Some recent bilateral interactions at the ministerial and official levels indicate the possibility of a new and positive beginning in India-China relations.
in SingaporeTHE growing dynamism and sustainable momentum in the interactions between India and China have been brought into sharp focus by some recent bilateral exchanges. It is a salutary commentary that these serious exchanges at high levels in the defence and economic sectors should have occurred against the backdrop of India's preoccupation with a major electoral process.
The high-profile visit to India by Chinese Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan from March 26 to 30 and the first meeting of the newly formed Sino-Indian Joint Study Group (JSG) on Trade and Economic Cooperation in Beijing on March 22 and 23 were much more than mere illustrations of the new proactive interaction in the bilateral sphere. These events were preceded by the in-camera parleys in Beijing on January 12 and 13 between Indian and Chinese Special Representatives Brajesh Mishra and Dai Bingguo. The two, for whom the meeting was the second in a process designed to settle the bilateral boundary dispute on the basis of a "political perspective", agreed to sustain the dialogue.
For Beijing, these new openings in diplomatic engagement assume much importance in the context of the relatively new doctrine of "China's peaceful rise" on the global stage. Although the idea has been hinted at or even articulated in various ways for a few years now, the concept was formally expounded for the first time at a session of the Bo'ao Forum in China's Hainan province in December 2003. Zheng Bijian, former vice-president of the central party school of the Communist Party of China (CPC), told the Forum of Beijing's intentions of propelling its "peaceful ascendance" in the global arena. The theme was emphasised at the highest political level by Chinese President Hu Jintao during Mao Zedong's birth anniversary celebrations in Beijing in December 2003. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao amplified the doctrine at a press conference in Beijing on March 14 after the conclusion of the annual session of the National People's Congress, which adopted some major constitutional amendments aimed at re-inventing China without causing any upheaval (Frontline, April 9).
As seen from Beijing's standpoint of improving the atmospherics and substance of the ongoing dialogue with New Delhi, its quest for a "peaceful ascendance" should indeed evoke a certain strategic resonance. The pertinent question is not whether Beijing formally wants New Delhi to acknowledge the credibility of China's "peaceful rise". However, given the ebb and flow of their diplomatic engagement during almost 55 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the old concept of "Panch Sheel" or "Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence", a cardinal contribution of the two countries to the political discourse on global diplomacy, too may now come to have a new norm for assessing the state of China-India ties.
IN a broad sense, the latest phase of substantive bonhomie on the China-India front can be traced to the success of the visit to China by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in June 2003 (Cover Story, Frontline, July 18, 2003). The ongoing process of political-perspective dialogue on the boundary dispute, at the level of Special Representatives, and the JSG process can be directly linked to the results of Vajpayee's talks with Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao and Jiang Zemin, former Chinese President and current Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the CPC and the government. While the Chinese Defence Minister's visit to India, the first such exercise in nearly a decade, can also be seen in the same light, Cao Gangchuan's agenda had much to do with the process initiated during Defence Minister George Fernandes' visit to Beijing in April 2003. Fernandes had on that occasion sought to allay some of China's suspicions about India's real intentions in its neighbourhood.
The nature and scope of the incremental military-related cooperation between India and China are still determined by the need, felt by both sides, to tone up a sense of confidence about each other's intentions and defence strategies. In India's calculations, it is necessary to minimise, if not eliminate, the complicating factor of Pakistan's continued strategic value to China, especially in the absence of any decisive indication to the contrary from Beijing as of now. According to Western diplomatic sources, Beijing had conveyed to Washington that Pakistan's strategic value to China in the South Asian context was comparable to Israel's critical relevance to the United States in the West Asian context. While this aspect has not eroded, the China-India defence-related engagement is now seen to be acquiring a degree of realism rooted in the art of the possible. However, it is debatable whether the bilateral economic engagement is of ambitious proportions.
Fernandes had, during his visit to China, proposed joint naval exercises. With Beijing responding positively, the first such exercise, essentially a simple but more than symbolic confidence-building measure (CBM), has already taken place. For the Chinese Navy, the exercise involving India in late 2003 was only the second CBM event with any country. Ironically, Pakistan was China's first partner for a naval exercise and it took place only shortly before the China-India one.
It was against this background that Cao Gangchuan and Fernandes agreed in New Delhi on March 29 that the two countries would grant each other the status of an observer during their respective military exercises involving other powers. This Chinese initiative, which India has had no difficulty agreeing to, should raise the CBM diplomacy to a new zone of realism. While these measures may still appear to fall short of any strategic partnership of a political kind, the reason is not far to seek, given the contemporary history of China-India ties. More significant, in the current context, is the accord on increasing the friendly interactions between the security personnel of the two countries at the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
India still thinks that the suspected violation of the LAC by Chinese troops in Arunachal Pradesh during Vajpayee's visit to China should be discussed and sorted out to mutual satisfaction. However, New Delhi has conceded that the two sides continued to hold different perspectives on the alignment of the LAC itself. More important, as indicated by Defence Secretary Ajay Prasad in Singapore recently, India is satisfied that no such LAC transgression (as alleged by either side) has caused any violence or military flare-up in recent years.
