China’s mind games over PM’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh are not new. Moreover, that is only part of the story. A feint to facilitate advance in the real theatre of action — the Western sector of the boundary, where China seeks to legitimise retention of territory acquired through use of force — it calls for a strategic level response

China has once again made a show of projecting “strong” reaction to PM’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh in a professed bid to underline its preposterous claim to the area (termed “Southern Tibet” in the make-believe world of China’s dreamland). Not content with standard remarks relayed through its official spokesperson, as in the past, it thought it fit to raise the level and convey a (thinly veiled) warning to India not to complicate the boundary issue, standing matters on their head since anyone can see that the complication comes from China and not India.

Chinese motive

 The PM’s presence in Arunachal Pradesh was not a step that made, or was going to make, any material difference to the situation on the ground as far as title to territory was concerned — such as policy or legislation, etc, with implications for its legal status. And, as far as visible signs of (Indian) sovereignty (over the Arunachal Pradesh area), there are plenty at any given time all along — from the standing presence of a Governor appointed by New Delhi to stationing of the Army and other defence and civilian Central Government agencies and several others. China has not objected to these.

China already makes its point by refusing to issue visas to residents of Arunachal Pradesh. So there was no reason, really, for China to get jumpy about the PM’s visit now.

Nor could it be a reaction to the recent India-US bonhomie extending to a shared vision of the Asia-Pacific affirming common interest in peace and stability in the region — as some observers, too quick to read other’s minds in the light of their own fears and defensiveness, have averred. They forget that the script of the Chinese demarches was not a lot different from that in 2008, when PM Manmohan Singh had visited Arunachal (if allowance is made for some circumstantial and contextual differences that are always there). 

The motive underlying Chinese theatrics on Arunachal was not anything on either of those counts. Rather, it has to do with Chinese calculus of negotiations — w.r.t. the ongoing talks between the two countries on the “boundary question”.

The calculation that such a reminder of its claim would serve to concentrate Indian minds on the “huge problem of 93,000 sqkms of territory” in the Eastern sector of the boundary and thereby make them more amenable to being accommodative on other aspects of the border, the Western (Aksai Chin) boundary above all, which is China’s real interest and concern. A feint really to facilitate advance in the real theatre of action --- the Western sector, where the Chinese problem is how to legitimise retention of territory acquired forcibly.

To comprehend China’s use of this “feint to the East, while attacking the West” stratagem, it is necessary to review border related issues.

Border issue: Basics

The India-China border divides itself, naturally, into three sectors — Western (ladakh and the rest of J&K), Middle (Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh) and Eastern (Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, and Bhutan linked to it).

In the Eastern (and Middle) sectors, India is in control of all territory, almost, that it considers to be part of the country, i.e. its physical presence extends up to the very edge of what it regards to be its borders based on both historical evidence documented in detail (McMahon line essentially but also other records) and geography (Himalayan watershed or other well defined natural features), by and large. That is not the case in the Western sector, not at all.

China, of course, refuses to accept the McMahon line as the border (claiming territory beyond it, loosely termed as “Southern Tibet) on the plea that the McMahon line was a colonial imposition. But its objection is not to the McMahon line per se. Rather it is to the Simla Conference of 1914 (between representatives of China, Tibet and Britain at which the McMahon line was drawn up) due to the potentially uncomfortable questions (about its fragile authority over, and consequent uneasy equation with, Tibet historically) that any invocation of the Simla Conference raises because of the poor political position and profile of China at that tripartite gathering.

It has, notably, accepted that very same line as its border with Myanmar.  On the other hand, China’s own claim (to Southern Tibet — 93,000 sqkms. of territory) is weak, without any reliable historical or geographical basis. It was perhaps in recognition of this fact — of the utter untenability of the Chinese claim — that China withdrew to the same McMahon line, more or less, in November 1962 after running over present day Arunachal Pradesh during the conflict. Else why would it have retreated after capturing territory it claimed to be its own, south of the McMahon lineIJ

China’s claim to Arunachal Pradesh is a purely political claim — a bargaining ploy advanced as a “negotiating reserve”, to secure concessions in the Western sector (which is what matters to it on the ground, as below).

On the other side, on the Western boundary in Aksai Chin, the ground reality is that China constructed a road right across the Aksai Chin plateau early in the day, in the fifties, without India getting wind of it (as it was not present anywhere near where it believed its borders to be). By the time India wised up to the Chinese presence on the ground, it was a fait accompli too late to remedy. Subsequent years witnessed a creeping advance over that primordial unchallenged aggression and that is roughly where things are even today, with no shared understanding between the armies of the two countries as to where which side was when, or is even today. (Hence the impossibility of preventing recurrence of Chumar-like incidents.)

In the Middle sector, there is no major dispute, barring a few small pockets.

Conventional wisdom

The road in question that China built across Aksai Chin in the fifties is (said to be) a key link to its frontier province of Xinjiang. There being no other access to Xinjiang at that time, this road was (and is) claimed or believed to be of immense strategic value to China, and hence the area through which it runs — part of the Aksai Chin plateau —to be something it will not part with, ever. Or so India is advised by all and sundry.

