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India and the South Asian Strategic Triangle

This book traces the triangular strategic relationship of India, Pakistan and China over the second half of the twentieth century, and shows how two enmities – Sino-Indian and Indo-Pakistani – and one friendship – Sino-Pakistani – defined the distribution of power and the patterns of relationships in a major centre of gravity of international conflict and international change. The three powers are tied to each other and their actions reflect their view of strategic and cultural problems and geo-politics in a volatile area. The book considers internal debates within the three countries; zones of conflict, including northeast and northwest south Asia, the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean; and the impact of developments in nuclear weapons and missile technology. It examines the destructive consequences of China’s harsh methods in Tibet, of China’s encouragement of military rather than democratic regimes in Pakistan, and of China’s delay in dealing with the border disputes with India. Ashok Kapur shows how the Nehru-Zhou rhetoric about “peaceful coexistence” affected the relationship, and how the dynamics of the relationship have changed significantly in recent years as a range of new factors – including India’s increasing closeness to the United States – have moved the relationship into a new phase. Ashok Kapur is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Political Science, University of Waterloo, Canada. He is author of several major works including India – From Regional to World Power (also published by Routledge), and is co-author of Government & Politics in South Asia, 6th edition.


Routledge security in Asia series

1 Taiwan’s Security and Air Power Taiwan’s defense against the air threat from Mainland China Edited by Martin Edmonds and Michael M. Tsai 2 Asia Pacific Security – Values and Identity Leszek Buszynski 3 Taiwan’s Defense Reform Edited by Martin Edmonds and Michael M. Tsai 4 Maritime Security in Southeast Asia Edited by Kwa Chong Guan and John K. Skogan 5 China’s Security Interests in the 21st Century Russell Ong 6 China’s Rise – Threat or Opportunity? Edited by Herbert S. Yee 7 India and the South Asian Strategic Triangle Ashok Kapur


India and the South Asian Strategic Triangle

Ashok Kapur


First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

© 2011 Ashok Kapur All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Kapur, Ashok. India and the South Asian strategic triangle / Ashok Kapur. p. cm. – (Routledge security in Asia series; 7) Includes index. 1. India–Foreign relations–South Asia. 2. South Asia–Foreign relations– India. 3. India–Foreign relations–1947–1984. 4. India–Foreign relations– 1984– I. Title. DS450.S64K37 2011 2010013814 3550 .033054—dc22 ISBN 0-203-84199-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-45466-7 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-203-84199-0 (ebk)


Contents

Preface and acknowledgements

vi

1

Introduction

1

2

1950s: from China–India pretensions and complicity to strategic contention

23

Theory of strategic triangles and its relevance in the Indian subcontinent and Himalayan Zone

52

Strategic triangles in the Himalayan Zone; pre-1949 history and 1949–50

77

The making of Sino-Indian conflict: role of bilateral actions-reactions, third party Foreign influences and domestic politics in Foreign policy

100

6

The inevitability of Sino-Indian conflict

115

7

India regrouped, China’s irredentist escalation continued (1962–) and the China–India–Pakistan triangle emerged (1963–)

134

Sino-Indian manoeuvres that led to a strategic stalemate and conflict formation

154

Current dynamics and a look to the future

177

Notes Index

201 210

3

4 5

8

9



Foreign policy is widely recognized by practitioners as an interaction between forces within a country and outside its borders. The historical evolution of India–China–Pakistan relationships shows that their destinies are tied together by a pattern of conflict that affects each country’s territorial security, and its diplomatic and political identity and international position. The pattern indicates that strategic and cultural conflict is inevitable between China and India and India and Pakistan but a future war is not inevitable despite the past history of wars. However, unwinding the intractable history of conflicts is a laborious process which shows that it is easier to hate and to fight than to organize peaceful ties. This book appears at a time of uncertainty in the development of international diplomatic and strategic thought and policy. 2010 is the year of the tiger but who is the tiger or are several in play? One view, a popular one, by Martin Jacques ‘When China rules the world’ (2009) sees China’s remarkable economic performance, military might, Han unity and political determination, along with America’s economic weakness and the disunity of the Western world a sign of China’s ascendancy and Western decline. A different view, Victor Louis’s ‘The coming decline of the Chinese empire’ (1979) points to the coercive pattern of empire building and demographic engineering that negatively affects its governance capacity and internal legitimacy. Louis, widely seen as a KGB operative, was criticized for his provocative approach but the rioting in Tibet and Xinjiang in 2008–9 gives validity to his view. My book takes the position that America still possesses a strong military and economic infrastructure; it possesses significant soft power for example in the vitality of its educational system, and even though it has a capacity for self-deception in its international endeavours it also has a capacity to correct itself through reasoned public debate. China’s ascendancy is not permanent because it lacks the qualities of pluralism, democracy and internal legitimacy, and Beijing is facing a succession issue by 2012. Its experiment with inner party democracy has stalled and it lacks an institutionalized self-corrective mechanism. Yet it must deal with forces within China and outside its borders, especially among its immediate geographical neighbours.



vii

That is, the year of the tiger is not necessarily the year of the Chinese tiger. Realistically it may be described as an era of several caged or inhibited tigers. The interaction between China and India is a story of two tigers in diplomatic and military affairs although India is often compared to a laborious elephant or a noisy duck; however, both systems have advantages and disadvantages. China possesses more hard power and less legitimacy as a world citizen and as a government in relation to its people; India has less hard power compared to China but more soft power as a result of its pluralistic model and status quo and reformist international orientation. China relies on patriotic education to mobilize its nationalism; Indian nationalism on the other hand has stronger roots because it is grounded in a quest for discussion and consent among India and its foreign constituents. As long as Indian practitioners are able to maintain their leverage with hostile neighbours and difficult allies, and are able to maintain a capacity to escalate and negotiate, the asymmetries in the distribution of economic and military power measured statistically are less important than the political skill required to form leverage and manoeuvrability in regional and international politics. It has taken me a long time to prepare a book that is historically accurate, that provides innovative academic insights for the practitioners and is forward looking. The three countries examined do not make an easy study because they have not opened their diplomatic archives for independent scholarly assessments and hence I have had to rely on the open literature and confidential interviews. The backing of Canada’s Social and Humanities Research Council in the course of my academic career enabled me to travel to New Delhi, Beijing, Shanghai, Islamabad and Karachi in addition to Western capitals and to discuss pertinent issues for this book. Often the most informative discussions involved government practitioners who spoke on condition of anonymity. Several key individuals made the completion and publication of this work possible. Peter Sowden, Editor in Asian Studies, Routledge, supported the project. He gave me the freedom to express my views while insisting on high scholarly standards. I thank also the anonymous reviewer who offered critical comments and useful suggestions. Mrs Madhuri Sondhi and her late husband Professor M. L. Sondhi introduced me to a senior official in the Tibetan government in exile in New Delhi and I am grateful for the conversations and the materials provided by him. Shivani Singh provided research assistance. I thank Heidi Cormode for her careful copy editing, and Emma Hart for her admirable care and oversight in the book’s production. I dedicate this book to my wife, Deepika, who has believed in my work and has encouraged me over the years to write and inform but also to be humble about success and hungry for more knowledge, always. Ashok Kapur Waterloo, Ontario January 2010



1

Introduction

This book examines the strategic approaches and the character of relationships among three major players in the Himalayan-South Asian region since 1947/49. I argue that a strategic triangle exists among the three. It emerged in the early 1960s and it was the culmination of two bilateral conflicts, Indo-Pakistani and Sino-Indian that involved diplomatic rivalry, conflicting worldviews, and war. The relations among the three have evolved – from diplomatic rivalry to war, and later from war to strategic discourse, but the three have been tied together. The evolution reveals two trends – from diplomatic rivalry to the formation of triangularity that was inspired by the policies of China and Pakistan. India has been a latecomer as a participant in triangular strategic politics but once it joined the game the three players have found it difficult to disengage themselves from it. Hence this triangular pattern of alignments and interactions has developed an institutional and a robust character in a geo-politically sensitive part of world politics. The first trend led to the formation of a tight strategic triangle in the early 1960s that was similar to the period of tight and tense bipolarity between the superpowers during the Cold War. The second trend has evolved since the late 1980s; it represents the current pattern of relationships among the three, and here the three members of the triangle have taken steps, by way of reciprocal action, to tone down the conflictual relationships, to build strategic dialogues and to find common economic and political ground even though the military competition has continued among them. I call the second trend a period of loose triangularity. The formation of the strategic triangle was based on different historical, diplomatic, and leadership imperatives for each country. For China the history of rivalry between imperial (Manchu) China, British India, Russia and Tibet gave its southern policy a geo-political focus that was core to the actions of the Chinese communists vis-à-vis the Tibetans and the Indians after 1949. The pre-1949 experiences were cast in triangular terms, for example, in the interactions between Manchu China, Tibet and British India, and at times between China, Tibet and Russia. Beijing’s leaders also understood the importance of strategic triangles from their internal civil war that brought them to power. They dealt with the US–Kuomintang–communist triangle


2

Introduction

during the civil war in the 1940s and the KMT–Japan–Chinese communist triangle in the 1930s. Communist China’s ideology and diplomacy recognizes that it cannot pursue its interests unaided. Mao argued. ‘China’s strength alone will not be sufficient, and we shall also have to rely on the support of international forces or otherwise we shall not be able to win; this adds to China’s tasks in international propaganda and diplomacy’.1 Zhou Enlai pointed out the character of China’s diplomacy. He made three points. 1. ‘Does diplomacy refer to relations between countries or between peoples? Should we approach states or people? We must unite with the people of all countries not only fraternal countries but also former colonial and semicolonial countries and capitalist countries. But the function of diplomacy is to deal with relations between states’. 2. There are two kinds of friendly countries: those that will be friendly more or less constantly and those that are friendly just for the time being. Even these last differ from each other. Some are our friends for a short time, while others remain so for a relatively long period. 3. ‘We should be flexible in our diplomatic work, relying on the progressives, uniting with the middle-of-the-road forces and splitting the diehards. In this way we will open up new prospects for diplomatic work. It is wrong to think that the world is simply divided into two conflicting camps and that there is nothing we can do to improve it’.2 For Chinese practitioners participation in diplomatic and military triangles is a way to build its fronts, to create leverage for its power, and to exploit contradictions in the enemy camp for China’s advantage. Communist Chinese diplomacy continues to be involved in triangles. In 1972 the Shanghai communiqué represented the formation of the US–PRC–USSR triangle. Currently, there is a US–Japan–China triangle in play in the Far East. Contemporary studies on China’s foreign affairs note the importance of triangular diplomacy.3 Pakistan too has been an enthusiastic seeker of international solutions and triangularity in its fight with India. Indian Muslims who spearheaded the Pakistan movement were keenly aware of their minority position and were aware of the need to secure Western aid to protect their interests and to develop an independent status. Before 1947 Pakistan-oriented Muslims in India sought and formed a triangular relationship between British India government which supported Muslim fears and aspirations vis-à-vis the ‘Hindudominated’ Congress national party. This was the view of the Pakistani Muslims and the British government even though India’s independence leaders projected themselves as a nationalist and a secular organization and movement. From the early 1950s Pakistan’s government sought Western diplomatic and military ties initially with the UK and then with the US, to protect its identity and its territoriality, and to widen its diplomatic and military influence in the Subcontinent and in world politics especially in Middle Eastern affairs. The UK/US–Pakistan vis-à-vis India triangularity had an ideological and a strategic basis because Pakistan was judged to be a part of the inner circle of Western defence against Soviet expansionism during the


Introduction

3

Cold War, and Indian nonalignment made it an unreliable element in Cold War politics. US military and diplomatic aid to Pakistan commenced in 1954, it affected the Indo-Pakistani military balance and it polarized the political relations between India and Pakistan and India and the US. The US–Pakistan relationship soured when the UK and US provided military and diplomatic aid to India following the war with China in 1962. Pakistan accepted Beijing’s overture to form a common front against India because both shared a common enmity. This aspect of Pakistan’s link with China is stressed in my book because it has developed deep roots and staying power based on geographical contiguity, common strategic purpose to check India’s growing regional and international presence and unresolved territorial issues. This triangularity pertains to core sovereignty and international status issues which did not inform the US–Pakistan–India triangularity of the 1950s. US policy was driven by a concern with communist expansionism into Third World regions. The US did not have a territorial dispute with India, it questioned Nehru’s nonaligned policy and links with communist countries, it, of course, sought to settle the Kashmir dispute to the satisfaction of Pakistan and the US, but when international circumstances changed and the 1962 war happened the US government shifted its policy gears in India’s favour. By doing so it indicated a desire to check China’s expansionism and to preserve India’s territorial integrity. Pakistan and China had no such commitments. Pakistan’s shift to an embrace of China as its international partner from the early 1960s showed its estimate of China as a reliable friend and the US as an unreliable one. Both however, showed the importance of Pakistani leaders’ desire to form triangular relationships to check India’s influence in the region and in the world, and to borrow external power to manage the Indians and to facilitate the presence of the external forces in the strategic game of the Subcontinent. Note that Pakistan is the weakest military power compared to China and India but it has been the most consistent practitioner among the three (or four and five if America and Russia are included) of triangular strategy as a way to advance its diplomatic and military interests since its independence in 1947. Philosophically, Nehru’s India was the least inclined to join a geo-politically driven strategic triangle. Several reasons explain why India was the slowest compared to Pakistan, China, and the US to adapt its diplomacy and military strategy to the requirements of triangularity until after the 1962 war with China forced a reconsideration of the basic tenets of Nehru’s worldview and Indian diplomacy and military strategy. Nehru was the prime Indian decision maker in foreign and military affairs during the 1950s. He had a pronounced attachment to the theory of Indian nonalignment and a policy of peace rather than India’s involvement in foreign alliances or in the use of force to settle diplomatic issues or world problems. He insisted that India’s approach was guided by assessment of issues on their merits while balance of power politics and Cold War politics were deemed to be dangerous to world peace. He emphasized the importance of building bilateral relations with


4

Introduction

neighbours as well as the major powers in the world. In his speeches he viewed the world system as a constellation of four powers – America, Russia, China and India. The global view over-rode consideration of regional triangularity with Pakistan and China. Second, Nehru had emerged as a major leader in the anti-colonial struggle against Britain. His political ideology and life experiences relied on political action based on high ideals rather than through war or diplomatic negotiations and compromises. Nehru and Gandhi had pushed the exit of Britain from India in 1947 but the framework of the negotiation was based on British and Indian liberal political values, and the participants on both sides were British leaders and Indian leaders who were mentored by British ideas and ideals. India’s political leaders lacked experience with successful negotiations with Pakistani Muslims before 1947; their failure to accommodate and compromise with them was partly responsible for the growth of the Pakistan movement and the theory that Indians would not accommodate themselves to interests of Indian Muslims. Nehru had an internationalist outlook based on his study of fascism in Europe but he did not possess practical experience of war or negotiation. He also took great interest in China’s fight against Japan and Western imperialism but he lacked an insider’s view of the aims and methods of Chinese communists. His assessment of the rise of the USSR and the Bolsheviks was couched in terms of the worldwide struggle against imperialism and colonialism and the need for internal social and economic reform and global reform against balance of power and Cold War politics and alliances. His agenda was to build bridges – East-West, and North-South, to make the world safe against the danger of war and nuclear weapons, and to promote the causes of Russia and China in world affairs. Preventing the rise of regional triangularity and managing its destructive consequences for India was not a major part of Nehru’s worldview. Even as Nehru took a negative view of the US–Pakistan alliance it was seen as an introduction of the Cold War into the Subcontinent (because it would incline Moscow to react against Washington’s move into its southern belly) and a challenge to Indo-Pakistani stability (because it would promote the militarization of Pakistan’s internal politics and its foreign affairs). Four points are relevant in consideration of India’s role in the China– Pakistan–India triangle. First, India was the slowest of the three members to publicly accept the inevitability of its involvement in the triangle as a basis of its regional foreign policy, and more significantly, accept that geo-politics is a stronger basis of foreign affairs rather than the politics of peace and nuclear disarmament. Over time the emphasis on bilateralism and peace or ‘friendly relations with all’ (not the best possible relations with friends and foes) as guiding principles of Indian foreign affairs has been relaxed in favour of attention to international and regional developments that form the context of Indian foreign affairs. Second, once the consciousness emerged in the Indian strategic and political mind about the effect of regional developments on Indian interests, the basis of triangularity incrementally gained ground in Indian thinking and policy planning; but it was a slow, retarded and not


Introduction

5

a rational development in the 1950s and the 1960s as one would expect of a professionally run government. For instance, China’s forceful takeover of Tibet in 1950 and the use of force against the Tibetans threw up the reality of triangularity between Chinese, Tibetan and Indian actions. Another instance, once the US–Pakistan military alignment was formed in the early 1950s the reality of a US–Pakistan–India diplomatic and military triangle set in. India countered this development by securing an alignment with Moscow, first with Stalin and later with Khrushchev which gave India support on the Kashmir issue and became a source of economic and military aid as well. Here India was participating in the development of these triangles but one looks in vain in Nehru’s speeches or his writings or in Indian official communiqués for an acknowledgement that peace diplomacy or bilateral friendships was not a realistic basis to construct Indian foreign and military affairs. Third, triangularity became pronounced and public in war and crisis situations in regional confrontations – 1962 war with China, and 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. Fourth and finally, Indian diplomacy now uses both bilateralism and triangularities in the pursuit of its interests. It appears that bilateralism is preferred when India has a military and a diplomatic edge over the other side, as in relations with Pakistan, but strategic triangularity is preferred when the other side has an edge, or when uncertainties exist in a crisis situation, and in these circumstances external diplomatic and military aid is sought along with alignment(s). One can see the growth of triangularities in Indian foreign affairs since the late 1990s. The India–Israel defence and diplomatic links are tied to the rise of Islamist politics in the Middle Eastern-South Asian region. The US–India civil nuclear energy agreement was tied to concerns about Chinese and Pakistani nuclear weapons proliferation and the formation of US–India–China links was motivated by uncertainty about China’s ‘peaceful rise’. The trend towards formation of such triangularities – for instance, between India, Turkey and Israel, is likely to persist when much of the world is in transition. My conclusion is that India was the slowest of the three to join the triangular game in reaction to the policies of her neighbours, and in opposition to the diplomatic ideology of Nehru and his fellow travellers, but now its membership of the regional triangularity has developed a sticky character and it is no longer up to China and Pakistan to induce Indian disengagement without a negotiated settlement of pending issues. My concluding chapter addresses this theme.

This triangle has peculiar characteristics The special characteristics of this triangle include the following: Its three members are geographical neighbours but two of the three have not acted as good neighbours; their diplomatic relations are based on two major diplomatic and military rivalries – between India and Pakistan, and India and China. The rivalries are based on conflicting territorial claims,


6

Introduction

conflicting worldviews and diplomatic ambitions, conflicting regional ambitions, and asymmetrical distribution of economic and military power among the three. Since the emergence of this triangle in the early 1960s it has acquired a structure and dynamics of its own because of the domestic and external compulsions of each member, and as a result of learning and re-learning by the practitioners. Between the early 1960s and the present the history of these relations indicates that neither member can opt out of the strategic game with each other. They are tied by questions of territorial conflicts, military and nuclear policies, and their international and regional status and political identity. Although the distribution of economic and military power is clearly asymmetrical between India and Pakistan, India does not have a winning strategy to achieve asymmetrical gain with Pakistan because Indian power is checked or balanced by China’s aid to Pakistan and by US pressure on India not to push Pakistan into a diplomatic corner or at a military disadvantage. At the same time despite the asymmetry between Chinese and Indian economic and military power China too does not possess a winning strategy against India because it fears the presence of countervailing American and Russian support for India’s diplomatic and military aims. Historical examples of strategic triangles, as discussed by the foremost student of this phenomenon Professor Martin Wight, had an end game. Either its members had a winning strategy as in the Western-Soviet fight against Germany during the Second World War, or a triangle ended with the collapse of a key member, as in the case of the US–PRC–USSR triangle that ended with the implosion of the USSR. (The characteristics of Martin Wight’s triangles are discussed in a later chapter.) The Pakistan– China–India triangle does not reveal a serious discussion about an end game in the thinking of the practitioners in these countries. This book assesses two opposite possibilities. The first is that the failure of its members to formulate an end game through a winnable strategy means that the three are expected to be locked into triangular strategic relations involving continuous military and economic competition and diplomatic talks that lack the prospect of a negotiated political settlement vis-à-vis each other. The second possibility is that a member of this triangle implodes. The guesswork is that Pakistan is the most likely candidate to do so given the fast pace of the spread of Talibanization from Afghanistan to the Swat valley, to Pakistan’s cultural-political-military heartland, the Punjab. China and India too have their respective internal political and economic problems and these attract serious attention by different experts. The latter changes suggest a weakening of Chinese and Indian power and capacity for internal governance but it does not imply an imminent or inevitable breakdown of the political and military structure of the two countries as do developments within Pakistan at the time of writing. Weakening of China and Indian internal power (even as the two continue their respective


Introduction

7

military modernizations) implies a loss of state capacity and political will to formulate a winning strategy against regional rivals but it does not imply a breakdown of the state system in the two countries. The first possibility has an implication for the theory of triangles inasmuch as theory does not anticipate a long shelf life for strategic triangles. The second possibility, in this case the implosion of Pakistan and the end of its membership in the triangle would validate Wight’s approach. It is premature at this point to make a call on either possibility. The long shelf life of this triangle is explained in part by the learning and re-learning that occurred in the leadership styles and diplomatic and military machineries of the three players. In the early 1950s, following the flush of victory of communism in China under Mao Beijing had a powerful attitude about its history, about the future of Chinese communism, about the importance of its frontier security and politics and the importance of aggressive military tactics; frontier insecurity and over-confidence in the role of its political will and military tactics were in play in China’s conduct in the 1950s in its southern zone. At the same time Nehru’s diplomatic policy and leadership style had different roots and experiences. He was flushed with a powerful attitude about India’s civilization, its diplomatic strength and high potential as an independent country and a future as a major power along with America, Russia and China. He had no negotiating experience in the world of regional conflicts, and he had a limited interest in determining the aggressive character of China’s military and geo-politically driven moves in the Himalayan region, in determining the location of India’s territorial boundary in relation to China or in negotiating a settlement. He made a subtle and self-serving distinction between talking to the Chinese about the border in the mid to late 1950s but against negotiating with them because he did not recognize that a dispute existed in the 1950s since, in his view, the basis of the boundary was historically determined. Chinese and Indian leadership styles differed in their respective approaches to relations with the ‘imperialists’. Beijing relied on national defence and diplomacy to check the imperialists and to deal with them from a position of strength, and to treat both America and Russia at different times as threats to Chinese interests. Nehru on the other hand sought a position for himself and India as a bridge builder with two of China’s main enemies – America and Russia, and sought to gain their confidence and support for India’s economic and military needs by building ties with them. The diplomatic and the military record of the 1950s shows that Indian practitioners drifted into a military conflict with China in part because of Nehru’s over-confident leadership style, in part because of inter-ministerial disagreements about the actual location of the China– India boundary and the legal position during the 1950s, and because of the unwillingness of Indian practitioners to understand the value of propaganda and deception in China’s statecraft.4 India learned its lessons after its defeat in 1962 and internal reforms led to a process of diplomatic and

8

Introduction


military engagement with China. By refusing to capitulate to China’s victory, the refusal to accept 1962 as something more than a defeat in a single episode in battle, the engagement established a basis to escalate the controversy and to push China into a scenario to either negotiate with India on Indian terms, or to escalate by building a front against India via Pakistan. As is known, Beijing took the latter route and the game was joined. Here Indian learning and re-learning in the 1960s from its mistakes in the 1950s, and China’s continued determination to check Indian ambitions were twin factors that shaped the triangle and its shelf life.

The existence of this triangle is not self evident because Chinese and Western scholars have ignored its existence China’s practitioners and scholars have ignored the existence and durability of this triangle for several reasons. The People’s Republic of China has had a dismissive public attitude about India’s presence in regional and in international affairs since 1947. As per John Gittings Chinese leaders thought of India as ‘feeble minded bourgeoisie’ that was tied to Western anti-China imperialist forces. China’s leaders had a positive self-image and a negative image of India and her leaders. India was not deemed to be truly independent despite the British withdrawal from India in 1947. In their conversations with President Nixon and Henry Kissinger, Mao and Chen Yi openly expressed contempt for Indian philosophy, Gandhian pacifism and India’s freedom struggle.5 Communist Chinese writings on foreign affairs such as the work by Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen (1988–98) and the strategic journal of the China Institute for International Strategic Studies, an authoritative forum for Chinese strategic assessments, have examined the US–USSR– China triangle and the US–Japan–China triangle, but there is no consideration of the China–India–Pakistan triangular relationships. The focus is on bilateral ties, India is bracketed with Pakistan in Chinese political writings, and China’s approach to South Asian diplomatic and military issues is cast in terms of China’s international position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Beijing’s approach since the early 1960s showed a positive institutional bias towards Pakistan that merited significant aid in the form of conventional armament, nuclear and missile technology transfers and diplomatic support and intervention on Pakistan’s behalf in regional wars and crises vis-à-vis the US government and at the United National Security Council. The positive bias towards Pakistan and a negative one towards India reflected Beijing’s assessment in the mid 1950s. As conveyed to the Pakistan government and as reported by a knowledgeable source Rushbrook Williams, Beijing saw a conflict of interest with India but not so with Pakistan and sought a Pakistan linkage


Introduction

9

on that basis. The negative bias towards India reflected Beijing’s concerns about the orientation and international relations of India. Despite Nehru’s advocacy of Chinese positions with the Western powers the awareness of a Sino-Indian diplomatic competition between Nehru and Zhou Enlai in the Third World coloured Beijing’s attitude. Indian concerns about Beijing’s intervention in Tibet, the collapse of the Tibetan buffer and the sympathy with the Dalai Lama, cast a shadow on the bilateral relationship. For Beijing Nehru’s foreign affairs had the taint of a pro-Russia tilt during the Cold War along with a pro-Western tilt, and given the history of rivalry between Stalin and Mao and the political leadership on both sides, Nehru’s access to Moscow and Washington contrasted with China’s international isolation and lack of full Soviet support for Chinese aims in the Korean War, in relation to the liberation of Taiwan, the Sino-Indian border dispute and the future of Indo-China. Finally, the use of India as a base of CIA covert operation in Tibet was a source of suspicion and animosity.6 The conflict of interest between China and India and the latter’s refusal to accept China’s pre-eminence in Asia or in the Subcontinent has shaped the pattern of strategic interactions of China, India and Pakistan in relation to each other. The aforesaid outline shows why China and India have been on a collision course and are likely to remain in this mode because the diplomatic theories of the two Asian rivals are at odds as are their self-images. Both see themselves as destined to play an important role in Asia and the world. Both see themselves with a legacy as great civilizations. Both possess significant economic and military capacities to engage each other and major members of the world community. But their approaches to international relations vary. During the Mao-Zhou era China saw itself as a revolutionary world power and the pre-eminent power; it did not recognize Japan or India as worthy of the distinction. Indian leaders saw India as one of four major powers – along with America, Russia and China. Mao and Zhou valued armed struggle and liberation theology as the basis of their international legitimacy and as a basis of China’s foreign affairs. Indian leaders sought peaceful discourse and diplomacy as the way to reduce international tensions and to settle controversies through negotiations. (However, as my discussion will show Nehru did not acknowledge the existence of a border dispute with China and while he was willing to talk to China, he was not willing to negotiate a compromise of Indian border claims.) Beijing saw Indian intransigence and hegemonic ambition as the problem in South Asian international relations; India’s leaders saw themselves as a benign and a non-expansionist force in the region and the world. China’s leaders felt that Indian aggressiveness and expansionism was responsible for the border conflict and the war in 1962; India’s leaders argued the opposite case. China adopted a clear national security stance that involved the use of military force to guard its interests in the Korean War (1950–53), in Tibet (1950–) and in the war with India (1962).


10

Introduction

Nehru’s India lacked this orientation that linked military force and diplomacy; this relied on the time-honoured principle about the linkage between an ability to escalate tensions by threat and war and to negotiate by an ability to create a new situation. ‘Escalate and negotiate’ was the de facto Chinese mantra. ‘Talk and negotiate’ on the basis of goodwill was the Indian mantra of the 1950s. China’s approach was to position itself to negotiate with Moscow and Washington by building a position of military and diplomatic strength. Its approach in the Himalayan region was to assert itself in the direction of the ‘Indian’ subcontinent (and later in relation to India’s immediate neighbours including Pakistan, and the Indian Ocean as well) and to keep India in a defensive position. China’s approach to India was that of a rival (as following chapters will show) and her actions indicated that India was not viewed as an equal or semi-equal of China in the world of powers. Instead, its approach suggested a belief in the British theory of a world with two kinds of relations: between members of a system of independent states, and countries that belonged to the category of a subordinate states’ system. This was evident because the Mao-Zhou theory to build an anti-imperialist front required mobilization of countries in the Third World or the intermediate zone of countries during the Cold War. The Chinese view of peaceful co-existence, which it adopted in agreements with India, Indonesia and Burma in the mid 1950s was tied to its desire to strengthen the antiimperialist (anti-US and anti-USSR) fronts; it differed from the Indian view of peaceful existence as a standalone norm to settle issue peacefully. By mid 1950s the character of the international and regional situations had changed. The superpowers’ détente talks commenced. India’s alignment with Moscow gained ground along with a co-alignment with the US and the mutual and publicly declared desire for friendly relations despite the controversy over US arms aid to Pakistan. At the time the trend towards engagement between India, Russia and America showed a concern about China’s aggressive stance in Asia and in the Himalayan area, and it indicated that Russia, the first advocate of a world revolution by armed struggle and subversion, had changed colours and now sought to develop itself as a major power, indeed, as a co-principal with the US in the international system. Peaceful coexistence became the mantra of Soviet foreign policy although to many it seemed to be structured as competitive rather than cooperative co-existence with the West. The radical shift in the pattern of international and regional (South Asian) relations was significant because this area emerged as the first region where the superpowers’ détente emerged along with the bilateral arms control discourse between Washington and Moscow. In this perspective Beijing’s move to build ties with Pakistan was driven by three different motives: to protect Pakistan against Indian ‘hegemony’; to build up Pakistan as a line of diplomatic and military pressure against India; and to signal to the two superpowers that China could extend itself into a region of secondary international conflict where important Western and Russian strategic interests existed in terms of their respective regional politics.


Introduction

11

If Beijing’s aim was to minimize India’s potential as China’s rival and to teach it a lesson Beijing’s action worked as a catalyst in several ways. It aroused the superpowers to consider the destructive implications of China’s tie-up with Pakistan and against India. Second, it aroused India to come out of Nehru’s stupor about peaceful and non-expansionist China and about the value of India’s peace diplomacy as the basis of world reform, and to accept the inevitability of rivalry with China and the need to adopt counter-measures for a long engagement. Third and finally, it delayed the process of Indo-Pakistani reconciliation and peace making because Chinese aid encouraged Pakistani irredentism vis-à-vis India as a result of the convergence of Pakistani and Chinese views of ‘expansionist’ Indian policies. Only when it became apparent that Pakistani irredentism could not succeed against India even with Chinese aid, and that Chinese pressures in the Himalayan zone could not push India away from its diplomatic and military positions and its policy to establish co-alignment with Moscow and Washington, did the process of confidence-building talks and the bilateral peace processes between India and Pakistan and India and China gain ground. This book argues that the period from the early 1960s to the 1990s was dominated by triangular competitive and conflict-driven interactions, and even as the interactions are competitive in the military activities of India and China in the twenty-first century, the rise of strategic confidence-building dialogues loosened the tight triangularity of the 1960s–90s. Western scholarship has not grasped the existence of this triangle, the regional circumstances that facilitated its formation, the process to loosen it, China’s role in instigating its development, India’s role in carrying it forward, and Pakistan’s potential role in ending it as a result of its internal weakness. India’s role in perpetuating this triangle is emphasized because its refusal to capitulate to China’s demands and to admit defeat despite the result of the 1962 war meant that the strategic-cultural conflict was joined and the two stayed tied to this encounter. Moreover, China realized in the 1950s – mid to late 1950s, the necessity to escalate the conflict by bringing Pakistan into play on China’s side against India and to force Indian concessions to both China and Pakistan. This happened because of Indian determination to stay in the strategic game and to build India’s economic and military capacities and diplomatic alignments to do so. This view implies that India’s capacity to escalate regional rivalries by its refusal to accede to demands of its two neighbours and by its development of military and economic capacities against two-front encounters has been underestimated. The book’s theme is that Indian practitioners are slow to engage and to get out of their reactive mode until a rivalry becomes apparent but once engaged they are slow also to disengage unless there is a negotiated political settlement. ‘Escalate, Stabilise and Negotiate’ seems to be the Indian strategic mantra. This lacuna has occurred because Western scholarly work has been directed to a different agenda since 1947. Given the Hindu–Muslim rivalry that led to Partition the study of India–Pakistan conflict was the obvious thing to do.


12

Introduction

Given the Cold War and America’s search for allies against communism, the early emergence of Kashmir as a dispute, American antipathy of Nehru’s neutralism, and acceptance of the Pakistani theory about Kashmir dispute as the core issue in the region and India–Pakistan military and diplomatic balance as the safeguard for Pakistan, UK–US scholarship gave prominence to Indo-Pakistan issues. A few American studies such as John Rowland’s ‘History of Sino-Indian Relations’ (1967) examined the geo-political circumstances and history in the Central Asian and Himalayan region that shaped Sino-Indian relations. This orientation built on the historical analysis of the American scholar Owen Lattimore and British scholars Alistair Lamb and Dorothy Woodman. These works emphasized the pre-1947/49 interactions among empire-minded practitioners in British India, Manchu China, Tsarist Russia, the kingdoms of Nepal, Kashmir and Bhutan, and principalities such as Gilgit and Hunza and protectorates such as Sikkim. Then Tibet was a major part of the geo-political equation. Van Walt van Praag’s expert analysis of ‘The Status of Tibet’ (1987) explained the legal and historical background of Tibetan–Manchu Chinese interactions and the evidence of Tibetan autonomy and at times independence. His work ties together international treaty law, the web of legal conventions that involved the imperial powers and the region’s geo-politics. Nehru’s preoccupation with friendship with China and his rejection of balance of power politics and his emphasis on peace diplomacy closed the study of geo-politics in Indian scholarly circles because the state was the primary source of patronage of scholarship and research funding then and now. Even now the organization of the divisional responsibilities in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs shows the lack of an integrated view of the geo-politics of the Himalayan region. The senior official who deals with Nepal, does not deal with Tibet even though Nepal is the arena between China/Tibet and India because of China’s concern with Nepal as a conduit for Tibetan refugees coming to India. Beijing on the other hand takes an integrated view of its interests in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh (which it calls ‘Southern Tibet’). American policy priorities in the 1950s set the framework of mainstream scholarship. Pakistan was a Western ally, a part of the inner circle of Western defence against communism; hence a preoccupation with US–Pakistan relations was justified. Nehru’s India and US governments had a difficult relationship but India was a big country, so a study of Indo-US relations was justified. But India’s foreign policy carried several taints – of a tilt towards Moscow and of nonalignment and India’s advocacy of restoration of China’s international position; hence the lack of scholarly attention to the pattern of emerging mistrust between India and China. We learn about this key aspect of the emerging conflict and mistrust in the detailed account by B. N. Mullik, Nehru’s Intelligence chief from 1950 to 1965 in his book ‘My Years with Nehru’ (1971). There were a few hints of the bilateral mistrust but they did not alter the literature’s orientation. Canadian scholar and a Foreign Office official Lorne Kavic wrote a book ‘India’s Quest for Security’ (1967) showing


Introduction

13

Nehru’s concerns with Himalayan defences in the late 1940s, and the US State Department’s assessments by its Intelligence branch in the early 1950s provided insights along these lines but by and large the pattern of interaction and escalation, the thought processes and the results remained uncharted in scholarly works written before 1962. It is noteworthy that White House and Pentagon planners in the Kennedy government grasped and projected the views about the likely destructive consequences of Chinese policies about India and Pakistan, and they did so as Pakistan President Ayub Khan started to flirt with China in the early 1960s before the 1962 war between India and China, and following the war. In hindsight the declassified materials reflect policy wisdom and balanced perspectives by the Kennedy government but on the other hand it is also clear that American scholarship showed a lack of due diligence in examining such materials and to examine the basis of the China–India–Pakistan triangle. The first systematic account of the triangle, its early history and its geo-political context, came from Yaacov Vertzberger, a Jewish-Hebrew University scholar when he published ‘The Enduring Entente’ in 1983. Western scholarship developed a Sino-Indian focus after the 1962 war but the concern lay with a study of the border conflict and the implications of India’s defeat and China’s victory in Asian and world politics and for Chinese and Indian foreign policy. Thereafter India lost its luster as a diplomatic player because of its poor economic and military performance, its international defensiveness, lack of confidence and its dependence on foreign aid. A succession of weak Indian governments created a sense of drift within India and among India observers in the world. These impressions were real but they ignored another reality. Following its military defeat India’s defence machinery was reformed by development of indigenous defence industry with foreign collaboration and a reform of the government machinery to deal with defence questions; a focus on Pakistan and China as strategic problems became ingrained in the Indian political and popular mind. Second, India’s refusal to capitulate to China’s territorial demands produced a diplomatic and a military confrontation; it was tense but neither side wanted another war because India could not manage it and China was concerned about over-extending its military capacity for fear of an adverse reaction from the US and USSR. Throughout its history since 1947 India maintained the momentum of its scientific work to develop nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles in the guise of building a dual use capacity. Despite its bad image its activities indicated a commitment to build its internal capacities and to establish a new set of international alignments to support its position vis-à-vis China. For India this period – from 1962 to the 1980s, was taken by a process of re-positioning India in the Subcontinent and in the world. For China the 1962 victory reinforced the belief that India was in the hands of a feeble-minded bourgeois that had feet of clay in strategic affairs and that belonged in the realm of a subordinate states’ system while China belonged to the realm of a truly independent and potential world power; its attitude of indifference and disdain for


14

Introduction

Indian power and political culture was reinforced in part because India was seen as a defeated country, and in part because China no longer needed it to carry its messages to the US. American scholars fixated on the threat India’s military development posed for the Indo-Pakistani balance and pressed for the resolution of the Kashmir issue, and they opposed India’s nuclear weapons development as a threat to the nonproliferation regime. Had they factored in Indian perceptions of China as a threat as the key stimulus for India’s nuclear and military modernization during the 1960s–90s, the overemphasis on India–Pakistan competition and the under-emphasis on SinoIndian competition could have been corrected. The perceptual distortions affected the thinking of several Western practitioners. For instance, Canada’s foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy failed to understand the role of China threat in the Indian decision to declare its nuclear weapons status in 1998 and dismissed it publicly even though Indian practitioners noted this key element in their correspondence with the White House and other leaders, and eventually the Clinton White House and the State Department came to accept the Indian concern. A few prominent Western writers did not widen their lens to examine the roots of the Sino-Indian conflict and chose instead to use their microscope to assess the root cause of the Sino-Indian border dispute. Neville Maxwell’s ‘India’s China War’ (1970) neatly shifted the focus on India’s conduct because he had access to the Indian documents and interviews with the practitioners and lacked this on the Chinese side; as well he served a purpose by pointing to Indian actions that caused the conflict in his view. The book is well documented and it provides a blow by blow account of the diplomatic escalation that led to war. It points out that Nehru, India’s main decision maker on China and foreign policy and military policy, did not acknowledge the existence of a border dispute, he insisted on talking but not on negotiations with China and the Indian government was not clear about the boundary line and the policy direction other than to seek friendly relations with China. The implication is that Nehru’s dominance of Indian foreign policy and the poor staff work by officials and an attitude that China would not dare attack India where the boundary line was clearly set caused the 1962 war. Maxwell does not recognize mistakes on the Chinese side which contributed to the war and the long-term conflict. In a similar vein John Gittings argues that the ‘root cause’ of the border dispute was India’s refusal to admit that a border dispute existed.7 Such a view is simplistic and one-sided. It confuses the immediate cause or trigger of a border war with the larger, complex contextual elements that shape a diplomatic, ideological and a military rivalry and conflict and that go beyond a border controversy; the former elements involve subjective perceptions about intangible intentions of the other side and the orientation of its foreign policy; the latter deal with finite ground reality. Both are real and both have to be dealt with ways to prevent the other side from developing an asymmetrical advantage. To balance the approach of Maxwell and Gittings my book points


Introduction

15

to Chinese activities before the 1962 conflict erupted that cast and shadow on Indian thinking. My aim is not to take away from Maxwell’s documented record but to add another side to it. China’s subversive activities in the ‘Indian’ border areas started when China became independent in 1949 and its actions made sense as a revolutionary power, and they contrasted with the Chinese emphasis on proper state-to-state relations. The two countries signed the agreement about peaceful coexistence in 1954 but this happened after a pattern of Chinese low-level intervention in Indian affairs had been established along with links with Indian communists and Nehru had instructed his Intelligence chief B. N. Mullik that Pakistan and China were the two designated intelligence targets for the Intelligence directorate. Since 1954 the principles of peaceful coexistence have not formed the basis of either Chinese or Indian actions except at the rhetorical level. Mao’s long-term strategy was to build China’s military and internal strength, to gain US respect, to support the ‘intermediate zone’ as a front in China’s anti-imperialist struggle, to cast India as an imperial agent and a feeble-minded bourgeoisie, but nonetheless a diplomatic competitor as in the Bandung conference (1954) which attracted considerable Third World attention and which also revealed the Sino-Indian competition and Zhou Enlai’s diplomatic coming out party and his use of charm diplomacy with the Third World countries. The position of China and India in the international system shaped their theoretical assumptions and their diplomatic methods. China was isolated from the major powers in the early 1950s and it fought a bitter war in Korea against a superior military force and with the aid of an unreliable ally, Stalin. In the 1950s China’s political leaders – Mao, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi, worked with a theory of contradictions that showed sharp polarities between China and the arch imperialist of the time, the US, and a deep suspicion of Stalin’s and Khrushchev’s Russia, a token friend but an unreliable ally. In this state China saw itself as a revolutionary power which India clearly was not. India was engaged instead with all kinds of major and minor powers in the North and South, East and West, and its aim was to reduce the animosities among the powers and in the Third World towards the ex-colonial powers. It was natural for Beijing to view Indian diplomacy in a negative light because of its proximity to two of China’s major polar points – Washington and Moscow. These differences indicate to me that Gittings’ view of the ‘root cause’ of the conflict is narrow. It confuses cause with effect. No doubt Nehru’s refusal to negotiate the border question with China (‘there is nothing to negotiate because the border is based on sound legal and historical principles and treaties’ is a paraphrase of Nehru’s views) contributed to the deteriorating tone of the boundary discourse between the Indian and Chinese leaders but the causes lay elsewhere. The devil was in the details of the international conventions and border maps but how these were interpreted and the timing of the escalation of a dispute indicated that the devil was in the regional and the international context in which China and India encountered each other during the Cold War, and thereafter.


16

Introduction

My analysis turns on a key assessment about China’s strategy and how it played out in relation to India in the 1950s. Gittings calls PRC’s approach as ‘Chinese super-confidence’ with a self-image of China as the ‘anti-imperialist hero’ and the anti-imperialist ‘front line’.8 Beijing’s approach was to highlight the polarities; Nehru’s was to diffuse them by building East-West and NorthSouth linkages and conversations. During the 1950s Chinese leaders set themselves up as the international hub of the anti-imperialist front. Nehru’s China related actions vis-à-vis the UN and the superpowers outwardly sought to argue that by bringing China into the global mainstream its excesses, that were based on a sense of isolation, could be tamed, and its reliance on Moscow could be reduced as Chinese nationalism asserted itself as the elemental force in Chinese foreign affairs. This was Nehru’s line in the 1950s. The 1962 war changed the Nehru/India line on China because the reaction of support by Washington and Moscow indicated the formation of an antiChina front, as did the shift in Indian public opinion from pro-China-ism to anti-China-ism (except in the declarations of Indian communists). In other words, China’s desire to form a firm anti-imperialist front against the US and the USSR was diffused by Nehru’s bridge building between the superpowers, by the development of a bilateral détente between them, and Beijing’s theory of exploiting contradictions lost its edge because of the aforesaid changes. The 1962 war led to front building on the part of the US, USSR and India vis-à-vis China, and it established a Sino-Indian military front in the Himalayas, and subsequently when China turned to Pakistan, a Sino-Pakistani diplomatic and front military was established vis-à-vis India. These developments and the diffusion process complicated front building by China against India in its relations with the superpowers and with India, but it facilitated front building with Pakistan against India. Hence the scorecard had mixed results. Having escalated the diplomatic rivalry into war in 1962, and this is true of Nehru’s actions as well, China’s escalation meant that it had reached the limits of its power and policy in its fight with India; it lost the diplomatic initiative when India declined to sue for peace or to capitulate to Chinese territorial demands. Sun Tzu, whom Mao admired, had argued that the aim of strategy was to disorient the enemy’s mind. The 1962 confrontation fixed the Indian mind to the danger of China to India’s security and its democratic and economic experiment, and it fixed the American and the Russian mind to the destructive consequences of China’s behaviour for the well being of India and Pakistan. Even if it is true that Nehru’s stubbornness in refusing negotiations on the border issue was the cause of the 1962 war and China’s action, Beijing had not thought through the long-term and negative consequences for itself of its decision to fight and inflict defeat on India. Alan Lawrance (1965) provides a good grasp of the root causes of the Sino-Indian rivalry since the 1950s. Beijing’s view of its territorial boundaries was a reaction to the presence of potentially hostile regimes given the past history of imperial manoeuvres in the Himalayan–Tibetan–Pamir region. Post-1947 India was ideologically distasteful to China says the author and it


Introduction

17

was tied to Western imperialism, the Chinese said publicly with reference to the Tibet controversy. The Bandung conference revealed the Sino-Indian diplomatic rivalry.9 I surmise from these assessments that Zhou Enlai and Nehru were manoeuvring themselves vis-à-vis each other and the superpowers so as to position themselves for future relationships. Both leaders played verbal games. Nehru maintained that no border dispute existed.10 This was false because China claimed in the late 1950s that a border dispute existed through the length of the border but in 1954 when Nehru raised the issue about the border maps of China, Zhou had said that the conditions were not ripe for a settlement and there was no time to study the maps and the issue.11 Here Zhou Enlai had been evasive in the mid 1950s while Nehru was positioning himself to avoid negotiations because of doubts within his government including the Ministry of External Affairs where he was the Minister. If Maxwell’s account is correct then India provoked the Chinese by its forward policy but the counterpoint is that the PRC proposed negotiations on its own terms and at a time of its choosing, and it denied the validity of the McMahon Line as a British imperial contrivance but weakened its argument by accepting it as the basis of China–Burma boundary settlement.12 China claimed that India ‘attempted to use armed force to make China submit’.13 Both claims are exaggerated because it is well known from standard Indian and Western sources that India lacked the military means in the 1950s to dislodge China’s forces from Tibet, and as Maxwell reports, the Indian military held to the view that its capacity was limited to manage the Pakistan front and China–India boundary required a diplomatic solution. However, it is plausible that India’s border manoeuvres which were controlled by the Intelligence Bureau of India (IB) with logistical military support were manoeuvres by a branch of the government which was locked into bureaucratic politics that pitted Prime Minister Nehru (who oversaw the intelligence branch) and the Intelligence Bureau and the Ministry of Home Affairs which nominally oversaw the IB against the Ministry of External Affairs and Indian Army HQ. Mullik’s study brings out this aspect clearly. Chinese diplomacy scored a diplomatic point with international audiences by its reasonable position14 that ‘pending future negotiations status quo should be maintained’. The problem was, which status quo, before India’s forward patrolling and establishment of listening posts in areas claimed by China, or thereafter? But despite these quibbles one point must be emphasized. Chen Yi15 said that there is no fundamental conflict of interest between China and India, that China did not see India as an enemy, that the border dispute was a ‘brief episode in the history of Sino-Indian friendship’. Chen Yi was completely wrong and here lies a justification for this book. Maxwell and Gittings evaluate the Sino-Indian conflict as a territorial, border issue. Lawrance sees it as an ideological, strategic and a territorial issue. Seen in broader terms one must consider the conflict as a topic where the two countries’ governments have worked to position themselves in the world system and the process of positioning and repositioning is ongoing;


18

Introduction

it reflects the effect of policies of other countries on the policies of India and China. My approach follows Lawrance although the details of Indian decision-making in Maxwell’s work shed light on Nehru’s leadership style (vacillating) and the lack of internal unity and consistency in the Indian government’s approach to China. My story begins in the 1950s. The rise of competing Sino-Indian views and interests in the Himalayan region and in global politics took into account the changing foreign policy orientation of the US and the USSR regarding China and India. Washington had a fixation with anti-communism in the early 1950s that ruled out accommodation with the communist states. Nehru objected to this rigidly ideological and militaristic approach and he argued that nationalism in the communist world was the fundamental element that suggested the presence of a fault line between Moscow and Beijing. Nehru was the first world statesman to point this out.16 Nehru was interested in the diffusion of power within the communist world and he was interested in the development of diplomatic space for a country like India (and other Third World nations like Egypt and Yugoslavia – the three founders of the Nonaligned Movement). Despite the American (Dean Acheson, John Foster Dulles) disdain for Indian nonalignment and Nehru’s starry-eyed view of China as a peaceful country there was a consensus in American and Indian views about the expansionist tendencies of the communist powers. Nehru’s conversations with US officials as recorded by State Department’s intelligence bureau (cited later) reflect a general consensus but there was disagreement about the likelihood of Soviet or Chinese expansionism, its timing and the use of diplomacy to weaken the Sino-Soviet alignment of the early 1950s. Nehru wanted the US government to recognize Chinese interests in Taiwan and the Far East; he sought US concessions which Washington declined to offer. For the US, China was a dangerous revolutionary power; Mao’s rhetoric confirmed this view. For India, China was a potentially expansionist power and dangerous if left alone, and bringing it into the UN system would expose it to global norms and make it responsible. For Nehru, UN membership would expose China’s leaders to global rules and it would reduce its manoeuvrability in Asia and the world. China’s leaders did not appreciate India’s diplomatic tactics and saw them as a trap. Mullik notes them as the Chinese assessment (cited later). Furthermore, for India the American policy of containment of communism was a luxury India could not afford. The American mainland was safe from China’s threat, and even if India formed an alliance with the US, the physical distance and America’s limited interest in India and preoccupation with the USSR could not insure Indian security. Being an immediate geographical neighbour of two communist powers to its north, and both had assets among the Indian communists, the Indian aim was to secure their neutrality as a minimum, and their cooperation as a maximum aim. The communist danger in India lay in the ability of the two communist states to build their political and subversive fronts within India and political fronts in the Third World that could hinder India’s autonomy


Introduction

19

and manoeuvrability in the Third World and in relation to the major powers. As long as India was making China’s case at the UN and with Washington India and China basked in the theory of peaceful co-existence. However, the honeymoon was short-lived, and mistrust crept in conflict and frontbuilding exercises on the Chinese and the Indian sides. This became obvious after 1962 but the process, and the underlying theory, was formed in the 1950s. Lawrance notes that the US set the pace in developing triangular relationships with China, first during the Korean War and then again in the Vietnam War when the US, USSR and China were tied together and acted in an interactive way with each other; they reacted to each other’s moves and formed and respected boundaries or limits in their actions. In South Asia India–USSR–US set the pace in forming first a diplomatic triangle that was meant to check China’s revolutionary impulses, and this became an ideological and a strategic triangle after 1962; in a diffused form this triangle still exists. The China–Pakistan–India triangle followed the preceding developments. It may be viewed as Beijing’s ‘defensive’ reaction to the rise of a complex diplomatic configuration that it did not understand and control, and the formulae of Messrs Mao, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi were not up to the task to settle the rivalry with India on Chinese terms. My argument in summary is that China and India provoked each other during the 1950s even as they talked about peaceful co-existence, their worldviews and interests were incompatible, both avoided serious negotiations to make a political settlement as the time was not ripe for either side, and when India made forward military moves, China escalated the tension by launching a war across the entire length of the Sino-Indian border and quickly defeated Indian forces. But the story has two complicated twists or unintended consequences. First, India gained the diplomatic initiative against China despite India’s military weakness by gaining the support of Moscow and Washington for its moderate policies in the world sphere, and for its evolving position on the China question. The die was cast in the mid 1950s. As India–USSR links grew, China’s mistrust of India and Soviet Russia too increased; by 1959–60 Moscow made a distinction between ‘friendly India’ and ‘fraternal China’ and its tilt towards India and against China’s military action consolidated the Russia–India–China triangle on the border question and generally in their foreign affairs. Russia was an active part of this triangle because it was the major arms supplier to India. America too was active in this triangular activity more as a diplomatic interlocutor and less as a military supplier to India. India lost the war in the Himalayas but it effectively changed the pattern of alignments vis-à-vis China, and after 1962 went on to alter the distribution of military and economic power in relation to China; India gained two diplomatic and military supporters while China lost support of the USSR and US. Second, China lost control over SinoIndian relations after 1962 when India declined to accept defeat and to capitulate to Chinese conditions.


