Is India playing the Tibet card?

P Stobdan

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It might not have any interest in Tibet per se but it does have useful deterrence value vis-a-vis China.

The recent visit of the 17th Karmapa Lama to Arunachal Pradesh, and India's support to Mongolia, which is facing Chinese ire over the Dalai Lama's visit, has once again put the spotlight on India's Tibet card. Interestingly, the Karmapa was allowed into Tawang after the present government revoked an earlier decision by the Cabinet Committee on Security prohibiting him from travelling within and outside India (he was for long suspected to be a Chinese mole after he landed in India from Tibet in 2000). 

The Karmapa's visit followed US envoy Richard Verma's tour to Tawang (which an infuriated China called 'interference') and New Delhi's nod to the Dalai Lama's visit in March 2017, which too raised eyebrows in Beijing. Interestingly, China did not react sharply to the Karmapa's Tawang visit, possibly because he is not considered a 'splitist' like the Dalai Lama. 

P Stobdan It is not clear whether playing up Tibet is part of the current Indian foreign policy discourse. In a recent speech, foreign secretary S. Jaishankar said that "India and China have put a premium on developing a bilateral relationship and not allowing other considerations to unduly influence their progress" and that "three lost decades compel us to still play catch-up in the relationship".

That said, it is also true that India has occasionally played the Tibet card to counter China's strategic moves. So the new move could be linked, firstly, to New Delhi retaliating to China going ahead with its economic corridor through PoK and its refusal to support India's effort to put Jaish-e-Mohammed's Masood Azhar on the UN terror list. Secondly, it could be linked to the preparations under way to decide the future Dalai Lama. So, even as Beijing has decided to find its own 15th Dalai Lama, New Delhi seems determined to forestall any such plan. Now that the Karmapa is viewed as the Dalai Lama's interim political successor, New Delhi would be tempted to boost his profile. Thirdly, the Indian government has realised the need to mobilise the support of the clergy in other Vajrayana countries like Mongolia to decide the future Dalai Lama. Lastly, Tibet assumes importance in the light of the new administration in the United States. President-elect Donald Trump has already hinted at the US ending its 'One China' policy. 

Yet, it is not clear whether India playing the Tibet card would yield anything. Firstly, it has no precedence in selecting a Dalai Lama. Secondly, its tokenism on Tibet for almost seven decades failed to counter Chinese moves such as their activities in PoK and reports about China extending its fibreoptic and connectivity lines to Nepal. 

The Tibet question per se seems unimportant to India, but New Delhi finds it having useful deterrence value vis-a-vis China. It remains a valuable means of forcing China's reciprocity, especially in dealing with the boundary issue. 

The Tibet issue certainly can't ignite a war, but the sheltering of the Karmapa and playing up the issue of the next Dalai Lama will ensure a prolonging of the hostility between India and China. The Tibet issue will continue to occupy centre stage whenever there is major strategic discord between India and China. 

Interestingly, India is also seeking to play the Inner Asia geopolitical chess over Lamaism that Chinese imperial courts played traditionally. In fact, until the early 20th century, the Chinese, Tibetans and Mongols were bound in an intricate symbiotic relationship and shaped the political order together. In fact, the Dalai Lama's recent five-day visit to Mongolia seemed to be aimed at stirring the game his institution has been playing since the 16th century-of reviving the Mongolian ecclesiastical institution built around the 400-year-old spiritual figure of the Jebtsundamba Khutukut or Bogd Khan whose lineage was terminated when the Communist government came to power in 1921. The last, or the ninth, Jebtsundamba was born in Tibet but spent most of his life in Karnataka until November 2011 when he went to Mongolia, only to pass away in March 2012. Discovering the 10th Jebtsundamba will once again be a tight geopolitical contest where the Dalai Lama, and the governments of Mongolia, China and India, have high political stakes in its outcome. 

