Why China is desperate to make friends with the world

There is one aspect of contemporary Chinese policy in the South China Sea that India has known well for some time. This is the process of creating new facts on the ground to assert a boundary claim.

This is what happened, most notably, in the Aksai Chin area where there lines have shifted steadily. Initially, China, with the goal of building its strategic highway linking Xinjiang with Tibet, fobbed off all Indian queries about the border. They broadly claimed the McCartney-McDonald Line of 1899 which ran along the Karakoram watershed, but which was still within the Indian claim. When questioned on this, they said that these were old maps.

Subsequently, they occupied the Lingzi-Tang Plains to the west of this line. But till 1960, they left the Chip Chap and Galwan River Valley to India. Thereafter they began to press westward. In September 1962, before the war, the LAC ran from Karakoram Pass, skirted Chip Chap and Galwan valleys, thence to Kongka La, Damba Guru and Khurnak Fort.

Chinese occupancy

However, after the war, the Chinese occupied the two valleys, and pushed westward beyond Samzungling and Khurnak Fort by anywhere between ten-100kms. Even now, as the Depsang Plains incident of 2013 revealed, the Chinese are maintaining a westward pressure on the LAC with India.

As for the Eastern sector, after indicating in 1960-80, that they were willing to trade it for an Indian acceptance of their western claims, the Chinese now say that this is actually "southern Tibet", and that the dispute in relations lies there.

Something similar is now happening in the South China Sea where the Chinese have insisted that the Nine Dash line, of completely spurious provenance, is their maritime boundary. Given the pushback from the states of the region - Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, the Chinese have resorted to a new tactic of building islands on what were submerged reefs and rocks.

Through the process, they claim territorial waters 12 nautical miles around these newly created artificial outcrops, and an exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles. A Chinese admiral pointed out in the recent Shangrila Dialogue in Singapore, that the Chinese position was both "legitimate and reasonable", it was not restricting freedom of navigation and that China wanted to use these new islands for public service and was actually building lighthouses to aid navigation.

The US has strongly rejected the process of reclamation, and as it alleges, emplacement of military equipment on the islands. US secretary of defence called on China to halt the reclamation in his remarks at the Shangrila Dialogue, but there was no response. Even direct questions on the issue were evaded by the Chinese leader of the delegation, Admiral Sun Jianguo.

No answers

But discerning observers are pointing out that the US has no real answers on ways of dealing with this Chinese salami tactic. In his response to a direct question on the issue, all Carter could say was that China would pay a price for alienating its neighbours, but did not give any hint of a US plan to deal with the issue. "One of the consequences of that," he noted, "will be the continued coalescing of concerned nations around the world," presumably of the affected nations with the US.

There is an irony here. Even as China appears to look at the issue in the South China Sea as a zero-sum game, one which it must win, with a view of shoring up its defensive perimeter, in the oceans beyond, it is seeking to collaborate with other countries to expand its influence.

Global power

Beijing knows that it cannot become a global power without friends. As the US has known, there is a limit to what you can do alone. The US with its network of friends, allies and partners is a case in point. The new China military strategy document makes no bones about China's desire to play a more proactive role in international security affairs. The document therefore outlines China's search for enhanced security partnerships, an expanded role in peacekeeping operations, alongside the creation of new power projection capabilities.

The problem for China is that it has relentlessly put national interest ahead of everything that the sum total of its foreign "friends" is two - Pakistan and North Korea. Countries like Russia and Iran that are coming close to Beijing, are doing so because of their antipathy to the US.

The military strategy document is a categorical assertion of China's coming out as a world power and its interests in virtually every corner of the world. What it is doing here is also what it has being doing on its borders - creating facts on the ground - and getting the world to adjust to them.

