We want a peaceful neighbourhood: Chinese PM

China’s Premier Li Keqiang that his government wanted to build a “favourable” neighbouring environment and narrow down differences with neighbours, amid recently flaring territorial disputes.

Mr. Li said China had an “unshakeable will” in safeguarding its territory and sovereignty, but at the same time also had “an unwavering commitment” to ensuring a peaceful periphery.

“As a developing country, China needs a favourable neighbouring and international environment for its modernisation,” he said .

China is currently involved in boundary disputes with India; with Japan over disputed East China Sea islands and with a number of countries over the South China Sea.

Over the past year, tensions with Japan have risen over disputed islands and over questions of wartime history, with ties between the two countries simmering in recent months.

China has, however, sought to tone down disputes over the South China Sea and with India. Mr. Li visited India last year — his first overseas visit since taking office — and hosted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in October, when both sides signed a border defence cooperation agreement to formalise and expand confidence building measures.

While neither India nor Japan found mention in Mr. Li’s remarks, the Premier instead highlighted China’s warming ties with Vietnam — one among many claimants in the South China Sea dispute — as reflected in a joint maritime cooperation agreement signed during his visit to the country last year.

Managing China

Consider the numbers. In 1990-92, the GDPs of both Asian giants were almost the same in US dollar terms, about $500 billion. By 2000, China’s GDP, at over a trillion dollars was already double that of India’s. China’s GDP began to accelerate after that. India’s GDP crossed the trillion dollar mark in 2007, by when China was close to five trillion. Already, the gap was significant and daunting. India did manage to move quickly from a trillion dollar economy to a two trillion dollar economy by 2011, but by then China had hit nine trillion.

After that, both countries slowed down, but that is hardly any consolation for India. At the end of the Cold War, while China and India were at a similar level of development, there were striking and important differences in the structures of their economies and capabilities of their people. These differences have enabled China to emerge, a quarter century later, as a global power.

Entitled “Balancing Without Containment: An American Strategy for Managing China”, the monograph advocates a four-pronged strategy for the US:
assist the rise of “countervailing powers” in Asia,

create a new trading regime that serves US interests better than the existing multilateral system while exerting pressure on China to open up more,
retain military superiority over China and
reinvigorate the US economy so that it regains its technological and competitive edge.

However, given the yawning gap between the two countries, and assuming China will manage its problems cleverly and retain its strengths, even if not its momentum, India will take some time to catch up. Therefore, managing this transition, wherein China has already emerged as a global superpower and India remains constrained by domestic factors, is an even more daunting challenge for India’s leadership.

It is important for Indians to remember that China was not destined to emerge as the only pre-eminent global power from the East. In the distant past, till the dawn of European colonialism, China and India were equals. More recently too, in the second half of the 20th century, they have been equals, though evolving very differently. Many in China today believe that they are indeed destined to replace the United States as the world’s only superpower. Younger international relations scholars rubbish the idea of a multipolar world, dubbing it a European and Indian idea, and view themselves as the inheritors of a unipolar world. History may have its surprises, but India should be better prepared for the 21st century.

In the run-up to the general elections, the only political leader who has even mentioned China in his public speeches is the BJP’s Narendra Modi. And even he only spoke to raise a cheer from the audience, warning China against further acts of aggression against India. That is the stuff of electoral rhetoric. The time has come, however, for our political leadership to articulate a strategy to catch up with China and, in the meanwhile, to manage its growing power.

In the transition from here to there, from the current imbalance to a future of greater balance, India needs policies at home and levers abroad to manage China’s rise. The US has to only slow China down to balance, if not contain, it. India has to catch up to even be able to balance it.

Move like Beijing

As it tightens its hold over the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine, Moscow’s international isolation appears complete. The debate in the 15-member United Nations Security Council on Saturday ended with Russia vetoing a draft resolution moved by the West, and China abstaining. All the 13 other members of the SC backed the resolution. China’s decision to differentiate itself from Moscow over Ukraine marks an important break in the growing political collaboration between Beijing and Moscow on the international stage. China, which values its strategic partnership with Russia as a means to counter the US and Western domination of the world, appears determined to develop an independent approach to the crisis in Ukraine and exploit its leverage with both America and Russia.

If realpolitik on Ukraine is bound to serve China’s interests well, Beijing’s three-point proposal on Ukraine offers a way out of the re-emerging confrontation between Russia and the West in the middle of Europe. For one, China called for the early establishment of an “international coordination mechanism” to explore a political settlement to the crisis. Quite clearly, such a mechanism would take the issue out of the Russia-West equation and enhance China’s own weight in the management of the crisis. Second, China has called for an international financial package that will help Ukraine overcome its current economic woes. Beijing’s empathy for the people of Ukraine fits in nicely with China’s growing investments in the country. Finally, China is urging both Russia and the West to refrain from further actions — an early Russian decision to annex Crimea or Western economic sanctions against Moscow — that will only deepen the crisis.

Russia and America may not heed China’s wise words on Ukraine. But Delhi could learn a thing or two from Beijing’s masterly handling of the crisis. The UPA government has had little to say on the developments in Ukraine. But what little it said suggested a tilt towards Russia, despite India’s well-known opposition to intervention in the internal affairs of nations and the use of plebiscites to break the territorial integrity of states. The UPA government has rediscovered the slogan of non-alignment, but appears to have lost the ability to navigate the rapidly shifting dynamic among the great powers. The UPA’s vacuous non-alignment has become a metaphor for the loss of self-confidence in Indian foreign policy over the last few years.

My mission is to better India ties: Xi

China's President Xi Jinping said on Thursday he saw improving relations with India as his “historic mission”, as the top Chinese leader met with the Indian envoy in Beijing.

Xinjiang’s cycle of violence

Spate of attacks

the city had been rocked by two explosions, set off in minivans in a crowded pedestrian street in the new city, where most Chinese residents live. Unlike many cities in China’s far western Muslim-majority Xinjiang region, Kashgar is still overwhelmingly Uighur — although the number of Han Chinese migrants is fast increasing. Chinese — now a majority in the provincial capital Ürümqi, make up around half of Xinjiang’s population, up from only six per cent when the People’s Republic brought Xinjiang — its “new frontier” — under its control.

The violence in Kashgar in 2011 turned out to be the start of a string of similar incidents unfolding across Xinjiang, especially in the Uighur-dominated south, where Kashgar and Hotan are located. In August last year, 21 people were killed, including 15 police and community workers, in a clash with six people in a town in Bachu County, also in Kashgar prefecture. The six were later identified by state media as members of a group that was “planning to launch terrorist activities,” similar to the one in 2011 on the pedestrian street.

That, however, would change, following the events of March 1 in Ku¯nmíng, the provincial capital of southwestern Yunnan province, a popular tourist destination for Chinese, known as “the city of eternal spring.” In an attack that resembled earlier incidents in southern Xinjiang, a group of masked assailants, armed with knives, went on a rampage in Ku¯nmíng railway station. Eight masked men and women, all dressed in black, moved quickly and quietly, stabbing at will, leaving a trail of blood, panic and horror.

Govt suspects the involvement of the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a banned group whose leader is thought to be in hiding in Pakistan, near the Afghan border. While China has blamed most incidents on the ETIM, there has been little clear evidence of their capabilities of carrying out attacks in China. In the past, exiled Uighur groups have suggested that every act of unrest in Xinjiang, even those stemming from local protests, has been blamed on the ETIM to justify harsh responses.

Local grievances, ethnic tensions

The danger for the government is that its past responses have appeared to exacerbate, rather than improve, the on-the-ground situation in Xinjiang. A case in point was the 2009 ethnic riots in Ürümqi, where 197 people were left killed. The government blamed the riots on ETIM and separatist groups, although the nature of mass rioting suggests otherwise.

State-run energy companies, which hold unrivalled sway over government and policy in this mineral and oil-rich region, prefer hiring Mandarin-speaking Han Chinese.
Earlier this year, Mr. Tohti, a widely respected and popular voice in the Uighur community, was taken away from his Beijing home by State police. He has not been heard from since.

