Call From Indian Quarters Urging Change in India’s China Policy Worrisome, Says Chinese Envoy

“There has been an argument in Indian public opinion on the boundary question, which worries me,” said Sun Wiedong.

New Delhi: Even as he called for a “correct understanding” of both India’s and China’s strategic intentions, Chinese ambassador to India Sun Weidong said on Thursday that he was concerned about a call from quarters within India for New Delhi to change its ‘One China’ policy in order to pressurise Beijing.

The senior Chinese diplomat was speaking at a webinar organised by the Institute of Chinese Studies on the topic titled, ‘India China Relations: The Way Forward.’

In his opening remarks, Ambassador Sun indicated that he was aware of the debate generated by some opinion makers that India should have a stronger position on issues that put China on the mat, in the light of the ongoing stand-off at the border.

“There has been an argument in Indian public opinion on the boundary question, which worries me, suggesting the Indian government adjust its policy towards China, and change its stance on issues related to Taiwan, Xizang, Hong Kong and the South China Sea to put pressure on China,” he said. Xizang is the Chinese name for Tibet.

Since early May, Indian and Chinese troops have been in a face-off at multiple points in eastern Ladakh. The most serious clash took place on June 15, when Indian and Chinese soldiers were involved in hand-to-hand scuffles in Galwan valley. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed, while China has not yet officially acknowledged any casualties.

Also read | Galwan Clash: Indian Soldiers Killed Had Been Unarmed, Families Say

India’s ‘One-China’ policy does not recognise Taiwan and refers to Tibet as part of the Chinese government. New Delhi’s stance on South China Sea has not significantly changed, except that it is now being being articulated a bit more frequently. During the last session of the UN human rights council, India had for the first time asked for China to listen to concerns of various stakeholders on Hong Kong, where Beijing has promulgated a draconian Public Security law.

“I want to point out emphatically that Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Xizang affairs are totally China’s internal affairs and bear on China’s sovereignty and security. While China doesn’t interfere in other country’s domestic affairs, it allows no external interference and never trades its core interests either,” said Ambassador Sun.

Following the Galwan valley clash, there have multiple rounds of diplomatic and military talks on implementing a plan for phase disengagement of troops. However, the process is still going on, with the Chinese ambassador making it clear that Beijing continues to assert its claim on Galwan.

“One fact is that China has never claimed any land outside its own territory. The label of “expansionist” cannot be pinned on China,” he said.

Later, he reiterated this point about the most problematic stand-off point at Pangong Tso lake, where China has intruded much deeper into Indian territory. “In the northern bank of Pangong Lake, China’s traditional customary boundary line is in accordance with the LAC.”

Also watch | ‘Chinese Are on Indian Territory in Depsang and Pangong; LAC Has Shifted Westward’

Earlier, ICS director Ashok Kanth had pointed out that there was “profound anxiety and even anger” in India over recent developments. The former Indian ambassador to China noted that there was “serious talk here that India-China relations are at a turning point”. 

“Even experienced Indian diplomats who are deeply invested in this relationship are speaking of the need for a reset in ties,” he added.

In his remarks, Sun admitted that some scholars from Indian think tanks believe that Galwan valley clash “will be ‘turning point’ to change or even reverse China-India relations”. “Honestly speaking, I have different idea on this,” he stated.

He called on both sides to “correctly analyse and view view each other’s strategic intentions, and prevent misinterpretation and miscalculation in a positive, open and inclusive attitude”.

“When I see people wearing masks on the streets and doctors and nurses in protective suits, I really feel that the invisible virus, rather than China, is the “threat” facing India…It is undoubtedly short-sighted and harmful to deny the long history of peaceful co-existence between China and India and to portray our friendly neighbour for thousands of years as an “opponent” or a “strategic threat” due to temporary differences and difficulties”.

Also read: It Is Time to Accept How Badly India Misread Chinese Intentions in 1962 – and 2020

Sun said that the response to the challenges on the boundary should be a strengthening of dialogue and communication.