20

Introduction

In this context the book takes a view on the sequence in which the three regional players formed and managed the triangle. How was the dance joined? What was the leadership orientation and style of each country’s players? What was the rate of change that led to conflict and conflict formation or stabilization? What is the process of learning or re-learning that has brought about a change from tight triangularity and expectation of a constant conflict and an expectation of loosened triangularity that indicates better conflict management with a ‘no war, no peace’ expectation? The story begins with Pakistan but the key players that shaped the history and current position of this triangle are China and India. Pakistan was the first practitioner of regional triangle formation because it had a strong interest in geo-political frontiers (Kashmir, Afghanistan), Islamic identity, anti-Hinduism and an anti-India attitude that reflected its insecurity. Pakistan had an activist diplomatic and a military tradition but it was weak and it knew that it could not act alone; it needed to borrow outside power to secure asymmetrical gain in a situation of asymmetry vis-à-vis India. In its diplomatic and military history Pakistan has secured outside support and military aid including nuclear assistance as a result of its links with the UK, US, China and friendly Middle Eastern countries. Pakistan has demonstrated considerable skill in ensuring the availability of outside power for its diplomatic and military aims against India. That it failed to defeat India or to balance it was not a result of lack of trying; it was a result of Indian countermeasures. The second leg of the sequence in which the three players joined the triangle occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Using the common enmity between Pakistan and India and India and China as the baseline, China turned to Pakistan, made a boundary settlement in Kashmir, and formed what came to be described as an ‘all weather friendship’. This involved significant changes in China’s policy towards India and Pakistan. It accepted the Pakistani view of the importance of self-determination in Kashmir. It accepted the Pakistani view that India was expansionist and sought regional hegemony. It transferred sensitive nuclear and missile technology and equipment to Pakistan beginning in 1982. It provided conventional arms to Pakistan, built defence industries in Pakistan and provided vital diplomatic support to Pakistan during the wars in 1965 and 1971. Also Sino-Indian relations reached many low points after 1962. The military situation in the border was tense and there was no attempt to resolve it. China opposed India’s nuclear and military development. It claimed an interest in regional stability in the area, a claim which gave it a foothold in sub-continental international relations and a legitimacy to act on Pakistan’s behalf and in opposition to India. 1962 was also a turning point in India’s diplomatic and military behaviour. It marked the reversal of Nehru’s peace policy and the rise of a new culture to build a national security orientation in Indian foreign affairs. It marked the consolidation of a process to build strategic ties with international partners,


Introduction

21

the major powers, who recognized the danger of China’s rise as a revolutionary power and who saw merit in India’s position as a status quo oriented and internationalist power and not simply a weak, status quo, internationalist country. However, these changes still left India in a defensive position because India was a front for a set of two kinds of opponents. Pakistan and China had territorial and diplomatic interest in their relations with India and sought to check India’s rise within the region and in the international sphere. India’s international partners in the West and Soviet Russia on the other hand supported India’s diplomatic orientation and its political system and economic aspirations but rejected its nuclear and military activities that threatened to alter the Indo-Pakistani balance and that pitted India against China as a military and a diplomatic competitor. Both fronts pressured India between the 1960s and the 1990s. India’s adoption of a geo-political and a military approach to strengthen its diplomacy occurred during this period and despite the pressure from the two fronts against its changing orientation. India’s nuclear tests in 1998 and its declaration of its nuclear weapons status was one culmination of the changing Indian approach and policy. Its effect was profound as it broke the international (Western, Russian, Third World) pressure on India to stay non-nuclear and deny itself the opportunity and the obligation to bring together its capacity to develop chemical explosives for its industrial development and nuclear explosives for its military development. Without the two basic ingredients of power a country cannot claim the right and the ability to escalate a conflict on its terms and at a time of its choice. The international powers understood the Indian message in 1998 and proceeded to stop building an anti-India front in the nuclear and diplomatic sphere. The adoption of the US–India civil nuclear agreement by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group in September–October 2008 was a major reversal of past practices to sanction and isolate India in the nuclear and high technology sphere and treat it as an international pariah. China was reluctantly dragged into the 2008 agreements following its failure to stall an international rule and game change in India’s favour. China does not like to lose face in the international community and when it became obvious that international opposition had faded against Indian nuclear weapons it came around and voted for the US–India nuclear accord. The book argues that a subtle shift is taking place from ‘tight triangularity’ of the 1960s to a ‘loosening triangularity’ from the 1990s as a result of three factors. First, China has reached the limits of its power vis-à-vis India because it cannot convert its consideration military and economic clout into asymmetrical gain against India. Second, related to the first point, India has the capacity to maintain a semi-equal position vis-à-vis China and it has the ability to manoeuvre vis-à-vis China and Pakistan because its orientation is status quo and internationalist. Third and finally, Pakistan is a key leg in the Chinese strategy to use a triangle as a front against India but it has become less relevant as it has lost its ability to keep India on edge, to maintain a


22

Introduction

balance of power with it, and instead it is preoccupied with a serious internal crisis from the Taliban and the difficulty to form a strong civilian government and democracy. Still, China is not ready to abandon the triangular approach and it maintains its position on the border with India, and it is expanding its naval activities and presence in the Indian Ocean while maintaining its strategic position in Pakistan through its access to the Karakoran highway and the Gwador port in the Arabia sea area. In short there is a game change but it does not represent an abandonment of the triangular game. In theoretical terms the issue is whether Beijing still seeks to build ties with India on the premise that it deserves to be a member of a subordinate states’ system with China as the hub in relations with India and Pakistan and other South Asian states, or whether China acknowledges India and Japan along with others in its advocacy of multipolarity in Asia and the world. The process of ‘loosening triangularity’ in part requires a mind or attitude change that bridges the gap between the talk of multipolarity and the actions which suggested a continuing interest in forming a set of subordinate states’ system that elevate China’s importance. Contemporary Western studies recognize the conflict of interests beyond the territorial question in China–India relations. These studies are more in line with Alan Lawrance than Gittings and Maxwell, but they do not assess the role of triangularity between the three countries and its importance as the core issue in South Asian affairs. Another set of recent studies are seeing a paradigm shift in Chinese foreign affairs as a result of the impact of liberal ideas, global norms and external pressures on traditional Chinese values. I take a sceptical view of this approach in studying the pattern of Chinese interests and actions in the present case. The post-Mao approach of China’s leaders indicates a tonal improvement but it is unclear if Beijing today in relation to India and Pakistan is different from the approach of Zhou Enlai. He emphasized the value of pragmatism, adaptability to a changing environment, yielding to others to gain strength, yielding and lying low and staying competitive; this was also Deng Tsio Ping’s advice.17 Moreover, China’s interests in the Himalayan area have a history in relation to Tibet, there are evolving interests in relation to Nepal, there is a history of territorial and political interests in relation to India’s northeast which China calls ‘Southern Tibet’, and finally there is set of strategic interests in building China’s international presence in the Indian Ocean area and this involves the development and projection of Chinese naval power. As such the presumption of this book is that China’s India–Pakistan policy is likely to maintain the approach of Zhou Enlai and Deng Tsio Ping. Mao’s strategy to attack the enemy’s flanks is also relevant to this study.18


2

1950s: From China–India pretensions and complicity to strategic contention

Introduction The complexities of the China–India relationships are the background to the formation of the China–India–Pakistan strategic triangle. Subjective and objective elements shaped these relationships. The objective elements were formed by a history of British India–China trade that included the infamous opium trade. Karl Marx is a reliable recorder of scale and importance of this relationship, its effect on the fortunes of the East India Company, and the policy of the British India government and London.1 The second objective element was the history of rivalries among the Chinese (Manchu, Nationalists and Communists), Russian empire, and British India empire concerning Tibet and Central Asia. Van Praag offers a detailed account of the role of Tibet (and Central Asia) as the strategic heart of Asia.2 The pre-1949 history is important because it formed the basis of the Mao-Zhou approach to liberate Tibet and to consolidate China’s national defences against foreign (Russian, Anglo-American and India) ‘machinations’. Tibet and Xinjiang thus became critical parts of China’s ‘Look South’ policy after 1949. Communist China’s geo-politically driven Southern policy is outlined in this chapter. The third objective element was China’s experience with the use of British India as a base to supply KMT (Kuomintang, the government headed by Chiang Kai Shek in China before 1949, and currently the governing party in Taiwan) forces by air over the Himalayas and by land through the China–Burma road. The existence of these channels of military communications sensitized Chinese Communist practitioners about the value of immunizing China from foreign pressures. As part of its ‘Look South policy’ it rebuilt and expanded these road links in the Himalayan region to reverse the flow of Chinese military power and commercial-political influences into the Subcontinent. The formation of military and commercial logistics from China to Pakistan (through air links and Karakoram highway) and by restoration and development of the old China–Burma roads between Yunnan province


24

Pretensions and complicity to strategic contention

and Burma represent moves to open up the Subcontinent to China’s influences.3 In other words, the Himalayan Mountains were a barrier against the flow of China’s influences into India only as long as Tibet was a buffer. This changed with its takeover by China in 1950, and thereafter the pre-1947 objective elements came into play as a result of Mao-Zhou policies. The subjective elements were important in shaping two patterns in Sino-Indian relations after 1949. The first pattern was formed by Nehru’s idealist view of the character and importance of China’s revolution, and Nehru’s dream to establish an Asiatic federation based on Sino-Indian cooperation.4 This was Nehru’s dream that clashed with the Mao-Zhou views that shaped their ‘Look South’ policies. Nehru’s friendly policy towards China and a dismissive attitude about Himalayan geo-politics in the 1950s reflected his idealism. China’s policy towards India and Tibet in the 1950s reflects its nonsentimental, non-idealistic geo-political calculations. The two competing worldviews clashed and exploded in 1959–62 when Nehru’s naivete was exposed by revelations of China’s actions and the existence of a boundary dispute. It also exposed a pattern of Nehru’s and his government’s complicity in facilitating China’s policies in Tibet and against Indian interests. Table 2.1 summarizes the pattern of Nehru’s complicity and betrayal of Indian interests. The complicity was made possible by a secretive decision-making culture in India that was entrenched in Nehru’s approach and in the political culture of the Indian government. This chapter outlines four points which are developed in this book. First, the orientation of Sino-Indian relations in the early 1950s showed Nehru’s role as an enabler of China’s takeover of Tibet by brute force without any advantage to India or Nehru. Second, the convergence between Chinese and Indian diplomatic theory about peaceful co-existence and Third World-ism was superficial; it hid sharp territorial differences and competing worldviews between Chinese and Indian practitioners that became public in 1959. Third, India emerged as the swing factor in Sino-Indian relations when the pattern of Nehruvian complicity with China on Tibetan affairs, along with Russian complicity with China and Western indifference towards Tibet’s plight was replaced by Sino-Indian contention on the border issue followed by a diplomatic and military rivalry, by Sino-Soviet contention in Central Asia, and by Western articulation of its view in the early 1960s that China was a destructive element in Indo-Pakistani affairs. Fourth and finally, once India after Nehru swung away from Nehru’s policies towards China, the strategic initiative was lost to China. To maintain its manoeuvrability in the Subcontinent, it was required to increase its intervention but it remains a costly exercise, and it has not produced asymmetrical gain to China as long as India took counter-measures. For China, costly intervention must go on as long as it is committed to its ‘Look South’ policy and attitude.

2. 1950

1. 1950 New Year

Date and event

George Patterson contacted US and British ambassadors in New Delhi about China’s intention to invade Himalayan states (29)

China outlined plan for ‘people’s revolution’ to unite Greater Tibet and to liberate as well Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and India (28)

Robert Ford heard Mao’s speech: PLA must liberate Tibet from speech on radio (14) British and American imperialists (14)

Tibet action

Table 2.1 China’s actions in Tibet and Nehru’s complicity, 1950–59

(Continued)

1. To explore Tibet as supply route to China following closure of China-Burma road 2. In 1949 to check out Tibet as a ‘bastion against Chinese Communism’ – (76) UK’s Tibet file closed in 1950 pleading uncertainty about Tibet’s legal position, as reason to defer UN action – (76) India and the UK knew about China legal basis to invade Tibet but declined to take a moral or diplomatic position against China – (76) (Tibet remained off the UN agenda from 1950 to 1959) (76) 1950–59 Russia provided military and political support to China’s claims and actions in Tibet

Britain: Tibet was remote, India was independent – little Britain could do to help Lhasa (24) India: urged Tibet to settle differences with China peacefully (25) US: refused to receive Tibet peace mission Nepal: declined to help Lhasa Britain: refused permission to Tibet peace mission to travel to Hong Kong to meet Chinese Communists (25) Foreign secret files on Tibet were closed for policy action. CIA’s file (1944–) had two reports by O.S.S. agents:

Foreign action


October 1950

17 October 1950

26 October 1950

Early 1950s

August 1954

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Date and event

Table 2.1 Continued

New York Times reported on uprising in Eastern Tibet, citing Formosa sources Guardian also reported the fighting (58–9)

Chinese road-building in Tibet started (52)

China announces war in Tibet (44)

Chinese forces move into Chamdo (Tibet) (43)

China attacks Tibet China received information from secret agents in Kalimpong that India, Nepal and Western powers would not aid Tibet; and Tibet had 8500 troops China’s military plan was to attack from the eastern and western Tibet (latter through Aksai Chin) (38–9)

Sept 1954 – New China News Agency published Dalai Lama’s speech that ‘close unity is growing daily among fraternal nationalities, in particular between the Han-Tibetan people; a new and peaceful and friendly atmosphere now prevails in Tibet’ (59) 1954–56 – Khampas take on PLA forces (68 also Ch. 7) 1956 – Dalai Lama praised Mao’s brilliance (72)

Dalai Lama’s peace mission denied fighting in Tibet (Kham) (43)

Tibet action


Nehru: ‘any differences that might arise between China and Tibet would certainly be settled by peaceful means’ (43)

Foreign action

November 1956

1958

8.

9.

1956

Khambas fighting showed failure of Mao’s Tibet policy and Beijing discussed problem with ‘Great Han’ chauvinism’ in Tibet (109)

Dalai Lama told Nehru that he did not want to return to Tibet. Nehru informed Zhou Enlai, he flew to Delhi and both Nehru and Zhou urged Dalai Lama to return to Tibet (93)

US government re-opened its Tibet file and established Taiwan – US cooperation to help the Khambas fight China (79–81)

Dalai Lama acted to outlaw Khampas and strip his two brothers of Tibetan nationality (102) Dalai Lama’s secret correspondence with Chinese general in Tibet criticized Khamba ‘reactionaries’ (125) and ‘evil elements’ (127) and sought Chinese ‘directives’ to him (128)

Dalai Lama condemned Khampas ‘rebels’ and urged them to lay down arms. He knew the situation but lacked strength to act (90–1)


(Continued)

India suppressed foreign reporting to Tibetan uprising, and colluded with China in its takeover of Tibet. 1950 – (88–9) India’s position (1954–) emphasized ‘Tibet as an integral part of China’ (108)

PLA attacked the Khambas using superior military strength

11. 19 March 1959

Tibet action

Source: M. Peisel, The Secret War in Tibet, Little Brown and Co., Boston, 1972

Tibet appeals to world through India’s consul in Lhasa to witness Tibet’s declaration of independence and cable traffic between India’s consulate and were suppressed by Nehru even within his ministry of External Affairs (139) In March 1959, Khambas organize Dalai Lama’s escape to India. Ch. 10, p 133 Nehru called Tibet’s appeal a ‘bazaar rumour’ – he called it a clash of ‘minds’ not arms (140) and insisted on prospects of its peaceful settlement (141)

10. 9 March 1959

Date and event

Table 2.1 Continued


Foreign action


29


Drivers in Indian and Chinese orientations Chinese and Indian diplomatic aims and methods differed but both had Asian characteristics and their approaches differed from mainstream Western orientation. To understand the purposes and methods of two continental states it is necessary first to grasp the context in which Indian and Chinese actions took shape. Their approaches were radically different from the theoretical orientation of contemporary Western literature. The language of mainstream policy and academic discourse centred on the interests of the superpowers, and the flow of philosophical and policy ideas, military communications and economic exchanges centred on an East-West axis. For China and India the academic and policy discourse emphasized Third World-ism, the issues of social, economic and political development and peace and disarmament. Although China was pre-occupied with its problems with Soviet Russia and the US during the 1950s it developed an international presence as a spokesperson of the Third World in a campaign against superpowers’ hegemony. China’s pre-occupation with India, Pakistan and the Himalayan areas showed its insecurity about a foreign and a dangerous world and a cultural superiority complex.5 Both motives led Communist China to adopt strong military positions against Tibet and India, and to push a China-centric approach to South Asian security. How did China develop these motives in forming a ‘Look South’ policy? How did India deal with the reality of a South Asian strategic triangle? How did the three members of this strategic triangle act to gain manoeuvrability vis-à-vis each and did anyone of the three gain permanent asymmetrical advantage? Or are the three states tied together in a strategic stalemate? In my narrative Nehru was a diplomatic catalyst as a result of his views and diplomacy relating to China’s and India’s importance in world affairs. But Mao was the military catalyst as a result of his decision to liberate Tibet in 1950 and to expand China’s presence in the entire Himalayan region. Mao took a great interest in the study of protracted war and deception.6 Both ideas are relevant to the study of China’s actions vis-à-vis India and Pakistan. Beijing employed other methods as well. Encouraging revolutionary activity in India’s northeastern areas after 1949 was meant to exploit contradictions between ‘Indian reactionaries’ and the Indian people that required ‘liberation’ with Chinese aid. Building a common front with Pakistan against India from the early 1960s showed the application of Mao’s united front strategy in Chinese politics. However, Maoist theorizing is of limited value in an academic study of an operational situation because the theory is incomplete and Chinese communists have not quite resolved their problem with contradictions.7 Following Karl Marx one would expect Chinese communists to develop a theoretical system of a thesis, anti-thesis and a synthesis in its internal constitutional, political and economic arrangements and in its external policies. Thus far


30


Chinese actions show a capacity to define a problem – for example about US imperialism, about Soviet imperialism, about Indian reactionaries, and then express the Chinese solution – for example about China’s ‘principled’ opposition to all three at different points in time. In 1949 Mao joined up with Stalin to form a friendship treaty to counter the US; later in 1972 Maoist China joined up with Nixon to counter the Soviet Union. A possible synthesis in these examples is that China is likely to maintain its opposition to other powers given its insecurity. In this case shifts are likely as a continuous process in China’s foreign affairs in response to the actions of its foes. Contention with India is inevitable in this case given the case history of their relationship since 1959. The China–India–Pakistan relationships represent an important sub-set of post-1945 Asia, a region of secondary conflict in the world system where the interests of all major powers are engaged. The region is the base of several major issues. This region holds several critical catalysts and issues that have global significance (e.g. terrorism, nuclear and missile proliferation, religious conflict, drug trade and smuggling, maritime competition among Asian and international powers). Road and air links form a strategic gateway for the flow of military power and commerce from Tibet to Pakistan and the Gulf area, from China to the Himalayan areas and Burma, and in the Indian Ocean. The Himalayan area is a point of diplomatic and military contention between India and China as is the Indian Ocean. My focus initially examines Chinese actions as it was the proactive military force in the region in the 1950s. Its takeover of Tibet in 1950 altered the geopolitics of the Himalayan area. Pakistan too was a proactive agent because of its rivalry with India but its role as a member of the triangle is a secondary one as it alone was not able to alter the distribution of power and the pattern of relations with India. The book pertains to developments in a geographical area that concerns the politics of China’s southern frontiers specifically relating to Tibet, Xinjiang, the Himalayan areas (Sikkim, Bhutan and Nepal), Kashmir, and northeastern India. The southern geo-political orientation indicates Chinese, Indian and Pakistani consciousness about frontier politics and foreign threats. Here, history, geography, leadership attitudes and policies, and international legal principles and treaties come together and form a web of diplomatic politics and political intrigue. China is viewed initially in the 1950s as the important player in the sense that its policies achieved the maximum rate of change: between 1949–50 from weakness to strength, from tolerating Tibetan autonomy because of China’s weakness to ending it by use of China’s strength, from accepting Tibet as a buffer between China, British India and Russia to ending the buffer status. Comparatively, Nehru’s India showed no awareness of the importance of projecting a geo-political view of Indian diplomacy during the 1950s until events in China–India relations forced India’s hand, and exposed the naïve basis of Nehru’s China policy. But once India joined the strategic game with China after 1962, rapid change in the


31

region was replaced by incremental change. Pakistan repeatedly sought a radical change in its relationship with India by its war behaviour but it failed repeatedly. As a result of policies that followed the Sino-Indian War of 1962 I argue that the strategic game was joined, and the rate of change slowed in comparison to the effects of China’s actions in Tibet between 1950 and 1959.


Importance of this triangle in International Studies The narrative is about the external relationships of three geographically and strategically connected countries – China, India and Pakistan. They have shaped the distribution of military power as well as the pattern of relationships – of war, rivalry, enmity, weapons proliferation, diplomatic alignments and the pattern of economic relations in a major secondary zone of international conflict since the 1940s. Their rivalry represents the inner core of the Himalayan-South Asian-Indian Ocean region. This rivalry and triangularity is a constant element compared to the variability of relationships between members of this triangle, and other states who are outside this triangle. This triangular relationship is emphasized in contrast to many studies that focus on Indo-Pakistani rivalry and relations with South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries. A focus on the triangular relationships has merit because of the intensity and durability of diplomatic and military interactions between the three. The Himalayan boundary was breached by Chinese activities in its southern frontier after 1950. For China South Asia is a gateway to advance China’s influence into the Indian Ocean area (Persian Gulf, the ocean itself, Africa and Southeast Asia). For India China’s activities must be countered to ensure that it does not gain an edge over India in any way. Indian practitioners see a pattern in China’s approach: to form three major strategic wedges between the Subcontinent and the gulf area, between the Subcontinent and Southeast Asia and between India and the Himalayan area. This strategy requires the projection of Chinese military power and diplomatic and economic influence into India’s major strategic flanks. This strategy was formed by China during the Cold War, and its implications were recognized by Indian practitioners, although most Western practitioners and scholars then highlighted East–West strategic issues and South Asia was seen mainly as an Indo-Pakistani issue. China and India recognized their rivalry in the 1950s, and both entrenched it in their diplomatic and military actions after 1962 vis-à-vis each other. The behaviour of Pakistan, India and China during and after the 1962 and 1965 wars recognized the presence of each other’s influence in South Asian diplomatic and military relations. Pakistan’s government expected China’s support against India in the 1965 and 1971 wars. They were disappointed because China was willing to offer military transfers and moral support but it was not willing to join the fight and bring in Russian and American counter-actions. Indians on their part recognized the danger of a two-front conflict – from Pakistan and China,

32



they took China’s declaratory threats seriously, but recognized an element of bluff and propaganda on this point given China’s diplomatic and military calculations. When US policy sought to engage China in the early 1970s, the Nixon–Kissinger visits to China provided an opportunity to form a US– PRC–USSR triangle. This triangle had an important side effect: it reinforced China’s diplomacy in South Asia. The Nixon White House and then the Clinton White House recognized ‘legitimate Chinese interest’ in South Asia. Washington and Beijing seemed to agree that India was expansionist and it along with Moscow, had to be contained to prevent a threat to peace.8 Influence of international change and domestic structure on Foreign policy Foreign policy and military policy making represents a continuous interaction between internal and external forces. Three variables are important. International changes create a swing element in foreign and military affairs because volatility throws up choices and dilemmas. Second, a closed or an open decision-making system affects the quality and the integrity of the decision(s), and the ability to correct past mistakes. In my case study each country’s decision apparatus represented a closed system for my period of study (1949 – early twenty-first century). I highlight this feature rather than the fact that India is a democracy, China a communist state and Pakistan for most of its history a military state. In each instance the mindset of the dominant members of the political class shaped the policy line and led to distortions based on imperfect knowledge about the enemy, a concern with the shortterm immediate issue, and utter disregard for the destructive consequences of policies that were adapted. Each case is striking on this point but India’s case is most glaring because it is a democracy. Its policy making reflects an insular and a close-minded elitist culture. The dominant belief was that a small coterie of leaders (or a leader like Nehru in the 1950s) and his/her trusted advisers knew best, and there was no need for a public debate. A stringent Official Secrets Act has reinforced the existence of a closed foreign policy system. India’s Pakistan and China policies were formed in the 1950s and distortions had lingering effects. Nehru’s China and Tibet policies in the 1950s revealed mistakes (see discussion below) that facilitated the inclination by China and Pakistan to exploit Indian weakness. Indian errors became the ally of its enemies. Nehru’s China and Tibet policies reflected his egoism and the problem of a closed foreign policy system that lacked a systematic internal intra-Ministry, inter-Ministry, and intra-Parliament and a national public debate. The closed nature of the foreign policy system is evident by the fact that Indian, Chinese and Pakistani diplomatic archives are still closed beyond the normal 30-year period. The third variable concerns the balance/imbalance between subjective and objective foreign policy behaviour. While practitioners are no doubt concerned about objective elements like geo-politics, enemy threat, historical



33

experiences and worldview, a problem arises if they function in a small, closed, personality-dominated government that is lacking the habit of foreign policy making which reflects internal debates and institutional checks and balances. Under the cover of secrecy practitioners in India, China and Pakistan were able to play games with their own people and with foreign governments. By games I mean engagement in activities that entail deception, evasiveness, unwilling to negotiate when an opportunity exists and before an issue becomes an intractable problem, engaging in provocative behaviour, following irrational and poorly thought-out actions with utter disregard of consequences. Such actions produce unanticipated and destructive consequences for one’s own political future, and the country’s well being and its external relationships. Practitioners play games in a closed system because they have opportunities to act without a proper consideration of the common good. In a closed foreign policy system, risks of exposure of mistaken policies are minimal in a non-crisis situation; the fear of punishment of poorly conceived policies is minimal. As a result, the balance is tilted towards subjective and unrealistic calculations in policy making. Here two processes emerge. In closed foreign policy systems game playing flourishes absent a domestic or an international crisis. But the destructive consequences of ‘bad policies’ become obvious and politically intolerable when an externally imposed crisis occurs that produces an internal crisis or a dilemma. The existence of false suppositions of a leader are exposed in a crisis. In this case a closed system is opened to public scrutiny and debate, and a leader or an official has to pay a political price for the failed policy. That is, it takes a crisis to moderate the excess influence of subjective egoistical and careerist considerations that produced the imbalance between subjective and objective calculations. Following a crisis, game playing is exposed and the influence of objective, geo-political, and worldview considerations gain ground. In other words, while game playing and geo-political, worldview considerations are in continuous play in a closed system, the balance of power between the two is tilted towards game playing in a pre-crisis mode; and the balance shifts to the other side following exposure of a failed policy. This formula explains the game playing by Nehru in his China and Tibet policies in the 1950s, and the shift towards a realistic assessment of China’s intentions and capacities after 1962 by Nehru’s successors. I suggest that China, India and Pakistan were at fault in playing games with each other in terms of their methods, purposes and actions which had the characteristics outlined earlier. Game playing reflects the dark side of human conduct and international relations. Although the mix of subjective and objective calculations varied in each case, game playing showed the presence of, and in the Indian case the dominance of, the subjective element that took years to correct. Let us turn briefly to the examples of the games played in the 1950s by India, China and Pakistan that led to the formation of the triangle in the 1960s.

34



1950s: Mistaken methods and purposes and their destructive consequences Recall my theme – in closed foreign policy systems there are opportunities to play political (domestic) and diplomatic (external) games and to build a structure of diplomatic and military policy on a pattern of mistaken assumptions, expectations, methods and purposes. The difference between success and failure lies in a retrospective analysis about effects of actions on a country’s interests, on the level of power achieved and the stability and harmony in its external relationships and internal politics. Shifting the direction of movement in relationships is a measure of success/failure. In a relationship of conflict success is indicated if hostile relations are moved by diplomacy and/or military action to a position of neutrality or indifference by the enemy, or if the rivalry is moderated or deflected from a collision course into a positive outcome. Failure is indicated if peaceful relations are transformed into open rivalry or conflict. My premise is that practitioners in China and India expected a rivalry to exist between the two given their strong and competitive civilizational backgrounds and worldviews, but military conflict was not inevitable. The choice was either to keep the rivalry secret and muted, or to open it up and negotiate or dictate a political settlement, or to allow it to rise to the level of a military conflict and open rivalry that was manageable. Recall my second theme – that practitioners follow a mix of geo-political/ national interest calculations and personal/careerist considerations in their diplomatic and military formulations. In peacetime personalized and subjective judgements on crucial matters tend to predominate when practitioners lack experience and wisdom in dealing with outside forces. They believe what they want to believe, and not what the evidence or signs may suggest. It takes a crisis to shift the balance towards a better appreciation of the objective, geopolitical considerations. But even then the policy pendulum may switch from one extreme to another. A policy shift is driven by a concern to react to an outside event (by an outside force and beyond one’s control) and by incensed domestic public opinion that is also beyond leadership control. In the case of Nehru vis-à-vis Mao/Zhou Enlai in the 1950s the shift went from the extremity of ‘policy of friendship’ (whose basis was utopian, not geo-political) to one of ‘no negotiations over the border’.9 In Nehru’s case, the methods, purposes, assumptions and expectations carried an emotional rather than a rational bent and lacked a regard for the necessity to match means to ends, to match ends to knowledge about the nature of the enemy, to balance intuition (Nehru’s) with knowledge; Nehru’s was superficial, and internal sceptics of Nehru’s policy such as V. B. Patel and G. S. Bajpai were ignored or sidelined.10 Balancing intuition, knowledge and action is a major problem as T. E. Lawrence pointed out in his masterly Seven Pillars of Wisdom.11 In Nehru’s China policy there was more of intuition and false suppositions than knowledge and effective action, and policy action and comment in the 1950s was often based on wrong headed thinking.



35

In other words, subjectivity and objectivity co-exist in different ratios in different policy situations. In a crisis the subjectivity is reduced as a result of external and internal pressures and the rise of countervailing forces that inject a fear of punishment against wrong policies. The result is a world of competitive co-existence at all times (in situations of war and peace, or of secret or open rivalry) between the subjective and the objective forces that reflect imperfect knowledge as the base of policy action. It is necessary to continually adjust subjective views to objective conditions but this is not an easy or a natural task for opinionated, argumentative, old and tired leaders as were Nehru, Mao, Zhou Enlai and a succession of Pakistani civilian leaders like Z. A. Bhutto and generals. The structures of Chinese, Indian and Pakistani leaders’ worldviews and the ratio of subjectivity/objectivity in the mix of intuition/knowledge/action defined the pattern of their diplomatic and military actions vis-à-vis each other during 1947 and 1949–50s. Their actions validate my two themes. The China–India–Pakistan strategic triangle was formed and gained regional and international practical significance after the 1960s as a result of a major shift in Chinese attitudes and policy towards India and Pakistan; up to the 1950s China relied on bilateralism and its version of a policy of friendship with India. Beginning in the late 1950s and thereafter it placed India in a situation that it had to deal with two diplomatic and military fronts and threats – China and Pakistan. India was on the defensive in both the regional and the international spheres as it was economically and militarily weak, and the aid it received from the West and USSR had conditions which tied India to their goodwill. But at the same time China’s practitioners viewed Nehru’s actions as a threat to their interests. However, the formation of this triangle in the 1960s was not a break from the past. It was built up on attitudes and patterns of behaviour that were apparent in the 1950s. Despite its preoccupation with the Korean War in the early 1950s, China held a historical view of the importance of its southern frontiers. It distinguished between Inner and Outer Asia12 and it sought to consolidate Beijing’s position in Inner Asia that included Tibet and Xinjiang, and with that secured, it sought to expand its influence into Outer Asia. The latter area included the British sphere of influence south of the Himalayas that independent India inherited. China’s impressive military victory in its civil war with the KMT and its fight with Japanese forces reinforced the desire to bring all Chinese frontiers under its influence. So the geo-political impulse was strong in Chinese politics and external affairs generally, and particularly in terms of China/India/Tibet relations. The Tibet question was also connected to the Taiwan question as recovery of its provinces was a core part of Chinese political and military declarations after 1949. The 1950s revealed a process of temporary convergence between Chinese and Indian postures vis-à-vis each other, as noted earlier in this chapter. Both sought peaceful co-existence and a policy of friendship. For China this was the second track of a multi-tracked policy; the first track was its belief in the


36


importance of secure frontiers in its southern zone, and they were to be secured by military means, a policy reflecting the Maoist theory that power came from the barrel of a gun. Its actions altered the history of Tibet as a buffer between British India, Russia and China. It made China and India into direct geographical and military neighbours. However, the loss of the Tibetan buffer did not undermine Nehru’s belief in the possibility of peaceful co-existence between the two. Nehru found comfort in a mistaken belief that the two were Asian civilizations with a vaguely common interest in Buddhist influence, trade and scholarly contacts, and thousands of years of friendship. This belief was meant to promote the Indian doctrine of building an Asian federation around Sino-Indian friendship. Here Indian subjectivity was at odds with the reality of China’s push to assert its presence in its Inner Asian frontier and to project it as well in the Outer Asian zone. The reality was that China and India historically lacked constant social and political ties in contrast to the contacts between Indians, Afghans, Greeks, Persians and Muslim invaders since the eleventh century AD. For Nehru, policy of friendship with China was the main policy track, and there was no need for a military track with China as the expectation was that no one would dare attack India for fear of starting a global conflict. No doubt Nehru had a streak of geo-politics when he continued the British policy to watch its interests in Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim. By 1949 British India treaty relations in these areas were confirmed in treaties between India and its northern neighbours but this was a subset of the Nehruvian over-commitment, to the theory and practice of policy of seeking friendship with Pakistan and China. This policy was maintained despite Pakistan’s military intervention in 1947–48 in Kashmir and Chinese military intervention in Tibet in 1950, and Chinese efforts to undermine Indian authority in the Himalayan zone and in India’s northeast in the 1950s. Chinese policy had a third track in its approach to India during the 1950s, that is, to intervene in India’s border areas. Indian practitioners were aware of the dangerous nature of Chinese policy.13 Yet Nehru maintained his policy of friendship with China and set severe constraints against Indian military modernization in relation to China (or Pakistan) because of his faith in pacifism and his anti-Indian military and anti-military stances.14 Nehru also believed that a conflict with China was not imminent. In sum, in hindsight, four tracks formed the structure of China’s India policies. The first represented a strong cultural-historical geo-political orientation towards its southern zone, which was a point of continuity between its imperial past and communist policy. The second was a temporary diplomatic phase of peaceful co-existence, a possibility in the Chinese view, if India accepted the reality of its subordinate position in the Chinese view of its central position in the Southern zone – the Himalayan area, as per its geopolitical ideas.15 The third track was not evident during 1950–59; it emerged in 1962 when China sought to settle the border dispute by force. The alignment with Pakistan in the 1960s became the fourth track but this too was not



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evident in the 1950s except in a peripheral way; following the Bandang conference Pakistan received a Chinese message to indicate that a conflict of interest was likely with India but not with Pakistan. Pakistan was smaller in size and power compared to China and India but its methods and purposes indicated that it was the most proactive, the first one off the mark to stimulate triangular ideological, diplomatic and military activity vis-à-vis India. Before its independence, as it developed the Pakistan movement, it mobilized the British Raj to accept the view that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations, they could not work together politically, and the situation required British recognition of Muslim parity with Hindu India in the development of constitutional and political arrangements in the Subcontinent. British India happily accepted this view. The Pakistan movement was the first step to form a triangular relationship between the British Raj, Muslims in the Subcontinent and Hindus. The British rulers of India and Jinnah, the leader in the Pakistan movement saw the Hindus as the dominant force in the Indian Congress party.16 Mobilising British practitioners to the defence of the Muslim minority showed the importance of triangularity in Pakistani policy. Their strategy was to develop a British and Muslim identification with a theory that was part falsehood and anti-historical (that Hindus functioned as a majority and represented a threat to minorities); and part truth (that the Congress party showed an unwillingness to share power with Muslim leaders in the formation of pre-1947 Congress-led ministries). Then came the tribal invasion of Kashmir (1947–48) under Jinnah’s sanction. This action militarized the Kashmir region and created a new situation to secure further British sympathy and diplomatic support for the Kashmir cause in London and at the United Nations. In other words by 1948 Pakistan has succeeded in turning London to support its positions in two ways: first came the theory that Hindu–Muslim conflict was inevitable and Hindu India was a threat to regional peace; then came the theory that the Muslim minority and weak Pakistan required Western support. By 1947–48 Pakistan’s influence lay in London, not in Washington. This was a truly amazing period that showed how a smaller country could set the international strategic agenda and to shape the local situation despite its asymmetry in relation to the UK and India. Pakistani diplomacy laid the basis for securing British diplomatic support for its Kashmir cause at the UN. Triangularity existed in the interactions among Pakistani, British and Indian practitioners at the military and diplomatic levels of action. Pakistani military and diplomatic activism on the Kashmir issue was matched by UK’s activism in support of Pakistani aims on the international diplomatic front at the UN Security Council. India’s last Viceroy and the first ‘Indian’ Governor General Lord Louis Mountbatten played a key role in developing this pattern of interdependent triangularity. The Indian government was locked into the policy framework and the military situation formed by Pakistan’s Jinnah, Whitehall, and India’s Mountbatten and Nehru. Mountbatten stopped Indian military planning and action against Pakistan once the UN was seized of


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the issue. As head of India’s Defence Council with strong decision-making powers, Mountbatten functioned as an independent pole of power within India but his actions showed coordination with London. His actions helped Pakistan’s cause militarily in Kashmir, it protected Pakistan from an Indian invasion which he noted would mean the end of Pakistan, and by tying Nehru’s hands to Security Council action following his advice to Nehru to refer it to the UN, Indian diplomacy and military policy were both stalemated in Indo-Pakistan relations and on the world stage at the UN.17 At this point (1947–48), in the hands of President Truman and Secretary of State George Marshall the US government maintained a balance position about Kashmir and Indo-Pakistani affairs. Pakistan tried but it failed to bring Washington around to its view about the threat from India. As early as May 1947, after the Cold War started and before Pakistan became independent, Jinnah asked US embassy officials in Karachi to form a mutually beneficial strategic relationship with Pakistan given the danger of ‘Hindu expansionism’ and ‘Soviet imperialism’.18 Washington did not respond positively but later, with the rise of Dean Acheson as the Secretary of State and a pro-Pakistani set of officials at the State Department under Assistant Secretary George McGhee, the UK–Pakistan versus India triangularity was reinforced by the emergence of the UK–US coalition in support of Pakistani security interests in Kashmir and Indo-Pakistani affairs; this was reinforced by a UK–US belief in Pakistan’s use as an ally in Middle Eastern international relations.19 Beijing was to join this pattern of triangular diplomacy in the Subcontinent later and to adopt its key assumptions and implications. Pakistan’s relations with the US and UK soured in 1962 as a result of Pakistani resentment with Western military aid to India following its defeat by China. Initially China was cautious in accepting Pakistani overtures but when it became clear that it had a relationship of conflict with India and there was no conflict with Pakistan, the two recognized the community of interests in opposing India. In the early 1950s Beijing was mostly indifferent to Pakistan as its focus lay with India but the ground was laid by Pakistani assurance to Beijing that its membership in Western military alliances were not directed at China and were framed in terms of the Indo-Pakistani conflict. It was after the rise of Sino-Indian controversies that the Sino-Pakistan alignment emerged. Three factors shaped the convergence. Indo-Pakistani disagreements were a necessary first factor; it created opportunities for outside powers to become involved in Indo-Pakistan affairs in response to local invitations (by Pakistan), as a response to the referral of the Kashmir question to the UN by Nehru, and finally, by Western fear about the spread of communism as a strategic threat to Western interests in the region. US activism on behalf of Pakistan, in favour of Indo-Pakistani parity and security and against the spread of communist influence in the area was the second factor that shaped the triangularity in relationships between Pakistan, the US (acting with the UK) and India. By the 1960s and the 1970s China’s willingness to support Pakistan was the third factor. The embrace of strategic



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triangularity by China as a successor to the UK–US is discussed in a later chapter. My concern here is to make the point that Pakistani practitioners were able to borrow external power and support in three core areas – ideology of a Muslim state, its military policy and its diplomatic interests – despite or because of the asymmetry in the distribution of actual or potential power between India and Pakistan. Pakistani leaders, like the Chinese, held well-defined ideas and policies about the importance of frontiers.20 Both valued military force and diplomatic aggressiveness as ways to assert power and to create situations to tie India’s hands and tie Indian practitioners to Pakistani and Western policies in Kashmir and Indo-Pakistani affairs; and in China’s case to tie up India to Chinese policies in Tibet and the Himalayan areas – the long Sino-Indian border, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) area. Both lacked Nehru’s idealism and enthusiasm to promote global reform and internationalism. Their policies were dominated by unemotional realism that showed the primacy of each country’s national and institutional interests. Nehru’s India was tied to a general theory about the importance of world peace, avoiding the Third World War, and building the Third World through development and as a peace zone in a world of conflict. Indian policies and values also emphasized several national priorities that had a practical bent: internal economic and social development and promotion of Indian democracy and secularism; internal security and the defence of the Indian political Union. Nehru’s lack of realism was evident however, in his Pakistan and China policies, in his worldviews and his amateurish conduct of foreign affairs and in the lack of professionalism in the Indian Foreign Service.21 The mix of idealism and realism was unbalanced in the foreign and military affairs of the principal players in the Subcontinent. It was tilted towards idealism in Nehruvian India; and it reflected realism in Pakistani and Chinese actions towards India. The mental images and worldviews about India among practitioners differed from Nehru’s. Prominent Pakistani practitioners had the dream to restore Muslim glory in India22; and Chinese practitioners had the theory of liberating Indians, labelled as a ‘running dog of the AngloAmerican imperialists’ by armed struggle and revolution.23 Also, Mao’s military writings express an idealistic view of world peace following successful armed struggle. Their diplomatic and military actions of the 1950s and 1960s showed a commitment to deeply held beliefs and leadership views about their respective national interests. The sharp divergence of leadership beliefs and policies was established during the 1950s and this led to serious consequences for India’s regional and international position in the 1960s onwards. Initially with Western aid and later with Chinese support, Pakistan set up India using Nehruvian naivety and self-importance to create dilemmas for Nehru himself and India; Nehru’s mistakes became the ally of Pakistan and later China. Nehru’s India however, did not have a strategy to set up Pakistan and China with dilemmas. The Indian dilemmas did not become apparent during the 1950s because the


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decision-making machinery was closed and a crisis did not arise till the late 1950s when the dilemmas became apparent. The 1950s however, is important because the setups occurred during this period, and their destructive consequences became apparent later, as did the reality of the triangle between China, India and Pakistan. The character of the policies of China, India and Pakistan and the worldviews of their leaders in the 1950s led to the formation of the triangle among the three. (Chapter 3 outlines the characteristics of a strategic triangle.) It was a culmination of a pattern of actions and reactions by the three countries. The 1950s were important because major shifts and trend lines emerged at the time. The agreement on peaceful co-existence and a policy of friendship, 1949–54, was a point of Sino-Indian convergence but this quickly became a point of divergence, mutual suspicion, rivalry, and border controversy and military conflict between 1959 and 1962. For the most part indifference characterized the Sino-Pakistan relationship in the 1950s despite Chinese questions about Pakistani membership in Western military pacts. Indifference between the two became a point of convergence-border agreement in 1962, and a policy of friendship with economic and military content thereafter. The 1950s was notable because US military aid to Pakistan from 1954, and its pressure on India to make concessions to Pakistan on the Kashmir issue, reduced India’s manoeuvrability within the region and in its international diplomacy. Beijing’s open embrace of Pakistan’s view about the importance of self-determination in Kashmir (but not in Tibet or within Pakistan and China), its threat to develop two military fronts against India, and the development of a long-term triangular pattern of Sino-Pakistani pressures on India in peacetime and in war further reduced India’s options. The conduct of each country’s leadership in the 1950s validates my two main themes – that foreign policy decision-making is flawed as a result of the dominance of a closed system (closed to critical inputs, to national debates, and sober assessment of ends and means and the need to build the latter to support the former), and second, leadership behaviour shows a mix of subjectivity as well as geo-political calculations but the mix of idealism, emotion and national interest is unbalanced, it is driven by imperfect information, and in a situation of war or peace the mix of the three elements is unbalanced, volatile and never in equilibrium in the foreign policy sphere; there is no point of calm. Decision makers in all three countries played strategic games that were hidden from public scrutiny and they were outside the realm of public discourse except in a moment of crisis. As closed systems they suffered a deficit of internal checks and balances. Serious consideration was not given to long-term damaging consequences of policies – to others and to themselves. Each decision maker felt compelled to do something in response to the other’s side’s actions and to take advantage of the external situation but little thought went into the recognition of the dilemmas that their actions created for themselves and for others, and the likely public reaction to such dilemmas. Short-term management of an issue and maintenance of a situation of



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manageable instability was the guidepost for policy action but this approach did not create a foundation for a peaceful relationship. Consider several examples of strategic games that were played in my case study. On China, Nehru’s policies had three sides: idealistic, opportunistic and realistic but the three were intertwined, not easily separated, their boundaries were unclear, they were poorly communicated by Nehru among Indians and the Chinese, and his actions oscillated between the three sides. The results were deadly in the long term for Nehru’s career and reputation, and in the short term for Indian diplomatic and strategic interests. He followed British policy by maintaining a special position for India in Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim. Treaty relationships with the three kingdoms were negotiated in 1949. British policy in the Himalayan area had two premises; that China’s influence and power in the Tibetan/Himalayan area was weak and British interests were served by the reality of Tibetan autonomy and by acceptance of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet as a safeguard against Russian expansion in the area. Both premises changed in 1949–50. With the rise of a strong China the Tibetan foundation of British buffer policy was lost to Nehru as a result of China’s aggressive military occupation of Tibet in 1950; this was beyond Nehru’s control. But he accepted and facilitated China’s military takeover of Tibet and accepted its sovereignty whereas international lawyers believed that Tibet had independent or at least an autonomous status.24 He ignored the long-term implication of Tibet’s takeover for China’s India policy and their consequences for Indian security interests. His policy actions were in his control, and here he bungled the Tibet file badly – which had costs for the Tibetans, for Indian interests in the region, and for the future of China–India relations.25 Nehru appeased China on Tibet and having failed to satisfy its appetite for liberation of the area from Indian and other foreign influences, Nehru compounded the process by failing to re-assess his China policy in 1950 despite pleas by his deputy Prime Minister, V. B. Patel and Indian diplomatist, G. S. Bajpai. By making it easy for China to absorb Tibet without major international political costs, Nehruvian India feeds China’s (Maoist) beliefs about their cultural and military superiority in relation to Indians, and their territorial rights in the Himalayan area that were based on Nationalist China’s claims rather than a sound reading of the historical record. Nehru’s idealism was expressed in several beliefs: about a peaceful, selfabsorbed China that needed time for internal reconstruction; his theory about China and India as the pillars of Asian security; his belief in promoting China in the international fora to avoid its international isolation so that it did not become dependent on Moscow; his opposition to the US’s containment of China (and containment of Soviet Russia) policy; his belief in peaceful co-existence as a model of modern international relations; and his push to secure China’s rights in the UN. These idealistic beliefs reflected a romantic view of a new and influential China which along with a new, modern India


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would form the basis of a new power structure in the world comprising the US, USSR, China and India. Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia, the Arab, Jewish and Persian Middle East, Africa and the Americas did not find an important place in Nehru’s list of future power centres; they were important in the campaign against Western imperialism and colonialism and racialism and as the focus of a new zone of international peace but they were not likely principals in Nehru’s calculus of world power. This however, was not pure idealism; it had a hidden policy agenda, an element of opportunism to serve Nehru’s and presumably Indian interests in relation to the Big Powers: Nehru’s ambition was to make India join this list. I call this ‘realistic opportunism’. Nehru was playing an intricate diplomatic juggling act, by playing the China card in shaping his relations with Soviet Russia and the US, by playing the Soviet card in shaping his relations with Beijing and Washington, and by playing the US card in shaping his relations with Beijing and Moscow. Nehru’s India was the swing factor in the international diplomatic dance, and it is to his credit that he made Delhi a point of contact and interaction on a variety of important international questions. This was an achievement for a poor country with limited military power and economic capacity. During the early 1950s India worked well as a diplomatic swing factor because of the mutual suspicions among the practitioners in Washington, Moscow and Beijing and because India was a useful interlocutor when the three had limited contact with each other. Nehru’s India played an important role in international negotiations concerning the Korean armistice, Suez peacekeeping, Indo-China negotiations and disarmament discussions during the 1950s and as a moderator in East-West controversies. It gained valued economic and military aid and technical assistance from both Western and Eastern sources by using its nonaligned stance to develop its swing capacity in relation to the Big Powers. Nehru’s career and international prestige blossomed in the early 1950s as the political founder of India and of modern Indian diplomacy. The combination of idealism and policy calculation worked as long as international circumstances were favourable for Indian diplomacy. However, despite the idealism about China and world reform, and his realism in asserting India’s rights and presence in the three Himalayan kingdoms south of Tibet, his Tibet policy and his approach to the SinoIndian boundary question revealed another side of Nehru’s actions – neither realistic nor idealistic. We see Nehru playing games with himself (his mind), with fellow practitioners and the Indian public, with the Chinese and with the general international community. Game playing involves use of lies or half lies, deception, misinformation, evasiveness, talking but not negotiating, and showmanship without careful consideration of costs (material and psychological) for regional stability and international opinion. Game playing is not good governance and it is not effective if policy success is defined as an ability to protect a country’s physical borders, its internal political and economic structure, and its external orientation.



