A bettering of the terms of engagement with China is overdue. The present is a pivotal moment in India-China relations. India is well placed to pursue a paradigmatic shift in its politico-strategic ties with China, away from an airy-fairy ‘strategic partnership’ towards one in which the watchword is down to earth ‘beneficial bilateralism’
There is a compelling case for conceptualising a course correction in India-China relations. A careful correction to bring them out of the groove they have gotten into over the years — of much talk and little action — and made to deliver, tangibly, on basics, above all. That perspective was spelt out in a curtain raiser for the September 2014 visit of the Chinese President to India, and might merit attention in the context of PM’s forthcoming visit to China. (http://www.nias.res.in/docs/India-China-An-Introspection1.pdf).
Stalemate on the boundary issue China’s “calculated prevarication” on the question of settlement of the boundary was one of the two main reasons that review recommended pressing of the “reset” button by India. The Chinese stance is evident, in the first place, from their very terminology —“border”, rather than “boundary”, issue to assert, unsaid, that it was not merely a question of a difference in the alignment of the undemarcated boundary between the two countries but a territorial issue involving large chunks of territory (on the strength of politically motivated and patently untenable claims, without a credible historical basis).
Not surprisingly, China was insistent, right from the start in 1976 when the two countries decided to resume Ambassadorial level ties, on “normalisation” of relations (in all other spheres) being pursued without waiting for a settlement on the boundary or letting the border become an obstacle to improved relations. The Indian position was just the opposite — during his historic, “patch-up”, visit in 1979, the then Foreign Minister, Vajpayee, had wittily quipped Kabir to counter the late Deng Xiaoping’s suggestion that the border be left for succeeding generations to settle, after blandly repeating the 1960 offer of late Premier Zhou Enlai to Pt Nehru (which, he would have known, we can be sure, no Indian leader could have accepted) to him.
India gave in to the Chinese on this issue in toto during the 1988 visit of late PM Rajiv Gandhi, in good faith and possibly in lieu of an oral assurance of an early, and satisfactory, border settlement. (The Chinese were, not surprisingly, extremely pleased with the outcomes of that visit, and always refer to it in highly laudatory terms.)
But the Joint Working Group set up during the visit to discuss the boundary issue was unable to make any headway and was replaced by the mechanism of “Special (political) Representatives” (of the principal political leaders of both sides) in 2003, during the visit of PM Vajpayee, in recognition of the fact that such a sensitive matter could only be resolved through high political level intervention.
Though a breakthrough of sorts was assumed to have been achieved in 2005 with an “Agreement on the Political Parameters & Guiding Principles for Settlement of the Boundary Question”, raising expectations of an imminent deal, these hopes were dashed by China’s backtracking the very next year — its Ambassador’s public (re)assertion of claim to the whole of Arunachal Pradesh on the eve of his President’s visit and other not so subtle confirmatory indicators subsequently.
Meetings between the SRs continued since but without any advance. The talks stand stalemated, essentially; careful Chinese attempts to put a gloss on them in media projections (to keep naïve Indian hopes alive) notwithstanding. The larger game in China’s “calculated prevarication” is clearly one of using the issue as a pressure point to keep India off balance and in check.
For too long has the boundary question been tiptoed around as a fearsome obstacle, best left unaddressed, for some indeterminate future. The SR mechanism heralded in 2003 with much fanfare having stalemated, it is time for the principals to take the matter in their hands and negotiate a final solution based on “strategic frontiers”, not legalistic ones, once and for all. That is eminently feasible, as is well known to students of China and India, provided there is political will — and genuine goodwill, as professed publicly ad nauseum — on both sides. (http://www.nias.res.in/docs/SM-6.pdf)
Sino-Pak nexus
The second major reason for the September study recommending a “reset” was the “confidence deficit” created by an anything but benign Sino-Pak nexus —which has continued, unperturbed by Indian concerns and sensitivities, even after China was accorded “strategic partner” status by India in 2005, ahead of Japan.