“Over the past decades, the two sides have managed differences through dialogue and negotiation, established various mechanisms such as the special representatives’ meeting on the boundary question, reached a series of agreements to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas, and kept the channels of military and diplomatic communication open. These good practices must continue,” he stated.

This month, India has taken some economic measures targeting Chinese companies, ranging from delaying clearance of imports, excluding Chinese companies from infrastructure contracts and banning mobile applications by Chinese IT companies.

The Chinese ambassador stated that Chinese and Indian economies are inter-woven, reeling off numbers to show that Indian industry is dependent on Chinese components. “Globalisation has deepened the interconnection between countries into the “capillaries”. Whether you want it or not, the trend is difficult to reverse”

Also read: Government Bans 47 More Chinese Apps

He claimed that a “German friend working in India” told him recently due to India’s restrictions on import of Chinese auto components “the production of German automakers in India had been greatly affected”. The Chinese ambassador observed “forced decoupling of the Chinese and Indian economies is against the trend and will only lead to a ‘lose-lose’ outcome”.

“It fully demonstrates that self-protection, non-tariff barriers and restrictive measures violate market laws and WTO rules. It will only be harmful to oneself, to others as well as to the world”.

He pointed out that Indian government had announced it will provide favourable investment environment for foreign companies, “which should include Chinese companies”.

“Both sides should recognise the mutually beneficial and win-win nature of bilateral economic and trade cooperation, jointly create an open, fair, just business environment, and maintain the momentum of China-India economic and trade cooperation to bring more tangible benefits to the two peoples”.

Also read: Final Axe Falls on WeChat, China Says ‘Deliberate Interference’ in Cooperation Won’t Help India

To a question on why China does not clarify the Line Of Actual Control with the exchange of maps, he indicated that Beijing is still not keen to restart this process, which halted in 2002.

“The purpose of clarification of LAC is to maintain peace and tranquility. When we look back into history, if one side has unilaterally put its own perception on the LAC during the negotiations, that will lead to disputes. That’s why, this process cannot be move on. I think that this is a departure of original purpose,” he stated.

Pending the final settlement, he said that main issue is for India and China to maintain peace and tranquility on the border areas in line with the 1993 and 1996 agreements and various confidence building measures.

“The important thing is that we must follow those agreement and continue our discussion and consultation along the diplomatic channels and also among corps commanders, also find out a way to de-escalate the situation and restore peace and tranquility,” he said.

LAC Tensions to Fester Till Modi, Xi Revive Prospects for India-China Strategic Cooperation

If the two leaders succeed in taking a broad view of the bilateral relationship, the current border crisis can not only be transcended but turned into an opportunity.

This is the concluding instalment of a two-part article on the continuing military standoff between India and China. The first part was published on July 23, 2020.

Beijing’s repeated use of the word ‘strategic’ is the key to understanding its military posture in Ladakh. In its view, India’s recent actions in the Asia-Pacific region had invalidated the underlying premise of India’s foreign policy upon which the 1993 and subsequent agreements with China had been based. This was that India would use  its ‘soft power’ to minimise conflict in Asia and the west Pacific, and create a multipolar, rule-guided, world order in opposition to the US goal of creating a unipolar world. This was also India’s stated goal then, and indeed throughout the Cold War. So this commitment was formalised by the creation of BRICS in 2009, and was made explicit in its Delhi declaration of 2012.

China’s misgivings began to grow when, within months of his coming to power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed the US-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific which obliged its signatories to maintain freedom of navigation in the South China Sea; became a ‘Major Defence Partner’ of the US; sent a flotilla of warships to join a US-Japan task force in the South China Sea;  and began regularly hosting operation Malabar in the Bay of Bengal, one of whose war games is the closing of the straits of Malacca through which 40% of China’s exports and close to 90% of its oil imports have to pass.

When India  also signed the Military Logistics Supply Agreements with the US and  Japan and began working on one with Australia, China could no longer ignore the fact that under Modi, India did not feel duty bound to abide by the tenets of  Panchsheel, which are reiterated in  the first paragraph of the 1993 Border Agreement.

