|
 Tensions are rising again between the two Asian nuclear powers - China and India - over a long-standing boundary dispute. Is another flashpoint about to ignite?Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao held talks on the sidelines of the recent Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia summits in Thailand. The two leaders held a "productive meeting" covering bilateral, regional and international issues and are said to have avoided contentious issues behind the recent tension - including the disputed north-eastern territory of Arunachal Pradesh.
However, it is easier said than done. India and China have a long-standing boundary dispute involving large areas along their 4,000-kilometre border, a bitter legacy of the 1962 war between the two countries. China has laid claim to large parts of India's Arunachal Pradesh state, which New Delhi rejects. The meeting of the two leaders came amid fresh tension between the Asian giants over the territory.
Beijing had objected to Singh's visit there in early October, triggering sharp reaction from India which asserted that the state was an integral part of the country. China has also opposed Dalai Lama's proposed trip to the famous Tawang monastery in Arunachal Pradesh in November. It accuses Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1949 after a failed uprising against Communist rule, of indulging in anti-China activities and trying to "split" Tibet from the country. New Delhi has, in turn, criticized China's investments in infrastructure projects in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The Himalayan region of Kashmir is a disputed area which both India and Pakistan separately administer but claim in its entirety. Other issues which recently led to the war of words between India and China include Beijing's move to issue separate visas to passport holders from India-administered Kashmir.
In fact, China claims some 90,000 square kilometers of Indian territory. And most of those claims are tangled up with Tibet. Large swaths of India's northern mountains were once part of Tibet. Other stretches belonged to semi-independent kingdoms that paid fealty to Lhasa. Because Beijing now claims Tibet as part of China, it has by extension sought to claim parts of India that it sees as historically Tibetan, a claim that has become increasingly flammable in recent months.
What was once an obscure argument over lines on a 1914 map and some barren, rocky peaks hardly worth fighting over could turn into a flash point that could spark a war between two nuclear-armed neighbours. The United States and Europe as well as the rest of Asia ought to take notice because a conflict involving India and China could result in a nuclear exchange. And it could suck the West in, either as an ally in the defence of Asian democracy, as in the case of Taiwan, or as a mediator trying to separate the two sides.
Beijing appears increasingly concerned about the safe haven India provides to the Dalai Lama and to tens of thousands of Tibetan exiles, including increasingly militant supporters of Tibetan independence. If these groups were to use India as a base for armed insurrection against China, as Tibetan exiles did throughout the 1960s, then China might retaliate against India. By force or demand, Beijing might also seek to gain possession of important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries that lie in Indian territory close to the border. Both politically and culturally, these monasteries are seen as key nodes in the Tibetan resistance to Chinese authority.
Already Beijing has launched a diplomatic offensive aimed at undercutting Indian sovereignty over the areas China claims, particularly the northeast state of Arunachal Pradesh and one of its key cities, Tawang, birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama in the 17th century and home to several important Tibetan monasteries. Tibet ceded Tawang and the area around it to British India in 1914. China has recently denied visas to the state's residents; lodged a formal complaint after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited the state in 2008; and tried to block a $2.9 billion Asian Development Bank loan to India because some of the money was earmarked for an irrigation project in the state.
The reports of Chinese incursions can be read as a signal that it is deadly serious about its territorial claims. The exact border has never been mutually agreed on - meaning one side's incursion is another side's routine patrol - but the Chinese have clearly stepped up their activity along the frontier.
Indians are haunted by memories of India's 1962 war with China, in which China launched a massive invasion along the length of the frontier, routing the Indians before unilaterally halting at what today remains the de facto border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC). They are also fearful of China's expanding naval presence in the Indian Ocean, seeing its widening network of naval bases as a noose that could be used to strangle India. They blast Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for alleged weakness in the face of this growing threat. Bharat Verma, editor of the Indian Defence Review, has predicted in a widely publicized essay that China would attack India sometime before 2012. With social unrest rising within China due to the worldwide economic slump, he says, the leadership in Beijing needs "a small military victory" to unify the nation, and India is "a soft target," due to Singh's fecklessness. India's defence minister and the heads of the Army and Air Force have reassured the public that "there will be no repeat of 1962."
China's growing naval presence in the Indian Ocean reflects a legitimate interest in protecting the sea lanes upon which Beijing depends for its supply of oil and natural resources from Africa and the Middle East. The border movements should be seen in the same light: it's not about an external threat from India per se, but India's relationship to the internal threat from Tibet.
New Delhi has already started repositioning border forces, launched a road-building programme to match the roads and airfields that China has built on its side, and recently conducted a three-day combined air-and-land war game, seemingly designed to show that it is on guard. But India needs to be careful not to overreact: it views with alarm the tens of thousands of troops China has deployed to the border region since the 2008 Lhasa riots.
A lesson from Taiwan is that New Delhi should pursue ways to open the border to commerce and communication, binding itself closer to China. Amid all the reports of border incursions, both India and China have sought to lower the volume. Chinese military officials invited Indian generals from all three of the regional commands that face off against it across the LAC to visit China for confidence-building measures, including a rare visit to Lhasa. Indian officials have pleaded with news organisations to tone down reporting on border incursions. Indian national-security adviser M. K. Narayanan warned that the beating of war drums might become a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to "an unwarranted incident or accident" with China. This is now an issue that should be handled at the highest levels - not left to hotheads - on all sides. 
|
Show/hide comments
Show/hide comment form
