The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : A quick step forward in Sino-Indian ties

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

A quick step forward in Sino-Indian ties

Pallavi Aiyar

As China and India grow in economic and strategic importance, what is needed is a genuine attempt towards mutual accommodation that would take into account shifting geopolitical power plays. The MoU signed on defence matters could be a sign of things to come.

THE COMPLEX courtship dance of Sino-Indian relations took a quick step forward on Monday with Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee signing an MoU with his Chinese counterpart General Cao Gangchuan in Beijing.

The Memorandum of Understanding is the first ever such document signed by the Defence Ministries of the two countries. For decades following the border war of 1962, India and China have viewed each other with a fair measure of both pride and prejudice. When India tested its nuclear bomb in 1998 the potential military and security threat that China posed was pointed to as a justification.

Since then much water has flowed under the Yangtze and the Ganga. The new millennium has seen the sweetening of previously sour ties with the neighbours establishing a "strategic and cooperative" partnership, instituting political mechanisms to resolve the boundary issue and with trade galloping ahead towards the $20 billion mark.

Mr. Mukherjee's visit comes at a time when India and China are celebrating a "friendship year." However, it also comes at a time when complex realignments of regional and global geo-politics are unfolding.

The Indo-U.S. deal on civilian nuclear energy has been received coolly in Beijing, given that it is widely seen as an attempt by the United States to ally itself with India in the ultimate hope of containing a rising China. China, in the meantime, continues to extend military and nuclear cooperation to Pakistan. It recently announced a major arms sale to Islamabad, including four F22P frigates to the Pakistani navy.

Simultaneously, Sino-Japanese ties continue their downward spiral even as India and Japan draw closer. For long a self-declared pacifist, Japan is slowly beginning to flex its military muscles in the region. The Japanese navy has grown into a force of considerable reach and sophistication and the country recently launched its own spy satellites.

Foreign policy concerns

Before beginning his five-day trip to China on Sunday, the Indian Defence Minister visited Japan where both sides agreed to institute regular meetings of defence chiefs, exchange information to tackle terrorism and proliferation, and conduct joint maritime exercises. India is also reportedly keen on securing Japanese industry's help in its own military modernisation, something that would cause considerable consternation in Beijing. For India and China, the clear challenge is to maintain an independent foreign policy with regards to specific nations on the basis of their national interests, rather than in cold-war style be lumped together with a particular group that attempts to contain another group.

In other words, to build trust and create healthy bilateral ties with countries that might themselves hold reservations about each other. Thus, China wants to develop a strategic relationship with India, even as it continues its "all weather" friendship with Pakistan. India must balance its relationships with China, Japan, and the U.S.

Echoing this sentiment, Mr. Mukherjee said that it is "India's foreign policy to build friendships with everyone. Our foreign policy is independent and we stress that we have no territorial ambitions." His articulation, in fact, sounds remarkably similar to China's "peaceful rise" foreign policy mantra that stresses its friendly intentions to other countries.

As China and India grow in economic and strategic importance and begin to stretch their wings, a certain amount of rubbing up against each other is unavoidable. Beijing is reportedly concerned about India's interest in establishing military bases in Mongolia and Central Asia while China's cultivation of ties with Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka — countries that India views as being within its own sphere of influence — has caused some alarm in New Delhi.

What is needed is a genuine attempt towards mutual accommodation that would take into account these shifting geopolitical power plays. China's recent observer status in SAARC and India's at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation are examples of such accommodation.

The MoU signed today calls for the establishment of a mechanism to ensure frequent exchanges between leaders of the Defence Ministries and the armed forces in addition to developing an annual calendar for holding regular joint military exercises and training programmes. For two nuclear capable, large-sized neighbours with a history of war, devising a strategy for accommodating each other's rise is imperative. Defence cooperation and confidence building measures of the kind proposed by the Indian Defence Minister can only work towards facilitating such accommodation. It is to be hoped that Mr. Mukherjee's initiative will be the first of many.

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