Why China wants a strategic partnership

For China, this was hugely disturbing because, unlike Britain in the 19th and the US in the 20th century, its prosperity and growing  hegemonic power did not stem from its dominance of global manufacture but from its dominance of global trade. In some categories of consumer goods, China accounts for over 90% of US imports, and nearly 20% of the EU’s total imports – probably amounting to more than half of its consumer goods imports –  come from China.

But that is only one half of what accounts for China’s pivotal place in world trade. The other half is that  an increasing proportion of its exports  contain components and raw materials that China imports from other ASEAN countries, Australia and South America. This complex web of connections,  maintained by sea,  air and digital communication, can survive only in conditions of peace. War is therefore anathema for China, because it will itself be the first casualty.

Maintaining peace has, however, become more and more difficult as the US has become aware of the speed at which China is converting its growing economic power into hegemony, through investment of its foreign exchange surpluses in developing countries. This awareness had remained dormant in the US through the ‘roaring nineties’ and the ‘dotcom’ boom  of the early 2000s, but sprang to life after the financial crash of 2008 because China’s economy powered on, seemingly unaffected by the global crisis.

Within months of its onset, therefore, analysts had begun to credit China’s immense demand, especially for raw materials, for the early end of the recession that had set in after the crash, and to talk of the US and China as the  G-2.

US reaction – ‘Containment’

President Obama reacted to the implied threat to US hegemony with his ‘pivot to Asia’ in November 2011. Its purpose was to ‘contain’  China by strengthening its neighbours but it soon became apparent the strengthening being referred to was mostly military. As a result,  by 2016 China found itself  encircled by a large number of US military installations and bases stretching from Japan through Okinawa, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Thailand, to Australia.

China was acutely aware of the destruction that that these could unleash upon it. It had seen how a single American warship, acting without any legal backing from the UN, had destroyed nearly all of Gaddafi’s air force and radar installations in Tripoli by unleashing more than 132 Tomahawk missiles in a single night.   It was also aware that the version of Tomahawk missile that is standard equipment on US warships has a range of nearly 1,600 kms. So the 12-mile exclusion limit for territorial waters enshrined in the UN-drafted Law of the Sea  no longer offers any protection against annihilation.

China responded by building an airport on the disputed Fiery Cross reef in the middle of the South China Sea with material dredged up from the ocean floor,  and  declaring the South China Sea a part of its core security area in which it wants prior notification of the passage of non-commercial craft. This has  ratcheted up the tension another notch. Since then, there have been annual confrontations between US-led task forces and Chinese naval vessels  in the South China sea.

If not defused, such military confrontations tip over sooner or later into war – cold or hot. To avoid this, China turned to BRICS, and particularly to India with its immense ‘soft power’ for support. In two momentous meetings, between Manmohan Singh and its new president, Xi Jinping, at Durban in 2013, and between Prime Minister Singh and Premier Li Keqiang in Delhi in 2013, China  sought to consolidate  a long term strategic partnership with India. To remove hurdles in the way, President Xi Jinping  offered ‘an early settlement’ of the border dispute in the Himalayas.

Enter Narendra Modi

That was the point at which the UPA government fell, the BJP came to power, Modi turned two decades of patient bridge building with both China and Pakistan on its head, and made India a partner of the US in its  effort to ‘contain’ China.

Despite that huge setback, China did not give up on India. Instead it turned to its Belt Road Initiative to continue binding the two nations together. The  BRI had assumed supreme importance for China not only because it promised to provide a number of  escape hatches through which China could carry on its international trade in the remote contingency that its sea routes out of the South China Sea and through the  Malacca straits got blocked. But more immediately and urgently, the BRI became important because it offered a way to stave off the severe recession that was enveloping its  machine tools and other engineering industries after the fiscal stimulus programme it had launched in 2008-9  to fight the global recession came to an end in 2013.

The problem it faced was  exceptionally severe because the planned fiscal stimulus – with a budgeted investment of 4 trillion Yuan ($586 billion dollars) – ended up creating huge excess capacities in steel, power generation, roadbuilding and construction, and an even more crippling excess capacity  in the heavy machine building industries that produced the equipment these projects needed.