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The Kashmir issue is relevant to my discussion. Usually it is discussed in the context of bilateral Indo-Pakistani relations but it should be studied as well as a part of the Sino-Indian relationship after 1962. Its geographical proximity to Tibet made it an attractive target for Chinese intervention. The demand for its independence, autonomy or takeover by Pakistan, and international pressure on India to settle the issue, made it a field of China’s power politics once it decided on a policy of rivalry with India. In these circumstances it became a part of China–India equation in two ways. It gave China a platform in its triangular strategy. By taking Pakistan’s side Beijing created a pressure point against India. Beijing’s leaders took advantage of Nehru’s pacifist orientation by taking a strategic view of the Kashmir situation, as it did in Tibet; its actions showed the difference between China and India between Nehru’s talk and inaction, and Chinese actions against which India had no defence. Nehru’s approach to the Kashmir and Tibet questions in the 1950s revealed the vulnerability of Nehru to external influences and an ability to dominate a closed foreign policy establishment where he held sway. Both elements played to India’s disadvantage in the Himalayan region in the 1950s. The former because external inputs were game changers in Indian foreign affairs; the latter because a Nehru-centric foreign policy retarded the development of a balanced foreign policy framework. The legal issues in Kashmir (1947–) and Tibet (1950–) were arguable; the moral issues were similar – human rights and political and cultural freedom of the people; finally, should the use of military force, in this case by an agency outside the area, be the basis of change? Nehru reacted differently to both cases. He took the Kashmir issue to the UN but he refused to do so with the Tibet question. Both were policy mistakes that worked to China’s advantage and India’s disadvantage. Yet there was a similarity in Nehru’s handling of the two issues. In both cases his policy pronouncements lacked conviction as demonstrated by his oscillating stance and private musings. Nehru, the father of Indian diplomacy, was often of two or three minds on the same issue, and his vacillation was his enemy’s opportunity to act and to exploit the situation. Nehru’s Kashmir policy showed that he was of many minds. These cannot be black boxed because his views shifted in time depending on domestic and external circumstances. His actions showed a mix of emotion, realism and idealism. He was unwilling to give up Kashmir to the UN or to Pakistan under pressure because of his emotional attachment and background as a Kashmiri Brahmin. He was unwilling to give up Kashmir, but he was willing to talk about it under international pressure without negotiating its surrender. During 1947–48, his decision-making indicated that he was open to persuasion and manipulation by his mentor Lord Louis Mountbatten but he ignored the advice of his military commanders and his deputy Vallabhai Patel. His actions showed a lack of geo-political realism and a strategic view of Kashmiri and Indo-Pakistani politics. Instead they showed idealism: a belief that the UN Security Council would deal fairly with the Indian


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complaint about Pakistani aggression recognizing the reality of Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India. He was being legalistic and moralistic and ignored the reality that by referring the issue to the UN Security Council as a threat to international peace and security, he had internationalized the issue. This background is important to my narrative because it was the context in which China first maintained neutrality on the Kashmir question during the 1950s and gave priority to bilateral Sino-Indian ties, but later shifted to a total acceptance of Pakistani views on the subject. To sum up, Nehru’s foreign policy record on China and Pakistan and Kashmir indicates much game playing, and an utter disregard for the destructive strategic consequences of his actions. Nehru made a distinction between talking but not negotiating with Pakistan regarding Kashmir, and with China on the border. This approach produced speeches and distractive noise, while the lack of serious negotiations with intent to settle on the basis of the principle of compromise and compensation meant that game playing dominated the political field. By appeasing Beijing on the Tibet question, Nehru lost the high moral ground for India in relation to the Tibetans. By over-promoting China in international circles, Nehru lost diplomatic leverage with an Asian rival, and the goodwill of the US. By overplaying the theme of a peaceful China and by ignoring India’s defence buildup in the 1950s, Nehru set up India for a fall in 1962. By insisting on a one-man dominated foreign policy machinery Nehru retarded the development of external relations that recognized the value of diplomacy as well as military and economic strength. By keeping Indian Parliament and public opinion in the dark on critical issues relating to China during the 1950s, Nehru undermined one core element of a democratic society, that is, maintaining accountability and transparency about policies relating to the common good. In other words, Nehruvian game playing had serious strategic consequences for Indian decision-making practices and the policy framework. His actions revealed a mix of egoism, opportunism, dreaming, a limited view of geo-politics and a distorted view of Indian interests and diplomatic methods. He failed to recognize the importance of proper methods to deal with foreign rivals. There was a fixation with personal diplomacy as an alternative to military strength. There was a faith in industrial development as the mainstay of national power, and a naïve belief that no one in the world would dare attack India because it was protected by outside powers, and such an attack would be considered a threat to world peace. China’s approach towards its southern zone (Tibet, Xinjiang, Himalayan kingdoms and western and Eastern sections of India’s China border (the five fingers of the ‘Tibetan palm’ according to Mao-tse-tung were Ladakh, Bhutan, Sikkim, NEFA and Nepal))26 was the product of a complex historical and a cultural context. Its policies had a mix of geo-politics, and a leadership style that showed an utter disregard for sentiment of other peoples and human rights, and showed instead a determination to exploit opportunities to act in China’s interest. In the 1950s Chinese practitioners were in the



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driver’s seat. They had an ideological and a cultural conviction about their superiority and about the inevitability of success following their rise to power in a large and fragmented country. Moreover its counterparts in the southern zone lacked a strategic plan to engage the Chinese government on their own terms and they lacked the military strength to act decisively. Its worldview placed China at the centre of the world, with a strong sense of cultural superiority in relation to other peoples – the ‘barbarians’. Combined with limited world experiences in developing rewarding and durable international economic and strategic relationships, and a history of war and humiliation at the hands of foreign powers, communist Chinese practitioners functioned with two contradictory impulses: an over-confidence based on their culture and entrenched ethnocentricity, and on the other hand an insecurity as a result of its vulnerability to foreign interventions. It had a strong sense of territoriality; it adopted as a given the national boundaries of the Nationalist government and it maintained its ‘principled’ opposition against territories gained by British and Russian ‘imperialists’ through war and unequal treaties. After 1949 Maoism and Zhouism showed the two sides of Chinese policies. The first aspect of its external orientation stressed liberation theology and the value of revolutionary interventions. Here propaganda and political mobilization were more important than diplomacy. The latter relied on the principles of compromise and compensation to adjust conflicting interests among governments while revolutionary violence stressed action against established government(s). Precisely when Moscow was abandoning revolution as the basis of its foreign policy, and it was developing state-to-state relations with the Western and Third World governments, Maoist China maintained its revolutionary stance into the 1950s and the 1960s. The second aspect, associated with premier Zhou Enlai’s diplomacy entailed an opportunistic use of the peaceful co-existence stance in inter-state diplomacy. India’s conduct on the Tibet question raised the confidence of China’s leaders in their ethnocentric beliefs, and the easy acceptance by the world community of China’s view that Tibet was a part of China. Because the UK and US deferred to India’s position on Tibet, Nehru’s acquiescence was useful for Chinese policy on Tibet. The 1950s was not a period of Chinese learning except that the Zhouist line adapted to the Nehruvian language of peaceful co-existence and Beijing sought a negotiated settlement of the northeastern border – the McMahon Line.27 The Zhouist line took advantage of Nehru’s advocacy that China was a peaceful-loving and internationalist country. Nehru was wrong to ignore signs about China as a destructive force because its theory of revolutionary violence was at work in India’s northeastern area precisely when the two countries were propagating peaceful co-existence. Indian diplomatic practitioners overplayed the China factor in Asia, ignored the Japan factor and criticised the US factor. Nehru projected a worldview with four major powers – the US, Russia, China and India. China however, had no place for India in its scheme of world powers. It saw itself in a world of three major

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powers that excluded India and Japan. In hindsight the Zhouist adaptations were clever and opportunistic. They hid the reality of the rivalry with India in the regional and the global spheres.


Theory: difficulty in resolving contradictions in Sino-Indian relations S. B. Cohen emphasizes the effect of a country’s locational perspective on its foreign policy and its mythology, that is, its view of facts as seen by its ruling elite and as conveyed to its internal and international publics. Myths are often half-truths but they are real because they filter the inputs and shape the outputs of a country’s foreign policy. Whether or not myths change depends on the pressure of a crisis in internal and/or international politics and its effect on national decision-making. According to Cohen Chinese egocentrism produced a threefold locational perspective based on the theme of geographical and cultural unity locally/nationally in the Central Kingdom, and a desire to manage the regional environment – comprising the Inner Asian zone and the Outer Asian zone (and other frontier zones). The historical boundary of the Inner Asian zone included the geo-political areas in the Himalayan–Pamir– Kashmir areas mentioned above. Tibet was the political junction where Russian, British and Chinese power meet, where several interlocking territorial and power rivalries existed – that is, Sino-Soviet, Sino-Indian (earlier British Indian), Indo-Pakistani and Sino-US. My study projects that the Chinese theme of geographical and cultural unity of its national frontiers depends on Beijing’s ability to control its frontier zone(s) by political consent (trade, diplomacy and moral suasion) and by use of force in its frontier zones. Its control over its frontier zone, that is, Tibet and Uighar areas since 1950 has been exercised by military force, by mass Han migration (demographic engineering) and by political manipulation of ‘foreign devils’ or the ‘barbarians’ to induce acceptance of Chinese national claims. These policies are required to nourish the myth of territorial and cultural unity in the frontier areas. It is necessary for Chinese authorities to push its influence in the outer Asian zone because, as Cohen points out, having a pro-Chinese Outer Asian zone is vital for the integrity of its national geographical and cultural space and mythology. This explains (but it does not justify) its aggressive actions in relation to its border areas (e.g. Uighurs) and its national areas (Tibet and Taiwan). In other words, there is a connection between Beijing’s control over its national geographical and cultural space based on Nationalist maps and its management of its Outer Asian zone because the latter has the potential to infringe on the national space; the influence of the periphery on Beijing’s authority in inner Asia is a part of Chinese insecurity. Chinese actions in the Himalayan-Tibetan area since 1950 are consistent with Cohen’s analysis. The ‘national-regional’ nexus is important in the study of Chinese methods and aims. Following its defeat of Japanese and KMT forces in a civil war in China, China was tied to major international issues in the Korean peninsula



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(a hot war), in the Far East as a result of the US’s military presence in Japan, Taiwan and the Taiwan straits (a cold war) and as a result of its desire to assert itself in the Himalayan zone (a rivalry that became a hot war). It had to deal simultaneously with challenges in its national and its regional space; the latter sphere was dominated by two major international players – Russia and America. Its confrontations in two major conflict zones in its north and its south were managed with a complicated baggage: ethnocentric culture and a tradition of forceful action; and a revolutionary attitude based on Mao’s thoughts and a belief in the power of human will in war. This was Beijing’s rule set that shaped its actions. But on the other hand, Chinese practitioners had a limited knowledge of practical world politics other than their relations with Stalinist Russia. The locational perspective of Chinese practitioners is more developed and entrenched in China’s history and politics. In comparison Indian practitioners historically lacked cultural and political unity and lacked consciousness about Indian geo-politics. (Kautilya’s ‘Arthasastra’ had a view of local geopolitics and neighbourly rivalries but Hindu kings lacked an all-Indian geo-political orientation; Mughal and British empire-builders however, had a geo-political view of India’s strategic place.) As a result of the asymmetry between Chinese and Indian (and between Pakistani and Indian) geo-political and cultural belief systems, Chinese and Pakistani actions had the advantage of pro-activity vis-à-vis India, and a disadvantage in unwinding deeply held but erroneous beliefs about rivals. In such cases it is difficult to adjust the balance between subjective beliefs and objective realities. Absent a process of adjustment, the contradiction and tension between subjective and objective considerations is likely to persist and grow. The book argues that the contradictions have grown in the PRC’s India– Pakistan policies because contradictory impulses exist in China’s conduct and it has thus far failed to resolve them. China’s tilt towards Pakistan and its rivalry with India is tying Beijing into policy knots which required settlement by a protracted struggle within China’s political elite about the China and India questions. For example its alliance with Pakistan in the Himalayan zone was meant to put pressure on India by creating two military and diplomatic fronts against it. This pressure, however, stimulated counter-measures by India and its international allies. India learnt to manage the two-front threat by increasing its military modernisation without sacrificing its democratic system and commitments to internal nation building; and the major powers came to India’s defence against Chinese pressures. Moreover, in the long-term perspective Pakistan is a debilitated state, it cannot deliver military victory against India to China, and its internal viability is doubtful unless it substantially reforms its political structure and sheds military rule. Pakistan is now known for its ability to export ‘made in Pakistan’ terrorists and nuclear materials and missiles made originally in China and North Korea. Even with significant Chinese aid and a record of irredentism Pakistan has failed to change the regional structure of power and the pattern of relationships.


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Pakistani threats to India have been contained by Indian and international actions, and China’s role has been exposed as a harmful one to the global effort against nuclear and missile proliferation. Left unresolved the contradictions produce oscillating or ambivalent actions that cause apprehension about the wisdom of the PRC’s decision-making apparatus. I submit that Beijing has not thus far mastered the dialectics in its foreign affairs because Maoist or Zhouist theoretical guidance was deficient. As a result the process of adaptation has been slow in China’s case. In India’s case the rate of change vis-à-vis China and Pakistan was rapid following lessons it learned by confrontations with her two neighbours. I will show that short-term gains have emerged as long-term problems for China, and hence I call them mistakes. For instance, China participated in the Korean War in part to defend itself against General Douglas MacArthur’s actions, in part because of Stalin’s direction and in part to break up the US–Japan alliance. As a result of its military intervention the US–Japan relationship solidified, and now Japan is a military rival of China, and North Korea is emerging as a potential US partner in the Korean peninsula. This is not a victory for communist China that at one time dreamed of unifying the Korean region under the North and bringing it under Chinese protection. Similarly, whatever the causes of Sino-Indian confrontation, Chinese actions turned the Indian political class and the people against China and the 1962 war did not settle the rivalry between the two; it intensified it, politicized and militarized it and it led India to turn to Russia and America in its strategic and economic development. China emerged as the point of opposition in the policies of the three countries. Sun Tzu would disapprove the formation of an anti-China orientation in this case when his advice was to disrupt the enemy’s alliance, not to foster them. The book argues that China faces an uphill task in dealing with the Sino-Indian–Pakistan relationships because its policies have a rigid framework. The three countries exist in a core geo-political area. They are tied together strategically as well, but the rate of change of the process of adaptation and re-learning for each country is different. India started to change in 1962 with the failure of Nehru’s China policy; and Indian public opinion forced the Indian practitioners to recognize the importance of military and economic strength as the basis of Indian diplomacy, and to use the tools to engage China and Pakistan from a position of strength. While Indian practitioners changed their orientation after 1962, Chinese practitioners saw no need to do so. The international situation – the US’s need to play the China card to offset Russian ambitions and China’s importance in the US–Soviet– China triangle, gave it room to manoeuvre in the international sphere. There was no imminent pressure on China by India or by the US to change its policies in the Subcontinent. The Nixon–Kissinger–Clinton policy of according China legitimate interests in the Subcontinent gave it a special position and manoeuvre space in the region. Thus Beijing did not need to change its policy; neither did Pakistan which enjoyed Chinese and US support. But with


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changing Indian and US policies in the region, China’s room to manoeuvre is not guaranteed.


Summing up My case study provides a rich universe of policy mistakes, of widespread use of bullying tactics, half-truths and myths in an opportunistic way especially in the 1950s; they produced short-term gains and long-term dilemmas for the three players. The menu of policy mistakes included the following. Nehru charmed fellow Indian citizens by his foreign policy positions. He succeeded for a while as a result of his personal popularity with the Indian people along with popular apathy with foreign and military affairs and the support he enjoyed from careerist foreign office personnel. On Kashmir and the India–China border Nehru was deceptive and evasive; he repeatedly made a distinction between talking with the opposite side but not negotiating differences with it; the first was a matter of form, the second a matter of principle according to Nehru. Such Brahmin-like subtlety muddied the diplomatic waters and created mistrust rather than build confidence for conflict resolution. He tried charm and evasiveness with Zhou Enlai but here Nehru’s charm failed him as the history of the border controversy and its buildup to a war showed. It is significant that both Nehru and Zhou Enlai used the myth of a thousand years of friendship as the basis of their declarations about peaceful coexistence. Policy mistakes lie undetected until a crisis occurs. Once discovered a policy error becomes a point of opposition within a country; as such it requires remedial action. In this case, a closed and subjectively driven foreign policy system gains openness. Policy mistakes become powerful agents of academic and policy discourse when they create a public identification about the existence of a problem that must be addressed; and there are political costs attached to inaction by the government concerned. Policy mistakes show what practitioners ought not to do. They serve as a road map for future actions and the development of means and methods to shape a desired pattern of relationships with friend and foe. Rivalries and mistakes are catalysts of policy development to reorganize the distribution of power and the pattern of relations, in this case of China, India and Pakistan. Mistakes are important not when they occur but when they are publicly exposed because governments control their mistakes when they become costly to the practitioners in crisis. In this case, Nehru, the Indian Cabinet, Indian civil servants, Pakistani Presidents, its generals and civil servants, and Chinese leaders and members of their diplomatic and military services had immunity against public pressure to explain and to reform their policies during the 1950s because they were able to act secretly in closed systems for the most part. During the 1950s Nehru was also using charm to woo the Chinese by appeasing their interests in Tibet, by pushing their case for UN membership


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and by projecting its position in the Third World. This was the pattern of Nehru’s conduct from 1950 to 1959. But when border difficulties and controversies emerged in the second half of the 1950s Nehru tried to intimidate the Chinese by supporting Tibetans in their opposition to Chinese rule, and by denying that there was anything to negotiate on the boundary question. But Nehru’s forward policy in 1961–62 crossed the line from the Chinese point of view and it resulted in the 1962 war and military defeat for India, and Nehru’s reputation lay in tatters. Finally, in the first half of the 1950s Chinese leaders too used charm and intimidation vis-à-vis India. By promoting the myth of thousands of years of friendship and peaceful coexistence Zhou Enlai was using soft words to placate Nehruvian India and the Third World, but simultaneously China adopted a policy of low-key, low risk to China, and a high risk to India policy of supporting insurgent groups in India’s northeastern areas, along with claims that a border dispute existed. Chinese diplomacy with India during the 1950s was deceptive (charming) and opportunistic, but its policy of ‘people’ to ‘people’ support in the Indian northeast along was meant to disturb India’s authority in the area and the stability of the Indian Union. These actions led Indians to think that China had crossed lines in terms of the accepted principle of non-intervention in modern inter-state relations. Was China’s India policy successful? The test of a country’s diplomatic and military prowess lies in its ability to alter a rival’s domestic structure and its external orientation to its advantage. Chinese leadership actions during the 1950s turned India around from the Nehruvian faith in a peace policy to a policy based on military and economic development, and from a policy based on working with China to a policy that sought military and economic alignment with the Western world in part to check China’s expanding presence in India’s strategic neighbourhood. At the same time China was unable to alter India’s domestic structure; it remained committed to democracy, internal economic and social development, internal security and the integrity of the Indian Union. These core values and aims remained unchanged while external relationships changed to China’s detriment. In each instance, the policy mistakes of the practitioners showed a tendency to over-reach, to cross important red lines of the other side, and to reveal clearly to the other side the nature of the problem. With this background Chapter 3 outlines a theory about triangles which helps us understand South Asian triangles: Pakistan and the US vis-à-vis India in the first instance (1947–54, then India, China and Soviet Russia (1949–54), and finally, India, China and Tibet (1950–60)). The players fell into three categories: 1. Nehru’s China and Pakistan policies did not recognize the importance of triangular diplomacy in strategic affairs, indeed it did not recognize the importance of geo-politics for India. The importance of the China–India–Tibet strategic triangle remained unrecognized by Nehru and his inner circle of advisers. 2(a). On the other hand, China’s India and Pakistan policies showed an understanding about the China–India–Tibet



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interface along with the involvement of Soviet Russia and the US in the field of power politics in the Central Asia/Himalayan/Pamir zone. Its policy had a geo-political basis. 2(b). Pakistan too understood the importance of strategic triangle(s) in developing its regional and international position. It did so initially by joining up with the US in 1953, and later with China. Also, China and Pakistan recognized the importance of military strategy as the basis of their diplomacy, and of the volatile strategic context in which it had to function. 3. Tibet occupied the third category. On the one hand it was the centre of geo-political gravity in the Himalayan region; but on the other hand it was militarily powerless against China and mostly friendless in the area and in the international sphere. It became a part of a strategic triangle because of its location, and ended up as a victim of the great game that emerged after 1950.


3

Theory of strategic triangles and its relevance in the Indian subcontinent and Himalayan Zone

The conduct of external relations as a part of a strategic triangle is a frequent, not a rare occurrence in international history and politics. What are strategic triangles? Why are they formed? What do they do? Are states the sole type of member of a triangle or can non-state organizations participate in its activities? A triangular (or a multipolar) relationship between countries is strategic when polarities are deeply entrenched and the issues in conflict are either settled by war – as in the case of Nazi Germany versus the US/UK and USSR triangle during the Second World War; or there is a prolonged confrontation that involves military preparations and military fights, ideological and status disputes and diplomatic controversies, as in the case of relationships between China, India and Pakistan. In the former case, the shelf life of the triangle was short, ending in victory for the Allies and their military and diplomatic interests and their opposition to Nazi values; this triangle was strategic because it had a strategic aim to defeat the rise of Nazism and the threat it posed to the West and Soviet Russia interests, and it was strategic because it produced a massive restructuring of the domestic and external orientation of Germany and Japan following the end of the campaigns in Europe and Asia. In the latter case an endgame is not in sight, the contention among the three countries is prolonged and dangerous, it has an escalatory potential but the division of economic and military power among the three countries precludes dominance by one or the other side. In the former instance, a triangle was formed to deal with the imminent danger of Nazi aggression and it was addressed by a war strategy that had an endgame. In the latter instance the triangle was formed because the diplomatic and military aims of the three countries that are involved in the Himalayan conflict zone (that includes Kashmir, Afghanistan, the SinoIndian border, 4000 km long which is the longest contested border in the world, and Himalayan kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh which China calls ‘Southern Tibet’), and the fourthparty Tibetans in Tibet and Tibetans in India (Chinese and Indian Tibetans who are a separate but related entity) have significant differences.


Theory of strategic triangles

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Whether or not a triangle has a long or short shelf life depends on the following circumstances. In either case a diplomatic-military triangle arises when practitioners possess a geo-political view of the international situation or its external affairs, when irreconcilable differences exist between the vital interests of the countries concerned, when power is divided and there is an expectation that neither side can prevail by fighting alone but neither side can be indifferent to the actions of its rivals. Participation in a triangle is the efficient or perhaps the only way to pursue one’s interests by borrowing the power of likeminded allies to deal with a stronger enemy along with a buildup of a country’s economic and military strength; that is, a recognition that a country is not able to pursue its interests unaided is critical to the formation of a triangular relationship. In the first case the war strategy of the Allies restructured the domestic and international orientation of two major industrial powers – Germany and Japan; the distribution of power and the pattern of relationships was altered in a significant, hence a strategic or a long-term way. In the second case the Sino-Indian war of 1962 did not settle the rivalry between China and India, just as Indo-Pakistani wars failed to settle Indo-Pakistani rivalry, but the 1962 war had a strategic or long-term effect: it altered India’s diplomatic and military orientation towards China and later towards the Sino-Pakistani alignment. While the three countries continued to develop their escalatory potential and military and economic capacities vis-à-vis each other, none of them saw value in fighting a war to the finish. Within the framework of their prolonged – in actual time and expectation of the practitioners – contention they found diplomatic ways to regulate their conflict relationships to a manageable level; this implied neither victory through a war strategy nor peace (harmony or absence of mistrust and tensions) through a negotiated settlement. Triangles develop an end game if the combined power of the allies is sufficient to defeat the enemy, and the triangle can be used as a closed system with limited membership of the principals. This is a short hand description of the triangular activity of the Allies in the Second World War. The main work was done by the Allies and proxies such as the French resistance, played a supporting role. The aim was strategic, that is, to defeat Hitler’s armies and to create a new order in Europe. The method was to rely on warfare to secure a resolution of the danger. The result too was strategic, that is, it altered the domestic politics and foreign policies of Germany and Japan to correspond to American interests. The Sino-Indian–Pakistani triangle shares similarities with Martin Wight’s theory and with the general orientation of a strategic triangle but some salient differences should be noted. It has the attributes of a triangle as noted above – the adoption of geo-politics as a basis of foreign policy, existence of irreconcilable differences, buildup of economic and military strength, attention to the actions of rivals, a reliance on policies to build pressure on each other rather than to settle vital issues by negotiations, and finally, to borrow


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external power to balance the rivals even as the countries build their strength. The differences however, are significant. This triangle is not based on an expectation that war or a negotiated settlement is imminent; rather an atmosphere of no war, no peace is the mainstream expectation. War is not a realistic option because the 1962 war did not resolve the controversy between China and India, and instead it exacerbated the rivalry when China sought to build Pakistan into the status of its proxy against India. In my case study, regional proxies (India’s neighbours) play an important role as a line of pressure, and as such the triangular system is not closed to the principals or the Allies as in the Second World War. Another difference is that my case does not appear to have a discernable end game and it has a long shelf life. Still it is an efficient way to organize regional rivalries in the Himalayan and South Asian and Indian Ocean zones of contention. The case study is different because it deals with geographically connected neighbours who possess geopolitical views, who have policies to mobilize their economic and military capacities in a dangerous neighbourhood that offer challenges as well as opportunities to them. Lastly my case is different because it brings into play a non-state actor – the Tibetans in China and those in India. The assumption is that the interface between Chinese and Indian Tibetans is likely to continue post-Dalai Lama or even if Beijing continues to refuse negotiation with the Dalai Lama about autonomy for Tibet. The theoretical implication is that strategic triangles deal primarily with state actors but the involvement of nonstate actors (the Tibetans and supporters of Tibet in the world community) is not excluded if the issues raised by the non-state actor(s) is a part of the diplomatic discourse among nation-states. My study recognizes the important role of strategic triangles in two of the three phases of evolution of diplomatic and military relationships in the region that extends from the Himalayan to the Indian Ocean areas and is currently the centre of NATO involvement in Afghanistan, a nasty insurgency in Pakistan, spread of Islamist forces into China’s southern zone, insurgency within India, military and naval competition among the sub-continental players and repositioning by the three members of the triangle in relation to the region and the external powers. The first phase centred on the Himalayan area and revolved around the policy of British India in the nineteenth century to maintain a stable buffer zone in the Himalayas that took into account the policies of Tibet, China and Russia as well as British interests. In this phase all the players held a geo-political approach even though their military strength varied. In the second phase, Nehru (1947–62) generally rejected publicly the balance of power approach, choosing instead an emphasis on peace diplomacy and a quest to build bilateral ties with China and Pakistan. Nehru’s approach was dysfunctional compared to the geo-political impulses in the policies of Pakistan and China vis-à-vis India and the major powers. The third phase, 1962 to the present, is ongoing. It has a robust character, the rivalries between China and India, and between India and Pakistan, are institutionalized, they are not likely to unwind soon and the geographical



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sphere of diplomatic and military operations of the three members of the South Asian triangle is likely to grow because the practitioners are now conducting themselves in geo-political terms. The balance of the chapter seeks theoretical guidance from Martin Wight’s work and refers to the pre-history of the current South Asian strategic triangle. Two historical experiences are relevant. The British India–Tibet–China triangle dominated British India’s policy in the Himalayan area in the nineteenth century. This three-cornered relationship was driven by strategic concerns, it was expressed in treaty terms, and it showed a consciousness among British, Tibetan and Chinese/Manchu practitioners about the triangularity and the implications of their actions and the nature of the relationships in the power politics of the region. Even though the triangular relationships did not lead to war, the military, legal and diplomatic aspects showed the relevance of triangularity. This triangle was terminated by the British withdrawal from India in 1947. The second triangle was a legacy of the first but it had a short shelf life. British India was replaced by Nehru’s India. The latter lacked a geo-political vision and a concern with frontier politics in the Himalayan area. Moreover, the strategic situation in the Himalayan area after 1949 differed from the previous period. China under the Manchus was a weak power in Tibetan politics in the first triangle. After 1949 Communist China displayed both military strength and a political will to use brute force to force the Tibet question. China’s military takeover of Tibet, Nehru’s acceptance of Chinese sovereignty, and Tibet’s inability to mount military resistance against Chinese rule crushed Tibet’s autonomy. In other words, the first triangle was organized by British India and it ended with Britain’s withdrawal from India. The second one ended quickly with China’s takeover of Tibet. However, we should study the second triangle because the question of Tibetan autonomy is a controversial issue in modern international diplomacy. China’s rule presently does not enjoy Tibetan consent. As the process of internal political reforms evolves within China, Tibetans may gain autonomy if there is diffusion of power within China. Moreover, post-Nehru Indian practitioners now recognize the destructive consequences of Chinese policies in the Himalayan area. In other words, China is physically strong in Tibet but weak in terms of its legitimacy, and India now is thinking more along the geo-political lines of British India strategists. As a result the game in the second triangle is not over. The seeds of this triangle are, in my view, dormant, not dead. Martin Wight did not inquire about a South Asian triangle but its existence can be extrapolated on the basis of Wight’s features of triangles. The fit is not exact but it is close enough to merit consideration as per his terms of reference. The difference, however, between Wight’s approach and ours should be set out. Wight saw a triangle as a finite process like a tennis championship with rounds one and two, semi-finals and a final. A strategic triangle to him was a three-cornered relationship with rivalries and conflicts of interests

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among three power centres of comparable calibre. This relationship would likely move towards a military duel and monopoly of power for one winner (the tennis champion). The system had specific features: it existed as a system of states (either a suzerain states system or an independent states system – discussed later); there was regularity of diplomatic intercourse. The relationships were based on mutual suspicion, tension, rivalry, hostility that made it impossible for the two to combine against the third. Wight argues that triangles are resolved by war and there is a tendency towards shifting alliances and negotiations.1

Distinctive features and results of the Sino-Indian–Pakistani triangles Before I review the early history it is essential to set out the differences between Wight’s approach and ours. My case study has two bipolar components: India–Pakistan and China–India; the Sino-Indian–Pakistan triangle is based on the two bipolarities. The two bipolarities are cause; the triangle is effect. Remove the cause and the triangle loses its effectiveness. The implication is that the triangularities are rigid when the bipolarities are firm, and conversely, weakening in the latter, loosens the triangularity. The bipolarities are firm when there is a fully developed ideological clash between two civilizational/political cultures: in this case it involves Muslim versus Hindu, and Chinese versus Indian cultures and strategies. The militaries on both sides (India–Pakistan, and China–India) are fully armed and ready to confront a military crisis, so neither has an advantage; and diplomatic traditions and actions among the three reveal a long-standing rivalry. In my scheme there was attempted resolution by war – as in 1947–48, 1962, 1965 and 1971 among members of the triangle. Diplomatic and military encounters continue to occur among the three as in Wight’s scheme but they do not lead to a monopoly of power as Wight expects. Wight views a triangle as a closed system, that is, no external power(s) can move into the system and alter its balance. To quote: ‘It is in a closed system that a triangle or duel can be best identified and observed. In open systems such political constellations are ragged and transient’.2 This throws up an important difference and a point for development in my analysis. My case study reveals that the system tends to be closed between India/Pakistan; India/China; and the China–India–Pakistan triangle in peace time. But it invariably opens up to international pressures and interventions when a war erupts and a danger to regional and world peace emerges. In my case study, there is a pattern of great powers and UN Security Council intervention in each South Asian war but when the danger passed with the establishment of a ceasefire, it reverted to its closed position. The theoretical guidance is that a regional war that threatens world peace is a trigger that opens up the closed system to international interventions but the opening is a passing phase.


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My case study deals with three complexities that affect the dynamics of the triangle in South Asia. 1. The nature of the triangular system is closed as well as open. 2. The members of the system function as either suzerain or sovereign types and their position may change during the life of the triangular system. 3. Finally, the triangular system may be unstable or stable; and it may move from an unstable to a stable condition, and towards loose triangularity in the latter case. To a discussion of these aspects we now turn.


The pre-1947 triangle The Sino-Indian–Pakistani triangle was formed as a result of the effects of three developments: the state forms of India and China changed in 1947 and 1949, respectively; the geo-political context of South Asia underwent a radical change following the breakup of British India; and the character of India’s foreign policy changed under Nehru. In the pre-1947 history the first triangle consisted of a strong British India with a history of active involvement in Afghanistan, Himalayan and northeastern Indian frontier politics and a pattern of geo-politically driven diplomatic and military engagement with external imperial powers – Russia and Manchu China. The second member of the triangle, Tibet had a history of autonomy, a consciousness about its cultural and religious traditions, and it sought political independence in relation to historical pressures from Manchu rulers in China. This attitude prevailed up to 1912. Tibet had an awareness of its diplomatic and political position in the triangle, and British India provided a balance to Manchu and Russian pressures on Tibet. The relationship between British India and Tibet recognized Tibet’s autonomy. But there was an ambiguity in British Tibet policy. Manchu China was the third corner of the triangle but it was not deemed to enjoy sovereignty in Tibet in British policy. Treaty relations between Tibet, China and Britain defined Tibet’s autonomous position. To ward off Russian pressures, and in recognition of the ‘patron/guardian’ (China) and ‘religious mentor’ (Tibet) relationship between the two, Britain was willing to accept Chinese suzerainty over Tibet ‘only on the understanding that the latter was autonomous’.3 In sum, the pre-1947 history represented a complex strategic – legal – diplomatic – cultural mix of interactions. 1. Autonomous Tibet possessed a religious and a political culture that resisted Manchu (and other foreign) pressures and later Chinese pressures. British India accepted this arrangement. 2. British India participated in imperial politics recognizing Tibet as a point of pressure in Russian and Manchu-Chinese policies that had implications for British India interests in its northern frontiers. 3. A weak Manchu China recognized the importance of security of its frontier in relation to Russia and British India, it recognized a connection between developments in Mongolia and Tibet and the Himalayan zone including India’s northeast but its weakness precluded military action to enforce its will in the Southern region. The character of the three-cornered relationship changed as a result of major developments prior to 1949. The weak Manchu China Empire was


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dissolved by the rise of a Republican China under Sun Yat Sen in 1912. Subsequently the communist victory in China brought into play Mao’s emphasis on the power of the gun and the importance of liberating Chinese territories and safeguarding national defences. These claims were based on Nationalist Chinese declarations rather than the actual history of politicalmilitary relations and treaty arrangements with Tibet and between Tibet, British India, Nepal, Mongolia, and the Himalayan kingdoms of Bhutan and Sikkim. The changing state forms in China – from Manchu imperial China to republican China to communist China – and in India – from British India to independent India – produced a radical change in the aims and methods used by the players. Precisely when China was moving from military weakness to strength during the first half of the twentieth century, India was moving in the opposite direction. The geographically united British India was changed into a bipolar system of communal and strategic division between India and Pakistan. The British tradition of preoccupation with strategic frontiers was replaced by the Nehruvian tradition of peace diplomacy and rejection of the ‘evils’ of balance of power politics. The rise of Maoist China – meant a radical change in its political organization, and its strategic outlook that emphasized the use of military power to consolidate China’s defences in its southern zone. The Chinese political system shifted from an openness to international (Russian, British, Japanese, and American) influences during 1912–49, to a closed Mao-dominated militaristic policy system. The victory of China’s communists shaped a polarity in Chinese thinking between its selfimportance and superiority and the inferiority of weak southern neighbours. An antagonistic difference between the Chinese and the non-Chinese occupants of the Himalayan zone emerged. The new, communist China was seen as a sovereign; the non-Chinese occupants in the Himalayan area and the southern zone were deemed to possess suzerain status in the Maoist-Zhouist worldview. The rise of Nehruvian India conveyed different messages: it was internationalist and pacifist. It was concerned with world peace and it emphasized diplomatic bilateralism rather than effective participation in strategic triangularity as in the past. The new Indian system shifted from the closed foreign policy and military system of British India (whose policies reflected the decisions of London and the Government of India which was in the hands of the British India Viceroy), into an open system. Nehru’s India craved international attention and was therefore opened up to British, American, Russian, Chinese and Third World influences. Nehru’s approach, however, did not impress China’s new leaders. Nehru’s India believed that it was independent and gloated in the role of the Congress leaders in liberating India from British colonialism. But outside observers noted that it was not a sovereign state in the sense that the power of independent decision in strategic affairs rested in foreign hands. For example, India’s policies towards Kashmir and Pakistan were shaped by Lord Louis Mountbatten, and less so by the Indian Cabinet and the Indian Parliament.



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Even Nehru was unable to alter the parameters laid out by Mountbatten and his officers. India’s China policy was determined as a reaction to Chinese actions and showed Nehru’s, and his advisers’, mistaken views of Chinese intentions.4 In this case Nehru’s India was nominally sovereign; it had a flag and legal international status but it did not show an ability to make decisions that changed the course of events; it remained mired informally in a suzerain-type status in relation to foreign powers. The juxtaposition of the changes – the rise of a strong China along with the weakening of India – produced an asymmetry between the two Asian countries. It affected the pattern of actions and the relationships among the three. China’s military takeover of Tibet in 1950, and Nehru’s collaboration with China put an end to Tibet’s independence and altered fundamentally a key element in the three-cornered relationship, that is, an autonomous Tibet that functioned as a buffer between India and China was eliminated. However, the 1950 event did not rise to the point of an end game. It inaugurated a curious pattern of uneasy co-existence between the first and the second rounds of the strategic game as per Martin Wight’s theoretical guidance. It had the character of the first round in the sense that an unstable set of bilateral relationships between India and Pakistan and India and China took shape during the 1950s but China did not then, until the early 1960s, tilt towards Pakistan, and sharpen its anti-India tilt and make it into a threecornered relationship. At the same time it had the character of the second round in the sense that developments of the 1950s in both pairs created the basis for the development of triangularity in the 1960s onwards. Martin Wight’s theoretical guidance is useful to my case study in the sense that it is partially applicable, and my case study serves as a basis to amend Wight’s theoretical insights. Using the analogy of a tennis tournament he speaks of an endgame5 with a sequence of round one, round two, semi-final and final. My analysis avoids this linear approach. The narrative indicates a transformation of round one – with bilateral India–Pakistan and India–China polarities in the 1950s – into round two – with the rise of a China–India– Pakistan triangle since the 1960s. But beyond this the tournament analogy breaks down. My premise is that China wanted a closed system of a threecornered relationship, with China as the sovereign centrepiece with two suzerains tied to China as the regional hub. This would imply a desire to build on the British theory of the Subcontinent as a region that was tied to the British sovereign in a suzerain type of states’ system. Wight acknowledges India’s position as a part of the suzerain type of states’ system under British rule.6 Here pre-1947 Indian history fits in nicely with the Chinese conception of the Middle Kingdom. China was not alone in thinking along this line. UK–US policy during the Cold War was consistently promoting the theory of an Indo-Pakistani balance and parity, and several US governments – Nixon– Kissinger, and Clinton – recognized China’s ‘legitimate interests’ in South Asia. The theory of India as a part of a suzerain type of a states’ system was believable because this was the reality of India’s political and military history


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since India came under Mughal and British rule. This reality lends credence to the belief among foreign observers that India had a choice about the foreign ruler. Karl Marx first posed the question, ‘who shall rule India’? Is it better to be ruled by the aggressive Mughals or by the civilizing Britishers? Marx opted in favour of the British recognizing that Indians could not govern themselves and Indian history proved that.7 It appears that Communist China followed Marx and UK–US policy in the 1950s to bring Pakistan to its side as an ally in relation to Middle Eastern and South Asian strategic affairs. Like UK and US practitioners China recognized that Pakistan would accept China’s leadership to counter the Indians and in exchange for aid and support against the Indians, Pakistan would accept a subordinate status to China. But to succeed the system had to stay closed to a three-cornered relationship without outside interference. China’s strategy has not worked thus far. China’s great game is to close the system to a three-cornered type where China and Pakistan hold an advantage over India; and India’s great game is to open it up to Russian and American influences to counter-balance Sino-Pakistani pressures against it. These great games have persisted since India and China gained independence because their rivalries are tied as well to three other international geo-political rivalries – US–Soviet/Russian, US–PRC, and Sino-Soviet/Russian. For China and Pakistan the operative diplomatic principle is to maintain a balance of power in the South Asian and the Himalayan region. However, China’s strategy has not worked thus far for several reasons. 1. The US and Soviet Union/Russia did not tolerate the development of an unmanageable conflict between India and China, or between India and Pakistan, and they intervened in all major South Asian wars, 1947–48, 1962, 1965 and 1971. 2. They did not allow either side of the conflict to be placed in a position of permanent disadvantage. 3. They intervened to prevent the dissolution of the China–India–Pakistan triangle as that would terminate their access to the region and end their role as conflict managers and guardians of international peace in the Subcontinent; like bridge players they need access to the ‘dummy’ from their side of the play. In sum, the motivation of the regional and the international players is to stay in the game, and not to seek an end game that would effectively end the game and their position in it. 4. Finally, as noted earlier, the India–Pakistan and India–China rivalries represent a closed system in peacetime that require minimal great power interventions (other than to maintain normal bilateral relationships) and it becomes an open system under crisis conditions when third parties are likely to step in to prevent unmanageable regional instability. This combination of a durable ‘closed and open’ system depends on an expectation that a regional war is dangerous as is the prospect of dominance of any power in the triangle. Such dangers have in the past triggered great power intervention(s) followed by their non-intervention when the danger has passed. China’s strategy has not worked because this combination of ‘closed and open’ system in South Asia is unique, and China can’t control the outcome in such a system.



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Another implication is theoretical. The emergence of a closed and open system in South Asia is not a part of Martin Wight’s conceptual scheme. Wight argued, ‘It is in a closed system that a triangle or duel can be best identified and observed. In open systems, such political constellations are ragged and transient’.8 China could have controlled a closed, three-way system but an open system has forced it to consider the risks to China should it miscalculate in its moves towards India and Pakistan. China’s approach has not worked for another reason. India informally accepted a suzereign states’ system status under Nehru by being tied to Anglo-American, Russian, and Chinese policies during the Cold War. Following the humiliating defeat in 1962 post-Nehruvian India determined to find the economic and military means and the political will to shift India’s policy and its status from a suzerain type to a sovereign style and status. The process of transformation has been slow given the vagaries of Indian democracy, the lack of strong leadership and the inability of the bureaucracy to think outside the Nehru box. India’s political class was slow to make India into a major power. It was slow to reject peace diplomacy as the primary basis of national policy. It was slow to adopt geo-politics as a basis of its national policy. For example, it took the Indian political establishment about 30 years to shift its policy from Nehru’s nuclear option to a declared nuclear weapons position. It took India about 35 years to recognize that a China–Pakistan–India strategic (military, diplomatic and nuclear) triangle posed a threat to Indian security. It took the Indian political and military establishment about 30 years to make the transition from conventional military defence to nuclear deterrence. China may be excused for thinking that Indians were a nation of talkers and that its political class had feet of clay as in the 1962 war. Absent clear Indian signals about its intention to fight and then negotiate, China expected Indians to act as per Indian history, that is, to acknowledge the superiority of foreign imperialism and intervention. China’s over-confidence in its ability to manage the suzerain type of a states’ system of India–Pakistan and other South Asian states rests on a crucial basis of power politics. Recall Wight’s differentiation between a suzerain and a sovereign inter-state type of states’ system.9 My assertion is that formal Indian independence in 1947 did not automatically shift India’s position from a suzerain to a sovereign inter-state type. Nehru mistook India’s access to world capitals as a recognition of India’s influence but he failed to appreciate that such influence lasted as long as India was useful as a post office between the principals. With the advancement of direct great powers’ dialogues India lost its position as an interlocutor in the Big Three capitals. As is the custom of great powers they are interested mainly in settling the bargains among themselves, the principals, and cut out the secondary, client states. That China operated by the principles of great powers’ games and bargains was lost on Nehru and his advisers who continued to believe in a delusional way that China and India were the two pillars of Asian security; this view was


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Indo-centric but it was not shared by the Chinese political class. In other words the theoretical guidance is that a shift from suzerain to sovereign status has to be earned by practical actions and results. It is earned by actions that demonstrate power transition in a world of powers. China’s practitioners believed that they had earned the right to be taken seriously as a major power but India was a feeble country. My case study probes another aspect of Wight’s approach. He maintains that when interests of three parties in a triangle are close and conflicted, the choices are to unite or to fight. This idea generally works well in my case study but not completely. China and India fought in 1962, and China and Pakistan united thereafter. China and Pakistan undertook a series of actions to show their solidarity. There was a boundary agreement on Kashmir (1962). Both stood against Indian and Soviet expansionism: China adopted Pakistan’s position on Kashmiri self-determination; China became Pakistan’s supplier of conventional and nuclear armament; the two improved military and commercial communications by building the Karakoran highway that linked Tibet to Pakistani highways and the Karachi seaport. Both stimulated Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka to adopt positions against India, both encouraged insurgency in India’s northeast and other parts of India (especially in the Jharkant–Orissa-central Indian region). Both opposed India’s nuclearization and its military buildup; and both maintained territorial disputes with India and a policy of military-political pressure on India. Pakistan’s declared aim was to develop Indo-Pakistani parity; Indians believed that China’s undeclared aim was to promote Indian acceptance of a suzerain status as per China’s views about its central position and about India’s secondary status as a sub-regional force in the Subcontinent. Later I will outline Beijing’s views about clubbing together with the great powers – either in a P-5 setting at the UN or in a G2 setting with the US. However, Sino-Pakistani uniting and fighting produced a third choice, that is, a protracted conflict. While Pakistan accepted a subordinate position in relation to China and recognized the latter as the largest (and presumably the strongest) Asian power, India, especially post-Nehru, declined to accept the implication of a subordinate status. It sought instead a transformation based on its growing internal economic and military strength, and its democratic system; it sought to build itself to counter China’s pressures. Given India’s refusal to capitulate to Chinese and Pakistani demands, and absent China’s and Pakistan’s inability to form a winning strategy, and their unwillingness to adapt to India’s rising power, the process of close and conflicted threecornered relationships results in a protracted conflict. I argue that although Mao was optimistic about winning a protracted conflict because of superiority of Chinese communist ideology and political, military and psychological warfare tactics, his expectation has not been borne out in the China–Pakistan–India case thus far. My view is that a closed and conflicted triangle presents three choices to its members to unite, to fight or to engage in protracted conflict.


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How the strategic game in the subcontinent shifted from the first to the second round and led to protracted conflict The formation and evolution of China–Pakistan–India relations turn on Martin Wight’s outline of the first and second rounds of a three-cornered relationship but it does not necessarily lead to semi-final or a final or an end game and termination of the triangle. The narrative explains the character of the first round, and the circumstances that led to the second round when the triangle was formed. Let me outline and explain the features of the two rounds. The first round, in the 1950s, consisted of ideological – cultural differences (Hindus versus Muslims; Indian secularism versus Pakistani Islamist theory; competitive co-existence between Indian and Chinese civilizations), diplomatic controversies (Indo-Pakistani diplomacy on Kashmir and worldviews in general; India–China rivalry and disagreement relating to Tibet, China’s negative view of India’s relations with the US and USSR, India’s claim to co-equal status with China in world affairs which was ignored by China), and military duels involving India, China and Pakistan (1947–48, 1962, 1965 and 1971). The issues indicated a pattern of bilaterized conflicts of interests. China did not tilt towards Pakistan in the 1950s against India. It maintained a balanced stance in Indo-Pakistani affairs, and it sought to resolve its boundary question with India by negotiations. The two bilateralized conflicts – India–Pakistan and India–China – remained close and conflicted in the 1950s. But I arrive at a crucial point in the discussion. In his study of the Peloponnesian War,10 Wight indicates that the bipolar conflict was subordinate to the triangle that was formed by the presence and involvement of a third party (Persia, in relation to the Athens-Sparta conflict). My case study shows that the India–Pakistan and India–China conflicts also had a triangular context as a result of the presence of two third parties with strong interests in Subcontinental international relations in the 1950s. The US was the third party in India–Pakistan relations in the 1950s; the USSR and US were the third parties in India–China relations in the 1950s. But the India– Pakistan and India–China relationships were then not ‘subordinate’ to the triangular contexts that existed at the time. India and Pakistan, and China and India pursued their controversies in a bilateral framework. China triggered the formation of the China–Pakistan–India triangle in the 1960s when China and Pakistan formed a three-cornered relationship so that Sino-Pakistani alignment was levered against India. This relationship created a new situation: Americans and Russians felt compelled to react to the dynamics of the China–Pakistan–India triangle of the 1960s because of the danger of an uncontrolled conflict and because of a concern about the dangerous consequences of the China–India war and China’s tilt towards Pakistan. Thereafter, the three geographical neighbours were tied together constantly in a triangular fashion while the US and USSR reacted to developments in this triangle.


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The war situations that involved China, Pakistan and India had a dangerous escalatory potential. This potential compelled the P2 powers – the US and Soviet Russia, to seek stability in the Subcontinent and to stay involved in regional issues of the Subcontinent. The three-cornered (China–India–Pakistan) fight had a dangerous potential because two members of the triangle – Pakistan and China – were motivated by territorial irredentism. They wanted territorial changes in Kashmir and the Himalayan border areas, respectively, that required major Indian concessions. By the 1990s the issues were pronounced with the widespread recognition that Pakistan was the epicentre of global terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation, and China had a hand in promoting the latter. But at the same time Pakistan’s geographical location made it necessary for the Western countries to remain aligned with it. The second round in the strategic game emerged in the early 1960s when the two bilateralized conflicts became a three-cornered fight that intensified military duels and diplomatic controversies. Pakistan took China’s side in the Sino-Indian border dispute, blaming India, and the two condemned Indian expansionism and provocation. China and Pakistan signed a border agreement that led to transfer of portions of Kashmir to China that India protested. This way China became a party to the bilateral India–Pakistan conflict over Kashmir. The territorial agreement between China and Pakistan, Pakistan’s support of China’s case against India on the Himalayan border issue, and China’s support of Pakistan’s case in the Kashmir dispute cemented the shift from bilateralized controversies into a three-way structure of diplomatic and military conflict. At the same time the Sino-Indian War and the Sino-Pakistani realignment led to actions by Washington and Moscow to buttress India’s military and diplomatic position vis-à-vis China. This development transformed the China–Pakistan–India triangle into a pentagonal formation involving continuous interaction by five players. This formation had two characteristics. First, it was a closed system that tied China, Pakistan and India to the diplomatic and military actions of the three regarding major issues of war and peace in the Subcontinent. Second, America and Russia were involved with the three countries when fights erupted and they appeared to have a dangerous escalatory potential; in this case the closed three-cornered system was opened up by American and Russian intervention in a crisis situation. For example, the three-way system was closed when the Sino-Pakistani alignment and Sino-Indian border controversy occurred in the late 1950s– early 1960s, but the system was opened up when South Asian wars occurred in 1962, 1965 and 1971 and when regional confrontations in 1999 (Kargil), and 2002 (attack on India’s Parliament) threatened to escalate tensions into a hot war. The conduct of the US and USSR revealed an interesting pattern. The great powers joined the strategic game to check the danger of regional dominance of the Subcontinent by a single power, but neither America nor Russia meant to prevent the rise of the three-cornered regional conflict; nor did they possess the means to do so.



