PM’s Israel Visit: High on Hype But Low on Deliverables

Separating the hype from the reality of the Modi visit to Israel is not an easy task. In part this is because of the personalities involved. Both Prime Minister Modi and his Israeli counterpart ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu are hyped up personalities.
Take, for example, Bibi’s comment that the India-Israel friendship was “a marriage made in heaven.” In no time, the internet put out that this was Israel’s third marriage since the Israeli PM had used an identical phrase to describe his country’s relationship with a) Microsoft in 2016 and b) China earlier this year in March.

 Playing to the Gallery

Modi played to the gallery with a visit to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, as well as a meeting with young Moshe Holtzberg who survived the Mumbai terrorist attack of 2008 that took the lives of his parents Rivka and Gavriel.

Yet, strangely enough, there was no reference to bringing the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to justice, as was the case in the US joint statement recently.

A measure of the publicity were the front page headlines that accompanied the decision of the two countries to set up a $ 40 million fund for joint innovation.
Just two days earlier, Indian tycoons Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Agarwal set up a $100 million fund in India, which was appropriately placed in the business pages of newspapers.

Terrorism did figure in the joint statement between India and Israel, but not in any prominent way. (Photo: Lijumol Joseph/The Quint)

Israel’s Careful Posture

Admiration for Israel is part of the BJP’s DNA. The Jewish state is seen as a model for what they would like India to be, and its battles with Arabs and Palestinians is seen as being similar to India’s fight with Pakistan.

Israel’s muscular approach to dealing with its adversaries is the envy of Modi & Co, never mind the fact that several wars and annexation of territory have not brought peace to Israel, which lives in high state of tension over potential terror strikes.

Given its size, Israel has some justification for adopting a posture which compels it to fight its battles outside the bounds of the country. India on the other hand, does not face a comparable threat, yet, the Modi government makes out as though terrorism is an existential threat to India.
Terrorism did figure in the joint statement but not in any prominent way. The Israelis probably did not want to get too mixed up in the Indian focus on the Taliban and the Pakistani groups. And unlike our other strategic ally, the US, they did not call on Pakistan to ensure that its territory was not used to launch terrorist attacks on other countries.

Deliverables From the Visit

Minus the hype, then, the real meat in the visit was on practical matters. There is a great deal India can learn from Israel in the area of water management and agriculture.
But while Israel can give us the technology which it already does, and help us with some extension work, it is India’s responsibility to disseminate it widely and it’s not clear whether our states have the capacity to do so.
Israel is important to us in the area of space programmes. It may be recalled that the first radar imaging satellite used by our defence services, TechSar, was custom-built in Israel. What India needs to tap is Israel’s huge SME sector which has world-class niche capabilities in a range of technologies.
The joint statement has identified some areas like atomic clocks, GEO-LEO optical links, and electrical propulsion of satellites.

Defence Pact Fairly Routine

Another area of importance is cyber security. Though the joint statement makes an anodyne reference, India would be well advised to make this a focus area of its relationship.
Given its security perspective, Israel has developed a high-quality IT base specialising in anti-virus software, cyber defence technologies and other forms of internet security. Many global vendors have set up shop in Israel or, like Microsoft, acquired Israeli companies. Israel’s ties with the United States gives it a special edge in this area.
The joint statement reference to defence is, again, fairly routine, emphasising the need to focus on joint development of products and transfer of technology from Israel.
A lot of the technology has an American connection and any transfer would require a US go-ahead. Indeed, one of the principal Indian motives in establishing close defence ties with Israel was to use it as a cutout for US technologies which are always difficult to acquire and come with many conditions. But Israel takes a totally business-like approach to defence technologies and India has to shell out hard cash to acquire them.
Indian defence imports are vital for Israel constituting 41 percent of the exports of their arms industry. Notwithstanding the hype, they are less important for India, and amount to just 7 percent of our imports, with many of the products we get also available from other European and Russian companies.

De-Hyphenating Palestine

Modi and Netanyahu probably see each other as birds of a feather. Both are right-wing and revel in muscular policies both at home and abroad, though in Bibi’s case, the posture is an outcome of his dependence on extreme right-wing parties.

The Modi government’s crackdown on NGOs, for example, finds an echo in Israel, where the government is seeking to pass a law to check human rights NGOs.

