'Autocratic China becoming arrogant'

The Times of India ^ | November 16, 2006 | Brahma Chellaney

[jojoba]

It is extraordinary for the Chinese ambassador to publicly claim on Indian soil that an entire Indian state — Arunachal Pradesh — belongs to his country. Not only does this statement reflect pointless belligerence, but it also counterproductively vitiates the atmosphere on the eve of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s India visit. If anything, the statement may be seen by many as a pointer to the danger of autocratic China becoming arrogant.

By contrast, it is unthinkable that a serving Indian ambassador would utter on Chinese soil — or elsewhere — anything insensitive about China. No Indian ambassador would dare even suggest that China resolve the Tibet or Taiwan issue peacefully by respecting the views of the majority of Tibetans or Taiwanese. Tactless or obtuse statements or actions are hardly the way to advance national interests. But China, being a closed system, does not seem to understand that.

The disturbing part is that this was not the first occasion when Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Yuxi spoke undiplomatically in public. Throwing diplomatic norms to the wind, the envoy took the lead last month in publicly castigating his host nation for seeking to exclude from Indian contracts a few Chinese firms tied to the People’s Liberation Army that are involved in strategic projects antithetical to Indian interests. For example, how can the state-run China Harbour Engineering Company develop Pakistan’s Chinese-funded Gwadar port-cum-naval base and still seek to build Indian ports? Most Chinese firms active or interested in India are unaffected by New Delhi’s action.

Yet, the Chinese ambassador condemned his host country at a news conference in New Delhi, setting the stage for friends of China, including in the CPI (M), to join the denunciation of the Indian government action. Sun Yuxi’s impertinence reminded many Indians of the way the Chinese consul-general in Mumbai audaciously talked down to Defence Minister Pranab Kumar Mukherjee at a seminar last year.

China’s claim to Tawang or to the whole of Arunachal Pradesh is not new. For long, Beijing has maintained its claim to Arunachal Pradesh as a bargaining chip in the border negotiations with India. What is new is for Chinese officials to make public their country’s claim to Arunachal Pradesh or to a slice of that state, Tawang.

The Chinese claim, in essence, is a classical example of a state pursuing incremental territorial expansion. The frontiers of China and India met for the first time in history only when China annexed Tibet in 1950. Within 12 years of becoming India’s neighbour, China invaded India from two separate fronts, with Mao Zedong cleverly timing his aggression with the onset of the Cuban missile crisis, which had brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of a nuclear confrontation.

Having gobbled up the buffer separating the Indian and Chinese civilizations throughout history, China now lays claim to Tawang or to the whole of Arunachal Pradesh on the basis of the putative historical ties between Tibet and Arunachal. In other words, China is attempting to territorially extend the gains from its annexation of Tibet.

It brings out clearly that China is unwilling to settle the border issue on the basis of the status quo. Not satisfied with the Indian territories it has occupied, either by conquest or by covert encroachment, Beijing wishes to further redraw the frontiers with India, even as it keeps up the charade of border negotiations. These negotiations began in 1981, and after a quarter-century of sustained talks, India and China remain the only neighbours in the world not separated even by a mutually defined line of control.

Ambassador Sun’s statement and China’s failure to agree to a new round of border talks just before Hu’s visit send out a loud message: Beijing has little stake in an early settlement of the border disputes with New Delhi because, from the Chinese perspective, unsettled frontiers help keep India under strategic pressure, pinning down large numbers of Indian troops along the Himalayas.

China’s gameplan is simple: maintain peace and tranquility along the frontiers and keep India engaged in border negotiations, but make no concrete moves to resolve the territorial disputes. Yet, cleverly, by putting forward its outrageous claim to Arunachal and more specifically to Tawang, Beijing has sought to place the onus on India for achieving progress in the border talks.

India needs to ask itself why it is always at the receiving end in the territorial disputes with its two regional adversaries, China and Pakistan. Pakistan, not content with the 35% of the original state of Jammu and Kashmir it grabbed in 1948, wants the Kashmir Valley. China, not content with the 20% of J&K it occupies, eyes northeastern Indian territories.

By retreating to a more and more defensive position, New Delhi has brought itself under greater diplomatic pressure. China and Pakistan make aggressive territorial demands, conditioning progress in bilateral talks to Indian concessions on their demands. All that India can do is to reject these expansionist demands, without being able to dispel the popular perception in many quarters that Indian failure to make concessions is holding up progress.

This is because India has not sought to build counter-leverage. India does not lay sustained claim to Chinese- or Pakistani-held territories. Its claim to Pakistani-occupied portions of J&K has not been credible because it has been publicly willing since the 1950s to turn the line of control into the formal border. Similarly, it has for long been willing to settle with China on the basis of the status quo. The negotiating leverage thus lies with China and Pakistan, not with India.