The resulting unemployment was largely hidden, because the Communist Party ensures that there is virtually no unorganised labour force in the county outside the fringes of agriculture.  So prolonged unemployment for the workforce is not an option for the government because it will cost the party its Mandate from Heaven. Xi Jinping therefore turned to the BRI, and to a  massive redirection of domestic investment into the western  and border regions, in its 13th Five Year Plan. Both programmes were therefore outcomes of domestic politico-economic concerns, and not of the inherent expansionism of “the Middle Kingdom” that western defence analysts keep harping upon.

How Modi cut off India’s nose to spite China’s face

India’s capacity to absorb new investment in infrastructure and make it yield quick returns is greater than that of the seven next largest  countries involved in the BRI put together. While the combined GDP  of these seven countries – Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Malaysia – was $2.1 trillion in 2015, India’s GDP was $2.256 trillion.

China had hoped that India, with its huge need to modernise its antiquated road, rail and ports infrastructure, would fill the order books of China’s basic and heavy engineering industries for a decade. Therefore, when Modi opted  out of the BRI in 2017, it was an even bigger blow than his sudden abandonment of equidistance in foreign policy.

Unfortunately, even that is not the end of the story. The reason Modi gave for refusing to send even a representative to the  inaugural conference in Beijing in 2017 was China’s refusal to formally recognise Gilgit as a part of India illegally occupied by Pakistan. This gave Beijing even greater cause for alarm because it showed that Modi would respect neither history nor the commitments of its  predecessors if it suited his whim or fancy. For, in its view, not only had the people of Gilgit nothing in common with the Kashmiris of the valley, but, since 1889, the area had been ’leased’ to the British to protect against foreign (i.e Russian) invasion.

In 1947, therefore, when the British terminated their lease and ‘returned’ Gilgit to Maharaja Hari Singh, a section of the local population revolted and declared itself for Pakistan. Gilgit therefore took no part in the Kashmir war, and the question of retaking it never arose in the meetings of the defence committee of the Indian cabinet in 1947 and 1948.

What is more, the Simla agreement of 1972 and the Delhi agreement of 2005 had both explicitly accepted the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir as the de facto border between the two countries. The Modi government’s perversity therefore sowed the suspicion that it would feel few qualms about reneging from the 1993 agreement with China too, if that suited its purpose.

The effective abrogation of Article 370, the bringing of Ladakh directly under Delhi’s rule, and the near simultaneous publication of a new map of India that shows Ladakh and the whole of Aksai Chin as a Union Territory may have been the straw that tipped the scales in favour of sending a warning to India via the PLA.

Turn crisis into opportunity

The acid test of statecraft is the ability to turn crisis into opportunity. India and China can do this today in a manner that makes them both winners. The talks now going on will not serve their purpose, if they do not address the core anxieties of the two nations. Since the signal of growing disquiet has come from China, it is India that needs to take the lead in doing this.

The most important reassurance China needs is that the Modi government’s frequent claims to Gilgit and PoK are nothing more than theatre  for its domestic audience –  full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. This is supremely important for China because the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which runs through Gilgit, envisages an investment of $68 billion, which will  not only be the largest component of the BRI by far, but also China’s  most important escape hatch for continuing its trade and ensuring its supply  of oil,  should some future western coalition decide to blockade the seaways out of the South China sea.

A second way to reassure Beijing would be to lift the various bans on Chinese apps, the import of Chinese goods, the banning of  Chinese investment, and the termination of ongoing contracts that PM Modi has decreed since June 19. Since trade with India accounts for only 2.4% of China’s exports, but 14% of India’s imports, this is hurting India more than China. But the far more dangerous message that Prime Minister Modi has unwittingly sent is that since he feels no obligation to respect minor international economic commitments, it would be folly to expect him to uphold major political ones. If that impression is allowed to sink in, then for Beijing force will remain the only alternative.

