given opportunity, the PLA flexed its muscle and its performance can best be described as a mixed kitty. During the late Chairman Mao’s years, the PLA went into action five times - three times to fight a war with neighbours, once to fight the US “imperialism” and once to occupy the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. The first was in 1950-Y when the PL4 clashed with the US forces in the Korean Peninsula. Whatever may be the claims made by the Chinese, the PLA was defeated and suffered heavy casualties. Many would argue that the technological superiority of the US armed forces played a decisive role in the defeat of the PLA.
Sino-Idian War of 1962
A decade later, after the failure of Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward Programme, in October 1962, China decided to resolve the Sino-Indian border issue by the use of force. In October 1962, the PLA moved in swiftly, defeated the Indian Army and declared unilateral ceasefire after taking possession of approximately 30,000 sq km of Indian territory. Though no official history of the war from the Indian side has been published as yet, the Chinese official version is that they repulsed the Indian attack on Chinese territory. Various versions of the people associated with that war from the Indian side, however, indicate that the Chinese succeeded largely due to the failure of the politico-military leadership of India to assess correctly the PLA’s capabilities. Way back in 1974 itself, people like K. Subrahmanyam, who were associated with China during that crucial period in India’s Ministry of Defence, argued that had the Indian Air Force been pressed into action, the course of the Sino-Indian war of 1962 would have been different. In fact, at the time of the war itself elder statesman of India, C. Rajagopalachari, advocated the deployment of the Air Force by India to destroy the supply lines of the Chinese Army.
Nathu La of 1967
Three years later, in 1965, two significant events took place on the Sine-Indian border. The first was the warning issued to India about Chinese sheep not being allowed to graze on their side of the border by India. This happened in September 1965 when the Indo-Pak war was simmering on India’s western border.
At the same time, in September-December 1965, the PLA sent probing missions on the entire Sikkim-Tibet border. According to one account, there were seven border intrusions on the Sikkim-Tibet border between September 7 and December 12, 1965, involving the PLA. In all these border incursions, the Indian side responded “firmly” without provoking the other. Though details of casualties of these PLA border incursions are not reported, there were reports indicating that the PLA suffered “heavy” casualties against “moderate” loss by India.
Two years later, in September 1967, in spite of their setbacks in 1965, the PLA launched a direct attack on the lndian armed forces at Nathu La, on the Sikkim-Tibet border. The six-day “border skirmishes” from September 7-6 to 13, 1967, had all the elements of a high drama, including exchange of heavy artillery fire, and the PLA soldiers tried to cross the border in large numbers.
The attack was repulsed at all points, According to an account of this incident, from the details of the fighting available, it appeared the Chinese had received a severe mauling in the artillery duels across the barbed wire fence. Indian gunners scored several direct hits on Chinese bunkers, including a command post from where the Chinese operations were being directed. The Chinese were also known to have suffered at least twice as many casualties as the Indians in this encounter between Indian and Chinese armed forces.
The important point to be remembered in this context is that the late Chairman Mao launched his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in 1965 and it reached its peak in 1967 to weed out all ‘anti-socialist elements” from the Chinese polity. Though many Sinologists would not like to describe the GPCR in any other manner, for an outsider like me, it was essentially a power struggle between Chairman Mao and his adversaries.
However, for the purposes of this essay, three significant things emerged from the Nathu La episode on the Sikkim-Tibet border. First, the Indian armed forces demonstrated beyond doubt that the PLA is not as strong and motivated as it was made out to be. In fact, there were rumours, around September 10, 1967, that the PLA was planning to bring in the Air Force to escalate the conflict. Sensing that the Indians were getting ready for such an eventuality, the Chinese official news agency, Xinhua, denied having any such plans.
Second, the Indian politico-military leadership quickly realised this myth about the PLA. This was clearly reflected in the unconditional ceasefire proposed by India in a note delivered to the Chinese on September 12, 1967, all along the Sikkim-Tibet border from 05.30 hrs on September 13. Though officially, the Chinese rejected this unilateral ceasefire offer by India, except for an occasional salvo by the PLA on September 13, 1967, there was a lull all along the border. Many observers felt India scored a psychological victory over the Chinese for the latter’s unilateral ceasefire in 1962.
Lastly, the Indian political leadership also realised that the PLA’s behavioural pattern on the border had something to do with the domestic turmoil then going on in China.
