India, China pirouette for 'super-power' position<\/p>\n
By M.G. Srinath<\/p>\n
NEW DELHI (DPA): Asian giants and neighbors India and China
\nhave begun a bout of shadow-play in a bid to assume the mantle of
\npower supremacy in the region.<\/p>\n
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee left on Sunday for
\na week-long official visit to Vietnam and Indonesia as part of
\nDelhi's renewed \"look East policy\". He is also scheduled to visit
\nJapan next month. But no dates have been announced yet.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, senior Chinese leader and former premier Li Peng
\narrives in India on a eight-day visit as part of a \"goodwill
\ntrip\".<\/p>\n
Reports from Hanoi suggest that Vajpayee will discuss during
\nhis three-day visit issues like China and security issues with
\nVietnamese President Tran Duc Luong, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai
\nand Defense Minister Pham Van Tra.<\/p>\n
Vajpayee's visit is the first by an Indian premier since 1994,
\nthe year before Vietnam joined the Association of Southeast Asian
\nNations (ASEAN).<\/p>\n
Vietnam currently holds the chair of the 10-member regional
\nbody, which India has wooed in recent efforts to present a united
\nfront in relation to China, which borders both Vietnam and India.
\nIndia and China are dialogue members in the ASEAN Regional Forum,
\na broader 37-nation security grouping.<\/p>\n
Last month Hanoi and Beijing signed agreements settling an
\nage-old border dispute in the Tonkin Gulf. A year earlier the two
\ncountries signed a historic land border treaty.<\/p>\n
Yet Vietnam as well as several other ASEAN members,
\nparticularly the Philippines, routinely express concern over
\nhegemonic Chinese claims of disputed islands in the South China
\nSea.<\/p>\n
India has been inwards to reduce the Chinese influence in the
\nASEAN region during the recent past months.<\/p>\n
Last November, India along with five Southeast Asian nations
\nsigned an agreement in the Laos' capital of Vientiane to promote
\nmultifaceted cooperation in the areas of tourism, culture,
\neducation and communication.<\/p>\n
In addition to India, the other signatories of the Vientiane
\nDeclaration of Mekong-Ganga Cooperation were Laos, Thailand,
\nCambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar.<\/p>\n
Although Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh says the
\nregional grouping was not a snub to China, it is clear that
\nDelhi's effort is to contain Beijing through direct dealing with
\nthe economic bloc countries via Myanmar.<\/p>\n
India's relations with China has been a roller-coaster ride
\nover the decades. Delhi was one of the first countries to
\nrecognize the new government of the communist People's Republic
\nof China in 1949.<\/p>\n
China's invasion of eastern Tibet upset the balance of power
\nthe following year. It soon deteriorated when the Tibetan
\nspiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled to India along with a
\nlarge number of followers.<\/p>\n
This was followed by a brief but bitter border war in 1962,
\nwith the two Asian giants still claiming vast swathes of each
\nother's territory along their 2,010 kilometer border.<\/p>\n
The war led to a 14-year break in diplomatic relations.<\/p>\n
Both sides are also wary of each other's nuclear capabilities.
\nDelhi and Beijing traded insults soon after India conducted a
\nseries of underground nuclear tests at Pokhran in May 1998.<\/p>\n
To add to the problem, Indian businessmen during the past
\nmonths have began to complain bitterly at the Chinese dumping of
\ngoods, which has began to hit the domestic market.<\/p>\n
Li Peng, number two in the Chinese hierarchy, is also the
\nchairman of the National Peoples' Congress, euphemistically
\nregarded as Communist China's equivalent of Parliament.<\/p>\n
He comes to India as a guest of Indian parliamentary Speaker
\nGanti Balayogi. The Chinese leader will meet Vajpayee, Indian
\nfederal President K.R. Narayanan and others during his Delhi
\nvisit.<\/p>\n
Li Peng has been Beijing's \"pointman\" in improving ties with
\nDelhi over the last decade. He was the Chinese premier when the
\nfirst break-through in India-China relations took place during
\nformer Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi's visit to China in 1988.<\/p>\n
He was also in charge in 1993, when the two neighbors signed
\nthe agreement on maintaining peace and tranquility along the
\ninternational Line of Control (LoC).<\/p>\n
Li Peng comes to India when the bilateral ties between Delhi
\nand Washington is blooming in its full glory. Beijing is wary of
\nthis for it feels threatened that its power of influence in the
\nAsian region will go down.<\/p>\n
Sujit Datta, senior fellow at the Institute of Defense Studies
\nand Analyses (IDSA), an Indian think-tank, feels although India-
\nChina bilateral relations are improving, there are still many
\npoints of differences.<\/p>\n
These include: Beijing asking India to sign the Nuclear Non-
\nProliferation Treaty (NPT), Chinese supply of nuclear and missile
\ntechnology to Pakistan and refusal to condemn Islamabad's support
\nto Muslims' rebellion in Indian Kashmir.<\/p>\n
China has said that it will not sacrifice its \"all-weather\"
\nrelations with Pakistan while attempting to improve and develop
\nrelations with India.<\/p>",
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