Other grievances involve restrictions on religion. Uighur government workers and students in many universities are banned from practising religion, whether it is fasting during Ramadan or even wearing veils. Recent “anti-veil” crackdowns in Kashgar and Hotan, cited by local officials as being driven by security reasons, have understandably angered Uighurs, seen as an assault on their culture.

Reviving the Maritime Silk Route

China is experiencing a “Deng Xiaoping Moment 2.0.” The new Chinese leadership seems fairly optimistic in its effort to reshape the country’s global posture in a bold and creative way, a key element of which is to build up an economic system through external cooperation. Undoubtedly, the proposal of reviving theMaritime Silk Route (MSR) demonstrates this innovative approach. Indeed, the success of the MSR initiative will be consequential to regional stability and global peace. It is little wonder then that this proposal has attracted enormous interests among policy makers and scholars.

The thrust on reviving the ancient maritime route is the first global strategy for enhancing trade and fostering peace, proposed by the new Chinese leaders. The MSR inherits the ancient metaphor of friendly philosophy from the old Silk Route to build the new one. It emphasises on improving connectivity with Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia and even Africa, by building a network of port cities along the Silk Route, linking the economic hinterland in China. More importantly, it aspires to improve China’s geo-strategic position in the world. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, “The reason why China proposed the building of the Maritime Silk Route is to explore the unique values and ideas of the ancient Silk Route… andachieve common development and common prosperity of all countries in the region.” In fact, since the Tang Dynasty, the MSR had been a major channel of communication, through which ancient China made contacts with the outside world.

Diffusing tension

Amid the ‘irresistible shift’ from the West to the East, Beijing is concerned with the U.S. pivot to the Asia-Pacific region. Also, the MSR could be an attempt to counter the “string of pearls” argument. China’s acrimonious relations with some states in Southeast Asia due to maritime disputes have created complex circumstances for itself in building better relations with its neighbours. Through their vision of re-energising the MSR, Chinese leaders aim to impart a new lease of life to China’s peripheral policy and diffuse the tension. Chinese leaders want to re-assure their commitment to the path of peaceful development, emphasising that “a stronger China will add to the force for world peace and the positive energy for friendship, and will present development opportunities to Asia and the world, rather than posing a threat.” The idea of the MSR was outlined during Li Keqiang’s speech at the 16th ASEAN-China summit in Brunei, and Xi Jinping’s speech in the Indonesian Parliament in October 2013. Chinese leaders underlined the need to re-establish the centuries-old seaway into a 21st century MSR, while celebrating the 10th anniversary of the ASEAN-China strategic partnership. The main emphasis was placed on stronger economic cooperation, closer cooperation on joint infrastructure projects, the enhancement of security cooperation, and strengthening “maritime economy, environment technical and scientific cooperation.”

The new leaders put forward the “2+7” formula of cooperation — consensus on two issues: deepening strategic trust and exploring neighbourly friendship, and economic development based on mutual benefits and win-win outcomes. They also put forward seven proposals — signing the China-ASEAN good neighbour treaty; more effective use of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area and intensive Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership negotiations; acceleration of joint infrastructure projects; stronger regional financial and risk-prevention cooperation; closer maritime cooperation; enhanced collaboration on security; and more intensive people-to-people contacts along with increased cultural, scientific and environmental protection cooperation.

China aims to accelerate the establishment of an Asian Infrastructural Investment Bank, which could provide a strong investment and financing platform for multimodal connectivity, like building high-speed rail, ports, airports, within related countries. Meanwhile, in order to get a wider support, China may consider establishing the bank headquarters in one of the capitals along the MSR, possibly Jakarta, Bangkok, Singapore and other countries deemed friendly.

Indeed, China is taking decisive steps to improve its overall geopolitical position by developing extensive transport networks, building roads, railways, ports, and energy corridors through such initiatives. Historically, the MSR was divided into two main sectors: lands “above the wind” (ports in the Indian Ocean) and lands “below the wind” (the straits of Malacca, the South China Sea, the Java Sea, and further east). These terms referred to the season of sailing. Long-distance voyaging along these routes became possible once seafarers discovered the rhythm of wind, which provide reliable power for sailing ships. Shipbuilding and navigation in China were fairly advanced, and Chinese navigators had some ability to predict monsoons.

Strategic objectives

The MSR will also be helpful in promoting certain strategic objectives — for example, in supporting friends and clients, neutralising similar activities by other naval powers, or merely by showcasing one’s maritime power. Indeed, naval power has certain advantages as an instrument of diplomacy. Naval forces are more resilient, and they have greater visibility. Thus, the proposed MSR has clear strategic objectives, and India and many other countries are studying implications of this bold policy statement carefully.

Chinese silk was a great attraction for the rest of the world. Envoys from countries in Southeast, South, and West Asia and Europe were dispatched to establish good relations with China. Historical records reveal that envoys from South and Southeast Asian countries as well as from Rome were among the earliest to come by sea to China seeking diplomatic relations. They brought “treasures” to China as gifts, while their Chinese hosts presented them with coloured silk in return. In reality these polite exchanges were a disguised form of trade, and Chinese silk began to be treated as a symbol of peace and friendship. The MSR developed into a route for envoys of friendship, with far greater significance than a purely mercantile road. The MSR places China in the ‘middle’ of the “Middle Kingdom” and is an effort in initiating a ‘grand strategy’ with global implications. The hope is that the MSR, which served more for trade and establishing friendly relations would continue to do so in the revived form, rather than create new naval rivalries or power displays.

India to join China Navy exercise; Japan, U.S. keep out

India has decided to send the naval stealth frigate INS Shivalik to participate in an international fleet review and maritime exercise hosted by the Chinese Navy on April 23 — an exercise that has acquired particular diplomatic significance with the United States declining to join the review after Japan was excluded from the event.

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is hosting the review and exercise in the northeastern port of Qingdao, the headquarters of its North Sea fleet, as it prepares to mark its 65th anniversary with great fanfare. Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to preside over the celebrations.

The international fleet review and exercises on April 23 and 24 have, however, acquired diplomatic colour after the PLA Navy declined to invite Japan.

At least 10 countries have so far confirmed their participation in the fleet review and exercise, including India, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, Indonesia and Pakistan, according to a provisional list.

With India and Pakistan taking part, the review and exercise will also provide a rare instance of both countries jointly taking part in a naval exercise.

The fleet review and maritime exercise will take place along with the annual meeting of the Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS) — a U.S.-established grouping of 20 countries, including Australia, Canada, Russia, Japan, South Korea and China, and three observers, India, Bangladesh and Mexico.

China invited Japan’s Navy chief to attend the WPNS, but the PLAN decided to exclude Japan from the international fleet review and exercise, to which a number of other countries were invited.

Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said last week it was “unfortunate that China took such an approach,” with the moves following rising tensions over disputed East China Sea islands.

The U.S., which initially stayed clear of the dispute, has recently voiced backing for its ally Japan, with Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel calling on China to refrain from “intimidating” its neighbours, during his visit to Tokyo this week, which was followed by a trip to Beijing.

By pulling out of the fleet review and exercise, the U.S. has signalled its support to Japan, although both countries will attend the WPNS.

China’s ‘maritime Silk Road’ to focus on infrastructure

China has for the first time released details of its recently announced “maritime Silk Road” plan, announcing that the Indian Ocean-focused initiative will prioritise building ports and improving infrastructure in littoral countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

China is also planning to establish free trade zones in Indian Ocean countries as part of the plan — a move that will reinforce China’s deepening economic presence in the Indian Ocean Region and in India’s neighbourhood.

The maritime Silk Road plan was unveiled in October last year when President Xi Jinping travelled to Southeast Asia. Since then, Chinese officials have highlighted the initiative as a key diplomatic priority for Mr. Xi’s government.

Nations from Malaysia and Singapore to India, Sri Lanka and the Gulf countries have all been sounded out about the plan. It had, however, remained unclear what the plan would actually entail.

In the first official details of the plan, a report in the China Securities Journal said a “priority” of the initiative was “port construction” and free trade zones.

“The plan is expected to focus on infrastructure construction of countries along the route, including ports of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh,” the report said. China is already involved in port projects in the three countries, in Gwadar, Hambantota and Chittagong.