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There were significant changes in the pattern of diplomatic and military alignments between the first (1950s) and the second (1960s onwards) rounds. In the first round the US tilted towards Pakistan and became its diplomatic supporter on the Kashmir issue; it was a military ally and it opposed Nehru’s nonalignment policy as well as India’s policy towards Kashmir and Pakistan. During the 1950s China remained on the sidelines in Indo-Pakistani and Indo-US controversies even though the USSR had tilted towards India in the 1950s by supporting its claim to Kashmir. China was preoccupied by its internal situation, and its push into Tibet showed its priority to consolidate its border defences vis-à-vis the USSR and India. In the first round China’s India policy had two characteristics. First, it advertised Mao’s theory of revolutionary change in India along with Chinese territorial claims in the Himalayan area. But neither point was pressed to the point of confrontation; and second, the theory of Sino-Indian peaceful coexistence was stressed. Chinese diplomatic theory made a distinction between the liberation of Tibet by force because this was a sovereignty issue and an internal question for China, and on the other hand, peaceful settlement of international issues was emphasized. Both approaches were in full play during the first round in Sino-Indian relations but the public posture stressed peacefulness in inter-state relations between China and India. China and the US both intervened in Subcontinental affairs in the 1950s but the nature of their interventions varied significantly. Both sought to wear down India. By pushing its links with an irredentist Pakistan, the US aim was to protect Pakistan, and to build it as a modern, moderate Muslim ally of the West in South Asian and Middle Eastern affairs.11 The US sought to pressure India towards a Kashmir settlement on Pakistani terms. However, Washington did not have any territorial claims of its own. Still, many Indians criticised the US’s Pakistan policy because it promoted a link between religion and politics within Pakistan and in the region, it undermined the Indian theory of secularism and religious tolerance as the basis of political development and change, and it facilitated militarization of the Subcontinent by the injection of a major power and its military aid into regional controversies. But Indians also appreciated US aid for India’s economic development, its support of Indian democratic ideals, its appreciation of India’s role as an interlocutor and a moderator of the harsh aspects of Stalinist/Soviet policies, and as a moderator of radical elements in the Third World. Washington’s India policy was complex and nuanced but this was lost to the general public as a result of the military buildup of Pakistan and the noise Indian leftists, Krishna Menon, S. Radhakrishnan, and Nehru made about America as a provocative element in Cold War politics. India’s China policy contrasted with the sharp tone in US–India relations in the 1950s. China’s India policy had a destructive character but it was disguised by declarations about peaceful co-existence and by Nehru’s tolerance of Chinese actions in Tibet. Nehruvian India understood well the implications for Indian security of US–UK military aid to Pakistan, the militarization of Pakistan politics,


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and the danger of giving up Kashmir on grounds of religion. But it is a point of contrast that Nehru’s India failed to advertise the implications of Chinese policies for Indian security interests and its international prestige at the time. In the second round the Subcontinental system opened up. China joined Pakistan against India along with the decision to militarize the Sino-Indian border. The 1962 conflict was a signal event in two ways. First, it brought the Sino-Indian rivalry into the open and revealed that geo-political considerations were in play and had been in play in China’s policy since the 1950s. Second, it brought the US and USSR on India’s side in the dispute but the policy of giving military aid to India against China was linked to India’s willingness to accommodate Pakistan’s interests on Kashmir.12 The US’s India policy changed in the 1970s. India’s actions in the Bangladesh War (1971) were deemed to be aggressive by President Richard Nixon and his senior advisor Henry Kissinger. Both were preoccupied with a major concern to build and to form a strategic triangle against Russia. This approach led Nixon and Kissinger to tilt itself openly towards Pakistan, and ignore its genocidal policies. Nixon and Kissinger adopted a benign view of China in 1970–71 and a malign view of India at this time. The shift in US policy was significant. In 1962, Washington and Moscow had come to India’s defence by their military aid and diplomatic support. Their actions indicated a desire not to allow China to rise to a dominant position in the region. Washington’s practitioners were following the balance of power principle. Their involvement in Sino-Indian controversy signalled China to exercise restraint; this came with Beijing’s unilateral ceasefire in the Himalayan War in 1962. By 1972 US policy under Nixon–Kissinger policy had changed. The US uncritically adopted the attitudes in the governments of China and Pakistan against India. Their actions were driven by Nixon’s known anti-Indian antipathy that fed into Mao’s and Zhou Enlai’s antipathy of Nehru, and Kissinger’s opportunism. Two other elements were in play as well: China knew that Moscow could pressure it militarily if China pressured India militarily by opening a second front against it; and Kissinger knew that Indians were militarily stronger and they were likely to win the Bangladesh campaign and to resist China’s pressure. The Nixon–Kissinger tilt towards Pakistan and China in the Bangladesh campaign failed to help Pakistani or Chinese interests but the major tilt was a trigger in the development of the second round. The motives varied in China–Pakistan and US policies towards India in 1970–71 but there were also points of convergence in their actions, and both had implications for India. Consider the following. When Nixon and Kissinger tilted towards Pakistan in 1971, and the two leaders agreed with the Chinese leaders to oppose India in the 1971 war, the three-cornered fight became a five-cornered one. The diplomatic polarity was between the US + Pakistan + China versus India + the USSR. The polarity in the conduct of military operations was between Indian military + Bangladeshi guerrillas versus Pakistani military along with the Chinese threat to open up a second military front, and the US threat to pressure India by the deployment



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of US navy in the Bay of Bengal.13 Great Powers diplomacy in the 1971–72 crisis was subordinated to the US–USSR–PRC triangle because the US and PRC reacted to the crisis partly in terms of their negative views about Soviet and Indian conduct. US and PRC diplomatic action in the UN Security Council was framed in the traditional way, that is, to call for an immediate ceasefire between India and Pakistan, to restore the status quo on the ground, and to consider the issue in terms of the Indo-Pakistani balance. Since India had the military initiative in this war, and it had the USSR’s support as a result of the Indo-Soviet friendship treaty, the ceasefire call was intended to pressure India into not acting militarily and to save Pakistan from a military defeat. Kissinger was realistic in recognizing that India would win the military campaign. Both the US and China recognized that Pakistani military leaders had made mistakes in dealing with the East Pakistan crisis. But Kissinger wanted to deny India the military and diplomatic victory and maintain the UN’s and the great powers’ role as the guardian of Indo-Pakistani peace. The US/UN/PRC line of action failed and India’s military action and diplomacy put an end to the traditional frame of reference as noted above. Still, the game had the character of the second round, and not a move towards the final. The 1971 war led to the breakup of Pakistan and the rise of a new state in Bangladesh but the triangle of China–Pakistan–India retained its salience and characteristics. By 1972, the crisis had passed, and the players returned to their pre-war modes of action. That is, India’s military victory in 1971 was not a game changer, indeed, it entrenched the polarities among the players, and their affinities as well. China and Pakistan maintained and expanded their ‘all weather friendship’. The US returned to its pattern of ‘on-off friendship’ with Pakistan, supporting it when it was needed (as in the 1980s in Afghanistan) and pulling back from it when it was no longer needed for the US’s regional interests. Russia’s links with India were strong as an arms supplier but with the end of the Cold War, the relationship reverted to a normal stance compared to the special relationships during the Cold War. In the context of these variations, the China–Pakistan–India triangle maintained its robust character. The conduct of China in the Bangladesh War revealed an interesting element of restraint in its diplomacy and war behaviour. At the UN, the US and China agitated against India and the USSR, but when the time came to walk the talk, Beijing adopted a cautious policy. The archival record reveals that Kissinger encouraged China to take military action against India and assured it of US support. This was a shameful line of proposed action that revealed the Nixon–Kissinger animus towards India, a democratic country, an American preference to promote China’s intervention in South Asian affairs, and to help a genocidal military regime maintain its grip on power, and to maintain a policy to pressure India. Here is an example of a dishonourable way to conduct foreign policy; the US, a democracy sought to subvert India, another democracy, by encouraging military action by China against India.14


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Interestingly, Beijing did not accept Kissinger’s repeated pleas. One may speculate that they saw it as bait that could produce an unpleasant result for China if Chinese military action stimulated a Soviet military response against China. Was Kissinger devious in seeking a realpolitik solution by getting the Chinese tiger and the Soviet bear to come down from their mountain tops and fight each other? Or was Kissinger desperate that US Congressional and public opposition to the White House policy handcuffed US military options and he wanted China to do its work? It is also conceivable that having threatened India with military action in mid 1971, the Cultural Revolution and internal pre-occupations made it difficult for Beijing to adopt an aggressive military stance in the Himalayas in December 1971, whereas a strong diplomatic stance at the UN had limited political costs. The diplomatic records and secondary materials do not answer these questions but it suggests a level of polarity between the US and PRC concerning their commitment to Pakistan’s integrity and region strategy of the Pakistani military, and second, concerning their level of opposition of India’s policies. The record indicates that Kissinger and Nixon recognized the rise of India as a power in Asia and acknowledged the value of building friendly relations with it. In contrast China’s diplomacy did not acknowledge India’s importance in any way, at the time or in the future.15 The US–PRC–Pakistan combination in 1970–71 had a history. After 1949 the US believed that Indian intransigence was holding up settlement of the Kashmir; consequently, its pressure was on India to accommodate Pakistani interests. The US government believed that Kashmir should have joined Pakistan on two grounds. Morally, because Kashmir had a majority Muslim population; and politically, because Kashmir’s economic and geographical lines of communications tied it to Pakistan. The State Department argued that the instrument of accession was legal but provisional.16 When China adopted Pakistan’s case on Kashmir and India in the 1960s, the diplomatic pressure on India came from three sources – the US, Pakistan and China. After 1960 the China–Pakistan–India triangle was in play. In 1970–71, this triangle was reinforced by the three-cornered relationship between the US, Pakistan and China vis-à-vis India and Russia. But the latter orientation had a short shelf life and it did not survive the events of 1971–72 (the Indian victory and establishment of Bangladesh). Later, in 1974 and 1998, when India conducted its nuclear tests, the temporary convergence between the US and China reappeared. The Western countries imposed sanctions; and China along with many others, sought India’s nuclear disarmament. The intended effect was to legitimize the US–PRC policy to freeze the nuclear asymmetry in favour of China, and to assign India to a position of permanent strategic inferiority. In this case India would forever need to bid for great powers’ support for its national security because it would lack the means and the right to involve itself in international and regional conflict at a time and opportunity of its choice. On these issues, China and Pakistan had an important friend in the US. Although Pakistan also was subject to Western sanctions, China’s



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policy to provide Pakistan with nuclear and missile aid along with conventional armament, provided it with China’s strategic umbrella again India. The convergence between American-Chinese-Pakistani policies was significant because Kashmir and nuclear weapons were core issues for India. The nuclear question was vital in terms of India’s future position as a major power, and in relation to its regional and international main rival, China and its regional rival, Pakistan. The psychological context was also significant. Western practitioners expressed their disappointment with India’s economic and diplomatic performance. The late Alastair Buchan, the respected director of the Institute for Strategic Studies, London captured the sense of Western disillusionment as did Canada’s former High Commissioner to India, Escott Reid and the former Australian High Commissioner to India, W. R. Crocker.17 They believed that Indians had missed a historic opportunity to advance in the economic and the diplomatic spheres because of mistaken Nehruvian policies despite the early successes of India’s diplomacy in the early 1950s; they felt it was devoid of leadership ideas and potential, and it was lacking in effect in the international sphere. India was seen as self-destructive, China was seen as rising. The implication was that Indians could wallow in their miseries – inflicted by others and themselves. Chinese practitioners welcomed such Western assessments of India and China. Two characteristics defined the second round in India’s relations with China and Pakistan. First, India did not capitulate to China even though it received a blow militarily but still it managed to stay in the game. It refused to accept a suzerain status. It maintained the border controversy and its claim that China was the aggressor. It gained lukewarm US and Soviet support in its controversy with China. It built its public opinion against China. And it moved actively to adjust its diplomacy and its military preparations in relation to China. China’s military victory over India was negated by the fact that both the US and USSR came on India’s side (1962–65). China’s military victory became a diplomatic dilemma for China because it is a cardinal principle in diplomacy to avoid the rise of an unfavourable diplomatic alignment against oneself. India no doubt lost the support of many members of the Third World in its argument against China about the Sino-Indian border controversy. The even-handed approach of the non-aligned countries indicated their reluctance to alienate China, but this loss to India was made up by its gain of support from Washington and Moscow. Both world capitals had their concerns about the character of Chinese politics and policies and their support was worth more than that of Third World countries. 1962 marked the beginning of an Indian policy and process to re-position itself vis-à-vis China and to view Pakistan as an extension of China’s policies vis-à-vis India. Second, Sino-Indian controversy firmed up Indian public opinion, it tightened Indian decision-making and it opened up a closed system. In the 1950s India’s diplomatic actions were dominated by Nehru and an inner circle of mostly leftist, anti-US advisers: Krishna Menon, S. Radhakrishnan and K. M. Panikkar. Subjectivity prevailed in India’s China policy. India’s Pakistan


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policy also suffered from distortions. It was the work of the British Governor General of India Lord Louis Mountbatten and Nehru himself, although Menon provided an animated defence of India’s Kashmir case at the UN. But his animus towards Pakistan and the US and brazen tactics earned him and India a bad name. His talk lacked effect. But the 1962 war, China’s alignment with Pakistan, and India’s alignment with the superpowers opened up the two systems of conflict to internal and international debate and re-alignment. The opening up released a multitude of ‘nationalist’ voices across the spectrum of Indian politics, and it opened up Indian diplomatic machinery to multiple inputs. Indian policy-making process was freed of the stranglehold of Nehru and his small circle of advisers on foreign affairs. These were major changes in Nehruvian India but they were counterbalanced by persistent pressures on several issues and fronts. China and Pakistan kept their pressure on Kashmir and the Himalayan border issue. The US government kept its pressure on India to sign the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT) or at least not to move towards nuclearization. Thus, the second round inaugurated a process of protracted conflict for India. Indian practitioners did not shed their obsession with secrecy and elitism but there was a difference in that more voices were at the decision-making table, and the credibility of Nehru and his advisers was lost because the China War had exposed many fallacies in the Nehru approach; also, China’s peace diplomacy was exposed as an opportunistic tactic. With these changes the interactions between different Indian voices in the post-Nehru environment and external pressures increased and intensified. The scale and intensity of the new Indian voices precluded Indian capitulation to China in 1962 and after. Also, the new situation liberated India from Nehru’s fascination with world peace and his lack of understanding about the role of war and geo-politics in statecraft. China’s military action in 1962, rather than Pakistan’s military operation in 1947–48, started a trend to make India a military force in the region. It triggered a debate about guns and butter replacing the debate about guns versus butter in the Nehru days. Nehru’s fascination with world peace and anti-militarism was lost on his successors including his daughter Indira Gandhi; she did not hesitate to use military force against Pakistan in 1971. The point is that a military blow does not guarantee capitulation until a country concedes defeat. India did not act like a defeated power in 1962. It did not act like a defeated country when the NPT adopted a new global norm against nuclear weapons development by India. After 1962 Indians learnt to stay in the game; winning and losing was secondary. In this perspective we judge the second round as eventful but not decisive. Several reasons justify this view. First, the Bangladesh War occurred in the second round but its result did not create an Indian monopoly of power in the Subcontinent. Pakistan continued to enjoy support of China and the US following its defeat in 1971. At the same time the US tilt towards China and Pakistan in the 1970–71 crisis was eventful but not decisive because China



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was checked by the USSR, and both the US and China were morally discredited as a result of their support of a genocidal regime in Pakistan. Furthermore, both lost credibility because of their inability to restrain India and the USSR. Second, the nuclear controversy between India and Western countries was exacerbated in the second round as a result of the Indian nuclear test in 1974, but despite the imposition of nuclear sanctions the nuclear question remained unsettled. India’s 1974 test was an event but it was not a game changer because India did not claim a nuclear weapons state status in 1974, as it did in 1998. During the second round international anti-nuclear proliferators continued to pressure India to accept the NPT and to abandon its nuclear weapons option. Such moves, however, did not form a tipping point for either side. India maintained its nuclear weapons option, and the anti-proliferators maintained their pressure against India from 1974 to 1998. Third, during the second round, Pakistan expanded its terror campaign by providing ISI-organized support for groups against Indian targets in Kashmir, Indian Punjab and other border areas. This was a significant escalation in Pakistan’s policy since the 1980s. It meant that Pakistan’s issue with India was not limited to Kashmir, a disputed territory in Pakistan’s view; it involved promotion of internal dissent in parts of India that were not a matter of dispute between India and Pakistan. By adopting a stance in favour of India’s balkanization, Pakistan’s military adopted the Maoist approach to promote revolutionary violence within India. The only difference was that China’s actions in India’s northeast were stimulated by the leftist theory of armed struggle, and Pakistan’s action in India’s Western areas (Kashmir and Punjab) was stimulated by the rightist theory of Indo-Pakistani parity and Islamist militancy. Both approaches however, shared a common purpose, that is, to weaken the Indian Union and to complicate its internal security by moving the political-military fronts beyond the borders into India itself. The second round was significant inasmuch as Indo-Pakistani and Sino-Indian rivalries had gone beyond the issues of border security. But despite the escalation in the aims and methods of Pakistan’s and Chinese pressures, India did not crack up. It did not wear down and incidents of terrorism did not knock India out of the Subcontinental and global games. Nor did pressures on the nuclear question lead to India’s nuclear disarmament.

Theoretical guidance for the case study My case study requires theoretical guidance to help understand the elements of the South Asian strategic triangle as Indians see it; it outlines our view of catalysts that moved the relationships from the first to the second round. 1. I begin by noting that China, India and Pakistan each had a closed foreign policy system during the 1950s. The actions of a small circle of decision makers were not guided by a robust public debate and independent scrutiny of leaderships’ beliefs, assumptions and policies. Each country’s practitioners shared a rigid ideology and a personalized system of decision-making that


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lacked a self-correcting mechanism to anticipate a looming problem. The political leadership was serviced by an amateurish bureaucracy that attended to the political needs of the political master(s). It did not offer a robust definition of the public good for fear of offending their political masters; and also it lacked confidence and expertise in their subject(s). This system worked well in a peaceful environment but it could not withstand an external crisis; hence a closed system tends to be temporary and unstable in my view. 2. When an external event confronted a closed system in South Asia – for example China’s military action against Tibet in 1950 and China’s military action against India in 1962, it resulted in either capitulation – as for instance by Tibet and by Nehru to the Chinese fait accompli in 1950; or it created a danger to national interests as in 1962. With capitulation the system remained closed. However, in 1962 the closed China–India–Pakistan system was opened up by the entry of two outside powers. The driving element for Washington and Moscow was that neither power welcomed the prospect of unmanageable regional instability that could suck them into an international conflict. This point has general validity. Fear of unmanageable escalation in South Asian conflicts induced great powers’ intervention in South Asian wars in 1947–48, 1962, 1965, and 1971; such a fear opened up a closed system. Such international interventions in South Asian strategic relationships gave them an element of stability (or manageable instability) and predictability. International interventions in South Asia signalled the existence of red lines that members of the regional triangle could not cross without expecting an external intervention. Generally, external interventions in South Asian wars occurred when the rivalries among China–India–Pakistan appeared to get out of control. Two results were likely. One, intra-systemic competition among members of the China–India–Pakistan strategic triangle could intensify provided it remained within the limits set by the systemic boundaries. The theoretical implication is that intensified and protracted conflict is inevitable as long as there is no likelihood of defeat of a key member of the triangle. In this case China, Pakistan and India are essential members because the international powers will not allow the dismemberment of either country; also, they possess the military means to avoid defeat. Two, intervention by powers outside the triangle is vital to set the system boundaries or red lines for the regional system’s stability. In this regard note that UN-sanctioned ceasefires between India and Pakistan (1948-present) or China’s unilateral ceasefire in 1962 and the agreement to have a line of actual control in the Sino-Indian border are examples of system boundaries that put a lid against escalation of military conflict to a dangerous point. 3. My case study shows a relationship between decision-making style and approach to external relations and the country’s historical experiences. A country either acts as a member of a sovereign states or imperial system, or as a member of a suzerain states’ system. China’s experiences placed it in the first category; India’s experiences placed it in the second category. In the second round (1962–), China, Pakistan and the US resisted Indian attempts to act as



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a member of the system of sovereign states. They were used to Nehru’s major foreign policy actions that showed deference to interests of foreign powers. His actions lacked independence in several issues that were central to Indian security: Kashmir – where he deferred to Mountbatten’s advice to take the issue to the UN and to avoid war as a policy option; Tibet – where he deferred to China’s interests; China – where he ignored high-level warnings among Indian practitioners against trusting China; and finally, his neglect of Indian military defences. In contrast Pakistan’s historical experience was framed by the history of Mughal rule over the Hindus for centuries. China’s historical experience was conditioned by its belief in the cultural and military superiority of the Middle Kingdom. India shaped the second round when Nehru’s successors moved away from Nehru’s foreign policy orientation The shift from the first to the second round was a profound shift in the aims and methods of Indian practitioners. Moving into the second round had several implications: landing a knock out blow against a rival, seeking monopoly of power to end the duels with an enemy, or having an expectation that one or another member of the triangle can be worn down became irrelevant. When the two superpowers came on India’s side in the 1962 conflict, and India’s military buildup started along with its rejection of Chinese terms for a Himalayan settlement, China lost the ability to knock out India. Instead, China and Pakistan developed a policy to wear down India by their actions. These included the development of military communications and infrastructure in the Tibetan–Himalayan–Pakistan–Myanmar areas, the development of diplomatic pressure in the region against ‘Indian hegemony’, the militarization and nuclearization of Pakistan, the attempt to de-nuclearize India, and to seek settlement of the Kashmir issue on Pakistani/UN terms. These efforts did not succeed to wear down India. The second round in the China–India–Pakistan triangle revealed several such attempts. Z. A. Bhutto wanted to knock out India in Kashmir in 1965 but his plan failed. In response the Indian government decided to unleash the Indian army against Pakistan by crossing into Pakistan rather than to limit military operations to the ‘disputed’ Kashmir area. Here the Indian Prime Minister L. B. Shastri changed the rulebook. The Nehru–Mountbatten policy line was not to attack Pakistan militarily and not to threaten a general war. Shastri’s policy change shocked Pakistan’s practitioners and public opinion even though the war ended in a great powers mandated stalemate. Between 1965 and 1971 no Pakistani leader tried to either knock out or wear down India in Kashmir or elsewhere but recriminations continued at the diplomatic level. In the 1971 war India knocked out Pakistani military forces in Bangladesh (East Pakistan) but great powers’ interventions ensured that India was not in a position to knock out the heartland of Pakistan in the West. But the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan changed the regional context.


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With Zia-ul-Haq as Pakistan’s new leader and with the strong support of various branches of the US government Pakistan saw an opportunity to expand its strategic space in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Indian Punjab. With the active support and direction of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency, Pakistani trained terrorists pushed hard against Indian targets, going beyond the Kashmir region. The theory was to inflict a thousand cuts against India, and to force it to negotiate a surrender in Kashmir on Pakistani’s terms; the old dream of liberating Kashmir and Indian Muslims was revived with new tactics, that is, to take the terror war into India and to balkanize the Indian Union. This was Pakistan’s strategy to wear down India’s political and military machinery. The result was a protracted conflict but it did not lead to Indian capitulation; it had the opposite effect of strengthening Indian political and military determination to fight and defeat Pakistan’s diplomatic and military campaign. In sum, the second round saw the rise of the China–India–Pakistan triangle as well as a significant shift in Chinese and Pakistani thinking from a policy of seeking a knock out blow to a policy of wearing India down. Conversely, India joined the strategic fray by a process of military modernization that increased the costs to China and Pakistan of a policy to wear it down. As a result today (2010) there is no expectation among practitioners in the Subcontinent or in the developed world that China can deliver a knock out blow against India, or that India can knock out Pakistan, or that the China– Pakistan combination can create a monopoly of power in the region, or that India can dominate the region. All three players and the external participants in the region are here to stay. The system has been irreversibly opened up and stabilized as a result. War is not a realistic option for any player. If it breaks out it is expected to be mutually destructive. Martin Wight spoke of a tendency in a triangle to ‘lash out’.18 This idea is relevant to my study. It is interesting that Pakistan lashed out against India during the 1950s when India was militarily weak and under pressure from the US, and Pakistan received massive military aid from the US. It expected that international pressure would bring India to a settlement with Pakistan. Pakistan’s lashing out was a sign of its failure to settle the Kashmir question by war or bilateral diplomacy, while China’s lack of lashing out against India in the 1950s showed a desire to gain Indian goodwill and time for China’s strategy to develop until time was ripe for military actions and a border confrontation. Note that China started to lash out against India on core issues (Kashmir, nuclear weapons, Pakistan, relations with the US, regional policies) when it became clear that India did not accept defeat following the 1962 war. China lashed out against ‘Indian hegemony’ when it is a known fact that India has neither the history (since the 1100s) nor the capacity to dominate the Subcontinent given its internal problems and requirements to meet growing internal economic, social and political needs. China, a nuclear weapon power and a promoter of nuclear and missile proliferation in Pakistan and Iran since the 1980s, lashed out against India’s nuclear weapons development.



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China objected to India’s Pakistan and Kashmir policies, and its support of the Dalai Lama. Pakistan, a military dictatorship for most of its political history, lashed out at India’s human rights record and lack of democracy in Kashmir. In China’s worldview India ought to be a member of a subordinate states’ system whereas India’s worldview merits a position as a co-equal of China. Pakistan has lashed out at India for spoiling its policy of IndoPakistani parity after 1947. Between India–Pakistan and India–China their diplomatic and military duels have not settled the controversies and rivalries. My view is that deadlocked duel situations increase the compulsion for the irredentist members of a strategic triangle to lash out. This is a sign of frustration to alter Indian behaviour by charm, intimidation or war, and to either knock out India or to wear it down to accept Pakistani and Chinese terms.

Summing up The chapter outlined Professor Martin Wight’s approach to strategic triangles and its partial relevance to my case study. With amendments his approach is relevant to my study. The China–India–Pakistan triangle did not emerge in a vacuum. It took shape in the context of Manchu–China strategic and cultural ideas and frontier practices; and Pakistan inherited and absorbed British geo-political and frontier practices. India, the legal successor to British India moved away from British-style regional geo-politics during the Nehru era. This chapter shows that China and Pakistan functioned according to the principles of irredentism and revolutionary violence. Both shared a common approach even though Pakistan came at the issue from an Islamist perspective and China came at it from a leftist one. The convergence formed a deadly and a critical mass of ideological controversies (democracy and secularism versus theocratic and military rule; and peaceful change versus armed struggle), diplomatic controversies pertaining to Kashmir and Himalayan disputes, and military duels – 1947–48, 1962, 1965 and 1971, and border tensions as well as terrorist incidents. But when India decided after its military defeat in 1962 to adjust its policies to the world of realpolitik, the frame of reference of Indian policies underwent a fundamental albeit a subtle change while the pattern of Pakistan and Chinese conduct in the second round was maintained to intensify the pressures on India. By joining the great strategic game Indian practitioners determined to pursue a protracted conflict with China and Pakistan and their supporters in the West. The next chapter assesses two early examples of strategic triangles in the Himalayan zone. The first one involved British India, Manchu China and Tibet. It had a long history which is well documented and it showed the strategic interactions among the main players of the time. This triangle ended with Britain’s withdrawal from the Subcontinent in 1947 as a result of a change in the cast of political characters. The importance of strategic triangles was planted in Pakistani minds by Pakistani-Western interactions. In its rivalry with India, Pakistan developed and used strategic triangles initially


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with US help and later with China’s involvement. For its part, China quickly grasped the importance of the pre-1947 British India–Manchu China–Tibet history and altered the frame of reference by pushing its military presence to the Indian/Nepal borders. The second early example of a triangle may be dubbed either as a still born triangle; or if it is believed that the Tibet question is still important in world affairs, then this triangle may be described as a Delhi–Beijing–Dharamsala triangle. The early history is important because it had a fall-out on the practitioners involved in northern Indian and Himalayan affairs. We turn now to a discussion of these aspects.


4

Strategic triangles in the Himalayan Zone; pre-1949 history and 1949–50

Introduction In a study commissioned by the International Peace Academy (New York) and the Monterey Institute of International Studies it is alleged that China did not take the South Asian region seriously as an area of strategic importance to Chinese interests until 1998 when India conducted its nuclear tests. Sidhu and Yuan base this assessment on their reading of China’s defence papers.1 This view is at odds with the history of Chinese involvement – initially by imperial Manchu China in the promotion of its frontier policy in Mongolia, Tibet, its northern and western borders, and in the Himalayan area – Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal and northeast India. There were other pre-1949 channels of contact between China and India. British India promoted opium exports to China that led to war (1839–42) and defeat and formed a historical memory about the ill-effects of British imperialism on China. The China-Burma road was used to ferry supplies to China to support the Chiang Kai-Shek war effort against Japan and the communists. This road re-emerged as a physical gateway between China, Burma and India, and is currently, since the early 1980s, an active strategic corridor. The territorial claims of the Chinese Nationalist government (1912–67) were assumed by China’s communist government and remain an issue between China and India since 1949. China’s involvement was at times indirect and unstable as in relation to Tibet; at times it was direct and unstable as in relation to development of trade along the Silk route but Chinese imperial history and accounts of reputable Western scholars like Owen Lattimore, Alastair Lamb, John Rowland, S. B. Cohen, Michael C. van Walt van Praag, A. B. Bozeman, C. P. Fitzgerald and others record imperial China’s strong interest and involvement in the frontier areas of the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. Beijing projects a public view of India as a sub-regional (South Asian) force in the contemporary world.2 However, in my view, the PRC’s dismissive pose about India is not a serious indication of the nature and scope of China’s India policy. My view is that the PRC follows an active China-centric policy in its approach to India; it takes it seriously as a strategic rival, and acts to contain its regional and international presence. The retreat of the European


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Strategic triangles in the Himalayan Zone

empires from south and Southeast Asia gave the PRC an opportunity to enlarge its territorial and strategic frontiers. Its belief in the need to reform the world system through Chinese pressures came from Maoist confidence in its aims and methods in war and peace issues. For China, India was the main regional rival for influence in the southern zone. It had access to the major world capitals since the early 1950s as a result of Nehru’s diplomacy. It had influence as a moderating force in a bipolarized Cold War and in relation to radical elements in the Third World. Also, Nehru’s ability to play on Sino-Soviet, Sino-US, and US–Soviet rivalries added to China’s mistrust of Nehru’s policies and the role of China’s rivals in the strategic Himalayan area. Because of India’s geographical location and diplomatic capacity to get involved in big power games in Asia, China’s leaders could not leave India alone. Its democratic credentials made it an attractive alternative to radical China. From its perspective China adopted a realist perspective towards India. It saw it as a ‘reactionary’ force that was aligned with two Chinese enemies – US and Soviet ‘imperialisms’. This line was consistent with Mao’s politics of hate and western diplomatic practices that require formation of ‘us versus them’ distinctions to build coalitions against enemies. Demeaning ‘Indians’, their leaders and their institutions and capacities is a form of psychological warfare. The chapter shows the rise of the Tibetan-Himalayan area as the southern epicentre of Chinese military and diplomatic strategy in 1950 just as the Korean peninsula, Japan and Taiwan emerged as the northern epicentre of its military and diplomatic strategy. Both strategic flanks engaged Beijing’s attention and both emerged as points of strategic interactions between China and the world. The 1940–50 period was one of high activism in communist Chinese strategy towards the area. It had several significant drivers. 1. Territorial – where China was driven to assert its territorial interests in Tibet and to consolidate its frontiers with Soviet Union and India and to manage its physical security in its southern region. 2. Legal – where China was driven to assert its legal rights on the basis of Nationalist claims and treaty negotiations with British India and Tibet before 1947. 3. Geo-political – where China was driven to assess its position in relation to the geo-politics of the Tibet–Himalayan region, the cockpit of rivalries between British India, imperial Russia and imperial China with Tibet as a historical buffer between Russia, British India and China. 4. Ideological – where China was driven to liberate the Tibetans from feudalism and to check the policies of Indian ‘reactionaries’ and their ‘imperialist’ associates. In Maoist view, Tibet was the palm with five fingers – Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh-Xinjiang and India’s northeastern area, and the area was a focus of China-inspired revolutionary change. The early experiences with two strategic triangles occurred in the context of rapidly changing state forms in India and China, the retreat of European



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empires from Asia, the failure of US and Japanese interventions in China in the 1930s and the 1940s and the rise of a centrally organized, highly motivated and militarized Communist China. It gained the confidence that its stronger political will, better political and military organization, psychological preparation of the Chinese people and united front tactics could defeat superior Japanese and US/KMT military power. These triangles had three tipping points. The first related to the retreat of the British India Empire in 1947 from the Himalayan scene and the breakup of the unity of its frontier policy in Afghanistan, northwest and northeast India and the Himalayan area as a result of the geographical and political division of British India. The second related to the rise of a communist controlled China with internal political unity and military strength in 1949 where a militarily weak country had waged a successful rebellion against foreign powers. The third related to the decision to use military intervention to force China’s occupation of Tibet without Tibetan consent. These tipping points altered the distribution of military power in the region. It had been asymmetrical in favour of British India and against a weak Manchu China and an autonomous Tibet before 1947. Nehru’s policy emphasized political diplomacy over development of Indian military strength; he did not understand the importance of geo-politically driven diplomacy. As a result his policy increased the asymmetrical distribution of military power in the Himalayan region. The pattern of inter-state relationships also changed in a fundamental way. In the pre-1947 British India–Tibet–Manchu China triangle the involvement of British India and Manchu China in Tibetan affairs was indirect and stable for Britain because Tibet’s internal institutions, the treaty arrangements, its political consciousness and capacity to negotiate with outside powers gave it autonomy; and Britain used Tibet’s autonomy, and China’s suzerainty in Tibet as a way to keep Russia out of Tibet. Manchu weakness, however, kept its influence indirect and unstable in Tibet. The calculated ambiguity in British India’s Tibet policy on the one hand managed the British India–Tibet–Manchu China triangle, and on the other hand contained Russian expansion. It played as well on China’s interest to maintain Tibetan autonomy as a check against Russian expansion, a common interest of imperial Britain and imperial China vis-à-vis imperial Russia. This delicate pattern of relationships was altered as a result of changing state forms and regional policies with only one thread of continuity: the Russia–China rivalry of the imperial past was replaced by the strategic and ideological rivalry between the two communist neighbours. As a result of China’s military intervention in 1950 in Tibet its indirect influence was replaced by direct military occupation. Following the surrender of Indian rights in Tibet and acknowledgement that Tibet was a part of China, the government of India abandoned its position in the Himalayan triangle. The pre-1947 British India–Tibet–Manchu China triangle was replaced by a new triangle between China, India, the Dalai Lama’s government in exile in Dharamsala (Northern India) and the world community.

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Relevant scholarship These changes came about as a result of the emergence of communist China as the catalyst. Hence it is necessary to review its approach both pre-1949 and post-1949/50. S. B. Cohen provides the conceptual framework of China’s approach.3 He distinguishes between three facets of China’s locational (spatial) perspectives: local, regional and international. The local (national) assumes China’s cultural and territorial unity. In the Chinese view Tibet fell in this sphere even though the Tibetans are culturally different than the majority Han population. Here territoriality and strategic imperative trumps cultural and political differences between the Han Chinese and Tibetans. One way to resolve the differences is to populate the Tibetan area with Han migrants and marginalize or eliminate the Tibetan population. In the local/ national area, which is the locational core, communist China, like imperial China, was meant to be the controlling power and centre of authority. This area merits full attention if Beijing is to control and to organize political authority, military capacity, cultural unity, internal improvements and defence against ‘foreign aggression’. This area requires identification of national policy and public opinion with territoriality. Hence Beijing’s emphasis on ‘patriotic education’ following the unrest in Tibet in 2008. China’s locational view was based on a concentric scheme which recognized that Chinese power was likely to taper off as it moved from the China centre to the Inner Asian zone, and then to the non-Chinese world – outer Asia and the outer world. The Inner Asia and the Outer Asia zones included Korean peninsula, Formosa/Taiwan, North Borneo, Mainland Southeast Asia, Assam, Himalayan kingdoms, eastern Soviet Central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria, east Siberia, Sakhalin and Trans-Amur. Inner Asia included Manchuria, Tibet and Xinjiang. This was the pre-1947 scheme that was partially executed successfully by Chinese communists. Direct control was established in Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang. But the success in this area was also partial; China’s rule in Tibet and Xinjiang is enforced by force and absent local consent it is unstable. However, note that Chinese domination over this area is vital to China’s sense of security that it controls the entire national space. China’s policy in the Himalayas is a two-part story. 1. Outwardly, China was confident in its posture that it had defeated a stronger set of powers – Japan and the US by its victory in 1949. 2. Inwardly it was insecure as a result of its international isolation in 1949, and its rivalries with Moscow and Washington which the Korean War and the policies of Stalin and US government exacerbated. In this perspective the connection between the local/ national area and the regional area in the concentric circle explained by Cohen assumes significance. Because of the physical proximity between the two, it was vital for Beijing to establish its domination in the core local/ national area and to establish its access and a special diplomatic-military position – by forming friendly alignments in the Outer Asian zone. The aim



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was to prevent a challenge from Outer Asia against China’s national space. The theory is that the national and the regional settings require an interaction in Beijing’s strategic thinking, and it has employed two tools to this end. First is to build diplomatic and military ties with countries in Outer Asia like Pakistan, Myanmar and Nepal so that Chinese access to these countries’ policy-making process is ensured. Economic and military aid and diplomatic support facilitate this approach. The second method is to build the infrastructure in the region from China’s end that extends into the neighbourhood. China has maintained an active schedule to develop its infrastructure in the region citing its economic and developmental requirements and underplaying the military potential of the infrastructure. The main examples are the development of the Karakoran highway linking China/Tibet to Pakistan through an all weather road that can handle heavy tanks and transport; the establishment of an extensive rail/road and air network of military and commercial communications in Tibet itself with roads leading to points in Nepal and Indian border areas; and the revival of the China/Burma road that was a lifeline for military supplies by the Allies into China and is now tied to the development by China of naval facilities in the Bay of Bengal, and Gwador in Pakistan, along with roads within Myanmar leading to the Indian Ocean.4 The national/regional interface in China’s southern zone is relevant for my case study more than the China/international world interface – the third element in the concentric scheme. Beijing’s international presence and success is obvious. It moved from a position of isolation in the 1950s to that of a recognized participant in the strategic triangle with Moscow and Washington in the 1970s. Its rise as a fast growing economy and a powerful player in the global economy highlights its international presence. However, the national/ regional interface is important because the southern zone is the PRC’s sole geo-political platform for the extension of its political, economic and military influence into the region and beyond (from Pakistan to the Gulf/Middle East area; and from the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean to Africa; and from China and the South China seas into Southeast Asia). Its ability to expand in the Far East is circumscribed by the involvement of the US, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia in Far Eastern affairs. Despite Beijing’s claim about its peaceful rise, the southern region has emerged as a point of diplomatic engagement by China and as a point of opposition by heightened military preparations by many neighbours of China, Japan, India, Australia, Singapore and others, to guard against the possibility of Chinese military expansion. How Beijing balances its position as a point of attraction, and conversely as a point of opposition, is a major challenge for Chinese diplomacy. It cannot be dealt with by public declarations about its peaceful intentions. Its inability, however, to develop hegemonic relationships in the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, mainland Southeast Asia, India’s northeast, the Himalayan kingdoms, Siberia and Central Asia is a sign that its policies are likely to remain mired in international and domestic controversies about aims and methods.

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Other scholarly works validate my approach. Lattimore explains China’s continuous pre-occupation with frontier zones in Manchuria, Inner and Outer Mongolia and in the southern areas – Turkestan, Xinjiang and Tibet.5 Lamb explains that No state in Asia has a longer land frontier than China, and no state in Asia has been concerned with problems of frontier policy over a longer period. For more than 2000 years, the history of Chinese intentions and actions on the frontier has been recorded in considerable detail. Modern Chinese statesmen know what their predecessors did. … China exhibits a continuity of frontier policy which is not to be found elsewhere.6 The pre-1949 history had three characteristics. 1. Consciousness about the superiority of Chinese civilization and the importance of bringing ‘foreign barbarians’ into contact with China to tame them. 2. The importance of building infrastructure within the Chinese sphere in the form of irrigation and railway expansion and to build trade and tributary links with the non-Chinese world. 3. To recognize that expansion had its limits defined by the range of Chinese power and interests. Lattimore makes these points convincingly in his work. Manchu China limited its frontier activities north of the Himalayas; Communist China’s power and interests enabled it to advance its frontier activities south of the Himalayas. This is a new element in Communist China’s policy that was built on its pre-1949 orientation. Lamb divides the Asian world into three geo-political zones – Russian, Chinese and Southern. In the nineteenth century the Southern zone extended from the Middle East-east of the Mediterranean Sea, to Southeast Asia. British and French empires dominated this zone, and controlled its land and sea communications as well as its commerce and political organizations. These empires were based on the principle of ‘armed trading’ because European military power – Portuguese, English, French and Dutch – used military force to redefine existing Indian Ocean trading relationships. European armed trading disrupted traditional links among Arab, Indian and Chinese traders which were peaceful in the fourteenth century; the changed attitude and policy facilitated European military and naval development, empire building and European prosperity. Of the three zones the Russian and Chinese remained cohesive in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but the Southern zone became an object of intense geo-political rivalries among Americans, Russians and Chinese following the breakdown of European empires. The two early experiments in strategic triangles before 1949/50 took place in the Southern zone in a period of massive change in regional power politics. This zone offered great profit in terms of commercial and strategic gain because the opportunity costs were low for China, and the value added to China’s interests and prestige was great when it acted quickly and decisively in the Tibetan/Xinjiang area in 1950. In asserting its territorial rights in



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Tibet and on the India–China border it took advantage of its position as a beneficiary of Nationalist Chinese territorial claims. Under the British Empire the major Indian frontier area – the Himalayan kingdoms, the Indian northwest and northeast – were under British control. With the India–Pakistan partition the geo-political and political unity of British India was broken. Pakistan inherited the northwestern frontier and it gained a UK–US acknowledgement that Pakistan was essential for Western defence against Soviet pressures in the area in the Cold War. India inherited the Himalayan and the northeastern frontier areas along with a view in the West that it was not a part of the inner circle of Western defence as Pakistan was. A significant part of Nehru’s nonaligned policy was to promote the image of China as a peace-loving state, and a view that responsibility for the Cold War lay in part with US aggressiveness towards the communist world. These were propagated by Indian ambassador to Moscow S. Radhakrishnan and by Nehru and his officials in various world capitals.7 With this mindset, neither the Indian government, nor the UK and US gave serious attention to the Himalayan zone as a major geo-political epicentre of China. In hindsight, the asymmetry in the frontier policies of China and India was obvious but it was not relevant for Indian decision makers in the 1950s. As a result two different strategic cultures emerged. Beijing’s rulers inherited the Chinese protectorate system where Tibet and Xinjiang belonged to the inner Chinese zone and Myanmar, Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, Ladakh, Hunza and Vietnam belonged to the outer frontier of China.8 India got Nehru’s diplomatic theory about peace zones and peaceful co-existence with China rather than serious policies to engage China on its own terms in the Himalayas and to manage the area through a mix of military strength and diplomacy. Communist China took advantage of this asymmetry and the breakup in the geographical and political unity of the Subcontinent. The two historical examples of strategic triangles in the 1800s-1949/50 time frame reveal two points. One, China, Tibet and other Himalayan kingdoms were acutely conscious about the strategic and commercial interactions in the region that affected their interests, and their interactions were subordinate to activities of three imperial powers – Russia, Britain and Manchu China. The three formed the triangle, they were the principal players; and the Himalayan kingdoms and Tibet along with Ladakh and Kashmir were secondary but important players in the sense that they enjoyed independence of action and their political organizations and military capacities enabled them to participate in regional affairs. The lesser players were participants as well as objects of attention of the imperial powers. Two, despite this lively and important history of strategic and commercial intercourse in the Himalayan zone that extended from Afghanistan to British India’s northeast areas and Burma, the lessons of this history were largely ignored by the Indian Congress party and its main maker of foreign affairs, Nehru. Opposition to British imperialism was an ideological fixation in Nehru’s thinking, and it led him to minimize the importance of attending to Himalayan affairs on a geo-political basis.


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The strategic and commercial importance of the Himalayan zone did not end with Indian independence in 1947 but its course was altered by Indian policies that reduced India’s power in the region. The asymmetry in the mental outlooks and strategic calculations of the players had important consequences. While China, Pakistan and other Himalayan areas acted according to geo-political calculations, India acted on the basis of utopianism. The former set of players approached foreign affairs according to the logic of a geo-political environment. India chose the language of peace and false propaganda about China’s peacefulness. China stayed in the great strategic game; India mostly opted out of it and sought glory in the diplomatic arena of world capitals. China, Pakistan and the local Himalayan players tailored their policies to the changed geographical and diplomatic circumstances as a result of British withdrawal from India and the rise of communist China. The Government of India adapted itself to Nehru’s intuitive views of foreign affairs rather than the ground realities in the Himalayas. (These are discussed later in this chapter in the second triangle, 1949–50.)

The first triangle The first triangle was active from the 1700s to 1947; it showed a pattern of continuous strategic and commercial interactions between Manchu China, British India and Tibet, along with the participation of Burma, Ladakh, Kashmir and the Himalayan kingdoms, particularly Nepal. The Himalayan area was a frontier zone where three empires – Russia, British India and China interacted. Tibet enjoyed autonomy but not complete sovereignty. It was the object of Manchu military interventions and political involvement in Tibetan affairs, and British involvement was driven mainly by its frontiers strategy. Historically China’s influence was often indirect (but not always) and usually unstable for several reasons. 1. British India promoted Tibet as a buffer zone between itself and Russia. The British–Tibetan–Chinese interaction was subordinate to the bipolar one with Russia. With a weak Manchu China, independent-minded Tibet and a cautiously assertive and generally attentive British India, the triangularity was maintained in a direct manner. 2. Tibet sought links with British India and the kingdoms in the Himalayan areas where it had strategic and commercial interests to offset Chinese pressures and Nepalese interventions. 3. British India accommodated Manchu claims in Tibet by accepting the theory of Chinese suzerainty but not its sovereignty; and it recognized Tibetan autonomy. British Tibet policy was formalized by treaties that involved negotiations with Tibet and Manchu and Nationalist China. The provisions were subject to negotiation and re-negotiation, and in the early 1900s they became contentious. The British approach to Tibet and China was based on twin calculations: to check Russian advances in the Himalayan area and to build trade links with China.


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In sum, the triangle had a framework. It had a political and legal structure with conceptual benchmarks and room to manoeuvre in the field of Himalayan power politics. This triangle was framed in the context of involvement of three empires in the strategic heart of Asia. It showed a pattern of uneasy co-existence between British India and Manchu China, between Manchu China and Tibet and between British India and Tibet.


