India-China Relations: Mutual Concerns

Brig (Retd) Gurmeet Kanwal, 

Visiting Fellow, VIF

In the Indian perception, there are several major areas of concern that are limiting the growth of the bilateral relationship. The foremost among these is the unresolved territorial and boundary dispute. The other major concern is the “all-weather” friendship between China and Pakistan that is, in Chinese President Hu Jintao’s words, “higher than the mountains and deeper than the oceans”. The Indian government and most Indian analysts are convinced that China has given nuclear warhead designs, fissile material and missile technology as well as fully assembled, crated M-9 and M-11 missiles to Pakistan, as has been widely reported in the international media. China and Pakistan are also known to have a joint weapons and equipment development programme that includes Al Khalid tanks, F-22 frigates and FC-1/JF-17 fighter aircraft. China’s military aid has considerably strengthened Pakistan’s war waging potential and enabled it to launch and sustain a proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir and in other parts of India. By implication, therefore, it is also China’s proxy war.

From the Indian perspective, there are several other contentious issues. These include China’s continuing opposition to India’s nuclear weapons programme; its deep inroads into Myanmar and support to its military regime; its covert assistance to the now almost defunct LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) in Sri Lanka; its increasing activities in the Bay of Bengal; its attempts to isolate India in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) while keeping India out of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation; and, its relentless efforts to increase its influence in Nepal and Bangladesh. China’s efforts to develop port facilities in Myanmar (Hangyi), Chittagong (Bangladesh), Sri Lanka (Hambantota), Maldives and at Gwadar in Pakistan are seen by many Indian analysts as forming part of a “string of pearls” strategy to contain India and develop the capacity to dominate the northern Indian Ocean region around 2015-20. Though at present the Indian Navy dominates the northern Indian Ocean, a maritime clash is possible in future as the PLA Navy begins operating in the Indian Ocean – ostensibly to safeguard its sea lanes and protect its merchant ship traffic. Hence, China’s moves are seen by Indian analysts to be part of a carefully orchestrated plan aimed at the strategic encirclement of India in the long-term to counter-balance India’s growing power and influence in Asia, even as China engages India on the political and economic fronts in the short-term.

As both China and India are nuclear-armed states, it is in the interest of both to ensure that strategic stability is maintained and that the risk of accidental or unauthorised nuclear exchanges is minimised. This would be possible only if negotiators from both the sides sit down together and discuss nuclear confidence building measures (CBMs) and nuclear risk reduction measures (NRRMs). However, China’s insistence that it cannot discuss nuclear CBMs and NRRMs with India as India is not a nuclear weapons state recognised by the NPT is proving to be a stumbling block. China’s official position is that India should cap, roll back and eliminate its nuclear weapons in terms of UNSC Resolution No 1172. That is unlikely to happen. India has been recognised as a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology and has been given a backdoor entry into the NPT through the NSG waiver and the IAEA safeguards agreement. India has also signed civil nuclear cooperation agreements with France, Russia and the United States (US). It would be in the interest of both the countries to discuss nuclear CBMs and NRRMs so as to enhance strategic stability in Southern Asia. It is also in China’s interest to enter into a nuclear trade agreement with India as India is rapidly emerging as a large market for nuclear fuel and nuclear technology.

India realises that its growing external relations with its new strategic partners are causing some concern in China. China has viewed with some suspicion India’s willingness to join Australia, Japan and the US in a “quadrilateral” engagement to promote shared common interests in South East Asia. China also wishes to reduce what it perceives as the steadily increasing influence of the US over New Delhi. China knows that the US is several years ahead of Beijing in recognising India's potential as a military and economic power and has greatly increased its cooperation with India in both spheres. China fears that the growing US-India strategic partnership is actually a loose alliance and that the two countries are ganging up against China. It should be clear that India is unlikely to ever form a military alliance with the US – unlike Pakistan, which is a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA) of the US and is also China’s “all weather” friend. India has always pursued an independent foreign policy and cherishes its strategic autonomy. It will be recalled that India steadfastly supported the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) for several decades during the Cold War and has never entered into a military alliance with any country. The US is an Asian country in strategic terms and it is necessary for India to maintain good relations with it. It is also India’s largest trading partner and has a large Indian Diaspora. There are major convergences of interests between India and the US. Hence, India’s newfound strategic relationship with the US need not come in the way of India-China relations, which have their own strategic significance for India.