Mail Today June 8, 2015

Why India Insists on Keeping Gilgit Baltistan Firmly in the Kashmir Equation

New Delhi’s move to  raise objections to Pakistan’s plan of holding an election in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s Gilgit-Baltistan region may appear to be an afterthought, but it is, in fact, the belated assertion of a simple principle: In a dispute, express your maximal position, rather than the one you will compromise on.
For long years, indeed, beginning in 1947 itself, India had tended to play down, if not ignore, its own legal claim over what Pakistan used to term as the Northern Areas and now calls Gilgit Baltistan. As a result, the world assumed the ‘Kashmir problem’ only pertained to the Kashmir Valley which was in India’s possession. Thus, when it came to compromises, it put the onus on New Delhi.
It is this principle that informs Beijing’s tough stand on the Sino-Indian border. In 1960 and 1980 they were agreeable to swapping claims and broached the idea with New Delhi. However, India rejected the proposal, and since it was holding on to Arunachal Pradesh, the area it claimed in the east, it hoped that it could persuade China to part with some 3000 or so sq kms in the Aksai Chin area. However, beginning 1985, China turned tables on the stunned Indian negotiators by insisting that the bigger dispute lay in the east and has since been demanding concessions from India in that sector. It has said it is willing to concede India’s claim to most of Arunachal if India is willing to part with the Tawang tract.
When it comes to Pakistan and PoK, India has clearly taken a page from the Chinese playbook.
In 2009 and 2010, India responded sharply to reports of the presence of Chinese soldiers and workers in the region.“India believes that Pakistan has been in illegal occupation of parts of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir since 1947. The Chinese side is fully aware of India’s position and our concerns about Chinese activities in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir”, the MEA said in 2009. In 2010 similar concerns were raised.
Last month, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval raised eyebrows when he reminded an audience of BSF officers that “we also have a 106-km-long non-contiguous border with Afghanistan that we need to factor in,” a clear reference to Gilgit Baltistan’s Afghan frontier. Now, in similar vein, Vikas Swarup, the spokesman for the external affairs ministry, said on Tuesday: “India’s position is well known. The entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, which includes the regions of Gilgit and Baltistan, is an integral part of India.”
The election, which is scheduled for June 8, is as an attempt by Islamabad “to camouflage its forcible and illegal occupation of the regions” and to deny its people their political rights; it is being held under a belated effort by Islamabad to give the region a figment of self-rule, the MEA said in a strong statement on Tuesday.
The Gilgit Baltistan area of Jammu and Kashmir occupied by Pakistan covers 85,793 sq km. It was further divided in 1970 into two separate administrative divisions: Mirpur-Muzaffarabad (which Pakistan calls Azad Jammu and Kashmir, or AJK) and the Federally Administered Gilgit-Baltistan.
Gilgit-Baltistan was earlier referred to as the “Northern Areas” in Pakistan. Pakistan illegally ceded the Shaksgam Valley, around 5,180 sq km, to China in a 1963 border agreement.
Swarup said the proposed election in Gilgit and Baltistan under the so-called ‘Gilgit Baltistan Empowerment and Self Government Order’ of 2009 is an attempt by Pakistan to absorb these territories.
“We are concerned at the continued efforts by Pakistan to deny the people of the region their political rights, and the efforts being made to absorb these territories. The fact that a federal minister of Pakistan is also the ‘Governor of Gilgit Baltistan’ speaks for itself,” he added.
Battle for Gilgit
The Gilgit agency was leased by the British from the Maharaja of Kashmir because of its stratgegic location south of Afghanistan and China. It was administered by a British officer and policed by the Gilgit Scouts which were, too, officered by the British. In July 1947, the British decided to terminate the lease and return it to the Maharaja who took over the control of the region as of August 1, 1947, and appointed  Brigadier Ghansar Singh as governor. But two officers of the Gilgit Scouts, Major W A Brown and Captain A S Mathieson, along with Subedar Major Babar Khan, a relative of the Mir of Hunza conspired to overthrow the government.