Ussuri Clashes of 1969
By March 1969, the GPCR entered its final phase and at that time the PLA decided that it could decide the border with the former Soviet Union by the use of force. On March 2-3, 1969, there were “border skirmishes” in the area of the Nizhnemikhallovka border post on the Ussuri River. The intruding PLA men were confronted by the Soviet Red Army and their attack was repulsed.
Again, on March 15, 1969, the PLA launched a fresh attack with an infantry regiment strength (estimated to be 2,000 men) with support units at Damansky Island on the Ussuri River. According to the details of the war available, initially the Chinese succeeded in penetrating the island under cover of artillery and mortar fire from their side of the river. But a massive retaliation by the Red Army made the PLA beat a hasty retreat.
Like they had to bring in the Air Force to meet the Indian armed forces’ challenge, this time too, the PLA is reported to have “activated” their North China Sea fleet, but nothing happened; it turned out to be an empty threat.
Again there were border skirmishes in August 1969 in the Xinjiang sector of the Sino-Soviet border between the PLA and the Red Army.
It is a part of history now that the PLA could not take on the Red Army and the Chinese were forced to come to the conference table to resolve the issue through peaceful negotiations.
Capturing of paracle Island in 1974
After the end of the GPCR in 1969.70, it is still a debatable question, whether Chairman Mao eliminated all his adversaries or not, but radical changes came into the structure and hierarchy of the PLA. Apparently the aging Chairman Mao, in a swift move, ordered the PLA to go and capture the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. With the ongoing conflict in Indo-China al that time, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Vietnam. who also claimed part of these islands, did not offer any resistance to the PLA’s occupation of the islands.
Virtually without firing a shot, the PLA had a total success in this operation.
An assessment of these five PLA actions indicates that it had a total success in two operations and suffered defeat on three other occasions. The PLA success story is also due to the timing of the campaign like in the Paracel Islands. Whenever the PLA confronted an adversary without any element of surprise, or an adversary who challenged them, its performance was poor. This was obvious from the Korean war, and the Nathu La and Ussrui incidents. In fact, in the Nathu La and Ussuri incidents, the PLA did not offer even stiff resistance. From all accounts, it made a hasty retreat the instant the adversary offered stiff resistance or acted “decisively”.
All these five actions of the PLA also clearly indicate three things: (a) the late Chairman Mao, wanted to consolidate his country’s boundaries as quickly as possible, and in that exercise, advantage China should be the guiding principle; (b) also, he pressed the PLA into action, whenever his plans to accelerate the peace of economic developments failed; and (c) in all these wars/engagements, the PL4 was not as professional as it was made out to be.
Sino-Vietnam War of 1979
In the post-Mao period, after the initial years’ power struggle was over and Deng Xiaoping managed to place himself firmly in the saddle, he too looked to the PLA to resolve the outstanding claims of China on its borders. The first was, of course, the now famous February 1979 war with Vietnam. Deng wanted “to teach a lesson” to the Vietnamese. In that Sine-Vietnam war, the PLA was badly mauled and forced to retreat. The battlehardened Vietnamese with better strategy and motivation were able to take on the PLA and inflict heavy casualties. According to one strategic commentator, The only thing the Chinese are not interested to discuss is the Sino-Vietnam war of 1979.”
Deng realised that there was need to improve the technological superiority of the PLA. Consequently, the military modernisation segment of the Four Modernisations Programme (the other three being agriculture, industry, and science and technology) was acelerated. Accordingly, we notice greater allocations for defence in the Chinese budget since then.
Sumdorong Cho Valley incident of 1985
Six and half years later, Deng decided to flex China’s muscles again with India. In mid-1986, it came to the notice of India that the PLA had built a helipad at Wandung in Sumdorong Chu Valley in Arunachal Pradesh. India reacted swiftly and the PLA had an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the India Army in Sumdorong Chu Valley of Arunchal Pradesh in August 1986. After a week of tense moments both sides mutually agreed to withdraw their forces inside their respective territories and create a no man’s land. The Chinese posture at that time clearly indicated that Beijing quickly realised that 1962 cannot be repeated. Afterwards, we saw some writings in the PLA’s official organ, Liberation Army Daily, about the professionalism the Indian armed forces.