China hopes to “coordinate customs, quality supervision, e-commerce and other agencies to facilitate the scheme”, as well as set up free trade zones, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing the report.

China’s southern provinces of Yunnan — which borders Myanmar and is at the centre of another economic plan to build a Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) corridor — and Guangxi Zhuang may be tasked with pushing the plan.

The initiative was first proposed by Mr. Xi when he visited Southeast Asia in October last year. The plan was reinforced by Premier Li Keqiang, who also visited Asean countries last year and announced the setting up of a 3 billion Yuan (around $500 million) maritime cooperation fund.

Assuaging anxieties

The initiative, which will deepen Chinese economic and maritime links with both Southeast Asia and Indian Ocean Region (IOR) countries, is being seen by some analysts as to assuage regional anxieties about China’s growing military and naval presence amid a number of disputes.

Zhou Bo, a strategic scholar at the Academy of Military Science, said in a recent article the “maritime Silk Road” may be a response to the “string of pearls” theory — a suggestion that China intended to build military bases in littoral countries, from Sri Lanka to Pakistan and Bangladesh.

China’s ‘maritime Silk Road’ to focus on infrastructure

Nations from Malaysia and Singapore to India, Sri Lanka and the Gulf countries have all been sounded out about the plan. It had, however, remained unclear what the plan would actually entail.

In the first official details of the plan, a report in the China Securities Journal said a “priority” of the initiative was “port construction” and free trade zones.

China Invites India To The 'Maritime Silk Road'

Although there are few specifics at the moment, the invitation could be an effort to reframe China’s rise.

Until now, the “Maritime Silk Road” (MSR) was China’s pitch to ASEAN, promising to deepen trade and cooperation between the PRC and various Southeast Asian countries. Xi Jinping coined the concept late last year and has been marketing it ever since. It appears now that Xi has expanded the reach of the MSR to India; China extended an invitation for India to join the MSR during the recent 17th round of border talks between the Special Representatives of the two countries in New Delhi.

Chinese Special Representative Yang Jiechi presented the invitation to Indian National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon. India has accepted the invitation although it is not entirely clear what it entails at this point.

Sri Lanka, whose foreign minister G.L. Peiris was just in Beijing, is also an MSR participant. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying indicated that the MSR is a flexible tool in China’s foreign policy at the moment. “This initiative is just an idea for cooperation. It is an open ended platform. The purpose is to integrate all kinds of ongoing cooperation especially cooperation on connectivity in the spirit of (ancient) silk road so that they can connect with each other and promote each other and accelerate regional countries’ common development,” she said.

“In this end China adopts an open attitude. We also hope to see good suggestions from other countries so as to substantiate this idea,” she added.

Including India in the MSR appears logical for China given the recent bids to push forward with the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor. The four states held multilateral talks at the end of 2013 to draw up a timetable for the plan which would provide broad economic connectivity. The BCIM Joint Study Group concluded that the plan would ““advance multi-modal connectivity, harness the economic complementarities, promote investment and trade and facilitate people-to-people contacts.”

Generally, diplomats and officials in the region see the MSR as a bid to reframe China’s rise in a non-threatening way. The invitation for India to join the MSR, for example, comes just a week after China held rare naval exercises out of the Sunda Strait in the waters of the eastern Indian Ocean.

For Indian strategists with an eye on China, the traditional concern has been the idea that China, via a series of port facilities in the South China Sea, is establishing a “String of Pearls” to contain India. As Shannon Tiezzi writes over at our China Power blog, the MSR has several parallels to the “string of pearls” idea (a phrase coined by U.S. defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton).

The MSR remains an ambiguous tool of Chinese foreign policy at the point, but it will be one to watch in the coming years. What it does accomplish is offer Beijing a sort of centrality that the historic Silk Road couldn’t. The appeal of the MSR concept for Xi, a native of Shaanxi province – a terminus of the historic Silk Road – isn’t difficult to grasp. Reframing China’s interests in the Asia-Pacific’s maritime commons could serve to assuage concerns among neighbors often skeptical of China’s nefarious intentions.

India, China to deepen naval ties after landmark exercise

As the Indian Navy’s INS Shivalik prepared to leave Qingdao port on Friday after a six-day stay in China, both countries declared that the missile frigate’s visit had gone a long way in deepening strategic trust between two navies that are increasingly coming into contact on the high seas.

Officials on both sides said the Shivalik’s visit and participation at the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) 65th anniversary celebrations – marked by first-ever maritime exercises involving 7

nations in China – had sent a strong signal of India’s keenness to deepen navy-to-navy links with China.

The United States did not send a ship to Qingdao after Japan was not invited to participate. China asked India, along with Indonesia, to participate in the most challenging of three different drills held on Wednesday. This involved staging an anti-hijacking exercise, for which China also deployed its elite commando unit besides an advanced PLAN vessel. “The exercises may not be as advanced as what we have had with the United States, but this is definitely the most high-level drill we have had with China,” said one official. Chinese officials said the stay of Shivalik – India’s most advanced stealth missile frigate – would also help build trust between two countries that have rapidly developing navies with an increasingly wide presence across the Indian and Pacific oceans.

“The Indian ship is a very strong with powerful weapons,” said one PLAN official who visited the Shivalik. “This gives us a good opportunity to see the Indian Navy.”

The exercises helped enhance “mutual understanding, trust and friendship among maritime forces” and “cooperation in safeguarding maritime security to better respond to emergencies,” the State-run Xinhua news agency said.

Autonomy

PLAN officials expressed admiration that the Shivalik sailed 4,500 miles from Port Blair to Qingdao, through the Indian Ocean and South China Sea, with neither an accompanying vessel nor an official from headquarters on board to supervise the exercises. This was unusual from the point of view of the Chinese Navy, where ships are rarely given such a degree of autonomy, seen as reflecting the confidence and experience of the Indian Navy on the high seas.

China has invested billions in building a modern blue-water navy, but is still taking tentative steps in spreading its presence, only starting to venture more deeply into the Indian and Pacific Oceans beyond the South and East China Seas.

In February, a three-ship flotilla of the PLAN for the first time held a 5-day exercise in the Lombok Strait near Indonesia in the Indian Ocean. The PLAN has also held more than a dozen drills near the Gulf of Aden, along sea routes crucial to China’s energy security.

In December, the Indian Navy held a more substantial 10-day exercise involving 15 ships and submarines in the Sunda Strait near Indonesia.

Indian Navy ships also make it a point to regularly traverse the South China Sea – whose waters and islands are disputed by China and ten other countries – to underline India’s commitment to freedom of navigation.

One more exercise

As more Chinese ships sail west and Indian ships sail east, both countries have used this exercise to stress their intent to ensure they will deepen mutual trust to address any insecurities. To that end, both countries have also discussed holding another round of maritime exercises later this year. The bilateral exercise is likely to coincide with the India-U.S. Malabar maritime exercise, which may also involve Japan for the first time in seven years, and ease any anxieties China may have had about India’s strategic intentions.

China-Vietnam face-off leaves India worried

MEA Asks For Resolution Of Crisis In S China Sea

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: India has joined the US in ringing alarm bells over China’s expansionist expeditions in the South China Sea clashing with Vietnam and the Philippines early this week. Though trying to play safe, New Delhi refused to name China or Vietnam and instead called for freedom of navigation in the sea.
    Almost five days after Chinese ships reportedly rammed Vietnamese vessels near the Paracel Islands, MEA said it is concerned about the “recent developments” in the South China Sea. In a statement, the foreign office said, “We would like to see resolution of the issue through peaceful means in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law.” It is unclear whether India is referring to the issue of conflicting sovereignty of the areas that China and Vietnam claim, or whether it was concerned about a potential flare-up as a result of Chinese and Vietnamese ships apparently ramming each other and Chinese spraying them with water cannons.
    Calling for “cooperation in ensuring security of sealanes and strengthening of maritime security”, India maintained freedom of navigation in the South China Sea should not be impeded.
    Vietnam posted videos of how its ships were rammed by Chinese civilian and military vessels which formed the group that accompanied the CNOOC mobile oil rig, Haiyang Shiyou 981, which showed up in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) for oil exploration activities. The rig was accompanied by a flotilla of civilian and military ships. According to Vietnam reports, after its naval vessels asked Chinese ships to move out, the Chinese ships rammed them, reportedly injuring six sailors.
    Vietnam military spokesperson was quoted by the foreign media as saying, “Vietnam has exercised restraint”. “But if Chinese vessels continue ramming Vietnamese ships, we’ll have to act out of self-defence,” said a senior Vietnamese commander.
    The Chinese have defended their actions, saying the Vietnamese ships had rammed theirs 171 times. Yi Xianliang, deputy director general of the department of boundary and ocean affairs, was quoted as saying, “Vietnam had started the problem. Between May 3 and May 7, Vietnam has dispatched 35 ships that have rammed Chinese vessels 171 times.” “Chinese ships are government ships. Vietnam ships are armed,” he said.