Brigadier Ghansar Singh

On October 31, 1947, after the Pakistan-backed raiders had entered Kashmir, the three conspirators tried to capture the government along with a company of Gilgit Scouts. But the Brigadier got up and engaged the rebels and in the morning Brown asked the governor to surrender, threatening a massacre of non-Muslims in Gilgit. Brigadier Singh surrendered  and set up a provisional government under Major Brown and a number of Poonchi Muslims who had killed their Sikh colleagues in the 6 Jammu & Kashmir Light Infantry located at Bunji, 50 kms away. The Pakistan flag was hoisted and from here, Pakistani regulars and irregulars launched attacks on the other towns and cities of the region like Skardu, Dras, Kargil and Leh.
No fiction of Azadi
Pakistan did not bother with any fiction of “Azad” Gilgit-Baltistan, nor did it claim that the government represented the will of the people. Two weeks after Brown’s coup, a nominee of the Pakistan government, Sardar Mohammed Alam, was appointed Political Agent and took possession of the territory.
From the outset, India was less than categorical about its desire to resume control of the Gilgit-Baltistan area, though Nehru did insist that as part of the UN resolution requiring the removal of Pakistani forces from J&K, the Pakistani regulars and irregulars ought to be removed from Gilgit-Baltistan as well.
However, when the Dixon proposals came up in 1950, which sought to partition the state, India went along with the proposal for allotment to Pakistan of those areas where there was no apparent doubt about the wishes of the people wanting to go the Pakistan, and Gilgit-Baltistan was one of these areas, along with areas of Jammu west of the ceasefire line. Jammu, Ladakh, and Kargil would go to India and the plebiscite would be held in the Valley and parts of Muzaffarabad. However, this proposal came to nought because Pakistan wanted a plebiscite over the whole state.
Shias targeted
In 1970, Pakistan changed the name of the region to “Northern Areas”, but kept it detached from Azad Kashmir. But while AJK was given a semblance of constitutional government right from the outset, Gilgit Baltistan was in a constitutional limbo, or simply a colony of Pakistan.  In 2009, Pakistan finally sought to give some legal cover to this relationship by passing a Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order in the Cabinet and getting presidential assent for it. The order allegedly granted self-rule to the people by creating a legislative assembly and a council, yet did not provide for any constitutional means of linking it to Pakistan. Islamabad believes that this way it is able to maintain its somewhat convoluted stand on Jammu & Kashmir.
Pakistan’s role in the region has not been particularly responsible. According to estimates, some 70 per cent of the population are Shias of various denominations and only 30 per cent or so are Sunnis. However, since the Zia-ul-Haq era, an effort has been made to alter the sectarian balance in the region. In 1988, a huge Lashkar of Sunni extremists was sent in to chastise the Shia population, triggering sectarian strife which has now recurred regularly over the years. And in recent times, the general climate of violence against Shias in Pakistan has taken a toll in the Gilgit-Baltistan region as well.  Tuesday’s MEA statement makes a reference to these issues too, for added measure: “Unfortunately in recent times the people of the region have also become victims of sectarian conflict, terrorism and extreme economic hardship due to Pakistan’s occupationary policies.”
China corridor
Since the Pakistan-China agreement in 1963 which saw the transfer of the Shaksgam Valley to China, Beijing has been an important player in  the region. Beginning in the mid-1960s, China constructed the Karakoram Highway linking Kashghar in Xinjiang with Gilgit and Abbottabad through the Khunjerab Pass. Though prone to landslides, efforts are on to upgrade this highway and make it an axis of China’s Silk Road Initiative which will link Xinjiang to Gwadar port in Balochistan through the highway, a possible railroad and oil and gas pipeline. China has invested in a number of projects in the Gilgit-Baltistan region and the Chinese connection is an important element of the region’s economy. During his recent visit, President Xi Jinping committed some $46 billion to projects in Pakistan.
China says that it is seeking to stabilise the region as Pakistan melts down and is ensuring that there is no blowback into its vulnerable province of Xinjiang. However, India cannot take that at face value, since the legal title of the region through which the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will run through vests with India. This is the reason the Indian side has  protested Chinese activity in PoK in the past and again recently. However, this is only a subtext of the larger Indian complaint about the Sino-Pak nexus.

thewire.in June 2, 2015

The Modi govt's real test is yet to come

Governments today face scrutiny on their 100th day, sixth month, first year or some equally arbitrary period. Like surprise examinations in a school, they end up being haphazard exercises in assessing the true worth of the examinee. For one thing, they are completely subjective. You can choose your metric the Sensex being up or down, inflation, FDI coming in and so on, and shape the argument any way you want. In other words, show the glass as being completely full, half empty, half full, or completely empty.

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is welcomed upon his arrival at Deendayal Dham near Mathura on Monday, where he kickstarts a series of 200 rallies to mark a year of his government. Pic/PTI

The real test, however, are elections the small ones in state assemblies and the big one to the Lok Sabha. The Narendra Modi government faces a small test later this year when elections will take place to the Bihar Legislative Assembly and later, in 2016 in West Bengal and in 2017 in Uttar Pradesh. However, since the BJP is not the incumbent party in any of the states, its stakes are relatively low. But, at the end of the day, the real test will take place only in May 2019.

