Continued peace along the LAC, gradual attenuation of the extreme claims on extended boundaries, and the adoption of a political approach that has eased a grim conflict situation - there could never be a better setting for an upswing in India-China relations.
No matter how the outcome of the recent visit of Premier Wen Jiabao to India is assessed, it would be difficult to deny that the centerpiece of the summit was the festering boundary problem. In fact, judging by the substance and thrust of the three political documents signed, this appears to have been the real purpose of this visit, as indeed it seems to have been of every prime ministerial meeting since 1954.
Clearly,Clearly the recently concluded visit of Premier Wen Jiabao was not inspired by the lure of a dynamic joint economic future. Instead, politics has been the driver of this relationship for it should be noted that the blazing 75 per cent surge in two-way trade in the past year and more, from $6 billion to 13 billion, followed and did nor precede the 2003 breakthrough on the boundary question. The economic prospect, however, seems to have played an important diversionary role, as it did also at the time of Prime Minister Vajpayee's visit to China in 2003. Whether so intended or not, in both instances, it drew public and media attention away from the emotive boundary problem and the 1962 syndrome, to a more benign view of China, encouraged by the prospects of a future of attractive economic opportunities. In doing so it may have helped to advance the process forward on this most knotted problem of boundary settlement.
The achievements of these two visits have been substantive, and could even be historic if there is no slippage and the forward movement is not stalled for whatever reason.
For the first time since the late 1950s when the territorial problem became a dispute, the two sides are no longer having to agree to disagree, because the distance between their respective positions was too wide to bridge. Nor have they had to take resort to that safeguard phrase "without prejudice to their positions... ." On the contrary, there is now a stated and shared agreement on the nature of the problem i.e. of defining a `boundary', not confirming a border ; of reaching a single comprehensive settlement covering the entire stretch, not separate agreements for different sectors ; of wrapping this up in a `package' that should shape the form and nature of the future relationship; and, to round all this off, an agreement not to use force `by any means', which can be interpreted as amounting to a no-war pact, complete with demilitarized borders and a border management system to encourage easy cross-border movement of goods and people. Such agreement as has come about, is a truly remarkable achievement particularly for a democracy as untidy and as lacking in unified thinking as ours. Also because, and again for the first time, this has been accompanied by an enlarging and enabling consensus across parties and in the public realm on the need to get this problem out of the way. All in all, there is room for optimism for there is a real possibility that what has been agreed will be implemented - both leaders have assured each other that there is the political will to do so. Hopefully, the boundary problem will have to be the central concern of only one more such summit, if only to announce its resolution and the final settlement, after which the two countries will be freer to shape their conjoined destinies.
Positions held by the governments on the territorial issue since the late 1950s have over the years been quietly unravelled and adjusted without arousing much opposition, along more constructive and practical lines. The change of attitude and approach, on both sides, has been significant, and has been helped along by two developments: One is the effective stability and security along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) over the past several decades, which has become more and more visible, reinforced and shored up by a series of military CBMs (confidence-building measures) that have been in place since the early 1990s. Peace does have its own constructive logic, and even though the territorial issue remained unresolved, continued peace along the LAC has made the situation on the ground appear increasingly non-threatening and credible. It has also encouraged an attendant improvement in the bilateral relationship. In tandem with this development has been the gradual attenuation of the extreme claims of the past, whether as historical, or as legal and traditional right, to extended boundaries that were preferred by both in the late 1950s. These claims, in any case, were never more than notional. Neither state could hope to realise these claims without breaking up the other state or by all-out war. Both options were not only unthinkable and unreal, they were also undesirable in this nuclear age. At best, these notional claims could have served as barter or as bargaining chips in the course of conflict or negotiations. This, as we know, did not transpire, for neither side has had the confidence to admit openly that these claims were indeed notional and that they could be therefore negotiable. Consequently, as I have long argued, there has been a pragmatic move away from those extreme positions to moving to ensure military control and presence over points/tracts areas of core national and security interest to each - undoubtedly with a little induced or deliberate change here and there, as seems to have happened in instances such as that of 1986. It can thus be argued that as the situation on the ground has evolved over the past two decades and more since the 1980s, the LAC has come to fulfil the role of a de facto and stable boundary acceptable to both sides.
There is also a growing awareness that the military/political equation across this de facto boundary is so well balanced as to render any attempt to alter it by force unsuccessful. As a consequence, what was a large territorial problem has been reduced to manageable proportions. The large tracts of territory controlled by one and claimed by the other, as in Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin for instance, have over time been integrated deeply into the administrative, communications, control, defence and development structures of the country. Consequently, the position of the two sides on the ground has reached a stage where delimitation of the entire LAC, which is what the two sides have been aiming at since 2003, may have become possible for, in reality, only a few points or areas of disagreement or overlap remain to be directly negotiated.
