China's power arouses Indian disquiet

By Brahma Chellaney

NEW DELHI (JP): The recent first visit of a Chinese head of state to India yielded four agreements intended to reinforce the gradual thaw in relations between the world's two most populous nations that fought a Himalayan war and remain locked in an intense but quiet rivalry. President Jiang Zemin's visit, however, was a reminder of how little progress the two giants have made in resolving their border dispute despite 15 years of negotiations.

A new agreement on confidence-building measures that includes a commitment to reduce border deployments reveals that the two sides so far have failed to even define the exact location of their de facto frontier. The "full implementation" of the latest accord "will depend on the two sides arriving at a common understanding of the line of actual control," according to its text.

Jiang discovered during his discussions in New Delhi that the traditionally deferential Indian position toward his country is now beginning to undergo a gradual change.

India, humiliated by invading Chinese forces in 1962, is getting worried about China's growing military and economic power. It is also concerned about Beijing's continued nuclear and missile assistance to Pakistan designed to prop it up as a military counterweight to India, and Chinese naval and intelligence activities on India's eastern flank in Myanmar.

Jiang's visit, which concluded Dec. 1, has sparked a national debate in India over China, reopening some old wounds.

India has been in search of new strategic partners since the breakup of the Soviet Union, which it valued as a countervailing force to China. Today, India's traditional policy of nonalignment and its nuclear restraint are coming under mounting pressure at home.

Jiang came to New Delhi with an aura of imperial pomposity. After New Delhi reluctantly agreed to the visit at this juncture, Jiang made Islamabad his next stop to drive home the point that India is on par with Pakistan, not with China.

In a departure from past reticence, the Indian prime minister and foreign minister raised the issue of covert technology transfer to Pakistan with Jiang. But the visitor, instead of seeking to allay India's deep concerns over the transfers, imperially dismissed them.

India sees the Chinese strategic aid to Pakistan as part of an encirclement strategy to tie it down south of the Himalayas so that it is in no position to mount a strategic challenge to China. As the strategy refrains from taking on India directly, the dragon can talk friendship with New Delhi while spitting proxy fire and quietly sharpening its own claws.

Beijing's smiling-but-spiteful policy toward India is also evident from its new no-first-use nuclear posture. Until it effected a change last year, Beijing had unconditionally pledged not to be the first to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any other nation. The new posture adds a condition -- membership in the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) -- leaving out India, Israel and Pakistan. But since Pakistan is a close ally and Israel collaborates with China in military technology, the conditional pledge essentially excludes India.

India's external security environment has deteriorated sharply since its sole nuclear test in 1974, with the emergence of a second nuclear-capable neighbor, Pakistan, and the growing military and economic disparity with China.

The transfer to Pakistan undergird Beijing's increasingly assertive pursuit of national interests. China's strategy on the contested Spratly Islands and its occupation of Mischief Reef remind Indians of how it gobbled up the historical buffer between the Indian and Chinese civilizations -- Tibet -- and subsequently laid claim to Indian territories on the basis of Tibet's ancient links with them.

In 1962, the attacking Chinese troops captured almost a fifth of the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir, a third of which is under Pakistani control.

India-China diplomatic relations were restored only after Chinese strongman Mao Zedong's death in 1976. Since 1981, the two rivals have been holding regular talks to establish confidence- building measures along their de factor border.

Apart from a series of 1987 skirmishes, the border has been calm and military tensions have ebbed. A 1993 pact requires the two sides to "maintain peace and tranquility" along the frontier. Bilateral trade is growing at 30 percent annually.

This has encouraged some left-leaning Indian analysts to conjure up notions of India and China joining hands to counter the U.S. dominance in global affairs and forming a common trading bloc to create the world's biggest market. With 40 percent of the world's population on their territories, India and China could dramatically impact on the Asian and global geostrategic balance by forging close ties.

Enduring relations between states, however, can be built only on shared national interests. The relationship between China and India will likely remain competitive. China's stated ambition to be a superpower, its refusal to accept India as an equal, and New Delhi's deep-rooted distrust of Chinese intentions will continue to hamper any adjustment of conflicting interests.

The Jiang visit was a reminder of the challenges the two countries face in building a cooperative relationship. The only significant agreement signed during the visit was really old wine in a new bottle. Its key provisions, calling for a limitation on border deployments and other confidence-building steps, mirror the commitments and goals in the 1993 agreement.

The latest accord is based largely on principles rather than on an agreed course of action. How many troops and armaments each side would withdraw, how far, by when, and how it would be verified are not spelled out. Yet, it is supposed to supplement the 1993 pact.

At India's insistence, three key parameters are to govern troop and armament withdrawals since Chinese forces are mostly on plateau land and Indian troops on mountainous area: The nature of the terrain, road transportation infrastructure and the time element in induction and removal.

India, however, is already on a retreated line of defense after the 1950 loss of Tibet as a buffer and the 1962 ejection of Indian troops from the second line of defense along the Kashmir sector. A weakening of the present defenses, even if based on the three parameters, could impair the Indian military's ability to withstand a surprise onslaught by Chinese forces, with their superior firepower and logistical support.

Militarily, a balanced reduction of troops can ensure equal security only if both sides have capabilities to deter each other's aggression. India has fallen behind China so rapidly that it is difficult for it to hide its vulnerabilities.

The relationship with China is too asymmetrical for India to seek security on principles of symmetry in force reductions. India, however, can draw solace that there appears little possibility of China unleashing its military might against it in the near future. The 1993 and 1996 accords incorporate mutual promises not to use military capabilities against each other.

The troop-withdrawal provisions of those accords, however, are difficult to implement and will likely remain in limbo indefinitely.

"Peace through strength" is a maxim that Indian policymakers should not forget. As long as India is negotiating or operating from a position of weakness and fear, it cannot hope to win durable peace. A vulnerable India could easily fall prey to the dragon's machinations.

The Jiang visit was reminder that unless India can stand up to China, the Sino-Pakistani umbilical cord will not snap. And as long as China bears the Pakistani threat to India, Islamabad will be in no mood to talk peace. The road to Islamabad for India thus lies through Beijing.

The writer is a professor of security studies at the Center for Policy Research, an independent think-tank in New Delhi.