Arriving in New Delhi with a large delegation of 400 people, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s opening statement released at the airport upon his arrival was: “My current visit is aimed at promoting friendship, expanding cooperation, building on our past achievements and opening up new dimensions for mutual benefit and common development of the two countries.”
His declaring that “China and India are partners for cooperation, not rivals in competition,” does not match the growing trade imbalance and limited access for Indian companies in China’s market, particularly in sectors like IT and pharmaceuticals. India’s trade deficit with China rose to $19 billion in 2009-10, from $1 billion in 2001-02 and it might reach $24-25 billion by the end of the current fiscal.
Chinese assistant foreign minister Hu Zhengyue, who briefed the media here about Wen’s visit to India and Pakistan, said: “We will not exclude the possibility of discussions on any issue. For the issues such as visas, I believe the working level staff will talk about it between our two countries”. It remains to be seen what will become of this issue.
Paragraph 9 of the joint communiqué reads: “The two sides noted the good cooperation between China and India in the field of trans-border rivers. The Indian side appreciated the flood-season hydrological data and the assistance in emergency management provided by the Chinese side. The two sides reiterated that they will promote and enhance cooperation in this field”. Referring to the meeting of an expert-level mechanism set up in November 2006, MEA spokesman Vishnu Prakash said: “The Indian side has taken up with the Chinese side reports about the construction of a large dam or diversion project on the Brahmaputra”. Defending its decision to build a dam on the Brahmaputra river in Tibet, amid concerns that it could disrupt water supplies downstream in India and harm ecosystem, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei was reported to have said “In the development of cross-border water resources, China has always had a responsible attitude and places equal emphasis on development and protection,” and added China took “full consideration of the potential impact on the downstream area.” Earlier this year, Chinese dams were accused of channelling water away from the upper reaches of the Mekong River and contributing to the waterway’s record-low levels — a charge Beijing has dismissed.
You cannot beat the Chinese for their contradictions — often with their sense of timing — and their combinations, based on their culinary basics of sweet and sour. In the 60-year-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 Atal Behari Vajpayee’s visit to Beijing in 2003 was timed with a Chinese patrol coming at least 16 kms inside India and intimidating an Indian detachment, Mr Wen’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 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in August 2009, happened during the working group’s negotiations at New Delhi, followed by the visit of Army Chief General V.K. Singh, then GoC-in-C Eastern Command, to Beijing and m for the first time, Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
The Chinese Premier was reportedly upset with “negative coverage” of his talks causing “much damage” to bilateral ties. In 2009, a few days before the reporting of stapled visas, top echelons of South Block, at the behest of the Chinese government, urged the media not to hype Chinese incursions across the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which were stated as being quite “routine”. State controlled Chinese media had suggested that the Indian government needed to reign in the media on the incursions in Ladakh.
Post-1962, there were a large number of incursions and violent attacks by PLA at Nathula and Chola in Sikkim in September and October 1967 and at Sumdorong Chu Valley in Arunachal Pradesh in 1984 and 1987 — all aggressively retaliated by Indian Army broke the 1962 jinx.
Thereafter, the first major step forward was Rajiv Gandhi’s path-breaking visit to China in 1988. This was followed by other high level visits on both sides. Narasimha Rao took the process forward and in September 1993 by signed a Treaty of Peace and Tranquility between the two countries, which also signified India quietly accepting the loss of 90,000 sq km of its territory.
While this agreement ended the “eyeball to eyeball” confrontation, soon after in 1994, late General B.C. Joshi became the first Indian Army Chief to visit China. While his visit was a success, it did not stop the Chinese from entering Indian territory “looking for herbs” (China’s favourite excuse) or deploying surveillance stations all around India as its “string of pearls” strategy, or targeting it with their nuclear warheads, also substantially supplied “by private arrangement” to Pakistan.
While so far, the only saving grace of the peace and tranquility agreement is that despite intrusions, there has been no exchange of fire from either side.
But the way tension is increasing by repeated provocation of frontline PLA troops, there can be no guarantee of the odd moment when some soldier’s patience snaps and firing is resorted to.
Three sectors of the LAC are western (Ladakh), middle (Uttarakhand, Himachal) and eastern (Sikkim, Arunachal), Arunachal. While incursions in Aunachal Pradesh and Sikkim were considered routine, the ones in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ladakh region since 2009 is certainly a cause for concern.
This should be particularly seen in the light of decades-old anti-India-based Sino-Pak relationship and joint military exercises, like Stride 2009, conducted in China’s northwest Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, at an unprecedented level of 50,000 troops and aiming to test its long-distance mobility.
Earlier, the China Study Group meeting to discuss the fallout of Chinese incursions or violations of air space and air dropping of expired tinned food and painting of rocks and other issues was postponed. While no reason was stated officially, off the record the reason came to be known that it was media phobia.
China has kept the 4,057-km LAC live with incursions, albeit without firing any bullets for at least three years. Beginning with Finger, the northern-most point as named by the Indian Army in, Sikkim, by May 2010, motorised foot and amphibious armed patrols of the PLA intruded into the strategic Trig Heights and Pangong lake in eastern Ladakh, bringing the figure of transgressions to 30 in Trig Heights itself, thereby signifying a quantum jump up of 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 ultimtely with Tibet’s Medong region bordering Arunachal. 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 — all of which have the potential to substantially alter the strategic balance in favour of China.
In this cat and mouse game of each other’s “differing perceptions”, Indian troops also make similar moves which are nothing compared to the politically motivated soldiery of the Chinese Communist Party-backed 2.25-million strong PLA.
After three days in India, Mr Wen went with the same delegation to Pakistan for another three-day visit aimed at boosting trade and investment by finalising deals worth $20 billion.
While New Delhi has consistently downplayed all these intrusions with the official line “both are trying to amicably resolve the issue through talks”, China’s India-specific military build-up did prick the government into kickstarting some very long overdue infrastructural development in Arunachal Pradesh and sanctioning some additional resources. While they do not match China’s in numbers, at least a beginning has been made.
As assessed by China expert, Kondapally Srikanth who spoke to this daily, during this visit, clearly, Mr Wen has won.
Anil Bhat, a retired Army officer, is a defence and security analyst based in New Delhi