It argued that China needed to be held to account, to seek behavior consistent with its professions of friendship (on the strength of which it has secured several political concessions from India). And made to understand that the country cannot hope to buy India’s friendship cheap. The value of the latter for China may be widely under-estimated in India, but not so in that country itself.
Other factors
Among other factors contributing to the “reset” recommendation was the Chinese proclivity to lock interlocutors in vague verbiage, long on rhetoric and short on specifics, to its advantage. India had fallen prey in recent years, quite inexplicably, to the Chinese design (which well served their objective of blurring natural fault lines on the international strategic firmament and warding off potentially uncomfortable convergences) but no Indian interest.
The review was also critical of the puzzling tendency of the Indian side to make one-sided concessions, basing itself on hope, as it were, rather than on hard headed calculation and reciprocity — two basic tenets of diplomacy. That could be traced, it felt, to a defensive mind-set born out of the chastening experience of the pre-1962 period, and to an exaggerated, misreading of the contemporary bilateral power equation and of the politico-diplomatic weight of China.
In the light of the above, the review paper concluded that a “business-as-usual” mode of interaction with China (with frequent exchange of visits for their own sake, unrelated to advance on substantive issues of concern, as is the case in the official paradigm) was untenable and inappropriate. It called for lessons being learnt from key strategic misjudgements and, implicitly, for a “turnaround strategy” for addressing these anomalies and (perceptual) asymmetries.
External environment
Much water has flown down the rivers of the world in the short period since that September 2014 study. There has been a never before kind of whirlwind of high-level strategic diplomacy in the region and beyond, much of it at Indian instance and initiative. The general thrust of the currents set in motion as a result is not unfavourable to India — not at all, in fact, to put it mildly. These would appear to strengthen the case for a bold approach to India-China relations, i.e. one predicated on external conditions being conducive for a radical change of course.
Be that as it may, the argument for a resetting of the India-China relationship rests on bilateral hinges — of a leveling of the playing field — not on any kind of “tie-ups” with third countries. The latter are secondary, and fortuitous, “fine as long as they last”. A sapient disposition is one in which domestic, and not external, conditions and considerations are the driver and determinant of the nation’s strategic policy and orientation.
That task — of parsing the changing equations among powers in the region inhabited and influenced by the two countries and identifying possibilities of policy initiatives stemming from their inter-play — is better undertaken by the nation’s diplomatic machine functioning in a closed door setting. The latter is mandated to sniff around for room for maneuver for the nation’s diplomacy and can be trusted to do so watchfully, without crowing about it the way the digital media is prone to do. It is not a task for the public arena.
Chinese President’s visit
The outcome(s) of the Chinese President’s visit to India in September last would have been evaluated, internally within Government, in some such strategic perspective presumably before fielding the External Affairs Minister. Prime Minister Modi had made a categorical mention of the need for an early settlement of the boundary question in his talks with President Xi, aghast at the ‘incident’ the Chinese side staged in ladakh even as he was being feted as an honoured guest, and also of the need for the ‘trust deficit’ between the two countries to be overcome before ambitious trans-national connectivity so dear to President Xi could be contemplated.
It is hoped that the response(s) received to these demarches would have been factored in before deciding on an early return visit by the Indian PM. If not (and the dates of the visit have got fixed on mundane considerations — of convenience, of either side, or of protocol mechanistically — without much regard for the attention accorded by the Chinese side to the Indian concerns conveyed at the highest level, as happens sometimes in diplomacy due to sheer momentum), the decision would not qualify to be a sound one, to put it no stronger than that. For it would make no sense for the Prime Minister of India to present himself, in the opinion of this columnist, if the indications from China are of a “business-as-usual” mood of a “symbolism sans substance” kind of visit, soft-pedalling on specifics and sticking to set formulations expressing readiness to address those problems, and reiterating goodwill, in general terms only.
India should, in that case, be prepared to review the decision closer to the date of the visit if the situation continues to remain so unalleviated, i.e. if no substantive and satisfactory response(s) on those demarches are received from China, by then. For a PM-level visit for its own sake, as an end in itself in other words, would not be warranted. (http://www.nias.res.in/docs/SM_8.pdf).