Call for China to be proactive in Afghanistan

A spate of terror attacks in recent weeks targeting railway stations in China has brought into the spotlight the government’s concerns about growing capabilities of extremist groups in the far-western Xinjiang region, with Chinese officials and strategic experts fearing that terror groups could soon become further emboldened by possible instability in neighbouring Afghanistan following the imminent withdrawal of United States-led NATO forces.

Chinese strategic scholars are now calling on Beijing to rethink its long-held reluctance to play a greater security role in neighbouring Afghanistan – where Chinese involvement has largely been limited to investments in mines and infrastructure projects – amid fears that a deteriorating situation there could impact security in Xinjiang in the wake of three daring attacks in recent weeks that have left at least 30 people killed and more than 200 injured.

Only on Friday, five people in Xinjiang’s southern Kashgar prefecture were given jail terms ranging from seven to 15 years for spreading “video and audio material to incite separatist activities”, the official Xinjiang Daily reported, adding that the southern Xinjiang border regions of Hotan, Kashgar and Aksu which border Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Central Asia were “areas overseas separatist forces attempt to penetrate the most.”

Security blue book

This week, a government think-tank released a first ever National Security Blue Book, or policy guideline, warning that as Chinese overseas interests were expanding, terrorism in China was “taking on new characteristics.”

“The risk of China facing more international terrorism is being intensified,” the book said, adding that there were “10 terrorist attacks in China last year.”

On Tuesday, six people were injured as at least one assailant armed with long knives stabbed passengers at a railway station in the southern industrial metropolis of Guangzhou.

This followed an attack last week in Xinjiang’s provincial capital Urumqi that left at least three people killed and 79 injured when attackers detonated explosives and stabbed people. The Urumqi and Kunming attacks, according to officials, were carried out by extremist Uighur groups from Xinjiang. The Uighurs are an ethnic Turkic Muslim group native to Xinjiang, which has a history of ethnic tensions between Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese. The attacks have prompted warnings from Chinese strategic experts for Beijing to step up attention on its western frontier. Zhao Minghao of Peking University in a recent article warned that the government should not be distracted by maritime tensions on its eastern frontiers.Another challenge

“Although confronted by diplomatic challenges including the Diaoyu Islands disputes [with Japan], the South China Sea spats and the North Korean nuclear issue, Chinese leaders also have to pay attention to the security to the west of the nation. Afghanistan in the post-2014 era is posing another challenge for China’s neighbourhood diplomacy,” he warned.

“To safeguard the stability in border areas and economic interests in Afghanistan, Beijing should continue to play a role on relevant issues. China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region borders Afghanistan through the Wakhan Corridor. When the Taliban was in power, Al Qaeda set up training camps and provided arms equipment for terrorist and separatist groups from Xinjiang.”

Showing keener interest

Chinese officials believe members of the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) have been hiding out in border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In recent months, Beijing has indeed begun to show greater interest in playing a broader role in Afghanistan beyond investing in projects. China has organised separate bilateral and trilateral dialogues involving Afghanistan, Russia, Pakistan and India, and also pushed for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) grouping to take up a greater role there following the NATO withdrawal.

Wary of China, Vietnam looks up to India

Melbourne: Concerned over China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, Vietnam wants India to “rise quickly” in the region.
    “We are deeply concerned by Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea. The Chinese navy is acting without provocation. These decisions seem to be taken by the Chinese leadership at the highest level,” said ambassador Dang Dinh Quy, president of Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam.
    Quy said there was not much clarity in the Obama administration. “That is why we want India should rise quickly. We have great expectations from India,” he said. The remarks were made at a round table meeting of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (DAV) held on Saturday. DAV is said to carry out strategic research in international relations and foreign policy, as well as serve as a thinktank for foreign policy for the ministry of foreign affairs, the party and the state.
    The meeting was held for the delegates to share information with Australian scholars around regional security issues such as US-China relations, maritime issues in the Indo pacific region and discuss more broadly Australia’s engagement with Asia.
    Reacting to Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam’s president’s comment, Australia-India Institute inaugural director Amitabh Mattoo said, “Chinese assertiveness is bordering on aggressiveness and there seems to be a pattern to Chinese Maritime behaviour”.
    “Clearly, Beijing believes that its time has come and it wants to exercise hegemony over the whole region. But this behaviour is short-sighted and counterproductive,” he said. Mattoo also said that China was losing the trust of its neighbours and losing all friends.
    “Outside North Korea and Pakistan, there is not even one state that is not concerned by Chinese foreign policy behaviour,” he added. AGENCIES

Pentagon sounds China alarm

Rajat Pandit

New Delhi:

TNN

Region: Indian Ocean Report

China is steadily spreading its wings in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) with its rapidly-growing navy being equipped with advanced nuclear submarines, destroyers and frigates as well as training for long-range deployments.This is the assessment of Pentagon in its latest report submitted to the US Congress on China's expanding military might that ranges from long-range missiles, armed drones and stealth fighters to potent nuclear, space and cyber warfare capabilities.
While a “neutral” India does not want to be dragged into the ongoing geopolitical jostling between the US and China, especially in the new ‘Great Game’ unfolding in the crucial AsiaPacific region, it cannot afford to ignore the warnings about its own strategic backyard of IOR.
The Pentagon report notes the People’s Liberation Army
Navy “continues to expand its operational and deployment areas further into the Pacific and Indian Oceans” but is somewhat hemmed in as of now by its limited logistical and intelligence support, especially in the IOR.“China desires to expand its access to logistics in IOR and will likely establish several access points in this area in the next 10 years. These arrangements will take the form of
agreements for refueling, replenishment, crew rest and lowlevel maintenance,” it says.India realizes China is mainly trying to ensure protection of its sea lanes for critical energy needs, but it cannot allow the so-called Chinese “string of pearls” to choke it by strategic encirclement, say officials here.
China enjoys huge military superiority along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control but India still has the upper hand with its blue-water Navy in the IOR. “But while the Eastern Naval Command at Vizag is being strengthened... the crucially-located Andaman and Nicobar Command also needs immediate attention,” said a senior officer.
The Pentagon report notes the PLA-Navy `continues to expand its operational and deployment areas further into the Pacific and Indian Oceans' but is somewhat hemmed in as of now by its limited logistical and intelligence support, especially in IOR

China eyes investments in infra

New Delhi:

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

`Stapled Visas A Goodwill Gesture To Arunachalis'

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said on Monday his government wanted to upgrade railways as well as build expressways in India.Wang, in India as a special envoy of Chinese president Xi Jinping who is scheduled to visit India later this year, told journalists after his meeting with PM Narendra Modi, “We are competitive and cost effective,“ and made a pitch for India to create a “more open environment“ and “preferential policies“.

But on the boundary issue, he mouthed the established position. Calling it an “issue left over from history“, Wang said China was “ready to handle them leading to a final settlement”. Until then, he said, both sides would work for peace. “We all remember what happened last year,” he said, his only reference to the Depsang incident in April 2013.

China, he said, would continue to issue stapled visas to people from Arunachal Pradesh and stressed that it was being done as a goodwill gesture to the people of that

state. He said if the Indian government had issues, they could be discussed.Referring to PLA incursions, he said given the fact that the relevant border was not demarcated, some “incidents” were unavoidable.

Wang said, “We have consultations and a positive attitude.” That, he said, makes it easier to resolve issues.

