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Round The World
New
Delhi, 24 September 2014
Indo-China
Tension
BOUNDARY
DISPUTE UNRESOLVED
By Ashok B
Sharma
It may seem puzzling to some about
the rhetoric of “regional war” coming out of Beijing just after the Chinese
President Xi Jinping returned after a receiving a warm reception in India and
signing over 16 agreements relating to cooperation between the two countries.
But it is not a surprise, it was expected.
A similar thing happened when Vice
President Hamid Ansari was on a visit to Beijing
in June and three agreements on cooperation were signed. China then released a map claiming large chunks
of Indian territory. One should not forget
Chinese expansionist policies and its ambition to dominate the entire
Indo-Pacific region, if not the world. Prime Minister Narendra Modi rightly
mentioned about this 18th century mind set without directly
mentioning China during his
recent trip to Japan.
During Xi Jinping visit China has pledged to invest $20 billion in
industrial and infrastructure projects in India
within a span of five years and $10 billion to other countries in South Asia. But Japan has promised more – an
investment of $35 billion for building smart cities and next generation
infrastructure with the same period. In addition, Japan
has pledged ODA loan of 50 billion yen to India Infrastructure Finance Company
Ltd for a public-private partnership infrastructure projects in India.
It is understandable that Japan’s attitude towards India and China’s
relationship with India
are absolutely on different footing. Beijing
considers India
more as a rival than a friendly neighbour. India
has a longstanding unresolved border dispute with China which Xi Jinping terms as “a
leftover of history.” Jingping has said that India
can be accorded full membership of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)
provided India supports China’s
membership of SAARC. This reveals its ambition to play a dominant role in South Asia in which it is not geographically a part.
Jinping also fell short of supporting India’s candidature for a permanent
seat in the expanded UN Security Council.
However, certain agreements signed
between the two countries are worth mentioning like setting up of industrial
parks near Pune, Maharashtra and in Gujarat, cooperation between Gujarat and
Guangdong province, Mumbai and Shaghai and Ahmedabad and Guangzhou, MoU for
increasing the speed on existing railway line from Chennai to Mysore via
Bangalore, providing training in heavy haul to 100 railway officials,
redevelopment of existing railway stations and setting up of a railway university
in India and cooperation on high speed rail project. China
agreed to construct an alternate route for Indian pilgrims to Kailash
Mansarovar lake through Nathula pass, Sikkim,
co-production of films, cooperation exploration of outer space for peaceful
purposes, cooperation in culture and specific measures to enhance market access
to Indian agro and pharma products to China.
But the longstanding issues of
border dispute, Chinese insistence on issuing staple visas and water management
of trans-boundary rivers still remained unresolved. While India’s boundary with then independent Tibet was fixed by the erstwhile British
colonial rulers by drawing the Johnson Line in the western and McMahon Line in
the eastern sector, China
is not inclined to accept this part of history.
China has forcibly occupied
thousands of kms of Indian territory in western and eastern sectors, including
5,800 sq km of Gilgit-Baltistan illegally ceded by Pakistan. In total China occupies
over 20,000 sq km of Gilgit-Baltistan covering Shaksgam, Raskam and Aghil
valleys, apart from a large chunk in Ladakh. Even after illegal occupation, China has
disputed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two countries.
The Border Development Cooperation
Agreement (BDCA) signed during the last visit of then Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh to Beijing
was the last nail in the coffin of Indian diplomacy. First, the agreement
admits there is no common understanding of the LAC. In the face of this blatant
admission of differing perceptions of the LAC, how can there be border
cooperation between the two sides? This exposes the hollowness of the
agreement.
It says that the two sides shall
carry out border defence cooperation on the basis of their respective laws and
relevant bilateral agreements. New Delhi had
earlier signed a number of agreements with China
on border issues, but Beijing
has violated these on many occasions by repeated incursions. Further the BDCA
says that the two sides agreed that they shall not follow or trail patrols of
the other side in areas where there is no common understanding of the LAC.
Chinese have always been of the view that they can walk into Indian
territory as they had recently done in Chumar, Depsang in Daulat
Beg Oldi sector.
In such “a doubtful situation”, the
BDCA says that either side has the right to seek a clarification from the other
and clarifications and replies should be exchanged through established
mechanisms.
India has stopped patrolling
in some areas along the LAC. Adequate infrastructure and border outputs have
not been set up at many places. This gives the Chinese an added advantage to
infiltrate into Indian territory and the BDCA forbids India to follow
the Chinese patrol. Each time Chinese intrusion took place, our leaders were in
the habit of denying and going further to cover it up saying it was due to
“differing perceptions about LAC.”
Strangely the Henderson Brooks
report has wrongly accused then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of initiating
“forward policy” to the annoyance of the Chinese that resulted in 1962 war. A
foreign journalist who had accessed some portions of the report also echoed the
same view. The leaked report has 65 pages missing. The fact is the Nehru
government could not build any adequate infrastructure in the border areas
along Johnson and McMahon Lines.
India has not yet understood
the Chinese ploy of Sun Tzu – the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy
without fighting. Beijing has been playing this
game ever since 1962 and India
has not been able to give a fitting reply, despite having the military
potential. Chief of Air Staff NAK Browne had rightly said that had Indian Air
Force been directly involved in the 1962 war, the Chinese could have been
pushed back beyond the border. The IAF had been successful in pushing back the
Pakistani intruders from the Kargil sector.
Recall, in 1865, the British rulers sensing likely expansionist plans of then
Czarist Russia and the middle kingdom of China drew India’s northern boundary
in the Ladakh region with the then independent Tibet which extended beyond the
Kuen-Lun (Kunlun) mountains up to Khotan and included the Aksai Chin desert and
linked Demchok in the south with the 18,000 feet high Karakorum pass in the
north. This is popularly called the Johnson Line drawn by WH Johnson of the
Survey of India. It included Shahidulla in far off Karakash valley about
400 km from Leh.
The British declared Tibet as a
buffer State. The Johnson line, therefore, became the northern boundary between
India and Tibet. In 1907,
the British and the Russians came to an agreement to leave Tibet “in that
state of isolation from which, till recently, she has shown no intention to
depart.”
After the British annexed Assam, mainly the Brahmaputra
valley in 1826, they took control over the hills in 1886 when an expedition
went up the Lohit valley at the far end of today’s Arunachal Pradesh. In
September 1911, the British decided that the Outer Line, including the entire
tribal belt and Twang tract, should be the boundary with Tibet-cum-China.
This came to be known as McMahon Line. China should wake up to this
realty. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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