At the heart of the Dalai Lama's visit to Mongolia lay the exercise of identifying of the new Jebtsundamba, but only on the fourth day of his visit did he announce that he was convinced (through his wisdom eyes) of the recent rebirth of the Jebtsundamba in Mongolia. He, however, desisted from revealing the boy's identity. It is possible that the Mongolian state may have aborted the plan fearing Chinese rebuke. 

It is also possible that the Dalai Lama himself withheld the identity for a possible future negotiation with China to jointly agree to identify the 10th Jebtsundamba just as he and Beijing did for the 17th Karmapa in the 1990s. The visit of a high-level Tibetan delegation from China to Mongolia prior to the Dalai Lama's visit may have been linked to the recognition of the Jebtsundamba. 

Unsurprisingly, Beijing censured Mongolia for taking the 'erroneous' step of inviting the Dalai Lama and has taken strong retaliatory action, calling off loan negotiations, imposing border tariffs and cancelling key bilateral talks. China appears angrier this time, especially after it had in recent years succeeded in curtailing the Dalai Lama's outreach to world capitals. 

Why did Mongolia play the Dalai Lama card? The answer lies in the terrible financial soup it finds itself in. The country is worst hit by the downturn, especially by China's slowdown, resulting in its growth rate crashing down from 17.3 per cent in 2011 to negative this year. 

Mongolia has gone into massive sovereign default with an external debt of $22.5 billion, twice the country's GDP. It needs to clear commercial debt of $2 billion as well as another $2.3 billion currency swap agreement with Bank of China due next year. And, so far, Mongolia's negotiation with China for a $4.2 billion bailout hasn't worked. 

Since the end of the Cold War, Mongolia has been unable to play its two giant neighbours-Russia and China-against each other. Then it included US and Japan as its 'third neighbours' to play its strategic game. But clearly, Mongolia's 'third neighbours', whom China despises, seem unable to bail it out of its repayment obligations. And it is here that the Dalai Lama and India come in. Mongolian foreign policy defines India as its 'spiritual neighbour'. A reason why, after the Dalai Lama card failed to yield results, Mongolia quickly sought an Indian bailout on 'spiritual' grounds, as well as 'clear support' against China's transport obstruction imposed following the Dalai Lama's visit. The Mongolian envoy in New Delhi told the media that India not raising its voice could be construed as giving China a 'pass' for its 'behaviour', The underlying suggestion being that India had a hand in the Dalai Lama's Mongolia visit and its fallout. 

China has already warned Mongolia against seeking Indian help. Its official media termed the step "politically harebrained" and said that "Mongolia cannot afford the risks of such geopolitical games". 

The issue is about India's credit line of $1 billion offered during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit last year that Mongolia now wants released for meeting its fiscal needs. However, it is difficult to imagine how India could help solve the country's existential problems, especially its debt burden. There seems to be no precedent of India converting its line of credit to service the debt of another country. 

While Mongolia's plea on 'spiritual' grounds is appealing, others caution against playing such a game knowing what happened when India went out of its way to help Nepal. Also, it's not that India will get anything in return. Mongolia is a distant country with which even a minimum trade cannot take place without transiting through China. 

As expected from a land-locked country, Mongolia quickly withdrew from standing up for India despite its strong commitment to work together on issues like terrorism. Barely a year after Prime Minister Modi's visit to Ulaanbaatar, it was disappointing in its response to the attack in Uri, the Mongolian foreign ministry issuing only a meek statement expressing 'regret' . The country's opportunism became clearer when its foreign ministry even refused to meet the Indian envoy in Ulaanbaatar for months. Mongolia has no substantive ties with Pakistan, but it was surely acting on China's advice to stay away from firmly supporting India on terrorism. 

India should certainly be sympathetic to Mongolia and approach the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to provide relief besides implementing its own promised $1 billion credit line to support Mongolia's economic capacity and infrastructure, but it should steer clear of the Mongolia-China spat. Undoubtedly, the Mongolian crisis would end soon because both Mongolia and China will find a modus vivendi. Perhaps Ulaanbaatar might be willing to host a visit by the Chinese Panchen Lama.