PARALLEL developments at the political level since the 1980s, saw the initiation of several separate but somewhat insubstantial strands, of which the economic was the most seductive, which were intended to relink the long estranged states at many levels of interaction. But, like the LAC qua de facto boundary, these failed to acquire a collective character or a political value-added factor or even a momentum to maintain that the relationship had been `normalised' - whatever this may mean. Normalisation continued to be only a work in progress that did not keep pace with the ground situation. Moreover, at the global level, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new geo-strategic and geo-political landscape and the resultant unipolar distribution of global power, had created large areas of shared concern and strategic commonality between the two neighbours. As in 1954, these were compelling strategic concerns that called for ending a past of discord between these two big Asian states, if they were to meet the unexpected challenges of the 21st century. But the obstacle that needed to be overcome in order to enable India and China to cooperate and break out of the unipolar shadows, was undoubtedly the unresolved territorial issue. As in 1954 again, India and China strove to do so by declaring in 2003 that they would build a long-term `constructive and cooperative partnership' to serve as a novel basis for "a qualitatively new relationship", for the sake of which they intended to formally resolve the territorial issue.
That is precisely what the Joint Declaration of 2003 set out to do and what makes it unique. It did so by recognising that the political situation had changed almost unalterably, that Sikkim and Tibet had been centrally administered by India and China respectively, for many decades, that some legitimacy needed to be given to the de facto `boundary' brought into being by these changes. This was indeed a very major step and, not surprisingly, legitimacy was granted though only elliptically by identifying Nathu La as the pass for border trade along the Tibet-Sikkim border. By doing so, however, they returned to positions taken 49 years earlier when the Tibet Agreement of 1954 was understood as an unstated acknowledgement of a de facto boundary that had come into being after 1950. The breakthrough of 2003 can similarly be explained, as in 1954, in the light of the situation on the ground and the compulsions generated by the consequences of the profound changes that were taking place in the international system after 9/11. It responded to the need to settle bilateral problems in order to cooperate and work in partnership at the global and regional levels, and to bring about, if possible, a more healthy and multipolar distribution of world power and influence. The self-image of both also required them not to be imitative, but to also offer an alternative vision of a new world order based on principles that evoked the Panch Sheel.
In 2003, the first step was thus to recognise frankly (but not yet formally) that the obstacle was what it had been in 1954, namely the issue of the where and what of the divide between the two states, as well as the how of its formal resolution. The where had been indicated as discussed above: the divide lay along the entire length of the LAC which, in the northeast, included Sikkim. The what of the divide was made clear by the choice of words and phrases that were now being used with care and deliberation. Both made consistent reference to the fact that they were dealing with a boundary that had yet to be delimited, and not with borders that were already delimited and had only to be rounded off and demarcated on the ground. Both also described the issue as a `question' that needed to be mutually resolved, not as a `dispute' that could as in the past lead to conflict, etc. The how of boundary resolution lay in the adoption of what has been called a shared or common political approach to the boundary question as well as to the manner in which the LAC should be delineated. Thus the two premiers agreed to appoint Special Representatives (SRs) "to explore, from the political perspective of the overall bilateral relationship, the framework of a boundary settlement".
The adoption of a political approach was the single most critical decision for it unjelled an uptight conflict situation and provided scope for flexibility and adjustments, as well as for accommodating the real interests of the other side. This, however, required both to move away from their notional claims to meeting the real non-negotiable demands of each not only on paper but on the ground. It was for this purpose that a set of guiding principles had to be formulated. This ensured that the talks/discussions/negotiations between the SRs thereafter, would focus on how these principles could be formulated and made operational. That both realised quite how difficult this was going to be, was suggested by the careful but somewhat clumsy phrasing of the task entrusted to the SRs, and by limiting the goal to merely exploring a framework for the settlement of the boundary question. It was made more difficult because of the vast and fundamental differences in the way in which the two sides perceived and dealt with contemporary requirements and problems of establishing the post-colonial territorial statehood of India and China.