For Israel, the Modi visit is a big thing, because of the obvious veneration that the visitor has for the Jewish state, unlike many other leaders around the world who would rather avoid the Israeli embrace.
Added to this is Modi’s decision to de-hyphenate the Palestinian relationship by avoiding a visit to Ramallah, the Palestinian headquarters, which is just 30 minutes away by road.

However, the joint statement does endorse the Israel-Palestine Peace process, even though under Netanyahu it is dead in the water. Modi’s admiration for Israel has led to India giving up an important plank of its foreign policy.

Israel’s Equation With China and Iran

The contrast with China could not be starker. China’s trade with Israel is three times that of India, already more than a thousand Israeli start-up companies have set up shop in China.
Bibi has strongly endorsed the One Belt One Road project yet, Beijing has not hesitated as to support UN resolutions denouncing Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory and in 2016, during a visit to Egypt, Xi Jinping called for the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem.

Iran has been the invisible elephant in the Indian-Israeli room. Netanyahu views it as an existential threat to Israel and has done all he can to get the US to act against its nuclear programme. On the other hand, Iran forms an important part of India’s geopolitical thrust to the Middle-East.

Iran’s location and the Chah Bahar and International North South Transportation Corridor projects offer New Delhi a means of riposting China’s OBOR. Just how New Delhi hopes to square the circle of its “strategic ties” with Israel and the US. Although, its strategic needs with Iran are not clear.
The Quint July 6, 2017

On India-China Himalayan face-off, China may just have a case

All the bluster and threats between India and China these days should not conceal the fact that on the Doklam stand-off China has a case. Yet, the opacity in the position of all three players—India, China and Bhutan— confuses the issue. Certainly, the face-off speaks for the need for an urgent need for all parties to address the issue through negotiations, rather than military means.
To start with, India’s position on the tri-junction at the borders of the three countries being near Batang La (N 27°19′48″ & E 88°55′04”) is not tenable. The reason is that Sikkim’s border with Tibet, the only settled border between India and China, is determined by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890 which says that “it commences at Mount Gipmochi on the Bhutan frontier.” In other words, Mount Gipmochi is the tri-junction, although its coordinates (27°16’00.0″N & 88°57’00.0″E) places it around 7.5 km south-west as the crow flies from where India and Bhutan claim the tri-junction is.
To go by the reading of the treaty, which talks of the boundary following the watershed, the border should go from Gipmochi to Gyemochen (27° 16′ 26″ N, 088° 54′ 08″ E ) and then north to Batang La.
India has accepted the validity of the Convention. On March 22, 1959, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to his Chinese counterparts, that “The boundary of Sikkim, a protectorate of India, with the Tibet Region of China was defined in the Anglo Chinese Convention of 1890 and jointly demarcated on the ground.”
In a note later that December, the Chinese foreign ministry, too, accepted that the Sikkim boundary “has long been formally delimited and there is neither any discrepancy between the maps nor any disputes in practice.”
So, the Chinese are right to complain that India is violating the treaty in sending its troops across at Doka La (N 27°17′22″ E 88°54′57″) which is between Batang La and Gyemochen, to block a Chinese road construction team.
But the issue is not that simple. While the British and the Chinese decided that the border would begin at Mount Gipmochi, they did not consult the Bhutanese. It is only after 1910 that Bhutan became a formal British protectorate. Bhutan is not bound by the Anglo-Chinese convention, nor the boundary it has created. In fact, while the Bhutan-India border has been formally delimited and demarcated as of 2006, the 470 km border with China is in the process of being settled through negotiations.
In their note of December 26,1959, the Chinese had noted that in the case of Bhutan “there is only a certain discrepancy between the delineation on the maps of the two sides in the sector south of the so-called McMahon Line.” But typical of the Chinese, they have expanded their claim over the years to include not just chunks of northern and western Bhutan, but also a significant area of eastern Bhutan.
So far the two sides have had 24 rounds of talks. In the process, Bhutan has conceded a great deal of Chinese claims, and by their reckoning, there are now only some 269 sq kms yet to be settled—two chunks in western Bhutan and an 89 sq km area of Doklam where the present problem is focused.
While China claims that the Doklam plateau is “indisputably” part of China, Bhutan’s ambassador to India V Namgyel publicly complained at the end of June that a Chinese road being constructed was headed for a camp of the Royal Bhutan Army at Zom Pelri. He added that “Bhutan has conveyed that the road construction by the PLA is not in keeping with the agreements between China and Bhutan. We have asked them to stop and refrain from changing the status quo.”
Here Bhutan is correct. In December 1998 the two sides signed an agreement whose Article 3 noted that “prior to the ultimate solution of the boundary issues, peace and tranquillity along the border should be maintained and the status quo of the boundary prior to March 1959 should be upheld and not to resort to unilateral action to alter the status quo of the border.”
Clearly, China is violating this agreement and its December 1959 acknowledgement that there was only some “discrepancy” in the Sino-Bhutan border’s delineation and that, too, in the east, is proof that it knows as well. Further, from the start China has maintained systematic pressure on the Bhutanese border by its road-building activities, which have often been undertaken in Bhutanese territory and in plain sight of Royal Bhutan Army posts.
But Bhutan’s own conduct is not above reproach. It was only in the 14th round of talks held in Beijing in November 2000 that it actually extended the claim line of the border to the Doklam area. A translation of the proceedings and resolutions of the 79th session of the National Assembly of Bhutan says, “during the 14th round of border talks held in China the Bhutanese delegation had further extended the claim line in three areas in Doklam, Sinchulumba and Dramana.”
Bhutan’s Council of Ministers had decided that “the claim line in these areas should be extended as much as possible.”
The Bhutanese sprang these last-minute changes on the Chinese and asked them to take into account the discrepancy of the size of the two countries. But Beijing’s officials told their Bhutanese counterparts that they could not offer any concessions, because this would impact on their negotiations with other countries.
No doubt China believed that Bhutan had been put up to it by the Indians.
The principal issue concerns China and Bhutan. Under the India-Bhutan friendship treaty of 2007 that guides our relations, the two sides are committed to “cooperate closely with each other on issues relating to their national interests.” But this is not tantamount to a military alliance that commits us to come to the aid of the other party automatically. This is especially so in an issue which is so tangled and complicated as the Bhutan’s claim of Doklam plateau and India’s own commitment to the Anglo-Chinese convention of 1890 that seems to negate it.
Instead of talking up war, the government of India needs to feel its way carefully here. The area is sensitive for India’s security, but it is not as if India confronts an existential threat on the ground.
Indian Express Online July 5, 2017