The least politically sensitive way to repair relations would be for India to join  the Belt Road Initiative. Estimates of how much money China has pledged for the BRI vary. According to the US Council on Foreign Relations, China has so far committed $200 billion to projects in 60 countries. But its experience has been mixed. Since China is offering finance in the form of low interest loans and not grants, many smaller countries have over-leveraged their projects and been forced to sell off equity in them to China when demand projections have turned out to be too rosy and they have been  unable to service their debt.  In sensitive projects like the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, this has looked far too much like an engineered take-over of a strategic asset, and has made several  countries shy away from projects in which they had initially welcomed Chinese financing.

China has been trying to persuade India to join the BRI since well before its inauguration, because India has the financial reserves and markets that can ensure a more balanced funding of projects, and the deep, unsatisfied demand that  guarantees immediate returns on investment. By not doing so, Prime Minister Modi has only cut India’s nose to spite China’s face. This would be a good time to correct that error. Revisiting the BRI in the discussions being held now would therefore be the surest way of cementing peace in the Himalayas.

Victor Gao was the English language interpreter for Chairman Deng Xiaoping, from 1984 to 1988. (In this photo he is seen interpreting for Chairman Deng and US Vice President Walter Mondale in Beijing in 1984.) He is currently chair professor, Soochow University and vice president, Centre for China and Globalisation. The CCG is ranked 94th among the world’s top think tanks.

Victor Gao is seen interpreting for Chairman Deng and US Vice President Walter Mondale in Beijing in 1984.

Prem Shankar Jha is a columnist for The Wire, former media adviser to V.P. Singh when he was prime minister and  former Editor of the Hindustan Times. He is the author of Managed Chaos: The Fragility of the Chinese Miracle (2009) and Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger: Can China and India dominate the West ( 2010).

A Tragedy has Been Averted but the Danger for India and China Persists

Going forward, it is essential that each side understand its opponent. 

A tragedy has been averted: Chinese troops that had entered the disputed  areas that lie between the Indian and Chinese definitions of the Line of Actual Control, have pulled back from three of them. Indian troops have done the same.

But the military build-up in their base areas outside the intermediate “grey” zone  continues.

If the talks between Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi do not yield fruit, it  is certain to increase. The clouds of war have therefore only lifted: they have yet to disperse. 

Galwan and Dhola – The similarity between 2020 and 1962

To appreciate how close we came to a war last month, we only need to  remind ourselves of how the 1962 war began. Officially, it began when the Chinese attacked Dhola post, not far from Tawang, in the eastern Himalayas on October 20, and ended with a China-declared unilateral truce on November 21. In reality, it began 10 days earlier and, like the conflict in the Galwan valley on June 15, it too started over a cartographic dispute. 

Also read: It Is Time to Accept How Badly India Misread Chinese Intentions in 1962 – and 2020

How this dispute arose is described in detail in the still proscribed Henderson-Brooks Report of 1963, but can now be downloaded from the internet. In August 1962, Eastern Command informed Delhi that one of its patrols had reported that the tri-junction of Bhutan, India and Tibet marked on the McMahon line did not fall on the Himalayan watershed, as McMahon had intended it to do, but four miles south of it . 

McMahon Line, Original Map of the North-East Frontier.

McMahon Line, Original Map of the North-East Frontier.

The Ministry of External Affairs took this up with the Chinese government, presumably suggesting a rectification, but Beijing did not agree. So in September, Delhi decided to correct it on its own, established the Dhola post at a point between the two locations, and manned it with  a platoon of soldiers. This post was immediately surrounded by 600 Chinese soldiers with the obvious intention of starving the defenders out. 

A stalemate ensued during which both sides sent more troops to the area. The first skirmish took place in early October and went the way of India. On October 10, therefore, Delhi asked the army to ‘evict the Chinese from the Thagla ridge’. What followed is history and need not detain us here. 