FROM the earliest, India had not seemed to realise the critical importance of having and ensuring defined and unchallenged territorial limits that would give `India', as a new state, its modern physical identity or body, by defining where it starts and where it ends, and the territorial expanse over which no other entity could have any rights. Despite Partition and the restored sovereignty of Nepal, despite the tide of nationalism and the right to statehood that Jawaharlal Nehru championed, he merely confirmed the imperial status quo that was not in keeping with the new plurality of the region, and waited on time and events to take appropriate decisions. So when the PLA (People's Liberation Army) moved into Chamdo to assert sovereign right to Tibet, Nehru's responses were dictated almost wholly by security, not by territorial concerns, and located principally in the northeast. Nehru did not, for instance, demand immediate recovery of Portuguese and French possessions, perhaps because they did not threaten security. He laid claim to the alignment of the McMahon Line - `map or no map' - as firm and undisputed border not as an undelineated boundary, and to a defence and security perimeter along the Himalayas that unilaterally encompassed the three Himalayan states. But again he was silent on the Ladakh front. Security concerns and this perspective continued to dominate his approach to the territorial issue and as India-China strategic interests began to diverge in the 1960s he continued to tie the territorial to the political relationship, with the result that each was held hostage by the other. When its territorial limits were questioned thereafter by China as well as by Pakistan, India at times seemed to function as a de facto state perhaps because its claimed borders appeared to be disputed, indefensible and not firm but negotiable. Moreover, the Indian state did not present itself within defined and firm boundaries as a single whole, nor did it even entertain the concept of a boundary as that which defines political identity in the contemporary era.
China, on the other hand, made the realisation of its boundaries and reunification of territory a priority task before the government and nation, as a measure of its statehood and sovereignty. The question of the territorial expanse of China, whether Manchu or post-Manchu, had been an existential problem of which the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) took note and on which it pronounced a position even before it came to power. This problem persisted - even after the formation of the PRC (People's Republic of China) with Hongkong and Macao on lease to the ex-colonial powers - from within as in the case of Tibet, and from without, for Cold War strategic reasons, as in the case of Taiwan. After 1949, it took firm military steps to establish title and/or central control and connectivity within its claimed limits (Tibet, Xinjiang, Manchuria) and demonstrated its will to deter external involvement (Korea, Vietnam). In short, for China, establishing boundaries was regarded as an act that would identify its modern statehood and its sovereignty, important enough to be made, in great part, a domestic project.
Thus, from the earliest, China's strategy was twofold. It took measures to confirm these limits from within, but externally it was careful not to let the territorial issue become the cause of enmity with any one of the states on its periphery. In the case of India and the Soviet Union, armed clashes took place ostensibly over territory, as relations became bitter and strategic interests diverged. China, however, attempted to neither inflate nor reduce its territorial claims as relations soured or improved and, in the case of India, it did not hold on to territory south of the McMahon Line where India's core interests lay, either as the reward of victory or for bargaining purposes. It did, however, hold on to and perhaps add to territory in the Ladakh region to meet and satisfy its core interests. On the whole, China tried first to consolidate the status quo and waited on time for conditions to make it possible for the boundary to be resolved and formally settled, through negotiations.
In the half century of its existence, the PRC has concluded 12 boundary settlements - six in the 1960s (Burma, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan), as the 1954 understanding with India began to break down, and Mongolia and North Korea at the early signs of strain in relations with the Soviet Union. Six more were concluded in the 1990s with four of the Central Asian successor states to the collapsed Soviet Union, and two with Laos and Vietnam, in an attempt to settle and demarcate its entire land boundary. The only segments along its long land boundary that remain to be settled are those with India and Bhutan. It would not be surprising, therefore, if Premier Wen should use all his persuasive powers to consolidate the breakthrough of 2003 and bring about a settlement with India on the basis of that document, in the shortest possible time.
AS it happened, however, a change of government in India, despite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's assurances of continuity, led to some hiccoughs even though he followed through with, and helped to routinise, the meetings of the SRs. In the months thereafter, while the two sides continued to abide by the provisions of the Declaration, there were signs of a slow-down. The first informal summit of the two new Prime Ministers held on the sidelines of the ASEAN +3 summit in Vientiane last November, was given the coverage normally reserved for a summit meeting by the English language national dailies. Much play, as might have been expected, was given to what the two Prime Ministers said to each other on bilateral and relational issues, and even more was made of what was said on the territorial issue and the bilateral relationship. Nevertheless, it was noted that the relations were placed within a larger, more economic context rather than the political. This was the prospect held out by the two leaders, of India-China trade touching $100 billion within the next decade.
Despite all this, there was a certain asymmetry of perspective and priority on the bilateral, which came through in the statements made by the two Prime Ministers. For instance on the fundamental requirement of identifying an agreed and shared entry point to a possible territorial agreement, the differences threatened to become critical. The Indian Prime Minister appeared to take the Rajiv Gandhi-Deng Xiaoping summit of 1988 as the entry point for a territorial solution, and made no mention of the unusual Joint Declaration that was signed at the end of the visit of Vajpayee to China in June 2003. The four meetings of the SRs held since 2003 have been commended by Manmohan Singh for having made considerable progress, but without acknowledgement of their parentage. The reluctance of the Congress as well as of all other political parties to acknowledge overtly and gracefully the contributions of their predecessors to the advance of national issues does not do them much credit.