Sine-Vietnam Clashes in the South China Sea
Called the Truong Sa Archipelago by Vietnam, and the Nansha Islands by China, the Spratlys consist of about 150 reefs, sandbanks and islands in the South China Sea, 350 km from Vietnam’s coast and 1,000 km tram China. They straddle busy shipping lanes and are, therefore, strategically important. In addition, the preliminary geological surveys have shown that this area has vast deposits of crude oil and natural gas.
Both China and Vietnam claimed the Spratlys for centuries, but up to 1987 had been content with a war of words. However, from early 1967 onwards, the Chinese started putting markers on some of these islands, making it clear that they had asserted their sovereignty over them. Simultaneously, the PLA also started strengthening its presence and started conducting naval exercises in and around the Spratlys.
This brought a sharp reaction from Vietnam and in the subsequent protest notes exchanged, both sides accused each other of provocation, and claimed that the other side would bear the responsibility and consequences of its actions.
On March 14,1988, the PLA’s Navy clashed with the Vietnamese Navy for the first time. Though it was a very short confrontation, both sides suffered considerable casualties. But the tension continued up to the end of the month. In late March 1988, the war-weary Vietnam proposed bilateral talks with China to resolve the issue. As usual, the Chinese rejected the offer initially, but later agreed to the Vietnamese proposal.
However, fresh tensions erupted in May 1992, when the Chinese authorities leased an oil concession to an American Firm, Creston Energy, for oil exploration in and around the Spratlys, and Vietnam took strong objection to it.
From 1993 onwards, both China and Vietnam realised that they could not resolve the issue militarily and started negotiations.
Invincible PLA ?
Like Mao, Deng also tried to use the PLA to settle the border issues by use of force but had no success. With the Deng era coming to an end, what his successors would do can only be a matter of speculation. They may or may not continue this policy of using force to settle the “Middle Kingdwn’s” boundades.
But the lessons others can draw from the PLA’s past engagements is that the PLA’s conventional armed forces are not an invincible force as they are being made out to be by a section of the Indian strategic community. As far as China’s nuclear capabilities are concerned, the Chinese have given a solemn undertaking to the international community that they will not be the first to use nuclear weapons. And the doyen of India’s nuclear programme, Dr. Raja Ramanna, in October 1996, observed that the country has acquired the nuclear weapon manufacturing capability. In other words, we have the needed nuclear deterrent capability.
The other aspect of the PLA is its equipment. Right from the liberation of mainland China in October 1949, the Chinese strongly believed in self-reliance. At the height of the Sine-Soviet friendship, in the early 1950s, a considerable amount of Soviet technology was transferred to China. One can say that the Chinese arms industry was built on this in the subsequent years. The Soviet technology stopped coming from the mid-1950s onwards. With the embargo and containment policy of the West up to 1971, the Chinese arms industry, it is generally agreed upon by China watchers, remained, more or less, stagnant.
In other words, for about 16-17 years, China had no access to any rapidly changing conventional arms technology in the international arms market. In addition, how much the social engineering experiments of the late Chairman Mao affected the overall technological standards in the PLA and outside is a debatable question. Some Western scholars have observed that the PLA was insulated against the social upheavals created by the late Chairman Mao. Still, at least two generations of young people were affected by Chairman Mao’s experiments in the 1950s and 1960s. This must have automatically resulted in a low level of technological base in the Chinese society. It certainly affected the civil sector, We can see this by the low quality of Chinese consumer products. And, therefore, its impact on the arms industry cannot be ruled out.
Whatever may be the actual position, there has been a scramble for weapon related technology since 1971, from the international market by China - how much they are able to absorb is an open ended question and can be debated.
The performance of the equipment the Chinese are selling in the international market leaves much to be desired. For instance, some of the biggest recipients of Chinese arms like Pakistan, North Korea and Iran have bought this equipment as a last choice, when it was denied to them from others or they were cash starved. In fact, the Pakistani arms acquisition pattern over the years indicates that their first preference is arms from the West and the last choice is China. This is in spite of an indepth relationship with China, and the fact that Chinese equipment is cheap and available on easy credit.
In this part of the world, the Chinese equipment saw action in war in recent years only in the Iraq-Iran war of the 1990s. The Iranians used the Silkworm missiles from China quite successfully to confront Iraq, but in the later stages of the war only, when Iraqi ammunition was almost depleted.
