General Awareness Updates – November 2009

Miscellaneous-2

Cracks in the Faultline

In the last few weeks, relations between India and China have hit a new low. The two neighbours have engaged in a war of words over the contentious boundary dispute that has defined the bilateral relationship since the 1950s.

In recent months, China has opposed the visits of President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, and Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims as its own. In fact, China has always painted the Dalai Lama as anti-national and has on occasions, referred to him as a terrorist.

Also, China has consistently refused to issue visas to officials from Arunachal Pradesh. The last several months have also seen an increase in the number of incursions by Chinese troops into areas that lie on what India considers its side of the Line of Actual Control.

On a recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh, Dr. Singh described the state as “[Our] Land of the Rising Sun”. The Prime Minister mostly visited army installations in the state and took stock of military preparedness and also announced packages for the army serving in the state.

The Chinese brazenly protested and asked the Government of India to desist from making such visits (to disputed territories) and voicing such statements. The Government of India, which didn’t take kindly to the Chinese government’s remarks, reiterated that the Prime Minister of India is free to visit any part of his country.

Before we go into the background of the boundary dispute between the two Asian giants, let us first look at their great rivalry that now spans continents and oceans.

Rivalry

The story of China, past and present, evokes strong passions. Throughout the ancient and the medieval periods, the wealth of the Middle Kingdom was the subject of curiosity and envy, especially among the Europeans. The age of colonialism saw European powers cut the ‘Chinese watermelon’ into spheres of influence.

In modern times, the Middle Kingdom, putting back centuries of humiliation and subjugation, has emerged as one of the biggest powers in the global military, political, and economic order.

Another country that almost matches this description is India. Today, the two Asian giants have become the cynosure of the world’s eyes: China and India are not only home to the largest and second largest populations respectively but also have the fastest and second fastest growing large economies respectively.

Today both India and China have emerged as rivals in the global geo-strategic, political, economic, and military space. The two countries have made no secret of their ambitions to become major global powers. In the race to grab raw materials and energy resources to fire their fast-growing economies, the two countries fiercely vie with each other in different parts of the world.

Regarding the competitive nature of the relationship between India and China, an observer said: “Both India and China are engaged in competitive regionalism and they face each other on many platforms. Although India has thwarted Chinese pressure and gained a confident foothold in ASEAN, there is an atmosphere of apprehension elsewhere. While India has been provided an ‘observer status’ in the SCO with China’s help, allowing China a similar status in SAARC may undermine the sub-regional balance of power. Interestingly, India’s Mekong Ganga Project excludes China, while China’s own Greater Mekong Project does the same to India. In addition, wherever India looks for new partners in search for its ‘energy security’, Chinese companies step in with promises of lucrative investments and often walk away with the contracts.”

For decades now, India and China have shared a frosty relationship, the most important reason for which is the dispute over the boundary that divides the two countries. To understand the contentious boundary dispute between India and China, the reader should appreciate the relationship’s past, one that still haunts India’s policy-makers.

Birth of the faultline

The origin of the boundary dispute between India and China lies in the British Empire’s response to the colonial aspirations of the Russians. In the 19^th century, the British were wary of the expansionist designs of Russia, its rival in the race for colonial aspirations in Asia. To counter the Russian threat, the British sought to establish a forward defensive line in the northern region.

The 1846 Treaty of Amritsar, by which the British gave Kashmir to the Dogras of Jammu, provided the British with the opportunity to fix the security on Kashmir’s northern and eastern borders with Xinjiang and Tibet. (Tibet, though nominally subject to Chinese suzerainty, was an autonomous theocracy. From this it is clear that Tibet was never considered an independent country.) The entire British exercise was aimed at shoring up Chinese control over Tibet and preventing Tsarist expansion. However, the British failed to ecognized on the chance.

In 1913, the British mooted a tripartite conference between Tibet, China, and Britain, in Shimla. While the Tibetans, who were at loggerheads with their Chinese suzerains, were keen on the outcome, the Chinese did not seem so. The British delegation was led by Sir Henry McMohan, foreign secretary to the Government of India.

According to an agreement reached at the convention, Tibet was to be divided into three zones. China’s suzerainty over Tibet was ecognized; however, China agreed not to convert Tibet into one of its provinces. The boundary that followed this convention is the McMohan Line. This boundary now extended British India up to the edge of the Tibetan Plateau.

