P Kharel

India might not do anything beyond its legitimate core interests as an emerging power when it comes to dealing with its current arch-rival China. Trying to ruffle the feathers too obviously risks ruins that its current allies across the far seas in distant lands might not really regret. As things stand for at least the foreseeable future, its vulnerabilities heavily outweigh the undertakings that Beijing could consider as direct threats to its vital interests.
Any conflagration provoked by their border clashes or something even bigger would be inviting enormous damages with serious implications to the peace in the entire South Asian region. To think that China will meekly accept its concept of security threats would be a horrendous error in judgement. The ripple effects would stretch from China to South Asia that together represents nearly two-fifths of the entire humanity.
India’s stand can be gleaned from a confidential letter written its Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee two decades ago to the United States President Bill Clinton: “We have an overt nuclear weapon state on our borders, a state that committed armed aggression against India in 1962… To add to the distrust that country has materially helped another armed neighbour of ours to become a nuclear state. At the hands of this bitter neighbour we have suffered three aggressions in the last 50 years.”
However, during his subsequent visit to Beijing in June 2003, Vajpayee seemed to bury the “Tibet card” and formally recognised Tibet as “an integral part of the People’s Republic of China”. In appreciation, Beijing accepted Sikkim as a state of the Indian Union, i.e., more than 25 years after Sikkim’s absorption into India. Bilateral trade started to rise rapidly thereafter.

Issue and support
Today, things are again different, as echoed by the almost daily torrent of tirades exchanged or inspired through sponsored media contents by the world’s two most-populous nations. This brings to the fore the birth pangs of an evolving new world order. Smaller partners in the dazed region brace for the fallout from this year’s Sino-Indian border skirmishes. In October, New Delhi officially claimed that the Paresh Barua-led Ulfa (I) is currently based in Ruili in China’s Yunnan Province, from where it is allegedly carrying out anti-India activities.
Prospects of armed conflict between the two neighbours that have amassed large number of troops along their common borders are causes of consternation for the Sino-SAARC region. Nepal’s physical proximity to Ladakh and Kashmir - the areas seen as potential flashpoints for conflicts between the two feuding nuclear power neighbours - has implications for the landlocked nation. India and China engaged in a major war in 1962, in which India suffered a humiliating defeat. New Delhi is better prepared now just as China’s military strength, too, has taken astounding strides.
Another aspect of tensions is India and Pakistan having gone to major wars at least thrice since their 1947 independence from British rule. Frequent cross-border clashes are a reminder that their dispute is not going to end easily. Although India tested the nuclear weapon before Pakistan did, Islamabad today possesses more nuclear weapons than does New Delhi. Quad, as the quadrangle grouping the US, Japan, Australia and India, is an offshoot of the Indo-Pacific Strategy aiming at containing China and its influence in the South China Sea. Beijing has warned against “exclusive cliques”.
India’s activity in Baluchistan is not unknown while Pakistan’s penetration in India, the home to more than 140 million Muslims - or, nearly seven times Australia’s total population of nearly 25 million - is believed to be deep. Beijing is aware that the Indian government had pre-informed Washington about the Dalai Lama’s flight to self-exile in 1959. CIA facilitated the flight of what the Dalai Lama’s followers regard to be the latest representation of a chain-like reincarnation of their sect’s belief.
Beijing, today, might appreciate more than ever Nepal’s vigorous role at the 2005 Dhaka summit in bringing it aboard the SAARC fold as an observer. China’s SAARC association can be seen as a natural association given its geographical position. India shares land borders with four SAARC members (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan) whereas China shares similar borders with five member states (Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan).
In the 1960s, American helicopters made use of bases built clandestinely in Bhutan, Sikkim and Darjeeling for airdropping goods and equipment to Khampa rebels operating clandestinely from Nepal’s northern districts until 1974 before their ring leader Wang De was killed in a Nepal army operation after Mao Zedong personally raised the issue with King Birendra who was on his first state visit to China in late 1973. It would be futile, even harmful, if Beijing or New Delhi were to burn all bridges beyond repair.

Ground reality
A brief glance at the latest state of economy and defence spending shows that, with $ 2.7 trillion, India’s GDP is only a fifth of China’s. Prior to the COVID-19 onslaught, India’s GDP registered 7.3 per cent as against China’s 6.6 per cent. But the gap between the two is so staggering that it will take many decades, if at all, for India to outstrip the next door economic superpower. In 2018, China imported $18.8 billion worth of goods from India and exported to India products valued at $7.6 billion.
Even a long-time Indian establishment hawk like Dr. S. D. Muni recently wrote: “China knows that India is far behind on military modernisation and overall capabilities (and) is objecting to India’s growing strategic proximity to the US. It is encircling India strategically and economically through its strategic and economic corridors - BCIM (Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar), CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) and the Trans-Himalayan Connectivity Network.
Beijing and New Delhi have much to share and learn from each other. Political ideology should not be a barrier. Their bilateral cooperation would send a strong message to the region. Domineering approach and imperial streaks won’t work in the long-term. If an ambitious state can’t keep the neighbourhood in good rapport, its international credentials would crumble. There is a method even in a calculated approach. Neither of Nepal’s neighbours should lack in this.
India has been unilaterally defining and claiming its security interests in South Asia. This can prompt China to assert its own version of vital interests. The sovereign character of all independent nations enshrined in the United Nations Charter should serve as a path finder to all, including the Sino-SAARC region. Failing to heed its letter and spirit could incite something more than the distant thunder over the Himalayan heights recorded especially since June this year.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication)