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South China Morning Post & The Pion
COURTING A FOE:INDIA' S CHINA POLICY
The Pioneer, 12/19/97
Opinion by Brahma Chellaney
The current Indian visit of Wei Jianxing, the sixth-ranking
member of the new Chinese power hierarchy, undergirds the importance of
high-level visits in moving forward the relationship between the world's
two most populous nations. Bilateral ties have improved considerably
since Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's path-breaking trip to Beijing in
1988, but they remain uneasy behind the calm surface. President Jiang
Zemin's visit to New Delhi in late 1996 raised the promise of achieving
faster progress in building better ties, but little has happened since
that trip.
India has an important stake in improving ties with its
largest neighbour so that it can concentrate its resources and efforts
on long-term economic and military development. The discussions with Mr
Wei, who as a Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee member, is
more senior than even Vice Premier and Foreign Minister Qian Qichen,
will be followed by a state visit to Beijing next year by President KR
Narayanan, an old China hand.
India's muddled China policy today confronts harsh realities.
On the one hand, the power equation between India and China is becoming
more and more adverse to long-term Indian interests, while on the other
hand, relations between the two Asian giants have not improved to the
extent that Beijing is willing to pursue a forward-looking policy
without the current accent on the containment of India. While it will be
unrealistic to expect China to shed its India-containment approach
altogether, India faces the challenge of convincing Beijing?through both
diplomacy and strategic planning?that its policy towards New Delhi
should focus on engagement, not containment. How India manages its
relations with China will significantly determine New Delhi's future
security
needs and concerns and also help shape the regional and
extra-regional strategic landscape. Therefore, Indian foreign policy
should see China as its number one priority.
China's growing assertiveness on global and regional matters
flows from its rapidly rising power. China ranks as the world's
fastest-growing nation in economic and military terms. The fact that the
Chinese economy is largely unaffected by the current economic travails
buffeting much of Asia, indicates that Chinese power will not only
continue to expand, but that such power in the years ahead will cast an
increasingly long shadow over Asia, including the subcontinent. As
Chinese power strengthens, so will Chinese determination to ensure India
does not emerge as a political and economic rival.
Beijing is already suspicious of the nascent US-India
strategic cooperation and will closely monitor developments in this
area. A major foreign-policy goal of Beijing is to ensure that India
remains neutral and non-aligned and does not ally with the US or any
other major country potentially inimical to long-term Chinese interests.
To India, however, close strategic cooperation with countries with which
it shares common interests in Asia is vital for national security. Such
cooperation need not lead to a military alliance with any nation. The
Israeli-Turkish strategic partnership is a good model.
India, however, has to move cautiously in this area without
heightening Chinese concerns and provoking Beijing to step up direct and
indirect threats to Indian security. Moreover, strategic cooperation
with any country cannot be pursued on a halfhearted or unstructured
basis. That is the lesson for India from the 1950s when US intelligence
activity in Tibet spurred sharpened Chinese hostility towards India.
While India needs to overcome the main weakness of its China policy?the
lack of leverage against Beijing?it will be counter-productive if
efforts to build such leverage through strategic cooperation with other
countries bolsters China's India-containment strategy.
While security cooperation with the US is important, India
has to pay closer attention to Asian countries with which it shares
common strategic interests. These include Russia, Japan and several
ASEAN nations.
The establishment of an enhanced dialogue with China in
different areas is important to help remove mutual misunderstandings and
misperceptions. While bilateral tensions have eased and relations are on
firmer ground, there is still the danger that a major misunderstanding
can suddenly reverse the current process of rapprochement.
Nothing can better illustrate the danger than the events of
1986-87 when, out of a clear blue sky, war clouds unexpectedly emerged,
bringing the two countries to the brink of an unwanted war and
triggering a crisis that prompted the Rajiv Gandhi visit. While
relations have continued to improve qualitatively since that visit,
India still does not figure in China's global scheme of things. China
continues to regard India as a country to be dealt with regionally.
China's growing military activities in Myanmar and its continued
conventional and non-conventional military assistance to Pakistan seek
to bind India to the subcontinent.
New Delhi has to try and influence Beijing to adopt a more
broad-minded India policy that aims to exploit the potential and
opportunities of the bilateral relationship. That is why the visit of Mr
Wei is more than symbolic. The interests of both nations demand they
build a relationship based on equilibrium, not overt competition or
confrontation. While economic relations are growing steadily, with
bilateral trade expected to go up to $2 billion annually in a year or
two, political and military ties are still underdeveloped. Without a
forward-looking Chinese policy, many of the misgivings in India will
remain. For example, the Chinese still show Sikkim in their maps as an
independent state. In contrast, India's Tibet policy has never sought a
quid pro quo from China. In fact, Beijing has put India on the defensive
on Tibet by regularly whipping up diplomatic pressure on the Dalai
Lama's activities.
Border negotiations have gotten stuck despite the periodic
meetings of the joint working groups. China seems in no hurry to resolve
the border dispute, which arms it with additional leverage against
India. China is a status quo power as far as the border is concerned.
Its forces are where it would like them to be. To India, however, the
present frontier situation does not serve its security interests. Since
any line of control tends to congeal over time, making change difficult,
India has more to lose from the deadlock on the border issue. Last
month's Sino-Russian border settlement, which leaves only a 50-km
western stretch unresolved, puts the spotlight now on the
India-China border dispute. However, unlike the Sino-Russian
border issue, the India-China frontier feud involves large chunks of
territory. What makes the India-China border situation unstable despite
the unilateral, marginal redeployment of forces is that Beijing has yet
to even clarify the line of actual control with India by exchanging
maps.
While pushing for a multifaceted, sustained dialogue with
China, India must develop a credible China policy, underpinned by
leverage gained both from external strategic relationships and domestic
military and economic muscle. The only language China respects is one
based on national strength. A vulnerable India can never persuade China
to join in an equal partnership. "Peace through strength" should be
India's motto. But this can come only if India is first willing to
fashion "peace through deterrence". About 35 years after suffering a
humiliating defeat, India has still to design a clear-headed long-term
China policy. Mr IK Gujral, who is very perceptive about the critical
role of China in India's national security, should try and evolve a
bipartisan policy on China in the closing weeks of his prime
ministership.
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UN CHIEF'S ELECTION CALL ANGERS UNION
South China Morning Post 20/12/97
ASSOCIATED PRESS in Bangkok :
Labour leaders yesterday objected to the United
Nations chief's apparent support for new elections
in Burma, saying the opposition's overwhelming
1990 victory had yet to be honoured.
The Federation of Trade Unions-Burma said new
elections would violate UN resolutions passed last
year and this year, and urged the junta to honour
the 1990 results and restore democracy.
It urged UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan "to
maintain a consistent approach to the peace
process in Burma through a dialogue between the
regime, the democratic forces and the ethnic
nationalities, and refrain from initiating another
election".
Mr Annan met the leader of the Burmese military
regime, General Than Shwe, during the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Malaysia this
week, telling him pro-democracy leader Aung San
Suu Kyi must be allowed to participate in any future
election.
General Than Shwe agreed to Mr Annan's request
to permit a UN envoy to visit Burma next month.
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