Therefore, one need not be unduly alarmed at the technological level of the PLA’s weapon systems.
Myth of Economic Miracle
The other myth that is perpetuated by a group of China watchers is that Beijing is likely to become an economic superpower in the next two decades, that is, by about 2015 or so. And to support their argument, the World Bank report on China and the Economist (London) are liberally quoted. One is tempted to compare this Chinese miracle with the 1970s’ assessments of the West about China’s crude oil reserves, There used to be screaming headlines in the mid-1970s in the Western Press saying that China’s crude oil reserves are bigger than Saudi Arabia’s, We, at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis, were the first to question these assessments, and the late Mr. Mirchandani, then General Manager of the United News of India promptly carried it on his wire services, Within a few months, that bubble burst.
The Chinese economy witnessed some spectacular development (but not development in the broad sense of the term, that is economic, cultural, social, etc, which India is attempting) of 10-t 1 per cent growth in recent years. This has been achieved largely due to heavy doses of foreign investment. Here one should not forget the fact that the foreign investor will continue to make investments only if his profits are assured. One more factor needs to be borne in mind here, international capital has no nationality and concepts like nationalism and patriotism have no relevance to it. The overseas Chinese who made the bulk of investments in China may not continue to do so. Already reports are appearing in the international media that investors in China are not happy with their returns and are looking for greener pastures. This means that the flow of foreign investments into China is going to slow down in the years to come. And in the long run, the Chinese economy may have to settle down for a 5-6 per cent growth rate. Anything beyond that requires at least a couple of trillion dollars of investments in the next two to three decades, First, that type of capital is not available in the international capital market. The $80 billion foreign investment of the past decade created such regional and social imbalances in China that the Chinese authorities have been forced to take a fresh look at the process of liberalisation of the economy.
Therefore, in these circumstances, China becoming an economic superpower, say in the next 20 years, can at best be described as wishful thinking by members of a China admirers’ club. And, in fact, a couple of Chinese scholars with whom I interacted with in 1993 were surprised at these assessments. They said that like in any planned economy, they too fixed some target; and if they can achieve even 50 per cent of those targets, they would consider their planning process successful. This is understandable. In fact, any student of economics will be able to tell that a developing country with a population of one billion plus cannot sustain a 10-l 1 per cent growth rate for too long.
Indian Policy Options
It is in this backdrop that we must examine India’s policy options vis-a-vis China in the short and medium terms. To discuss long term perspectives at this stage is not feasible as there are so many imponderables.
At one level, the current phase of Sir-m-Indian relations started some time in the early 1980s by the late Indian Prime Minsister, Mrs Indira Gandhi, progressed satisfactorily, except for the 1985 aberration mentioned earlier. In fact, from 1987 onwards, efforts were on from both sides to ensure that 1995 is not repeated. Both sides took a number of confidence building measures, including high level political visits, armed forces to armed forces contacts, dialogue at various levels, etc. The Sine Indian joint working group has been meeting regularly. Even the bilateral trade which was at a low level, started picking up. In other words, both India and China have engaged themselves in a constructive dialogue which proved to be mutually beneficial.
Can we take this relationship forward? This is the question haunting many policy analysts. In this context, one needs to look into three broad ‘areas. Foremost among them is the border question. This issue has two dimensions. First, some-boundary specialists would argue that at the end of 1994, there were more than 100 disputed boundaries around the world. This is a vexed problem of the international community and there are no fixed ground rules for this. And these experts feel that after the 1958-59 India-China boundary talks, it became clear that this issue has no academic solution.
Second, India is not in a position to cede any territory to others except for a few kilometers this way or that. Therefore, to resolve the vexed boundary issue and establish cordial relations with India, China has to vacate the occupied territory.
In addition, both Jiang Zemin and Atal Behari Vajpayee are new to the centre of power in their respective countries.
Neither of them are charismatic personalities like Pandit Jawaharfal Nehru, Mrs. Indira Gandhi , Chairman Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. They have limited political clout in their respective countries. Therefore, to expect the governments of these two leaders to find a solution to the decades-old India-China boundary question is just not possible. Hence, status quo will continue and this may remain as one of the unresolved boundary questions, which will be carried into the 21st century.
