A visa row

There is another hiccup in India-China relations, but both sides now seem keen to downplay it.

AFTER the apparent bonhomie at the Copenhagen summit and the BRIC summit, New Delhi and Beijing have once again got embroiled in a diplomatic tiff of sorts. The Chinese government's decision to refuse a visa to the Indian Army's Northern Command chief, Lieutenant-General B.S. Jaswal, made it to the headlines of Indian newspapers and television channels. The officer was part of a high-level Indian military delegation that was due to visit China. Lt-Gen. Jaswal is the top Army commander in Jammu and Kashmir. For the last couple of years, China has been issuing stapled visas for those born in the Jammu and Kashmir region and Arunachal Pradesh.

New Delhi retaliated by refusing entry to two Chinese military officers who were scheduled to attend a defence course in India. A Chinese army colonel was also refused permission to deliver a speech at an Army-run institute. Senior Indian officials had initially warned that New Delhi was also contemplating the cancellation of future joint military exercises and exchanges of military visits with China until Beijing unties the knot it has tied. These officials pointed out that India's sensitivity about matters relating to Kashmir was similar to Chinese sensitivities about Tibet. Indian officials said that China hosted the Army's Eastern Command chief last year despite China having made territorial claims over parts of Arunachal Pradesh. Indian officials feel that the Jaswal incident shows that China is probably more concerned about the Pakistan government's concerns about Kashmir than about fostering good relations with India.

New Delhi clarified at the outset of the controversy that border meetings between army officers from both the sides would continue. While we value our exchanges with China, there must be sensitivity to each other's concerns. Our dialogue with China on these issues is ongoing, said the External Affairs Ministry spokesperson.

Chinese Ambassador to India Zhang Yan was summoned to the Foreign Ministry after the visa incident. Indian officials were careful to deny that the issue of the denial of visa was discussed, but they suggested that they had conveyed their misgivings about the issuance of stapled visas for Indian citizens from Jammu and Kashmir. There have been calls from sections of the political establishment and the predominantly anti-Chinese national media that India should reciprocate by issuing stapled visas for Chinese citizens born in Tibet.

But by early September it became obvious that both sides were eager to downplay the issue. Indian officials admit that the two countries have a complex relationship and say that it is imperative for the dialogue process to continue until such time as the boundary dispute between the two countries is resolved. Indian Defence Ministry officials now say that the matter of Lt.-Gen. Jaswal's visit is being sorted out with their Chinese counterparts and that no defence exchanges have been cancelled. Indian officials say that the controversy will have a short life.

The visa controversy came in the wake of an article by Selig S. Harrison in The New York Times, which alleged that Chinese troops were in physical occupation of the disputed territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, which was originally part of Kashmir. China has made territorial claims on some parts of Kashmir. The suspiciously timed article suggests that China is using the territory to further its military as well as economic goals that are inimical to the interests of both the United States and India.

The Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman described the article as totally fabricated. He said that China had sent a humanitarian mission to conduct rescue and medical aid to victims of the devastating flood that affected the area and the rest of Pakistan. Large stretches of the Karakoram highway, which passes through Gilgit, were washed away by the floods.

New Delhi has been complaining for some time that Beijing is trying to encircle it with the string of pearls doctrine. This term was first coined by a right-wing American think tank, which claimed that China was gaining access to ports in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Pakistan to surround India militarily. Both Myanmar and Sri Lanka have strenuously denied these assertions and have asserted that the Chinese are only helping them to make some of their ports commercially more viable. With the Maoists emerging as a major political force in Nepal, New Delhi was concerned for some time that it would lose Nepal, traditionally under its sphere of influence. China is developing the transport infrastructure of Nepal along its borders by pumping in a lot of financial aid and expertise.

But the major factor deepening mutual suspicions between the two big neighbours is the unresolved border problem and New Delhi's tacit support for the Dalai Lama. China was unhappy at India's handling of the Tibetan protesters who tried to disrupt the passage of the Olympic torch in the run-up to the Beijing Games. Beijing also conveyed its displeasure after New Delhi allowed the Dalai Lama's visit to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh in November 2009. Tawang is the holiest place for Tibetan Buddhists and is the birthplace of the first Dalai Lama. Beijing did not directly criticise New Delhi for the visit but described the trip as part of the Dalai Lama's efforts to derail China-India relations.