How China is eyeing influence over the region with Bhutan

China likes to boast of the number of neighbours with whom it has peacefully settled its disputes. But it doesn’t quite talk about those with whom it has border disputes. At present, China’s expansive claims, based on imperial boundaries, vex its relations with South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, India and lately, Bhutan. Last month, the dispute between the Asian giant and the tiny kingdom of Bhutan came to the fore.
Chinese borders with Bhutan have arisen through their establishing control over Tibet, though to hear the official spokesman, Doklam, the area on the Sikkim-Bhutan border where the recent events occurred, “had been a part of China since ancient times.”

Mapping issues
The problem arises from the nature of the Bhutanese state which did not even have an official map of the country till 1961. Indeed, the other day, the Chinese spokesman said that the Chinese boundary in the region was laid out by Article 1 of the Anglo-Chinese convention on the Sikkim and Tibet boundary.
However, Bhutan was not party to this treaty and it was only after 1910 that its foreign relations were “guided” by the British. With Indian help, a map was prepared and between 1963 and 1971, Bhutan began the process of finalising its boundary with India.
In fact, the two sides formally demarcated their 699km border only in 2006. Bhutan shares borders with India in the east in Arunachal Pradesh; in Sikkim, as well as Assam and West Bengal. In 1989, after conducting its own surveys and checking tax records, Bhutan brought out a map that was subsequently approved by the 68th National Assembly. Bhutan, shares a 470km border with China which had never been delimited or demarcated.
The first round of talks on the boundary issue was held in Beijing in April 1984 and starting from the 6th round, these have been held at the ministerial level. Since the 1990s, there have been complaints from Bhutan about Chinese road construction activities in areas it considers part of Bhutan.
In view of these complaints, the two sides signed an “Agreement on Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility in Bhutan-China Border Areas” in 1998 commiting to maintain the status quo on the border pending its final settlement. But the fault has not only been on the Chinese side.
The Bhutanese, too, have expanded their claims, especially in the Doklam area as evidenced by the proceedings of the 79th session of its National Assembly in 2001.



