Hu's Delhi Visit: BRICS and the Bilateral Dynamics

Here's an analysis of mine published on ORF website on the recent visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to Delhi, perhaps his last visit as the president, for the BRICS Summit. However the focus of this article is to see if cooperation at the multilateral levels such as BRICS contributes to narrowing down the differences that exist at the bilateral level between India and China.

For the full article, click here.



Chinese President Hu Jintao was in Delhi for the fourth BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit, possibly his last visit as the leader of China. BRICS appear to have made progress on the economic, trade and financial arena although it will be naïve to assume that it will make similar progress in the political and strategic arena. With Syria, Iran and developments in the West Asia being part of the Delhi Declaration, Mr. Hu is reported to have said that BRICS has begun to make gradual progress on global political issues as well. Rightly so, bilateral issues are not part of the mandate of the BRICS Summit. But it is unclear if cooperation at the multilateral levels such as BRICS contributes to narrowing down the differences that exist at the bilateral level between India and China.

The trend is not particularly reassuring. While India and China have enhanced their trade ties from a mere $ 5 bn a decade earlier to $ 75 bn in 2012, similar trend lines have not been witnessed in the political and strategic arena. Emphasis on economic matters from the Chinese side is quite understandable given that Beijing is on a lookout for newer markets in Asia as the West may no longer be the biggest economic partner for them. India's large market provides an alternative, but New Delhi should also exploit this to its benefit. There are a few issues that need to be addressed, including trade imbalance that is hugely in favour of China and lack of access to Chinese markets for Indian goods and services in the area of pharmaceuticals, agriculture and IT. India is understood to have raised these issues repeatedly with the Chinese side over the last few years with no satisfactory response.

On the political and strategic arena, it has not been easy to say the least. While there has been no untoward incident on the border or elsewhere, it can be best characterised as an uncertain calm. Mr. Hu made tall promises saying China has an "unswerving policy to adhere to the Sino-Indian friendship, deepen strategic cooperation and promote common development. … China is ready to work with the Indian side to seize opportunities, accelerate development, jointly cope with challenges and share the fruits of development to benefit the two peoples and make greater contributions to peace, stability and prosperity of Asia and the world at large." In return, Singh reiterated that India "has no intention to contain China and will not take part in any schemes aimed at containing China. India recognizes the Tibet Autonomous Region as part of China and will not allow Tibetans to pursue anti-China activities in India. He also expressed the hope to work with China to maintain peace and security on the borders and properly resolve border issues through friendly talks." While this is clearly an unobjectionable statement, it is noteworthy that China did not give any such assurances to India. New Delhi should have cashed in on an opportunity like this to gain similar assurances from Beijing as well.

On the sidelines of the BRICS Summit, Mr. Hu held separate meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, discussing a range of issues, including bilateral issues on March 29, 2012. The two leaders also made the politically correct statements on bilateral ties while announcing 2012 as the "Year of India-China Friendship and Cooperation," with an intention to take bilateral ties to the next level, including making progress on strategic matters. The two leaders argued, among other issues, that there was a need for enhancing cooperation particularly in the fields of maritime and regional security. Anti-piracy operations and protection of SLOCS are ideal areas for India and China to cooperate if they have to make progress on the security and strategic front.

In addition, Mr. Hu laid out a five-point proposal to address India-China relations, including one on the border issue. The proposal says the two sides should handle their differences and work for peace and stability, while urging both to push forward border talks in the spirit of peace, friendship, equal consultation, mutual respect and mutual understanding and make good use of the working mechanism of consultation and coordination on border affairs so as to jointly safeguard peace and security on the borders. While the agenda appears comprehensive, this needs to be followed on the ground to make a difference to India-China strategic ties.

Having said that, it is not the border issue that remains at the crux of the problems between India and China. The bigger issue is to reach an understanding on their respective roles in the emerging Asian strategic architecture. It is India's growing role in Asian affairs and beyond and China's eternal desire to box India in South Asia that has been at odds in the recent years. Beijing's closer partnership with Islamabad and in fact with all of the neighbouring countries appears to have been motivated by the desire to balance India. Beijing's ongoing activities in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, or its changing policy on Jammu & Kashmir or the Chinese protests at the Indian troop movement in Sikkim (an otherwise a peaceful sector on the Line of Actual Control (LAC); Sikkim was recognised by China as part of India during Prime Minister Vajpayee's visit to Beijing in 2003) are not reassuring to India. These do reflect a tendency on the part of China to question the very territorial integrity of India.

It is likely that the simultaneous rise of four major powers in Asia (China, Japan, Russia, India) will lead to a period of uncertainty and newer frictions. The fact that except for India and Russia, all the other countries have had troubled history, including war, does not help ease the situation. However, these powers have to recognise that their wealth and prosperity will also depend on the health of bilateral ties with each of these Asian capitals.