The current Dalai Lama has said that he will in all probability be reborn in Tawang. Beijing wants to have a say in the anointment of the next Dalai Lama. If his rebirth is manipulated outside China, it could prove troublesome for Beijing. Last year, Beijing objected to an Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan to India for a hydroelectric project in Arunachal Pradesh on the grounds that the State was a disputed territory.

China also criticised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Arunachal Pradesh last year during the campaign for the general elections. Beijing has signalled on several occasions that it is willing to recognise Arunachal Pradesh as an Indian state if Tawang is ceded to China. The Dalai Lama used to describe Tawang as Tibetan until recently. But in 2008, after the last upsurge of violence in Tibet, he made it a point to describe Tawang as part of India. In 1947, Chinese authorities had asked the British to acknowledge Tibetan authority over Tawang. The Tawang monastery, built 300 years ago, is the second oldest Buddhist monastery in the world after the one in Lhasa.

Beijing was further agitated when Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao called on the Dalai Lama in July, immediately after the conclusion of National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon's official visit to Beijing. The Dalai Lama is given virtual head of state status by the Indian government. He had a meeting with the Prime Minister in August, the first official one the Indian government has chosen to announce so far. This meeting, too, came under criticism from China.

The Dalai Lama is on the Indian government's list of VVIPs who are exempt from frisking at airports. Naturally, Beijing has looked askance at a splittist being allowed to run a virtual government in exile in Dharamsala. Nirupama Rao, accompanied by top Foreign Ministry officials, had a meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader and his inner Cabinet. There are many China watchers who are of the opinion that Beijing uses the Tawang issue whenever it wants to up the diplomatic ante with New Delhi. Given present-day geopolitical realities, India will never do territorial swap involving Tawang. It has placed two squadrons of Sukhoi-30 fighters near Arunachal Pradesh and is contemplating an increase of its troop presence in that State.

Shivshankar Menon, during his visit to Beijing, had conveyed India's concerns about China's road- and rail-building projects in Gilgit-Baltistan and the proposed construction of two civilian nuclear reactors in Pakistan. Beijing has made it clear that its road- and rail-building activity is for furthering its energy security and should not be viewed as a threat to any other country. It will be easier for China to import its oil and gas from the Pakistani port of Gwadar and transport it through northern Pakistan, thus bypassing the Malacca Straits.

China announced a nuclear deal with Pakistan after India and the United States signed the civilian nuclear deal. The U.S. has objected to the China-Pakistan deal on the grounds that Pakistan is not an NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) signatory and has a bad proliferation record. This move has angered Beijing and is seen there as yet another manifestation of the growing U.S.-India security partnership, which the Chinese leadership feels is primarily aimed against China.

Beijing is suspicious of what seems like coordinated diplomatic manoeuvring on the Tibet issue by Washington and New Delhi. Both India and the U.S. seem to have gone along with the Dalai Lama's preference for the 17th Karmapa, at present ensconced in Dharamsala, as the person who will take up his mantle once he exits the scene.

Beijing also fears that New Delhi is ganging up with other states inimical to China's growing stature, such as Japan and Vietnam, to challenge it in the South China Sea. China is embroiled in sea-based territorial disputes with the Philippines, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. The high-profile military exchanges between the U.S. and Vietnam have only added to the suspicions in Beijing.

Most analysts are of the opinion that despite the diplomatic hiccups, India-China relations will continue to prosper. Economic ties between the two countries are booming. Predictions are that bilateral trade flows, currently at more than $60 billion, will double by 2015. Relations in the cultural and educational sectors are being strengthened. The Indian government recently announced that it was recognising medical degrees from Chinese universities. Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal will visit China in September to speed up collaboration between the two sides in the education sector.

According to China watchers like Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak, Director of the Delhi-based Centre for Air Power Studies, the Indian government should not treat the visa incident as a cause celebre. New Delhi, he says, should take the incident in its stride, while at the same time be on high alert along the Line of Actual Control. Kak says that India should expect more such pinpricks from a China that is still trying to gauge the implications of the close India-U.S. strategic embrace after the signing of the nuclear deal. However, to the credit of both countries, not a single bullet has been fired in anger across the contested borders since the 1962 war.