Judged by that measure, the Modi government does have time. The problem, however, is that as of now, we are not quite clear as to the direction it is moving in. The first year should have given us a clear indication of its plans, and the personnel who would execute them. However, we have clarity in neither area. Yes, we are familiar with the numerous slogans and buzzwords — “Make in India”, “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan,” “Namami Ganga”, “Jan Dhan Yojna”, “Shramev Jayate” or “GIAN, Global Initiative of Academic Networks”. But we see no clear policy lines or the organisations which will deliver them. We know that Arun Jaitley is the effective number two in the ministry, and that the Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti is the nominal head of the clean Ganga campaign, or that Nitin Gadkari handles road building and Venkaiah Naidu does urban development. But none of these figures have stood out so far, as did Jaswant Singh, Arun Shourie, BC Khanduri and Yashwant Sinha in the case of the first NDA.

The challenge before the second National Democratic Alliance government is much more complex than that faced by the first, headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In the last fifteen years, the governmental system has become more stove-piped and clogged.

So, the challenge before the government is not merely to run the system, but to understand that to even to run the government effectively today, there is need to first restructure and reform it. This is where we find little happening, because the Prime Minister in his wisdom has marginalised his political colleagues and privileged the bureaucracy.

However, the bureaucracy is simply unable to cope with the level of expertise required to run the government of today since it lacks an effective system of promoting expertise and upgrading the skills of its own personnel. In a bid to retain control, it has layered the government system with regulations and procedures which have effectively paralysed decision-making.

So, unless this reform takes place, we are likely to see a lot of declarations, slogans and plans, but little happening on the ground.

To break this logjam, Prime Minister Modi needs to, perhaps, imitate Rahul Gandhi and take a break to meditate on his situation. He needs to realise that the people of the country gave him the kind of electoral majority he got, on the basis of his promise of radical reform. It is true that the Modi team has ended the drift of the UPA II era, but in the main through tinkering with the system, rather than overhauling it. Achievements like coal blocks allocation have been more an outcome of a court-driven process than a self-conscious effort to reform. Indeed, within the government there seems to be a belief as expressed in the Economic Survey 2014-2015 that “creative incrementalism” will give India sustainable double-digit growth, rather than radical reforms.

India may have overtaken China in terms of economic growth, but that is scarcely any comfort since almost all estimates say that it would take us a generation or two to overtake the Chinese, even with double-digit growth. But that is assuming we can manage to consistently grow at a high rate for the next two decades and more.

This is where the problem lies. There is likely to be no gain without pain. It is an illusion to think that India can achieve its economic promise without drastic changes in the way it runs its governmental system. Though it is true, Modi recognises this, that the challenge is not just something New Delhi alone can meet; now more than ever, there is need for a functioning partnership between the Union government and the states. The move for a GST is one small forward move. But we need sharp acceleration of that partnership in removing obstacles in inter-state commerce and transportation. Likewise, beyond the promise of Make in India, the Centre and the states need to focus on the immediate problem that the country confronts — rural distress which can only be removed through reforms in our agricultural system.

The one lesson that emerges from the experience of other societies in transition is that we need to see reform as a continuous process. There is also need to understand that in a democracy, the process of reform can only be led by the political class. If there is one weakness that the government clearly has, is the lack of Ministers who are reform minded. It is true that Modi is committed to reform and change. But that is not sufficient, no matter what his supporters may think, he is not a superman. He needs to expand his political team and empower them.

Mid Day May 26, 2015

How the PM put India on an even keel

Most of the comments on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first year in office have given him full marks in the area of foreign policy. 

With as many as 19 foreign visits, of which 16 were state visits, Modi has probably set a record of sorts. 

The visits can be looked at through the prism of geopolitics and geo-economics. However, there has also been an additional “geocultural” element in his outreach to the Indian community and in his efforts to burnish India’s Buddhist credentials. 

His key achievement in this one year, has been to right the Indian ship of state and place it on an even keel in the turbulent global waters of today. 

Numerous visits 

The numerous visits allow us to see a clearer pattern of his government’s geopolitical thinking. This is visible in a distinct preference for aligning India with Western alliance through an outreach to the United States, Japan and Australia. 

On the other hand, he has sought to maintain a geoeconomic balance in showcasing India’s potential as the new manufacturing hub of the world. 