Worldviews and methods of the players For two centuries up to 1911 the Manchu-Tibet relationship was based on a ‘Priest-Patron’ attitude where the Dalai Lama stood for spiritual authority and the Manchu emperor stood for secular authority and he was expected to provide military protection when Tibet was attacked, for example by Gorkhas and Nepal (1788–92). The Manchus maintained political representation in Tibet in the form of two ‘Ambans’ (ambassadors) and a military garrison from the eighteenth century to 1911. Although the pattern of relationships between Tibet, Manchu China, Gorkhas and Nepal, and British India fluctuated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, from Tibet’s standpoint the Priest-Patron relationship was fixed as the basis of the relationship. But after 1949 the issue gained a legalistic and power political tone because communist China asserted its right to liberate Tibet and rid it of feudalism and it claimed that Tibet was ‘an integral part of China for centuries’.9 Franz Michael, an eminent China scholar, however questions it on grounds of historical fact and claims that the ideological foundation of the pre-modern Chinese empire was that of a world state, of the Middle Kingdom that had a mandate from heaven for the universe. But this was an idea, not a historical fact or an idea that is recognized in modern international law.10 In other words, the Chinese claim to historical and legal rights in Tibet is arguable and contested. It gained possession of Tibet in 1949/50 by force, and not by Tibetan consent or authority of international law. It gained it by a unilateral claim to a right over Tibet and by tacit consent of the world community as a result of acceptance of Chinese military action by India, the UK, US and the UN; none of them contested China’s military actions at the UN or in an international legal forum or directly with China itself. The claims reveal tension between different worldviews and methods of the major and minor players who were involved in the strategic, legal and demographic/cultural drama in the Himalayan area. The controversy involves the following considerations. 1. Communist China inherited the Manchu worldview. It distorted the historical record to suit its political-strategic interests, claimed Tibet on this basis, and by the use of its military strength. 2. Following his exile to India in 1959 the Dalai Lama sought a political accommodation with Beijing on the basis of its acknowledgement of Tibet’s autonomy but Beijing is not interested as it enjoys physical control over Tibet. The controversy over the Tibet issue is still unresolved and it spills into China–India relations. Chinese communist diplomatic and legal theory


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regarding Tibet is based on pre-modern Manchu conceptions, just as Chinese border claims vis-à-vis India are based on pre-1949 Nationalist Chinese claims and maps. In sum, communist China’s theory and practice vis-à-vis Tibetan and Sino-Indian affairs has two pedigrees – Manchu and Nationalist Chinese. It shows a skill and an attitude to selectively adapt views and events that suit its current purposes. Hsiung documents the use of selectivity and legal rationalization in communist China’s approach to law and policy in its foreign affairs.11 British India’s approach to Tibet and China questions was based on power political, legal and commercial calculations. They revealed a decision-making process based on interactions between the British India’s Government of India (the Indian Viceroy) and London, as well as interactions between British interests in China, Tibet, the Himalayan kingdoms and Russian imperialism and Burma. British India sought to maintain its position in the frontier zone in the Himalayas by building a system of buffers, and direct contact between British and Chinese power in the Himalayas was avoided. Several reputable scholars such as Alastair Lamb, Dorothy Woodman, Neville Maxwell note this fundamental aspect of British India policy.12 The British India method was to avoid direct contact with China but to maintain commercial and political links to ensure a manageable relationship between British India and Chinese Central Asia that kept Russian expansion at bay. This was the basis of British diplomacy vis-à-vis Tibet, China and Russia. While the motive was to avoid a military engagement with either China or Russia in the Himalayan zone, the method was to use diplomacy and treaty arrangements to keep Russia out of Tibetan affairs by convention. The 1907 Anglo-Russia accord required that Britain and Russia were obliged to avoid political relations with Tibet except through China.13 Such actions deflected Russian energies away from the Himalayan area and preserved frontiers in the Himalayan arc. Trade and strategy interacted continuously in British-Manchu Chinese relations but the position of Tibet and China varied in British calculations. Before 1793 the British government of Bengal sought trade with Tibet to enhance the profitability of the East India Company. Also through war, treaty and trade British India maintained an active stance in relation to Tibet. To quote Praag: ‘The British had bound all the Himalayan states, most of whom had close religious, commercial and political ties with Lhasa to the expanding British empire by means of a series of wars, annexations and agreements, and the Tibetans feared an imminent advance into Tibet’. [Their treaties with Sikkim (1817 and 1861) provided access to Tibet, and treaties with Gulab Singh in Lahore (1846) and Bhutan (1865) strengthened British position south of Tibet.]14 This was problematic for China as it created a platform for European powers to push into a weakening Manchu empire. Tibet however, lost its allure as a trading post as Indian opium trade with the Chinese under British India auspices helped the coffers of the East India



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Company, and the Opium war led to British victory and Chinese treaty port and trade concessions to Britain by the Treaty of Nanking (1842). Still, China’s place as a patron in Tibetan affairs gained value in British thinking in the context of Asian geo-politics and imperial rivalries. Lamb notes that balance of power considerations meant that the British India–Tibet–Manchu links were continuously viewed in the framework of British–Russian and Russo-Chinese rivalries. At the international level these rivalries made it advantageous for Britain to support China’s presence at the regional level precisely because Manchu China was weak, and Russia was seen as aggressive by both Britain and China. In sum, British India followed a dual policy of building ground realities with an emphasis of building buffers as well as a legal fiction about China’s suzerain rights in Tibet in its approach to deflect Russian and Chinese pressures on British and Tibetan interests. Its military actions, treaty arrangements and political links with Himalayan rulers showed the role of British military power, its skilled non-use, and the use of geo-political intelligence and political intrigue to build treaty rights and relationships to maintain Britain’s balancing role in the region, to check the ambitions of Central Asian Empires, and to retain the cooperation of local rulers. Its approach to China revealed a soft touch in British strategy and a policy of calculated ambiguity about territorial borders. The ambiguity was functional because it had the backing of British India military power in the area and it sufficed to keep foreign imperialism at bay; and ambiguity was desirable because there was no strategic justification to expand Britain’s territorial frontiers. London understood the value of recognizing its limits.15 Constant attention to developments in the area, and active engagement in military, diplomatic, and commercial affairs with autonomous kingdoms was the first element of British India policy. Acknowledging ‘an undefined authority of the imperial government [Manchu China] over Tibet’ was the second element. This element was retained even though China’s defeat by Japan (1894–95) and its weakness vis-à-vis Russian expansion led Britain to acknowledge Chinese weakness in Tibet as rulers in name but without power and authority. By the late 1800s differences in attitude, power and authority, interests, and methods of action of the three members of the triangle became obvious. The existence of a triangle was also obvious because the three were tied together – voluntarily and involuntarily to each other. The fear of Russian expansion and the desire to keep Tibet free of foreign influences tied British India to China and visa-versa. China feared both Britain and Russia, the latter more than the former but saw in British India a partner against the common threat of Russia. Britain feared Russia’s not China’s expansion because of the latter’s weakness, and adopted a policy to build its nominal authority in Tibet, which the Tibetans rejected and resented. Britain and British India were also tied to China by direct trading links that were greater in importance than trade links with Tibet. The opium trade linked Calcutta with Canton and it produced a signal event in Britain–China relations: the Opium war and China’s defeat


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produced the Treaty of Nanking (1842) and significant Chinese treaty port concessions to Britain and other Western powers. So British India’s position in the Himalayas was framed in the context of its international interests and policies. Tibet’s attitude and interest was to fear all foreign powers but given its isolation and military weakness and vulnerability to foreign interventions, it sought tactical links and negotiations with foreign powers – British India, Manchu China and imperial Russia. A combination of activism and calculated ambiguity became obvious in British India policies in the late 1800s. With a weak Manchu China, Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India (1899–1905) feared a power vacuum in Tibet which Russia could fill, and this was deemed dangerous because it created the possibility that a hostile force would come close to British India frontiers especially in the northwestern area (Kashmir, Ladakh, western Tibet, Afghanistan). Curzon’s position was a part of a debate in London and in India about the value of a forward policy in the frontier areas to check Russian advances. However, this advocacy remained a tendency not an established policy in British India as others felt that the cost of maintaining a forward stance was high and the policy was unnecessary; that is, it was better to maintain ambiguity about the borders in the areas. Curzon wanted to deal directly with Tibet rather than through China but London maintained its policy to recognize Manchu position and responsibility for Tibet so that Britain and China kept to a friendly course.16 At the same time three threads of policy appeared in Tibetan thinking and actions. 1. When Curzon sought direct contact with Tibet, it evaded this by arguing that China had forbidden such contact. China thus provided a cover for tactical Tibetan evasiveness. 2. Tibet recognized by the late 1800s that the Patron-Priest relationship was frayed; Manchus had failed to protect Tibet against Dogra and Nepalese military interventions, and China could not defend itself against British and Japanese wars. 3. The Dalai Lama feared Britain more than Russia (in contrast with British and Chinese fears of Russia) and he turned to Russia for diplomatic support. These were tendencies in Tibetan politics but while the purpose was to maintain Tibet’s independence the tactical shifts revealed an oscillation in its politics. The fiction of China’s authority was used by Tibetan practitioners when it suited their purpose.17 This history and pattern of activism and triangular interactions nevertheless had an ending. While the triangularity persisted, it was dominated by the interests and power of external players especially British India and China. Tibet was an object of external influence and intervention, and in this history, if there is a trend line in Tibetan political and diplomacy, it revealed a gradual shrinking of its internal and international political and strategic space between the 1700s–1800s and the 1900s. Several conventions were signed during this period; the ones signed in the 1900s were subject to revision, reinterpretation and controversy that showed the effects of the distribution of power among the players and the changing circumstances. The major



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differences in the worldviews, interests and their methods of action of the first triangle in the region, revealed that differences produced triangularity because no single player could act alone or in concert with a combination at the expense of the third member of the triangle. All three were essential players despite the asymmetries in their power, and all three maintained active diplomatic activities vis-à-vis each other. The differences also revealed that absent a meeting of minds on issues and interests, treaties and conventions remain open to reinterpretation and revision as a result of outcomes of wars and changing diplomatic interests and alignments. Finally, even though the triangle formally ended with Britain’s departure from the Subcontinent, the strands of thinking (assumptions, worldviews and beliefs of practitioners) and the treaties remained part of the mental maps of the players although the strategic discourse in the Himalayas was altered by the rise of communist China and its militaristic stance in the Himalayas in 1950s. The first triangle paved the way for the second one, and we turn now to a review of the nature of the China-Tibet-India triangle, 1949–50.

The second triangle The second triangle had a short shelf life, from 1947 (India’s independence) to 1950 (China’s military takeover of Tibet) but it is significant because it brought out the character of Chinese policies in the Himalayan area, and it shaped the controversies that were to grow between China and India in subsequent years. As the following chapters show the volatility in the relationship between China and India after 1950 reflected the history of the two historical triangles. This triangle involved interactions between democratic India, communist China and Buddhist Tibet. The interactions were diplomatically intense, physically violent, brief, but presented radical consequences: they changed the region’s geo-political balance compared to the pattern in the first triangle; they destroyed Tibet’s political autonomy and cultural life. The legal position of Manchu China’s suzerainty in Tibet was replaced by China’s unilateral declaration of sovereignty and this was accepted by India and the US among others. These changes altered the pattern of China–India relations and they eliminated Tibet’s membership in triangular strategy in the first triangle. The second triangle had an overhang of geo-political and ideological rivalry between two Communist powers – China and Russia, in Xinjiang where Moscow’s interest to preserve its mineral concessions and access to Xinjiang clashed with Beijing’s interest to secure its borders and eliminate international rivalries in the heart of Himalayan frontier zones. The second triangle emerged in the context of major changes in a newly emerging Asia. The European empires were retreating, nationalism had emerged as the basis of popular movements in Asia, the Cold War had started but the two superpowers lacked the capacity to fill the power vacuum in continental Asia, and the local powers in South and Southeast Asia were


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internally pre-occupied; they lacked the means, and generally (China and Pakistan were exceptions) a vision to think in geo-political terms. Their values emphasized national development, and global political and economic reforms, and an end to Western imperialist practices. The changes in state forms were significant. British India was replaced by Nehruvian India and significantly British India’s geo-political strategy in the Himalayan zone was replaced by Nehruvian pacifism, internationalism and a pro-China policy. The Indian tilt towards China and its acceptance of its peaceful intentions which Chinese propaganda promoted was accompanied by an Indian and a Chinese tilt against US and Western policies. Second, a weak Manchu and Republican China was replaced by a centrally controlled, assertive and confident communist system in China that sought to escape international isolation and to push the limits of its influence in its southern zone. Precisely when communist China was internally unified and externally aggressive in Tibet in 1950 and relied on brute force to secure its positions Nehru’s India was internally divided, pacifist, reactive and defensive, and its policy had an opportunistic character; to curry favour with China and to sacrifice Tibetan and Indian interests in the short and the long run. Still, despite Nehru’s and China’s policies and the short life of this triangle, there were two unintended consequences. First, the Tibetans did not capitulate to Chinese rule, and absent Tibetan consent, China’s rule was based on power, not legitimacy. After 1950 China’s power in Tibet was direct but unstable compared to Manchu China’s position that was indirect and unstable in the first triangle. One must not exclude the possibility that should the authority of Beijing weaken internally as a result of its economic and social disruptions, its position in the frontier provinces could also weaken, and the Tibet question could come to life again. The Tibet question did not become a part of the UN agenda despite massive human rights violations because the power politics of nations trumped human rights. Nevertheless the issue is alive in the conscience of many globally minded citizens. The second unintended consequence was that the Chinese military action in Tibet (1950) and with India (1962) led to a reappraisal of Nehru’s policies; the reappraisal produced a belated acknowledgement of the central role of geo-politics in the conduct of Indian diplomatic and military affairs. In sum, by 1947–50 four significant elements emerged to determine the dynamics of Himalayan (including Kashmir) politics. 1. Asymmetry in Chinese (and Pakistani) politics emerged vis-à-vis India, where the former emphasized geo-politics, and the latter emphasized global politics. 2. There was a breakup in the geographical and strategic unity of the Subcontinent in 1947, and frontier zone activity now fell into the hands of three regional players. Pakistan inherited the British northwestern zone and maintained its faith in geo-politics by bringing the northern areas (Gilgit, Hunza and Chitral) under direct Pakistani rule and the Pakistani zone of Kashmir under indirect Pakistani rule. British India’s northern frontier east of Kashmir and Ladakh and the central Himalayan areas including the border with Tibet and



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Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim and northeastern areas that bordered Myanmar and China were inherited by Nehru’s India. The Indian government worked on the belief that its administrative measures could establish Indian authority in the border areas and check Chinese activities. 3. Maoist China however, broke Tibet’s buffer status and then proceeded to build its infrastructure and military capacity to blur the line between Inner and Outer Asia. South Asia held the promise of greater strategic profit for China because the southern zone possessed opportunities for China’s territorial expansion, as well as exploitation of mining opportunities and a base for its military deployments and power projection capacity. The Subcontinent was a universe of weak states, weak political institutions and inexperienced diplomatic machines, the military and economic capacities of local states were weak, and India’s neighbours mistrusted its intention and power. Here the Chinese belief in geopolitics, the use of military force and use of propaganda and diplomatic talk contrasted with India’s belief in world peace and peaceful change. This asymmetry gave China the advantage with India because it meant that China could escalate at will – it could adopt a policy to fight and not negotiate except on it own terms, while India relied on a peaceful environment, she sought a peaceful settlement of her border claims in the 1950s without developing the means to fight and then negotiate as an equal. At the same time the asymmetry between Indian power and that of its small regional neighbours gave China the advantage to use the smaller nations’ fear of Indian expansionism to build China’s relations with India’s neighbours. China changed the rule set in the second triangle by its military action and aggressive diplomacy. The conduct of the players revealed a disparity of worldviews, interests and methods that produced a pattern of hostile co-existence that has lasted thus far. Nehru tried to change the rule set in China–India and China–Tibet affairs and sought to reform world power arrangements but in this venture he failed. Nehru wanted to end the use of war by the powers arguing its dangers in a cold war and nuclear weapons environment. He sought to widen the use of peace diplomacy in international affairs by developing diplomacy as the preferred method of international action. His philosophy of utopianism had practical applications. 1. He wanted to avoid a policy of containment of China and its international isolation as this was likely to increase its dependency on Moscow. 2. He wanted to build the leftist Indian political constituency which had nourished his rise to power since the 1930s. His tilt towards Beijing and Moscow and towards economic socialism cemented the relationship between Nehruvian foreign affairs, its leftist domestic constituents and Nehru’s position in the Congress party. 3. Finally, the Nehru policy was Indo-centric because it sought to elevate India’s position in a world of four powers – America, Russia, China and India. He wanted India to be seen as an indispensable interlocutor with all major and minor power centres in the developed and the developing worlds. In this period Chinese and Indian diplomacy was attracted to the use of propaganda – that is, falsehoods that are deliberately advanced to serve


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policy aims. Both countries jointly advanced the theory of 1000s years of friendship.18 For China the mythology of historical friendship and the importance of anti-imperialism was deceitful but diplomatically useful. For India it amounted to self-deception. In hindsight the peaceful mask provided China with the time to execute its geo-political strategy in the Himalayan area – first in relation to Tibet and then vis-à-vis India in the late 1950s. Even if I argue that the 1962 Sino-Indian War was not inevitable because of attempts by China’s premier Zhou Enlai to promote a negotiated border settlement, Nehru’s failure to understand that Mao’s aim to liberate Tibet and the ‘five fingers’ of the Himalayan Kingdoms created a geo-political or strategic conflict of interest. In this context Nehru’s and Zhou Enlai’s friendship talk was misleading. Nehru’s worldviews distorted his Tibet and other foreign policies and no lessons were learnt from the events in the Himalayan area. It is true that Nehru’s India lacked the military means to intervene in Tibetan affairs and to check Chinese advances in 1950. The problem however, is different. Faced with the use of military force to settle a political question – first by Pakistan in Kashmir in 1947–48, and then by China in Tibet in 1950 Nehru and his advisers did not amend their worldviews; they stuck to their anti-power politics, anti-military, pro-China positions and elevated them to a category of official, non-negotiable Indian diplomatic ideology. They took no corrective measures in the area of diplomacy and military policy to prepare for the new situation created by an aggressive China in the 1950s. Nor did Nehruvian practitioners recognize Tibet as a strategic platform in Central Asia. Manchu rulers had feared the use of Tibet as a platform by European powers, as a line of pressure against a weak China. Nehru, student of world history, learnt nothing along this line, relying instead of the comforting thought that no one would dare attack India and, if it did so, the major powers would save India. The Tibet question was defined by Nehru as a moral question – of human rights, Tibetan culture, environmentalism and of proper method (peaceful or military); the strategic dimension was sidelined. Nehru rejected the value of Tibet as a buffer and shifted his buffer diplomacy (he did not entirely reject it) by building Indian treaty relations with Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim. But the error was to repeat the rhetoric about peaceful co-existence when the pattern of developments in the region pointed to a pattern of hostile co-existence and conflict. The characteristics of the second triangle radically differed from those of the first one. In the latter, three empires – Britain, China and Russia agreed to a neutral belt or buffers to separate the empires from Persia to Tibet. British treaty relations with the Himalayan kingdoms created another line of defence. Russia saw Xinjiang as its inner line of defence in addition to the Tibetan buffer vis-à-vis Britain and China. Along with the Tibetan buffer and inner defence lines Britain and Russia agreed to the doctrine of Chinese ‘suzerainty’ but not sovereignty in Tibet. This was a double-edged move. It gave Manchu China a legal position in Tibet and it checked any Chinese idea to annex



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Tibet when it became strong. Sensing the latter possibility Britain sought China’s agreement to form a clear boundary line between Tibet and Assam. China did not agree, based on its conviction that grew out of its view of its history and culture that it was a Middle Kingdom and destined to greatness in Asia.19 China’s takeover of Tibet and Xinjiang, and Nehru’s accommodation of China’s actions had radical implications. The set of buffer zones, and inner defence zones in the Himalayan-Tibet-Xinjiang areas were eliminated. Tibet’s autonomous status under nominal Chinese suzerainty (up to 1949) was changed: China’s suzerainty became Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, after 1950, and Beijing’s acknowledgement of Tibet’s position as an autonomous zone in China was subject to interpretation and re-interpretation by Beijing in a unilateral way. A new rule set dictated by China emerged after 1950. 1. It consolidated China’s geo-political position in Tibet making it the preeminent military power and political authority north of the Himalayas. This way it also created a strategic platform in the Tibetan–Xinjiang area to project its power southwards – south of the Himalayas. 2. It replaced the British and Russian theory of the importance of buffers and defence zones among contending continental powers with China’s theory about the importance of forming secure borders with two strategic rivals – India and Russia. 3. It converted the historical position that Manchu China had suzerainty in Tibet but it was not a sovereign in law or in practice, with a new reality: that Tibet was historically a part of China. 4. It insisted on non-interference by ‘imperialists’ and ‘reactionaries’ in Tibetan affairs. Its diplomacy gave its actions an ideological colour and presented Communist China as a victim, not as aggressor. 5. Unsettled border claims in relation to Assam and Aksai Chin were represented as sovereign rights of China that were based on history. 6. It gave an ideological twist to Tibet’s ‘liberation from feudalism and serfdom’ even though Tibetan society had egalitarian features of a modern country and serfdom was a small element in Tibetan life. 7. It developed Tibet’s importance as a strategic platform in China’s ‘Look South policy’. Mao claimed that it was the palm which had five fingers – Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, Ladakh and Assam and each required liberation. Without control of Tibet Beijing could not develop the ‘five fingers of Tibet’ as its sphere of influence. 8. For Mao China’s revolution was the basis of a just and perpetual peace, and war as the highest form of conflict resolution in an imperialist world. He said that the road to world revolution lay through Havana, Accra and Calcutta.20 These beliefs and a concern with frontier security shaped the ‘Look South’ policy of Chinese Communists. Against this setting Nehru’s theory of international change through diplomatic interactions and peaceful accommodation was ineffective because the rule sets of China and

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India differed, and China had the military strength to pursue its rule set in the 1950s. In the first triangle Tibet’s autonomous position and the pattern of international relations of countries in the Himalayan area were subordinate to the rivalries and capacities of the three interactive empires. They framed the rule set, and as a result the political space of Tibet and other Himalayan principalities was preserved by mutual consent. In the second triangle Sino-Soviet, Sino-Indian and Indo-Tibetan relationships were dominated by an assertive China and its 1950 military action in Tibet; and its actions and public positions dismantled quickly the rule set of the first triangle. It consolidated its position in Tibet and Xinjiang, it emerged as Kashmir’s and Ladakh’s physical neighbour, and from its new, expanded and secure geo-political base it emerged later as Pakistan’s ally in the early 1960s. These developments enhanced its capacity to raise the level of diplomatic and military conflict directly with India through the Himalayan area and indirectly through Pakistan, India’s enemy. Not only did China develop direct and continuous presence in Tibet, it also established a position to maintain at will a direct and continuous pressure against India and its regional and international interests. It also set itself up a model of radical change through armed struggle in Indian border areas and within India itself (in the disputed Northeastern areas). It created an alternative to the Indian claim that it was a real Asian model that was humanistic with values of democracy and peaceful change. China built its territorial claims in the Himalayan area after 1949 on the basis of old (1910–) and contested claims to Nepal, Bhutan, Assam, Tibet and Ladakh. Rowland notes the difficulties British India had in administering Assam since its acquisition in the 1826 following the first Burmese war. He notes Assam’s strategic importance as a point of Chinese penetration through the eastern flank of India and through Burma into India. This was true in the 1800s, and it still remains an area of vulnerability. Several variables explain the fundamental changes in the rule set between the first and the second triangle. China underwent two changes in its state form – from the end of Manchu rule in 1912 to the rise of the Republic of China, and then its replacement by communist China. The first change had two effects. The new Republic claimed Tibet, Mongolia and Xinjiang as provinces of China and integral parts of the new state. The traditional patronpriest relationship was broken in 1912 because the Dalai Lama did not accept Chinese sovereignty or even suzerainty of China as a successor to the Manchus. British India was caught in this polarity because neither the Chinese claim to Tibet as a province nor the Dalai Lama’s rejection of Chinese suzerainty or sovereignty suited British interests and thinking. Under British pressure Republican China agreed to negotiate Tibet’s status and accept Lhasa’s representative as a co-equal in the three-way negotiations that took place in Simla, October 1913. At this time British buffer diplomacy was still in play but it was at odds with Chinese territorial claims. The Simla



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conference sought negotiations between the two different approaches and it sought to form boundary lines and buffers between China and India. The diplomatic record is extensive but it is also murky in legal terms. Britain and Tibet signed the Simla convention, 1914, but China initiated it and did not ratify.21 The second change in state form from Republican to communist China carried the baggage of the Simla negotiations and the 1914 convention, Nationalist Chinese territorial claims (1912–), the weight of Han culture – where strength required advance (and weakness required a compromise peace), and after 1949 the weight of Maoist revolutionary ideology added an ideological flavour to Chinese political culture and territorial claims and the negotiating history with Britain and Tibet in 1914. The changes highlighted the rise of two elements in Chinese conduct: the use of brute military force and psychological warfare. China had two targets in 1950 – Tibet was its military target that was dealt with by force; India was its other target that was dealt with by psychological warfare. Rowland explains, ‘India was accused of crimes of aggression and expansion. … The new Indian nation was challenged by Peking to prove its independence by repudiating the British India policy towards Tibet and relinquishing residual rights in Lhasa inherited from the British Raj. According to Communist propaganda, India’s running dog of Anglo-American imperialists – was the aggressor’.22 China’s psychological warfare strategy worked with Nehru’s India because of Nehru’s anti-war, anti-imperialism and pro-China policy, because India’s political history showed a pattern of defensive and reactive responses, and because the Nehru government lacked internal discipline, and balance and clarity in its approach to Chinese and Tibetan affairs. The results were that Indian rights in Tibet, Tibet’s own rights were surrendered and Indian actions validated Chinese claims. The history of the second triangle indicates that system change is frequently the result of psychological warfare (pressure) used with military action, as Mao, student of Sun Tzu, recognized the value of psychological wars in changing the course of history. Mao emphasized the importance of exploiting the enemy’s mistakes and weaknesses.23 Indian history and political culture showed a consistent pattern of defensive, reactive and vacillating conduct. Nehru’s India carried the characteristics of Indian history. Faced with foreign aggressiveness – Mughul, and British before 1947, and Pakistanis and Chinese after 1947, Indian practitioners acted defensively. Nehru was a student of history and politics but he did not understand this critical facet of Indian history and politics. He dwelt instead on its political and geographical unity. This was Nehru’s propaganda which was not historically true. These elements were in play in Indian decision-making on Tibet and China, 1949–50. They reveal the role of self-delusion, manipulation of facts and the formation of a policy agenda that suited the practitioner’s beliefs. Instead of leading by evidence, Nehru and his advisers led by their beliefs. They ignored the implications of Beijing’s moves and the advice of insiders like Patel and G. S. Bajpai.


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Nehru often explained Indian nonalignment as a policy based on independent thinking based on an assessment of the merits of a situation; and second, it was meant to avoid an entangling alignment with a foreign power that reduced independence in thought and action. But Nehru was reluctant to admit that fear of Chinese retribution, a belief in India–China friendship, and a smugness about the legality of India’s borders distorted and handcuffed Indian options towards China. This was in part a ‘made in China’ and in part a ‘made in India’ problem. ‘Made in China’ because of its aggressive conduct; ‘made in India’ because of timidity. The distortions in Indian policies became obvious during October–December 1950, and the layers of thinking and actions regarding Tibet and China revealed moral bankruptcy and diplomatic ineffectiveness. On 21st October 1950 following China’s military takeover of Tibet, Nehru appealed to Beijing to exercise restraint and seek a peaceful solution in its own self-interest so as to not jeopardize its case for admission to the UN and its international standing; he did not make a case in terms of Indian rights in Tibet, Tibetan rights to self-determination – a principle accepted in China’s constitution, and the cause of peace. Nehru’s diplomacy diverted attention from these issues and placed it on China’s future prospects in world affairs. Clarity and balance was lacking in the 21st October approach. Ten days later Nehru’s position shifted to an emphasis on Indian rights in Tibet (which were inherited as a successor to British India), Tibetan rights and Chinese suzerainty in Tibet. But the damage was done to India’s prestige and its negotiating position vis-à-vis Beijing. The differences between the 21st October and 31st October notes showed the initial influence of Indian ambassador to China, K. M. Pannikar, and the subsequent difference between Pannikar’s and Nehru’s positions. Pannikar had argued that Indian commercial and communication rights inherited from British India government should be surrendered unilaterally. Nehru had abandoned them unilaterally by default in his 21st October note by framing the issues in terms of Chinese self-interest rather than Indian and Tibetan rights. But the 31st October note argued against China’s unilateral abrogation of these rights.24 On a crucial geo-political aspect of Indian policy the episode showed that Nehru’s India was open to persuasion by foreign pressures as a result of three interactive elements: 1. Pressure from China in the form of a surprise attack on Tibet unhinged Nehru’s conceptual foreign policy framework and psychological balance and produced a vacillating set of responses in a crisis situation during October 1950. 2. Nehru’s interest to build diplomatic links with China trumped the Tibet question; the merits of the situation and independence of Indian diplomatic thought was defined not mainly by the effects of China’s actions in Tibet, but by Nehru’s beliefs to build the China links by diplomatic talk. 3. Nehru’s government was of two minds on the Tibet question as revealed by the differences in Nehru’s and Pannikar’s views and the shift in the line of thinking between the 21st October and the 31st October notes to China. Nehru’s vacillation became a pattern that revealed a contrast



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between Chinese decisiveness and Nehru’s indecisiveness. Note the shifts in Nehru’s position within weeks of China’s action in the following chronology. 21st October – Nehru appeals to China in terms of its self-interests, ignoring Indian and Tibetan interests. 31st October – Nehru speaks in terms of Indian and Tibetan interests, and Chinese suzerainty in Tibet, but in the official translation, by a sleigh of hand, ‘suzerainty’ was replaced by ‘sovereignty’ and it is unclear if this shift was the handiwork of the Indian ambassador in Beijing, K. M. Pannikar. 6th December – Nehru’s statement to the Indian Parliament expressed an interest in Tibetan autonomy. January 1951 – The reference to Tibetan autonomy was lost in the official record of Nehru’s speeches although it appeared in the official record of the parliamentary debates. In sum, Nehru’s verbal games and shifts facilitated China’s takeover of Tibet by force. This pattern of Chinese and Indian actions and interactions (China rejected Indian claims and asserted that it was acting as an agent of Anglo-American imperialism) terminated Tibet’s position as a member of the second triangle. It ended its buffer status – which was a cardinal element in the policies of the members of the first triangle. It brought China and India into direct physical contact. Given that the Sino-Indian boundary question was problematic as a result of the inconclusive position of the 1914 Simla convention, the new asymmetries in the distribution of military power in the region and differences in worldviews and methods between China and India created a basis for hostile, not peaceful, co-existence. The problems were likely to grow because China, as well as Tibet, claimed India’s northeastern areas including the highly symbolic Tawang area and its Buddhist monastery as a part of Tibet and China. The Tawang issue is a core issue in current India–China border negotiations; India claims Arunanchal Pradesh that includes Tawang as its province but China claims it too as a part of its historical boundary. The picture is confusing according to treaty law and negotiations. Lamb explains the Tawang issue in British, Chinese and Tibetan policies.25 The picture is confusing because of signs that Tawang was Tibetan in 1936 as per Tibetan claims and British thinking. Lhasa argued that it had agreed to the McMahon Line (1914) as a quid pro quo of Britain securing Tibet its status vis-à-vis China as per the discussions in the Simla conference (1914). British practitioners were involved throughout this period (1914–47) in a policy debate that involved a number of considerations: the legality of the McMahon Line considering that China had not accepted the agreement but Britain and Tibet did; until China was weak there was no military pressure on the northeastern frontier and no rush to build British India’s forward presence in the area; official maps of Britain showed Tawang Tract as Tibetan; it was recognized that Assam’s cultural and commercial orientation was towards Tibet.


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The advocacy of a forward policy in the Assam area by British practitioners was stimulated by a fear of Japanese expansion into the northeastern frontiers but this advocacy was checked by British moderates who pointed to legal and practical issues regarding annexation of Tawang and the need to stay on good terms with the Tibetans and the Chinese. Furthermore, the US government had officially noted Chinese claim to suzerainty in Tibet and its position as a Chinese province in its Constitution.26 This history is important as a major point in the Sino-Indian border controversy at present. But at the same time it is noteworthy that Zhou Enlai, in his meetings with Nehru, made a distinction between Aksai Chin as a historical part of China’s jurisdiction, and on the other hand the possibility of dealing with McMahon Line and the Assam area on the basis of realism, in the interest of friendly relations, and in a patient way.27 This exchange implied that the Aksai Chin area merited a stronger legalistic claim in Chinese thinking even though the historical record was not clearly in favour of the Chinese interpretation. However, Chinese strategic interests vis-à-vis the USSR were seriously engaged in the early 1950s in the Xinjiang/Tibet areas, and Aksai Chin provided a life line for China’s forces in Tibet. A similar strategic pressure did not exist in the area covered by the McMahon Line. The Tawang issue is important in a related but different way in Indo-Dalai Lama relations. Tibet maintains a claim to the Tawang tract and the Buddhist monastery that has high religious value for the Tibetans. The present Dalai Lama has made a connection between Tibetan sovereignty, the 1914 Simla convention and the McMahon Line. To quote the Dalai Lama: ‘If you deny sovereign status to Tibet, you deny the validity of the Simla Convention and therefore deny the validity of the McMahon Line’.28 Thus, the Tawang issue indicates two practical possibilities. In the first instance the views of China and Tibet are in opposition to Indian views if the argument is based on legalism and past positions of China and Tibet on Tawang and the McMahon Line. In the second instance, in contrast to the first one, there is the possibility of Chinese and Indian double cross of Tibetan interests if Beijing adopts a realistic attitude about the McMahon Line. This idea stems from Zhou Enlai’s distinction between the vital importance of Aksai Chin and negotiability about the McMahon Line on the basis of ‘realism and friendly considerations’. Both points are relevant to my case study because the first became the basis of the 1962 border conflict, and the second is on the negotiation table at present, and it could emerge as a point of agreement and border settlement. The first track represents a China and Tibet versus India triangle; the second represents a potential China and India versus Dalai Lama triangle. The first track reveals the primacy of a bilateralized Sino-Indian rivalry between two equal or semi-equal powers (real or potential); the second one reveals Tibet’s position as a victim of a potential double cross by two powers. In the latter case Tibet is to China and India as Poland was to Germany and Russia in pre-1945 international relations.



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The review of the short-lived China–India–Tibet (1949–50) triangle reveals the rise of a ‘deadlocked’ triangle as per Martin Wight’s definition.29 Two points are relevant. Says Wight: ‘In a deadlocked triangle. Three will not be sorry to see One and Two batter each other to pieces’. In my case study China represents ‘One’, India represents ‘Two’ and ‘Three’ could be either the USSR and/or the US. Wight notes a caveat: ‘provided it does not escalate into an out-of-control big war’. The termination of the British India–Tibet–Manchu China triangle (my first triangle) and the breakdown of the communist China-independent India–Tibet triangle (my second one) sets the stage for Martin Wight’s ‘deadlocked duel where One can make no headway against Two, he may lash out at a third party or sideways’.30 This aspect is outlined in the next chapter.

5

The making of Sino-Indian conflict


Role of bilateral actions-reactions, third party Foreign influences and domestic politics in Foreign policy

Introduction 1947/1949 marked the rise of two continental-sized countries in Asia. In broad and simplistic terms China was outwardly confident in its future as a revolutionary power, and India was outwardly confident in its destiny as an international force. China had faith in its appeal as an anti-imperialist force while India had faith in its peace diplomacy. Their initial approach to each other in 1949 reflected a common belief that China was a peace-loving country. China’s use of force in the Korean War was justified in China’s and India’s view as a defensive reaction to US military moves in Korea (1950–), and the military takeover of Tibet was justified as China’s internal issue and a legacy of imperialist history. As noted earlier, Nehru’s belief in the necessity and viability of Sino-Indian cooperation as the basis of Asian peace and development led him to collaborate with Beijing during 1950–59 in Tibetan affairs. The first test between the utility of Chinese hard power and Indian soft power occurred in Tibet in 1950, but this was not the first round in SinoIndian conflict-making because of the convergence between Nehru’s Tibet policy and China’s policy: the aims were similar although the preferred method of change differed. Nehru objected to the harsh tactics of Chinese communists in Tibet, not to their right to take it over. Nehru reacted privately to China’s takeover of Tibet by taking limited administrative measures to strengthen India’s position in the border areas, by negotiating treaty arrangements with the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim, and by making China and Pakistan as India’s main intelligence targets.1 But the focus on China as a country requiring peace for its internal development remained the main premise in India’s China policy. The decision-making system of India regarding China was closed and secretive – controlled by Nehru in his dealings with his counter-part China’s Premier Zhou Enlai. Both played on the themes of anti-imperialism and peace as the principles of their foreign policies. They were collaborators in China’s expansion into Tibet, and India was China’s main lobbyist at the UN and in the US to restore China to its rightful position in world affairs. This convergence was based on several calculations: 1. Nehru did not see an imminent territorial dispute with China


the making of Sino-Indian conflict

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in the 1950s. 2. Nehru was critical of Soviet and American expansionism.2 3. In the absence of a conflictual issue between the two, the culture of secret and bilateral diplomacy between China and India could be maintained, and neither third party influences nor domestic public opinion were factors in Indian decision-making. These reasons explain why China’s takeover of Tibet in 1950 and the termination of Tibet’s buffer status was not the signal event in Indian foreign affairs. Between 1950 and the mid 1950s, India’s relationship with the US was difficult because of development of the US–Pakistan military alliance, and ties with USSR were still in a formative stage. Nehru had placed his eggs in the China basket as a matter of belief in China–India cooperation. Yet, by 1959 the Sino-Indian relationship had soured. What happened? Did China betray India as Indian practitioners alleged? Did India become a reactionary country (a change from peace-loving) by joining the camp of Anglo-American imperialists and later Soviet revisionists as Beijing advocates alleged? Was the PRC decision to go to war in 1962 a result of an internal debate between Maoists who thought of Nehru as an enemy, and Zhou-ists, including Chen Yi who wanted to maintain a possibility of a negotiated boundary settlement? (In the former case war was ‘inevitable’; not so in the latter case.) Was the Indian ‘decision’ to create a war-like atmosphere the inevitable result of its ‘forward policy’ and its refusal to negotiate the boundary dispute except on its own terms? Is it the case that Beijing’s decision to go to war was the result of a deliberative process, but India drifted into a war, because it didn’t expect China to undertake a military attack, its military preparations against China were hasty, and occurred after the territorial dispute had become public and Nehru’s China policy came under attack from Indian public opinion, and bureaucratic politics of India? This chapter explains the processes that converted Sino-Indian peaceful co-existence (1950–54) into a diplomatic re-alignment between India and the major powers. The change reduced the weight of China in Indian foreign affairs by opening up the importance of Russia and America in Indian foreign affairs; and these external changes increased India’s diplomatic space and manoeuvrability in its strategic arena. India’s tilt towards Moscow was not Nehru’s idea – it came from his ambassador to Russia, Dr S. Radhakrishnan. Nehru approved it but it implied an increased weight of Russia given the history of Sino-Soviet polarity and mistrust between Stalin and Mao and later Mao and Khrushchev. The Moscow linkage increased India’s and Nehru’s manoeuvrability in Kashmir and Indo-Pakistan affairs that balanced US–UK interventions on Pakistan’s behalf. It showed to Indians that Russia was a net producer of security for India – in diplomatic, economic and military affairs. Finally, one must consider the effect of bureaucratic politics in India’s drift towards a conflict with China. Mullik was Nehru’s intelligence chief (1950–65) and his account, read with Neville Maxwell’s book, is useful to my analysis. Mullik should be used with care because his account is mostly un-documented and it is self-serving. Several key points, however, are telling.


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1. Nehru authorized the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to monitor China; he authorized the use of patrols in disputed Sino-Indian border areas and the establishment of forward posts. 2. Within the Government of India, the policy of forward patrolling and intelligence activity was in the Nehru-IB-Home Ministry domain and the reports were not widely circulated or acted upon by the Ministries of Defence and External Affairs (MOD and MEA) and Army HQ. Nehru did not authorize the Indian military to build up its forces against China. It was pre-occupied with Pakistan alone. It regarded the China border issue to be in the diplomatic domain – Nehru’s and MEA. MEA on the other hand did not know the exact location of the boundary with China and hence the IB and MEA did not function in a coordinated fashion, while Nehru conducted diplomacy with Zhou Enlai in a secretive way. IB patrolling – as detailed by Mullik – created ground realities which affected China’s territorial sensitivities. They had two other effects. 1. This pattern of decision-making revealed that Nehru had hoped to deal with the border question – a major issue about Indian territorial sovereignty and Sino-Indian relations – by personal and secret diplomacy with China but he failed, and he lost his manoeuvrability in Indian politics when the history of the issue became public knowledge. 2. IB actions and Nehru’s approach had stimulated Chinese animosity towards Nehru and it triggered a process of action-reaction by both sides. It is said that policy change occurs as a result of leadership initiatives, or bureaucratic inputs or inputs by public opinion and pressure. Here the linkage is between IB actions that triggered China’s militant response that led to confrontation and war, and finally it produced a change in Indian bureaucratic policies that sidelined Nehru and increased the role of the military in India’s China policy making. If this hypothesis is correct, then the end game lies not in the settlement of the boundary question; it lies in the development of national bureaucratic politics and opening up India’s foreign policy decision-making.

Towards drift and conflict: the importance of cascading events and effects There are two standards but general explanations of Sino-Indian conflict in 1962: 1. China was the aggressor and it is expansionist (Indian view); 2. Delhi provoked the conflict (China, Maxwell, Gittings views). Both explanations assume that ‘China’ and ‘India’ are monolithic decision-making entities that rationally react to enemy moves. Allen Whiting’s The Chinese Calculus of Deferrence (1975) enables us to examine the influence of several salient drivers that show the cascading effect



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of events that move a relationship from peace to war and from ‘benign misconception’ to ‘malign misconception’. Nehru, during 1950–59, in public took a favourable view of China’s peacefulness, and mis-assessed its political will. (China won’t fight, it would not dare attack India, it was not strong3.) But at the same time, according to Mullik’s account, Nehru was mindful of China’s eventual threat to India – hence the instruction to treat China as a primary intelligence target – but felt that China could be turned around to adopt the path of peace and development – hence the emphasis on China–India peace and friendship diplomacy. Between 1950 and 1959 China too had a benign view of India’s international diplomacy despite its concerns about the alignment of ‘Indian reactionaries’ with ‘Anglo-American imperialism’ and the links between India and the US–KMT threat in Tibetan affairs (1949–62). The benign view carried into the July–September 1962 period when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was resisting India’s forward policy, but Zhou Enlai was seeking border negotiations. But it also acquired a ‘malign’ dimension because of Beijing’s assessment of Nehru’s ‘malicious design’ and ‘dual policy’ – to secure Chinese border concessions by ‘political pressure, military pressure, or other pressures’.4 The benign element in China’s India policy reflected the dual Maoist framework: 1. to build China’s economic and military strength to gain US attention; 2. to build China’s position in the ‘intermediate zone’.5 It was also inherent in the polarity of high-level Chinese leadership views of Nehru and India. Mao saw Nehru as a personal and permanent enemy; Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi sought to avoid a major conflict with India.6 Despite the threat which US–Chinese Nationalists agents (operating from India with or without Indian government approval) posed to Chinese interests in Tibet, despite or because of Nehru’s double policy of accepting Dalai Lama and his government in exile in Dharamsala, and his complicity in preventing international action again China in Tibet (1950–59), Beijing kept the door open to a negotiated boundary settlement on its terms – acknowledging its position in Aksai Chin which was then its military life line to Tibet.7 The blow-by-blow account of events that led to the 1962 war is not critical to my assessment. It is readily available in the works by Neville Maxwell and Allen S. Whiting. Instead my focus is on developments within India and in the international arena that led India and China to rely on force rather than diplomacy to pursue their respective strategic agendas. Second, I seek to explain the consequences of decisions in Beijing and Delhi. Three hypotheses are outlined to shape the discussion. Hypothesis # 1. Beijing was divided in 1961–62 in its India policy but India’s forward policy settled Beijing’s decision to fight. Beijing’s leadership was divided in its India policy and despite India’s ‘forward policy’ (November 1961 – Spring 1962) it held out for a negotiated settlement and reconciliation with Indian ‘reactionaries’ in policy debates in Beijing in 1961–62. It was ready to trade the Western sector (Aksai Chin) for the Western sector (NEFA).8 Whiting argues that by June 1962 military


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conflict was ‘not inevitable’.9 But Nehru refused to accept this formula for a negotiated settlement. With the door closed to the prospect of a negotiated settlement, and with ongoing Indian military probes, the balance of power shifted to the Mao-PLA line – to resist the Indian advances, and to teach Nehru, dubbed the ‘escort for American imperialism’ a lesson. Here Indian actions in 1961–62 settled the Beijing debate in favour of military action, justified as self-defence. Hypothesis # 2. The emerging alignments between India, the US and USSR were seen as a strategic-diplomatic threat to China’s interests, and the 1962 war was a way for China to break this pattern of alignment. The second hypothesis explains the Sino-Indian conflict in ideological and strategic terms. Beijing’s ideologues viewed the alignments in terms of India (reactionary) allied with imperialists (the US) and revisionists (the USSR).10 The tie up between ‘reactionary’ India and Anglo-American imperialism figured in the China–India discourse regarding Tibet but Nehru’s cooperation with Beijing on Tibetan affairs and the desire to build ties with India to advance the theme of peaceful co-existence in China’s foreign affairs trumped the concern with India–Western imperialism alignment. The new element during 1959–62 was that Moscow had shifted from friendship with China to a neutral position on the China–India boundary issue, and took India’s side when hostilities erupted in 1962. This, rather than simply Indian ties with the West, was the game changer for China. The second hypothesis is based on Beijing’s view that India was a pawn in the international anti-China campaign, and this was the ‘root cause’ of the Sino-Indian dispute.11 In China’s view, Nehru, the advocate of China in the early 1950s, had adopted an anti-China stance by the late 1950s. This was a shift in the international pattern of alignments that affected China’s security and prestige; it was not simply related to Tibetan affairs. This assessment made sense as the basis of Mao’s view of Nehru as a permanent enemy. Here I need to treat this hypothesis in diplomatic-strategic terms rather than ideological ones. During 1961–62 China’s press increasingly took an ideological view of Nehru’s policies. Whiting records the statements.12 I view this as ideological justification for its action not an explanation that ideology drove Beijing to a war decision. Hypothesis # 3. Stable diplomatic relationships depend on strong leadership direction and bureaucratic co-ordination of the key drivers and strategies of an inter-governmental relationship. Nehru’s India and its China policy lacked these ingredients of a successful policy. Nehru and Zhou Enlai, the two principals in China–India relations (1950–62), lost control of the bilateral agenda as other players and influences entered the strategic calculations on Chinese and Indian sides. In these circumstances events have cascading effects. These may be studied as unintended consequences of poorly thought out policy actions. However, the India–China case study offers an opposite suggestion: that Nehru’s China policy was highly personalized, it lacked a



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bureaucratic consensus – as Maxwell and Mullik books make clear – and it presented opportunities for bureaucratic players to develop space for their initiatives and institutional interests – India’s IB played an important role in building an advocacy about China as a primary intelligence target, and the Sino-Indian border as a major policy issue for India. This advocacy emerged in 1949 and it later became the basis of India’s forward policy. In the early 1950s the target of this advocacy was Nehru himself and the stimulator in Indian bureaucratic politics was the IB under Mullik. Nehru was a willing collaborator of the IB because he was in two minds about China: 1. a peace policy would help world peace and Indian foreign affairs – hence the need to make China a key part of Indian diplomacy; 2. but China could become a long-term threat – hence the need to monitor the China–India border through intelligence activity. Nehru’s China policy was based on several suppositions, as follows. 1. The China–India friendship was important to prevent China’s isolation and to prevent its dependence on Moscow. 2. China was important as India’s neighbour and as a great country; its military strength generated fear. 3. China and India were the principals in Asia and other smaller Asian countries were subordinate to them; they had no choice but to align with China or India. 4. World peace was preferable to regional unity but ‘if people are foolish enough to avoid world unity’ then China and India must form the basis of ‘Eastern unity’. 5. Despite China’s shocking (to Nehru) invasion of Tibet, it was ‘not presently an aggressive force in Asia’ but if aggression came it would come ‘from the East and not from the West’. Hence the need to establish border posts in the Himalayan border and to strengthen links with Nepal and Assam. 6. Once China was given ‘immunity from external attack, they would give full attention to domestic problems’.13 These suppositions are documented by the US government, based on Nehru’s private conversations with Western officials. In hindsight, none of the aforesaid suppositions were true. During 1950–59, as per the analysis by Maxwell and Mullik, the cast of Indian characters who had dealings with the China file is shown in Table 5.1 Until China–India tensions erupted in 1959–62, and shifted from pre-crisis to crisis mode, Nehru and the IB were the main players in India who handled the approach to the China file. The leadership direction came from Nehru, and the bureaucratic inputs came from IB to Nehru. But as IB-Nehru actions in advancing India’s presence in border areas led to China’s resistance and protests, and China’s road building activity in Aksai Chin became public knowledge, India’s media, Parliamentary and public opinion became a source

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Table 5.1 Indian players and the China file, 1950–59 Player

Method of action

1. Nehru, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister (P)

Diplomacy + border listening posts + treaty links with Nepal, Bhutan & Sikkim

2. IB (P) in relation to Nehru

Intelligence work in border areas & within India; liaison with foreign intelligence services

3. Army HQ/Ministry of Defence (M)

Inaction because it lacked resources for the China border and believed China border was a diplomatic issue

4. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) bureaucracy (M)

Deferred to Nehru’s directions and functioned as post office in dealings with China. MEA lacked research capacity and knowledge of the legal basis of India’s border claims, of the inner workings and motivations of PRC decision-making, and lacked the confidence to challenge Nehru’s suppositions about China. It adopted the view that ‘Panditji knew best’. (These are the words of Jagat Mehta, a former Foreign Secretary of MEA)

5. Deputy Prime Minister V.B. Patel and Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai, Secretary General of MEA (M)

Urged realism and balance of power approach towards China. These views were dismissed by Nehru

Note: (P) means primary player; (M) means marginal player.

of domestic pressure on Nehru, while China became a source of external pressure on Nehru. Under pressure, Nehru’s leadership direction on China faltered, he lashed out at China, India’s bureaucracy had nothing to contribute either to the negotiation process or to the fighting process, and cascading events spun out of Nehru’s and bureaucracy’s control. Nehru’s suppositions – the basis of India’s China policy during the 1950s spun out of control by 1959, and became demonstrably invalid by 1962 as a result of the war. The IB probes had occurred with Nehru’s approval and they were used to justify China’s military action following China’s several requests for a negotiated settlement and Nehru’s refusal to negotiate the border except to talk about it. The IB reports to Nehru indicated the presence of China’s threats to India if the Mullik account is accurate but Nehru did not publicize this point in the 1950–59 period because of his personal involvement and investment in a policy of peace diplomacy with Zhou Enlai. In India’s case the ‘forward policy’ failed to deter China, and Nehru’s peace diplomacy failed to ensure friendship. Both methods failed India. The cascading effect on China’s policy differed from the process in India. Beijing maintained effective leadership direction in the brief war with India in 1962, but, according to Whiting’s analysis, a debate emerged between the Mao view of Nehru as a permanent enemy, and Zhou’s view to avoid military conflict and keep lines of communications open. Apparently Zhou Enlai lost


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the political/bureaucratic battle, and with the passage of the India file to the Maoists (the ideologues) and the PLA (the war machine) China’s negotiators lost control of the decision-making process on the issue. As the two principals of China–India peaceful co-existence lost control of the border issue, the basket of issues and the number of involved players increased.


Role of Foreign influences in shifting the China–India equation, 1950–59 Thus far I have emphasized the internal character of India’s decision-making machinery regarding China and the cascading effects of Nehru–IB–China interactions. Without IB’s border probes that paved the way for the forward policy and the subsequent military confrontation, the border issue was likely to remain an academic and legalistic exercise that could have followed the British India policy of calculated ambiguity in the Himalayan frontier areas. This is a plausible view because Nehru collaborated with China following its takeover of Tibet (1950–) when that event could have become a point of breakdown in the Sino-Indian discourse, and a point to develop a policy of armed defence vis-à-vis China. From the narrative thus far the linear connection is between Nehru’s peace with China policy + IB work that led to a forward policy attitude and border probes that challenged China’s interests. Note that China’s takeover of Tibet in 1950 produced a positive interaction between China and India (during 1950–59) because Nehru cooperated with China in urging the Dalai Lama to work with Beijing in a peaceful way, and by Nehru’s refusal to take the Tibet issue to the UN (in contrast to this reference of the Kashmir issue to the UN in 1948). But IB’s border activities led to border incidents and produced a negative reaction from China, and second, it attracted media attention, and agitated Indian public opinion. This tied Nehru’s hands following exposure of failure of his secret diplomacy with China and its false suppositions. By the mid-1950s Indian diplomacy was failing because the PRC held the ground in Aksai Chin – the Western sector, and India lacked the military capacity to change the ground reality. The Aksai Chin road was vital because it was its supply line from Xinjiang to Tibet; for India it was a matter that affected Nehru’s prestige which was tied to his view about China’s peacefulness. For China Aksai Chin was a sign of the importance of its geo-politics in the Himalayan area; this was not India’s or Nehru’s compulsion. Rather Indian strategic interests lay in the northeast border areas (NEFA) and the McMahon Line that lay between Bhutan/Sikkim and the Burma borders. Now we turn to examine a shift in the external setting that reflected the influence of third parties’ influence on Indian diplomacy and its internal policies as well as China’s interests. The mid 1950s were important because it brought the Russia factor into play in Indian diplomacy and this had a negative fallout on Sino-Indian relations because of the historic mistrust between Stalin and Mao. For China,


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India’s Russia connection created an additional taint to the sense in Beijing that Nehru’s India was tied to Anglo-American imperialism. Recall that Stalin-Mao discussions after 1949 sought to remove the USSR’s presence in Xinjiang14 and the buildup of Indian ties with Moscow and Washington added to Beijing leaders’ mistrust of India’s China policy. The slide in SinoIndian ties from the mid 1950s paralleled or coincided with the growing economic, diplomatic and military links with Russia and the US. The 1950s represented a crucial period in the evolution of triangular relationships. Several developments deserve mention. Starting with Stalin’s changing approach to India which I have discussed elsewhere15 the Nehru– Khruschev relationship inaugurated a major shift in Indo-USSR relations. It laid the foundation of a Moscow–Delhi–Beijing triangle where Moscow and Delhi were quietly against Beijing. Moscow’s concern was to moderate the US–Soviet Cold War and to create the foundation of a détente that protected Soviet interests, but this clashed with Beijing’s interests. In the 1950s Beijing emphasized revolutionary activity rather than deal making with the ‘imperialists’. This triangle was valued by India because Moscow’s support on the Kashmir issue contained Security Council interventions. The Moscow link also facilitated economic and military aid for India’s economic and defence needs. Finally, the Moscow link provided a defence against China’s pressure on India. The Moscow–Delhi–Beijing triangle emerged in the context of three triangular deadlocks: 1. following partition in 1947 the character of Hindu–Muslim and Indo-Pakistan relationship changed. It shifted from socio-cultural conflict to military conflict in 1947–48, and then to a diplomatic and a military deadlock on most major issues. 2. The India–China pathway was different. It went from declarations of peaceful co-existence (1954) to a diplomatic deadlock on the border question (1959–) and disagreements on international questions. Note that Sino-Indian controversies emerged following the growth of the Indo-Soviet alignment in the mid 1950s. The Moscow–Delhi alignment had an effect on Beijing given its mistrust of Soviet policies towards China (1927–) and the Far East and Beijing’s fear that Moscow’s pursuit of a détente relationship was likely to undercut Beijing’s interests and prestige. In this view Beijing reacted to Moscow’s tilts towards India and the US and by lashing out at India, the USSR and the US; in the 1950s its relationship went sideways. 3. The third deadlock concerned India’s approach to foreign affairs. Nehru was the acknowledged Indian foreign policy maker in the 1950s. His diplomatic posture indicated several preferences for peaceful resolution of conflicts and accommodation of conflicting interests among big power rivals: an attitude against militarism in world affairs, and against the use of force by India as a foundation of its policy; building up China in the international sphere; building up India as a model of democratic development, economic socialism and nonalignment; and opposing Western imperialism and colonialism and building up the Third World into a third force. However, the Nehru era



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produced mostly deadlocks in the economic, diplomatic and the military spheres. His tilt towards Moscow produced a deadlock with both Washington and Beijing because it implied a shift from nonalignment. His China policy aroused suspicion in Washington and Moscow and circumscribed India’s diplomatic activity in the international arena. His Kashmir policy produced a deadlock with Pakistan, its Western allies and in Kashmir itself. His anti-military ideology produced an internal deadlock between those who advocated Indian military modernization and realistic policies towards China and Pakistan, and those who favoured reliance on peaceful discourse. His economic socialism retarded Indian economic activity; it neither served the Indian poor nor produced rapid economic growth as economic liberalization did later. His Tibet policy neither served the cause of Tibet’s cultural and political autonomy nor the cause of Sino-Indian peace. It created a deadlock between those who urged the adoption of a geo-political view and a moral view and those who urged an uncritical embrace of Beijing’s peaceful and evasive declarations. His nuclear policy produced a deadlock between those who favoured the development of Indian nuclear arms and those who argued for its peaceful development. As a result India was unable either to gain nuclear security and the diplomatic prestige that is attached to nuclear arms, nor to produce electricity in a big way by nuclear means to serve Indian economic needs. Although major changes have occurred in Indian economic and foreign policies post-Nehru, and although Nehru is correctly credited with building the infrastructure of Indian democracy, its science and technology and its industry, Indian diplomatic activity was arrested as a result of the deadlocks of the 1950s.