The conflict
A report of the 84th session of Bhutan’s National Assembly in 2005 noted that there were as many as six different roads being constructed by the Chinese in the northern boundaries in 2004.
However, after protests, four of these were stopped. Last month’s incidents near the China-Bhutan-India trijunction is, at one level, a continuation of Chinese policy to create “facts on the ground” and present its interlocutors with a fait accompli. China and Bhutan have held 24 rounds of border talks so far.
In 2002, the Bhutanese pointed out that the disputes were in four significant areas, the first, and most important involving 89sqkm from the Indian point of view was in the Doklam area, which is adjacent to Sikkim.
As a result of talks, the extent of the disputed area was reduced from 1128sqkm to 269sqkm, this included the Doklam area, as well as two other points in north-western Bhutan.
The northern claims were voluntarily given up by Bhutan, but it has made no difference to the Chinese, since what they want most is the Doklam area adjacent to Sikkim because of its strategic significance. Beyond borders, Chinese aims in Bhutan are to establish formal relations and expand bilateral relations.
To this end, they emphasise the historical and cultural ties between Bhutan and Tibet. Chinese ambassadors and high officials regularly visit Bhutan on working visits and Bhutanese officials reciprocate.
Yet as of now, Bhutan is not willing to permit a Chinese embassy in Thimpu. It goes without saying that ties with Bhutan are vital for India. For one, Bhutan is a key buffer between China and the Siliguri Corridor. It's not surprising that Prime Minister Modi’s first overseas visit abroad was to Thimpu.

India’s role
Bhutan is a well-managed and placid area of India’s otherwise tumultuous neighbourhood relationships. New Delhi has been careful to calibrate its policy with Bhutanese aspirations, for example, by modifying the India-Bhutan treaty in 2007 to adjust to the transformation of Bhutan into a constitutional monarchy.
Instead of guiding Bhutan’s foreign policy, as it did under the older treaty, India and Bhutan now “cooperate closely with each other on issues relating to their national interests.” And right now, there is an enormous congruence of interests in dealing with China’s effort to push the India-China-Bhutan southwards.
Were Bhutan to privilege its own national interests and strike a deal with China, it would have serious consequences for India.
Mail Today July 3, 2017

Operation Falcon: When Gen Sundarji Took the Chinese By Surprise

The PLA spokesman’s response in relation to the current India-China standoff,  that India should not forget the lesson of history, suggests that the PLA itself may have forgotten some.
True, in 1962, the PLA roundly defeated the Indian Army. But in border skirmishes in 1967 in this very region, and in 1986-87, the Indian Army’s power play so rattled the PLA that it sacked its Tibet Military District Commander and its Military Region chief in Chengdu.
In its own way, the present Chinese action in the India-Bhutan-China trijunction could well be an outcome of the event that many have forgotten. This is the conflict that developed in the Sumdorong Chu region, north of Tawang in 1986, and led to a major military push, Operation Falcon, led by the then Indian Army chief Gen Krishnaswamy Sundarji.
 

India’s Policy on China After 1962 War

The roots of the problem went back to the late 1970s, when India finished licking their wounds following the 1962 war. That had begun when Indian forces were ordered to cross the Namka Chu rivulet and evict Chinese troops from the Thag La ridge, also north of Tawang, which India believed was the true border defined by the McMahon Line. The Chinese reacted strongly and launched a major attack across the Sino-Indian border. The outcome was a defeat for the Indian Army, with some of the worst catastrophes occurring in this region.

So, there was a certain sensitivity when New Delhi decided in 1983 that it should once again adopt a credible posture in this area to defend the major monastery town of Tawang. Indian forces stayed south of Namka Chu, but an IB team began visiting Sumdorong Chu, a few kilometres east of the site of the first clash of 1962 on the far side of the Nyamjang Chu.

Both Sumdorong Chu and Namka Chu flowed into this north-south flowing river, the former from the east and the latter from the west. The team camped there through summer and went back in winter. They did so in 1984 and 1985, but when they went back in 1986, they found the Chinese there in force. The Indians protested in June 1986, but the Chinese insisted that the area was north of the “so-called McMahon Line.”
All this happened in the wake of the Chinese decision to do one of those foreign policy somersaults they periodically do.

China’s Demands

Till the early 1980s, the Chinese expressed their willingness to resolve the Sino-Indian border dispute by swapping claims, that is that India surrender its claims to Aksai Chin, in exchange for them giving up claims to North East Frontier Agency (NEFA, later Arunachal Pradesh).
New Delhi had rejected the offers when they had been originally made in 1960 by Zhou Enlai and then again by Deng Xiaoping in 1988 to External Affairs Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1979.