Also read: Why It Is Imperative That Indians Come to Know What Happened in 1962

The situation that developed at Patrol Point 14 in the Galwan valley on June 15 is similar to the one that had developed at the Dhola post 58 years earlier. On June 15, it was only the stringent protocols designed to prevent armed conflict, put in place after the 1993 Agreement on Peace and Tranquility in the Border region, that  prevented the savage hand-to-hand fighting  that took place  from tuning into a bloodbath. Had those protocols not been in place,  India and China may well have been in the middle of another fratricidal war today.  

Who needs another war?

Neither country wants, needs, or indeed can afford, a war in the Himalayas now. So as talks at the diplomatic level begin, it has become imperative for civil society in both countries to  understand what brought us to the brink of war and how we can get back to a durable and mutually beneficial peace. 

More specifically, we need to understand why the Chinese chose to occupy these particular stretches of the LAC; why the PLA stayed broadly within the limits of China’s definition of the LAC and, having gone so far, why it has now agreed to move back from three of them and thin down its presence in the other two.   

Depsang Plains in Ladakh. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 3.0

The topography of the region answers the first question. The Depsang plains are the closest point on the Chinese LAC to Daulat Beg Oldi. DBO is situated on a finger of land west of the Karakoram range, at only 13 kilometres from the Karakoram Pass, and a little more than 200 kms from the  Khunjerab pass through which the Karakoram highway, which  links China to Pakistan now,  passes.

Till only two years ago, for all but a few months in summer, Daulat Beg Oldi was linked to  the rest of Ladakh only by air. But following the completion of a 450-metre bridge across the Shyok river, it is now linked by an all-weather road. DBO also has an airfield now that can take Antonov and C-130 Hercules cargo planes. Finally, it is barely 120  kilometres – six minutes in a modern fighter plane – from G219, China’s strategic link road between Xinxiang and Tibet.

Pangong lake, at the other end of the road, is 134 kms long and G219 skirts its  eastern shore just as the road to DBO skirts its western edge. It therefore provides a swift route for moving large numbers of troops, artillery and armour from deep inside Tibet to places from which they can cut off the road to DBO within hours. Occupying the heights above finger 4, can give the PLA the capacity to interdict any Indian counter-attack on Chinese landing craft in the lake. A similar dominating position in the heights above the Galwan valley can  give the PLA a second choke point from which to target  the road from Ladakh to DBO.  

Daulat Beg Oldi shown in the northernmost part of Ladakh (1988 CIA map).
Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Public domain

These are strategic deployments of the kind usually made in anticipation of war. So why, after having made them, did China take care to remain within its broad definition of the LAC and agree to talks? The only rational explanation is that its purpose was not to annex the land but to force the  Modi government into a dialogue to clear the misgivings and distrust that its abrupt change of foreign policy in 2014 had sown in Beijing’s mind.

This was underlined by China’s ambassador to India, Sun Weidong, who has stated repeatedly since the confrontation began that China’s goal is to forge a strategic partnership, not rivalry with India. It was also echoed by the foreign office’s spokesperson  in Beijing: “The Indian side should not have (sic) strategic miscalculation on China. We hope it will work with China to uphold the overall picture of our bilateral relations.”

But what does China mean by ‘strategic miscalculation’ and  ‘strategic partnership’? In the second part of this article, we will examine this crucial dimension of the current crisis in the bilateral relationship against the backdrop of wider region and global security dynamics.

Victor Gao was the English language interpreter for Chairman Deng Xiaoping, from 1984 to 1988. (In this photo he is seen interpreting for Chairman Deng and US Vice President Walter Mondale in Beijing in 1984.) He is currently chair professor, Soochow University and vice president, Centre for China and Globalisation. The CCG is ranked 94th among the world’s top think tanks.

Prem Shankar Jha is a columnist for The Wire, former media adviser to V.P. Singh when he was prime minister and  former Editor of the Hindustan Times. He is the author of Managed Chaos: The Fragility of the Chinese Miracle (2009) and Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger: Can China and India dominate the West ( 2010).

Note: In an earlier version of this article, a zero was dropped while describing the distance from the Khunjerab Pass to Daulat Beg Oldi. The sentence should have read “little more than 200 km” and not “little more than 20 km”.