1950s – period of rapid change in Sino-Indian relations However, the 1950s was also a period of rapid change in the orientation of Indian foreign affairs because Sino-Indian border interactions nullified Nehru’s suppositions about China, it opened up Indian diplomacy to the pressures of Indian domestic public opinion, and as Nehru lost control over his ‘peaceful China’ theme, several Indian bureaucratic players emerged as shadows in Indian decision-making about China. Also, with Delhi’s growing links with Moscow and Washington, foreign inputs widened the basket of issues and players. The new players did not replace Nehru but they diminished his leadership regarding China policy and foreign policy in general. By the mid 1950s Moscow became a net strategic asset for India, and China was emerging as a net liability in Nehru’s foreign policy. For China Nehru was useful as an asset in China’s diplomacy in the early 1950s when it was isolated in the world’s capitals but this asset was in decline as Nehru turned to Moscow and Washington, and found himself at odds with Beijing. With the growth of Soviet and Western influences in Delhi as the 1950s progressed, the weight of China declined in Indian foreign affairs and mistrust of China’s intentions grew along with a sense that a secret rivalry existed in the

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aftermath of the Bandung Conference. 1954–55 was the high point of Sino-Indian diplomatic discourse; it was also the beginning of the path to confrontation.


Trajectory of change and ambivalent activism by India and China What was the trajectory of change? The trajectory that led to a conflictual India–China relationship differed in the time line and the pattern of development compared to that of India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan were at odds when they came into being as new states. India and China had infrequent contacts in the form of travellers’ visit, trade links across the Himalayan passes and movement of Buddhism from India to China. Statements by Nehru and Zhou Enlai about 1000s of years of friendship were mythical and propagandist. As historical facts they were false but they had a policy aim – to build a positive atmosphere in bilateral relations. In comparison Indo-Pakistani interactions after 1947 had a historical base of intense Hindu–Muslim interactions. Indo-Pakistani polarity was embedded in a history of British IndiaIndian Muslims relationships that had a common political aim – to use the Hindu–Muslim divide to break up Indian nationalism.16 In other words, post1947 Indo-Pakistani polarity was tied to this pre-history. The India–China polarity started to take shape in 1950 in a vacuum. 1. A pre-history of constant bilateral political and cultural discourse was absent, barring infrequent commercial and cultural contacts in the context of activity in the Silk route of China and Indian Ocean trade that involved Arab, Chinese and Indian traders in the 1400s. 2. There was however, a mental history in Nehru’s thinking about the importance of a free China and of Sino-Indian friendship which was expressed by Nehru to Chinese Nationalist leaders and carried forward in his discourse with Chinese communist leaders.17 3. There was a pre-history about the position of Tibet in the history of the Himalayan area that established British Indian consular and trading rights in Tibet but this was a secondary element in Nehru’s China policy. What were the signs of ambivalent activism by India and China in the 1950s?

1. Nehru regarding Tibet At the time of China’s military takeover of Tibet, Nehru urged China to exercise restraint and adopt a peaceful method; he did not deny that China’s claim was legally and morally wrong. He did not acknowledge that China’s action altered Himalayan geo-politics to the disadvantage of both Tibet and India. Nehru’s approach relied on bilateral diplomatic activism; he did not allow the issue to go to the UN as he did with Kashmir issue. His policy about China and Tibet was ‘naïve’ in the words of his official biographer, S. Gopal, and the conduct of India’s foreign office was personalized, amateurish and incoherent.18 Beijing’s attitude to Tibet question was framed



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in terms of ‘Tibetan nationality … with a long history within the boundaries of China’, and penetration of imperialist forces into China. It agreed not to alter the existing political systems in Tibet and the status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama.19 In hindsight this was a deceptive ploy but in the 1950s Beijing’s moves in Tibet reacted to developments in Tibet and inputs by Nehru and Chinese generals. Nehru’s diplomatic style and calculation of India’s national interest revealed moral and diplomatic ambivalence. Initially he argued that the Tibet invasion was not in China’s own interest, implying that Nehru had a better idea about Chinese interests than the Chinese leaders. Later, within weeks he argued that it affected Indian interests. The gap between the two responses was enough to reveal Nehru’s vacillation and lack of clarity on this vital question. Nehru’s activism and ambivalence did not address his Deputy Prime Minister V. B. Patel’s concern that China’s Tibet action was ‘little short of perfidy’, and required preparations against a ‘potential enemy’.20 Nehru did not lash out at China on the Tibet question, as he was to do so later in the 1950s over the border question. A sign of his ambivalence was to allow the establishment of a Tibetan government in exile in northern India and, on the other hand, to acquiesce in China’s coercive action in Tibet; also he refused to back its case at the UN, and instead he gave priority to a search for India–China friendship and ignored Patel’s advice to make ‘urgent preparations’ against the ‘potential enemy’ in China. The Tibetan government in exile gave the Tibetans a basis to develop its constitution and a framework for a democratic life in Tibet but it was not allowed to conduct political activity in India. Still the Dharamsala–Delhi–Beijing relationship emerged and created political tensions between Dharamsala and Delhi vis-à-vis Beijing. This triangle created a point of attraction for Tibetans, and a point of opposition to PRC brutal policies in Tibet. But it did not lead to a settlement of the issues between the Tibetans and Beijing and between China and India.

2. Nehru regarding China The first half of the 1950s showed Nehru’s activism in promoting China in the international sphere as a peace-loving nation despite its military actions in Korea and Tibet but ambivalence was also obvious in Nehru’s shifting tilts – first towards Beijing in the early to mid 1950s (i.e. up to the Bandung conference in 1955) and then towards Moscow as it gained its support on the Kashmir issue in the Security Council. The failure to balance principles, evidence and tactics had an effect in creating mistrust between Indian and Western practitioners and Indian and Chinese practitioners. Activism and ambivalence was also evident in Nehru’s approach to the specific border controversy with China. Nehru and his officials claimed that China betrayed India in the 1962 war. This is the official Indian government line. Maxwell’s review of secret Indian government records and interviews with insiders however, indicates a pattern of ambivalence as Zhou Enlai argued that

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the border required a negotiated settlement. Nehru refused to face the issue as one that merited negotiations; there was nothing to negotiate as the boundary was set by history, custom and legal agreements – this was Nehru’s approach. His actions revealed a reluctance to negotiate a border settlement when the offer was repeatedly made by the Chinese premier; Nehru was evasive and acted sideways. Rational compromise on the basis of mutually accepted principles and evidence was not the path taken by Nehru and his officials.


3. China regarding India Chinese policies towards India also had the character of ‘ambivalent activism’. Its actions revealed three aspects. 1. Tibet was taken by force with Stalin’s concurrence and Nehru’s Tibet policy was criticized as an expression of a Western imperialist conspiracy. Military intervention was justified as an expression of historical Chinese rights in Tibet and a matter of national defence in its southwestern frontier zone. Chinese military action in Tibet in 1950 lacked ambivalence but its political diplomacy oscillated between signs of softness and hardness. Its agreements in 1951 and 1954 acknowledged Tibet’s position as an autonomous province of Tibet, accepted the Dalai Lama’s political and religious position and Tibetans’ rights to religious and cultural freedom. ‘Ambivalent activism’ was evident in China’s bilateral relations with India. In the early 1950s its policy emphasized peaceful co-existence with India; the two countries signed the agreement in 1954. But on the border issue, Beijing had a nuanced and an open-ended position. It sought a negotiated settlement with India on the basis of its claim that the McMahon Line was illegal and a product of British imperialism but China was willing to accept it as India’s eastern boundary in exchange for Indian acceptance of Chinese possession of Aksai Chin on India’s western boundary with China. Beijing adopted a stance that combined its so-called principled opposition to the ‘illegal’ McMahon Line, and its recognition of ground realities and the importance of strengthening friendly relations with India. Ambivalence was obvious in Chinese diplomatic conduct in the early to mid 1950s. When the issue of Chinese maps came up showing Indian territory as a part of China, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai evaded the issue. He claimed that these were old maps; Beijing did not have a chance to examine and change them. Later on it went on the claim that the time was not ripe to bring up the issue for discussion and settlement. In hindsight the ambivalence existed because Beijing believed that it had a diplomatic option to settle the boundary question on its own terms, and a military option to fight and to force a settlement. Ambivalent activism was also obvious in Indian and Chinese diplomacy on the world stage and in the Third World. Both played a game that indicated their activist stance on the world stage, and ambivalence about each other’s policies and prestige; their diplomatic competition was disguised but obvious. Beijing was isolated on the world stage as a result of Western containment of



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China in the 1950s and 1960s, and the US preference to build up the alliance with Japan. Nehru became a self-appointed Big Brother of China. He argued that China needed peace, its needed links with the West to reduce its dependence on Moscow, that it was more nationalistic than communist and that isolation of China was counter-productive. Nehru used his considerable international prestige in the early 1950s to introduce China’s Zhou Enlai to the Afro–Asian–Middle East worlds at the 1955 Bandung conference. However, Zhou outshone Nehru by all accounts and it never accepted the Nehru theory of China and India as the two principals in Asia. For the Chinese leaders China was the Middle Kingdom, it had a great history and destiny, it had defeated the Japanese and the KMT despite superior military armaments in the hands of its enemies, and it had stalled the modern American military machine in the Korean war. Following the withdrawal of European empires there was much ‘unre-distributed power’ or power vacuums in the southern zone from Pakistan to Southeast Asia including India. The Gandhi-Nehru philosophy of peaceful change and peaceful settlement of conflicts was counter to the Chinese experience and Maoist doctrines about Chinese power. Moreover, Indian history showed that India had functioned as a member of a subordinate state system – first under Mughal rule and then under their British masters. The mental maps of Chinese and Indian political leaders varied sharply at the end of the 1940s. China’s Middle Kingdom held the attributes of a world or a major power. For the Chinese, India represented a country to be used for its diplomatic ends and treated as a regional or subregional entity, and as inferior to China in cultural and power terms. On the other hand Nehru held a high opinion of his personal diplomatic skills and India’s great destiny. The divergent attitudes were in play in the 1950s but were kept hidden from public scrutiny; they were not allowed by the propagandists on both sides to disturb the mask of peaceful existence and historical friendship.

Summing up The India–China trajectory ended in a shift first from secret rivalry to a public diplomatic and military conflict and an eventual deadlock. Without active and continuous contact between Indians and Chinese peoples prior to 1949, without geographical connectivity because Tibet was a buffer between the two, and with dissimilar racial and social characteristics, Sino-Indian contacts were mainly inter-governmental ones, and these were subject to leadership manipulation. In the 1950s the two sides played diplomatic and psychological games with each other. They tried to pacify and appease the other, and hoped that the other side would blink. One must not ignore the effect of the third party context that affected Sino-Indian relations. The Nehru–Stalin discourse paved the way for the Khrushchev–Bulganin visit to India in 1955. Moscow gave open support to India on the Kashmir issue and later criticized Beijing for its role in the


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1962 war. The Sino-Soviet conflictual overhang reinforced the Sino-Indian rivalry. Following the 1962 war India also gained Western support against China. As a result all the players were locked into a sense that protracted conflict was the trend. The India–China conflict became a system with standard characteristics: both sides engaged in diplomatic activism and posturing, and both talked about a negotiated settlement on one’s own terms. Lashing out at domestic and international opponents was required to justify one’s policies in conflict. A buildup of military means was required to guard against danger of escalation. Alliance activity was required to strengthen the country’s position in the conflict. Both sides conducted their policies with a mix of activism and ambivalence; neither saw an opportunity to formulate an end game. China sought to build itself as a major force in the Himalayan area but its advance was checked by India following its takeover of Tibet and the 1962 war; its actions brought it into the international limelight and induced other powers to take counter-measures. Nehru’s dream to create a new world around peaceful relations with China was lost in the Himalayan battlefield. Each player’s actions, however, had limits; with escalation came restraint – for fear of getting into an unmanageable fight. As a result strategic deadlocks emerged in these conflictual situations with elements of activism and ambivalence. However, limited and controlled escalations marked the actionsreactions of China and India towards each other.


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The adoption of triangular diplomatic and a military strategy by China occurred in the context of Sino-Indian border tensions (1959–62) and following China’s failure to deter India’s forward policy and to bring it to the negotiation table on the border dispute. Whiting defines the Chinese calculus of deterrence as ‘persuading a perceived opponent that the costs of his continuing conflictual activity will eventually prove unacceptable to him because of the Chinese response’.1 Whiting concludes that China’s deterrence policy with India was a ‘complete failure’ that ‘resulted from too great a degree of Sinocentric, idiosyncratic behavior for effective interaction with a nonChinese world’.2 This chapter explains that the events of the 1950s and particularly in 1961–62 made the Sino-Indian conflict inevitable even though war in the future between China and India is not inevitable. This is so because a pattern of controlled and reciprocal escalation has emerged along with the formation of an institutionalized, inter-governmental diplomatic and an economic discourse between the two continental states. ‘Escalate, stabilize relations and negotiate’ is now, after 1962, the commonly shared norm of Sino-Indian relations. Before 1962, the norm was ‘escalate but don’t negotiate’; that attitude led to lashing out by both sides and eventually war. Why was Sino-Indian conflict inevitable even if the 1962 war could have been avoided, according to one view, had Nehru agreed to negotiate the border dispute and to admit that a dispute existed? The answer lies, in part, in China’s well-advertised view that the root cause of Sino-Indian dispute lay in Indian links with US imperialism and later with Soviet revisionism.3 India was a pawn in the international anti-China campaign; and this explained Nehru’s unwillingness to negotiate a border settlement. The deterioration in Sino-Soviet relations played a role in Chinese perceptions. Compare Moscow’s attitude to China’s actions in the Himalayan area in 1950 and in 1959. In 1950 Stalin supported Mao’s plan to liberate Tibet and to teach the Tibetans a lesson.4 By 1959–62 Moscow’s stance had changed – from friendship with China to a neutral position on the Sino-Indian border and later friendship with it and disapproval of the use of force by China. Another answer comes from Mullik – the existence of an ‘eternal struggle’ was inherent in the presence of two civilizations and continental states and the struggle had cultural


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as well as strategic dimensions.5 Here the implication was that two ambitious continental states were bound to cross swords unless one accepted a subordinate status to the other; only the timing and circumstances that showed up the rivalry was unpredictable. Mullik’s view of Nehru’s assessment of China is corroborated by US Ambassador to India, Chester Bowles’6 assessment of Nehru’s attitude towards China. Krishna Menon’s remark that ‘we will regroup and fight again’ after the 1962 debacle7 implied the existence of a long-term Sino-Indian conflict. The hypothesis that Sino-Indian conflict was/is inevitable is not selfevident. Whiting notes two Chinese characteristics which are relevant to my discussion. One, the use of force is not a paramount characteristic of Chinese foreign policy. Two, Whiting’s analysis points to the existence of a Zhouist line in Chinese actions with India. The record show a willingness to compromise and settle the border question by negotiations as was done with Burma, Nepal and Pakistan.8 If Whiting is right, there is a distinction between the Maoist emphasis on power coming from the barrel of a gun and his theory of revolutionary violence, and on the other hand, the presence of Premier Zhou Enlai as the key interlocutor with India indicates an emphasis on maintaining friendly relations and seeking a negotiated border settlement with India. With regard to the use of force in Tibet in 1950 a legalistic argument could be made that this was intended to secure China’s borders rather than to expand beyond them as the borders were defined by China’s leaders. A forensic examination of Chinese diplomatic method, however, suggests that a conflict with China becomes inevitable if another power centre or a potential one in Asia chooses to treat China as a point of opposition rather than as a point of attraction. That is, if China’s self-image about its peacefulness and the justness of its revolutionary aims, and its territorial and international aims are questioned, then rivalry is likely. Indian diplomatic accounts – by Mullik, Gopal, Patel and Bajpai – reveal a questioning of Chinese motives and aggressive behaviour in Tibet and concerns about Maoist statements about Tibet as the palm of the five fingers of Ladakh, Bhutan, Sikkim, NEFA and Nepal that merited liberation.9 Conflict became inevitable when India refused to fall in line on the border question and refused to abandon its ties with Western imperialists and Soviet revisionists and the Tibetan government in exile. In the context of America’s containment of China policy in the 1950s, the rise of Sino-Soviet territorial, ideological and diplomatic differences by 1959, and the growth of Indian ties with the US and Soviet Russia – China’s two international rivals – the conflict with India went beyond the border issue; that was a symptom not the cause of the conflict. The implication is that the conflict would end if the two sides achieved a general political settlement that included the border question. Gittings emphasizes that Nehru’s willingness to admit that a border dispute existed was the root cause of the conflict; Maxwell highlights Nehru’s refusal to negotiate and his forward policy as a provocation that led to the conflict. Both comments require clarification. The Sino-Indian diplomatic experience



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shows that Indian efforts to discuss Chinese border maps in the mid 1950s were met by evasive replies that the maps were old and had not been reviewed and revised. Later Beijing argued that the time was not ripe to discuss the boundary issue or to acknowledge that a dispute existed until 1959. The sceptic may argue that the willingness to negotiate – that exists in Chinese communications – was a diplomatic stance to convince Indian and international public opinion about China’s sincerity. But the framework of negotiation was formed after China had built its strategic road in Aksai Chin – its lifeline to Tibet from Xinjiang in 1957. This created a claim that Aksai Chin was always a part of China. Dorothy Woodman, a recognized world authority on the Himalayan area notes that Ladakh was independent, and it had formed relations with the British, and it was not a part of China.10 In other words, China’s willingness to negotiate was to first delay consideration of the issue until the time was ripe; it became ripe after the Aksai Chin road was established, and then the time was ripe to argue that the old Chinese Nationalists maps were the basis of China’s claims and a boundary dispute existed. Here a declared ‘willingness to negotiate’ was meant to create manoeuvrability for China’s diplomacy and to buy time for road building in Ladakh, to secure military communications with Tibet, and to make military preparations for a war contingency with India. After 1962, following escalation of a border dispute and diplomatic rivalry into a border war, the Sino-Indian relationship was framed within two parameters: 1. diplomatic and strategic rivalry was inevitable given the different worldviews, diplomatic interest and the search for international space by the two countries and bureaucratic space by the practitioners. 2. War was avoidable because of the danger of escalation and great powers’ intervention. 1962 showed the limits of war as a policy option for China and India. However, the first parameter showed the importance of military buildups by both sides in the Himalayan region, and for China to build an anti-India front in the subcontinent, south of the Himalaya, in outer Asia. Was this a sign of China’s insecurity – that required it to have friendly allies in outer Asia – as its outer defence line in addition to its defences in inner Asia – its frontier in Tibet and Xinjiang? Or was this China’s ambition to break out in the Indian Ocean world? Beijing’s first major response post-1962, was to build its position in Pakistan – India’s vital strategic flank, and China’s bridge to the Middle East, South Asia and the Indian Ocean worlds. China joined Pakistan in forming a strategic triangle against India after it failed to rein in India during 1950–62. Earlier during 1954–62 Pakistan had opted to form a strategic triangle with the US against India, claiming that India and the USSR were expansionist forces and this danger required Pakistani–American cooperation to check them. China did not join the US–Pakistan–India triangle during the 1950s because India and China were engaged in the diplomacy of peaceful coexistence, Nehru was cooperative with China on the Tibet question, the border dispute had not surfaced, the US was engaged in containing China and China viewed it as the imperialist that sought to build an anti-China front.


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Like British India before 1947, China after 1949 demonstrated its geopolitical orientation in the Himalayan region by its activism in Tibet and Xinjiang affairs; and like Britain it had a sense of the limits of its power and interests. In the early 1950s it was limited to consolidation of its military and political position in Tibet and Xinjiang, to developing its relations with India, and only when diplomacy and deterrence failed to check India’s border policy and its realignment with the US and the USSR, did Beijing seek to form a triangle with Pakistan and to accept Pakistan’s approach to contain India. China adopted the logic of a Sino-Pakistani–Indian triangle following the inconclusive results of the 1962 war. Even though India has been defeated in the Himalayan border the score card for China was mixed. It had humbled India and gained an ally in Pakistan but this was cancelled by the loss of two important allies – Moscow and Delhi, and by evidence of a US diplomaticmilitary tilt towards India. As a victor Beijing was unable to dictate to India the terms of surrender, and an advocate of Sino-Indian friendship became anti-Chinese. Sino-Indian relations were tied to the border question after 1959; along with the Kashmir issue the importance of territoriality stimulated Indian nationalism vis-à-vis two immediate neighbours. Before 1962 Indian diplomatic practitioners led by Nehru had highlighted the themes of world peace and Sino-Indian friendship. The 1962 war put an end to the distracting influence of such rhetoric. Also, the over-reliance on diplomacy as the main channel of discourse in India’s political culture and bureaucratic politics was reversed. An accelerated military buildup in the Himalayan region with help from Washington and Moscow followed. These changes were irreversible and permanently altered the framework of Sino-Indian relations. China had won the 1962 battle but it did not secure long-term gains for itself. 1962 started a prolonged process of escalation by both China and India. Border negotiations stalled, and India lashed out against China’s support of Pakistan during the wars in 1965 and 1971. In the early 1960s US diplomatic practitioners argued that China was a destructive force for both India and Pakistan.11 This view of China became a point of contention in the political discourse within India after 1962 between India’s pro-China Communist Party lobby and India’s centre-right opponents of Nehruvian and Chinese diplomacy. China’s recruitment of Pakistan as a strategic partner in its diplomatic and military fight with India was the third step in its ‘Look South’ policy in which India, not any other South Asian state, was the obstruction in Beijing’s quest for leadership in the Third World. India’s location in China’s southern zone, its influence in the Third World, its alignments with two major Chinese rivals, the US and USSR, its economic and military potential and it cultural and strategic rivalry came in the way of China’s quest for advancement as the major Asian power, as the revolutionary centre of Afro-Asian politics. The formation of a two-way diplomatic and a military front with Pakistan were intended to enhance the pressure on India from two sides.



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The emergence of the Sino-Pakistani alignment was a logical step for China and Pakistan because both had failed to dissuade India from its policies towards them, and all three had a history of diplomatic and military activism, albeit in different ways. India could have admitted Pakistani claims to Kashmir and parity with India in the 1950s, and it could have accepted Chinese border claims, and this way it could have opted out of the strategic game with its two neighbours. Pakistan could have abandoned its claim to Kashmir and acknowledged India’s claim and it could have given up on its search for parity with India. China could have abandoned its claim against old imperialist borders in the Himalayas, it could have given up its idea to liberate the Himalayan region, and it could have avoided attacking India as an imperialist stooge. None of these possibilities occurred during the 1950s, and instead, all three, in varying degrees, maintained a policy of activism and engagement with each other despite the asymmetries in the distribution of power between China and India, between India and Pakistan. All three maintained a strategy to deny the other side the prospect of securing permanent advantage or asymmetrical gain for itself. The escalatory potential in Sino-Indian relations was limited in the early 1950s despite China’s forcible takeover of Tibet. A US intelligence assessment notes that Nehru was shocked by China’s invasion of Tibet, but he clung to the belief ‘that China is not presently an aggressive force in Asia’.12 In hindsight China used the 1950s to develop its escalatory potential with India by building its military and political position in Tibet, and by building its military communications in Aksai Chin and in Indian border areas. India used the period to build its administrative position and its intelligence machinery in the border areas. The escalatory potential of both sides was increasing, albeit in skewed ways, but it was concealed by the cover of declarations of the thousands of years of friendship between the two countries and by their agreement in 1954 to settle disagreements peacefully. China avoided Indian requests to settle all outstanding questions on the grounds that the time was not ripe for a settlement. In retrospect it meant that China first wanted to firm up its military position in the Tibetan and the Indian border areas; and Indian leaders believed that their professions of friendship with China and Soviet support could restrain Beijing’s threat. The Sino-Indian border issue became a matter of public dispute in 1959 but still its escalatory potential was checked by an expectation that the issue could be resolved by diplomatic means. Developments in the 1960s unleashed a process of continuous escalation between China and India. Second, they firmed up the formation of the China–India–Pakistan strategic triangle. Third, they drew lines in the sand that worked as limits to escalation, and that revealed a pattern of threatening military buildups by China, Pakistan and India, and restraint in action by all three. The restraint reflected external pressures on the three that generated fear if wrong actions were taken. The escalatory potential was checked


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when Chinese and Pakistani power was confronted by Indian power, and international powers dampened the regional conflicts. Also, the pre-occupation of Chinese leaders with the Cultural Revolution hindered a temptation to use its power against India. Still, the verbal declarations of Chinese and Pakistani leaders maintained the fear of escalation. In 1959 China’s ambassador to India spoke about the danger of a two-front war. Also, Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Z. A. Bhutto noted that Pakistan would have China’s help.13 These threats signalled an intention to escalate but, as we will see later, the actual conduct showed a Chinese reluctance to use its military power in a South Asian war, and thereby to escalate an Indo-Pakistani crisis. This reflected its concern with the limits of its present power and the danger of inducing US and Soviet pressure on China on India’s behalf.

Change through escalation in Sino-Pakistani–Indian relationships, 1950s through 1990s The pattern of Sino-Pakistani and Indian escalation intensified after 1962. Let us take the 1947 Partition as a baseline to assess the pattern of Pakistani– Indian escalation, and 1949/50 as a baseline to assess the pattern of SinoIndian escalation. In August 1947 – when India and Pakistan gained independence, there was a Hindu–Muslim social and political division. Pakistan’s leader M. A. Jinnah took the first step towards escalation by authorizing or tolerating the tribal invasion of Kashmir (1947–48). This militarized the Kashmir issue and escalated the Hindu–Muslim polarity into an Indo-Pakistani rivalry over Kashmir. By now the power and prestige of the two countries were involved at both the regional and international levels. Pakistan’s escalation also converted a two-person (Hindu–Muslim; India–Pakistan) game into a fourperson (India, Pakistan, the UK and US) game in 1947–49. Later it became a five-person game when Moscow’s diplomacy came down on India’s side in the Kashmir question. Subsequently it became a six-person game when Beijing’s diplomacy shifted from neutrality on the Kashmir issue in the early 1950s to a pro-Pakistani stance in the early 1960s. This process of diplomatic escalation was completed by 1962. Following the 1962 India–China war the pattern of alignments (friendly and polarized) was consolidated. For Pakistan and China the Government of India (not the people) was expansionist; for China the Indian government was a reactionary regime and a tool of Western imperialism against China. For the US government the South Asian policy of China was destructive for both India and Pakistan and the Sino-Pakistani alignment that appeared in the early 1960s was problematic for regional peace. For the USSR, China’s war with India was unacceptable and unnecessary. During the 1950s diplomatic escalation in Indo-Pakistani affairs occurred rapidly and the Kashmir issue was internationalized, but diplomatic escalation and military preparations in the Sino-Indian relationship were controlled



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in a bilateral framework. However, by 1959 the Sino-Soviet ideological split, Beijing’s disagreement with Moscow’s détente and disarmament policy with the US, the emergence of the Sino-Indian border controversy, and Moscow’s support to India on its border issue produced escalations in both Sino-Soviet and Sino-Indian relationships. In this context Beijing escalated rapidly. It escalated its confrontation with India on the Tibet question when India gave refuge to the Dalai Lama in 1959, and the entire 2000-mile Sino-Indian border became controversial. Then it started its military preparations for war with India (1960–61). Finally, Indian communists and Chinese expatriates living in India were psychologically prepared by Chinese officials to oppose Indian policies. Also, Beijing moved quickly to develop the China– India–Pakistan triangle. It began with a border and a diplomatic settlement with Pakistan in 1962–63 and its diplomacy shifted from neutrality on the Kashmir question (1950s) to a public acceptance of a pro-Pakistani stance in the 1960s. The building of the Tibet–Pakistan Karakoran highway formed a channel for the flow of Chinese commerce and military power and support to Pakistan. The development of a military supply relationship included transfer of Chinese nuclear test data and North Korean missile aid to Pakistan as well as modern conventional armaments. These actions highlighted China’s strong strategic commitments to Pakistan. In comparison, India’s Government and its public opinion were slow to engage China militarily in the 1950s. Thereafter, following the humiliation of the 1962 defeat, it acted in a defensive and a reactive manner; but it declined to publicly declare China as an enemy. Compare India’s style with China’s. After 1959 Beijing’s policy revealed an escalatory trajectory to pressure India. It had threatened India with two-front pressure in 1959. It carried out this threat by joining with Pakistan in 1962. It defeated India in the Himalayas. India’s reactions avoided provoking China on the Tibet issue; it continued to repeat the old mantra that Tibet was an integral part of China. But on the other hand, it did not admit defeat or acknowledge that China had a permanent advantage in the Himalayan region, or that its social and political model was superior to India’s. India did not negotiate a border settlement on Chinese terms, and it actively built its economic and military strength after 1962. An Indian insider’s account explains how the pattern of Chinese escalation appeared to Indian practitioners and how it stimulated a pattern of Indian escalation. I dwell on the work of B. N. Mullik who served as the Director of India’s Intelligence Bureau and Nehru’s intelligence adviser during 1950–65, and he had an ongoing association with British intelligence. Mullik explains how the China file was dealt with by various Indian government departments. He shows the lack of a coherent China policy within India during the 1950s. This was a result of compartmentalization and an ad hoc decision-making process. Policy direction and coordination among Indian ministers was lacking; and disagreements about the character of the China threat retarded policy development. The disagreements involved all major governmental


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departments: Army Headquarters, the Home Office, the Foreign Office, the Prime Minister’s office, the Intelligence Bureau. Nehru had a well-known anti-military orientation, and his views on China and the role of military force in the modern world informed the policy to limit resource allocation for India’s military development. In addition, the record shows that Nehru, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of India, could not control the actions of his ambassadors and each one including Pannikar in China was pursuing his/her inclinations. Mullik’s account is based on intelligence assessments and governmental deliberations. Although it is mostly undocumented, his insights and veiled criticism of India’s policy-making process make it credible. In his view, the Sino-Indian rivalry began in the 1950s, but it was kept hidden by Nehru’s emphasis on peace diplomacy with China. Although Chinese actions in Tibet and on the Indian border increased suspicions among Indian practitioners about Chinese intentions, the decision was to develop intelligence on China and strengthen India’s presence in the border areas. His account is richer than Neville Maxwell’s ‘India’s China War’. Maxwell deals with events leading up to the 1962 war. India’s military defeat was the end point of the Maxwell narrative. For Mullik and Indian practitioners the 1962 confrontation was a battle, an event, in a long and ongoing saga of an ‘eternal rivalry’ to use Nehru’s words. This rivalry did not have an end game at the time of writing (2010). Several variables explain the origins and development of the Sino-Indian rivalry, as follows. A. Lack of a pre-history and differences in worldviews led to growth of antagonistic attitudes and aims The two countries did not have a history of continuous, predictable and stable interactions with each other before 1947/49. An institutionalized dialogue at the levels of politics, commerce, cultural-scholarly exchanges or war did not exist. Pre-1947 contacts had existed in an intermittent way in the form of limited commercial and cultural activity in the Central Asian region and trading activity in the Indian Ocean area. The worldviews of the two sides were radically different. China’s communist rulers saw themselves as culturally and politically superior, as the inheritors of the great Chinese civilization, as a revolutionary power in a world of powers; they believed in their superiority in every way over the Indians. China’s India policy was framed in terms of Chinese beliefs about the problem of British India’s imperialism, and after 1949, Beijing saw Nehru’s India as a tool of Anglo-American imperialism. Nehru’s India saw itself as the inheritor of a great Indian civilization and viewed itself as a major power because of its economic and political potential and its moderate and reformist ideas. For China the Sino-Indian dialogue was between two unequal parties.14


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Mullik indicates that Nehru was aware of China’s threats to India. Nehru’s view (1952) was that India had a 2,000 miles frontier with China and had to take care of it. It was quite one thing to take care of a quiet frontier and quite another to defend a hostile frontier. If India had to do the latter, then all her resources would be spent in just defending it. Therefore, in India’s national interest a war must be avoided, especially with the neighbouring countries like Russia and China. At the same time, the Government must ensure that nothing was done in India which would strengthen those subversive and disruptive elements which tended to weaken the country.15 Nehru’s instructions to his intelligence establishment were to target Pakistan and China, not Russia or the US. His view in Mullik’s words was as follows: ‘the two enemies whom India would have to confront would be Pakistan which would utilize Pan-Islamism in its support, and China, which would utilize international communism for its own ends, and [Nehru] had fixed these to be our main targets in the foreign field’.16 Nehru claimed that China was historically aggressive, and the threat stemmed from its nationalism, not its communism. It claimed Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, parts of Northern Bengal, all of Assam, Burma, Malaya, Thailand, Indo-China and parts of Turkistan and Siberia. It sought supremacy in Asia, and there was in Nehru’s mind a constant tussle between Indian and Chinese cultures for over 2000 years in Central Asia, Tibet, Burma and Southeast Asia. The struggle was likely to continue. India stood in the way of China’s expansion. However, India needed 20 years of peace to stabilize its economy, and for this reason it sought friendly relations with China. Its push to secure China’s admission into the UN was a way to contain Chinese aggressiveness by opening it up to external influences.17 Nehru’s aims were to keep the bilateral dialogue going by a friendly posture, to avoid stimulating China into establishing a position in the border and tribal areas, to avoid economic difficulties by committing India to military action, to create an administrative presence in support of the McMahon Line on the eastern frontier, and to induce general Chinese moderation in its approach to India.18 Mullik talks about a China–India–Tibet ‘triangle’.19 Nehru himself did not mention this. A plausible explanation is that Nehru wanted 20 years’ friendship [or a compromise peace]. In negotiating the 1954 peaceful co-existence agreement with China, Nehru sought a 20-year term for this agreement but Beijing only accepted it for eight years, that is, up to 1962. Nehru felt that the Chinese historically had failed to subdue Tibet, the Tibetans had fallen to Chinese demands under military pressures but the Tibetans hated the Han Chinese and they would not likely submit to China by consent. According to Mullik Nehru had a two-point agenda: to save Tibet and to safeguard India’s border; first make India strong and then raise Tibet to its feet.20

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B. Tactical expediencies masked the rivalry If Mullick’s account is plausible then tactical expediencies masked the mistrust and rivalry between Chinese and Indian leaders during 1949–59. Both sides used diplomacy to buy time. China sought time to build its military position in the Tibetan–Himalayan region; for India it was to mute the rivalry, to delay its onset and to avoid the economic costs of a military buildup against China. China kept a friendly face with India (1952–59) but its position on the border was ambiguous, its maps showed large chunks of border areas claimed by India as a part of China in addition to Tibet, its road building continued and it claimed that it did not have the time to revise the maps.21 Between 1952 and 1954 Nehru’s awareness of China’s threat increased and this was expressed in three ways. 1. His threat assessment to India’s intelligence staff targeted China as a potential security problem. 2. Intelligence listening posts were set up in border areas under his instructions. 3. The government took measures to extend its administrative and quasi-military presence in the border areas especially the northeast and Ladakh areas.22 His diplomacy towards China was cast in the context of the Sino-Soviet alliance established in 1949. He assumed correctly that India could not fight a combined Sino-Soviet military front and Pakistan. Alignment with the US was not an option because it was too far away from China physically to be threatened by it, and far away to be able to help India. Moreover, in Nehru’s view as reported by Mullik, it produced international tensions by pushing an ideological and a militaristic Cold War that tended to bring the communist countries together rather than to release the nationalistic rivalry between Moscow and Beijing.23 Nehru’s premise was validated by Sino-Soviet developments when Soviet leaders adopted an anti-Stalinist position, sought détente with the US and rejected the Maoist theory of armed struggle and revolutionary power. The India question also became a part of the Sino-Soviet controversy. The statement by Tass (9 September 1959) criticized bloodshed on the Sino-Indian border, and distinguished between India (a friend) and China (an ally). Moscow’s neutrality paved the way for Moscow to stress friendship with India. Nehru’s view that national interest would trump communist ideology was validated by these events.24

C. India was militarily weak and its political establishment was divided about China policy Despite the sense of rivalry and mistrust at the level of Nehru and his intelligence adviser, India’s decision-making about China was riddled by internal debates and divisions up to 1962. India’s China policy during 1950–62 was a study of multiple and confusing voices which produced much noise within the government and confusing, reactive actions. The lack of an effective decision-making process became apparent from a pattern of actions and



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attitudes that emerged in response to Chinese actions. When China took over Tibet militarily in 1950 Indians protested the use of force but acknowledged that Tibet was a part of China, and favoured the Sino-Tibetan agreement of 1951 that acknowledged Tibet’s position as a part of China and applauded China’s promise that it would not change Tibet’s political system and the position of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan religious customs. China’s breach of promise increased Indian mistrust of China but having accepted China’s claim to Tibet and having given up its rights in Tibet, India lacked leverage to interact with China on the Tibet question.25 India’s first ambassador to China, K. M. Pannikar, had an agenda to push Indian views on Korea and Taiwan, and to ignore the Tibet question.26 India’s military establishment saw no military role for itself against China because its posture was geared to Pakistan, not China. The views of Indian generals are summarized by the following assessment by Mullik. India’s army chief General Cariappa felt (in 1950) that he was hard pressed with commitments on the Pakistan front and with internal security threats from communal and communist elements that he could not spare more than a battalion for the Tibet front. The Indian army’s reluctance to fight China continued up to 1962.The Army chief (General Thimayya) stated that he considered the possibility of a total war with Pakistan but he could not do so with China. He could not consider taking on China in an open conflict and it ‘must be left to the politicians and the diplomats to ensure our security’.27 Indian army chiefs were also mindful, correctly, about the danger of war with the Sino-Soviet alliance where India was at a disadvantage against the two northern powers. In addition, they lacked the resources to man a 2000-mile frontier from Ladakh to Northeastern India. India’s policy establishment was a divided house from the outset. India’s China policy during the Nehru years lacked the mark of professional staff work and institutionalized debate that is a sign of a modern country. Consider the attitudes of the main Indian players who had a responsibility for China affairs. The Intelligence Bureau assessed the problems with Chinese infiltration into India and raised doubts about the loyalty of Chinese residents in India as early as February 1949. In September–October 1949 as Xinjiang fell to Chinese communist forces the Intelligence Bureau warned about the danger of infiltration along the Xinjiang–Karakoram–Leh area. In addition the infiltration from mainland China to India came through Burma and Singapore, and West Bengal was a point of infiltration because three-quarters of the Chinese lived in the state, and the routes from Burma and Sikkim passed through West Bengal. Apart from the demographics, Calcutta was important as well in Leninist theory; it was seen as a major gateway to revolution under Maoist auspices.28


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India’s Deputy Prime Minister, V. B. Patel recorded his view of the danger to India of two fronts – Pakistan and China but he did not press them on Nehru or seek Cabinet level discussion. Patel’s comments led the government to establish a committee to study the implication of Chinese aggression in Tibet and to improve Indian security in the frontier areas; also, intelligence gathering activity was stepped up in the border areas.29 Patel had argued that Chinese actions in Tibet and the Indian border areas created a new security situation but Nehru maintained his policy of peace with China. Patel felt that the Indian ambassador to China K. M. Panikkar (1949–52) had a rosy view of Chinese intentions; he did not raise the border issue with Chinese practitioners and instead concentrated on Korean and Taiwan issues and activities to promote India’s peaceful relations with China. According to Mullik, India gave up its manoeuvrability and showed poor bargaining skills when it did not link its acceptance of China’s position on Tibet to the border issue, while China on the other hand, gave up nothing in exchange for Indian support of Chinese aims in Tibet, Korea and Taiwan. China maintained that it would deal with issues as they became ripe for settlement, while Indians argued that they wanted to discuss all pending issues. The Sino-Indian agreement of 1954 acknowledged Tibet as a part of China, and India did not press for Tibetan autonomy and thereby surrendered its bargaining position. China’s only concession was to maintain neutrality on the Kashmir issue but this policy would come to an end by 1955 when Chinese and Pakistani leaders met at Bandung and the two assured each other that there was no conflict of interest between the two; furthermore, China noted in a secret telegram to Pakistan that it expected a conflict of interest with India to emerge but not with Pakistan.30 In sum, Beijing retained its power to manoeuvre and to develop its escalatory potential while Indian practitioners stuck to a stated official position and lost the flexibility. Mullik explains Indian bureaucratic politics on the China question and the internal polarities which inhibited coordinated action. The Intelligence Bureau kept a steady stream of intelligence assessments based on their listening posts and contacts with the Tibetans and these were shared with the important ministers. Prime Minister Nehru agreed with the reports but there was a disconnect between his peaceful line with China – that is, China seeks peace, the US is aggressive, India and China have a peaceful future – and his private mistrust of Chinese intentions. Nehru’s intelligence targets as described by Mullik were Pakistan and China; but Pakistan was the only military target of the Indian Army and the military preparations as well as resource allocations for the Indian government for Army authorities were limited to meet the requirements of the Pakistan front. Army headquarters felt unable to manage the 2000-mile military front with China from Ladakh to northeast India and felt the border issue required a diplomatic rather than a military solution. In addition, the Indian Foreign Office could not agree on the boundary line(s) between China and India and this was in contrast with


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Nehru’s public view that the boundary line was settled by history, custom and watershed principle.31


D. China’s use of calculated ambiguity enabled It to maintain its manoeuvrability with India and to escalate at a time and place of its choice; Indian diplomacy lacked these attributes The use of calculated ambiguities in Chinese positions on the border question enabled it to escalate and change its positions on the border issue. In 1954 it argued that matters ripe for settlement would be discussed and settled and that it did not have time to revise old Chinese maps that showed the NorthEast Frontier Agency (NEFA), large parts of Ladakh, parts of Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, parts of Bhutan as parts of China. By 1957 when it had completed its road in Aksai Chin and secured its lines of military communications in Tibet and Xinjiang area the old maps became the basis of the claim that the entire border was open to settlement on Chinese terms and the entire boundary was in dispute. Here escalation meant the abandonment of calculated ambiguities by China. Another form of escalation was to threaten the formation of a two front against India in the late 1950s. China’s ambassador in India first made the threat and then Chen Yi repeated it.32 In 1959 the China–Pakistan alignment gained traction following the overtures in 1955 at Bandung; by 1963 the two neighbours had a boundary settlement in Kashmir. China’s actions and escalation showed a strategy to build several politicaldiplomatic-psychological-military fronts against India. Each front established a point of opposition against India, a point of manoeuvre and a point of escalation. Tibet was the first front. This front created trouble for India’s position in Tibet because it revealed Indian weakness in asserting its inherited rights in Tibet. It exposed a fault line in Nehru’s actions; they revealed that friendship with China was more important than defence of Tibetan rights. This diminished India’s reliability in Tibetan thinking. It also weakened the prospect that India could form an anti-China front at the UN because Nehru did not push Tibet’s case and the UK–US deferred to India on the issue. China thus emerged as a line of pressure against Indian and Tibetan interests without a fear that Indian or Tibetan practitioners could mount counter-pressure(s) against China’s interests. The Chinese theory that ‘principle’ must be accompanied by ‘flexibility’ was in play in the Tibet and India border questions. Beijing’s principle was that Tibet was a part of China and the British India distinction between Chinese ‘suzerainty’, not ‘sovereignty’ did not matter. The ‘flexibility’ was shown in the 1951 agreement with the Tibetans which acknowledged Dalai Lama’s authority and position in Tibetan affairs as the basis of Tibet’s autonomy. In its military takeover of Tibet in 1950 and the 1951 agreement with the Tibetans, Beijing’s primary target was the Dalai Lama and his establishment, and India was the secondary target. Following its road-building programme in the Himalayan region, India became the


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primary target and this was confirmed by the war in 1962, and flexibility was replaced by inflexibility.33 In Maoist theory of manoeuvre one must consider tactics in relation to the whole and the parts and to distinguish between primary and secondary targets. In Beijing’s calculations ‘Indian reactionaries’ were secondary in importance in comparison to ‘US imperialists’ in the early 1950s. By the late 1950s ‘Soviet social imperialists’ became its primary targets. The theory of primary/secondary targets was accompanied by tactics that differentiated between ‘principle’ and ‘flexibility’.34 The second front involved Pakistan. Several regional and international developments stimulated the buildup of the China–Pakistan front triangle in the late 1950s. India and the USSR grew closer by 1955, and Moscow made a distinction between Indian friends and Chinese ‘allies’ when the Sino-Indian border controversy flared up in 1959. Moscow’s preference for a détente relationship with the West was counter to China’s desire to be taken seriously as a revolutionary power. The increase in Sino-Soviet tensions was parallel to the hardening of Chinese and Indian border-negotiating positions in the second half of the 1950s. The establishment of the Tibetan government in exile in India in 1959 made the Dalai Lama the point of attraction for Tibetans in Tibet and in India and as a point of opposition to China government’s Tibet policy. India continued to develop its links with ‘Anglo-US imperialists’ despite controversies about US policy on Kashmir and military aid to Pakistan. For Beijing Indian nonalignment was a façade to cover India’s affinity with the West. The international situation was complicated for China in the late 1950s. China did not appreciate Moscow’s view on peaceful co-existence as it was not anti-imperialistic enough to meet China’s revolutionary standards. It did not appreciate the effort by India and Japan to push China’s case for admission to the UN as she would lose her freedom of action. Beijing sought a settlement with the US where Washington made the first move (as Nixon and Kissinger did later); UN entry was seen to restrict China’s manoeuvrability in the international sphere vis-à-vis the USSR, the US and lesser countries, and it was viewed as a way to contain China by bringing it under UN discipline. China was busy developing its revolutionary credentials during the 1950s. It was building roads in Tibet – which revealed its Himalayan orientation, and from Yunnan to the borders of Laos and Thailand – which showed its Southeast Asian orientation. Africa was China’s main anti-colonial front and showcase of its revolutionary credentials along with Beijing’s support of revolutionary movements in Southeast Asia. In the late 1950s/early 1960s it was concerned about containment by the US, India and Taiwan.35 China developed its escalatory potential and showed its ability to manoeuvre and to change its diplomatic and military policy Chinese actions during the late 1950s/early 1960s showed its capacity and motivation to escalate its moves, to isolate India diplomatically, to fight it



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militarily and to implement its threat to pressure it with two fronts. Its posture during the early to mid 1950s showed a willingness to negotiate a border settlement with India on the basis of reality and flexibility. This was replaced by a claim in 1959 that the entire border was in dispute along the lines of the old Chinese maps. This hardening occurred in parallel to the rise of Sino-Soviet controversies which led to an open breach in April 1960 with Moscow. Second, as Sino-Indian attitudes were hardening vis-à-vis each other Beijing moved quickly to negotiate boundary settlements with Nepal and Burma, with Pakistan and Afghanistan. These settlements were meant to show Chinese reasonableness and Indian intransigence. It accepted the McMahon Line as the basis of a boundary settlement with Burma but declined to do so with India in 1959–60 and thereafter. This incident revealed a crack in its legal-political views about the McMahon Line as an imperialistic construction. It showed that it was up to Beijing to either assert a principle or to show flexibility to maintain its manoeuvrability. In this case Beijing showed flexibility with its secondary targets who were India’s and China’s neighbours in the southern zone of China while maintaining a hard stance with India, its main regional rival. Third, Beijing started to make military preparations for Tibetan plateau warfare in 1960, and these served as the basis of China’s excellent tactics in the 1962 war with India.36 This period is significant because it marks China’s double escalation against India. 1. The Sino-Indian frontier was dead militarily for most of the 1950s even as the two countries tried to reach a diplomatic understanding. The 1959 declaration that the border was in dispute made it into an active military zone. 2. The Sino-Pakistan front was inactive up to the late 1950s because of Chinese neutrality on the Kashmir issue. By early 1960s it became the second primary field of manoeuvre (along with the 2000-mile Sino-Indian border). This historic change is discussed later in the chapter. The importance of primary and secondary targets, and the distinction between principles and flexibility provide theoretical guidance about the tools of manipulation and escalation which were (are) critical in China’s India policy China had a variety of tools of manipulation and escalation compared to India. The latter had surrendered its room to manoeuvre on the Tibet issue by accepting it as a part of China without a quid pro quo. India lacked any leverage to induce Chinese settlement of the boundary issue because it lacked the military strength to force a conclusion and it lacked the diplomatic leverage to do so even though China was isolated in the international sphere in the early 1950s. China had several diplomatic options on the border question. 1. It claimed that it was flexible in negotiating a settlement on the basis of realities (its early 1950s position). 2. It argued that the question would be dealt with when the time was ripe for a settlement (its mid-1950s position). 3. Later it argued that the settlement would be on Chinese terms when


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realities had changed (Tibet had been brought under control, the Aksai Chin road had been built, and Indian diplomacy was disoriented as a result of China’s calculated ambiguities). 4. It argued that the entire border was questionable and required discussion and negotiation (1959 position). 5. Beijing also held the option to shift from neutrality on the Kashmir issue to a proPakistan stance. In accordance with Mao’s principle that each move requires consideration of the next one, the hardening of China’s India position in the late 1950s (and visa versa) was accompanied by the softening of China’s position vis-à-vis Pakistan from the mid 1950s. China’s belief in Indian expansionism and alignment with Western ‘imperialism’ made it the primary target, but at the same time China was flexible in determining that Pakistan’s membership of CENTO and SEATO (two regional military organizations that were formed to check communist including Chinese expansion) was not really antiChinese. The flexibility apparently reflected a view that India was not likely to accept a subordinate position to China but Pakistan could be a reliable client. Maoist principles required as well a distinction between state to state relations and people to people ones. In Beijing’s thinking peoples of Tibet, parts of Bhutan, Sikkim, NEFA, Burma, Ladakh and parts of Southeast Asia belonged to China or at least its sphere of influence. Mao’s speeches and Chinese maps revealed this view. One could argue on this basis that promoting revolutionary activity in these areas was meant to liberate these peoples from foreign influences and to bring them into the Chinese fold. From an Indian perspective this activity was interventionist and showed irredentism, and it destroyed confidence in dealings with Chinese practitioners as their words could be given different meanings in different realities. China’s development of the third front involved manipulation of Indian communists who were opposed to Indian government policies, were sympathetic to China’s revolution, disagreed with Moscow’s shift towards with the West and development of ties with friendly countries like India. The development of the third front had begun in 1949 itself and it gained ground by 1960 when China’s military preparations to fight India had begun. This development indicated that the diplomatic tool was the primary tool in China–India affairs during the first half of the 1950s, while building revolutionary assets under Chinese direction in India’s jurisdiction was the secondary tool. But by the late 1950s the mix of tools changed: war and military pressure replaced diplomacy in the late 1950s/early 1960s; alliance activity involving India’s rival, Pakistan, replaced China’s neutrality in India–Pakistan affairs; the official propaganda of the Chinese and the Indian governments about the existence of thousands of years of friendship in the first half of the 1950s was replaced by the Chinese view that India’s government was an instrument of Anglo-US ‘imperialism’ and India was ‘hegemonic’. In sum, war replaced peaceful co-existence, propaganda replaced diplomacy, and intervention replaced non-intervention in the shift in PRC’s aims and method between the early 1950s and the early 1960s.



