The seaside town of Mamallapuram is being spruced up for the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping scheduled for Friday, October 11
Will anything substantial emerge from this high-profile meeting? It is highly unlikely, feels Prof V. Bhutani (Retd), an expert on Indo-China relations. There is little meeting ground between India and China, he feels, as the shadow of both the United States and Pakistan would loom over the summit as the two leaders grab photo-ops and pat each other’s back.
Bhutani is a China expert of long standing. He has also spent many years perusing the Tibetan archives at Dharamsala and India Office Library in the UK.
Excerpts from the interview with RASHME SEHGAL:
What can we expect from the informal summit to be held between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chinese President Xi Jinping to be held later this month? Will this end up setting the agenda for both the countries?
President Xi Jingping sees himself in the direct line of the empire builders of the Middle Kingdom (which is English translation of its Chinese name Zhungguo). There isno meeting point between the two leaders Xi and Modi. Xi may visit all the historic temples at Mamallapuram but this will not help towards solving the boundary issue. Xi’s view are set out in the White Papers which are in direct contradiction of Indian positions.
In my view, Xi aims to detach India from too close an embrace of USA. But Xi shall not do anything which is contrary to the expressed Chinese views on matters of contention between China and India.
All governments since Mao have pursued a policy of believing in the rightness of its territorial claims all along the Indian frontiers, even if it has no evidence to show that its claims are well founded. But possession is nine-tenths of the law. China has made itself master of Aksai Chin and acquired Shaksgam from Pakistan. Then,China goes on reminding India and the rest of the world that Arunachal Pradesh is Southern Tibet. These are claims that no Indian government can countenance,much less concede.
The present ultra-nationalist government in India is unlikely to concede these demands and China is unlikely to abandon its claims. There is no meeting point between these two antipodean positions. In a practical sense, the only possible solution is to convert the LOC or LAC into an IB and thereby put an end to a dispute which has plagued India–China relations for six decades.
Two years after the Doka La standoff, China remains as belligerent as ever and continues its road building in that sensitive area.India has so far kept quiet to all this activity and we even had former defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman going there and greeting the Chinese soldiers. What kind of message has India sent out from this and subsequent developments?
This question has several dimensions. If India were to take a more assertive action, it would leave no scope for compromise. If it leads to an uglier situation, then India would face an actively hostile China in sheer military terms. India is aware that it has no friends in the world community. In case of a showdown, India will face China single handed. No one in his senses would expect help against China from USA under (President) Trump or Russia under (President) Putin. Being totally friendless, India has no option but to make the best of a bad situation.
Trump does not seem to put much weight in even long-standing agreements. He has actually withdrawn from several agreements which were factors of stability in the strategy and the economy of the world. Those who were accustomed to regarding USA as an ally of last resort are now finding that USA under Trump is not an ally after all.
India has no reason to think that Trump shall treat India with much consideration if it came to a showdown with China. Russia of course is glad to hold on to China’s coat tails and beyond a point will even discontinue its arms sales to India– if China so demanded.
Has India gone too far in accommodating and cooperating with China thereby emboldening it further?
India has very little choice. Under the best of conditions India cannot expect to have anything more than an uneasy peace with China.
It has been my conviction, which is not shared in the MEA, that India should have moved in the matter of resolving the India–China boundary question definitively and withfinality before building large economic and other relations with China.
This proceeds from an assumption that China is not a friend of India and that China will do everything to operate to India’s disadvantage. From 1963 onwards China has built Pakistan against India in the calculation that this will keep India tied down in South Asia and that India shall have no means or occasion to think in terms of a large role in world affairs. Things like CPEC and BRI should be seenin India as China’s instrumentalities in pursuit of empire, influence, andworld leadership.
For its own reasons, USA does not wish to abandon world leader role and in this it seeks India’s cooperation to keep a check on China. On its part, China is doing what it canto keep India in good humour and thereby stop India from going entirely into the US camp. Beyond that, however, China is not going to accommodate India in anything, whether in UNSC, NSG, FATF, or any other forum.
China’s most recent action in the UNSC in the matter of a discussion of Kashmir is a case in point.
It is possible that China flatters itself that its territorial claims across land boundaries and across the seas are derived from history. But there is no effort in those White Papers to quote or reproduce historical documents, even China’s own, in support of its claims.
source: NH