In an article entitled “Warning to the Indian Government” (posted on the website of the China Institute of International Strategic Studies on March 26, 2008), Zhan Lue, a Communist Party member, warned India not to “walk today along the old road of resisting China” as the People’s Liberation Army is now well-entrenched in Tibet and will not repeat its mistake of withdrawing after a border war as it did in 1962. He extolled the virtues of the PLA’s newly developed capabilities and went on to advise India “not to requite kindness with ingratitude.” This surprisingly sharp attack in a scholarly journal did not appear to be an isolated piece of writing. Another Chinese scholar advised his government to engage India’s neighbours to break India into 26 parts. In the wake of the Tibetan unrest in India and across the world earlier during 2008, anti-India rhetoric in the Chinese media had been ratcheted up several notches. Analysts in India believe that such scurrilous writings could not have been published without the express sanction of the Chinese authorities as almost all Chinese media are state controlled. This type of rhetoric sets back efforts at reconciliation and mutual understanding.

China is concerned about the situation that might develop when the Dalai Lama passes away. Despite all the raving and ranting against him, the Chinese government is acutely conscious of the fact that the present Dalai Lama’s is a voice of moderation and accommodation. They know that there will be a major uprising in Tibet when he passes away as the Tibetan youth will no longer feel constrained to respect his cherished desire for peace and harmony and are likely to resort to violent attacks against the Han Chinese people and officials and state property. Despite India’s remarkable restraint over 50 years, the Chinese are not sure of how India will react to a post-Dalai Lama rebellion in Tibet. In fact, the Chinese harbour a fair deal of ill will against India for providing the Dalai Lama with sanctuary – even though India has forbidden him from any anti-China political activities from Indian soil and the Dalai Lama has honoured the restraints imposed on him by his hosts. A senior Chinese interlocutor told this analyst at a bilateral think tanks’ dialogue at Bangkok in October 2009 that relations between China and India would flourish very well if India was to hand over the Dalai Lama to China even at this belated stage. From this the depth of Chinese resentment with India for providing shelter to the Dalai Lama can be gauged. Since such a course of action would be completely out of character with India’s civilisational and spiritual values, handing over the Dalai Lama is simply out of the question. China would, therefore, do well to put this issue aside and move forward in its relationship with India.

Another area of concern for India is the rapid development of military infrastructure in Tibet by China. The Gormo-Lhasa railway line is now fully operational. The rail network is proposed to be extended towards Shigatse and then into Nepal. China has recently developed a road network of 58,000 km and five new air bases. New military camps have come up close to the border with India. Telephone and radio communication infrastructure has been considerably improved. China has been practicing the rapid induction of airborne divisions into Tibet. Some Indian analysts have estimated that China is now capable of inducting and sustaining about 25 to 30 divisions in Tibet in a single campaign season. Short range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), some of them nuclear tipped, are also known to be deployed in Tibet. Surely, all these developments are not for sustaining Tibet’s fledgling economy. The continuing improvement of military infrastructure in Tibet does not augur well for future peace and stability between the two nations in the light of an unresolved territorial and boundary dispute.

The Divided Oceans

Kanwal Sibal (Member, VIF Advisory Board)

The security challenges in the Asia-Pacific region, which American‘re-balancing’ towards Asia and Barack Obama’s tour of some Asian countries so early into his second presidency seek to address, are many and complex. Territorial disputes remain sharp in the region. China lays claim to Indian territory and so does Pakistan. Afghanistan and Pakistan have border differences. China has maritime territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. Taiwan is also a party to these disputes, besides China itself having sovereignty claims over Taiwan. Japan and Russia have an outstanding dispute over the Kuril Islands.

The problem of terrorism is more acute in this region than anywhere else. Pakistan, along with the border areas of Afghanistan, is a breeding ground of terrorism targeting India and Afghanistan, and creating a sense of vulnerability in Central Asia. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have seen terrorism on their soil. So has China in Xinjiang. Terrorism has afflicted Thailand and Indonesia. Nuclear proliferation is a problem in the two extremities of this region, in Iran and North Korea. At the western end, the threat of a military strike against Iran is real despite the position of Russia and China, while it is most unlikely against North Korea at the eastern end in deference to China’s opposition.

