Geopolitics

India-China Relations: Some Reflections
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Issue Vol 23.1 Jan-Mar2008 | Date : 21 Feb , 2011

The importance of the Dalai Lama factor should not be underestimated, no matter China’s posturing about his growing irrelevance to the reality on the ground in Tibet. It might have seemed at one time that the only supporters of the Dalai Lama were Hollywood heroes. Lately, many governments have opened doors to him, though there is reluctance to make Tibet a political issue of self-determination and human rights. India, as the most concerned party, has always had a timorous policy towards him. The Dalai Lama has himself said publicly that India is over-cautious in dealing with China. There is no international pressure on China to negotiate with the Dalai Lama; China can revile him as a “splittist”, even when he has publicly reaffirmed on various occasions his acceptance of Chinese sovereignty and has limited his demand to real autonomy.

China realises that once, on the back of an agreement with him, the Dalai Lama were to return to Tibet, their position in Tibet would become complicated as would their policy towards India. The reported Chinese manipulation of monastery politics along the Himalayas would also become problematic with the Dalai Lama restored to his religious role with Chinese consent. Reconciliation with the Dalai Lama means in effect reconciliation with India. Concessions to the Dalai Lama imply concessions to India. The Dalai Lama has enjoyed Indian hospitality for the last 48 years and the Tibetan identity and aspirations are being kept alive by the 100,000 or so Tibetans in our country. The solution to the Dalai Lama problem will come through a solution to the India-China problem.

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China’s claims on Indian territory, and indeed, China’s military pressure on India is on account of its direct military occupation of Tibet. The extent of Chinese cynicism and lack of complex towards India is reflected in its claim on Tawang because of its Tibetan links and the fact that one of the earlier Dalai Lamas, an institution that they have tried to destroy politically, not to mention the destruction of the Lamaist order and Buddhist monasteries during the Cultural Revolution, was born there. The Chinese unabashedly play the Tibetan card to the hilt against India. Yet we are reluctant to play the Tibetan card against China. And it is not a question of cynically playing a political card for short term gain. On the contrary, a reasonable settlement between the Dalai Lama, the recognised spiritual head of Tibet, and the Chinese is good for China, good for the Tibetans and good for India. It will resolve a festering issue of denial of political and cultural rights of a distinctive people and the suppression of their separate identity.

The impressive road infrastructure that China has built along Tibets border with India, along with expansion of airfields in Tibet in recent years, is surely intended not for border trade but for border domination, behind which Tibet will be held secure.

Equally importantly, the example of Dalai Lama leading a peaceful, non-violent struggle to redress grievances and injustice, is deeply relevant in the context of the rise of extremism and terrorism to fight real or imagined grievances and injustice by people and communities elsewhere in the world. Mutual understanding and mutual accommodation and the principle of a fair and reasonable settlement are not to be limited to the India- China differences on the border; they should be equally applicable to the root cause of these differences-Tibet-where a reconciliation along these lines, while respecting overall Chinese sovereignty to which the Dalai Lama is committed, will be beneficial all round.  The world needs to press China to deal with the Dalai Lama with transparency and sincerity.

There are two possible approaches to the border issue. One is to envisage a settlement which will involve fairly substantial give and take, in favour of India in the western sector and China in the eastern sector. The border would be settled not on the basis of actual  ground control but based of complex agreed principles. China could easily make “concessions” in the western sector as they are occupying territory much beyond their own  historical claims. For India making “equal” concessions in the eastern sector would be impossible  for political and security reasons. India cannot but seek to move back China in Aksai Chin in view of their very advanced positions, which gives the Chinese a handle to raise the ante in the east. The other approach would be that to have a realistic solution, it would be necessary to work on the basis of the hard realities on the ground.

What China is actually holding, it will not cede in negotiations, and so would it be in India’s case. This implies a very limited give and take, only to make the border more rational and remove anomalies here and there. If one is to proceed on the basis of what each country is holding, then the delineation of the Actual Line Of Control(LAC) on the maps becomes necessary. In some areas, the two sides have conflicting views of where the LAC is and in these pockets both sides do patrolling to assert their claim. Periodic reports about Chinese incursions relate to their patrolling in the areas we claim are under our control, bearing in mind that the entire length of the border is not permanently manned on both sides.

The agreement between the two sides to exchange maps of their respective perceptions of the LAC in order to identify the physical extent of the disputed areas, was important. On completion of this exercise in the middle, western and eastern sectors (in this order) the process of actual negotiations of give and take in these areas was to have begun. After exchanging maps in the middle sector, and after India presented its map of the western sector in 2002, the Chinese halted the exercise without any cogent explanation. During Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit to China in 2003, we decided to abandon the earlier agreed approach and proposed a “political solution” to the issue.

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To this end, Special Representatives of the two countries were nominated and given a mandate to establish a set of guidelines (which they have done) for proceeding towards resolution. The Chinese, having rejected the approach of first delineating the LAC as an attempt to maintain the status quo, are making the subsequent approach unworkable by demanding significant territorial adjustments in the east, laying claim to Tawang, not-withstanding the proviso in the guidelines on not disturbing settled populations. China’s Tawang claim shows absence of any real desire for a border settlement and the tactic is to contrive an issue so as to transfer the responsibility for an impasse on to the Indian side.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Kanwal Sibal

is the former Indian Foreign Secretary. He was India’s Ambassador to Turkey, Egypt, France and Russia.

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