INTENTIONS UNCLEAR

China remains inscrutable to India even after Xi Jinping’s visit

Kanwal Sibal

President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to India was intended to leave a trail of increased goodwill and understanding behind. Actually, it has left in its wake the impression that solving our problems with China will be very difficult and that its intentions towards India will remain unclear. Xi Jinping came with the declared agenda of focusing on what the two countries could do together in various areas, especially economic, for regional prosperity. Disavowing any warlike intention on China’s part, he sought to emphasize the peaceful and mutually rewarding civilizational contacts between the two countries since centuries. But all was contradicted on the ground by the recent armed confrontation in Ladakh’s Chumar area. It appeared odd that the Chinese president, who also heads his country’s all powerful military commission, should have permitted renewed military tensions on the border to vitiate his visit’s purpose of building greater trust with India by arousing anxieties here dating back to 1962.

The prime minister, Narendra Modi, we know, tabled the issue of the Ladakh stand-off with Xi Jinping quite forcefully. In his joint press conference with him, he did not duck the subject and stated with self-assurance that he had raised “our serious concern over repeated incidents along the border”, that “peace and tranquillity in the border region constitute an essential foundation... for realizing the full potential of our relationship”, and that “this is an important understanding which should be strictly observed”. This is not the language of an intimidated leader, but a confident one.

Modi also observed, quite rightly, that the border related agreements and confidence-building measures, which have worked well — a point China repeatedly makes to avoid being pinned down on its reluctance to settle the border issue — are not enough and that the stalled process of clarifying the Line of Actual Control should be resumed. The implication of seeking a clarification of the LAC is that Modi is stepping back from the Special Representatives mechanism tasked to resolve the boundary issue based on the 2005 agreement on the political parameters and guiding principles, which does not include LAC clarification.

The 17 rounds of the SR talks having failed to produce a settlement, or a time-table for it. Modi is seeking a solution at least to the border stand-offs that periodically poison the atmosphere of India-China ties. His additional remark that the two sides “should also seek an early settlement of the boundary question”, confirms that he sees these two exercises as separate and wishes to give priority to LAC clarification. This might explain why the joint statement this time recognizes the utility and significance of the SR mechanism, but does not direct them to continue their work, as was the case during earlier visits.

Whether Modi’s call for LAC clarification with Xi Jinping by his side reflected some modicum of understanding with the Chinese president on the subject, or was a deliberate airing of differences in order to publicly press the latter on the point, is not clear. It is unlikely that the Chinese will agree to resume the process of LAC clarification after having walked out of it in 2002 without any cogent explanation. The considerations that made them end that exercise at the time of exchanging maps of our respective perceptions of the LAC in the western sector can hardly have changed in the last 12 years, especially as China has become much stronger economically and militarily and much more assertive on territorial issues in general.

The SR mechanism was proposed by the Indian side to accelerate a border solution on a political and strategic basis rather than history and legality. This initiative has, unfortunately, played into China’s hands because it is not on the basis of actual control but political grounds that China claims Tawang and, indeed, Arunachal Pradesh. Their thinking could well be that if the LAC clarification route is pursued and a line delineated on the ground, that would, in effect, become the basis of a final settlement with some give and take to adjust the LAC. They would then neither be able to claim more territory not in their control nor engage in incursions across a delineated LAC, losing the option of keeping us under pressure and compelling us to weigh the potential threat of retaliation by China while making our foreign-policy choices.

China prefers to put border management mechanisms in place rather than solve the border issue. We have supported this approach as it puts some constraints on China’s conduct on the border and binds it to a process of consultations and a code of conduct to resolve tensions. We have had agreements in 1993, 1996, 2005, 2012 and 2013 for better border management. It is ironic that, in spite of all these confidence-building agreements to maintain peace and tranquillity, we had the Depsang incident last year and a bigger one at Chumar this year. It is clear that the existence of these agreements has not insulated us from periodic border tensions or has deterred China from acting as it chooses.

Xi Jinping claimed during his visit — as he and his predecessors have done in the past — that both sides have shown the capacity to deal with border differences and periodic incidents on the LAC maturely. This begs the question whether neglecting the disease and treating only the symptoms is “mature” conduct. In stating that some incidents will always occur on an undemarcated border, the Chinese president played down the Chumar incident. It may well be that this latest stand-off will be resolved using existing mechanisms and a clash will be avoided, but the damage has already been done.

For China, what happens on the Indian border may be relatively peripheral as the real strategic challenges it faces from much more powerful countries is in the western Pacific. For India, managing an increasingly militarized Tibet and a hostile Pakistan, with the territorial claims of China and Pakistan converging in J&K, is a formidable challenge. The adverse impact of Chinese behaviour on the border, amplified by our media, is either underestimated by China because the Indian government has studiously emphasized the positives and underplayed the negatives of our China relationship — and China believes that the thresholds of periodic tensions on the border are below India’s tolerance levels — or China believes it needs to keep cutting down India to size to mark its primacy in Asia and keep India shackled.

On return, Xi Jinping summoned the PLA to be loyal to the Communist Party and follow its political directives, even as he has asked it to be prepared to win regional wars. One can speculate how much this was linked to his India visit. He has now ordered a draw-down on the border — to avoid compromising future progress in bilateral ties and strengthening India-US partnership in Asia against China’s interests. While both sides have agreed to withdraw to the positions they held on September 1, India has, on the whole, won this round, as its firmer reaction this time will make it more difficult for China to create bullying incidents on the border as it chooses.

One can hope so, as China remains inscrutable to India.

The author is former foreign secretary of India sibalkanwal@gmail.com