India retreated from Tibet meekly, surrendering the extra-territorial rights it enjoyed there. Under the 1954 Panchsheel Agreement, it voluntarily ceded the postal, telephone and telegraph services it ran in Tibet, accepting the latter as the “Tibet Region of China”.

The Panchsheel accord recorded India’s agreement both to fully withdraw within six months its “military escorts now stationed at Yatung and Gyantse” in the “Tibet Region of China” as well as “to hand over to the Government of China at a reasonable price the postal, telegraph and public telephone services together with their equipment operated by the Government of India in Tibet Region of China”.

Now, the only way India can build counter-leverage against Beijing is to quietly reopen the issue of China’s annexation of Tibet and its subsequent failure to grant promised autonomy to the Tibetans. This can be done by India in a way that is neither provocative nor confrontational. New Delhi can diplomatically make the point that China’s own security and well-being will be enhanced if it reaches out to Tibetans and concludes a deal that brings back the Dalai Lama from his exile in India.

Gently shining the spotlight on the Tibet question will help India turn the tables on China, whose aggressive territorial demands have drawn strength from New Delhi’s self-injurious acceptance of Tibet as part of the People’s Republic.

At a time when China is threatening to divert the waters of River Brahmaputra, the subtle and measured revival of Tibet as an unresolved issue will arm India with leverage and international say on any Chinese effort to dam the Brahmaputra and reroute its waters. With water likely to emerge as an important security-related issue in southern Asia in the years ahead, India can hardly ignore the fact that the Indus, Sutlej and Brahmaputra originate in occupied Tibet.

(Brahma Chellaney is the author of Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan . He is professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.)

[jojoba]

Photos of Arunachal Pradesh in India, the state that the Chinese ambassador was claiming last week:

Majority of people living in India's Arunachal Pradesh are Tibetans and Thai/Burmese. China's claim to the region rests largely on its claim to Tibet. Arunachal Pradesh is very green and has extremely large hydroelectric potential. The Chinese could power all of its western provinces with it. India is dropping the ball by not building railways and large highways through Arunachal Pradesh while the Chinese have built roads directly to the border. Some residents of the state have been calling for direct trade with China, which could bring Chinese influence to the region and strengthen China's claim.

China is a civilization masked as a nation-state. For example, Taiwan officially still claims Mongolia today. The Chinese are like the Germans, they have a high desire to rule over people they deem to be similar in appearance and culture.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

India is, and will be an invaluable ally for the united states. If this is true, then all it does is make it easier to pick sides.

[zarf]

Stunning part of the world; absolutely breathtaking landscape.

[GOP_1900AD]

RE: Majority of people living in India's Arunachal Pradesh are Tibetans and Thai/Burmese.

That's exactly what I first thought looking at the photos. They would fit right in in Thailand. Probably a few Jews there who have been there for over 2K years as well.

[jojoba]

The Chinese ambassador's comments remind me of arrogant Japanese politicians who say the most controversial and insensitive things so that the "middle ground" compromise will be closer towards them. Like Japanese politicians who say that the Korean comfort women who were forced to service Japanese soldiers "enjoyed it." The Japanese politicans say it in order to avoid apologizing for WWII. Likewise, the Chinese ambassador claims an entire Indian state, in order to have negotiations favor it more, to appear like the Chinese are giving up a lot in a compromise.

East Asian nations (China, Japan, Korea) in general are very self-centered and ruthlessly pragmatic. They have no national principles and tend to shift their ideologies depending on the direction of the wind. Just look at how much South Korea has backstabbed us and North Korea to the Chinese. Look at how willingly the Chinese are embracing capitalism while still being a communist state. They have no shame for irony and hypocrisy.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

"They would fit right in in Thailand."

Thailand is a great place. Also beautiful and the people are incredibly nice. Hopefully another continual ally.

[dgallo51]

I wonder if our Admiralty, who are attempting to ascertain China's true intentions in stalking our Kitty Hawk task force, read anything beside the NY Times?

[Vigilanteman]

The sooner our corporate giants like Wal-Mart can move most of their sourcing from China to India, the better off all of Asia -- and the rest of the world-- will be.

Export dollars fuel ChiCom arrogance just like petrodollars fuel Islamofacism.

[edpc]

Well, when the Mandarin word for China is Zhongguo, which means Middle Kingdom - a place between Heaven and Earth, it goes beyond arrogance.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

"The sooner our corporate giants like Wal-Mart can move most of their sourcing from China to India, the better off all of Asia"

I agree.

[jojoba]

Well, when the Mandarin word for China is Zhongguo, which means Middle Kingdom - a place between Heaven and Earth, it goes beyond arrogance.

Actually the term "Middle Kingdom" stems from a location in China called the Central Plains (grassland region in northern China). Therefore, Middle Kingdom = "Kingdom of the Central Plains." But people have expanded that meaning to grandiose proportions.