Manmohan Singh's reluctance to acknowledge the Vajpayee contribution of 2003 may have caused the Chinese some anxiety for they are familiar by now with the vagaries of a democratic system and its inability to ensure continuity of policies after a new party comes to power. During the Vientiane meeting, Wen is reported to have observed that India-China relations are "now in the best shape in history", that they have "tens of thousands of reasons" for enhancing cooperation, and that peaceful coexistence conforms to the fundamental interests of the two countries and peoples. He made special mention of the Declaration on Principles for Relations and Comprehensive Cooperation and reiterated that it "signals that the relations between the two countries have entered a new stage of comprehensive development". There was a clear message in this for India, namely, that that document must be the basis for advancing the future relationship as well as for resolving the territorial problem. In doing so China was, in effect, asking for reassurance from the United Progressive Alliance government that the political approach adopted in 2003, which Rajiv Gandhi had been unprepared or unable to make in 1988, would be the only basis for building a multi-level, multi-directional or `comprehensive' relationship between India and China.
The months thereafter witnessed integrated activity between the various groups, civilian, military and political, involved with and responsible for the anticipated visit of the Chinese Premier. Significantly, this activity must have acknowledged and been in keeping with the spirit and letter of the Joint Declaration, even to the use and choice of words as reflected in the two important documents, for the visit to have taken place. Thus Article 11 of the Joint Statement issued by the two Prime Ministers on April 11, expressly recalls the Declaration of 2003 and reiterates that it "provided a shared vision of bilateral relations and an agreed framework for cooperation", but surprisingly makes no mention of 1988 or of any other earlier document, agreement or understanding. That Declaration is, therefore, now formally established as the foundational document for resolving the boundary question.
As detailed by the Indian Foreign Secretary in his press briefing, this will necessarily be a three-stage process, the first stage having been reached in 2003, with the identification of a boundary. The modalities for proceeding with the second stage are laid down in a separate agreement on "the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the India China Boundary Question". This document reaffirms the Panch Sheel, the Declaration and the adoption of a political approach. It lists 11 agreed parameters and principles. The first of these separates differences over boundary delineation and states that this will not affect the overall development of bilateral relations. The operational principles include well-known geographic principles as well as more `soft' or political ones that are not easy to quantify, like respect for the interests of the other, for mutual understanding, national sentiments, historical evidence as well as `practical difficulties and reasonable concerns of both', and the `due interests of the settled populations', which appear to be novel but can be found in China's other boundary settlements.
It is in the implementation of these `principles' that differences will be inevitable and will have to be surmounted for advancing the relationship towards the higher objective of a Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity. Nevertheless, there still appears to be some reservation over the role, meaning and operationalisation of the phrase `guiding principles' as used in 2003, for a qualifying clause has been added to read "Agreement on the Political Parameters and the Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the India China Boundary Question". The nature and reason for such reservation, is not clear at present. However, the reservations must be of some importance, for the phrase `political parameters' to have been added to the original.
This makes the second stage of the process, initiated by this summit, the most difficult, for it requires critical decisions to be taken and calls for not only a measure of trust, but also a display of imagination and a capacity for innovative solutions. The Chinese are adept at this, for the 12 boundary settlements they have concluded to date reveal their capacity for thinking out of the box, and the Indian side could do well to examine these settlements closely.
Moreover, it is at this stage that delineation will involve other neighbouring states over agreeing on trijunctions and so on, or on deciding how to handle the Pakistani complication. The final third stage will be tedious, detailed and time-consuming but will not have the potential to overturn the basic agreement as has the second stage of the process of resolving the boundary problem once and for all in a single agreement covering the entire boundary.
The other documents and agreements are normal and unremarkable except for the caution shown in two respects. One is in a lower target of $20 billion trade by 2008 than was earlier projected. The other, and the more significant, is the narrower, almost wholly bilateral, India-China focus of the Joint Statement as compared with the earlier Declaration. All references to larger political and global issues, for instance, are in low key. Thus while they support the democratisation of international relations and even multilateralism, reference to multipolarity that was strong in the Declaration has been omitted altogether, while the wording on several issues, including a United Nations Security Council seat for India, is cautious, suggesting a difference of emphasis.
Thus, the political documents of the recently concluded summit do focus primarily on the boundary issue. At present, however, they can merely herald the beginning of an ending and the beginning of a new beginning, free of the linkage between territory and the bilateral political relationship that has shackled the India-China relationship almost from the time of their birth as modern states. But, if taken together and implemented in letter and spirit with determination to settle the boundary question once and for all, and to turn India-China relations away from wasteful competition and rivalry to cooperation, they could establish the 2005 summit as historic if not history-making.
Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea is Emeritus Fellow and former Director of the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi.
