Missing wood for trees in China

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/missing-wood-for-trees-in-china.html
Thursday, 21 April 2016 | Pravin Sawhney |
Instead of splitting hairs over fine details of the Line of Actual Control or blocked UN sanctions against Pakistan-sponsored terrorists, India, in its discussions with the leadership in Beijing, should focus on understanding the large-scale military reforms underway in China
By raising futile concerns on his maiden visit to China, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has wasted the opportunity of not seeking insights into Chinese military reforms that directly impinge on India’s defence. China, on the other hand, handled the visit well by giving Parrikar a palliative in the form of a military hotline to return home with.
After his meetings with Chinese Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, General Fan Changlong, and Defence Minister General Chang Wanquan, Parrikar confirmed that he had raised four concerns with the Chinese leadership. These are the need to clarify the Line of Actual Control, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor that passes through disputed Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, China’s blocking of UN sanctions against Masood Azhar, and the need to maintain peace in the Indian Ocean region. While listening to India’s concern, Chinese military leaders did not give a commitment to considering them.

The clarification of the LAC was first sought by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the joint Press conference with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his September 2014 visit to India. The issue was once again raised by Modi while addressing students at the Tsinghua University in Beijing on May 15, 2015. The Chinese leadership had dismissed India’s desire for mutual agreement on the LAC for two reasons. One, after the Chinese announcement of December 2010 that it did not have a border with India in Ladakh (Jammu & Kashmir), the LAC there with India had become meaningless. To ask China to agree to the LAC in Ladakh on what China now considers disputed territory between India and Pakistan is unrealistic.
And two, the LAC, by definition a military line, can be moved by force by either side. This helps Chinese troops do brazen LAC transgressions and intrusions. On the other hand, transgressions on an agreed LAC a de facto border would be an act of aggression tantamount to declaration of war. Why will China lose the advantage of exercising military coercion by sauntering across the LAC at will?

The CPEC for China is much more than about economic benefit for people of the region. China has deduced that the viability and success of its Belt and Road project hinges upon the flagship CPEC, which will link Kashgar in China to Gwadar port in Pakistan. China believes, and with reason, that the triumph of CPEC will convince the world that its B&R is not an amorphous concept but a result-oriented venture which will change the balance of power in the world.

Embarked upon replacing the US as the foremost geo-strategic player in this century, China has forged a deep, all-encompassing relationship with Pakistan. As a result, from being a lackey, Pakistan has emerged as China’s most trusted and crucial partner for its geo-strategic designs, which are unfolding through the wide-sweeping B&R project. The B&R project seeks economic connectivity with obvious geopolitical implications, both on the Eurasian continent and in the Indian Ocean. It is absurd to believe that China will take India’s concerns about the CPEC passing through PoK seriously.

The Masood Azhar issue, which has been raised by the Indian leadership including Parrikar, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, could not have been handled by China at the United Nations in any other way. Pakistan is China’s trusted and now a valued partner in the B&R project, and both do the same to India in their own ways. China does regular border transgressions across the LAC, while the Pakistan Army allows Masood Azhar and his ilk to cross the Line of Control and do terrorism in India.

India, unfortunately, misses the wood for the trees. The problem is not Masood Azhar or Hafiz Saeed or any other terrorist. The problem is the Pakistan Army which controls them through the ISI. Instead of frittering its energy on getting Masood Azhar declared a terrorist by the UN, India will need to find a way of talking with the Pakistan Army, just as it does with the Chinese leadership. Since war is not an option (and this has nothing to do with nuclear weapons) with Pakistan and China, India should look for a win-win solution with both.

The win-win with China lies in understanding its military reforms which have been necessitated to support President Xi’s China Dream, the manifestation of which is the B&R project. India need not seek assurance from China for its Maritime Silk Road project in the Indian Ocean to be peaceful. It is for India to create conditions where China sees benefit in cooperation rather than confrontation with New Delhi. This will not happen if India continues to position itself as China’s rival for connectivity in Asia.

The reality is that India is an important but certainly not a geo-strategic player like China. While geo-strategic players have the capacity, capability and national will to exercise influence beyond their borders to impact geopolitical state of affairs. US strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in his book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives, that, “It should be noted that although all geo-strategic players tend to be important and powerful countries, not all important and powerful countries are automatically geo-strategic players”.

India has the potential to become a geo-strategic player. What comes in the way is the immature thinking that good economic growth alone can lead to a strong foreign policy which nations heed. Without military power, India will not become a geo-strategic or leading power. And military power is less about defence allocations and more about military reforms which India refuses to undertake. In this context, it would have been useful for Parrikar to understand Chinese military reforms from the horse’s mouth.

For example, the military hotline that China has now shown willingness to have, had been pending since long. Given that the border dispute is land-centric, India had proposed the military hotline between its Army Headquarters and the Chinese General Staff Headquarters. As the GSHQ was both the joint command headquarters and Army headquarters of the PLA, China considered it to be at a higher level. However, after the recent military reforms, the GSHQ, now called the Joint Staff Department, is the joint staff headquarters responsible for seamless integration of conventional and nuclear war plans and operational assessment. A separate PLA Army Headquarters has been created for the ground forces which are proposed to be reduced by 3,00,000 by 2020. With these changes, the stage is set for the memorandum of understanding to be signed for the military hotline.

The question remains: If the military hotline, in addition to the numerous confidence building measures between the two countries, will stop Chinese transgressions across the LAC. They will not. All they will do is prevent escalation which in any case China, which places a premium on psychological victory, does not want. Thus, if India attaches high priority to its relations with China, which Parrikar said it does, it should seek cooperation through an understanding of its military reforms. After all, the PLA is all set to be the vanguard of the China Dream.



(The writer is editor, FORCE news magazine)