Pragmatically, he has aligned India with China in its effort to reset the global financial order. 

As part of this, India has become part of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development (BRICS) Bank. He has actively courted and obtained Chinese investment into India, perhaps, not as much as he would have liked. 

Modi’s geopolitical outreach reveals three concentric circles — the outer one including Mongolia, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, and the US around China’s periphery. In addition, there are two inner ones comprising India’s immediate neighbours who are members of SAARC, and another which took him to the island states of Sri Lanka, Mauritius and Seychelles in Indian Ocean in March. 

It does not take a genius to understand that a great deal of what Modi has been doing is to adjust India’s position in the regional system in the context of the rise of China. 

The latter’s spectacular economic growth has had an inevitable political fallout in India’s periphery and has tilted the balance of power against us. 

China has not only become a major economic power, but is now in the process of becoming a military power. This has implications for India because of our difficult relations with Beijing. Our entire 3,500-km border with China is disputed. Further, since the mid-1960s, Beijing has sought to contain India in South Asia by using Pakistan’s unrelenting hostility to India as its convenient instrument. 

Today, as China aspires for world power status, the simultaneous - though much slower - rise of India is a matter of discomfort for it. 

Chinese pressure 

The result is an intensification of Chinese pressure on India through aggressive patrolling on the Line of Actual Control, the accepted border between the two countries, as well as in Chinese activities in our immediate neighbourhood. 

While Pakistan has been a constant factor, Chinese actions in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives are of concern to New Delhi. 

Some of this is inevitable, given China’s expanding economic profile, but the worry is that it is aimed at keeping India locked in South Asia. 

Modi’s achievement is that he has pushed a vigorous Indian response. As a result, putative allies like the US and Japan, and presumed adversaries like China and Pakistan, have a clearer picture of the way India thinks. And this leaves no one in any doubt that the last thing New Delhi will do is kowtow to Beijing. 

Unique gesture 

Modi has been quite up-front in this. In an unprecedented gesture, he invited US President Barack Obama to be the chief guest at the 2015 Republic Day celebrations. Further, and more significantly, he agreed to sign up on a declaration on the Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean. 

India and the US have been moving close to each other since the early 2000s. But somehow, New Delhi shied away from explicitly indicating the direction it desired of this relationship. 

The Joint Vision may be a declaration, but it is also an important first step. In a similar vein, Modi has been outspoken with the Chinese. Instead of trying to paper over differences, Modi bluntly told the Chinese during his state visit earlier this month that they should take a “strategic and long term view” of their relationship with India and “reconsider” their approach on “some of the issues that hold us back from realising full potential of our partnership”. 

How this balancing will play out, only future can tell. But you cannot deny Modi has been uncommonly energetic in pushing the Indian view. 

At the end of the day, the issue will be decided by how things play out on the ground. If he is able to transform the Indian economy and put it on a fast growth track in the coming years, he will sharply enhance India’s weight in the international system. 

Mail Today May 25, 2015

Still Battling Mistrust

The best assessment of the outcome of Narendra Modi's visit to China has been made by the Prime Minister himself. Twice on Friday, he referred to the inability of the two countries to fulfil their potential because of mistrust between them.
This time around, there was no reference to the 2005 formulation that the SinoIndian relationship was a “strategic and cooperative partnership“. The tone and substance of the joint statement, which usually reflects areas of agreement, was modest. Not surprisingly, it spoke of the “imperative of forging strategic trust“.

