The irritants in the Sino-Indian relationship have raised its fangs yet again barely a month after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao concluded his visit to India. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is displaying diplomatic assertiveness vis-à-vis the ongoing territorial and boundary dispute that it shares with India. Two Indian sportspersons hailing from Arunachal Pradesh were issued stapled visas by the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi, owing to which they were prevented from boarding the flight to Beijing few days back. The Indian Weightlifting Federation had nominated the two to participate in the China Weightlifting Grand Prix to be held at Fujian Province on the invitation of the Chinese Weightlifting Association.
This move should be interpreted as the latest Chinese manifestation of attempting to assert and legitimize its claim over India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. China accuses New Delhi of “occupying” 90,000 sq km of the Chinese territory. China claims the state in its entirety, despite the reality that Arunachal Pradesh has always been an integral part of the Indian Union. In an earlier instance too, the Chinese had raked up their territorial claims over Arunachal when a group of 107 Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officers were scheduled to head for a management programme to China in May 2007. The visit had to be cancelled owing to Beijing’s refusal to grant a visa to an IAS officer, Ganesh Kayu, hailing from Arunachal Pradesh. In fact, Beijing was understood to have pointed out that the man in question was a “Chinese citizen” and, therefore, did not need a visa.
China is not just exhibiting a tough diplomatic stance but is also playing up a hard-hitting military posture against India.
China seems to be pursuing a well-crafted strategy of building up diplomatic pressure against India both in Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). In so far as the Chinese position on J&K is concerned, since October 2009, the Chinese embassy in New Delhi began issuing visas to Indian passport holders from J&K on a separate sheet of paper, rather than stamping the visas in their passports as is the norm with other Indian citizens. This was viewed as a crass new move to question the status of J&K vis-à-vis the Indian Union and support Pakistan’s diplomatic position on Kashmir. During his visit to India in December 2010, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao remained evasive on the stapled visa issue.
China is not just exhibiting a tough diplomatic stance but is also playing up a hard-hitting military posture against India, visible with Chinese troops reportedly entering the Gombir area in the Demchok region in Ladakh in September/October 2010 and threatening civilian workers who were building a shed as per plans cleared by the state rural development department. The villagers in the border areas have confessed to sufficient evidence available over repeated Chinese incursions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). These transgressions are the latest in a series including the helicopter incursions into Indian airspace made by Chinese MI helicopters at Chumar, northeast of Leh, along the border with Chinese Border Guards of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) violating the International Border in Leh in the second half of 2009.
Also read: Defence of Srinagar 1947
Significantly, just prior to Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India, came a report carried by the official Chinese Xinhua News Agency which depicted the Sino-Indian border to be nearly 2,000 kms—coming in as a complete shocker and a jagged forewarning regarding Chinese intent towards resolution of the Indo-China boundary dispute. Much in disparity to the Chinese claims, India pronounces the border to be approximately 3,488 kms long. In this context, any possibility of a ‘miscommunication’ could be disregarded on part of China, given that the figures quoted in the Xinhua report were based on an official briefing by Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister, Hu Zhengyue to the Beijing press corps. China’s persistent reluctance to resolve the dispute and contrarily engage in tactics such as mentioned above has prevented the emergence of a genuine thaw in the relationship.
Even though India and China pledge to strengthen their bilateral relationship through greater convergence in the economic arena, the fact of the matter is that the fissures in the strategic sphere are too deep and apparent to be ignored.
China’s PLA has moved far from the days when Deng Xiaoping advocated the philosophy of “hide your capabilities and bide your time.” On the eve of its 60th anniversary on October 1, 2009, Beijing opted to showcase its military prowess to the world—much in line with all the debate that surrounds it having undertaken a robust military modernisation programme. China’s largest ever military exercise, Stride 2009 (Kuayue) was employed as a means to issue a clear message that the Chinese armed forces have come a long way from being a rustic and bucolic ‘Red Army’ that waged a ‘People’s War’ six decades ago.
In a belligerent showcasing of military capabilities and consequent willingness to use them, the PLA tested its prowess under the Kuayue maneuvers which, the Chinese press reported as the PLA’s “largest-ever tactical event.” The two-month long manoeuvres witnessed approximately four PLA divisions (50,000 troops) crisscrossing the country representing as many as four Chinese Military Regions (MRs), including Lanzhou, Shenyang, Jinan and Guangzhou setting out to test and practice ‘trans-regional mobility.’ The Stride 2009 exercises are in line with what was proclaimed in the Chinese 2006 White Paper on National Defence where the Chinese aspiration to seek world power status has been stated explicitly. Following this, PLA’s 15th Airborne Corps conducted a similar 20-day, large-scale, multi-modal transportation, trans-regional exercise called Airborne Movement 2009 (Kongjiang Jidong), beginning mid-October 2009.
Therefore, even though India and China pledge to strengthen their bilateral relationship through greater convergence in the economic arena, the fact of the matter is that the fissures in the strategic sphere are too deep and apparent to be ignored. It is these fissures that resurface on an unvarying periodic basis and act as a spoiler in what otherwise could potentially be a regular bilateral relationship based on mutual trust and benefits.
Please wait...