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The third front was to undermine India’s international influence. China’s India policy emerged in the context of internal disarray in India’s China policy. As my review of the attitudes of Indian practitioners showed, India’s thinking about China was divided; it was not based on a rigorous and coordinated analysis within the different branches of the government about threat perceptions and contingency planning, and India did not speak with a single voice on China during the 1950s. Mullik notes that China spoke with a single voice from the highest level of government to the military commander in the field. This lacuna in Indian decision-making was striking because India had inherited the British colonial administration with its emphasis on proper staff work, orderly decision-making and initiative by field officers. But independent India’s diplomatic culture was shaped by Nehruvian anti-war, propeace attitudes that led to an over-emphasis on peace diplomacy and an under-emphasis on geo-politics, military power and productive alignments with foreign powers. Furthermore, even though Nehru was telling his intelligence officers to target Pakistan and China as threats, the psychological preparation of the Indian people by its government was to plant the false theory of 1000s of years of friendship between China and India, a theory which Chinese leaders propagated as well. As Maxwell and Mullik have shown in their detailed accounts of Indian policy-making process during the 1950s, India’s China policy was mired in secretive actions, unfocussed in-house discussions and ad hoc responses that lacked a practical strategic plan. What was the pattern of development of the irredentist impulses in China’s India policy from 1949? Mullik’s account is reliable because it shares Indian intelligence reporting about Chinese activities which in Western and Indian theory and practice would be considered ‘irredentist’ and ‘interventionist’. China’s actions should be read in the context of post-1947 Indian political disunity and bureaucratic politics. When Chinese practitioners were speaking with a single voice and actively forming their capacity to manoeuvre with several fronts against India, Indian practitioners were on the defensive with China. The facts of the looming problem with China were not widely known to Indian public as a result of the secrecy of Indian government actions vis-à-vis China and Tibet. (The official files are still secret since the 1950s.) In this setting China’s practitioners were able to tell Indian communists and their assets in India about ‘Indian provocations’ that required a firm Chinese military response so that India could be taught a lesson and taught to accept China’s superiority. The development of the second front with Pakistan was meant to show up the breakup of India’s geographical and strategic unity by forming the China– Pakistan alignment, and by increasing the fracture between China and India and between India and Pakistan. The push towards the third front against India was meant to confuse and disorient Indians and erode political unity within India. The third-front strategy was based on a Chinese communist distinction between the importance of correct state to state relations (based on principles, expediency and flexibility) and revolutionary principles that


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required Chinese cultivation of people to people contacts. Beijing vigorously applied this distinction to its India policy and tried repeatedly to distinguish between the love of peace by the Indian people, and the provocative conduct of Indian government that was in the hands of reactionaries and imperialists. Mullik notes that the pattern of Chinese territorial irredentism in the northern areas (expressed through map claims), and ideological warfare within India that stressed Indian provocations and links with foreign imperialists and anti-peace elements, was laid in the early 1950s. With the passage of time between 1950 and 1962 the negotiating space between India and China shrank, and the space for military warfare in the Himalayas, diplomatic warfare by forming the China–India–Pakistan triangle and ideological warfare by spreading dissatisfaction among Indian communists and peoples living in the border areas increased. Chinese practitioners were semi-opaque in communicating their aims and methods in relation to the development of their India policy once it became clear to them that India would not accept a negotiated settlement of the border on China’s terms. China directly threatened India with strategic warfare when in a conversation between the Chinese ambassador to India and the head of the Indian Foreign Service (16 May 1959) two points were made. 1. China required a peaceful border with India as it could not fight a twofront war with the US and India, and it was not foolish to antagonize the US; China’s main attention was eastwards, the ambassador indicated. 2. India too could not face two fronts – with Pakistan and China and here lay the common interest of China and India to avoid a two-front confrontation, and this could be achieved by India’s unquestioned support of Chinese actions in Tibet; that was the litmus test for China. This was followed by China’s overtures to Pakistan in May 1959 when Beijing made a suggestion to Karachi that the two should take a new look at their relationship. Beijing had indicated in 1955 that it did not foresee conflict of interest between China and Pakistan but it saw such a conflict of interest with India. By 1959 it took a step further to induce a common Sino-Pakistan diplomatic front against India based on a common opposition to India.37 Mullik notes that Pakistan was initially uncommitted to Beijing’s overture at this time.38 China’s effort to induce Pakistani bandwagoning so that China and Pakistan could balance India or to unbalance it was taken a step forward when the two countries signed a landmark boundary agreement that involved transfer of Kashmiri territory on a provisional basis to China by Pakistan. China’s ideological warfare against India gained strength in 1959. It publicized its views in an article that appeared in Peking Review, 12 May 1959, ‘The revolution in Tibet and Nehru’s philosophy’. China objected to India’s stance on Tibet and called it ‘interference’ in internal Chinese affairs. But it saw no contradiction between this claim, and its declared aim to set up people’s committees in Uttar Pradesh and Assam to undermine Indian government’s policies and authority. Its territorial claims to Indian border areas, its revolutionary theory and India’s unwillingness to succumb to



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Chinese charm diplomacy and border threats seemed to cover the contradiction. By 1960 the Indian communist party accepted Beijing’s view that Tibet’s problems were the result of its serf-owners, that China had liberated the oppressed Tibetans, that Kalimpong in India was the centre of the opposition to Chinese policies in Tibet and it had Indian and Western backing, and that the Sino-Indian border was not delimited and the Indian government had refused China’s ‘just proposal’ for discussion and settlement. In briefing Indian communist leaders Beijing argued that Nehru had come under imperialist influence and was not likely to settle with China.39 China’s third front was in place in Indian politics and society by 1960 and China had gained a voice in Indian party politics and national discourse. This was the high point in the development of China’s escalatory potential in three major areas of inter-state discourse – military, diplomatic and ideological, but this was also the beginning of a turning point that came about in the aftermath of the 1962 war.


7

India regrouped, China’s irredentist escalation continued (1962–) and the China–India–Pakistan triangle emerged (1963–)

Introduction A country’s foreign strategy is based on two elements: the quality of its political leadership and its bureaucracy; and the character of its domestic and international situation that creates pressures to react as well as provide opportunities to act. Following India’s defeat in 1962, China pushed India from outside, and nationalist Indian parliamentary and public opinion pushed India’s political leaders and bureaucracy from within. The twin pressures produced a rapid change in Indian diplomatic thinking and its strategic conduct. My narrative maintains that Sino-Indian interactions during the 1950s were based on two distinct and incompatible solitudes. Beijing’s leadership and bureaucratic orientation was to moderate or neutralize India’s position as an obstacle to China’s rise to power and prestige, and second, to use the Subcontinent including Tibet as a platform for the consolidation and expansion of China’s regional position in its southern zone. It adopted several tactics. 1. Force was used to consolidate its position, and developed its lines of military and political communications in the Himalayan area; this occurred in the 1950s. 2. Maoist ideology and Chinese maps were used to assert territorial claims in the Himalayan area; this occurred in the 1950s. 3. Political diplomacy was used to emphasize the theme of peaceful coexistence with China’s neighbours as state policy; this occurred in the 1950s. 4. Threat to form a two-front problem for India was used to frighten India into making concessions to China; this occurred in 1959. 5. Finally, war was used in 1962 to end Indian ‘provocations’ and to teach India a lesson. The five-faceted Chinese orientation took shape when Nehru’s international prestige was high among the major world powers and Third World countries in the 1950s. India’s leadership and bureaucratic orientation in the 1950s played on several themes. Moderation was urged in a world of Cold Wars that involved the major powers. The Dulles-Acheson view that you are either with us or against us, and that nationalism and nonalignment were evil was rejected as simplistic and immature. Despite its economic and military weakness, India


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sought space for itself in the world arena by stressing the importance of correct values – diplomacy, an international commitment to reduce Third World poverty, and an end to great powers domination in international political and economic affairs. The approach to the communist powers was to highlight the role of nationalism rather than communism, and with China the approach was to wean it away from a dependency on Moscow. The Nehru line regarding China was that it was presently peaceful (a misleading view because he told his intelligence chief B. N. Mullik that China was a likely threat to India), that it needed a period of peace for its internal development (an incorrect assessment because China simultaneously sought internal economic and political change and international strength and expansion), and that a non-militaristic approach to the Tibetan and SinoIndian border questions could be productive (an incorrect assessment given the Maoist faith in the power of the gun and its cultural superiority over both Indians and Tibetans). These views expressed the dominant aspects of India’s political and bureaucratic leadership orientation up to 1962. 1962 was a psychological and a political turning point in Indian and Sino-Indian affairs. It liberated the Indian decision-making machinery – civilian and military, from Nehru’s obsessive faith in peace diplomacy and a no war policy with China. It revealed India’s administrative disunity and a lack of proper policy coordination among the relevant government ministries who were supposed to deal with different facets of China–India relations. It revealed that the Indian army lacked the resources to check Chinese expansion. This defect was the result of Nehru’s anti-military orientation, the stingy attitude of the Ministry of Finance that viewed Indian public policy with a mindset of ‘guns versus butter’, not guns and butter. India’s political ministers had failed to provide policy direction and the resources to the army commanders to be ready to fight if diplomacy failed. Many books call the 1962 war ‘China’s betrayal’ but they also acknowledge that the Indian government’s failure was a ‘made in India’ political and a military problem. Between 1950 and 1962 the Government of India lost its manoeuvrability in engaging China in a meaningful way; both sides were talking according to the diplomatic and the legal records but neither side was listening or finding a way to develop a mutually satisfactory solution. China was seeking a border solution on its own terms through diplomacy and it was preparing for military action in the border while it was buying time with India through its diplomacy. India was reacting to Chinese moves but it had no leverage to induce it to moderate its position or to change it. Nor did Indian practitioners possess the means to deflect Chinese moves that led to war. It was also apparent that India’s diplomatic machinery (the Ministry of External Affairs where Nehru was the Foreign Minister as well as the Prime Minister) worked under Nehru’s shadow and it suffered the problem of a personality-centred foreign policy. It followed Nehru’s directions on China except that K. M. Pannikar, India’s ambassador to China (1949–52) had his personal China policy that defined Tibet as a part of China where

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the latter possessed ‘sovereignty’ although the diplomatic record of British India–Manchu China–Tibet relations was in terms of Chinese suzerainty. Nor did Pannikar see it fit to lever India’s position on Tibet in 1950–54 to the boundary question. During the 1950s the Foreign Ministry was often at odds with the Intelligence Bureau about India’s territorial limits.


Pattern of India’s regrouping after 1962 China was robbed of the fruits of its military victory because India refused to capitulate to China’s territorial demands, it refused to acknowledge its cultural, diplomatic and military superiority, it changed its leadership’s policy orientation by shedding its belief in peace diplomacy with China and by treating it as a long-term threat rather than a partner for peace in Asia; India refused to negotiate a border settlement on China’s terms and it widened its international network of supporters by bringing in the US, USSR and the Colombo Powers into play on the China–India question. As a result of Indian actions and options following the 1962 debacle, the rivalry developed a military and diplomatic character. It was muted but it was public and it brought three elements into India’s public consciousness: China was feared because of its determination to secure its interests at all costs, but second, there was an imbalance between its growing military power and its approach to governance. It did not follow international standards in the treatment of Tibetans and it promoted disaffection in the population in border areas against the Indian government. It claimed to seek peaceful relations but its actions indicated that China had not made up its mind about India. Was it a target for de-stabilization by Chinese pressures or was it a partner in international diplomacy and national development? Actions vis-à-vis India since the 1950s reveal a pattern of competitive coexistence within its policy-making machinery between the two approaches towards India. Third, the 1962 war confirmed to Indian practitioners the view of Western practitioners that China’s policies were likely to wreck the structure of subcontinental stability and harm India as well as Pakistan. As a result of these effects of the 1962 war, China gained a mixed scorecard which did not give it a decisive advantage over India. It no doubt gained an ally in Pakistan after 1962 but it lost an ally in the USSR (1960–) and in India (1959–). China reached the limits of its power in the Himalayan area whereas India recognized the need to make significant changes in its national security planning, its military capacity and its economic base, to take advantage of its democratic model and political values, and to build its international links. Despite Western criticisms of Nehru’s China policy and his opposition to US policies in the Cold War, the superpowers believed in India’s importance as a political and a diplomatic model in Asia. As a result India was able to land on its feet and to start a process of rapid change to alter the dynamics of India’s China policy and to contain China’s pressures.

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What were the changes on the Indian side? Peace diplomacy was the single leg in Nehru’s China policy before 1962. This approach was based on a mixture of hopes and beliefs about China and India. In 1949 he believed that India and China would enjoy primacy in the future as in the past. He pointed to a history of co-existence along a 2000-mile frontier. In March 1951 he told a senior US diplomat that while Soviet Russia had ‘aggressive and expansionist designs’, communist China did not show ‘similar tendencies’. He was disturbed about Chinese intelligence and military activity and infiltration in the Himalayan border areas, and noted in September 1950 that ‘if aggression should come it would be from the East and not from the West’. After the Chinese invasion of Tibet Nehru appointed a military commission to study the border defences and listening posts were set up in border areas and to build India’s presence in Nepal and in Assam and in Sikkim. Nehru believed that if China could be provided a sense of security, it would turn to its domestic problems. Nehru opposed UN action above the 38th parallel in Korea, deplored UN label of aggressor against China, asked that Formosa be returned to Communist China and asked that US troops be withdrawn from Japan. He believed that his policy could lessen Beijing’s dependence on Moscow. The peace approach was based on an expectation that China was potentially aggressive and expansionist but a peace policy might turn it around towards an independent and peaceful path. It appeared that consideration of China as a fellow Asian country, fear of its military strength and the desire to induce China to break away from the USSR and follow an independent policy were factors in Nehru’s calculations. He also believed that China ‘currently’ did not have aggressive or expansionist plans and it would require 10 years to consolidate its internal position.1 Nehru appeared to ignore the possibility that Beijing did not appreciate Indian efforts on China’s behalf, that it had its own agenda with the superpowers, that it had an agenda to maintain its ascendancy in the Himalayan area and it could simultaneously proceed on the development of its strategic position in the Tibet–Himalayan area and vis-à-vis India, and to plan its internal development. As its diplomatic and military history after 1949 revealed, Beijing could move simultaneously on several fronts: the Korean war, ‘liberation of Tibet’, pursuit of peaceful co-existence with India, SinoSoviet relations, American containment of China and the pressure of US presence in Japan, Taiwan and the Taiwan Straits on China. After 1962 the operative and ambivalent policy assumptions and Nehru’s rosy view of China–India relations were practically discarded and replaced by a sense of China’s destructive policies in relation to India. 1962 was a signal event in the sense that the Chinese decision to go to war and the Indian defeat created an incentive to revise India’s policy and its political and defence machinery in relation to China. Apart from warnings by deputy prime minister of India V. B. Patel, senior diplomat G. S. Bajpai and the Indian intelligence bureau, Western officials warned Indians and Pakistanis about the


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negative implications of Chinese actions, but these were ignored by Nehru and his cohorts. After the China war, these warnings gained credibility and relevance for Indian practitioners. Still the Indian learning centred on building military defences on the China border. Indian practitioners did not publicly explain the antagonistic character of China’s India policy. Indian practitioners had studied the legal and historical aspects of the boundary question. These are recorded in a number of official publications.2 However, there was no public discourse that examined the effects of China’s growing power and irredentism, combined with Pakistani irredentism, on Indian interests. It is surprising that Indian officials, academics and the media have repeatedly and publicly criticized aspects of American, Pakistani and Soviet/Russian policies but have shied away from a critical examination of China’s India policies. Consider the following US assessments which the Nehru government ignored. A White House document (2 December 1965) reveals US advice to Pakistan that ‘bringing in China only destroys the sub-continent’. Instead the importance of bilateral initiatives was emphasized. Premier Kosygin’s view was that ‘we want a stable sub-continent, to stand up against China’. A State Department telegram (10 May 1965) noted a Chinese plot to ‘wreck both India and Pakistan’. A senior White House aide noted (21 April 1964) that ‘China is chief threat to the sub-continent’. US government telegrams noted that Indian Prime Minister L. B. Shastri recognized US/USSR interest in détente and their ‘opposing Chicom interest in conflict’. Shastri saw China as ‘India’s main enemy’ and the Tashkant agreement was mediated by Moscow with Washington’s support. Bundy, President Kennedy’s special assistant (15 May 1965) notes that the aim is to ‘contain Chicom in Asia’ and ‘we’re buying time for democratic India to come of age’. In an earlier note (Komer to McGeorge Bundy, 3 June 1964) India–China was described as ‘really big game’. Elsewhere (2 October 1965) it was noted that ‘China exploits India– Pakistan problems’. A DIA summary (20 October 1965) notes that Prime Minister Shastri saw India as ‘the principal obstacle to an expansion of Chinese influence on the subcontinent … ’. These assessments filtered into the highest level of Indian decision-making but they remained, and still do, outside the domain of public discourse among Indian academic and official practitioners; both continued to highlight the border issue rather than the antagonistic character of China’s India (and Pakistan) policy.3 In the aftermath of 1962, the buildup of its military machinery, and improved ministerial direction of military-political affairs relating to China implied that Indian diplomacy required a strong military leg to establish staying power against Chinese pressures against India. A new Emergency Cabinet level committee was established with regular meetings between the Defence Minister, the Service chiefs along with Cabinet and Defence officials. The Defence Coordination and Implementation Committee and Defence Planning Staff (a permanent body) provide an institutional character


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to defence planning. Defence spending jumped from 2.1% in 1962 to 4.5% in 1964. The pattern of growth and sufficient resource allocation for the two foreign fronts became a part of India’s political culture at the governmental and popular levels and it has continued since. 1962 resolved India’s guns versus butter controversy and the new mindset was to provide for both.4 The balance of power in Indian government’s ideology and policy-making machinery changed radically after 1962 on the China question but China was not identified publicly as an enemy along with Pakistan. Before 1962 India’s China policy was compartmentalized and different players and institutions had different and uncoordinated priorities. Nehru as prime minister and foreign minister was active in promoting the China file as per his assumptions. The Intelligence Bureau and the Home Minister was active in monitoring Chinese activities in the border areas, and it dutifully circulated its reports to the senior ministers. The Indian army felt it had its hands full with defence against Pakistan and Kashmir and believed that the Sino-Indian boundary question was a job for politicians and diplomats. The Indian air force did not have a China-related assignment before 1962. India’s foreign office was unclear about the location of India’s territorial boundary with China. Without a firm legal-historical and a diplomatic base other than Nehru’s approach which it did not question, the Foreign Office did not share the pessimism of India’s intelligence machinery about China. The Foreign Office was concerned about pushing a forward policy that provoked the Chinese; it was more concerned about China’s sensitivities than Indian ones. The problem of compartmentalization was dealt with after the 1962 debacle. Between 1962 and 1965 US military aid placed the emphasis on air defence and technological innovation in intelligence acquisition. These inputs brought the Indian air force and the military to the decision-making table. Earlier as the border controversy grew loud during 1959–60, a working group of India and China was set up to evaluate the border documents. These documents belatedly gave Indian practitioners a legal and historical basis to make their moves. But this was too little and too late. The line of the Foreign Office had wavered on China and Tibet since 1950. In the first part of the 1950s it had argued that there was nothing to discuss as the boundary was settled according to history, custom, watershed principle, and the Simla Agreement (1914) that established the McMahon Line. Then it shifted its position by asking Beijing to address all pending issues; Beijing’s evasiveness (‘we will discuss and negotiate when the time is ripe’) meant that the diplomatic initiative lay with Beijing and India had no lever or manoeuvrability to determine if a boundary problem existed, and the remedy to solve it. By 1957–59 it was clear that a border dispute existed and it required inter-state discussions and settlement. But then Nehru made a distinction favouring ‘talks’ but not negotiations as India’s case was clear in his view. The post-1962 changes produced an inventory of Indian assets in relation to China. A critical mass of resources emerged. Its political machinery relating to China was reformed and a strategic culture came to guide its approach.


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Land, air, navel and nuclear capacities grew to defend against Chinese pressures. Its diplomatic orientation changed slowly to acknowledge the importance of geo-politics vis-à-vis China. The conflict with China had stimulated the development of these capacities however slowly. Re-establishment of ambassadorial contact and visits by the leaders of India and China started from the late 1980s and they improved the tone of bilateral relations but they did not settle the issues in the rivalry. Resolution of pending issues was unlikely because the leadership and bureaucratic orientation of China revealed an anti-India stance. Beijing opposed Indian military actions in wars with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971 but it was unwilling to open a second military front as it had threatened earlier. Its support of Kashmir self-determination and Pakistan’s policy towards India revealed its interventionist orientation but it was limited to diplomatic action. There was restraint and ambiguity in the level of China’s support for Pakistan and China’s opposition to India. The limits and ambiguities in China’s India and Pakistan policies emerged precisely when India and Pakistan were warring with each other, China was building its diplomatic and military ties with Pakistan, and the US leadership was pursuing a tactical alignment with Beijing against the USSR and against India in the 1971 war. The theory is that India’s economic and military modernization after 1962 was moving it towards a semi-equal position with China. Its capacity to manage a hostile Pakistan–China–US coalition during the 1971 war, and its success in breaking up Pakistan, produced a juxtaposition between growing Indian power and manoeuvrability on the regional stage and Chinese inhibition against teaching India another lesson. China’s leaders had a choice after 1962 – they could escalate their pressures on India, they could negotiate with India or they could remain indifferent to India. China’s choice was to escalate not by confronting India directly but by building Pakistan as a line of diplomatic and military pressure against it. It was conducting a proxy fight through Pakistan, and it was avoiding serious negotiations with India. In the triangular setting it argued against Indian policies but it was unable to formulate an end game because India and her allies could check Chinese moves. China’s economic and military strength was growing but its ability to manoeuvre vis-à-vis India was restricted. The growth of Indian assets enabled it to build its options, to increase its manoeuvrability in the international sphere and to reduce the pressure on its options. Still, between the 1960s and the 1980s India had a mix of nonperforming and performing assets. Its anaemic economic growth generated international disdain about the Hindu rate of growth. Precisely when communist China began to embrace the lessons of economic growth and liberalization, democratic India carried on with Nehru’s socialist economic policies; India accepted the principles of economic liberalization and globalization a decade after China did. India’s foreign office was a non-performing asset in the 1950s as it had not built a capacity or leverage to induce China to negotiate the boundary question seriously or to prevent the 1962 war, or to

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correct Nehru’s false suppositions about China. It became a performing asset in the 1990s when growth in India’s economic and military capacities and its international links induced China to take India seriously. India’s military emerged as a performing asset when it showed its ability to manage the long borders with China and Pakistan after 1962. The Indian Foreign Office was, however, a performing asset in one area that altered the context of India’s China policy. The buildup of its ties with Soviet Russia after 1949 helped India check Pakistan–Western pressures on Kashmir, and Chinese pressures on India.

The China–India rivalry became a ritual confrontation with deadly aspects rather than a deadly quarrel; Beijing continued to muddy the waters but it did not fight India again The Sino-Indian rivalry is a test case for two central propositions in modern international relations. 1. That prestige belongs to the military victor. 2. That war occurs if a rivalry is not moderated by effective diplomatic compromise. The 1962 war demonstrated the validity of the second proposition in the conduct of both China and India but it did not validate the first proposition. India’s military defeat and China’s actions to build up the three fronts against it were catalysts which converted a two-person game of China and India into a multiparty game that brought two international powers – Soviet Russia and the US, and a regional power-Pakistan, into play. The result was an increase in the escalatory potential of actions by the set of five players who were involved in the Sino-Indian rivalry but the escalatory potential of each player was subject to checks and balances. Moscow checked Beijing when it threatened India, Washington checked Moscow when it appeared to upset the regional balance in India’s favour, Beijing checked India when it appeared to threaten Pakistan, India checked Pakistan when it appeared to increase it irredentist activities, and Washington checked Beijing when it appeared to dominate India. The growth of checks and balances diplomacy in the Subcontinent was a striking development because the countries moved towards a common norm: to maintain a situation of manageable instability and a system of controlled conflict rather than to attempt a decisive end game. Escalation with limits became the established norm after 1962; it did not produce a commitment to negotiate a political settlement but it established a pattern of limits, ambiguities and limited diplomatic moves to talk about disagreements. Limits to the expansion of Chinese military power and diplomatic influence emerged as a result of rapid change in India’s China policy as outlined above and in the attention which India’s international partners provided to the Himalayan rivalry. After 1962 Beijing’s communist leaders continued to muddy the strategic waters of the Subcontinent but open confrontation was avoided even though India had not capitulated and thereby refused to learn a lesson about China’s power and authority. As noted earlier Beijing escalated its rivalry with India


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by militarizing the Himalayan frontier, by forming a two-front triangle with Pakistan against India, and by forming an internal pro-China front with Indian communists. The first move involved military action, the second one involved diplomatic action, and the third one involved ideological action. Each was guided by a posture that China favoured peace. Chinese arguments and methods however, did not follow China’s strategy textbook (The Art of War by Sun Tzu) and its order of priorities. Its decision to go to war with India was Sun Tzu’s third choice, an admission that the first choice of playing with the enemy’s mind (India’s in the 1950s), and disorienting it, had not worked. The second choice in Sun Tzu was to disrupt the enemy’s alliances; China’s diplomatic threats and military actions strengthened Indian alignments with Moscow and Washington and strengthened the Indian opposition to China and Pakistan following their rapprochement. China’s actions encouraged a substantial transformation in India’s political culture – from Nehruvian peace diplomacy and Gandhi’s call for peaceful development to an acceptance of the need to adopt a strategic culture because of a major external threat. China’s third action – to build links with Indian communists – exposed China’s revolutionary ambition but it did not strengthen its position in the internal politics of India. Indian society has a complex set of identities based on castes, religions, regions, Westernized political and economic principles and socialist ideas but none with an affinity for Maoist theories and practices in mainstream Indian society. Had China’s leaders thought about the consequences of their actions they might have realized that they had shot their arrows by announcing the buildup of its three-front strategy. It had revealed its game plan, and once India and her allies had taken their countermeasures, China’s escalatory potential was limited to lashing out at Indians or dealing with India’s weak regional rivals within South Asia. These actions did not give China a long-term advantage. Sino-Indian relations after 1962 reveal a pattern of activism and ambivalence because the conversion of a two-person strategic game into a fiveperson game brought countervailing forces into play especially during military crises. The pattern of China’s actions after 1962 was to lash out at Indian ‘expansionism’ and ‘hegemonic’ policies, not to take India seriously as a power, treat it as a sub-regional force on par with Pakistan, and display an attitude of contempt towards an inferior race. But despite the posture China was cautious in its actions. It maintained pressure on the Indian border by its frequent ‘violations’ but it did not launch a major attack. It encouraged a buildup of Pakistan’s military and nuclear power by its nuclear and missile transfers but its actions undermined the international nonproliferation regime; they did not alter the regional balance of power. It maintained a pro-Pakistan stance on the Kashmir issue and blamed India for the conflict with Pakistan but its speeches did not materially change the character of the Indo-Pakistani conflict. It criticized Indian military and nuclear preparations and pushed constantly for India’s disarmament, but its advocacy was obviously self-serving, and in the light of its nuclear and missile


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aid to Pakistan, and its nuclear weapons programme, its diplomacy lacked credibility. The following section explains the buildup of the China–Pakistan front as a line of pressure on India. The subsequent section explains the pattern of ambivalence in Chinese actions in South Asian wars. A study of a country’s war behaviour reveals its core strategic interests: forceful action indicates a threat to its core interests; ritual confrontation indicates posturing. My argument is that the deadly quarrel between India and China in 1962 has evolved into a ritual confrontation as Indian power, its self-confidence and its links with the major powers have increased significantly. How did the Sino-Indian confrontation become a ritual confrontation with deadly aspects after 1962? What were the tools that Beijing and Delhi employed to minimize the risks of confrontation and to increase leverage against each other? What were the limits in the crisis behaviour of the two, and what were the leadership attitudes in play at the time? Between 1962 and 1987 when Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited China and ambassadorial contacts were revived, both sides sought to build internal economic and military strength and political capacity for independent action, to create external balances as a basis of policy, and to build nationalistic characteristics as a basis of internal legitimacy. During this period the aim was not to build a détente relationship; instead both sides sought to minimize risks of direct confrontations. China pursued triangular diplomacy at two levels. Internationally it sought to build the Moscow-Washington-Beijing triangle that culminated in the Shanghai communiqué (1972) and the American acceptance of China as an international power with a common interest to check Soviet power and ambition. In the South Asian region Beijing sought a link with Pakistan and it developed triangular diplomacy with a view to manipulate its relations with India. China’s approach was triangular – involving the US, USSR and PRC, and the PRC, India and Pakistan at the international and regional levels, respectively. India’s approach was pentagonal – involving India, Pakistan, the PRC, USSR and India in regional issues. Maximizing leverage, not settling inter-state problems through political settlement(s) was the norm; neither détente nor confrontation became the two parameters of actions by the five players. Practitioners are usually reluctant to acknowledge their intellectual debt to others, but in my case study it appears that Henry Kissinger’s approach to diplomacy was a basis of diplomatic and military action in South Asia. Consider China’s use of several Kissinger ideas. 1. Minimize risk of confrontation. 2. Maximize leverage and maintain control. 3. Use triangular diplomacy to manipulate relations, blackmail powers by exploiting their rivalries but the aim is to neither exacerbate nor lessen tensions.5 During 1962–98 Beijing scored two major diplomatic victories. 1. It gained international legitimacy following the Nixon–Kissinger acknowledgement of China’s international position and its entry into the UN. 2. It gained a capacity to manipulate regional relationships by building its strategic links in 1962


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with Pakistan. At the time India was mired in regional politics, its internal economic and political situation was weak, and it was dismissed as a country that was devoid of leadership ideas and power on the world stage unlike the early Nehru days. China was moving upwards in the international and South Asian spheres while India was at best going sideways. China was implementing the twofronts threat it had issued in 1959. It was creating a scope for Sino-Pakistani actions that could harm India’s physical security and prestige. It appeared to hold the strategic initiative towards India. But still China’s diplomatic and military advance vis-à-vis India was halted. It could not convert its edge into domination over India. If an ability to alter an enemy’s domestic political and economic structure and its foreign policy orientation is the ultimate measure of strategic achievement, China failed with India. Beijing was following a dual policy: one, heighten tensions during a military crisis as in 1965 and 1975; two, minimize risks of confrontation that might bring an international power (the USSR) into play against China. This pattern of Chinese behaviour was obvious after 1962 even though India was comparatively weak internally for several reasons: the economic conditions were shaky; there was a prolonged power struggle in the Indian political system; the Himalayan border was unsettled; the Kashmir dispute and insurgency were both active; and Indian foreign relations with the US were complicated by pressures to accept the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to accommodate Pakistan on the Kashmir disputes. In comparison to India at this time, China held a margin of manoeuvrability in its relations with the US and Pakistan. Why was the PRC unable to convert its advantages into a winning strategy against India? The answer is simple. India had one diplomatic and military asset, the USSR, which China feared. China had two assets: the US to legitimate China’s view that it had ‘legitimate interests in South Asia’; and Pakistan was a line of military and diplomatic pressure against India. But China’s assets lacked staying power against India. Neither Pakistan nor the US was able to prevent India from altering the regional equilibrium in the 1971–72 Bangladesh campaign. China’s actions in the 1971 war showed that its proxies – Pakistan and the US – were unable to act against India and to perform as per Chinese expectations. Fear of Soviet intervention, and uncertainty about US political will and policy, entered the equation in China’s India policy. China recognized that the US government was a swing element in the Subcontinent. In 1965 it had worked in concert with Moscow that led to a ceasefire through the UN. In 1971 the US had switched sides and it acted in concert with China against India but the two failed to find a mediated or a political settlement through the UN. Despite its economic and political sickness and a wide-spread belief that it was a laggard in Asia, India had managed to land on its feet in 1971; and along with the USSR it temporarily altered the regional equilibrium to India’s advantage and to the disadvantage of China and Pakistan and the US.


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India and the USSR showed the limits of power of the two major irredentist players in the region – Pakistan and China. Still the buildup of the Sino-Pakistani–Indian triangle had potentially deadly implications for India but it did not place China in the driver’s seat. China’s military and nuclear aid to Pakistan impeded efforts towards an Indo-Pakistani peaceful settlement as it strengthened the hand of the warriors in Pakistan. Its nuclear and missile aid to Pakistan also impeded efforts to strengthen regional and international nonproliferation. Pakistan military action in Kargil (1999) and allegedly in the attack against India’s Parliament (2001–2) led to a military confrontation but still China’s two-fronts threat remained incomplete. Below I explain the incidence of escalatory moves during 1962–90s which heightened tensions but did not produce an end game. The moves showed a pattern of maintaining conflictual relationships and an arms buildup but the players could not produce a winning strategy that could terminate the regional geo-political game; rather the activities indicated a commitment to stay in the game without an expectation of its termination. The escalatory moves were divided into two types. China and Pakistan expanded their fronts against India even though their motives varied. They shared a common enmity with India, but they had other interests in relation to the great powers, Central Asia, and the Indian Ocean and the Islamic world. Pakistan’s agenda was India-specific. China’s agenda was India-specific but it also sought to enlarge its position in the entire region including the Indian Ocean area. However, Pakistani and Chinese escalatory moves were consistent with their irredentist trajectories.

The rise of swing elements The second type of escalatory actions concerned the conduct of India, the USSR and US as swing elements in regional politics. India’s military buildup began in the mid 1950s; it was driven by calculations of India’s military requirements vis-à-vis Pakistan. The swing occurred in the character of Indian political-military action in 1965 when the Indian prime minister ordered the Indian army to cross into Pakistan – in response to the induction of Pakistani forces into Kashmir. The Indian action was counter to the Mountbatten– Nehru injunction against Indian warring with Pakistan across the international border. Prime Minister L. B. Shastri crossed this psychological and political line, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi carried it forward by dismembering Pakistan in 1971. The element of unpredictability in Indian political behaviour became a form of Indian psychological warfare against Pakistan’s strategic minds. It altered Pakistan’s cost-opportunity calculus. Z. A. Bhutto as a senior minister in the Pakistan government had argued that Kashmir was ripe for liberation, that Indians would not fight and Pakistan had the support of the biggest country in Asia. Beijing, however, had neither endorsed nor disagreed with Bhutto’s views; its stance was ambiguous. Shastri’s action upset the Pakistani calculus and the course of international


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diplomatic interactions revealed that the US could at best work with Moscow in securing a ceasefire through the UN, and China’s threat to open a second front against India in the Himalayas was rhetorical and a bluff. India called the bluff and China’s conduct reduced its credibility in Pakistani and Indian eyes. India’s swing in 1965 was continued by its 1971 war in Bangladesh, and by its warring threats in 1999 (Kargil) and again in 2001–2 following the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament. Washington’s swings revealed a pattern of oscillation that was a mix of several impulses. 1. It was opposed to the USSR in the Afghanistan campaign in the 1980s, and in the 1971 Bangladesh campaign; its traditional antiSovietism was in play along with a tendency in the White House to see India as a Soviet client in the Bangladesh War in 1971. 2. It had faith in Pakistan as part of its inner line of defence and as a moderating influence in radical Middle Eastern politics and as a traditional ally. 3. It was suspicious about India’s diplomatic and strategic behaviour and its refusal to align with US interests despite its overtures, and efforts to build ties following President Eisenhower’s visit to India and President Kennedy’s friendly moves towards India. No doubt that in 1962 following the India–China War, Washington had swung from a pro-Pakistani position to a pro-India position (1962–64) to buttress Indian defences against China despite Pakistani objections. The swing, however, was short lived because Washington reinstated its embargo against India and Pakistan in the 1965 war but still the 1962–64 change carried an important message. It revealed Washington’s concern to check Chinese expansionism and to maintain India’s territorial integrity and independence. The 1962–64 swing was temporary and conditional because the US tied its aid to Indian accommodation of Pakistani interests in Kashmir (which India refused to accept). Still it indicated that the China question had become a factor in US calculations about Pakistan and India. By 1971 Washington swung again towards a pronounced tilt towards Pakistan and China. This swing reflected its concern with Indian and Soviet actions in the Bangladesh campaign, and a desire to bolster ties with China. The swing in 1971 continued through the 1980s as Pakistan and China emerged as valuable helpers in the fight against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan; here the common enmity with Moscow brought the US, Pakistan and China together. In addition, Pakistani military practitioners had a policy to build strategic depth for Pakistan in Afghanistan and in Indian border provinces (Indian Punjab for example), and to use its front line status to build Pakistan’s nuclear and missile capacity with Chinese and North Korean aid. The US looked the other way as Pakistan’s nuclear buildup occurred. As a result, the combination of Pakistani, Chinese and American policies increased the manoeuvrability of these players vis-à-vis India during the 1980s and the 1990s. Moscow too swung in 1971 when it abandoned its policy to work with the US to effect an Indo-Pakistani ceasefire. Two circumstances brought it on India’s side. First, India appeared determined in 1971 to avoid a military stalemate as in 1965 and it declined to work through the UN’s political


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culture of ceasefires and endless diplomatic chatter. Second, the coming together of the US and PRC was clearly aimed at Moscow’s international position. Moscow swung from its balanced position of links with its ‘friend’ India and its ‘ally’ China (up to 1959) and shifted to India’s side in the 1962 war and then again in the 1971 war. The shift towards India was the result of war circumstances and fear of being sidelined in the great game in Asia. Comparing these swings, the American ones were the most pronounced while the Chinese one was the most dangerous for India. Washington lurched first towards Pakistan in the early 1950s, then towards India (1962–65) then towards China (1971–90s) and then towards India (1999–present). Beijing swung from peaceful co-existence declaration with India (early 1950s), to border confrontation (1959–), to war (1962), to building Pakistan links and by its attempts to isolate India within the region and in international nuclear diplomacy. Along with swings in its inter-state diplomacy, came attempts at infiltration and instigation of the Indian people and Indian communists against the ‘reactionary’, and ‘pro-imperialist, expansionist’ Indian government (1949–). In sum, its people-to-people diplomacy expressed a constant revisionist element, while the swings at the inter-state level showed its diplomatic tactics. The Soviet Union swung from a mistrust of India as the ‘running dogs of imperialism’ (1947) to an acknowledgement that it represented the voice of moderation in Cold War politics and that it was a partner in the pursuit of peaceful co-existence and peaceful settlement of disputes in regional and international conflicts. Moscow also swung around from its position as China’s ally (1949–59) to India’s ally (1962–present), and from a shift in its position as a centre of world revolution (1917) to a builder of peaceful coexistence and détente with the Western world (late 1950s onwards), and as an opponent of Beijing’s warlike and de-stabilizing actions (1959–). Moscow’s actions were motivated by a desire to check Beijing’s ambitions and destructive behaviour that undermined the growth of trust among nations and stability in regions of conflict; Moscow did not have territorial ambitions, nor did Washington in the South Asian region. Pakistan and China did. While Beijing was motivated by a desire to expand its regional influence, to keep India on edge, and to settle the boundary question on China’s terms, India was motivated to check Pakistani and Chinese irredentist impulses. India swung from the Nehruvian emphasis on peace diplomacy and limited military preparations against China to an increased reliance on military and later nuclear and missile strength (1962–present) and strategic diplomacy. Finally, Pakistan swung from its traditional focus on Kashmir as a disputed territory and expanded its irredentist impulses by intervening in Indian border provinces Indian Punjab, and through Nepal and Bangladesh into the Indian northeast since the 1980s. The swings and escalations produced a system change: countries were continuously interactive; each sought to maintain its escalatory potential by building internal economic and military strength and by developing diplomatic alignments. They threatened war and engaged in diplomatic and


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psychological warfare. I characterize the system change as ‘conflict-formation’ and not as ‘conflict-resolution’; it is like the bottom of a ‘U’ rather than a ‘V’ where the left side indicates a slide towards war, and the right side indicates a conflict settlement. During 1962–present, South Asian parties were involved in stabilizing the bottom of the ‘U’ and in maintaining their positions. China was the main catalyst in effecting a regional system change in the region but it too failed in its aims. It had vital strategic interests vis-à-vis Soviet Russia, the US and India and Tibet and it had a strong orientation towards its frontier security in the Himalayan areas. Beijing’s larger concerns were to remove India as an obstacle to China’s quest for pre-eminence in Asia and in the Subcontinent. Beijing’s policies towards India and Pakistan revealed its insecurity about the regional and the international environment.

Calculations in China’s tilt towards Pakistan We now turn to an assessment of the calculation of China to its tilt toward Pakistan. China swung away from its balanced position on Indo-Pakistan and Kashmir affairs which had guided it during the 1950s to a pro-Pakistani stance on Kashmir and went on to develop a robust economic and military aid relationship with Pakistan. Its aim was to remove India as an obstacle to China’s position and its method was to exploit the conflict in between India and Pakistan. Its thesis, like Pakistan’s, was that India was hegemonic, expansionist, reactionary and tied to Western imperialism. Its anti-thesis was to build the anti-India coalition with Pakistan as its regional flagship beginning in the early 1960s, and later on with Nixon and Kissinger in the early 1970s. The thesis and the anti-thesis were revealed by the pattern of development of the ‘enduring entente’, the title of Vertzberger’s book. For China the tilt towards Pakistan was based on a political theory and a strategic opportunity as a result of Beijing’s assessment of the character of Soviet, American and Indian policies. The tilt showed a mix of calculations and dilemmas that brought China and Pakistan together. This mix is important because it shapes the nuances of the Sino-Pakistan relationships – 1960s to the present. The China–Pakistan relationship started in the early 1950s following the independence of Pakistan and China. There was ambiguity, suspicion and cautious deference by the two sides at the time. Notes Vertzberger, Geopolitical considerations, the desire to cultivate relations with the Muslim countries of the Middle East through Pakistan, uncertainty about the future of Chinese relations with India, the hope of preventing Pakistan from becoming an antagonistic satellite of the West, and Pakistan’s cautious policy towards China-all these elements motivated China to establish a correct relationship.6 Between 1954 and 1958, China and Pakistan cleared the underbrush of suspicions while maintaining a correct stance towards each other.


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Pakistan’s membership in SEATO and CENTO was explained as a move against India, not China; China accepted this explanation. Beijing maintained a neutral position on Kashmir, urging bilateral negotiations by India and Pakistan. Beijing’s attitude hardened when Pakistan took the US position on the issue of China’s representation at the UN but it still maintained a moderate stance. By 1958–59 the international, regional and domestic setting in Pakistan changed and this altered the Sino-Pakistani mood. President Ayub Khan’s pro-Western approach, his support for the Tibetan revolt and a desire for a common defence with India raised Chinese suspicions. But India refused Ayub’s offer of common defence (‘defence against whom?’ Nehru asked) because the Ayub offer was conditional on settlement of the Kashmir question, and India did not then take the China’s threat seriously. Ayub then turned to China, asking it to settle the border issue because a part of Pakistan held Kashmir appeared in China’s maps. In June 1961 China and Pakistan moved forward when Beijing declared its agreement in principle to demarcate the border and Pakistan voted in favour of China’s representation at the UN. The border negotiations started a week before 12 October 1962 when China’s war with India started. In sum, in October 1962 China was warring with India and negotiating with Pakistan and both actions were turning points in the region. The actions were the start of a campaign to intensify the buildup of the three fronts noted earlier against India. The motives of China and Pakistan in forming a common front against India varied. For Pakistan, the US was an unreliable ally – it did not offer unconditional support against India, and President Eisenhower’s visit to India in the early 1950s and the warm welcome accorded to him indicated Washington’s acceptance of India as a potential friend; it implied an acceptance of Indian nonalignment as a realistic approach in contrast with the Dulles-Acheson view of ‘you are either with us or against us’ and ‘neutralism is evil’. To China, Pakistan, with borders on India’s west and east, looked like a partner for the potential encirclement of India. For Ayub Khan, China was an addition to his alliance structure but he was not willing to give up the links with the US.7 The push to build links with China came from China itself and from Z. A. Bhutto more than from Ayub Khan. Z. A. Bhutto, Ayub Khan’s senior minister, was the enthusiastic mover of the China–Pakistan linkage while Ayub was a reluctant one. Intellectually, Ayub was pro-Western, and as long as he was President he could curb Bhutto’s enthusiasm about China, his antiAmericanism and pro-Islamic and socialist views. Bhutto had built his standing in Pakistan as a fiery speech maker who debated India’s ‘perfidy in Kashmir’ and its ‘hegemonic’ tendencies. As minister of commerce, fuel, power, resources and industries (1958–63) and later as foreign minister, his youth and enthusiasm were attractive to many Pakistanis. He also had influential links with Pakistani military generals. As a writer he had a wider repertoire of ideas and issues. Ayub Khan’s book ‘Friends not masters’ was


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a plea to America to take it seriously and not to treat it as a client. Bhutto argued differently. Pakistan’s excessive dependence on the US undermined its independence. He wanted to build Pakistan’s Islamic identity and sought an Islamic Atom Bomb. He wanted to burnish Pakistan’s Third World credentials and links with medium powers like China where common interests existed and Pakistan’s strategic location counted. Bhutto’s views had a dual effect on Ayub Khan. He simultaneously stimulated and undermined Ayub’s thinking – the former by developing links with China, the latter by undermining Ayub’s standing within Pakistan. Bhutto presented himself as a political alternative to Pakistani generals and military rule. By manipulating external relationships to pressure India on Kashmir, Bhutto stimulated Ayub Khan to start a military campaign in Kashmir in 1965. Bhutto used the argument that the Kashmiris were ready to revolt and Pakistan had China’s backing; both assertions proved wrong. In addition, Bhutto played a major role in the political events leading up to the 1970–71 war with India. He refused to accept the election results that would have denied him the prime ministership, and he prolonged the political crisis by negotiating with proBhutto, anti-Mujibur Rahman, Pakistani generals; here Bhutto the democrat did not act in a democratic way. Later, as President of Pakistan he sanctioned the development of Pakistan’s bomb but his method was to bypass Pakistan’s military and intelligence services in his endeavour to maintain his power within Pakistan and his authority in the external sphere. The buildup of links with China, and the start of Pakistan’s nuclear programme were Bhutto’s lifelong achievements but his initiatives were marred by the results. His belief that Pakistanis could bet against the US and in favour of China, and that military force and international diplomatic pressure could liberate Kashmir, were both false assumptions that wrecked Pakistan’s strategy. Still, China’s actions against India prolonged Pakistani dreams about containing India and building Indo-Pakistani parity. China gave concrete shape to the development of a triangular relationship with Pakistan and India by actions vis-à-vis Pakistan that seriously affected Indian interests in five areas. First, it signed a provisional border agreement with Pakistan (1962) that involved transfer of a part of Kashmir to China; this made China a party to the Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir. Second, it provided conventional arms to Pakistan that strengthened its capacity for military intervention against India. Third, after 1982 China provided nuclear bomb-making technology and materials to Pakistan along with missile capability that played a significant role in Pakistan’s nuclear development. Fourth, China was an active participant in threatening military actions in the 1965 and 1971 wars between India and Pakistan and it worked as an active diplomatic supporter of Pakistan at the UN, and as an opponent of India in international diplomacy. Finally, China opposed India’s nuclear weapons development citing it as a threat to the region and the international nonproliferation regime. The Sino-Pakistani boundary agreement had multiple aims. 1. It created pressure by both Pakistan and China on India into making concessions to


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Pakistan on Kashmir or to face a two-front threat from China and Pakistan. 2. It created pressure by Pakistan on the US to induce India to make concessions to Pakistan and to forestall buildup of Sino-Pakistani links. 3. It was meant to show that Pakistan and China were able to peacefully settle a border question while India was the obstructionist compared to China and Pakistan. 4. For Pakistan a Sino-Pakistani border agreement forestalled a Sino-Indian agreement on Ladakh that could affect Pakistani interests in Kashmir. 5. It enabled Pakistan to borrow Chinese power, as Pakistan had earlier borrowed US power to build its theory that Indo-Pakistani parity and balance of power was needed as the basis of regional peace. 6. It enabled China to prepare Pakistan as a channel for the flow of Chinese diplomacy and influence into the Middle East in the belief that ‘moderate’ Pakistan had influence among moderate Middle Eastern governments; this was meant to help improve the image of a radical Chinese communist government and to create a challenge to the dominance of Washington and Moscow in Middle Eastern politics. 7. It enabled both China and Pakistan to pressurize Moscow into moderating its support for India on the premise that Moscow feared China and it could be induced to act on this line. 8. It enabled Pakistan to use Chinese economic and military aid to sustain Pakistani capacity to pressurize India into an accommodative stance towards Pakistani and Chinese interests. 9. Finally, Pakistan was interested in the settlement of the Kashmir question on its terms but pending that its theory was to create parity with India. This required two strategies: to build Pakistan’s internal military strength through alliance aid – first, from the West and second, from China; and to weaken the Indian political union, its underlying principles and its economic development by increasing China’s pressure against India. China had irredentist claims to Indian border areas in the Himalayan area, and its experience as a communist power prepared it to use its revolutionary principles to subvert India and its peoples. As such China was an ideal partner for Pakistan, and the two developed a division of labour between Pakistani pressures on India’s western front, and China’s pressures on India’s northern and eastern front.8 Pakistani aims dovetailed with China’s aims against India. The diplomatic and military costs to China as a result of its shift from a policy of peaceful co-existence to a confrontational one were, from Beijing’s point of view, manageable. A close inspection, however, indicates that Beijing’s changed strategy produced a mix of advantages and disadvantages. 1. Its attack on India in October 1962 carried an elaborate defence of its interests in the Himalayas. Its diplomatic defence of its action in 1962 attacked India’s peaceful credentials but even as the war tarnished China’s image as a peaceloving state, its boundary agreements with India’s neighbours burnished China’s willingness to conduct peaceful negotiations with friendly neighbours. 2. By building an alignment with Pakistan, China shaped the leadership and the bureaucratic orientation of Pakistan by marginalizing those who sought an accommodation with India and those who sought an alliance relationship with the US. 3. By emerging as Pakistan’s main communist supporter,


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Beijing forestalled the possibility of a Pakistan–USSR rapprochement. 4. The boundary settlement with Pakistan had a strategic rationale as it strengthened China’s military communications in Xinjiang, Tibet and China’s Kashmir; Xinjiang in particular was important as it was historically an object of Russian/Soviet military attention, it possessed mineral resources, and it was an arena to promote ferment and subversion against China’s authority in its frontier zone. China had experience in such activity in India’s border areas and it could easily anticipate its importance for foreign powers. 5. The SinoPakistan alignment created a wedge for the extension of China’s power into Pakistan which earlier was deemed to be a part of the inner circle of Western defence. The Pakistan link sought to enhance the appeal of the China model of political and economic development and diplomatic collaboration among Third World countries. China’s big power dream had caused apprehensions among its Asian neighbours in the 1950s but the alignment with pro-Western, Islamic, moderate Pakistan helped improve its image. 6. The cooperative alignment with Pakistan was followed by development of similar alignments with India’s regional (SAARC) neighbours. By building sub-regional wedges Beijing rather than Delhi would be the point of attraction for India’s smaller neighbours while India would be the point of opposition for them. The policy meant linking up the military and commercial road, rail and air communications between Pakistan, Xinjiang, Pakistani and Chinese Kashmir, Tibet and Nepal. This way the orientation of communications in the Himalayan areas could be altered around Chinese hubs rather than Indian ones. 7. The push towards Pakistan was counter to the Soviet push towards India. 8. Pakistan was a valuable platform to project Chinese sea power into the Indian Ocean and to challenge Indian naval communications from harbours in India’s neighbourhood. China–Pakistan could facilitate Chinese outreach to India’s neighbours like Sri Lanka and Myanmar and among African and Persian Gulf countries in the future. 9. Finally, Muslim minority politics of Xinjiang played a role in the decision to turn to Pakistan. The USSR stimulated Muslim consciousness and disaffection among the Chinese Muslims against the communists in Beijing, whereas Pakistan represented a link with the moderate Muslim countries (Jordan and under the Shah of Iran). The framing of Pakistan as a part of a moderate Muslim community was done initially by the UK and US in the early 1950s. Their motive was to check the likely expansion of Soviet communism in the belief that Islamic values were counter to Soviet ones. Beijing took the idea of Pakistan as a moderate Muslim state from UK–US diplomacy but applied it to moderate Soviet propaganda in the Xinjiang area where radical Muslim tendencies were being stimulated against Beijing’s policies. The idea of Pakistan as a moderate formation was similar in Western and Chinese diplomacy although the context of its application varied significantly.9 The aims of the Chinese and Pakistani practitioners were diverse; however, both shared an India-specific policy interest. Although the focus of the two countries’ public diplomacy centred on territorial questions – Kashmir, Tibet

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and the Himalayan border, still a complex list of calculations indicated that these practitioners planned their moves by thinking big and small, they acted tactically and strategically, and they mixed their strategic calculations with consideration of an Indo-Pakistani balance of power. This was a minimal aim, while the formation of a subordinate states’ system in the Subcontinent under Chinese authority was a maximum aim. How were these aims pursued during the 1970s through the 1990s? Chapter 8 continues the narrative.