Second is the economic cooperation between the two countries. Both China and India are developing countries, and each side enjoys some advantage over the other in trade. Incidentally, both are exporters of primary commodities and semi-manufactured goods. At the moment, in the international market, India enjoys a marginal advantage over China, because of its being a member of the World Trade Organisation.
Otherwise, both the economies are competing with each other in the international market. Therefore, the scope for a larger volume of India-China trade is rather slim. The existing volume of India-China trade at around $1 billion may at best grow into $4.5 billion by the turn of the century In percentage terms of foreign trade of India and China, this is less than one per cent of each country’s trade. I am not arguing against increasing trade between China and India. But as I mentioned earlier, the ground realities are different. Any expectation of faster growth of India-China trade is nothing but wishful thinking.
India-China joint ventures in third countries is once again a low feasibility proposition because of the reasons mentioned above.
Therefore, we can assume that in the immediate future, say in the next ten years, both sides should reconcile to the fact that the existing level of economic cooperation cannot be improved dramatically, and efforts to improve upon it may result in some changes, but marginally only. In fact, here one should also note that China is mixing politics with economics to a certain extent. For example, China would prefer the US to India in awarding a contract.
Lastly, the option to improve people-to-people level contacts between India and China. This, undoubtedly, is one area where more interaction can take place between the two countries. But, the spirit of Hindi-Chini Bhai Thai of the 1950s cannot stage a comeback for obvious reasons.
To conclude, for their own strategic interests, both China and India broke the impasse that had set into their relations from 1962 onwards, in the early l980s, and continued to do so even in the 1990s. The political leadership of both these nations have, over the last 15 years, evolved a mature relationship which is mutually beneficial. To take it beyond this level in the immediate future does not seem possible at this point of time. However, both nations would continue the existing level of relationship in future also in their own interest.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Nathula, the shortcut to China
Author : Rajshri Mehta |
True, the year may not be 2030. There is no Scotty, yet to beam me up. So, being a known traveler, I do not understand one thing. Why do they find it hard to believe when I tell them it took me just 5 minutes to physically enter Tibet-occupied China? Even Tintin could not do it.
See, now even you don't believe me!
Okkkaayy, (taking a deep exasperated breath), I will give you the proof. In fact, I will even you show how it can be done. Maybe, then India will be inspired to make me a mascot for Hindi-Chini sisterhood.
Well, my story starts as I completed my 53 months of summer in DNA and I realised that I hadn't had a proper vacation. Inspiration came in the form of an invitation from a maverick army officer. Knowing my penchant for mountain treks at height of more than 2,000 ft, he dangled a 'dream climb' of 14,200 ft if I came to Sikkim.
And one fine extremely cold December morning in Gangtok, I was all set. A multi-coloured muffler covering my ears. A colourful scarf tied around my neck. A huge jacket (combat olive green preferably —psst..robbed it from the army). Nike shoes (Woodlands don't work here). And lastly, an elegant bag for my cosmetics.
Having completed the above exercise, I excitedly jumped (actually, I had to bend) into my chariot (jeep) waiting to take me to my dream climb. The sky was painted with many hues of blue. Those coniferous trees high school geography taught me were now here.
And then 12,600 ft above sea level, I saw her — Kanchenjunga, the world's highest mountain at her best. Majestic in her demeanor, the ravishing beauty was trying to shoo away the clouds that had masked her.
And, suddenly or so it felt after a wonderful three hour journey, I had completed my dream climb. I had reached Nathula, the world's highest motorised roadway. Popularly known as whispering ears, Nathula Pass formed the gateway to Tibet before it went under Chinese control, being the shortest route to Tibetan capital Lhasa. Nathula was part of the famous silk route.
Let me halt here for a minute and share a beautiful experience I had with the Indian soldiers. With just 6kms to reach Nathula, my urban lifestyle finally undid all the high altitude strength I had garnered during my trekking experience. As I felt breathless and nauseous, we stopped at an army unit along the way. And within seconds, a swarm of soldiers were making arrangements to ease my discomfiture. One rushed to get the medic, another pulled out a chair for me to sit, another rushed in to get hot tea and biscuits. Does anyone have time to take care of some unknown in our heartless cities? For me though, everytime I think of it, I get a sense of gratitude. Thank You.