So when, during the border talks of 1985, the Chinese suddenly took the line that there was a bigger problem on the eastern sector and only if India gave concessions there, would it be willing to offer concessions on the western sector, the Indian side was baffled.

Soon it became clear that the Chinese were upping the ante in the east.
The decision was taken, therefore, to shore up Indian defences in the region. As part of this, the Army devised Operation Falcon to enable it to move up to the border in quick time from their peacetime positions.
 

Operation Falcon

Since there was no road beyond Tawang, Gen Sundarji decided to use the IAF’s new Russian-made heavy lift MI-26 helicopters to air land a brigade at a place called Zemithang, south of the Sino-Indian border but 90 kms by road from Tawang.
The airlift took place between 18 and 20 October 1986, the dates fraught in Indian history as they marked the beginning of the Sino-Indian war 24 years earlier in this very sector. They took up positions on Hathung La ridge overlooking Sumdorong Chu along with three other key mountain features. In 1962, the Chinese held the high ground; this time, the Indians.
With China scrambling to rush forces to the region, both sides began a general mobilisation along the entire border. Here again, Sundarji had a few surprises.

Innovatively using the heavy lift assets, which included Il-76 aircraft and the AN-26 helicopter, the Army placed T-72 tanks and infantry combat vehicles in the Demchok area of Ladakh and northern Sikkim.

The Chinese fumbled for a response and subsequently, a 15 November flag meeting calmed things down a bit. But now, India decided to take the opportunity to convert Arunachal, which was a centrally administered territory till then, into a full-fledged state.

South Block Had Its Doubts

Now came the kind of bluster we are hearing again in June 2017, reminding India of the lessons of 1962. The supreme leader Deng Xiaoping himself issued the threat to teach India “another lesson.” But the Army held firm, though the civilian side got a bit shaky. On 4 December, Rajiv Gandhi learnt of the developments at the border at the Navy Day reception traditionally held at the house of the Navy chief. Alarmed, he asked Sundarji and civilian defence officials to convene in the South Block Ops room after the reception.
Sundarji told him that they were a result of a Cabinet Committee on Security decision in 1983 ordering the Army to take up positions that would enable the defence of Tawang. While the Army had gone about the process methodically over the past years, the politicians and babus had simply not paid attention.

There was a heated argument at this point, with some officials wondering whether the Army had exceeded its brief and whether it was really necessary to occupy Hathung La and the surrounding features. Sundarji riposted that in the Army’s professional judgment, it was.

And, offering them the pointer he was using, he said that if they wanted other advice, they were welcome to seek it. It didn’t take much to remind the officials that civilian interference in operational matters was what had led to the disaster of 1962 – they backed off.

Sundarji’s Chequerboard Exercise

Through the early months of 1987, the two armies faced off against each other across the border. In the Hathung La area, they were practically eyeball to eyeball. Sundarji now launched an Exercise Chequerboard to further strengthen the Indian posture all across the Himalayan region, including pushing the authorities to undertake a crash road-building scheme to complete the projects that had been in a limbo since the 1970s. It is another matter that many of them are still not complete.
The crisis played on till May 1987, when the External Affairs Minister Narain Dutt Tiwari stopped over in Beijing on his way to Pyongang. After his talks with his Chinese counterparts, the temperature in the forward areas began subside.
India’s decision to firmly deal with the issue had beneficent consequences. It opened the way for Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing in December 1988 and gave India the confidence to detach the issue of the border settlement from the need to cultivate better relations with China. Further, it got the Chinese to agree to an equitable regime of CBMs (confidence-building measures), which were eventually written up in an agreement to maintain peace and tranquillity on the border in 1993.
There was another interesting fallout of the visit – the Chinese were so impressed by Sundarji that they invited him to visit China. They were curious to meet the person who had in the space of one year, shaken up both the Pakistan Army through Exercise Brasstacks and the PLA through Op Falcon, and led India into a military venture in Sri Lanka.
However, the government felt that the visit would be premature. Eventually it was General Bipin Joshi who became the first chief to visit China in 1994. After he retired, Sundarji too visited China.
The Quint July 1, 2017

Eyeball-to-eyeball in the Himalayas

Re-establishing Tibet’s geopolitical centrality in the trans-Himalayan region and breaking the special Bhutan-India bond is an important geopolitical goal for China in its competition with India in South Asia

 

 