The presence of the United States of America in the region is substantial, with its Seventh Fleet as well as military bases in Japan, Australia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Diego Garcia. With concerns about China’s rise in mind, the US is reinforcing its military assets in the region further. The US defence secretary has described India, a bit exaggeratedly no doubt, as a “lynchpin” of this new strategy. In any case, this shows the direction of American thinking in terms of partnering with India strategically in this region.

With its Fifth Fleet and bases in the Gulf countries, the US has now a presence in the western end of the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Hormuz. Apart from putting pressure on Iran, the US claims that this presence is intended to maintain stability in the region and ensure uninterrupted supplies of oil and gas to American friends and allies, more so now that the US imports only 10 per cent of its hydrocarbon needs, and even this figure will decline with huge discoveries of shale gas in the US.

The US navy has a sizable presence in the Indian Ocean for assuring the security of sea-lanes of communication. For this, it has been engaging the Indian Navy in a big way, with the two countries holding frequent naval exercises together. These exercises are now being held also in the trilateral India-US-Japan format.

It is argued that while the security architectures during the Cold War were based primarily on military alliances, the need today is to base these architectures on shared values, interests and challenges. This Euro-Atlantic-centric view is debatable, as China, India and scores of non-aligned countries were outside the Cold War alliance systems. Today, NATO not only exists, its membership has been expanded and its role has been geographically extended. NATO operated in Yugoslavia and Iraq. It is operating in Afghanistan; it acted in Libya. The US has declared its intention to strengthen its military alliances in the Asia-Pacific region. Russia is working to strengthen the Collective Security Treaty Organization in the erstwhile Soviet space. It is wrong to downplay too much the security role of military alliances today.

The idea of basing the new security architectures on “shared values” is also a Euro-Atlantic view. What are these “shared values”: those of democracy, pluralism, human rights and so on? But then, there are serious differences over these issues. Many countries are either not democratic or have their own concept of democracy. There is serious opposition to what is seen as the US crusade for democracy for geopolitical reasons, a tendency to impose it by force at great human cost, and double standards in the application of this principle.

Similarly, the human rights issue has been highly politicized by the West, there is selectivity in its application and the critics believe the issue has been used cynically for regime change, among other things. So, can the new security architectures be built on highly contested notions in their controversial practical application? Can the US, Russia and China be brought on a common platform on them, not to mention many others, including the Islamic countries?

The question arises whether the Indian and Pacific Oceans constitute a single strategic space? The answer would be “yes” from the US Navy’s point of view with its responsibilities extending across the two oceans. It could be true for India, which dominates the Indian Ocean geographically, only in the specific context of the expansion of the Chinese blue-water navy and its future ability to break through the first and second chain of islands and establish an increasing presence in the Pacific and eventually in the Indian Ocean, for which China is already creating the basis.

Our navy signals its ability to operate far from Indian shores by, for instance, periodically holding exercises with the Russian navy at Vladivostok. The Pacific is also the venue now of the trilateral India-US-Japan naval exercises. But the Pacific Ocean is too vast for India to have strategic interest in it. As regards the security of sea-lanes of communication, the problem pertains largely to the Indian Ocean area, from the Strait of Hormuz through the Malacca Strait to the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, not the Pacific as such.

The energy and trade flows across these waters are huge and vital for the economies of Japan, South Korea and China. In this vast stretch, there are problems of piracy in the Indian Ocean area off the coast of Somalia, but no issues of sovereignty that can threaten international navigation rights, except in the South China Sea. All concerned countries would not want these vital lanes to be interfered with in case of tensions or conflict, but how to ensure this?

For the moment, the two navies best placed to provide security in much of this area are the US and Indian navies, but countries like China may want an independent capacity to do so. This is where geo-political concerns come into play and can be a source of mistrust and problems. The challenge is for all to agree to certain rules of the road and norms of conduct. A wider Asia-Pacific security architecture will not be easy to build. Other continents have continental-scale organizations, but not Asia. There are too many players with conflicting interests and ambitions. Several disputes remain unresolved. The world-view as well as political, social and religious values of countries differ.

It would be more realistic to first build bilateral understandings between countries that have differences and then seek to widen the circle of these understandings to solidify them at the multilateral level in an incremental process. As bilateral relations between key countries markedly improve, existing organizations like SCO, SAARC, ECO, CSTO, ARF, IOC-ARC, BIMST-EC, and the East Asia Summit could become the building blocks of a larger Asia-Pacific security architecture. But that seems far away for now.