Resetting of ties
India’s decision for a return Prime Ministerial visit to China in less than a year is not a minor “give” in diplomatic terms. (Otherwise, the Chinese would not have insisted on it and, more importantly, on inclusion of a commitment to maintain frequent exchange of high level visits in successive joint statements. It is only the lack of a tradition and temperament for hard bargaining at the Indian end that fails to recognise it so. And throws away the attendant leverage in the process under one rationalisation or another.)
The PM’s return visit is therefore an appropriate take off point for a fundamental review of the state of play in the relationship, well understood in all quarters in the country to be quite unlike any other. Many aspects of foreign policy call for a fresh start but none perhaps as acutely as India-China relations. And there is none, likewise, where a new beginning is as practicable, though this may seem like blasphemy to some veteran China hands steeped in the current framework. That orthodoxy needs to be revisited.
There is no good reason to assume die-hard Chinese resistance to (India’s expectation of) a more balanced relationship, better mindful of Indian concerns and sensitivities than hitherto and raise/succumb to the bogey of disruption of relations pre-emptively. Realists that the Chinese are, they have only to be convinced of India’s determination not to allow the relationship to remain stuck in the previously set pattern loaded against it henceforth, come what may.
Nevertheless, there can be no underestimating the challenge of getting China to bite. Indian diplomacy would need to brace itself up for the task — with full backing from the political leadership, obviously — and go all out, whatever it takes, to realise the vision of a radical change of course for bettering the terms of engagement with China.
The goal it could set for itself in the near term is to get the Chinese to “walk the talk” in the “strategic partnership” trope and make “overcoming the distrust divide” the driver of the relationship. They must (be made to) mitigate mistrust by delivering ‘tangibles’ on the boundary (bilaterally) and bordering areas (regionally on India’s West, above all) fronts. Business and commercial aspects can take care of themselves, for they are never one-sided — the Chinese need (markets) is no less than the Indian one (investments), only less known.
Conclusion
The present is a pivotal moment in India-China relations, thanks to disruptive “newthink” underlying the strategic initiatives taken by Prime Minister Modi. India is well placed to pursue a paradigmatic shift in its politico-strategic ties with China, away from a vacuous “strategic partnership” towards one in which the watchword would be “beneficial bilateralism”. And to not hesitate to gently signal to that country that the relationship could change to quite the opposite of a strategic partnership if it cannot respond adequately to the (eminently reasonable) concerns underlined to it at the highest level. With all that such a shift would entail on the external front, regionally and globally, for India’s strategic orientation and Indian foreign policy.
And, needless to say, itself be prepared, at the same time, for whatever it takes to stay the course (including some heat naturally) in the event of major realignments becoming necessary — without over-estimating its diplomatic standing and potential internationally but without under-estimating them either.
It must not falter, moreover, in clinching gains in the last mile, so to say, in the run up to the May finale. A few words of caution might be in order in that context. Instead of seeking clarification of the lAC, it is time now to go in for the jugular — a final settlement on the basis of “strategic frontiers” defined through political give and take. Here, it is necessary to be mindful of the huge “give” by India inherent in the basic approach of taking the status quo as the starting/reference point and, accordingly, be prepared to bargain hard for a reversion to the pre-1959 position to reverse the gains made by China through creeping advances subsequent to its announcement of the completion of the Aksai Chin-Xinjiang road in 1957.
Formidable interlocutors the Chinese are, in short, who have possibly gotten used to being treated with deference a trifle in advance of objective realities and are therefore likely to pose quite a challenge to the Indian side anxious to begin on a clean slate, without any baggage from the past befogging its vision and therefore unafraid to press for its due.
(This article, originally published on February 7, 2015, is being reproduced in a slightly edited version because of its pertinence in the build up to PM’s forthcoming visit to China next month. The author is a former senior diplomat with a background in Chinese and strategic affairs. He is currently with the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru. His views on China can be seen in more detail at http://www.nias.res.in/aboutnias-people-faculty-ambassadorsaurabhkumar.php)