And then I walked through the gate that said "Nathula'', on the right side was a photography prohibited area, a few metres from there was the Indian Army post. Behind me was a building with the tricolor proudly fluttering which brought out the Indian in me.
I was standing in front of a building of red and golden pillars and a star. I walked close to it and hey! what am I seeing? There was a fence. Err, so that is C-H-I-N-A. That was China! Within minutes, a nattily dressed young Chinese soldier came close to the fence, smoking and clicking his camera nonstop. He had decided to get pictures of every single young lady on the Indian side.
Soon, he shed his initial indifference and started posing for photo with us tourists. Camaraderie was evident in the air in the way the Indian and Chinese soldiers interacted.
Then it happened. In the midst of all these photographs, I managed to sneak my hand to the other side of the fence. That was like entering Tibet occupied Chinese soil. And how much time it took me? 5 minutes. And the proof. The Indian army officer who captured me "entering'' into China on the camera.
Email: m_rajshri@dnaindia.net
Author : Rajshri Mehta |
True, the year may not be 2030. There is no Scotty, yet to beam me up. So, being a known traveler, I do not understand one thing. Why do they find it hard to believe when I tell them it took me just 5 minutes to physically enter Tibet-occupied China? Even Tintin could not do it.
See, now even you don't believe me!
Okkkaayy, (taking a deep exasperated breath), I will give you the proof. In fact, I will even you show how it can be done. Maybe, then India will be inspired to make me a mascot for Hindi-Chini sisterhood.
Well, my story starts as I completed my 53 months of summer in DNA and I realised that I hadn't had a proper vacation. Inspiration came in the form of an invitation from a maverick army officer. Knowing my penchant for mountain treks at height of more than 2,000 ft, he dangled a 'dream climb' of 14,200 ft if I came to Sikkim.
And one fine extremely cold December morning in Gangtok, I was all set. A multi-coloured muffler covering my ears. A colourful scarf tied around my neck. A huge jacket (combat olive green preferably —psst..robbed it from the army). Nike shoes (Woodlands don't work here). And lastly, an elegant bag for my cosmetics.
Having completed the above exercise, I excitedly jumped (actually, I had to bend) into my chariot (jeep) waiting to take me to my dream climb. The sky was painted with many hues of blue. Those coniferous trees high school geography taught me were now here.
And then 12,600 ft above sea level, I saw her — Kanchenjunga, the world's highest mountain at her best. Majestic in her demeanor, the ravishing beauty was trying to shoo away the clouds that had masked her.
And, suddenly or so it felt after a wonderful three hour journey, I had completed my dream climb. I had reached Nathula, the world's highest motorised roadway. Popularly known as whispering ears, Nathula Pass formed the gateway to Tibet before it went under Chinese control, being the shortest route to Tibetan capital Lhasa. Nathula was part of the famous silk route.
Let me halt here for a minute and share a beautiful experience I had with the Indian soldiers. With just 6kms to reach Nathula, my urban lifestyle finally undid all the high altitude strength I had garnered during my trekking experience. As I felt breathless and nauseous, we stopped at an army unit along the way. And within seconds, a swarm of soldiers were making arrangements to ease my discomfiture. One rushed to get the medic, another pulled out a chair for me to sit, another rushed in to get hot tea and biscuits. Does anyone have time to take care of some unknown in our heartless cities? For me though, everytime I think of it, I get a sense of gratitude. Thank You.
And then I walked through the gate that said "Nathula'', on the right side was a photography prohibited area, a few metres from there was the Indian Army post. Behind me was a building with the tricolor proudly fluttering which brought out the Indian in me.
I was standing in front of a building of red and golden pillars and a star. I walked close to it and hey! what am I seeing? There was a fence. Err, so that is C-H-I-N-A. That was China! Within minutes, a nattily dressed young Chinese soldier came close to the fence, smoking and clicking his camera nonstop. He had decided to get pictures of every single young lady on the Indian side.
Soon, he shed his initial indifference and started posing for photo with us tourists. Camaraderie was evident in the air in the way the Indian and Chinese soldiers interacted.
Then it happened. In the midst of all these photographs, I managed to sneak my hand to the other side of the fence. That was like entering Tibet occupied Chinese soil. And how much time it took me? 5 minutes. And the proof. The Indian army officer who captured me "entering'' into China on the camera.
Email: m_rajshri@dnaindia.net
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
