Chinese defence minister General Liang Guanglie visited India from September 2-7, 2012 at a rather short notice of a month. His delegation included Yang Jinshan, commander of the Tibet military district bordering India, where instability is reported to have increased during the change of Chinese leadership. Fifty-one Tibetans immolated themselves in protests against Beijing’s suppressive rule in the region.
While this visit coincides with Beijing grappling with a change of leadership and unprecedented diplomatic turbulence with countries in the South China Sea region, it also follows a diplomatic low with India over some issues despite trade touching an annual $75.5 billion from $3 billion a decade ago. But the trade is considered much in China’s favour.
One purpose of Gen. Guanglie’s tour, without doubt, was reviving military exercises, put on halt by India after China’s stapled/refused visas.
This visit also came a month short of completion of 50 years since the Chinese aggression in October 1962, two years after India gave asylum to the Dalai Lama, which is considered by Beijing as not only an unpardonable separatist but also a veritable red rag to a bull. Much water has flowed down the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra river in Northeast India and the Indus in north and north-west India over these 50 years. A glimpse of the past events is relevant here.
The Chinese build-up and incursions with release of maps in early 1950s brought to the notice of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru by Indian Army’s top brass were trashed by him based on his belief in Panchsheel and “Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai” (India-China brotherhood) which ironically amounted to “bye-bye” with the 1962 Chinese aggression.
According to Achamma Chandersekaran, niece of Major T.P. Francis, an expert in 29 languages, who was one of the official interpreters during Zhou En Lai’s visit to India in 1962, did not agree with the interpretation that others gave. He predicted that China would attack India in six months. With nobody in the government, including Nehru, who met him, willing to go along with his interpretation, Major Francis resigned in protest.
China did indeed attack India within six months. The Indian Army lost 1,860 personnel, everything from potatoes to postage became dearer, Nehru was a broken man and then defence minister V.K. Krishna Menon was at long last, sacked.
As expressed in Parliament by Pranab Mukherjee, when he was external affairs minister, there is no clearly defined boundary separating China and India. Mr Mukherjee then stated, “China illegally claims approximately 90,000 square km of Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh and about 2,000 square km in the middle of the India-China boundary.”
China also controls 38,000 square km of territory India claims in Jammu-Kashmir.
You cannot beat the Chinese for their contradictions — often with their sense of timing — and their combinations, quite akin to their culinary basics of sweet and sour. In the 60-years-old Sino — Indian relationship, Chinese diplomatic niceties have often been in tandem with forward military moves on the ground and pop-up reminders of their cartographic claims.
If former Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s visit to Beijing in 2003 was timed with a Chinese patrol coming at least 16 km inside India and intimidating an Indian detachment, Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit was timed with the Chinese blasting the last bit of the strategic 3.3 km-long Galong La tunnel tunnel linking isolated Metok in Tibet Autonomous Region, bordering Arunachal Pradesh to China. Intrusions by PLA in August 2009, happened during the working group’s negotiations at New Delhi, followed by the visit of former Army Chief General V.K. Singh, then GOC-in-C Eastern Command, to Beijing and for the first time, Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
Although not a single Chinese bullet has been fired at the Indian troops since the Nathu La confrontation of 1967, China has kept the 4,057-km LAC live with incursions. Beginning with Finger, the northern-most point as named by the Indian Army in Sikkim (which was accepted as India’s territory and affirmed so during Mr Vajpayee’s 2003 visit), by May 2010 motorised, foot and amphibious armed patrols of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) intruded into the strategic Trig Heights and Pangong Tso lake in Eastern Ladakh, bringing the figure of transgressions to 30 in Trig Heights itself and thereby signifying a quantum jump up to 52 per cent from 27 per cent in 2009.
Another major cause of worry is construction of airfields, roads, railway lines and strategic link up of Kashghar in Pakistan with Havelian in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) and ultimately with Tibet’s Medong region bordering Arunachal Pradesh. Also worrying are China’s efforts to bolster surveillance capability by constructing border out posts (BOPs), which at places can also be used for directing precision-guided munitions (TV-guided cruise missiles, terrain-guided missiles — KH59 MK II, which has a range of over 1200 km —all of which have the potential to substantially alter the strategic balance in favour of China.
In 2000, Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Mukut Mithi accused China of violating the LAC and crossing into Indian territory near the Kayela Pass in the state’s Dibang Valley district, bordering Tibet.
“They come in the guise of hunters, cross the LAC and at times even claim that parts of Arunachal belong to them,” he had said.
In May 2007, Mr Kiren Rijiju, former Member of Parliament from Arunachal Pradesh made a startling claim that China had moved 20 km into the Indian territory, amounting to 9,000 square km. “It has been continuing for a long time. I have written to the government of India and raised the issue in Parliament. The government of India is not accepting the incursion openly,” said Mr Rijiju but claimed that ministry of external affairs had admitted to Chinese occupation of Arunachal Pradesh. One hundred and forty incursions reportedly occurred in 2007.
Over the past 65 years Indian policy on China has been quite weak. Late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the only one who advocated a tough stand on China. During the 1967 Nathu La flare-up, she even sanctioned the use of artillery at the request of the then brigade commander, Brig. M.M.S. Bakshi, MVC. Differences between the Chogyal of Sikkim and those seeking a union with India finally led to the total collapse of the administration, and the government that came in subsequently decided to become the 22nd state of India on May 16, 1975.
Some assertive steps taken in the recent past are the replacement of MiGs in Tezpur (Assam), with Sukhoi multi-role jet aircraft, reactivating about 40 airstrips, raising of two more mountain divisions and some battalions of Arunachal Scouts as a signal to the Chinese to stay off Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as its own. India also reportedly raised the budget to the Dalai Lama from `10 million to `100 million.