India and China have to shoulder greater responsibility in this regard to ensure that they adopt more inclusive and cooperative approach in addressing each other's concerns. And no amount of multilateral level cooperation (BRICS, G-20, WTO) can diminish some of these vexed issues. The fact is also that the two countries have cooperated mostly at the Chinese insistence and where it benefits them and not necessarily in a global forum that is supportive of India. Beijing's less than supportive role at the NSG and its efforts to sabotage an ADB loan for India are one or two instances. Therefore, India has to become more pragmatic in understanding and leveraging multilateral platforms to further its own national interests while strengthening India-China bilateral ties.

Split India,says Chinese strategist

Zhan Lue of the Chinese government-funded think-tank, China International Institute for Strategic Studies says Beijing should join forces with different nationalities like Assamese, Tamils, and Kashmiris and support the latter in establishing independent nation-states of their own, out of India, for its own interest as also for the progress of Asia.

Should India have a panicked response to this writing? No. However, India cannot ignore such sentiments for two reasons. First of all, such expressions are being quite frequent. Second, CIISS being a government-funded think-tank, one can be reasonably certain that these expressions do have the government backing.

Here's D.S. Rajan's translation of the original Chinese article.

Almost coinciding with the 13th round of Sino-Indian border talks (New Delhi, August 7-8, 2009), an article (in Chinese language) has appeared in China captioned “If China takes a little action, the so-called Great Indian Federation can be broken up” ( Zhong Guo Zhan Lue Gang, www.iiss.cn , Chinese,8 August 2009). Interestingly, it has been reproduced in several other strategic and military websites of the country and by all means, targets the domestic audience. The authoritative host site is located in Beijing and is the new edition of one, which so far represented the China International Institute for Strategic Studies (www.chinaiiss.org).



Claiming that Beijing’s ‘China-Centric’ Asian strategy, provides for splitting India, the writer of the article, Zhan Lue (strategy), has found that New Delhi’s corresponding ‘India-Centric’ policy in Asia, is in reality a ‘Hindustan centric’ one. Stating that on the other hand ‘local centres’ exist in several of the country’s provinces (excepting for the U.P and certain Northern regions), Zhan Lue has felt that in the face of such local characteristics, the ‘so-called’ Indian nation cannot be considered as one having existed in history.

According to the article, if India today relies on any thing for unity, it is the Hindu religion. The partition of the country was based on religion. Stating that today nation states are the main current in the world, it has said that India could only be termed now as a “Hindu Religious state’. Adding that Hinduism is a decadent religion as it allows caste exploitation and is unhelpful to the country’s modernization, it described the Indian government as one in a dilemma with regard to eradication of the caste system as it realizes that the process to do away with castes may shake the foundation of the consciousness of the Indian nation.

The writer has argued that in view of the above, China in its own interest and the progress of whole Asia, should join forces with different nationalities like Assamese, Tamils, and Kashmiris and support the latter in establishing independent nation-states of their own, out of India. In particular, the ULFA in Assam, a territory neighboring China, can be helped by China so that Assam realizes its national independence.

The article has also felt that for Bangladesh, the biggest threat is from India, which wants to develop a great Indian Federation extending from Afghanistan to Myanmar. India is also targeting China with support to Vietnam’s efforts to occupy Nansha (Spratly) group of islands in South China Sea. Hence the need for China’s consolidation of its alliance with Bangladesh, a country with which the US and Japan are also improving their relations to counter China. It has pointed out that China can give political support to Bangladesh enabling the latter to encourage ethnic Bengalis in India to get rid of Indian control and unite with Bangladesh as one Bengali nation; if the same is not possible, creation of at least another free Bengali nation state as a friendly neighbour of Bangladesh, would be desirable, for the purpose of weakening India’s expansion and threat aimed at forming a ‘unified South Asia’.

The punch line in the article has been that to split India, China can bring into its fold countries like Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan, support ULFA in attaining its goal for Assam’s independence, back aspirations of Indian nationalities like Tamils and Nagas, encourage Bangladesh to give a push to the independence of West Bengal and lastly recover the 90,000 sq km. territory in Southern Tibet.

Wishing for India’s break-up into 20-30 nation-states like in Europe, the article has concluded by saying that if the consciousness of nationalities in India could be aroused, social reforms in South Asia can be achieved, the caste system can be eradicated and the region can march along the road of prosperity.

The Chinese article in question will certainly outrage readers in India. Its suggestion that China can follow a strategy to dismember India, a country always with a tradition of unity in diversity, is atrocious, to say the least. The write-up could not have been published without the permission of the Chinese authorities, but it is sure that Beijing will wash its hands out of this if the matter is taken up with it by New Delhi. It has generally been seen that China is speaking in two voices – its diplomatic interlocutors have always shown understanding during their dealings with their Indian counterparts, but its selected media is pouring venom on India in their reporting. Which one to believe is a question confronting the public opinion and even policy makers in India. In any case, an approach of panic towards such outbursts will be a mistake, but also ignoring them will prove to be costly for India.

(The writer, D.S.Rajan, is Director of Chennai Centre for China Studies, Chennai, India, email: dsrajan@gmail.com).