Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

In the next few months, the growing breed of Washington-obsessed Indians will probably have another country to talk about—China. For, in October, Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh visits Beijing, followed a month later by Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Rongji's trip to India. It is considered unprecedented for two top Chinese leaders to visit a country in a year, what with Li Peng, chairman of the standing committee of the National People's Congress of China (second in his country's pecking order), having toured India extensively in January. Two visits in a span of one year, it is being pointed out, testifies to the increasing importance of New Delhi.

Such visits should help foster better understanding between the two countries, especially in view of Chinese vice-foreign minister Wang Yi telling a group of visiting Indian journalists last week that "lack of mutual understanding" is a factor in Sino-Indian relations. Wang emphasised that the Chinese needed to understand the "changing India", much the same way as New Delhi needed to understand the "new China, the changing China". He declared: "When both the countries are changing we need to have more consensus and mutual cooperation."

And yet, Wang refused to explicitly support India's candidature for permanent membership of the UN Security Council. All that he was prepared to say was: "We welcome a bigger role for India in international affairs because India is a big developing country and one of the important neighbours of China."

That, seemingly, is enough for diplomats who consider this a distinct change; earlier, China conceded no such role for India. Sources say the diplomatic processes between the two countries are now back on track and have improved qualitatively. For one, China and India are now engaged in the process of "security dialogue"—which involves exchange of analysis of events in the world—under which two meetings have already been held. This is a great leap forward from May 1998, when Beijing reacted vehemently to New Delhi citing China to be the principal factor behind its decision to conduct the Pokhran nuclear tests.

China is uneasy about Washington's National Missile Defence (nmd)—and India's support to it. Wang declared that the nmd would "change the balance of power not only in this region but in the whole world. The missile defence programme is aimed at providing security to the US alone. No other country, including the US allies, will have security". Without naming India, he said: "It is true that some countries have, to different degrees, expressed understanding or acquiescence to this programme. Such decisions have been made with political relations with the US in mind." He feels it's a case of "wishful thinking" on the part of countries who think Washington would "reward" them for their support to the nmd programme.

Pakistan is another crucial factor in Sino-Indian relations. Maintaining that China's relations with India and Pakistan are on "parallel tracks", an indication of the distance China has moved towards adopting a studied neutrality between India and Pakistan, Wang said: "While we very much hope to develop good-neighbourly, friendly relations with India, China needs to maintain traditional friendship with Pakistan too."

But what's remarkable is the minister's statement on the Kashmir issue: "India and Pakistan need to sit down and discuss the issue because no one understands the issue better. It will be very difficult for other nations to make any judgement. Since it is very likely to be a political judgement, one would lean in favour of the party whom one favours." It is believed China has become relatively flexible in its stance on Kashmir because of its experience in handling the prevailing unrest, which has extra-territorial affiliations, in its Xinkiang province. There the Muslim minority gets support from madrassas located both in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. Sources say the Chinese might take up this issue with Pakistan, although there is great reluctance at the official level to talk about "Pakistan" and terrorism in the same breath.

Wang, however, insists that China's military transfers to Pakistan are in keeping with international agreements. He described the recent reports that a Chinese entity had transferred missile parts to Pakistan as fabricated. Although Chinese nuclear transfers to Pakistan have been testified to by the cia director before the US senate, it is debatable whether New Delhi has met with any degree of success in persuading the Chinese to rethink their proliferation policy. It is felt that this is a reality India has to live with till it is able to develop, through political, economic and cultural linkages with Beijing, a 'reverse leverage' and convince the Chinese that it wouldn't be in their interest to strategically mollycoddle Islamabad and its generals. Right now, it sounds like an outright fantasy. But New Delhi is apparently working on it.

Good relationship between any two countries also depends on the quality of interaction their people have. But the people-to-people relationship between India and China is so poor that there is not even a direct air link between the two countries. In contrast, Wang pointed out, all 10 southeast Asian countries are major destinations for Chinese tourists, with Thailand accounting for one million every year. On the other hand, the total number of visas—of course excluding transit and diplomatic ones—that were issued to Chinese visiting India in 2000 was 4,340. The number was comparable for Indians visiting China. He was hopeful that direct air links between the two countries would be established by the end of the year. Mid-September will witness the first meeting of the Eminent People's Group, recently decided upon by the two countries, consequently stoking hope that people-to-people interaction too could be moving into higher gear.

Optimism about resolving the Sino-Indian border dispute immediately would indeed be misplaced. Though the last person to die in border skirmishes between the two countries was way back in 1975, India and China have to traverse a large distance before they enter into boundary negotiations. Currently, maps in the Middle Sector (Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal) have been exchanged and both sides are in the process of delineating the Line of Actual Control (lac), or where each has deployed its troops. India and China are not yet ready to discuss boundary, or a mutually-agreed line where two countries meet on the ground as well as the map, what with varying perceptions about what is the boundary between them. (In the Middle Sector, though, the difference is not too radical.)

Politically, though, any boundary, more so a disputed one, is a purely imaginary line—and that's the way it will remain for quite some time between India and China. Wang declared quite bluntly: "Boundary negotiations need mutual understanding and mutual accommodation. Such a process has been proven in boundary talks between other countries.An agreement can be reached only on this basis. As far as I know, the Indian Parliament has passed a legally-binding resolution which says that India will not give away a single inch of occupied territory. If that's the case, there will be no room for negotiations, which is a give-and-take process. If only one side has to give, and the other side is not willing to do so, negotiations will not be possible."

In other words, after the western and eastern lac maps too have been exchanged, clarified and discussed, then what the two countries will have on the lac are a mutually-identified series of unconnected points that are controlled by each in the snowy mountains. What ought to follow then are civilian and military movements, regulated through confidence-building measures and force reductions, before India and China would have something resembling a 'working boundary'. The good news in this complex and inordinately long process is that lac maps on the western sector could be exchanged before the end of this year. As one diplomat put it wryly: "After 50 years we are getting to know how to deal with each other." Better late than never.