[jojoba]

The sooner our corporate giants like Wal-Mart can move most of their sourcing from China to India, the better off all of Asia -- and the rest of the world-- will be.

The problem is, it's a lot bigger than Walmart, and even the United States. China is THE largest trading partner of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. India isn't even in the top five of those Asian countries.

[NRA2BFree]

If anything, the statement may be seen by many as a pointer to the danger of autocratic China becoming arrogant.

Yes, and thanks to Clinton, they are much, much better armed now.

[voletti]

Beeeyoootiful pics jojo!

China is encircling India with a network of military allies and bases all around India's neighbourhood.
Hard to rouse a democracy but once awoken, hopefully the Indians will not prove to be as weak as the Chinese like to think.

[dljordan]

Those photos were great, thanks!

[CarrotAndStick]

Majority of people living in India's Arunachal Pradesh are Tibetans and Thai/Burmese.

I tend to notice hidden connotations in your post. Here's more information:

A region known as Arunachal is mentioned in several ancient Hindu texts such as the Kalika Purana and the Mahabharata. According to Hindu mythology, Arunachal was the site where Lord Krishna married his consort Rukmini and sage Vyasa meditated[4]. Recent excavations of ruins of Hindu temples such as the 14th-century Malinithan at the foot of the Siang hills in West Siang shed new light on the ancient history of Arunachal Pradesh. Paintings of the Hindu gods and altars remained untouched for many years. They attracted many local pilgrims. Another notable heritage site, Bhismaknagar, suggested that the Idu Mishmi had a local civilisation. The third heritage site, the 400-year-old Tawang monastery in the Tawang district also provides historical evidence of the Buddhist tribal peoples.

Recent statistics shows that 36% of Arunachal's population are Animist, who follow Animistic religions such as Donyi-Polo and Rangfrah. 37% of the population is comprised of Hindus. Tribes who follow Hinduism include the Nocte and Miri. Buddhism is practiced by 13% of the population. Tibetan Buddhism predominates in the districts of Tawang, West Kameng and isolated regions adjacent to Tibet, and Theravada Buddhism is practiced by tribal groups living near the Burmese border.

Christians, mostly Baptist, present since 1961, account for another 13% of the population. There are some non Baptist groups active since 1990. Christianity is widely practiced by several Naga tribes in Changlang and Tirap adjacent to Nagaland, although many Nagas in these areas remain followers of traditional beliefs. Though not common, a few tribal groups combine the Christian and traditional belief systems together. The presence of large groups of Chakma and Bodo Hajong refugees had spurred up mixed reactions among the local people. Although some Chakmas were granted voting rights in 2004, they were refused citizenship status by the elected Chief Minister of the state.

[CarrotAndStick]

Ethnic groups:
Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3% (2000)

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html#People

India houses a population of 1.1 billion people (2006), comprising approximately one-sixth of the world's population. This population is remarkably diverse; it has more than two thousand ethnic groups, and every major religion is represented, as are several major families of languages, as well as numerous smaller language families and language isolates. Further complexity is lent by the great variation that occurs across this population on social parameters such as income and education. These factors render the task of comprehensively detailing the Demographics of India prohibitive; some important indices are available, nevertheless.

Over thousands of years of its history, India has had invasions and migrations from the Middle East, Central Asia and the West, as well as migrations from Tibet and southern China; Indian people and culture have absorbed and changed these influences to produce a remarkable racial and cultural synthesis.

The Indian people are descended from more or less all of the peoples that historically settled the subcontinent, including the Dravidians, Indo-Aryans, Austro-Asiatics, Tibeto-Burmans, Iranians, Kushans, Arabs, Turks, Mughals, Siddis and Europeans. It also must be noted that Dravidian, Austro-asiatic and Indo-aryan are linguistic terms and cannot be directly taken as ethnic terms. It simply means a speaker of a language belonging to a particular linguitic family. The imprint of each of these groups can be found in at least some small segments of the population, but at the same time over a long period of time these superficial differences in appearances have blurred to a great extent. The framework of the culture of the Indian people comes from these various peoples who contributed to Indian civilization as it is today.
____________________________________________________________________________________

For a monotonous, Commie-suppressed monoculture as the Chinese, this functioning diversity is a tad hard to understand.

[snowrip]

I think a place between Earth and Hell is more on point.

[MARKUSPRIME]

Communist china will have to be smacked down and get a very bloody nose before they change their ways. This is the only way with authoritarian dictators. US,India,Austrailia,and Japan need to be ready for an aggresive china.

[jojoba]

Dude man, just writing what pretty much every Indian thinks. When I hear news from Arunachal, my mind immediately thinks Mongolian-looking people. We Indians think in ethnicities a lot, it's a way of organizing and grounding information, since India is so diverse. Of course there are Hindus in Arunachal, but minority.