The India-China relationship has always interested me. The two countries that stood tall in the long history of human civilization and progress, without any direct conflicts before the twentieth century, are now pitted against one another. The reasons for conflict and how both perceived each other was always difficult to understand with conflicting narratives abound. Thus to gain some clarity on the bilateral relationship I started reading the book ‘Choices’ written by Ambassador Shivshankar Menon, India’s former NSA and a ‘China expert’.
The book deals with five crucial turning points in foreign policy that the Government of India has navigated in the last few decades, which the author himself was also a part of. They are the 1993 Border Agreement with China, Civil Nuclear Agreement with the USA, The Mumbai attack and Cross border terrorism, Sri Lankan Civil War, and the Indian doctrine of No-First-Use of Nuclear Weapons. However, I will rely only on the first chapter here as I focus on the Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement(1993) between India and China.
Chinese actions in the 1950s strongly shaped India-China relations in the coming decades. The most prominent of them was the annexation of Tibet in 1950, which led to India beginning to share a border with China for the first time in her history. The Chinese were not ready to accept the McMahon Line in the Eastern Sector, demarcated by the British, as well as the Kunlun boundary in the Western sector. They wanted to renegotiate the entire border.
The Chinese by 1960, in the course of these negotiations, moved into the disputed Aksai Chin region over which India had claims. This was strongly protested by the Indian government and the public opinion too was vociferous. However, the Chinese perceived this as part of the Indian designs in Tibet, given that India had given asylum to Dalai Lama the year before. On 20th October 1962, China attacked Indian posts in both Western and Eastern sectors. By November 20, 1962, China declared a unilateral ceasefire and withdrew 20 km from what it described as the Line of Actual Control(LAC). The duplicity behind the so-called LAC was as clear as daylight, and maintained by Nehru during the 1962 war – advancing 40 or 60 km into territory claimed by India and then withdrawing 20 km!
By the 1970s there was an infrastructure build-up such as roads and bridges on both sides of the border, more so on the Chinese side. They no longer stayed behind the 20 kilometres of their own version of LAC. Patrolling by both the countries saw crisscrossing at areas that each asserted to be their own. Inevitably this led to a face-to-face confrontation by 1986 in Sumdorongchu, east of the tri-junction with Bhutan, after PLA troops occupied the Indian patrol point here. Indian troops occupied the nearby dominating heights and set up posts metres away from the Chinese. It took another seven years of negotiations to restore the status quo in the area, by which time both sides also agreed to sign the Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement. They also came to the understanding during the same time that the border differences would not be allowed to hinder their cooperation in other areas.
Working out the agreement
The unipolar moment of the 1990s had a remarkable bearing on both China and India with regard to each other’s relations. For China, the collapse of Soviet Union meant having to contend with the lone superpower US. From studying the reasons for Soviet Collapse, the Chinese Communist Party decided not to follow the Soviet course to demise – perestroika and glasnost, an arms race with the US etc. This was reflected in Deng Xiaoping’s famous Twenty-Four-Character strategy of 1992: “Observe calmly, secure our position,… hide our capacities and bide our time,… and never claim leadership:”.
For India, the unipolar moment meant a relook at its non-aligned policy, getting external support for fulfilling its liberalisation agenda, and thus take the country on a new path. Thus the lull in taking forward the negotiations after the unfortunate death of Rajiv Gandhi was replaced with a stronger push for settlement during the time of the Narasimha Rao government in the 1990s.
As the negotiations began, the most challenging part was to concur on the definition of LAC. The Chinese wanted it to be as per their definition as in 1959. This was unjust as they could claim fancifully whichever portion they wanted to be lying on their side of the border, and hence rejected by Indian diplomats. Finally, after torturous discussions, it was understood by both sides that ‘clarification of LAC’ was a much larger task and hence left it to a future ‘expert group’ to be designated for this purpose. The rest of the agreement was about desisting from using force to change the status quo, conducting military confidence-building measures etc. Subsequently, in 1996, the Agreement on Military Confidence-Building Measures was also signed.
The agreement and its timing in itself gave India many advantages – it could focus on the internal economic restructuring at a time of financial crisis, have a comparatively safer border without conflicts, deepen economic ties with China etc. Despite the standoffs in Depsang Valley(2013) and Doklam(2017) the relationship continued unabated as understood from Wuhan Summit(2018) and Mamallapuram Summit(2019). Thus the agreement had served India’s strategic peace for close to three decades.
However, the recent incidents at the Galwan Valley(2020) and China’s attempt to change the status quo by amassing large force in the Western sector have virtually repudiated the agreement. India has made it clear that China’s actions at the border cannot be seen in isolation and as separate from the larger bilateral relationship. Today, the India-China relations are in flux, and much remains to be seen as to how both countries would resolve the deadlock.
Mahesh MS 