It is difficult to figure out just what is happening in the ongoing face-off between India and China on the India-China-Bhutan tri-junction, or specifically the point where the three Himalayan regions — Sikkim, Tibet and Bhutan — meet.
The standoff has seen some uncharacteristic responses from the three actors. First, Beijing has adopted the posture of an aggrieved party and says it has issued a formal diplomatic protest to India. Second, discarding its normal reticence on these matters, Bhutan, through its ambassador in New Delhi, General V. Namgyel, has publicly called out China for constructing a road towards a Royal Bhutan Army camp, thereby violating a 1998 agreement in which both sides had agreed not to alter the status quo on their border.
Third, the usually voluble New Delhi has so far maintained a studied silence on the matter.
Problem is, Google Maps don’t quite show the places where the action is taking place. There is some confusion about where exactly the Doklam plateau, allegedly disputed between China and Bhutan, is located. Most maps show a 269 sq kms area to the north east of Yadong and some distance from the tri-junction. However, Chinese maps show the disputed area all the way down to the tri-junction.
This could well be the nub of the problem.
The Bhutanese believe the tri-junction is at a place called Dhoka La, where the so-called intrusion is believed to have taken place. The Chinese believe the tri-junction is located at a place called Gamochen, about 15 kms south of Dhoka La, and are building a road in this direction – which the Bhutanese are objecting to, saying Beijing is intruding into its territory. While India says the tri-junction is located at Batang La, about 6.5 km north of Gamochen.
The truth is that even 15- 20 kms on the ground brings the Chinese that much closer to a Bhutanese Valley; if the crow flies south of Gamochen, it would reach the sensitive Siliguri corridor, vital for India’s security.
However, none of these features are visible on publicly available maps and it requires an effort to locate them. Batang La seems to have the clearest claim to being the tri-junction, because of the flow of the river waters at that point.
The Chinese are not talking about a problem on the Sikkim-Tibet border; they allege that Indian forces crossed a mutually recognized border to block their road construction which, according to them, is “indisputably” Chinese territory.
It is clear why the Indian troops reacted. The goal of the Chinese action is to shift the India-China-Bhutan tri-junction south to Gamochen and though it is being done in the name of a road construction in Bhutan, it directly impacts on Indian security.
China has multiple motives in the region. First, it would like to promote the development of the Yadong region, which is connected to Lhasa with a highway and will soon get a branch of the China-Tibet railway from Shigatse. The Lhasa-Kalimpong route to Kolkata is one third shorter than the one via Kathmandu. This is linked to China’s aim of re-establishing Tibet’s geopolitical centrality in the trans-Himalayan region. Remember, that it also claims all of Arunachal Pradesh, south of the Himalayas.
Second, China would like to establish formal ties with Bhutan, set up an embassy in Thimphu and develop direct trade connections with it; so far Bhutan has fobbed off its advances. Breaking the special Bhutan-India bond would be an important geopolitical goal for China in its competition with India in South Asia.
Third, it would like to adopt a military posture in the area which will ensure that it can defeat India in any military contest. Given the strong Indian positions in Sikkim and adjacent areas, control of the Doklam plateau would allow China’s military to cut through Bhutan to the Siliguri corridor and if it pleased, to cut off India’s North-eastern states from the rest of the mainland.
To this end, China is following its characteristic tactics of changing goalposts in its negotiations with Bhutan, and mixing military coercion with diplomatic and economic inducements. At the same time it is seeking to check India’s efforts to help Bhutan.
Bhutan shares a 470 km border with China in the north. Since 1984, it has been in talks with the Chinese and has succeeded in reducing its disputed territory from 1128 sq kms to just 269 sq kms. This, however, was done by Bhutan voluntarily ceding territory, including Mount Kula Kangri. But China continues to maintain its claims over seven areas and is pushing the hardest in the Doka La area.
It has built a network or roads through the Chumbi Valley and is making lateral roads encroaching on Bhutanese positions whenever it feels the situation is opportune.
During the Bhutan-China talks in Beijing in 1996, China offered to trade 495 sq kms in the Pasamlung and Jakarlung valleys for the 269 km it claims in western Bhutan. There were reports that Bhutan had accepted the proposals, but the news proved to be incorrect. However, in 1998, the two sides signed an Agreement for the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity in the Bhutan-China Border Area. Article 3 of the treaty explicitly says that prior to the final solution of the problem, the two countries should maintain “the status quo of the boundary prior to March 1959.”
This, is what the Bhutanese say is being violated in China’s action in constructing a road in the Doklam region.
The 220 km border between Sikkim and Tibet is the only delimited and demarcated part of the 4,000 km odd Sino-Indian border. The rest is defined by a notional Line of Actual Control. This was an outcome of the Anglo-Chinese convention  of  1890 which defined the border as  the crest of the range separating the Teesta river flowing to India and the Mochu river waters flowing to Tibet.
Subsequently, it was  demarcated on the ground and marked by boundary pillars. It is true that over the years there have been issues with regard to the exact location of some of the pillars and there have been similar incidents in 2007 and 2014 during Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to India.
Even though the Chinese recognized the dealings of the British Empire with their Qing counterparts in the late 19th and early 20th century in relation to Tibet and Sikkim, they did not accept the integration of Sikkim into the Indian Union in 1975.
It was only in 2003, during Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to Beijing that the two sides struck a deal. The Chinese agreed to recognize Sikkim as an Indian state, while India agreed to recognize the “Tibet Autonomous Region” as a part of China.  Even so, it took the reluctant Chinese another three years before they formally altered their maps to show Sikkim as being part of India and opened it up for cross-border trade.
And this is where the Chinese refusal to allow Indian pilgrims to go through Nathu La to Kailash Mansarovar comes in. Opening up Nathu La to traffic in 2006 was an important part of the effort to normalise Sino-Indian relations. This old route offers Lhasa the closest access to a port. Because Nathu La is on the only section of the border which is mutually recognised, the Chinese agreed to allow it for use by Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrims as an alternate to the tough route through Lipu Lekh.
By blocking the pilgrims, the Chinese are slowly, but clearly turning the clock back on Sino-Indian relations.
Indian Express Online June 30, 2017

