Arun Bajpai
India has just about finished analysing the results of the highly successful visit of the new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Japan in the first week of September and now the all powerful Chinese President Xi Jinping is in India. Let there be no doubt that Xi Jinping will offer India equally good if not better package than Japan. The big question is will this visit of Chinese president be able to address the trust deficit between India and China?
In the recent years China has been characterised by its rising assertiveness, aggressiveness and arrogance along 4500 km long Indo -China border. China has already usurped 40000 sq km of Akashi Chin Area in Ladakh from India, Pakistan has illegally gifted it 5000 sq km of area in POK and china is claiming the entire Arunachal Pradesh of India as its own. Just before the visit of Chinese Prime Minister Li Quiang in April last year Chinese troops intruded 19 kms inside Indian Territory in Depsang Valley of ladakh and stayed put there for three weeks. The then UPA Government had to do lot of pleading and requesting with China before they went back. It has now come out through the important sources from china that approval for this intrusion to PLA was given by the Chinese politburo the highest decision making body in that country. They had rightly assessed that India will not cancel the visit of Chinese PM and that the message will go to the Asian countries like Japan, Vietnam and Filipinas with whom china has island disputes in East China and south china seas that they should not bank on India to come to their help against china.
This year in Aug month, just before Modis visit to Japan ,Chinese troops entered in Burtse area of Ladakh which encompasses Chushul, Pangong lake and Shenwenxian area. This time they did not stay for long. Maybe they did not know how Modi government will react. Now it has been reported that again there is intrusion in Depsang valley by PLA, just days before visit of Xi Jinping.
We in India must be clear in our minds that Chinese do not do anything without a purpose and that their left hand fully knows what the right is doing. Besides in their case all policies are long term. A glimpse of what China is up to can be can be gauged by the Xi Jinpings Dream of what he wants china to be, presented to the 18th Chinese Party Congress recently. The three main parameters of this vision are First, He wants people of China to be wealthy, second to make China a very strong country, Third Rejuvenation of China which includes restoration of historical territories. It is this third priority which we in India and East Asia countries including Japan have to worry about.
Today whatever China is, it is because of very large scale investment of money and transfer of technology by Japan to China in last so many decades. When Japan was investing in china at such a large scale the world opinion was that now China-Japan relations will be peaceful for long time to come. Lo and behold today China is emerging as the biggest enemy of Japan on the ownership of Senkaku island in East China Sea. Here there is biggest lesson for India and other countries of East Asia. China does not mix strategic relationship with economic one.
India faces major problems with China in PLA infiltration, trade barriers faced by Indian exporters, Chinese pricing their stuff in certain fields of exports to India purposely so low in order to kill Indian industry in these areas, Chinese support to Pakistani nuclear capability, its indifference to terror attacks in India sponsored from Pakistani soil, its claim of Arunachal Pradesh, negativity of china towards Indian desire to be permanent member of UN Security Council and denial of India’s membership to SCO and APEC. These are not issues which can be pushed under the carpet and we can still carry out business as usual with china. Time has come to confront china with these issues and we should formulate our china policy accordingly.
Yes china has got abundance of money and it will benefit a great deal in investing in India and vice versa. It wants to enhance exports to India, is interested in setting up industrial parks, keen in building India’s infrastructure and so on so forth. It is expected that during this visit of Xi Jinping all these issues will be discussed. He may even be offering some cosmetic confidence building measures but all in all it will be better for India to identify those areas of infrastructure which are not sensitive for Chinese investment. We must also try and rectify our trade imbalances.
We in India must understand that china fully recognises our long term potential. It knows that if it has to rise in Asia and subsequently in the world as a superpower India is the only country which can stop it in its tracks. So it will do its best to buy time with us. So it is very important for us that while we should be friendly with china and enhance our economic interest but for our strategic interests must lean towards Japan-US and subsequently Australia axis. A resurgent Japan and self confident India combination is the answer to Chinas domineering and expansionist ways. China can be our business partner but never a friend. We must continue building our military capability. No Hindi-Chini bhai bahi repeat please.
(The author is Defence and Strategic Analyst)
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