The present China-India defence dialogue must be evaluated positively against the mood of the latest meeting between the Special Representatives and the overall evolution of the political relationship. Speaking from Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official told this correspondent on January 13 that Dai Bingguo and Mishra had held a "useful discussion on the guidelines and principles for solving the border question". Given the pre-parleys ground rule of sustaining the privileged confidentiality of these talks, the real sign of progress is that the process is kept alive, with promises of further dialogue.
TWO distinctively positive phases and two decidedly negative periods have marked the China-India engagement in nearly 55 years. The possibility of a new phase, with the potential for being a positive one, is further indicated at present.
On the positive side, the "Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai" phase in the early 1950s, which was punctuated by the formulation of the "Panch Sheel", and a period in the 1990s must be counted. Following Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's visit to China in the late 1980s, a process of crisis prevention was set in motion and this led to the signing of a major accord in November 1996, during Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao's tenure and the Deng Xiaoping-Jiang Zemin regime in Beijing. The Agreement on Confidence Building Measures in the Military Field along the Line of Actual Control in the China-India Border Areas was a trend-setting initiative to reduce tension and help avert an accidental conflict.
The first of the two negative interludes can be traced to the 1962 conflict, with the events that led to it having already vitiated the atmosphere. India's testing of nuclear weapons in 1998 caused a frosty chill on the bilateral front, mainly on account of the manner in which Fernandes and Vajpayee portrayed China as the critical factor in New Delhi's decision to become a "nuclear power". Beijing's interpretation of India's justifications of its nuclear tests was no less a contributing factor. The latest prospects of a possibly new positive beginning should be seen against the high drama over Pokhran II in the China-India context.
Writing on the `Harmful Effects of India's Nuclear Tests on the World Strategic Situation', Yang Haisheng, a Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) commentator, noted in 1998 that the possibility of an accidental nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan was "far more serious than the [U.S.-Soviet] Cuban missile crisis of 1962". Soon after Pokhran II, Beijing made no secret of its view that India was seeking to emerge as a "regional hegemon" bent upon pursuing a policy of "containment" of China.
However, Beijing soon began to recognise the importance of neutralising the possibility of Washington coopting New Delhi for any of its own plans to "contain" Beijing's ascendancy on the global stage. More critically, the logic of growing economic globalisation, the aftermath of the terrorist strike in the U.S. in September 2001 and the recognition of "complementarities" between the economies of India and China prompted Beijing to revise its view of a nuclearised India.
By 2002, PLA commentators such as Cao Yongsheng and Xu Yong began to underline how India was seeking "21st century major power status". Although this did not imply an acknowledgment of the legitimacy of New Delhi's ambitions, the new nuance was noteworthy for the lowering of emphasis on the menacing proportions of a nuclearised India. With India too beginning to re-focus its attention on China as a possible dialogue partner on world affairs, including international trade issues, and as a major player in the 21st century, the current bonhomie became possible.
Even now Western observers like David Shambaugh, who has made an extensive study of China's modernising military establishment, tend to speculate how long it might be before Beijing sees "the U.S., Japan, Taiwan and India as acting in cahoots" to contain the Chinese rise. Such a view misses, however, the potential economics-related dynamic in the China-India equation. It is this aspect that lies at the heart of the current momentum in trade-related dialogue between the two countries.
It is too early to predict the outcome of the process set in motion by the recent JSG meeting in Beijing. However, the Co-Chairmen, Rakesh Mohan (Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India) and An Min (Chinese Vice-Minster of Commerce), have initiated a process aimed at evaluating the "possibility" of signing a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA) and a free trade agreement (FTA). By all accounts, CECA and FTA are considered ambitious goals, which will be fully assessed before any decision is made on the feasibility of actual negotiations.
While the credit for identifying India as a potential economic partner should go to former Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, it is India which recognised China's value as a possible ally in espousing some developmental issues in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The current volume of China-India trade ($7.6 billion) is of modest proportions by world standards, but the new dialogue fervour cannot be missed. A studied Chinese viewpoint is that any "FTA between China and India will be hard to achieve in the short term" because "competition between the two countries" is considered "inevitable" despite India's software sector being "world famous" at this stage. Potential "political conflicts" of interests are also not ruled out. The new defence-related CBMs should help address this concern.
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