Wang admitted bilateral trade left a lot to be desired.

“We are ready to import more from India.“ But he glossed over the Indian complaints of non-tariff barriers.His focus though was on Chinese investment in the infrastructure sector. “As special envoy of the president, I have brought the most important message that on your road to national rejuvenation China stands by your side.“

Now’s the time to reach out to China

The visit of the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi marks the launch of a season of hectic diplomacy between India and China. The alacrity with which President Xi Jinping dispatched a special envoy to the new Indian Government underscores the opportunities that lie ahead. In exploring these opportunities, it would be useful to keep in mind the changing context of India-China relations.

At one level, it is clear that the Chinese have been as surprised as other countries at the political turn in India. For some years now, they have tended to view India as a cacophonic — even chaotic — democracy that is slow in getting its act together and that performs considerably below its potential.

The advent in New Delhi of a government with a clear political mandate led by a prime minister who projects the aura of a decisive moderniser is seen as an important shift. In Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Chinese leadership evidently sees a kindred spirit.

The bigger picture

Equally important is the wider strategic backdrop against which India-China relations will play out. China is currently embroiled in maritime disputes with several countries in the East and South China Seas — disputes that are steadily escalating in their intensity. Beijing’s assertive stance on these disputes has led to countervailing response from countries such as Japan and Vietnam.

What’s more, it has led to a rejuvenation of US’ alliances, even if this is more political than military in character. The tough note struck by American, Japanese and Chinese leaders at the recent Shangri La dialogue is indicative of the thick tension that is enveloping the region.

The juxtaposition of these two factors explains why the Chinese have been swift in reaching out to the new government.Beijing seems to perceive both opportunities and risks. On the one hand, Modi’s economic agenda could open up several avenues for cooperation. On the other hand, the Chinese are mindful of the fact that in the prevailing strategic environment India will look to deepen its security relations with other Asian countries as well as the US.

Even as Beijing seeks to calibrate its relations with India, New Delhi should look to press ahead on both economic and strategic fronts. At $31 billion, the trade deficit with China bulks large in the Indian official mind. So far, India has had little success in gaining market access in China for its pharma and IT companies. Although the Chinese leadership has averred that they are cognizant of this problem, non-tariff barriers continue to impede Indian exports to China. For instance, the Chinese have for the last 15 years prevented the import of basmati rice from India on the grounds that phyto-sanitary tests have not yet been completed.

Inviting investments

That said, in correcting this imbalance the Government should look beyond boosting exports to China. Inviting capital inflows from China is equally important.

Discussions are already under way to facilitate Chinese investment in infrastructure and industrial parks. To do so, the Government will not only have to put in place enabling policy frameworks but also ignore the naysayers in the security establishment and elsewhere. Few countries have such deep pockets as China — and the need to find avenues for investment beyond US treasury bonds.

On the strategic side, too, there is an opening to tackle difficult issues. The Government will, of course, have to focus on reducing the military imbalance along India’s borders with China. This will entail efforts both at internal and external balancing. At the same time, New Delhi should make a determined push to resolve the longstanding boundary dispute.

The assumption in India is that it is the Chinese who are not interested in an early resolution. This is only partially true. For one thing, China’s record in tackling boundary disputes suggests that Beijing has shown considerable flexibility depending on the overall strategic context. In 2005, the Chinese made important concessions on agreement on the political parameters and guidelines for settling the dispute. They did so because New Delhi was able to leverage its growing proximity with the US. As China’s neighbours in maritime Asia circle their wagons behind the US, there may be another window of opportunity for India.

Major stakes

Further, the Chinese are aware that no Indian government has been ready to make the necessary concessions to strike a deal. Even an agreement that freezes the status quo on the border will need New Delhi to write off its claims to territory under Chinese control. Any such accord will need a constitutional amendment with two-thirds majority in both houses of Parliament and the approval of at least 50 per cent of the state legislatures.

No government to date has had the confidence to sell a boundary accord on the political marketplace. In principle, Modi is certainly better positioned than anyone since Rajiv Gandhi to attempt such a breakthrough with China. If he moves boldly, there will be rich strategic pay-offs.

Whether or not the Government decides to play for big stakes, the challenge of stabilising the disputed border remains an important one. The issue of Chinese “incursions” across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) leads to periodic hubbubs in India. In the past, New Delhi has sought to damp down these criticisms and prevent any fallout on ties with China. The Government could do better than this. For a start, it could present the facts: that there is no agreed LAC, that our own troops undertake “incursions” beyond the Chinese definition of the LAC, and that this situation will persist till a boundary agreement is reached.

Modi has set the tone for his government by actively communicating via the social media. This practice could be usefully extended to dispel some of the myths that swaddle our ties with China. By so doing, he could lay a solid foundation on which to build a dynamic relationship with China.

No strategic contest with India: China

China on Monday rejected suggestions of any competition with India for strategic space in the neighbourhood, affirming that it was both “happy” with Mr. Modi’s visit and “full of confidence” over the future of relations with India.

Sour point :

Though china and bhutan dont have diplomatic ties they have held more than 19 rounds of talk to settle boundary dispute

Last year also saw move by the then PM of bhutan to take ties at higer level by seeking to establishing formal diplomatic relation .

Same time china also showed interest to settle border issue at early date .

Alleged response by india

--> subsidy issue

-->some accused India of influencing domestic elections in Bhutan and treating the country “like a protectorate” by withdrawing petroleum subsidies.

However

Since the change in government in Thimphu last year, talk of moves to establish diplomatic ties with Beijing has cooled.

Recent initiative by china to sent his foreign ministry enoy(1st such high level outside south asia) also affirms that china is looking forward for better ties with India.

IDSA COMMENT

China’s Second Coast: Implications for Northeast India

Tensions along the China-India border in Arunachal Pradesh compounded by China’s territorial claim, cross-border crime in the India-Bangladesh and Indo-Myanmar borders and the presence of non-state armed actors with bases across the international border vindicates the critical need to mainstream the Northeastern imagination.

What is, however, interesting, and of strategic significance, besides China’s growing military presence in Tibet, is its activities in Myanmar especially with regard to ambitions for better access to the sea via the Myanmar coast.

China has been assiduously building up its ‘second coast’ in Myanmar overlooking the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

China in the Indian Ocean Region

A report by Future Directions International, Australia speculates that China’s overarching strategy for the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) includes constructing military bases and support facilities on foreign soil in proximity to its trade and energy shipping sea lanes of communication (SLOC).1

These areas also called “String of Pearls” in the IOR originate from Hainan Island in the South China Sea, Sittwe in Myanmar, Chittagong in Bangladesh, Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Marao in the Maldives, Gwadar in Pakistan, stretching to Kenya and Sudan in the horn of Africa. The strategy includes a canal through the Kra isthmus in Thailand bypassing the Malacca Strait. While these “Pearls” provide the logistics for trade in the SLOCs, it is the Chinese moves to militarily secure both the “pearls” and the SLOCs that have interesting side-effects: capabilities of monitoring Indian Naval activity and the potential to encircle India militarily in the IOR.2

Figure 1 - Overview of the Indian Ocean region

The ‘Second Coast’ and its implications for Northeast India

Myanmar’s 2,276 km long coastline in the Bay of Bengal has the potential to provide the ‘second coast’ to China to reach the Indian Ocean and achieve strategic presence in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Especially transportation logistics to the ‘second coast’ from landlocked south west Chinese provinces like Yunnan have both economic and strategic benefits.

There have been reports of Chinese built SIGINT listening stations in the Andaman Sea at least at Manaung, Hainggyi, Zadetkyi and the Coco Islands in Myanmar.

The Indian Coast Guard has intercepted fishing trawlers flying Myanmar flags off the Andaman Islands. On inspection all the crew turned out to be Chinese nationals on expeditions with radio and depth sounding equipment for submarine usage.

Additional reports indicate that the Chinese maybe pushing Myanmar for a listening facility on Ramree Island, Rakhine state, which also holds the deep sea Kyaukpyu port developed for oil and gas transportation.