Today China is India’s biggest trade partner, reflecting the need to make business the primary idiom and pivot of rapidly expanding ties. The Chinese, however, repudiated the Shimla Convention on the grounds that it could not accept the proposed Sino-Tibet boundaries. Now another agreement was reached on the frontier between British India and Tibet from Bhutan eastwards. Today, only this boundary is known as the McMohan Line. However, it was only in 1937 that the McMohan Line was shown as the official boundary.

The Chinese attitude to the Shimla Convention could be summed up in the words of Zhou En-Lai, premier of China, who in 1958 said: “The McMohan Line was wholly illegal. The Tibet-Assam border was drawn up in secret agreement between the British and the Tibetan representatives and far from being on the agenda of the Shimla Convention was entirely unknown to the Chinese delegate. Further, China never signed the Shimla Convention.”w

Cartographic Aggression

In 1949, the Communists came to power in China. All through the 1950s, the Chinese professed friendship with India. When Jawaharlal Nehru visited Peking in 1954 (the Panchsheel was signed in the same year; See box in Page No.16, What is the Panchsheel?), he protested at the errors in the demarcation of boundaries in the Chinese maps. But the Chinese brushed aside his protest claiming that the errors were just an oversight on the part of the cartographer.

Outwardly, the Chinese continued their “cartographic aggression”. In 1958, China’s official maps included four divisions of the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), Ladakh, and parts of Uttar Pradesh (now in Uttarakhand) as part of its territory.

The same year, China announced the completion of a 750-mile road in western China of which a 112-mile stretch lay in Aksai Chin. India saw Aksai Chin as part of Jammu & Kashmir, and therefore, part of India. But it was only when China made this announcement that India learnt of the road and the annexation it seemed to represent. The Chinese had managed to work for several months on Indian Territory without India’s knowledge. In addition to this, policy-makers in India were troubled by regular incursions by the Chinese army, which became pronounced towards the end of the decade.

India’s Hour of Humiliation

On October 20, 1962, China launched a swift and massive invasion across the McMohan Line into India’s north-east. The Indian Army, ill-prepared, poorly equipped, and short-staffed, was routed. In a nutshell, India faced its hour of humiliation.

After descending with ease into the foothills of Assam and inflicting a humiliating defeat, China declared a ceasefire on November 21, 1962. At the time of ceasefire, the Chinese were 20 km across the McMohan Line as well as the Ladakh Line. This left 14,500 sq km of Indian Territory in China’s hands. In the 1962 war, China occupied large swathes of territory, including Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. The dispute was most critical with regard to Tawang and Longju. China argued that Tibet had previously exercised authority over these areas and that such authority should be transferred to China.

Nehru saw China’s attack as a betrayal, for when Mao’s Communists came to power (1949), he had personally campaigned for China’s international acceptance as well as for its right to a seat at the United Nations Organisation (UNO).

So betrayed was Nehru by Mao’s war that he had this to say on the day the Chinese invaded: “Perhaps there are not many instances in history where one country has gone out of her way to be friendly and cooperative with the government and people of another country and to plead their cause in the councils of the world, and then that country returns evil for good.” Nehru believed that as Asians with no history of territorial conquest, but a similar history of injury and exploitation at the hands of the European imperial powers, India and China could together work for international peace and a stable world order. But as history records, his faith, though touching, was misplaced.

In the 1962 War, China occupied 38,000 square kilometers of land in the remote Aksai Chin plateau (Western Sector). India also says Beijing is illegally holding 5,180 square kilometers of land in Kashmir ceded to it by Pakistan in 1963. In the Eastern Sector, China claims about 90,000 sq. km. of Indian territory. Of all the three sectors, the Central Sector (comprising parts in Uttarakhand) is not as contentious as the other two.

Thaw in the Frigid Relationship

For almost two decades after 1962, India and China remained indifferent to each other. The process of normalisation of relations between the two countries started with the visit of Rajiv Gandhi to China in 1988. Since then, every visit by the top leadership of the two countries has resulted in the setting up of new milestones in India-China relations and helped in what is aptly called Graduated Reciprocation in Tension Reduction (GRIT). Also, in the past few years, relations have warmed up considerably with greater cooperation in politics, economy, and culture.

