United Against Whom?

(To be read in continuation of my earlier paper of May 25, 2007, on thesame subject) 

Shri Pranab Mukherjee, India's then Defence Minister, had visited China on anofficial visit in the last week of May, 2006, at the invitation of his Chinesecounterpart Gen.Cao Gangchuan. During his visit, the two ministers signed on May29, 2006,  a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Defense Cooperation. Itwas  the first such agreement between the two countries.

The MOU provided for the following:

• Frequent exchanges between the leaders and high-level functionaries of the Defense Ministries and the armed forces of the two countries;
  
  
• An Annual Defense Dialogue at a mutually agreed level to be hosted alternatively by the two sides;
  
  
• Joint military exercises and/or training programmess in the fields of search and rescue, anti-piracy, counter-terrorism, and other areas of mutual interest, including facilitating the exchange of military observers to witness designated military exercises; and
  
  
• A mechanism for the exchange of military officers and relevant civilian officials for study tours, seminars, and extended study at their respective  military training institutions.

In  2000, China initiated the practice of inviting foreign militarypersonnel to observe its military exercises and holding joint military exerciseswith other countries. On October 22, 2003, Chinese and Pakistani naval forcesconducted a joint search and rescue exercise off the coast of Shanghai in theEast China Sea. It was the first time Chinese naval forces had held a jointexercise with a foreign counterpart since the founding of the People's Republicof China. This was followed by a  a joint search and rescue exercise offthe coast of Shanghai in the East China Sea on November 14,2003, by the Naviesof India and China. This was the first military exercise between the twocountries. On August  28, 2004, Chinese and Indian frontier troops had held a joint mountaineering training exercise  in China's Tibet AutonomousRegion.

After 9/11, China started holding periodic counter-terrorism exercises withthe Armed Forces of the Central Asian Republics (CARS) and Russia. These wereheld initially bilaterally and, subsequently, under the multilateral frameworkof the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO).

On August 6, 2004, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Armed Forces ofPakistan held a counter-terrorism exercise at Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County,in China's Uighur Autonomous Region, bordering Pakistan. The main purpose of theexercise was to rehearse joint measures against possible terrorist strikes byUighur terrorist elements operating from Pakistan or Afghanistan.  Inmatters concerning operational co-operation in counter-terrorism,  China'sfirst priority has been to co-operation with Pakistan, the CARs and Russia incountering the activities of Uighur and Uzbek terrorists as well as Al Qaeda andother pro-Al Qaeda elements operating from sanctuaries in Pakistan, Afghanistanand the CARs. It does not as yet have any operational co-operation arrangementwith Afghanistan.

As regards India, operational co-operation between the navies of the twocountries in counter-terrorism and counter-piracy is of greater relevance toChina than co-operation between the two armies. China's energy supplies fromWest Asia and Africa pass through the Malacca Strait and hence the Indian Navycould be of considerable assistance to its Chinese counterpart in crisissituations if and when there is a disruption of the energy supplies by piratesor terrorists in the Indian Ocean region in general.

Operational co-operation in counter-terrorism between the two armies is notof much relevance to either country. No India-based terrorist group is operatingin Chinese territory and vice versa. No India-based terrorist group poses athreat to Chinese nationals and interests in Indian territory unlike Pakistanwhere there have already been many attacks on Chinese nationals  not onlyby suspected Uighurs, but also by indigenous Pakistani jihadi terroristorganisations. In June,2007, girl madrasa students of the Lal Masjid inIslamabad kidnapped some Chinese women working in beauty parlours, harassed themand then released them. This was followed by the murder of two Chinese nationalsin Peshawar and a suicide terrorist strike on a bus carrying Chinese engineersat Hub in Balochistan. Many passers-by were killed, but the Chinese had amiraculous escape.

In the beginning of November, 2007, the Pakistani authorities shifted toIslamabad all Chinese personnel working in three hydel and one irrigationprojects in the Swat Valley and in other tribal areas, when the Pakistani para-militarypersonnel deployed for their protection at their places of work and residencestopped reporting for duty. Some members of theTehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) headed by Maulana Fazlullahreportedly entered the places of residence of the Chinese personnel anddestroyed their TV sets. However, they did not do them any harm. In fact, theywere polite to the Chinese and requested them to continue working, but wantedthem to respect Islamic sentiments and practices. The Chinese got frightened andrefused to work there any longer.

While there  is considerable scope for the exchange ofcounter-terrorism-related intelligence between the intelligence agencies ofIndia and China, there is not much scope for operational co-operation betweenthe security forces of the two countries in tackling land-based  terrorism.Of course, there is scope for co-operation in specific situations such asdealing with hostage-taking, hijackings, and countering terrorist threatsinvolving weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In these fields, other Indianagencies such as the National Security Guards (NSGs), the Central IndustrialSecurity Force (CISF), the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) etc act as theweapon of first resort and the Army as the weapon of last resort. Thus, there isa lot of home work and brain-storming to be done by the variouscounter-terrorism agencies of India among themselves before they embark on anymeaningful co-operation with the Chinese against land-based terrorism.Otherwise, the co-operation will remain a purely cosmetic exercise.

The problem is further complicated by the fact that when the Chinese talk of ground co-operation with India against terrorism they have mainly thefollowers of the Dalai Lama in mind. The Chinese do not call them terrorists.They call them splittists, but they treat terrorism, extremism and splittism assynonymous. While India has recognised Tibet as an integral part of China, itdoes not agree with the negative portrayal of the Dalai Lama and his followersby Beijing.

In this context, one was surprised when it was indicated by spokesmen of theGovernment of India in May, 2007, that the Armies of the two countries would beholding their first joint exercise on a modest scale in October, 2007, and thatthe purpose of the exercise would be promoting anti-terrorism co-operation. Thisindication was given after a visit to China by the then Chief of the Army Staff,Gen. J.J.Singh, in the last week of May, 2007. The Chinese agreed to host thefirst round of the exercise in Chinese territory. While no official announcementwas made about the place of the exercise, there were indications that it wouldbe held near Chengdu in the Sichuan province. The Chengdu military region isresponsible for internal and external security in the Tibet and adjoiningregions and for any action warranted against the supporters of the Dalai Lama.

Many independent observers felt uncomfortable over the reported decision to hold the first counter-terrorism exercise in this region as this mightunwittingly give it an anti-Tibetan and anti-Dalai Lama connotation. A team ofChinese military officers was to arrive in New Delhi in the beginning ofOctober, 2007, to work out the details of the exercise. It did not come and it was indicated that the exercise would be held only after the firstmeeting of the Annual Defence Dialogue envisaged under the MOU signed on May 29last year. The New York Times quoted a Chinese military spokesman inBeijing as saying that the exercise had to be postponed due to differences overwhere it would be held.

The first Annual Defence Dialogue was held at Beijing  in the beginningof November,2007, and it has now been indicated that the first exercise betweenthe armies of the two countries would be held in the third week of December,2007, in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. Before 1979, Kunming was politically assensitive to India as Chengdu. The Chinese training camps for the Indian Nagaand Mizo hostiles and the Kachins and White Flag Communists of Myanmar werelocated in Kunming. Since 1979, China has closed down all these camps. Indiashould no longer feel uncomfortable about participating in a joint exercise inKunming.

(B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. ofIndia, New Delhi, and presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies.)