China is building an integrated transport system linking the Kyaukpyu port to Yunnan Province in South West China with the sole aim of reducing energy shipping through the Malacca Strait and South China Sea. The plans include a railroad project from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, to Kyaukpyu to complete the logistics loop to the ‘second coast’. In 2010, Chinese warships on anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean made their first port call to Myanmar.4 China has discussed with President Thein Sein for the PLA Navy’s access to Myanmar’s territorial waters while patrolling the Indian Ocean specifically to provide naval escort and protection to its energy shipments and port facilities at Kyaukpyu in the Bay of Bengal.

Figure 2 - The ‘Second Coast’ of China

Further north from Kyaukpyu port is the capital Sittwe of Rakhine state where China has assisted the Myanmar Navy built a naval base. Interestingly, India’s northeast serving Kaladan River Multi modal transport system feeds off the Sittwe port being developed by India, being the closest to the Kolkata port. As per Indian Navy’s assessment, China’s control of Myanmar’s ports from Sittwe in the north to Cheduba, Bassein and a string of other military assets on the ‘second coast’ can enable it to enforce anti-access/area denial to deny the Indian Navy the ability to operate in its littoral waters in the Bay of Bengal.

Such escalating scenarios have grave implications for Northeast India from clandestine arms shipments that pass through these waters for the insurgent groups in the region. Contraband arms shipments seized in the past from Chittagong port and Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh originated through arms traffickers in Cambodia and Thailand ports. The coastal border points between Bangladesh and Myanmar have become a haven for contraband arms transit due to inadequate patrolling of their huge coastline in the past by these two countries. These shipments can land on the coasts of South Bangladesh and Northwest Myanmar and then smuggled inland in smaller consignments into Northeast India. The neighboring transit state in Myanmar namely Rakhine has rampant ethnic strife and Chin state has ethnic insurgencies and is not fully controlled by the Myanmar government.

Contiguous to India and Myanmar in Southern Bangladesh several inactive Rohingya militant groups such as the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) are located out of the Cox’s Bazaar District of Bangladesh. The RSO has the support of terrorist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan including the Hizb-ul Mujahideen of Jammu and Kashmir. The larger Arakan Rohingya National Organization (ARNO) organized all the different Rohingya insurgents into one group with alleged links to Al Qaeda.5 Taliban instructed military training camps have been spotted across the coastal border in Northern Rakhine state, Myanmar. These organizations have the support of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its allies, whose members have been convicted for crimes of arms trafficking for the ULFA and the NSCN (IM).6 Pakistan’s ISI has also been reportedly implicated in facilitating the shipment of contraband arms through the Bay of Bengal meant for northeast insurgent groups.

Figure 3 - The Northeast India Connections

Source: Namrata Goswami

There have been reports circulating in the local press of Myanmar of China pressing its proxy militia aka United Wa State Army (UWSA) soldiers from North Myanmar to be deployed in strength along the new Kyaukpyu-Kunming pipeline for security. If such a scenario proves true on the ground, that would make any Indian security analyst sit up and take notice because of the UWSA’s infamous record of drug trafficking and contraband arms supplied to Northeast insurgents. Ironically, if China backed elements in Myanmar do get access to the Northeast’s borders, insurgent groups may have no further worries of elaborate transportation for purchased Chinese ordnance from Norinco and its illicit franchises in Wa state.

India needs to put in place a well-coordinated approach to secure the maritime and land neighborhood of the Bay of Bengal and Northeast India. This would include strengthening naval and coastal patrol assets in the littoral waters off the Andaman and Nicobar islands as well as enhanced strategic assets at the Northeastern borders opposite the ‘second coast’.

India has to work with Bangladesh, which faces a huge national security threat as the landing zone of trafficked arms through the Bay of Bengal by conspiring foreign terrorist organizations operating from its soil with support of local elements. The Myanmar government is challenged by insurgent militias still running loose, who are aided and abetted externally for short sighted strategic gains inside the country. India needs to support Myanmar in establishing the firm rule of the laws of its government throughout its length and breadth. India would need earnest diplomatic efforts to push relations with both Bangladesh and Myanmar in a mutually supportive security partnership against common foes of all the legitimate stakeholders in this strategic theatre.

IDSA COMMENT

Restoring India-China Reciprocity on the Border

Under the new dispensation of Modi, it is necessary to put India-China border dispute in a correct perspective. Incidentally, 2014 coincides with the centenary of the McMahon line. At this juncture, the question arises whether the two Asian giants could reach a resolution on the McMahon line given the emerging amenability between Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping.

The principal opposition of the Chinese on the McMahon line is that it is illegal and a mere product of British imperialistic designs on China. Quite a few sinologists also regard that it is India’s intransigence of holding on to the British-drawn border-line that has precluded any resolution of the border dispute. However, such assessments completely disregard the fact that the McMahon line is entwined with the Tibet issue- the lynchpin of China’s territorial sovereignty and party legitimacy. More than India being a bottleneck, it is China’s intransigence rooted in its profound vulnerabilities on the Tibet issue that has caused the border dispute to linger on.

The reasons for China’s vulnerabilities are manifold. First, in 1913, Tibet declared itself independent from China. Recognising this altered reality, Henry McMahon, the British plenipotentiary in India involved Tibet and China in the Simla Convention to deliberate on first demarcating the Tibet-China border and second defining the Indo-Tibet border. Quite significantly, China was concerned only with the Tibet-China border and quite rightly so as it did not share a boundary with India. During the Simla Convention, Republican China’s principal objections were on the sovereign rights accorded to Tibet and on the exact boundary dividing the inner and outer Tibet. On these two counts, the Chinese refused to sign the Simla Convention. Ironically, their failure to sign had reinstated Tibet as an independent country and the Simla Convention was ultimately signed by India and Tibet on 3rd July 1914. This became the principal ground for Chinese steadfast opposition to the McMahon line.

Second, China’s sovereignty on Tibet is contestable since Tibet was never a province of Imperial China. When under the rising threat of the imperialistic forces Xinjiang was turned into a province in 1884 and Taiwan in 1887 by the last ruling Manchu government, Tibet escaped such a fate thanks to the Great Game of the 19th century, and, more particularly, the British aim of using Tibet as a buffer between its domains and advancing czarist Russia.

Third, the role of the CIA in Tibet spelt a formidable challenge to the newly emerged Chinese Communist government post-1949. The other most persistent challenge came from the clandestine activities of the Nationalist (KMT) that had fled the Chinese mainland post the civil-war, and attempted to revive its former ties with the ethnic minority communities of Tibet and Xinjiang, often in collusion with the CIA.

Fourth, with the lack of accessibility to Tibet owing to difficult terrain and absence of infrastructure in the immediate period of Communist era, the security of Tibet loomed large. In addition to geography, the non-Han minority Tibetans professing no loyalty to the Chinese added to Beijing’s insecurities.

Finally, once India recognized Tibet ‘a region of China’ by signing the 1954 agreement, China then used that as a rationale to officially demarcate an Indo-Tibetan border. It was at this juncture that Tibet got entangled with the India-China border dispute. This border dispute finally dragged the two countries in the 1962 War. In 1988, with Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China, the relations normalized but this normalization came at the behest of keeping the border dispute aside, not resolving it. Since then, China’s vulnerability over Tibet has continued.

The Tibet question remains alive and threatens China in four principal ways: it poses China as an aggressor; it validates Tibet as an independent entity in history; it keeps China’s periphery vulnerable; it demonstrates the failure of Chinese nationalism based on the rhetoric of the unity of five races weaved to buttress China’s claim on the non-Han regions and thereby, threatens the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party.

Sinologists have contended that had it not been for the Tibetan revolt of 1959, the India-China border dispute could have been resolved through negotiations since the physical existence of the McMahon had never been problematic for China but its legal foundations were. This is validated by the fact that China has resolved its boundary dispute with Burma (Myanmar) based on the same McMahon line.

