Is China encircling India? - Claude Arpi

10-07-2004, 09:28 PM

By Claude Arpi

http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/oct/04claude.htm

The Rediff Special/Claude Arpi

October 04, 2004

Deng Xiaoping used to say that it 'does not matter if a cat is white
and black as long it catches mice.' So whether Jiang Xemin or Hu
Jintao is in full control of the Communist Party's machinery
(including the People's Liberation Army), Beijing's attitude towards
Delhi will remain the same (even if today the cat calls itself
a 'peaceful cat').
In early 1950, a few weeks after India decided to be the 'first
nation' outside the Communist World to recognise Red China, a young
Bombay journalist running a magazine called Mother India prophesised
the invasion of Tibet. It was several months before Mao's troops
walked on the Roof of the World.
He wrote: 'It is quite on the cards that soon she [Tibet] will be
added to Mao's territorial possessions. But the story is different
with Nepal. Mao will perhaps wish to reach out through Tibet and
interfere with Nepal's present status. Nepal has good defence
resources, though an out-of-date political structure, and India will
be particularly interested in the security of this neighbour of
hers, since there are sixteen railroads leading from the Nepalese
border into our country and the Gurkha soldiers are an important
part of our own army. An extension of Mao's rule to Nepal will lay
India open to easy attack by him and consequently cannot under any
circumstances be tolerated. It will mean definitely a prelude to a
war between China and India.'
There are several interesting features in this article, the first
one being that the journalist, K D Sethna, was a disciple of the
great Rishi Sri Aurobindo and that all his articles were vetted by
the master who several times pointed out at the danger of Communist
China reaching India's doorsteps and engulfing what Mao named the
palm (Tibet) and the five fingers (NEFA, Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal and
Kashmir).
Another remarkable feature of Sethna's piece is that 54 years later,
the situation does not appears to have improved and the threat over
India remain the same.
In the same article, Sethna stated: 'What the alarmists declare is
that if we did not recognise Mao he would precipitate a military
clash with us.'
However, today the position is poles apart: nobody is alarmed either
in the corridors of South Block or the media. Particularly after
Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit last year to Beijing, India is again
becoming a friend (if not yet a brother) with China and the new
government (like its predecessor) is actively 'engaging' China.
Nevertheless, it remains that the situation today in Nepal, as was
55 years ago, is very worrying and the ascendancy of the Maoists,
whether they are supported by Beijing or not, is not a good omen for
India. One can only hope that the new foreign secretary, who has
been posted in Kathmandu and should have some knowledge of the
situation, will do something to 'engage' the king and his government
and encourage the creation of conditions to have the populace with
them and not against it.
In the meantime Beijing is more and more 'engaged in Nepal. An
agency report mentioned: 'Nepal's Crown Prince Paras' first visit to
China resulted in the establishment of a series of aid projects for
Nepal. China has agreed to provide nearly Nepali Rs 450 million (US
$6,250,000) to Nepal this fiscal year to support ongoing projects as
well as to initiate new ones.' During his visit, Paras met Chinese
President Hu Jintao and invited him to visit Nepal.
Another difference from the early fifties is that today China is a
power to reckon with. Remember when Tibet was invaded in 1950 China
was nothing. She was recognized only by a few 'fraternal Communist
nations.' During his stay in Moscow in 1949-1950 for several months,
Mao had had to literarily crawl in front of Stalin to get material
support for his country. At that time, India pushed hard for the new
Beijing regime's recognition, but very few cared for what India
believed and Beijing remained isolated.
In 2004, though Red China is dead and gone, under the banner of 'the
peaceful rise of China,' the Forth Generation's leadership has
transformed the Middle Kingdom into an Eden of wild capitalism.
China today is on top of the world or to put it more correctly, on
the top of Olympus. In August, when Dora Bakoyannis, the mayor of
Athens, handed over the Olympic flame to Wang Qishan, her Beijing
counterpart, China was indeed triumphant. New China was perhaps not
able to get the better of the United States (they just had won 32
golds, three less than the US), but as an Indian newspaper puts
it: 'Western sports officials and journalists no longer talk of
China taking over the US supremacy of world sport -- unchallenged
for a century -- as a possibility. Rather, it is an inevitability.
When Chinese officials boast of 'winning 50 gold medals in Beijing,'