After Modi-Trump Meet, India Must Proceed… But With Caution

Modi’s remarks aimed to put across an India that was ready to synchronise itself with the Trump administration’s goals, but the US president made it clear he wanted India to commit to “free and fair trade”.

 

 

 Only time will tell if chemistry did indeed develop between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump but both played well for their audience and said the right things to each other.

Modi’s slightly awkward embrace following the Rose Garden press meet told another story of energetic Indian attempts to woo Trump, and the latter playing along, at least for the moment. That no questions were permitted following the statements made by the two leaders was notable. As a convention, at least two questions each are posed to the leaders from the press from India and the US. Both leaders like one-way interactions with the media and though it was the Indian side which nixed the proposal for questions, it’s quite possible there was an easy meeting of minds between Modi and Trump on this.
We do not know the tone and tenor of what the two leaders said to each other in their meetings through the day. There are two ways of making an assessment. One is from the formal remarks made by Trump and Modi at the presser and the other is through the joint statement adopted following the meetings. The short remarks, though scripted, do reveal something of the personality and priorities of the leaders.
Take Trump’s remarks “that India would have a true friend in the White House”. It recalled an identical formulation made when he attended a fundraiser by the Republican Hindu Coalition headed by Shalabh Kumar, a major donor to his campaign, in the final phase of the presidential elections last year.  In the Roae Garden on Monday, Trump was quite flattering on India – emphasising its “fastest growing economy” status and hyping its somewhat flawed GST experiment – and the meat in his statement was economic: How the US and India could partner growth, which, incidentally, echoed the subtitle of the joint statement ‘prosperity through growth’. But Trump said the goal was “to create a trading relationship that is fair and reciprocal,” making it clear that he expected India to remove trade barriers to the export of US goods to India and reduce the current trade deficit, which is around $30 billion against the US. His reference to the 100 Boeing aircraft ordered by SpiceJet and the ongoing negotiations for long-term LNG contracts brought to the surface what was otherwise in the subtext.