In his media statement in Beijing on Friday, Modi said he had, in his official talks, “stressed the need for China to reconsider its approach on some of the issues that hold us back from realising full potential of our partnership“. Later, in a speech at Tsinghua University, after outlining his plans and policies for India and the potential of the China-India political and economic partnership, Modi again emphasised the need to “address the issues that lead to hesitation and doubts, even distrust, in our relationship“.
Such candour is not unusual in talks between government heads, but Modi's insistent public references probably left the Chinese bemused. For too long they have gone on with the cynical claim that China's ties with Pakistan are not aimed at India, or that the border dispute is left over from history and is best left for later generations to handle. The simple fact is that Sino-Indian relations are now far too important to be allowed to fester for decades, as they have.
Modi conceded that the Chinese leadership was “responsive“ to him, but it is clear that they hesitated to act on his points. In his press remarks and Tsinghua speech, Modi spoke of the need to clarify the Line of Actual Control as a means of maintaining peace and tranquillity on the LAC, as well as the need for progress on the stapled visa policy. But the joint statement is silent on both issues.
In the same vein, there were probably subjects that the Chinese would have liked to have seen in the joint statement, but they are not there. Tibet and one China are old hat, but Beijing would have wanted a favourable reference to President Xi Jinping's favourite scheme ­ the One Belt One Road initiative that seeks to build overland and maritime connectivity in Central Asia and the Indian Ocean Region.
The reference to the border dispute in the joint statement is anodyne. Both sides seem adamant in wanting to get an “LAC plus“ settlement.
But there has clearly been forward movement in the economic and peopleto-people ties. Investments could come in railways and industrial parks, new consulates will be opened in Chengdu and Chennai, initiatives to encourage province-to-province and business-tobusiness relations will get a fillip through Indian e-visas. As of now, many of the plans are on paper, but there is a logic to closer India-China economic ties that cannot be ignored. Still, as Modi pointed out, at present there is a self-limiting trajectory to the relations. At its heart is a dark area of mistrust, which is actually growing. In the 1962-2000 period, it was primarily related to the memories of the war and China's backing of Pakistan, to the extent of altering the strategic equations in South Asia by giving them nuclear weapons and missiles.
But after 1988 China and India were able to keep aside the problems, maintain peace on a disputed 4,000 km border, build important economic relations and develop convergence on a host of global governance issues.
Till the end of the Cold War, with the Soviets on their side, India effectively balanced China. Our GDPs and levels of technology were roughly the same. But in the 2000s things have changed rapidly and today China's GDP is five times that of India; Russia is drifting towards China.After 2008 China has come to be seen as a world power, bringing in its wake enormous turbulence in the world order.
Yet, the Sino-Indian border dispute continues to fester and the China-Pakistan relationship seems even more solid, with little change in Islamabad's hostility towards India or China's military commitment, the latest to the provision of submarines capable of firing ballistic missiles.Layered upon this are newer areas generating mistrust ­ China's naval activity in the Indian Ocean and the nature of relations with India's close neighbours, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
So it is not surprising that India, feeling the ground shifting beneath its feet, is furiously modernising its military and racing to build its border infrastructure. It is reaching out to democracies like the US and Japan to maintain a balance of power, and this, in turn, following the logic of great power competition, is scaring China.
In part the mistrust is fostered by a difficulty in understanding how the Chinese system functions. But rising China, instead of becoming more open and democratic, remains opaque, determined to create an authoritarian universe in its governance system, internet, media and international outlook.
But conflict is not inevitable. India and China have themselves shown how it is possible to manage disputes. However, it requires a pragmatic ability to confront festering issues and resolve them. By being unusually forthright in his speeches in Beijing, that is what Modi was trying to tell China.
Times of India May 18, 2015

Incremental Progress, Not Flourishes in the India China Statement

There has always been a touch of rhetorical excess in delineating joint statements between India and China. In 1954 when we signed the agreement on trade and intercourse with the Tibet Region of China, it was prefaced by what came to be known as the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. Years later in 2003, when Prime Minister Vajpayee made his visit to Beijing, it was entitled “a declaration of principles for relations and comprehensive cooperation”.

 

In 2005, the Sino-Indian joint statement following the visit of Wen Jiabao in April 2005 said that it was under the rubric of a new “India-China strategic and co-operative partnership for peace and prosperity.” So it was not surprising that when Manmohan Singh visited Beijing, the joint statement was subtitled “ a shared vision for the 21st Century of India and China.”
In his October 2013 visit, the subtitle was “a vision for future development of India-China strategic and co-operative partnership”. And last year when Xi Jinping came visiting, the joint statement set India and China on the course of “building a closer developmental partnership.”

