The strategic perspectives in Sino-Indian relations

What are the reasons for China's continued cold shouldering of India's efforts to renew relations between the two countries? SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY examines the issue in his new book.

WHAT is interesting in the current Sino-Indian interaction is that despite the repeated efforts of the Foreign Minister and the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister to assuage Chinese feelings, and several offers to renew the relations, Beijing has cold shouldered them all.

What then are the possible explanations for the current Chinese attitude of confrontation? In 1962, the issue was the Tibetan revolt in March 1959, and India's subsequent posturing that had led to the outbreak of hostilities. The Chinese suppression of the Tibetan revolt was portrayed by India as violation of Tibetan autonomy, and thus, a violation of the 1954 Sino-Indian Agreement on Tibet itself. Beijing was dismayed by India's reactions to the Tibetan situation, the granting of political asylum to the Dalai Lama and 35 others in his entourage, as well as to create a Lhasa-type town in Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh near the Tibet border where a Tibet "Exile" Government was put in place; the help to the Tibetan rebels in Kalimpong, but most of all, India's guarded but vocal concern about Tibetan independence. India had become home to 100,000 Tibetan refugees as well. China, in a preemptive action to protect its hold on Tibet, began in August 1959 to push ahead in Aksai Chin area. The conflict in Longju and Kongka Pass, causing casualties signalled China's new frontier policy.

In response to China's "frontier policy", India developed a counter-move to convert aggressively the "forward policy" initiated since 1954, but which was sporadically implemented. A fresh Government directive in November 1961 to the Indian Army HQ, was passed on to area commanders on December 5, 1961. The forward policy was designed to contain China's further advance, establish India's presence in Ladakh, to be in a position to cut Chinese supply lines, and ultimately to force a withdrawal. Nehru, however misperceived that the Chinese would not respond, which was perhaps in his seventeen year tenure as Prime Minister his greatest folly. The policy was obviously based on the false premise that the Chinese would not risk an open war with India or use force against Indian posts in Ladakh and NEFA areas.

China's domestic problems may also have been another motivating factor in the military move in the Ladakh and NEFA areas. The failure of the so-called "great leap forward" in 1959, and the change of leadership in the Communist Party in 1958-59, created an impression internationally that China had become weak, and incapable of resisting nibbling on its borders. India was also preening on its victory in Goa in December 1961 over a rag-tag Portuguese occupation force. Nehru began openly speaking about use of force "if necessary" to clear Indian territory of Chinese "incursions" swayed perhaps by military victory in Goa and encouraged by NATO's non-response to Goa's military takeover despite Portugal being a member of that U.S.-led military alliance.

The events of autumn 1959, such as the localised military conflict in the Ladakh and NEFA areas; and China's now public substantial territorial claims, had evoked a belligerent response from the Indian Parliament and the people as well. Nehru broke the news of the border dispute to Parliament in September, 1959 when he submitted White Paper Number One on Sino-Indian relations. This was the first time that the public had been informed by its government about a border dispute which had been in existence since 1954, while Indian people were made to chant "Indians and Chinese are brothers". The White Paper came thus as a "big surprise" to the Indian parliament and the public. A clamour grew for effective rebuttal, especially by opposition parties and even from some influential members of Congress such as Mahavir Tyagi, MP, who later even demanded Nehru's resignation if he would not sack Defence Minister Krishna Menon. Nehru did finally sack Menon in 1962, after the October defeat.

China, in the summer of 1961 had begun a new push into the NEFA areas, started patrolling along the McMahon Line, began establishing new posts, and reached the Dhola-Thagla area, where India in June earlier, had already set up a new post. In pursuance of its policy, the Chinese by September 1962 had occupied almost 19,000 square kms of territory in Ladakh and had penetrated along the south of the McMahon Line as far as they could upto stationed Indian troops in the NEFA area.

There is also a view with some circulation, that the Chinese unable to understand India's functioning anarchy, decided to put pressures as a part of a long range plan for derailing India's "bourgeoisie" democracy in favour of the Communists' concept of "People's Democracy". But there is no evidence to sustain this view, since from 1959 to 1963, China had settled border disputes with Burma, Nepal and Pakistan, without furthering "People's Democracy" in these countries of even greater anarchy than India then. And would China have liked the emergence of another giant Communist neighbour, India, especially since by then the Sino- Soviet rift was known to both?

Extracted from India's China Perspective, Subramanian Swamy, Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd., Rs. 350.

(Concluded)

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