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In contrast to two paragraphs on security issues, economic issues merited six. The lead issue was the commonly perceived threat of terrorism and the determination to destroy them and their “radical ideology”. Trump commended the trilateral Malabar exercises to be held in July and also thanked India for its role in Afghanistan. However, it was North Korea, and indirectly China, that was on the president’s mind when he thanked India for joining in the sanctions and noted that the issue had to be dealt with “and probably dealt with rapidly.”
Modi’s remarks were carefully structured and what was evident was his subtle flattery of Trump who was thanked repeatedly for interacting with him. Modi also referred to his “vast and successful experience in the business world”. His effort was to put across an India that was ready to synchronise itself with the Trump administration’s goals, be they economic or related to security.
He emphasised the mutuality of interests and trust between the two nations and noted that there was no contradiction between his ‘new vision’ of India and Trump’s efforts of ‘making America great again’, though there is an obvious issue in Trump wanting to bring manufacturing back to the US, and Modi’s desire to get India on to the manufacturing bandwagon. Whatever be the case, Modi said, “India’s development and its growing role at the international level are in the USA’s interest”.
If Trump emphasised the economic over the security aspects of the ties, Modi’s remarks tended to do the opposite. Terrorism, of course, was a major reference, though Modi carefully nuanced his usually harsh references to Pakistan. He spoke of fighting terrorism “by doing away with the safe shelters, sanctuaries and safe havens” and spoke of the common interest in stabilising Afghanistan and ensuring security there and strategic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. He expressed his appreciation for the role the US had played in enhancing India’s defence capabilities.
On the other hand, the joint statement adopted by the two sides represents more of a consensual document, as well as one crafted by the officials of the two sides through negotiations. For this reason it is significant that for the first time the US has agreed to language which says “The leaders called on Pakistan to ensure that its territory is not used to launch terrorist attacks on other countries.”
Previous joint statements – 2016 or 2015 – had spoken of the need to bring the perpetrators of Mumbai and Pathankot to justice. The US probably indulged India a bit by declaring Syed Salahuddin, the leader of the Hizbul Mujahideen, a specially designated global terrorist. The 71-year-old leader meant something once upon a time, but today he is a has-been, important for his symbolic value as the leader of the Hizbul and the United Jihad Council.
Whatever happens in Pakistan in relation to Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is run by the Pakistani intelligence services. Yet, we should not entirely discount the American decision that will have an effect on the morale of the Kashmiri militant movement. The US also took on board the Modi government’s pet scheme of pushing for an international convention on terrorism, even though it is unlikely to press too hard on the issue at the international level.
India also got its way in putting its critique of China’s One Belt One Road into the joint statement, though without referring to the project or China. The statement speaks of the need to promote connectivity “through the transparent development of infrastructure and the use of responsible debt financing practices, while ensuring respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity, the rule of law and environment and call on other nations in the region to adhere to these principles”. The Chinese are not likely to be amused.
Where the US got its payoff was on committing India to “increasing free and fair trade”. Earlier joint statements would have anodyne references “to bolstering economic ties” and so on, but the issue here has been bluntly put and it should not be doubted that it is India on the mat. So while being “engines of growth” building prosperity all around is one thing, the US is clear that it must be done “in a manner that advances the principles of free and fair trade” which require removal of non-tariff barriers (expediting regulatory processes), protecting intellectual property rights, market access for US agricultural products, manufactured goods and services.
This is a tall order and not easy to fulfill. But presumably the government knows what it is doing. In the Obama years, there was talk of a US-India global leadership on climate change, and cooperation in solar energy and clean energy finance. The current joint statement, on the other hand, does not shy away from seeking export of US hydrocarbon products albeit LNG and clean coal. The reference in the joint statement to a deal for six Westinghouse reactors means little in the light of the difficulties affecting the US company which is owned by the troubled Toshiba corporation.
The emphasis of the interaction was bilateral, a word mentioned several times by Modi in his press statement. So even though the two sides described themselves as “responsible stewards” of the Indo-Pacific region, committed to peace and stability there, there was no mention of the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), though it does speak of tenets outlined in the UN Charter. They spoke of “respecting” freedom of navigation and overflight in the region. In the 2015 Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean Region, the two sides were committed “to ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight throughout the region, especially in the South China Sea.” In the 2016 joint statement, upholding UNCLOS and freedom of navigation was there but the reference to South China Sea was dropped.
There is a Ray Charles lyric based on an old adage “Sticks and stones may break my bones but talk don’t bother me”. Joint statements and public remarks in press meetings do have value in the relations between nations. But just how much they have in Trump’s America is moot. The president has not hesitated to go back on something he says or alter an established policy on whim.
All Modi and his officials can say for now is “so far, so good”. They have done well by their own measure. Pakistan has been condemned, the trajectory of relations with the US is largely intact, though question marks remain on the question of China. But the Trump disruption is just beginning and it can still come back to bite us, whether it is in the issue of trade or US relations with Iran.
The Wire June 27, 2017