No high sounding tag
So, it is a surprise that the much-touted joint statement during the visit of Narendra Modi does not have any kind of a high-sounding tag.
When you read the 2015 document and then you read it alongside Prime Minister Modi’s press statement on Friday, it becomes apparent why. From 2005 when India and China undertook a “strategic partnership”, albeit only for peace and security, it has had an iconic status in joint statements. It figured in the 2008 and 2013 joint statements when Manmohan Singh visited Beijing, and it did so again in 2014 when Xi Jinping came to New Delhi. However, this year it is absent. The only reference to anything strategic is “the imperative of forging strategic trust.” Realism seems to be the leitmotif of the document.
There is no reference to the signature Chinese outreach project, now known as the Belt Road Initiative. This is something of a surprise considering the importance China assigns to India in its maritime scheme of things. This can only mean that New Delhi is not quite sold on the idea. However, the more limited Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar corridor does figure.
In the September 2014 Joint Statement, the two sides had promised to hold a maritime dialogue and cooperate on anti-piracy, naval escort missions, as well as work together in peacekeeping, humanitarian aid and disaster relief. The May 2015 statement does not mention them, a somewhat strange omission in the context of the recent Nepal earthquake.  However, in his remarks to the students of Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University, later on Friday, Modi was quite emphatic in stating that India and China use the same sea-lanes around the world, and that the cooperation of the two nations was “essential” to secure them.
In talks such as the ones Modi has had with his Chinese counterparts, the discussions are often candid and blunt. But it is rare that a visiting leader makes a pointed reference to the differences. Modi’s remark that he  “stressed the need for China to reconsider its approach on some of the issues that hold us back from realizing full potential of our partnership” tells the story. India and China have a vast potential for cooperation, but, as some Chinese themselves have been saying, the border issue has become an obstacle.

Balance of terror
But this is only one of the grouses. Even deeper is India’s unhappiness with China’s Pakistan connection. By giving Islamabad nuclear weapons and missiles China has created a balance of terror in South Asia and also given Pakistan a shield which it uses to protect itself against Indian retribution for its support for terrorists operating in India. The latest development, a possible sale of Chinese submarines capable of firing ballistic missiles would be in keeping with Beijing’s strategy of balancing India with Pakistan. Modi’s somewhat plaintive observation that “ I suggested that China should take a strategic and long term view of our relations” points to India’s belief that China is not doing that and is motivated by short-term interests.
Through his remarks we also have a good idea as to what the discussions were about, and where there was little or no movement. Primarily, it was about the border and the joint statement formulation was fairly standard and more or less identical to the statements made earlier. There was no reference in the joint statement on Modi’s suggestion, made first during Xi’s visit in September 2014, and reiterated this time as well,  on “the importance of clarification of Line of Actual Control.” Since the 2000s, China has abandoned this track that sought to work out a commonly accepted version of the LAC as per the 1993 agreement on maintaining peace and tranquillity on the border. The reason, say knowledgeable sources, is that the Chinese are afraid that a commonly accepted LAC would, over times, be vested with a kind of permanence.
Border issues
Modi was being Modi when he pressed his views on the border issues in his speech at Tsinghua University later on Friday. Beyond the rhetoric of what India and China could do together in Asia, and of the economic potential of the relationship, he pointed to the need to resolve the border dispute and in the interim, clarify the Line of Actual Control  and “ ensure that our relationships with other countries do not become a source of concern for each other.”
There seems to be a remarkable turnaround on the issue. It was Xi Jinping in March of 2013 who had, at the sidelines of the BRICS meeting in Durban, first called for an “early settlement” of the border dispute. Yet, here we see Indian leaders endorsing the idea and the Chinese seemingly quiet. Obviously there seem to be deep differences that are unbridgeable for the present.
Both India and China seem to be fixated on a “status quo plus” option, in that each side wants something more than the current LAC. China wants the Tawang tract and India is seeking thousands of square kilometres of territory that the Chinese seized in the western sector during the 1962 war. And this is despite the 2005 agreement on the political parameters and guidelines of a border settlement through which both sides had agreed on a framework which would take into consideration the settled populations of the border regions and the strategic interests of the two sides.
Clearly, much more work needs to be done. For the moment, incremental progress is better than no progress at all.
Meanwhile, as they have done since 1988, the two sides seem committed to promoting relations in other areas. They are already important economic partners, though the trade imbalance remains a niggling worry. However, given China’s resources and India’s needs, the scope for economic cooperation is indeed great. Equally, the two sides already find a great deal of common ground in co-operating in multilateral issues, whether it is the AIIB or the New Development Bank, or climate change and WTO.
However, and Modi is right on this, unless the two sides can fix their “strategic mistrust” they will not be able to fulfill the potential of their relationship.
The Wire May 15, 2015