POLITICS-ASIA: India Blunders in Dealing with China

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - By Rahul Bedi

NEW DELHI, Jun 16 2003 (IPS) - China’s deliberate delay in announcing Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to Beijing, until barely a week before his departure on Jun. 22, appears to be a shrewd tactical move by a ‘dormant enemy’ to weaken Delhi’s negotiating position on a range of outstanding territorial, security and diplomatic issues.

Vajpayee’s is the first visit to China by an Indian prime minister in a decade.

Repeated pronouncements by senior Indian leaders on Vajpayee’s impending trip to China, without any formal announcement on the exact schedule by his hosts, signaled to Beijing that Delhi was desperate for a summit at a time when the SARS virus had besieged the region and visits to the area were seriously curtailed.

Even after meeting Vajpayee at St Petersburg earlier this month, China’s president Hu Jintao declared that the Indian premier’s visit would take place "within the year ".

Diplomats admitted that this had considerably dampened the Hindu nationalist government’s enthusiasm over Vajpayee’s China visit, besides conceding tactical advantage to a ‘patient’ and ‘ confident ‘ adversary.

"China’s diplomatic price for a visit could go up since India was publicly committed to it and would lose face if it did not happen," China analyst Harvey Stockwin declares. China also strengthened its negotiating position by never publicly committing itself to the June visit, he added.

Security officers in Delhi said that in dealing with the Middle Kingdom’s leadership – which prefers subtle nuances, gestures and a combination of ‘smoke and mirrors’ as negotiating tools – India has made a tactical blunder by indicating through numerous reports what concessions it is seeking from Beijing.

"Delhi’s announcements have been greeted with characteristic silence by Beijing, showing up India’s political and diplomatic naivete in dealing with a seasoned leadership," a senior diplomat said declining to be identified.

Besides territorial issues that remain unresolved following the 1962 Sino-Indian war and demarcating the disputed 4,056 kilometre-long frontier between them, issues like Bejing’s military and nuclear relationship with Pakistan are to feature prominently in discussions between Vajpayee and senior Chinese leaders, officials said.

Increased U.S. presence across Asia and the military alliances between close Indian ally Russia and oil-rich Central Asian Republics bordering China will also be debated.

"For the old apparatchiks who constitute the new leadership in Beijing, Vajpayee’s visit to China is an opportunity to further Chinese interests," declared security analyst and former Indian National Security Advisory Board member Brahma Chellaey.

If anything, the Chinese are providing valuable training to Indians on how to talk peace but aggressively pursue national interests.

India’s recent released annual defence ministry report cautions against ignoring the fact "that every major Indian city is within reach of Chinese missiles and this capability is being further augmented to include submarine launched ballistic missiles ".

This "asymmetry" (in nuclear weapons) is likely to be further accentuated as China responds to Washington’s National Missile Defence programme, it states. China’s defence relationship with Pakistan takes a particular edge in view of the latter’s known belligerence and hostility to India and its acquisition to nuclear assets, the report adds.

After 22 years of border negotiations India is the only country with which China has not settled its land frontiers or even defined a line of control.

So far, it has only exchanged maps on the largely undisputed ‘middle sector’ covering the border with the contiguous hill states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal with Chinese-administered Tibet, but not the more controversial eastern and western sectors, the resolution of which would impinge negatively on Chinese strategic interests.

Alongside Chinese military activity in Tibet, Nepal and Burma, directed at India, Beijing’s ‘expansionist naval ambitions’ in the Indian Ocean are greatly worrying Delhi.

India’s chief of naval staff Madhavendra Singh recently expressed ”concern” about the Chinese Navy’s ”close interaction” with Indian Ocean states like Burma. In an interview with the British-based ‘Jane’s Defence Weekly’, he said China – which allocates 33 percent of its defence outlay on the navy – is helping Burma modernise its naval bases that can support Chinese submarine operations in the region.

Singh said the navy was also ”closely monitoring” Chinese activity in developing Gwadar port on close military ally Pakistan’s Makran coast, a move that could seriously endanger vital shipping routes in the Persian Gulf, crucial to India’s trade and petroleum needs.

Security officers said China is helping Burma modernise naval bases at Hainggyi, the Coco islands, Akyab, Za Det Kyi, Mergui and Khaukphyu by building radar, refit and refuel facilities.

The Chinese are also believed to be establishing a Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) facility on the Coco islands, 30 nautical miles from India’s Andaman islands territory, to monitor its missile test-offs.

India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes, who openly supports Burmese dissidents and host many in his official residence in Delhi, has declared that Hianggyi base to be a joint Sino-Burmese naval establishment and that the Coco islands had been "loaned " to Beijing.

In a direct reference to China, but without naming it, the defence ministry report declares that "Myanmar remains an area of security interest for India . . . because of the activities of countries working against India’s legitimate security concerns ".

Indian concerns also centre around increased Chinese involvement in the annual export to India of Burmese pulses and beans, worth around 300 million dollars. Till recently this trade, vital to India, was controlled by ethnic Indian traders operating out of Singapore.

Beijing was also lobbying hard for a corridor to the Indian Ocean from southern China via Burma in addition to the established route via the Malacca Straits. China has already constructed a highway from Kunming, capital of its Yunnan province to Shewli on the Burmese border.

According to a proposal being reviewed by Burma’s military junta, Beijing wants to extend that road link to Sinkham for access to the Irrawaddy yriver, flowing through to Rangoon and into the Andaman Sea. Once completed, Chinese barges would transport Chinese goods down the Irrawaddy to Rangoon and transfer them onto waiting Chinese ships.

Rangoon is resisting this move, but foreign diplomats said it was a matter of time before Beijing prevailed.

Consequently, after over a decade of rhetoric, India has dumped the cause of Burmese democracy at the altar of strategic and economic considerations and launched an aggressive diplomatic and commercial thrust into Rangoon to try and blunt China’s influence.

Pakistan and China were amongst the few countries to defy international opinion and forge close military ties with Rangoon’s junta in 1988, cleverly complementing their strategy of encircling India.

"India has long ignored China and to some extent Pakistan’s growing influence with Burma’s military government at its peril. It is now looking to correct this imbalance,” a senior military official said.

To neutralise China’s influence in Rangoon, India was also instrumental in persuading Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand around five years ago to form an economic co-operation group. But little of significance has emerged from this coalition.