The looming threat

Despite often unwarranted criticism that Indian Foreign Policy lacks dynamism, successive Governments in India have shown imagination and dexterity in responding to the challenges that India faced after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nowhere has this been more evident than in India’s ‘Look East’ policies initiated by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. India realised that in a globalised world economic order, its interests where best served by progressive economic integration with the fast growing economies of East and South-East Asia. What followed was a policy which enabled growing interaction with South-East Asian countries linked together in ASEAN. This was reinforced by the establishment of the BIMSTEC, linking SAARC members Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan with ASEAN members Thailand and Myanmar. The long-term vision has been to join a process of Asian economic integration without being hampered by Pakistan’s efforts to play a spoiler by linking economic integration within SAARC to its ambitions on Jammu & Kashmir.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has tenaciously and courageously not allowed domestic compulsions and lobbying by States like Kerala, which seek to protect their uncompetitive agricultural practices from competition, to hinder efforts to integrate India’s economy with the economies of East and South-East Asian countries. Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee similarly overruled opposition when a Free Trade Agreement with Sri Lanka was negotiated. On August 13, India inked a landmark Free Trade Agreement with ASEAN, which is now our fourth largest trading partner. The agreement comes into force on January 1, 2010, and would, over six years, minimise or end all trade barriers boosting two way trade. Contrary to the unwarranted fears expressed, the agreement protects the legitimate interests of producers of plantation crops like coffee and pepper. India’s growing economic integration with ASEAN and its Look East policies, which have led to expanding strategic ties with countries like Singapore, Japan and Vietnam, have been opposed by China, which looks at East and South-East Asia as its backyard. China has sought to ‘contain’ India by encouraging anti-Indian sentiments in India’s South Asian neighbourhood.

Even as the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement was readied for signature, a ‘scholar’ from Beijing’s Institute of Strategic Studies made the astonishing assertion on August 8 that India is today a ‘Hindu religious state’, that Hinduism is a ‘decadent religion’ and that apart from annexing Arunachal Pradesh and working with countries like Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan to separate Assam and Bengal from the Indian Union, China should encourage Tamil separatism and break up India into 20-30 nation States. Interestingly, this is also the view of the rabid sections of the Pakistani military establishment which is echoed repeatedly by the likes of the amir of the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba — now called the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h) — Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and by the Chief of the Jaish-e-Mohammed Maulana Masood Azhar. Is it a mere coincidence that China has consistently sought to block moves for enhanced sanctions against the Jaish and Lashkar in the UN Security Council? Did Chou en Lai not voice similar sentiments after China lost face following the 1971 Bangladesh conflict?

Similar Chinese hostility towards India was evident after the 26/11 Mumbai carnage. ‘Scholars’ from the state-funded China Institute of Strategic Studies proclaimed that the Mumbai attack reflected “the failure of Indian Intelligence” and claimed that India was blaming Pakistan to “enhance its control over the disputed Kashmir”. Even before Pakistan claimed that India was manifesting aggressive intentions, a CISS ‘scholar’ stated that “China can support Pakistan in the event of a war,” adding that Pakistan could benefit from its military cooperation with China while fighting India. This CISS ‘scholar’ asserted that in such circumstances China may have the option of resorting to a “strategic military action in Southern Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) to thoroughly liberate the people there”. A ‘scholar’ of yet another state-run institution, the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, claimed that the terrorists who carried out the attack on Mumbai came from within India. Chinese comments on the Mumbai carnage then echoed the views of rabid sections of the Urdu press in Pakistan.

The 26/11 terrorist outrage was followed by a visit to China by Pakistan’s senior-most military official, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Gen Tariq Majid, who was received like a high state dignitary by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, Defence Minister Gen Liang Guanglie and Foreign Minister Yiang Jiechi. China’s Vice President assured Pakistan of Chinese support in the UN by agreeing that their countries would support each other in international forums. In substantive terms, Gen Majid’s visit resulted in a new agreement on military cooperation between Pakistan and China. His visits to military establishments in China suggested that the latter would expedite delivery of four F 22 frigates to the Pakistani Navy. The delivery of 250 JF 17 fighters also figured in the Sino-Pakistani discussions. More recently, the outrageous comments of the CISS ‘scholar’ was followed by no less than the ‘Prime Minister’ of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, Sardar Yaqoob Khan, asserting in Lahore on August 12 that India cold not become an ‘Asian Tiger’ until it withdraws its Army from ‘Indian held Kashmir’. Sardar Yaqoob added that India would disintegrate into six states if it failed to resolve the Kashmir issue in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir.

The recent articles by Chinese ‘scholars’ could not have been published without authorisation at the highest levels in a country that rigidly censors Internet access of its citizens. While it would be counter-productive to get alarmed by such writings, they should not be ignored as China’s many apologists in India suggest. India needs to understand that ruled by an elite, which has discarded Marxist ideology and lacks legitimacy, or a popular mandate, China is set to become more nationalistic and even jingoistic. It is a neighbour with whom we need to work both regionally and internationally on issues of common concern. At the same time, there is a need to accelerate economic progress and expedite our defence modernisation — both conventional and nuclear. The remark of the outgoing naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta that the gap between China and India is “too wide to bridge,” was torn out of context, ignoring the fact that he had also urged the need to create a “reliable and stand-off deterrent” while building strategic ties with the US, EU and Russia.