In 2003, A. B. Vajpayee’s China visit ushered in greater play between the two sides. During Mr. Vajpayee’s visit, ten agreements and a ‘Declaration on Principles for Relations and Comprehensive Co-operation between India and China’ were signed. Through the latter, India recognised the Tibet Autonomous Region as a territorial part of China. In a quid pro quo, China recognised Sikkim as an integral part of India, thus closing another major contentious chapter.

During Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s visit in 2005, a ‘Strategic and Cooperative Partnership’ between the two nations was signed. The agreement on political parameters and guiding principles on the India-China boundary question, signed during Mr. Jiabao’s visit, laid down the parameters and principles for future discussions to explore the political settlement of the boundary question (See Box - The Ten Guiding Principles for Settlement of the Boundary Dispute between India and China). The guiding principles for delineating the border are based on “mutual understanding, mutual adjustments” of the two sides. The same, when applied on the ground, could enable India to make the needed concessions in Aksai Chin through which the important Xinjiang-Tibet road runs.

At the same time, it could also enable China to concede Indian control over Arunachal Pradesh, particularly the Tawang Tract, which has been administered by India for over half a century. This would, to use a Chinese diplomat’s words, lead to a “fair and reasonable solution acceptable to both countries on the basis of mutual respect and equality”.

India has consistently maintained that populated areas cannot be traded while settling the boundary dispute with Beijing. The idea implicit in the statement is that Tawang as a populated area cannot be exchanged for land in Aksai Chin or other area of the border.

Political Will

In recent months, the Government of India has taken some significant measures towards building a strong defence in the Arunachal sector in the wake of recent reports of improved Chinese infrastructure close to the borders of the state and faster Chinese troop deployment capabilities.

Probably the single most important move made by the Government of India has been the appointment of the retired Indian Army Chief General J. J. Singh as the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh in February 2007, an indication that the Government of India does not want to take matters lightly in the border state. (In all NE states the Governor’s House is an alternate centre of power.)

India and China have had 11 rounds of negotiations to settle the boundary dispute. What the two countries need is a refreshing break from the past, when the two sides argued on the basis of historical precedent and legal claims. Today, both the sides need to acknowledge that there has to be “give and take” in resolving the intractable boundary dispute.

Says M. K. Narayanan, India’s National Security Advisor: “The challenge for our national leadership is to harmonise reality with sentiment, pragmatism with unhistorical belief and national aspirations with imperialistic legacies. To be able to do this we first need to extricate such sensitive and critical issues from the ambit of partisan politics. The responsibility for this lies with the government of the day, which alone can orchestrate such an exercise. By doing this, we can once again bring into alignment our political objectives, with military means and reality. We can then negotiate from a position of strength and give ourselves secure, defensible and natural boundaries in the north at least. And who knows, this may even lead to lasting good relations between the two great countries.”

Let us hope that the NSA’s words come true. Amen.

The Ten Guiding Principles for Settlement of the Boundary Dispute between India and China^*

1 The two sides will resolve the issue through friendly consultations. Neither side shall use force against the other.

2 The two sides should, in accordance with the Panchsheel, seek a fair solution through consultations.

3 Both sides should make mutually acceptable adjustments to their respective positions to arrive at a final solution, covering all sectors of the boundary.

4 The two sides will give due consideration to each other’s strategic and reasonable interests.

5 They will take into account historical evidence, practical difficulties and reasonable concerns of both sides, and the state of border areas.

6 The boundary should be along well-defined and easily identifiable natural geographical features to be mutually agreed upon between the two sides.

7 In reaching a boundary settlement, the two sides shall safeguard interests of their “settled” populations in the border areas.

8 Within the agreed framework of the final settlement, the delineation of the boundary will be carried out utilising modern cartographic and surveying practices.

9 Pending a settlement of the boundary question, the two sides should strictly respect the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and work together to maintain peace   and   tranquility in the border areas.

10 The Special Representatives on the boundary question shall continue their consultations in an earnest manner with the objective of arriving at an agreed framework for a settlement.

* agreed upon during Wen Jiabao’s India visit in April 2005