Beijing’s Conciliatory Moves Prior To President Xi’s Visit

AIR MARSHAL HARISH MASAND (RETD): October 2019

The Chinese Ambassador to India, Sun Weidong, is again in the news, just prior to President Xi Jinping’s planned visit to India for a one-on-one summit with Prime Minister Modi, with a statement calling for jointly maintaining peace and tranquility on the border. The statement is on expected lines coming, as it is, from an accomplished diplomat of Sun Weidong’s experience and stature, at a time when China’s leader would like to take back some tangible gains from his two day stay at Mahabalipuram on 11 th and 12th October. Obviously, the Chinese Ambassador would like to smooth any ruffled feathers on the Indian side before the visit to ensure that PM Modi does not come on too strongly on any of the pending contentious issues between the two countries, particularly the unresolved border and the trade imbalance, and that business carries on as usual in the past, with most issues in China’s favor, but with some more supportive statements from the Indian side.

It may be recalled that in July earlier this year, just before taking over as the Chinese envoy in New Delhi, Ambassador Weidong had made similar statements asking for the two countries to narrow their differences and step up cooperation on the world stage. (Please see “Co-operation on Chinese terms: Beijing reaches out to bridge differences”, Gomantak Times, Goa of August 01, 2019). However, he conveniently overlooks the fact that soon after in August, China supported Pakistan on the world stage, and the United Nations, when India abrogated Articles 370 & 35A of the Constitution, of India, forgetting the historical facts of the legal position of accession of J & K in the Union of India on October 26, 1947, before the People’s Republic of China even came into existence, which make any constitutional changes an internal matter of India. Beijing also forgot the Simla agreement between India and Pakistan of July 02, 1972 which made the issue of J & K a purely bilateral issue to be resolved through peaceful means between the two countries as also the subsequent reiteration, even by the PM, of the well known Indian position that the only unresolved issue on J & K is the continued illegal occupation of PoK and other territories like Gilgit & Baltistan by Pakistan. It may be noteworthy that, concurrently with Ambassador Weidong’s statement, Beijing also snubbed Imran Khan on his third current visit to China this year with a statement that the issue of J & K is to be resolved bilaterally between India and Pakistan, highlighting the importance China places on mending ties with India in the current geo-political situation. In this context, it should not be forgotten that China has been an all- weather ally of Pakistan and now has billions more invested in Pakistan through the CPEC.

While such statements are to be welcomed since an outright confrontation between the Asian giants, or even open hostility, is in neither side’s interest, the reality on the ground needs to be kept in mind while further strengthening ties with China. From the Indian point of view, the two most obviously contentious issues with China for quite some time have been the border settlement and the rising adverse trade imbalance. On both these issues, China has been dragging its feet, and even making hostile moves at regular intervals, while making soothing noises on the importance of good relations and co-operation for the benefit of the world at large, and Asia in particular. It is no wonder that India sees such behavior with suspicion and views such a Chinese policy as aiming to keep India boxed-in within South Asia to delay India’s rise and denying India its rightful place on the world stage while claiming and continuing with its own so-called “peaceful rise”. The ultimate objective for China, very obviously, is to become so strong that it can challenge American supremacy in the world, politically and economically backed by a powerful modernized military. In that kind of a balance of power and geo-political situation, which would automatically contain India, India would have no option but to accept Chinese supremacy and even bullying as and when China deems it in its interest to push India into a corner.

On the border issue, it needs to be briefly highlighted that while China has found it convenient to settle the border with almost all countries to its south based on the watershed principle and the McMahon line, it has not done so with India despite clear and convincing historical and documentary evidence of India’s boundary with Tibet. Instead, from the beginning, after the invasion and annexation of Tibet in October 1950 within a year of coming to power, the PRC has operated on the principle of, what even Prime Minister Nehru termed in the 1950s, as “mobile frontiers” and which has later been termed as the “salami-slicing” strategy, visible recently even in the South China Sea. The Chinese have been consistent in changing their position with progressively increasing claims making all efforts at settling the boundary frustrating, to say the least. One example of such claims was the Chinese demand of transfer of the Tawang tract for “political” reasons after setting up of the Special Representatives mechanism after PM Vajpayee’s visit to China in 2003, conveniently overlooking the possible counter-claim on Kailash Mansarover based on historic “religious” reasons. Contrary to such statement on peace and tranquility on the borders, regular incursions by the Chinese across the Line of Actual Control keep occurring, the latest being in Arunachal Pradesh last month.

Even in trade, while talking of multilateralism and economic globalization, China has been reluctant to give India access to its markets in many areas to help India’s efforts to balance the trade to some extent while flooding the Indian market with cheap goods in almost every sphere and wiping out most traditional Indian industries. Admittedly, India also needs to do more on its own to make its industries and goods more competitive to redress the trade balance while pursuing economic growth. India also needs to be careful of China’s policy of keeping issues bilateral with the objective of coercing nations into submission separately one by one while professing multilateralism.

While the two leaders would certainly talk about these two issues and more in these two days while soaking in the ancient temples and architecture of Mahabalipuram, One hopes that PM Modi would also be able to structure the talks in a manner to extract some firm commitments on resolving the major bothersome differences from President Xi in a time-bound manner so that the two countries can truly realize the dreams of the Century of Asia.