Indeed, the border dispute is resolvable and China could take the initiative. Since Tibet is the primary security concern, China should focus on consolidating its sovereign claims on Tibet by addressing the Tibetan ethnic identity issues within its borders and by giving up its exaggerated and fictitious claims on Indian territories. In fact, China needs to restore the true essence of the 1954 Agreement whereby Nehru had recognised Tibet as a ‘region of China’ in return for China’s reciprocity on the Indian claims on the McMahon line, albeit unstated. Arguably, India’s intransigence on the McMahon line does not emerge from holding true to the British drawn line but essentially from the feeling of betrayal caused by China’s failing to honour the 1954 Agreement. The 1962 War though led to the defeat of India, did not settle the Tibet issue. The renewed Tibetan unrest since 2008 attests to China’s failure in handling the Tibet question. So long China refuses to treat Tibet and border as integral, any resolution of the border problem would remain elusive. By restoring the 1954 reciprocity, India and China could resolve the protracted border dispute.

India’s ‘China Policy’ Formulations- Imperatives of Pragmatism and ‘Realpolitik’

Paper No. 5721 Dated 09-Jun-2014

By Dr. Subhash Kapila

India’s ‘China Policy’ formulations call for imperatives of hard-nosed pragmatism and ‘realpolitik’ and not be carried away by misplaced Indian euphoria generated by China’s rhetoric attending Chinese Foreign Minister’s ongoing visit to India.

So as the Chinese Foreign Minister calls on the Prime Minister and has meetings with the Indian Foreign Minister and the National Security Adviser, one needs to undertake a brief strategic reality check so that India-China existing state of relationship is contextualised and India does not fall into the Chinese trap of “China stands by you on your side in reforms and development.”

Economics and development cannot be the bedrock of relationships between two powerful Asian nations with competing strategic interests. It is the degree of “Strategic Trust” existent that will determine the future course of India-China relations.

Will China publicly ever affirm like some other major powers have done that China will assist India to emerge as a key global player?

Also, the Chinese Foreign Minister is reported to have stated to the effect that there is more strategic consensus between China and India than strategic differences. I would like to assert that “There are more strategic differences and distrust in China-India relations than strategic consensus,”

Strategic reality check of China-India relations would reveal the following stark realities:

China and India stand locked since 1962 and will continue as such in an adversarial and conflictual relationship.
“Strategic Distrust” lurks deeply in China-India relationship as China has not carried out any mid-course corrections in its policy formulations on India.
China’s “Strategic Distrust” of India incorporates India’s strategic partnerships with United States, Japan and India’s Look East Policy. More significantly Tibet hovers ominously over China-India relations.
The Tibetan Plateau under Chinese military occupation is highly militarised and threatening to Indian security. Associated with this are the water issues of rivers originating from the Tibetan Plateau.
China unabatedly continues with its strategy of creating/adding strategic pressure points against India in multiple comprehensive thrusts especially in the Indian Sub-Continent and its peripheries.
China has signed multiple Border Defence and Border Tranquillity Agreements with India without honouring each one of them and in the process multiplying the “Strategic Distrust” with India.

China in view of the foregoing, therefore, cannot be expected to ‘stand by India’ in any form. The reality is that China consistently adopts and stands against India and Indian national security interests.

China is a major neighbour of India and emerging as a powerful Asian power. Good relations would be welcome but not appeasement of China as India practised in the preceding ten years.

Recommended in one of my earlier Papers is that with India’s adversarial neighbours India needs to adopt the policy of “Congagement”. India’s containment of Chinese aggressive moves is India’ national security imperative and engagement with China needing to run in tandem is a diplomatic necessity that needs to be pursued.

China’s ongoing political outreach to the new Modi Government has been prompted by the creeping strategic isolation that China currently perceives as a result of its over-bearing and aggressive brinkmanship against Japan, Philippines, Vietnam and in the South China Sea and in the East China Sea.

As an emerging power, East Asia and South East Asia are critical regions significant for India’s diplomacy and national security interests. India therefore should not succumb to forsake these regions in the interests of any forward movement in China-India relations.

China’s attempts at regional domination as outlined above is only part of the overall picture whose strategic objective is to challenge the decades old United States domination in the Indo Pacific and what is ongoing is China’s concerted efforts to do just that. This aspect also throws up a challenge to India whether it is ready to jettison its decade-old US-India Strategic Partnership, presently jaded, in preference for forward movement in China-India relations.

The Chinese Foreign Minister is in New Delhi as Special Envoy of the Chinese President to “Establish contact with the new Government in India” and nothing more needs to be read into it by the Indian media and the Indian strategic community.

Indian media and policy analysts’ euphoria and raised expectations that this is a ‘new beginning’ and that ‘new momentum’ would be added to forward movement of India-China relations is not supported nor substantiated by prevailing strategic realities or China’s military actions on India’s Northern border with Tibet.

There can be no ‘new beginnings’ in China-India relations as “Strategic Distrust” existing pre-determines that the threads have to be picked up and resumed from the continuum that pervades.

Chinese Foreign Minister’s ongoing visit to India is pure and simple business visit to India and is nothing more than a probing visit to gain first hand exposure to the Modi Government and in the course of his meetings/calls with the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and the National Security Adviser discern for the Chinese President where India is headed n its foreign policy formulations under the new Prime Minister noted for his boldness.

China is currently making lot of advocacy to celebrate the 60^th Anniversary of the signing of the Panchsheel Agreement in a high-voltage manner and wants India to join-in substantially likewise.

India needs to avoid this Chinese trap as in Indian perceptions the Panchsheel Agreement was then Indian PM Nehru’s’ Himalayan blunder of placing implicit trust in China’s pledges. The Panchsheel Agreement exemplifies China’s extreme perfidy with India and is now a worthless scrap of paper best consigned to the dustbin of history.

Concluding, India under the bold and decisive leadership of PM Modi would stand connected with India-at-large, unlike the preceding Government’s record of ten years which devised policy formulations on China and Pakistan without reference to Indian public opinion. India expects that while no jingoism would be advisable but at the same time no appeasement of China is also warranted.

India’s ‘China Policy ‘concrete formulations’ should await after Prime Minister Modi has finished his interactions with major powers and more pointedly with other Asian nations on China’s periphery. Then only a realistic and viable template would be available to Prime Minister Modi to formulate a long range strategy India’s ‘China Policy’.

Cabinet approves MoU for India-China industrial park

After deciding to sign the Additional Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Government has sought to pluck another low-hanging fruit at the international level by approving the signing of an MoU with the Chinese for setting up industrial parks here.

Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Law and Justice and Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that details would be disclosed after the MoU is signed with China.

The subject will be discussed in greater depth by Vice President Hamid Ansari who leaves on Thursday for Beijing to meet his Chinese counterpart, said officials.

The trajectory of discussions has led to the Chinese agreeing to allow India to set up industrial parks there as well but officials said this is a futuristic proposal and could take a couple of years to materialise.

On the other hand, Beijing’s proposal has been in the works since Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited India in May last year.

Then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took up the proposal during his visit to Beijing in October last year and agreed with the Chinese leadership that inward investments would be the best way to bridge the widening trade deficit from India’s point of view.

While the Cabinet approval is for one industrial park or zone where several Chinese units will be located, the understanding is that the number may go up to four, said officials.

A new chapter in India-China ties

India and China are expected to unveil a first-ever jointly comQuoting from one of Rabindra Nath Tagore’s verses on friendship, ‘... If you think friendship can be won through war, spring will fade away before your eyes’, President Xi Jinping on Friday reiterated the virtues of good relations between neighbours, peace and cooperation and amity in the region as envisaged six decades ago in the Panchsheel treaty among India, China and Myanmar. At the 60th commemoration of the Panchsheel here, he asserted that China would follow the five principles of Panchsheel even as it is ready to work with the West to uphold world peace and development.

Without taking names, he frowned upon the practice of one state flexing its muscles while “injustice and inequalities still exist in international affairs.” In his address delivered at the Great Hall of the People, located at the western edge of Tiananmen Square, he stressed the need to revisit the five guiding principles of Panchsheel, which, he said, had been endorsed by a host of international organisations and instruments. The Chinese President said no country should monopolise international affairs and with a word of caution against countries that use the “law of the jungle” by which the “strong bully the weak,” he called for strengthening South-South Cooperation and bettering North-South dialogue.

Mr. Xi spoke of adhering to territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression and non-interference in internal matters, and peaceful co-existence — the basics of Panchsheel, and said these continue to remain relevant and grow.