Accordingly, prescriptions for India and China to solve the border issue through a conversion of the de facto border, as in occupation of each side at present, into a de jure one on paper through demarcation of the boundary on that basis, abound. Many in India also favour such a course of action, without much thought, regrettably, either to the larger (regional and global) macro-picture or the devil in the details at the micro level.

Such prescriptions are simplistic, overlooking as they do several related aspects and issues that would also need to be addressed, and resolved, alongside, if not before — the Shaksgam valley area illegally taken over by China from Pakistan, which has never been discussed between China and India, and China’s Karakoram highway and other projects and presence in POK (both of which it engages in with impunity, while advising India to stay clear of drilling in disputed waters in the South China Sea off the Vietnamese coast); the creation of conditions conducive for the return of the Dalai lama and the Tibetan community in India to an “autonomous Tibet” and Chinese dabbling and meddling in Buddhist affairs in the Himalayan Buddhist belt without as much as “by your leave”; not to mention the confidence shattering thrust of the Sino-Pak nexus and the utter incongruity of China’s activities in Nepal, Maldives, Myanmar and Sri lanka with the “strategic partnership” paradigm of India-China relations.

Conclusion

The Chinese demarches regarding their claim to Arunachal Pradesh have to be understood as a negotiating tactic to advance their goal of getting India to formally accept (as distinct from acquiescing in) their occupation of a large part of Aksai Chin. They need not be reacted to unduly, in a tit for tat manner.

At the same time, a sophisticated response, in order that it be distinguishable from a non-response, must include at its back end precise formulation of a clear cut integrated strategic vision of the solution to the “boundary question” that India would regard as fair. That desideratum must then be pursued during PM’s forthcoming visit to China in May. It is time to raise the level of the border talks to that of the two principals in order to settle the boundary, once and for all. The “Special Representatives” mechanism cannot be taken seriously any longer, having been hijacked by the Chinese to spin a yarn around the border issue and keep India off balance, as argued earlier.

The preferred Indian solution must be conceptualised around the notion of “strategic frontiers”. This would require that it covers within its ambit the several other complicating issues alluded to above, that need resolution from the Indian standpoint. And not just the hackneyed verities of the Eastern or Western sector boundaries that the Chinese would be glad to see Indian attention confined to.

Indian strategists need to think beyond pat formulations of yesteryears — of a “package deal”, “East-West swap”, etc. And brace up to the challenge of getting China to address specifics of concern to India in earnest now, a decade after the “strategic partnership” honorific was conferred on that nation. (A decision that was not astute, having been taken in advance of any amelioration, some political posturing aside, in that country’s approach of shortchanging Indian strategic aspirations and boxing them within Southern Asia.)

How, in answer to the retort “easier said than done” that conventional wisdom is bound to throw at all such suggestions, is a big question that requires a separate cogitation. Suffice it to mention here that India must be prepared to review the “strategic partnership” decision of 2005, totally incongruous with ground-level realities as it is, and call it off if its pleas for concrete action to alleviate and remove those realities at the ground level that have resulted in a gap with the imperatives of that “grand strategy” framework, the trust deficit above all, are not heeded. With a hardened stomach for effecting the radical rejig in India’s overall external orientation and relations that such a major shift would entail.   

The time to act is now, in the course of preparations for the PM’s visit, before the contours of the visit outcomes are cast in drafts of final documents. The latter acquire a life of their own in the methodology of the diplomatic bureaucracies, and become next to impossible to outgrow later, closer to the time of the actual high-level interaction, constraining it, invariably, to run along scripted lines.

Though that danger is much reduced nowadays, with the rise of transformational leaders with strong personalities prone to posing “creatively destructive” queries and a “hands-on” style of functioning in China and both its peer countries to its East and West, it bears mention. A Chinese academic recently described President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Modi, most notably, as “political entrepreneurs”. It shows that there is acknowledgment in the Chinese discourse of the possibility of individual leaders stepping outside the briefs of their establishments and breaking new ground.

The opening Indian gambit during External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s recent visit to China, therefore, may not be in vain. Not at all. Indian diplomacy would presumably be exerting itself to the utmost to build on that excellent initiative, unafraid to stay the course in the face of heat that will inevitably be generated by positing any paradigm piercing perception or idea to the stolid

Chinese mandarinate. Signals received through diplomatic channels in particular, for they tend, not surprisingly, to be directed at dousing any possible spark capable of igniting “out of the box” thinking. 

High decibel and high profile “noise” have long been used as a tactic in China to browbeat and intimidate the adversary, even before the placement of a fully controlled propaganda media at the command of the State. Mature statecraft in India must strive to be not deflected from its carefully thought out, and reasonable, course by such brouhaha. It’s Sun Tzu versus Kautilya.

(The writer is former Ambassador with a background on China and strategic affairs, currently with the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru. His perspective on India-China Relations can be seen in more detail in his writings at

http://www.nias.res.in/aboutnias-people-faculty-ambassadorsaurabhkumar.php)