nobody sniggers.'
This has not come by wishful thinking or prayers, China has work
hard and invested much for this: their sports budget is
astronomical. The PLA Daily reported that Beijing spent $720 million
a year of their Olympic sports programme alone.
At Athens, China took part in 26 of 28 disciplines. Many, at least
in China, feel the investment was worthwhile: $20 million for one
gold medal. It is a good return not only because China can now await
2008 with regained confidence. In the Chinese psyche, 'face' is most
important and the leadership knows that in four years time, the
Middle Kingdom will be able to find its true place at the centre of
the world.
In an essay published recently in Foreign Affairs magazine, Peter G
Peterson, secretary of commerce in the Nixon administration
prophesised that the US are 'riding for a fall.' More and more
analysts feel that one of the consequences of the US decline will
see China taking the lead in the world during the 21st century. Hu
Jintao and his colleagues in Beijing firmly believe this.
The 'peaceful rise of China' means that Beijing will do everything
to keep the image of a peaceful nation till China rises to the top
in 2008. The date of the Olympics is not just symbolic. It is a long
planned programme and the investment in gold medals is only a tiny
aspect.
Till then, it does not mean that Beijing will do nothing and merely
watch the world. In recent months her foreign policy has never been
so assertive, especially against an India (with its one and only
silver) considered very weak. It is not only in Nepal that China is
keeping the pressure on India, it is in all her neighbourhood.
I had written earlier about the mysterious lake in Tibet. Beijing
has managed to keep the state of Himachal Pradesh on tenterhooks for
several weeks, causing tens of crores of rupees expenses to the
exchequer, just because, the leadership in Beijing refused to allow
an Indian team to access the danger. Road construction to the Indian
border was probably the reason for the landslides and China was
obviously not keen to inform Delhi about it.
In Manipur, where the agitation is linked to the murder and rape of
Thangjam Manorama, a militant, by the Assam Rifles, a deeper angle
has recently come to light. The web site Indiareacts.com
reported: 'Raids on Manipur university professors and at least seven
students unearthed details of telephone calls made to Hong Kong and
visits to meet Chinese MID or military-intelligence department
agents.'
'During questioning, one of the professors broke down and confessed
to visiting Hong Kong nine times in the past six months. A proposal
was recovered in the raid for Chinese mediation of the Manipur
issue. A further trail led to five Manipuri insurgent leaders who
had regular meetings with MID agents based in Myanmar, who were
presumably road mapping the agitation.'
We know about Myanmar and Beijing's support to the military junta
(and its aversion to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Laureate who, let
us not forget, studied at the Institute of Advance Studies in Simla
for years and is considered close to India).
Beijing provides important economic assistance to Rangoon and since
the coup in 1988, China has built important infrastructures (roads,
bridges, power plants, harbour facilities), which in turn serve
Beijing own strategic interests.
Official Chinese figures tell us that 1 million Chinese people live
in Burma, but the real figure is probably around 3 million. Isn't
this one more subtle pressure on India's borders?
Another worrying incident is the rising harassment and persecution
of Buddhist tribals by militants of the National Socialist Council
of Nagaland (IM) and NSCN (K) in remote parts of Arunachal Pradesh.
The militant outfits have demanded annexation of land from the
Buddhist and issued a decree for their conversion to Christianity.
The villagers were given two options only -- embrace Christianity or
face capital punishment.
The objectives of the NSCN (IM) is to establish a 'Greater Nagaland'
based on Mao Tse Tung's ideology. Its manifesto is based on the
principle of socialism for economic development with a religion
addition 'Nagaland for Christ.' A powerful cocktail!
We could continue the list with the supply of arms to Bangladesh; or
the Beijing orchestrated saga of Dr A Q Khan in Pakistan, the
enhanced Han presence in Central Asia, particularly in Kyrgyzstan
where President Akaev has leased 125,000 hectares of the most
valuable Kyrgyz land to China 'with glaciers full of fresh water and
with a uniquely designed border outpost.' Though Kyrgyzstan has not
direct borders with India, the encirclement is getting tighter by
the day.
The rise of China, whether peaceful or not, should be of great
concern to India. A leadership change in Beijing will not change
this basic fact because, today as yesterday, Delhi is Beijing's only
economic and geostrategic rival in Asia.

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