“All good things must evolve,” he said, and asserting a country’s rights over its foreign policy, he said no other state could be allowed to dictate its foreign relations.

India reciprocated its commitment to Panchsheel with Vice-President Hamid Ansari calling attention to the need for greater interaction between the people of India and China in all fields for stronger bilateral relations.

“India believes that globalisation should transform the world into, as Mahatma Gandhi had envisaged, ‘a federation of friendly, interdependent nations,’ without domination or exploitation. Panchsheel is the basis of such a world order. We need to work together to develop a framework for equitable globalisation, for genuine multilateralism, and for seeking common and fair solutions for challenges that transcend national borders and threaten humanity,” he said.

The Vice-President said there was a need for a new paradigm for global action and Panchsheel could act as a catalyst to better coordinate efforts, enhance mutual understanding, share developmental experiences and tackle trans-national threats more effectively.

“We gather here today to reaffirm the timeless relevance of Panchsheel in establishing a peaceful, stable, prosperous and secure world. As the co-originators of Panchsheel, it is our duty to revitalise our friendly relations and to promote cooperation as the only way forward towards the realisation of our common goals of progress and prosperity for our peoples,” Mr. Ansari said.

Stood the test of time

President of Myanmar Thein Sein said the five principles had stood the test of time, matured and become part of the inter-state relations. “Myanmar is confident that the five principles will play a greater role in interstate relations,” President Sein said.

He acknowledged the “significant role” played by China and India in helping the economy of Myanmar and said having consistently followed the Panchsheel directives, and a non-aligned foreign policy, his country would cherish friendly ties with all nations, especially its neighbours.piled two-volume encyclopaedia, chronicling a 2,000-year history of cultural exchanges when Vice-President Hamid Ansari visits China this week.

Mr. Ansari, who will arrive in the Chinese city of Xian on Thursday and travel to the capital on Friday, is likely to unveil the encyclopaedia following his meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Vice-President Li Yuanchao.

The more-than-four-year-long project contains nearly 800 entries, and was compiled by a group of eight scholars and historians — four each from India and China. The project came into existence as a result of the Joint Communiqué issued during the time of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India in December 2010, in which the compilation of the encyclopaedia of India-China Cultural Contacts was first proposed. A Joint Compilation Committee was formed with officials and experts from both sides, which met five times in the last two years to draw up a final list of entries on the basis of themes identified through the concept note and subsequent discussions.

Panchsheel principles still relevant: China

Quoting from one of Rabindra Nath Tagore’s verses on friendship, ‘... If you think friendship can be won through war, spring will fade away before your eyes’, President Xi Jinping on Friday reiterated the virtues of good relations between neighbours, peace and cooperation and amity in the region as envisaged six decades ago in the Panchsheel treaty among India, China and Myanmar. At the 60th commemoration of the Panchsheel here, he asserted that China would follow the five principles of Panchsheel even as it is ready to work with the West to uphold world peace and development.

“All good things must evolve,” he said, and asserting a country’s rights over its foreign policy, he said no other state could be allowed to dictate its foreign relations.

India, China may soon ink pact on industrial parks

India and China are close to inking an agreement on setting up of industrial parks.

On Saturday, following a bilateral meeting between the two sides, Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh told mediapersons here that both countries had agreed that a growing trade deficit was unsustainable.

Without giving out the specifics, she said India was eyeing an investment of $1 trillion by China. “If trade and investment between the two countries have to grow, we need to work towards reducing the trade deficit,” she said.

The details of the industrial parks will be fleshed out at a meeting between Minister of State for Commerce Nirmala Sitharaman and her Chinese counterpart in Beijing on Monday. New Delhi is keen to address the nearly $40 billion trade deficit with China.

Indian Ambassador to China Ashok K Kantha said the issue of correcting trade imbalance was reaffirmed at the meeting between Vice-President Hamid Ansari and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. Given China’s track record in manufacturing, India was keen to seek its involvement. Mr. Kantha said the focus would be on broad-basing economic engagement with China and enhancing two-way investment flows.

India wants greater market access to cut the deficit. The Narendra Modi government is keen to reinvigorate the manufacturing sector to create more jobs and give a fillip to the economy.

The issue of setting up of industrial parks came up during the recent visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to India and his meeting with his counterpart Sushma Swaraj.

Modi ups China stake: If we solve our border dispute, it’s a model for world

In his first meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping here on Monday evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to up the stakes and project India-China ties on the global stage, stating that if the two countries “could amicably resolve the boundary question, it would set an example for the entire world on peaceful conflict resolution”.

Within three hours of arriving in Brazil’s northeastern city of Fortaleza, Modi drove a kilometre from his hotel to the Gran Marquise, where Xi is staying, for a meeting that stretched from the scheduled 40 minutes to an hour and 20 minutes. Xi too headed to the meeting shortly after his arrival, indicating the importance the two leaders attached to the relationship.

With the two countries sharing a 4,000-km long border, periodic incursions by China and its claims over Arunachal Pradesh have long been an irritant to ties that have expanded in multiple spheres, particularly economic. India’s economy too has grown at a rapid pace over the last decade, and it has found its place at the global high table, becoming a member of the G20 that came into existence after the 2008 financial crisis.

Given the size of the two countries, with a combined population of over 2.5 billion, Xi is learnt to have said during the discussions that “when India and China meet, the whole world watches”.

The meeting, described as “substantive, warm and cordial”, touched on several regional and international issues besides almost all aspects on the bilateral agenda. Modi invoked the civilisational linkages between India and China and their shared heritage to reinforce people-to-people ties.

Both sides emphasised the need to find a solution to the boundary question. The two leaders observed that India and China had enormous opportunities to not only forge mutually beneficial partnerships, but also serve as catalytic agents of Asian and global prosperity.

Modi also stressed on the need to work together to tackle terrorism and extremism in the region, ensure greater economic cooperation and pare trade deficit. He invited Chinese investment in industrial corridors and other infrastructure sectors.

In a gesture that acknowledges India´s rise, Xi invited Modi to participate in the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting on partnership and connectivity that China is hosting in November. APEC, which has 21 member countries including China, Russia, Australia, USA, Korea and Japan, is a grouping that promotes trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region.

“This is the first time that India has been invited. It is a significant gesture. We will follow it up now,” said MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin.

Xi accepted Modi’s invitation to visit India in September. “We are finalising the dates,” Akbaruddin said. Xi also invited Modi to China. Referring to his earlier visits, Modi said he would be glad to go there again.

The Chinese President also evinced interest in India deepening its cooperation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The SCO was created in 1996 after a treaty on deepening military trust in the border region was signed between China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia and Kazakhstan. At present, India is an observer country. “Should the SCO want greater Indian engagement, India stands ready to accept that responsibility too,” Modi is learnt to have told Xi.

Referring to the difficulties he faced while visiting Kailash Mansarovar several years ago, Modi suggested that China open a new route for Indian pilgrims. “If China provides another route, travel for Indian pilgrims will be much easier. The numbers would swell,” Modi is learnt to have told Xi. The Chinese President accepted the suggestion and said Beijing would consider providing an alternate route.

Xi spoke about Modi’s focus on development as the Gujarat Chief Minister. “The Prime Minister also referred to Xi’s experiences, as reflected through his speeches before he became the President of China,” said an official spokesperson. This enabled the two leaders to exchange their views without any constraints as the bilateral meeting progressed, the spokesperson added.

Modi said India’s trade deficit with China must reduce through increased Indian exports. Xi stressed the need for a much more balanced trade for trade ties to be sustainable. “Enhanced trade in services, higher Indian exports and increased tourism from China to India, can bring the deficit down,” Xi is learnt to have noted. India suffered a $31 billion trade deficit in 2013 on a $65.47 billion bilateral trade.

The Modi-Xi dialogue is the fourth high-level meeting between the two countries in the last six weeks. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited India in June as a special envoy of the President. Vice President Hamid Ansari held bilateral discussions with his counterpart Li Yuanchao during a five-day visit in June. Indian Army Chief General Bikram Singh visited China earlier this month.

Chinese rail lines up to India border

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