The meeting between the two Asian giants in Beijing seems to have been concluded on a conciliatory note. Our relations with China did not remain cordial after the Chinese incursion into the eastern part of our country in 1962. That incursion was beyond India’s expectation, and the worst part was that it came despite the Panchsheel or five basic principles of relationship agreed to by China after Bandung Conference to regulate the course of events. It came as a shock to the then Indian Prime Minister who was the architect of the philosophy of peaceful relationship. He did not survive the shock. When China and Pakistan established camaraderie of sorts after Pakistan sponsored Hennery Kissinger’s secret mission to Beijing, India was not really upset but she had to keep a watch on any new situation that was likely to develop. Pakistan ceding five thousand square kilometres of the territory of original J&K State in Aksaichin to China in 1953 was manifestly a joint hostile step. Initially, China adopted a somewhat neutral or lukewarm stance regarding Kashmir dispute but after her relations with Pakistan deepened, she began pandering to the Pakistani standpoint. She subtly supported Pakistan’s stand on Kashmir on international forums and also at various organs of the United Nations. Taking advantage of the Maoist axiom that enemy’s enemy is a friend China undertook some major projects in the region to keep Pakistan on her side. Two of these are of much significance. One was the building of Karakorum Highway over the forbidding Himalayas that connects Urumchi (in Xinxiang) with Karachi. The second was China’s clandestine but overt support to Pakistan’s nuclear weapon development policy. China supplied her not only part of nuclear technology but some crucial components also. There are other hostile prescriptions in China’s anti-India armoury. Issuing of separately stapled visa sheets for the citizens of J&K and Arunachal Pradesh, refusal to issue visa to the Indian defence top brass who had rendered service in counter terrorism action in J&K, unprovoked intrusion in Ladakh and the threat of changing the course of Brahmaputra River that flows from Chinese (Tibetan) territory down to the Bay of Bengal can be cited. But the most resentful irritant is China’s unabated lust for territorial expansion, a phenomenon that Chinese have inherited from their history. Old habits die hard. That is what we should never lose sight of. Now China is firmly seated in Gilgit region, the watershed between Central and South Asia. She is eyeing the Wakhan corridor to establish access via Karakorum Highway to Kabul where she has invested 3 billion US dollars in the exploration and exploitation of world’s richest copper mines and other minerals. Pakistan has been facilitating her physical presence in the region with the clear objective of offsetting the significance of the role of India once US-led NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan.
The Border Defence Cooperating Agreement has been signed by China and India during the recent visit of our Prime Minister to Beijing. Our Government is satisfied that it has achieved something in writing that would perhaps ensure non-interference of China in border security matters. In all nine agreements have been signed including one on trans-border river cooperation and management of rivers during monsoon season. There are flowery words about ensuring peace, tranquillity and stability on the Line of Actual Control between the two countries without prejudice to their respective stands on territorial dispute, the resolution of which has not been attempted and deferred or at best left to the expert teams for discussion. One has to keep fingers crossed about the real intention of Beijing and her sincerity in adhering to the commitments made. It may be reminded that earlier also, piecemeal agreements were concluded indirectly aiming at allowing status quo to the border dispute. But Chinese behaviour is unpredictable and as we have seen in the case of Depsang Valley this summer, the PLA gets swayed by strange fantasia. Nevertheless we welcome any initiative which talks about peace and stability on the border and removal of irritants through established mechanism.
However, if there is good realization with the policy planners in China of the phenomenon of jihadi terror in the sub-continent that has spread even to the Uighur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang) the Eastern province of China, through the instrumentality of the jihadi organizations based in Pakistan, Beijing shall have to develop a more realistic perception of her six decade old laconic impression about India and her role in South Asian strategy. It is this role that has prompted the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to pay a second visit in one calendar year to Beijing and ink the agreements that have been concluded. The taste of pudding is in eating. It is the implementation of these pious thoughts an words that will determine the future course of action. That Beijing has not agreed to reverse the unacceptable policy of issuing stapled visa to some of the Indian citizens, is neither a sign of change of heart nor a proof of respecting international practice.
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