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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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