8

Sino-Indian manoeuvres that led to a strategic stalemate and conflict formation

‘The real cause of the 1962 war was not only a desire for territory, [it] … was the basic eternal conflict between China and India … India came in China’s way by the more fact of her separate political structure and pursuing a separate policy which was succeeding. It was a challenge to China and it created an impression in the countries roundabout, which was adverse to China. … hence Indian influence had to be removed or liquidated’1 ‘Hence, deliberately creating misconceptions for the enemy and then springing surprise attacks upon him are two ways-indeed two important means-of achieving superiority and seizing the initiative’.2

If Mullik’s account of Nehru’s view about China is correct, then the Indian government made a fundamental shift: from a policy of peaceful engagement with China including accommodation of its interests in Tibet with a view to build a positive Sino-Indian alignment, to an expectation of a prolonged process of conflictual engagement after 1962. The process of Sino-Indian action reaction set the stage for Wight’s deadlocked duel. Says Wight: ‘where One can make no heading against Two, he may lash out at a third party, or sideways’. ‘Three will not be sorry to see One and Two batter each other to pieces’.3 In my case, China is ‘One’, India is ‘Two’ and the US and Soviet Russia represented ‘Three’ along with Pakistan. Here China lashed out against Russian revisionists, Indian reactionaries and American imperialists but as China’s relations with the US and Russia improved, the lashing out against Indians continued and intensified. (See Chapter 9) Indians lashed out at China’s betrayal and perfidy and its opportunistic use of Pakistan against India. Pakistan and China lashed out against Indian expansionism and hegemonism for a major part of the diplomatic and military history of the Subcontinent. Ashley Tellis, senior researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former government official in various capacities (including assistant to US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill) confirms Wight’s point that ‘Three’ will not mind if ‘One’ and ‘Two batter each other to pieces’. To quote him: ‘Sino-Indian relations in Asia will be driven, first,


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by the growth of Chinese and Indian economic and military capabilities and, second, by the interaction of their interests with those of the United States. … all the Asian states actively participating in the Sino-Indian relationship will seek to play off the two major regional powers against one another. … 4 One further point needs to be made. Just as the US and Soviet Russia represented ‘Three’ in relation to Sino-Indian conflict, China was the ‘Three’ after 1961–62 in relation to the Indo-Pakistani conflict; it did not mind IndoPakistani polarity. In the Sino-Indian–Pakistani relationship Mao’s emphasis on deception, surprise and protracted conflict made sense up to a point. Surprise and deception worked against the Indians up to 1962. China’s decision to launch a war across the length of the entire border caught India by surprise; it achieved military superiority in the 1962 border conflict. But I argue that the military success was of limited value. China lost its diplomatic initiative with India and the space for diplomatic manoeuvre and action was lost to China and to India after 1962, until diplomatic activity was revived in the late 1980s by the two governments. The use of strategic deception was no longer relevant as a tool in China’s India policy because Indian practitioners and the world community were on guard. In the bilateral context after 1962, the Maoist goal of ‘superiority’ and ‘initiative’ became irrelevant as a strategic stalemate developed; and as a result of Indian actions to develop its military and economic capabilities vis-à-vis China the emphasis was to stabilize the conflict relationship, that is, to ensure conflict formation that produced predictability in the actions of the two and manageable instability rather than harmony or peace. However, Maoism was relevant in the Sino-Indian case after 1962 in two important ways. First, an expectation of a protracted conflict set in on both sides. Second, China expanded its front building activity against India by forming diplomatic and military alignments with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka to create a Chinese presence in India’s backyard and to curtain India’s capacity for diplomatic and manoeuvrability within the region. After 1962, Chinese diplomatic and military activity in the region intensified but the score card of gains and losses for China–India–Pakistan was mixed. China gained international prestige as a result of its success in the 1962 war, and following its performance in the Korean War which stalled the advance of American forces, American strategy sought to engage China rather than to isolate it. The evolution of a process of American accommodation of Chinese interests in the world scene included an acknowledgement that it had legitimate interests in the Subcontinent; this was discussed in a previous chapter. This was a gain in international prestige for China and paved the way for the theory that G2 (China and America) could emerge as a foundation of stability in China’s southern zone. Pakistan emerged as a front line state for both China and America – against Soviet Russia for America and against India for China. Kashmir remained a point of pressure and a common front between America and China. America sought


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Indian concessions to Pakistan on Kashmir and China sought Kashmiri selfdetermination and justice for Kashmiris against Indian occupation. America acknowledged that China would have a say in the final settlement on Kashmir; hence the China–India–Pakistan triangle came to be applied to the politics of Kashmir. America and China agreed that Tibet was an integral part of China (as did India) but there was a difference. Henry Kissinger ordered the termination of US aid to Khampas as a part of the accommodation with China during the Nixon–Kissinger visit in 1972 and the old policy of CIA involvement in Tibetan affairs was concluded; India however, remained hospitable to the Dalai Lama and his government in exile in Dharamsala even as its policy was not to allow political activity against China from India. In these circumstances China gained diplomatic leverage or manoeuvrability with Americans in the Himalayan sphere as well as the prestige from the fact that Nixon went to China and made his peace; Mao’s strategy of bidding his time to get a good deal with America had worked. But there were losses as well for China, and gains for India in four important issue areas. First, China lost international prestige along with America when the two failed to save Pakistan from defeat in the Bangladesh campaign in 1971; the G2 combination failed against the Indo-Soviet combination. China’s and Pakistan’s loss was India’s and Russia’s gain in international prestige and regional authority. Second, from the 1980s Pakistan was emerging as the hub of Islamist terrorism that was organized and financed by Pakistan’s intelligence and military services, and it had moral and material support from the US, China, Saudi Arabia and few other Middle Eastern states. This was a gain for China, Pakistan and America in the 1980s because it was instrumental in defeating Russian forces in Afghanistan but as later events showed it backfired; the Islamist extremists became a problem for China in its frontier area with a Muslim minority population that opposed Chinese communist rule, and it emerged as a problem within Afghanistan and Pakistan as well it was the source of the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The September 2001 attack revealed the large international and regional dimensions of the problem. Third, China and North Korea had aided Pakistan’s military, nuclear and missile development since the early 1980s and this culminated in the revelations about the A. Q. Khan affair and the international network that he formed. Because China is a permanent member of the Security Council and its cooperation is required by America it could not be sanctioned for its conduct in promoting nuclear weapons and missile proliferation. However, China was implicated in Pakistan’s nuclear development and it could not avoid the blemish that its declarations on nuclear nonproliferation did not match its actions, and that a double standard existed between China’s policy to promote Pakistani nuclear weapons proliferation and its policy to oppose that of India. This selectivity was based on its strategic policies in the region and the rivalry with India rather than a commitment to nonproliferation. Finally, following India’s 1998 nuclear tests and claim that it was a nuclear weapon state with a formal nuclear doctrine and



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deployment, the US–India nuclear deal was organized by the US government. Its international acceptance led to a loss of face for China because it was widely believed to oppose the deal which legitimized Indian nuclear arms and lifted sanctions against it. In addition, India’s growing strategic links with America, Russia, the Europeans, Australia, Israel, Japan, Singapore and others triggered a fear among Chinese practitioners about the possibility of strategic encirclement. Nehru expected a hostile post-1962 China, and his policy response was to prepare for a prolonged encounter with it in the Himalayan, Southeast Asian and Central Asian regions.5 This perspective informs my assessment of post1962 China–India–Pakistan relationships. The period 1962–98 was eventful. India, China and Pakistan fought wars in 1962, 1965 and 1971. India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, and Nixon and Kissinger recognized China’s growing importance by visiting Beijing and acknowledging it as a strategic partner in 1972. These events were tipping points in the China– India–Pakistan triangle. Each event produced actions and reactions in the conduct of the powers involved but in every crisis the players blinked so the pattern of activism and policy ambivalence was maintained. They could not follow up on their threats. None of them found the end game, and the result of high activity was a stalemate on a situation of manageable instability. Consider the following. Following Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China in 1988 and the restoration of ambassadorial-level relations, the tone of the relationship improved and bilateral cooperation in various fields increased but the cooperative elements were shallow and ambiguous regarding strategic questions including the settlement of the border issue. The development of high-level political discourse, the establishment of an inter-governmental framework for border talks, the significant growth of bilateral trade to the $50billion mark by 2008 were marred by China’s opposition to the US–India nuclear deal in 2008, by an intensification of China’s claims to Arunachal Pradesh (NEFA in British India), by its supply of sensitive nuclear weapons and missiles for Pakistan, its support of Maoist Nepal, and provision of military supplies to Burma, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and by its naval activity in the Indian Ocean. At the same time, India’s naval expansion in the Indian Ocean, its justification that China’s and Pakistan’s nuclear and missile buildup was a threat to Indian security, and the development of its alignments with the US, major European powers, Japan, Australia and Singapore, among others appeared to Chinese practitioners as a form of India’s interest in containment of China. To Indian practitioners, China’s quest for port facilities in Myanmar, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka appeared as a form of China’s interest to contain India. Despite an improved diplomatic discourse and growing economic ties, the incompatibility in strategic views of the two continued to mar the relationship. Although China and India have proclaimed the goal of building a strategic partnership, I argue that at the time of writing (2010) China and India are both trying to build their weight in the international


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system, and to conduct manoeuvres against each other. These are obstacles to the formation of a truly cooperative and peaceful relationship. For China at issue are India’s nuclear and military modernization, its strategic links with the US and other major powers in Asia and Europe, the naval competition between China and India in the Indian Ocean, India’s involvement in affairs of Tibet, conflicting Sino-Indian aims in Nepal, Beijing’s position on Arunchal Pradesh (China calls it southern Tibet) and the link up between Tibet and Taiwan in Beijing’s policy as core sovereignty issues. China’s internal foreign policy debates indicate the importance of these linkages in Chinese perceptions. If the settlement of the Sino-Indian border question is conditioned on the settlement of China’s positions in Taiwan, Tibet, Nepal and Arunachal Pradesh, then one can foresee a prolonged period of SinoIndian contention in the diplomatic and the military spheres. In this case, both countries are expected to conduct high maintenance policies in defence of entrenched positions that are based on history, culture and strategic calculations. The Sino-Indian rivalry is not simply a strategic one; it has a cultural character as well. President Nixon assessed China’s views as follows: ‘the attitude of the Chinese towards their neighbours can be summed up this way. The Russians they hate and fear now. The Japanese they fear later but do not hate. For the Indians they feel contempt but they are there and backed by the USSR’.6 This was an example of Chinese groupthink about the Indians as a race and the poor quality of Indian political leadership. Pakistani and Chinese practitioners shared a common view about ‘Indian aggression and expansionism’,7 as well as being worried about the danger of Indo-Soviet encirclement of China.8 But the end of the 1971 war did not mean the end of groupthink among Chinese, US and Pakistani practitioners. Nor did the victory of the Indian army over the Pakistani army translate into a change in the distribution of power and the pattern of relationships in the region and among the five main players. India had blinked when Indira Gandhi returned the Pakistani prisoners of war in return for an agreement to negotiate peacefully the future of Kashmir instead of settling the Kashmir issue with Bhutto after Pakistan’s defeat in 1971. The 1972 Simla agreement became a compromise peace for Pakistani practitioners because India had failed to convert Pakistani military surrender into a permanent settlement as the US had done following the defeat of the German and the Japanese armies in the Second World War. India faced internal economic weakness during the 1970s and it lacked the confidence to build on its demonstrated military strength against Pakistan in 1971, and to convert its scientific capacity to build a nuclear weapon into a weapons programme. Against this China had the confidence and the determination to check India and to maintain an asymmetry of power in its favour. Moreover, the US government was complicit in boosting China’s ambition by supporting it in relation to South Asia. According to White House declassified documents cited earlier, in the 1971 war in Bangladesh Kissinger



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urged China to open a military front against India and promised US support to China. In 1974 Kissinger told Deng Xiaoping that one of his colleagues favoured giving nuclear weapons to Pakistan to counter India’s 1974 testing. In June 1998 President Clinton visited China and talked about US and China sharing responsibility in Asia-Pacific to keep the peace and to cooperate on nuclear nonproliferation. The US presidential statement on South Asia referred to India and Pakistan and said that China would have a say in the final settlement of the Kashmir issue. Recently (2009) U.S. Admiral (Pacific Command) Timothy Keating disclosed a conversation where a Chinese official suggested a deal: the US navy could take responsibility for the region east of Hawaii and China could take responsibility for the region west of Hawaii and the Indian Ocean. Recently (2009) President Obama tried to entice China (and Saudi Arabia) to take responsibility for stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In other words, the US – a democracy, was aligned with China against the core interests of India – another democracy in Indo-Pakistani affairs. The pattern of US complicity with China, and Chinese complicity with Pakistan’s nuclear development and Kashmir policy reinforced China’s cultural and strategic aims vis-à-vis India from the 1970s onwards (excluding the Bush years (2000–8)). For China, India was inferior to China in the cultural and the strategic spheres, but it could not be left alone because its location made it a part of China’s southern zone, and it was allied to Moscow. One Chinese option was to interfere with its social-economic-political and strategic development by maintaining its pressures on it. The other option was to settle the boundary issue by mutual accommodation. China chose the former option after 1962. A policy of non-interference, benign neglect or indifference towards India by China was not an option because India was active in building its internal strength and its international alignments and it was in China’s way. Whether one thinks of the PRC-India–Pakistan relationships as a strategic triangle or as a pentagonal configuration because of the linkages between the three regional players, the US and USSR/Russia, the relationships became a high maintenance operation after 1962. In an atmosphere of mutual mistrust, conflicting interests, and a history of strategic non-cooperation, escalation by one produced a counter-escalation by the other. The actions-reactions in the military sphere were mediated by diplomacy in the form of talks between India and Pakistan on Kashmir, and between India and China on the border issue. In addition, there was cooperation to build economic links, for example trade with India. Still, the weight of cultural differences, historical animosity, geo-political calculation and an atmosphere of mistrust meant that conflict resolution remained elusive among China, India and Pakistan. High maintenance requires a high investment of leadership and bureaucratic time and the country’s resources to stay in the game without expectation of a negotiated settlement. Formulating a win-win endgame was problematic because the interests of China, India and Pakistan were incompatible. A high


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maintenance policy required a continuous involvement by all concerned parties in diplomatic and strategic affairs including military buildups by all concerned with the Subcontinent. The development of high maintenance policies by China, Pakistan and India became inevitable because their policy interests and actions revealed that the negotiating space among the rivals was limited on the core territorial and prestige issues. The space for mistrust and conflict was large, and it required a buildup of each states’ capacities to fight or to deter the rival(s). Negotiating a ceasefire between the rivals was a cooperative action but its management was a high maintenance operation as there were repeated ceasefire violations even with an agreement. This has been the case with the Line of Control in Kashmir between India and Pakistan, and on the Line of Actual Control between India and China. What are/were the policy aims of practitioners that require(ed) high maintenance? Here is a summary of the thinking and methods of the practitioners which are high maintenance because of the risks inherent in failure by a country, or success by the rival. Mao’s military writings are a reliable source of information about the theoretical basis of China’s India policy. His ideas may be summarized as follows. War is the highest form of struggle to resolve contradictions. Give proper consideration to ‘those parts which have a bearing on (which are decisive for) the situation as a whole’. Be good at learning (do and then learn). Think of war as a protracted conflict. In a protracted struggle the second stage (drawing on China’s experience with Japan) is one of ‘strategic stalemate’; the third stage is that of the ‘counter-offensive’. ‘China’s strength alone [is] not sufficient. We shall also have to rely on support of internationalist forces. … this adds to China’s tasks in international propaganda and diplomacy’. Encirclement and counter-encirclement is important in forming the ‘interaction between the front of aggression and the front of peace’. ‘Initiative is inseparable from superiority in capacity to wage war, while passivity in inseparable from inferiority in capacity to wage war’. Deliberate deception and surprise attacks are important ways to achieve superiority and to gain the initiative.9 As per Mao’s benchmarks the Sino-Indian–Pakistani relationship since 1962 has the character of a protracted struggle and a strategic stalemate that requires high maintenance activity to sustain the stalemate and to build the capacity for a counter-offensive. Encirclement of India became a key part of China’s policy and is demonstrated by its efforts to build its strategic links with Pakistan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and to build its naval and missile capacity to counter India’s development. Chinese diplomacy



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recognized that its strength was not sufficient for it to stage the counteroffensive. To build support Beijing pursued an anti-India line with India’s neighbours and it adopted a position against Indian nuclear arms, against acknowledgement of India’s nonproliferation record, and against acceptance of India as a partner in global nuclear commerce. In the 1950s Beijing had projected India as a reactionary and an expansionist country tied to AngloAmerican imperialism and projected itself as a peaceful force and guardian of the weaker neighbours of India. By the 1970s China had a partner in the US to check India’s military buildup. However, my narrative indicates that the scorecard of China’s India policy is a mixed one. It reveals the relevance of Maoist prescriptions, but it also reveals that development of high maintenance policies was an inevitable consequence of errors in Chinese communist political and strategic thought. The growth in Indian strength and its external linkages ironically indicated that Indians learnt from the Maoist prescription ‘do and learn’ but the Chinese communist party was slow to adapt to the reality of rising Indian economic and military capacities vis-à-vis Pakistan and China. It adjusted its belligerent stance towards India only when it became clear that India’s economic and military development was irreversible following its economic reforms (1992–) and its nuclear and diplomatic ability to develop ties with non-traditional partners such as Israel (with US approval), with the US itself, and its allies in Asia – especially Singapore, Australia and Japan – in the aftermath of the 1998 Indian tests. India’s democratic and legal system created a common framework of liberal values among its strategic partners. Thus, common values and shared aims in issues relating to international and regional security brought India, the US, Japan, Australia and Singapore together during the Bush years (2000–8). The PRC has over-relied on the role of deception in its approach to India after 1962 because Mao’s policy of deception and surprise attack had worked in 1962 but thereafter it placed the Indians on guard against China’s moves. Deception is like soufflé; once cooked it is impossible to bring it up again! China continued to present its economic and military modernization as ‘peaceful rise’ but this caused apprehension in the context of Deng Xiaoping’s view: ‘Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership’. What is the scorecard about China’s approach to contain India? To recall, China formed several fronts against India in 1959–62: 1. The 1962 war created a military front in the Himalayan zone. 2. The PRC–Pakistan agreements created a diplomatic front and a line of military pressure against India. 3. A political front was formed within India by aligning Indian communists and China sympathizers against the Indian government and with PRC’s policies. 4. An international front was formed by aligning China with the Nixon–Kissinger camp that produced an acknowledgement by US leaders, Nixon, Kissinger and Clinton that Beijing had legitimate interests in the Subcontinent. 5. Following the 1998 Indian nuclear tests, China shaped an


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international front through Security Council resolution 1178 which sought to disarm India’s nuclear capacity and implicitly to legitimize the nuclear asymmetry between China and India. 6. Encirclement was implicit in China’s acquisition of port facilities in Myanmar, in Pakistan, and by her efforts to widen its network of defence cooperation with the governments of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. However, India and her allies have taken military and diplomatic countermeasures and this has produced a strategic stalemate with China. India and China have several options in a situation of a prolonged stalemate. 1. Both stay committed to a high maintenance policy without the prospect of mounting a successful counter-offensive. This approach does not require an early settlement of the border question. 2. Both can follow Mao’s ‘do and learn’ prescription, settle the border issue and stop building fronts against each other. This option requires learning and adaptation by Beijing. It implies a ‘big compromise’ by China on the McMahon Line and Arunachal Pradesh. This option is a hard one for Beijing’s leaders because the Sino-Indian border issue is tied, in Beijing’s view, to its quest to harmonize its position in Tibet, Nepal, and Southern Tibet (which is Arunachal Pradesh under Indian control). The Tibet question is important to China and it is linked to the Taiwan question; both are sovereignty issues in Chinese politics. Presently it is difficult for China’s leaders to compromise with India because of an internal division between advocates of a hard line against India that includes possibility of a ‘potential war’ to liberate ‘Southern Tibet’, and on the other side are advocates of a softer line that stresses a peaceful settlement of the border question and the maintenance of the line of control. 3. Both sides can stay on the present course – build bilateral trade (currently it is about $50 billion), maintain high-level political and official exchanges on the border issue, keep lashing out at each other about the danger of encirclement, and keep pushing into each other’s neighbourhood and sensitivities. Thus far, from 1962 to the present, the results of the Sino-Indian rivalry may be summarized as follows. Both sides developed the tactics of talking but not negotiating. This was Nehru’s position during the 1950s on the border issue, and it now appears to be the PRC’s position in the border talks with India. China failed to establish two fronts (1959–present) against India in a way that the China–Pakistan–India triangle ended in India’s defeat. China’s crisis diplomacy and decision-making in the 1965 and 1971 wars showed that it was ambivalent about enforcing its two-front threat. China failed to help Pakistan against Indian actions. Its threat-making was counterproductive because India demonstrated a capacity to manage the danger of a two-front military operation by its diplomatic and military actions. A subtle shift in US policy towards Pakistan undermined China’s support of Pakistan. When President Pervez Musharraf and his army failed to wrestle Kargil by a surprise military action, and Indian military recovered Kargil



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despite heavy odds (1999) President Clinton swung to the Indian view that Pakistan was aggressive and he urged Pakistani withdrawal.10 The loss of US political cover for Pakistani military action in the Kashmir area in 1999 exposed China. It too urged a bilaterally negotiated settlement and restraint by India and Pakistan. Three lessons emerged from the Kargil episode. 1. That American and Chinese military and diplomatic aid for the Pakistani military could not translate into a Pakistani victory over India; that India had developed staying power despite the buildup of the Pakistan-China alignment; and that Pakistan was not like North Korea in 1950–53. Then PRC support of a strategic neighbour had brought a superior military force under General Douglas McArthur to a halt in the Korean War. Without an effective strategic proxy in the area Beijing lacked leverage against India, in contrast to its leverage in North Korean military and diplomatic affairs during the Korean War. 2. Without the cover of US support for Pakistan – as Nixon and Kissinger provided in the 1971 Bangladesh campaign – China could not act alone, and it did not like to lose face with its ally, Pakistan, and with the world community. Given a choice between losing face or urging restraint, China opted for the latter course. 3. Finally, China realized that it had a weak proxy in Pakistan; it could not fight and defeat the Indians even when Musharraf ’s forces had achieved surprise in gaining the Kargil heights in 1999. A key prescription in Mao’s military tactics was unworkable in Pakistani military activity against India. After its victory in 1949, China wanted to keep the US at arms length from Taiwan, Japan and India but it failed to prevent the development of alignments among them. It wanted to keep India on the defensive in the Third World, to wean these countries away from Indian influences, and to build Beijing’s influences. Despite its efforts there is a healthy competition between Chinese and Indian influences in commercial, diplomatic, military and cultural spheres in the Third World. Beijing wanted to show that in the aftermath of India’s military defeat in 1962 its democratic political and social model had feet of clay in comparison to China’s dynamic but coercive political and economic model. Despite China’s impressive economic achievements many countries have not accepted the anti-India view of Chinese interlocutors. Lenin said that India was a hub of world revolution and China’s communists were designated as the Asian agent to secure this aim. Beijing has repeatedly tried to discredit India’s ‘reactionary rulers who are tied to world imperialism’ against China and against Indian interests. China’s ideas are appealing to South Asian Maoists. West Bengal emerged as a hub of Indian communism (along with Kerala and parts of India’s northeastern areas) and Bengali communists have encouraged the liberation of India by revolutionary activity. This argument has had a resonance in the rise of the Nepalese Maoist movement and the growth of armed struggle

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in northeastern and central India. I judge this to be one aspect of China’s strategy where the seed of internal reform and revolutionary activity has been planted by China’s activity in India among the communists and their sympathizers in India. In sum, encirclement and counter-encirclement is an on-going activity for China and Indian practitioners and among China’s neighbours. The moves are geo-politically and culturally conditioned. The struggle is protracted because China and India have the means and the determination to develop tactical initiatives but neither can overcome the problem of a strategic stalemate, and neither can form a successful counter-offensive and a winning strategy. In addition, the motivations vary. China has the ambition to be taken seriously as the sole Asian power that has international prestige. It has the ambition to build a South Asian regional security structure that recognizes China as the primary hub of the region. India does not have the ambition to emerge as the sole Asian power but it has the desire to maintain stability in its neighbourhood. It seeks an acknowledgement of its vibrant economy and moderating influence rather than demonstrations of its military power. India’s challenge is to build its present economic and military power, and to build its international reputation as a responsible global player. Its involvement in regional and international issues must convince others that it is a stabilizing force in regional and international politics. What can be learnt about the future direction of Sino-Indian–Pakistan affairs from Sino-Indian actions? Thus far my narrative indicates that the Indian government does not accept PRC’s leadership, it sees itself as a co-equal of China, it has not submitted to its pressures and it has done a lot to establish its national security agenda and to form its counter-containment strategy. At the same time the PRC has established an impressive set of tools to manipulate the regional environment with an emphasis on containing and encircling India but it is also hedging its position vis-à-vis India by proposing a set of cooperative arrangements. However, neither China nor India can avoid a strategic stalemate because both lack a winning strategy. The Indian government’s problem concerns its poor follow-up to its decisions and actions. India’s diplomatic and military history reveals a pattern. It bungled the Kashmir file in 1947–48 by refusing military advice from its generals to clear Kashmir of invaders, and it internationalized the issue by sending it to the UN. It fought Pakistan in 1971 then failed to secure a definitive settlement when India had the leverage to exchange about 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war for a peace settlement. It defeated Pakistan in 1971 and secured its formal surrender but it was unable to change the character of Pakistan’s domestic politics and its foreign policy, and that of its supporters, China, the US and Saudi Arabia among others. It exploded a bomb in 1974 but instead of declaring a weapons status it declared



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its intent to stay non-nuclear and left itself open to external pressures to disarm. In 1998, however, it established its nuclear weapon status. It was taken seriously after 1998 by Western and Asian capitals when its economic performance gained international recognition, when its military actions in 1999 and 2001–2 showed a determination to defeat its rivals and alter their conduct, when it chose to build its strength in its land, sea and air environments, and to enlarge its diplomatic base of traditional and non-traditional allies and interlocutors. However, Indian diplomacy still has a defensive and reactive diplomatic style in dealing with China. Its public diplomacy over-emphasises the border issue and under-emphasises China’s drive to maintain a containment and an encirclement strategy vis-à-vis India. The lack of self-confidence in confronting China with the anti-India nature of its actions, and the unwillingness to create a public identification with a ‘China problem’ has been a sign of the defensiveness. But as India has developed rewarding economic and strategic relations with major and minor powers in Asia, Europe, Africa, Middle East and the Americas, China has begun to nuance its traditional containment and encirclement strategy towards India. The development of cooperative signals vis-à-vis India indicates a process of adaptation towards India and an adjustment in its wholehearted support of Pakistan during the 1960s–80s period. China is adapting to a new India and a new international situation but it is not necessarily shedding its containment strategy and its cultural and geo-political view of India and its place vis-à-vis China. Furthermore, the rate of change in China’s India approach is slow. Compare the rate of change in Indo-US relations with changes in SinoIndian relations. The Bush administration (2000–8) declared that India was a strategic partner and that it was in the US interest to build India into a world power. This was a major signal that became a turning point in Western relations with India. This change recognized that India was a responsible democracy, it shared fundamental values of freedom, respect for rule of law, it was a responsible nuclear power, it was a non-expansionist and moderating influence in world policies, and it had a vibrant economy. The PRC had a problem with the new Western approach towards India but it was compelled to react. It adopted a multi-pronged policy. 1. It highlighted India’s nuclear weaponry as a threat to the international nonproliferation regime and it insisted on India’s nuclear disarmament. In addition, it sought to reverse India’s defence buildup, and through its proxy the Indian communist party, it complained about Indo-US defence cooperation. 2. On the other hand, it promoted meetings at the highest levels of Chinese and Indian leaders and sought increased commercial, technological and defence cooperation with India. 3. It maintained its economic and military relationships with Pakistan and expanded its scope by its significant investment in Gwador, a strategic seaport in the Gulf area. 4. Finally, it maintained its naval buildup in


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the South China seas, as well as its rise as a major power in space. In sum, despite the photo opportunities of high-level meetings, the two Asian powers maintained policies of containment and counter-containment, of encirclement and counter-encirclement of each other, and the competition at sea, in missiles, and in military and air power continued in a robust way. The pattern of PRC declarations and actions indicated that it did not like Indian nuclear weapons, it did not like significant improvements in Indo-US links in the economic, defence and the diplomatic spheres, it did not like India’s naval and missile buildup in response to China’s, it did not appreciate India’s argument that its nuclear actions were a result of Pakistani and Chinese collaboration and provocations, and it did not like the acceptance of India’s argument about China’s threat by a majority of Western and Asian policy establishments. Beijing’s theory of China’s peaceful rise and Deng Xiaoping’s view to be calm and bide its time lingered as a long shadow in the minds of Asian and Western practitioners. They worried about China’s future intentions once its four modernizations were completed in a few decades. It was hurtful to China’s self-image that China’s growth caused apprehensions among its long list of neighbours and the major powers, and the SinoPakistan argument about ‘Indian hegemony’ had lost credibility in the major capitals. In the twenty-first century the ‘Sino-Pakistan versus India competition’ replaced Kashmir as the core issue in sub-continental international relations; and Pakistan’s position as a frontline state and an element in the inner circle of Western defence during the Cold War era was replaced by its emergence as the hub of Islamist terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation that tied North Korea, China, Pakistan with nuclear exports to Iran and Libya. A changed strategic context empowered the diplomatic and military initiatives of India and her new found partners, for example Israel and the US in particular. Pending a re-thinking of China’s India policy, the changes in the global and regional strategic scenes required China to mount high maintenance operations to sustain its ambition as the mentor of countries located in its southern zone. In a changing regional and international context it was unclear if Chinese academic and governmental practitioners were adapting in general to a new world, and if they were willing to re-formulate the key points of their strategic calculus with India, or if China was being pushed into a defensive and a reactive stance. My bias is to argue that the changes in China’s posture towards India and Pakistan indicate adaptation, not re-learning, and China’s internal foreign policy debate validates the assertion. Cooperative elements have emerged in the relationship with India but they are shallow, reversible, ambiguous, and the rate of change is slow. Both countries expect to pursue high maintenance policies because neither side is willing to compromise, neither side is able to mount a successful counter-offensive and neither side has a formula for an end game to terminate the rivalry. Consider the following. Following the restoration of ambassadorial-level representation at each capital and the visit to China by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi



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in 1988, an agreement to maintain tranquility on the border was signed. This agreement (Line of Actual Control or LAC) created a distinction between the traditional customary line and second, the line of actual control which represented the areas physically controlled by the two countries. According to Chinese views in 1913 British India officials created the McMahon Line and thereby pushed Indian control about 100 km north of the customary boundary line. This way, Beijing maintains, 90,000 square km, which were under Chinese jurisdiction in the past, were taken over by India. India calls this area Arunchal Pradesh; China calls it southern Tibet. The LAC agreement is not about the legality of the McMahon Line, the primary area of territorial contention between the two, but it showed a political thaw and an agreement to maintain border peace that was based on ground realities. The Sino-Indian agreement (2005) on forming ‘Political Parameters’ for a boundary settlement was based on ‘history and current situation’; it highlights the distinction between the two aforesaid lines. The LAC is the basis of India’s position; it however, is a concept, it has not been demarcated or accepted by either side as the legal basis of the border, it is subject to frequent violations because of misunderstandings about the exact location of the line or because of provocations by local military commanders. Still it has defacto status. This is the main area of contention but there are other territorial issues. In the western sector, about 30,000 square km are disputed in Aksai Chin at the junction of Western parts of Xinjiang and Tibet regions. This area is under Chinese control and sits within the framework of the traditional and customary boundary line. In the middle sector there is a dispute about 2000 km in areas northwest of the China–Nepal border. Sikkim falls in this area.11 The thaw in Sino-Indian relations on the border issue and other steps which the two countries have taken (discussed below) are steps forward but they are not irrevocable. The initiative to settle the border issue and the nature of its relationship with India lies in Beijing’s hands because India’s leverage comes from two sources: the quality of its legal case which is well documented but it is also contested by Beijing, and from its ability to maintain its military and administrative position in the disputed eastern and the middle sectors which are under its control. Beijing’s approach at present fits neatly into the Deng Xiaoping’s prescription about thinking and preparing calmly and bidding your time; it fits as well into the slogan that it must ‘struggle side by side with compromise’ in order to gain ‘support in other fronts’.12 The challenge for the analyst is to determine the correlation between Chinese compromise(s) and the building up of other fronts – where is the compromise, what are the fronts, and what is the future direction of relations between the two on the basis of views of China’s strategic experts and the inter-actions between the governments of China and India? Let me begin the discussion by considering the adjustments which China has made in its India policy. The topics indicate a basket of issues where cooperation is suggested and they go beyond the controversial border issue.


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The search for areas of cooperation between the two countries was accelerated by several developments. 1. The formal adoption of nuclear weapons as a part of India’s military arsenal, and its public declaration that the development of Indian nuclear arms and missiles were a response to the buildup of Sino-Pakistani military and nuclear threats tied India’s nuclear development to the pattern of development of Sino-Pakistani strategic ties. The Indian argument carried weight with the Bush administration and had widespread support in the US Congress. India and the US agreed on a framework for strategic cooperation and waiver of international sanctions against India (2005) and the US civil nuclear cooperation agreement was approved by the international Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2008; the issue created a dilemma for Beijing. It could oppose the US–Indian plan or it could support it to save face in international conference diplomacy. Beijing adopted the latter course and adapted its policy to the new situation. Its policy of creating an international front against India’s nuclear weapons development had failed. The growth of the Indian economy and its rise as an important participant in the global economy increased its international presence in a world of money and markets. Thereafter, a series of high-level visits and agreements laid out the parameters and principles of steps towards a new relationship. Both Asian countries like formal agreements as they lay out benchmarks even if the participants are not acting in accordance with them. Principles and parameters are functional because they provide a basis for a dialogue and they provide diplomatic leverage for their implementation. In other words, inter-state agreements are not simply empty words; they lay out the mental and diplomatic road maps for the future. The point is as follows. When mutual trust exists, a handshake should suffice to indicate agreement; but precisely when mutual trust does not exist, written agreements become useful as reference point(s) for practitioners in their diplomatic discourse. The Sino-Indian agreements related to concrete problems and they expressed a thematic approach. A number of key issues were addressed in these agreements. The agreements of 1993, 1996, 2003 and 2005 provided that both sides ‘shall maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas’ pending the final resolution of the border controversy on the basis of a final package settlement to cover all sectors of the boundary. These agreements set out the principles and parameters of the border settlement. The official declaration expressed an interest in an ‘early settlement of outstanding issues’. It was acknowledged by both sides that the relationship between the ‘two biggest developing countries in the world, is of global and strategic significance’; ‘there is enough space for them to grow together’, and ‘play their respective roles in the region and beyond while remaining sensitive to each other’s concerns and aspirations’. Comprehensive economic and commercial engagement between the two was defined as ‘a core component of their Strategic and Cooperative



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Partnership’ and the declared aim was to build their bilateral trade to US $40 billion by 2010. It has already crossed $50 billion by 2009. Diversification of trade and economic links included industry, finance, agriculture, water, energy, environment, transportation, infrastructure, information technology, health, education, media, culture, tourism, youth and other fields. An agreement for defence cooperation was signed in 2006 to formulate an institutional framework for mutual understanding between the two defence establishments and to instil mutual trust and confidence through defence visits and exercises. Both agreed to establish an India–China partnership in Science and Technology to deal with earthquake engineering, climate change, outer space, satellite communications and meteorology and remote sensing, weather forecasting, nano-technology, biotechnology and to build an important element of energy security including expansion of civilian nuclear technology ‘consistent with their respective international commitments’. Cultural ties, people to people exchanges, academic visits were agreed to rediscover and re-build ‘centuries-old cultural contacts’ by promoting Nalanda as a major centre of Buddhist learning. Linkages between Indian states and Chinese provinces were encouraged to promote people to people exchanges. Both sides agreed to hold regular exchange of views on the security environment in Asia Pacific and the world and to engage in ‘proactive consultations on issues of immediate and emerging concern, so as to coordinate their positions and to make positive contribution towards peaceful resolution of such issues’. Such issues included consultations on regional security, maritime security, weapons of mass destruction proliferation and means of delivery, natural disasters, illegal trafficking of arms, narcotics, people, and environmental degradation. Both sides viewed positively the trilateral dialogue between India, China and Russia and sought to advance it further. Terrorism was viewed as a crime against humanity that could not be justified on any ground or in any manifestation and the two sides agreed to broaden the dialogue on counter-terrorism, and to fight against ‘terrorism, separatism and extremism’. Both agreed that the UN played a ‘central role’ in promoting international peace, security and development, and both sought reform of the Security Council to ensure balanced representation of developed and developing countries. India’s aspiration for a permanent seat of the Security Council was noted, China ‘attaches great importance to the status of India in international affairs’ and it ‘understands and supports India’s aspirations to play a greater role in the United Nations’. China expressed its appreciation for India’s one China policy, its recognition of the Tibet Autonomous Region as a part of China, and its disallowance of anti-China political activities by Tibetans in India.13


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The positive outlook revealed by this set of agreements was carried forward in the high-level meetings between the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his counter-part Wen Jiabao. The trade agenda was raised to a target of $60 billion from $40 billion in 2010. Both sides agreed to have a second round of military exercises. China ‘pledged’ to promote civil nuclear cooperation, a stronger sign compared to its ‘importance’ in the 2006 agreement. Both discussed their concern about Pakistani turmoil and hoped for peace and stability ‘in their neighbouring country’; China hoped to see democracy in Pakistan. The other points of cooperation laid out in 2006 were reiterated by both sides.14 By the summer of 2008 it became clear that China was struggling with its ‘compromises’ with India but at the same time its internal strategic debate emphasized its policy of building its fronts. A summary of Chinese moves indicates a shift towards cooperative moves but they co-exist in an ambiguous way along with moves to strengthen PRC fronts against India. A striking element in PRC’s cooperative as well as conflict-oriented moves was the high degree of ambiguity in both. Its cooperative declarations have an ‘if, but, then’ quality and they are lacking in a time-line. They are reversible rather than firm commitments. Hence to determine their predictive value one must compare the declarations with the PRC’s actions. Likewise, the PRC’s threatening declarations do not imply that conflict is imminent or inevitable. In other words, the PRC’s word cannot be trusted, in Indian assessments whether the declaration suggests cooperation or a threat. Its official declarations with India are now considered debased currency unless they are confirmed by its actions. Consider the following examples of the PRC’s style to signal a cooperative or a threatening attitude in an ambiguous way. Both are in play, and are likely to stay so in the foreseeable future because the issues are complex and internal foreign policy debates in China and India inhibit big concessions to secure a political settlement. Sikkim. The 2003 visit of Indian Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee to Beijing led to the establishment of Nathula as a border trading post. This was seen as China’s de facto recognition of Indian sovereignty over Sikkim. Beijing gave India a ‘new official map’ showing Sikkim as an Indian state. This was a shift in the PRC’s policy because its previous official maps placed Sikkim as a part of its territorial claims. This shift was seen as a cooperative move by China. In return India reiterated its recognition of Tibet as a part of China and India agreed not to permit anti-China activity by Tibetans in India. China’s foreign ministry website also indicates that Sikkim is no longer a bilateral issue. However, there is ambiguity about Beijing’s stance because it has not issued a formal statement recognizing Sikkim as a part of India, as India has done with respect to Tibet. The ambiguity indicates a possible discrepancy between the de facto and the dejure position of Sikkim in Chinese calculations. By maintaining ambiguity China keeps India on edge, and to prevent a shift in PRC conduct



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from cooperation to conflict, India maintains its military position in the area. Arunachal Pradesh. This is a major issue in the bilateral relationship because it is a symbol of territorial sovereignty and legality for the two countries. It involves 90,000 square km out of about 125,000 square km of disputed areas in the proposed package deal that is earmarked for early settlement. This is not a standalone issue because it is now embedded in the internal strategic debate within China that involves Chinese governmental and academic practitioners on a variety of foreign and defence issues. Agreeing to India’s claim to Arunachal Pradesh entails recognition of the McMahon Line, and such recognition carries the implication that Beijing’s 1962 war was a war of aggression to the extent that its forces crossed the Line. This is a critical legal and a psychological issue because Beijing described its military action in 1962 as a case of ‘self-defence against preemptive Indian invasion’.15 (It used similar reasoning in its border clash with the USSR in 1969.) For China, Taiwan and Tibet are considered internal problems where the use of force is a sovereign right; so it matters if Arunchal Pradesh is a part of Tibet or not. In addition, Chinese experts believe that the Taiwan issue deserves priority over the SinoIndian border dispute; for them it is important to secure a Taiwan settlement first. A related Chinese calculation is that a harmonization of China’s position in Tibet, Nepal and the Sino-Indian border is important for consolidating the PRC’s economic and political position in the area; this way the PRC can deal with India on the border issue from a position of regional strength. The implication is that pending the search for harmony in the Himalayan area the time is not ripe for a Sino-Indian border settlement.16 China’s quest for harmony in the Himalayan area is likely a prolonged one given the unsettled politics of Nepal, Tibet, the Uighur area, Pakistan and Afghanistan. During 2008–9, unrest has grown in these areas causing China to view negatively India’s support of the Dalai Lama, Russia’s interest in unrest in the Uighur/Xinjiang area, Western governments’ support of the Dalai Lama and the Uighurs, and the increase in Islamist insurgency in China’s southern zone. Pakistan, widely touted as China’s all-weather friend in the region, has also emerged as a source of Islamist terrorism that affects China’s authority in its frontier areas.17 Pakistan’s inability to stop the training and flow of Islamists into China’s frontier areas has emerged as a fault line in Sino-Pakistani relations. Beijing’s moves in 2008–9 indicate the importance of consolidating its position in the area. It has tightened its security in the Xinjiang and Tibetan areas by using tough measures to ‘nip troublemaking in the bud’ and to increase the process of Hanification of Buddhist Tibet. In 1952 Mao noted that there were ‘hardly any Han in Tibet’. By 1985 there were 2.5 million Chinese and 750,000 Tibetans in Qinghai (eastern Tibet) and by 2000, as per the census, only 20% of the population


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was Tibetan. The process of demographic engineering continues with the growth of railroads in Tibet. (On this point however, one should note the PRC’s complaint that the formation of Arunachal Pradesh as a separate state in 1986 and the migration of 7 million people into this area is a form of demographic engineering.) Recently, China moved quickly to build its ties with the newly Maoist prime minister of Nepal having supported the King of Nepal earlier. Its policy is driven by three aims: 1. to curb anti-China activities of Tibetans in Nepal. 2. To promote equidistance in Nepal’s policy between India and China, and to develop a peaceful zone or an area that comes under China’s economic and diplomatic orbit. 3. To prevent the ‘Sikkim-ization’ of Nepal under Indian influences.18 Thus Nepal will likely remain an area of political contention between China and India. In short, the links between the PRC’s interests in Taiwan, Tibet, Nepal and India in the internal debates in China are at odds with the public declarations and bilateral agreements between India and China which suggest a desire for an early settlement of the border question. The pattern of Sino-Indian moves in the region, the pattern of internal debates in the two countries about each other do not suggest that an early border settlement is likely. It suggests instead that both countries are likely to engage each other to avoid misunderstandings, to manage possible conflicts, and to seek cooperative arrangements with each other. China’s internal debate indicates a nuance in the Chinese meaning of ‘compromise’ on the border issue. Chinese ambassadors in India have spoken in terms of a ‘mutual compromise’ or ‘meaningful adjustments’ but this contrasts with an internal opposition within China to a ‘big compromise’. Beijing’s acceptance of the McMahon Line as the basis of the boundary with India would constitute a ‘big compromise’ by the PRC’s standard. There is no doubt a precedent for accepting such a compromise – the MacMahon Line was the basis of the China-Myanmar boundary settlement. But if China is facing an internal debate between its Foreign Ministry (the builders of international harmony) and its People’s Liberation Army hardliners who seek ‘partial war’ with India to keep India in place, then a ‘big compromise’ is not likely in the foreseeable future. In their internal commentary Chinese commentators note that the gap between the two countries is wide. Their assessment is that India now gives priority to developing its economic and military capacities, and with the pattern of controversy over ‘China’s Tawang region’ or ‘Southern Tibet’ – for China, and Arunachal Pradesh, India’s bureaucracy is suspicious of China’s rising power. In their view India is resisting China’s rise as a matter of national strategy, and consequently it is believed that India is expanding its strength with a view to dominate the Indian Ocean. Both countries claim to be acting in self-defence. The result is that a balance of power between the two is in the making. Until a stable balance emerges in the Himalayas and in the Indian Ocean, and both sides recognize that war and conflict or containment are not likely to produce permanent gain for one side, the strategic game is likely to continue.



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If Mao’s ‘do and learn’ principle is applied to Arunachal Pradesh, it requires either a big concession by China on an issue of its national sovereignty and an abandonment of its desire to integrate ‘Southern Tibet’ into Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), or an Indian retreat from its physical control of the northern frontier. A continuation of the status quo and stalemate, however, does not require a big concession by either side. If the settlement of the Taiwan issue is China’s priority, that is likely to delay Sino-Indian border settlement unless Taiwan joins the Mainland and the US government is unwilling or unable to protect Taiwan against Beijing’s pressure. Absent such a radical change in the Far East Beijing must expect to stay strong on two military fronts: Taiwan, the US and Japan in the Far East, and India in the Tibet-Tawang or Southern Tibet areas. This requires a high maintenance policy by China and India in a number of areas as follows. Infrastructure development by China and India. China’s development of road and rail infrastructure in Tibet connects it with the Karakoran highway. Its plan to link up with Nepal’s network is a part of its policy to harmonize its economic and strategic links in the Himalayan area. India too is building its internal rail and road links to strengthen its access to the northern areas. Although China is presumed to have an advantage of easier communications in the Tibetan plateau compared to Indian communications, both sides base their defence planning on their threat perceptions of the other side. Many Western analysts believe that China is ahead of India in terms of its economic and military strength. Chinese practitioners however, believe that India has increased its military strength, it is developing a modern navy with aircraft carriers, and it has developed a system of fighting on two fronts (Pakistan and China) simultaneously. They believe that India could attack Yunnan through Myanmar, they could undermine Chinese military defences in Southern Tibet and in Xinjiang through Kashmir, and they could deploy naval power in China’s southwest. Many Indians would consider the scenario fanciful but if these are the views of Chinese experts, a sustained and serious dialogue is required to build mutual trust on the basis of facts between the two countries. The problem is that the rate of change in the development of mutual trust is slower than the military buildup on both sides and the latter feeds into the threat perceptions of the two sides. Ambiguity is inherent in the buildup of infrastructure of roads, rail links, airports and ports in the region because they have commercial as well as military uses. Strategic partnership. Sino-Indian agreements stress the importance of a strategic partnership between the two countries, but this should be viewed as an aim or an ideal, and not a description of current reality. For China the current reality is to ‘struggle over compromises’ and ‘build fronts’ but the balance between the two lines is fragile. Chinese analysts note that Indian (and US) specialists are concerned about China’s rising power, and even though India and China speak of multi-polarity, India’s ‘primary goal


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is friendship with the US’.19 China has noted numerous signs of deepening and widened Indo-US ties in important areas: defence industrial cooperation is growing; both sides continue to conduct military exercises involving naval, air and land formations; the nuclear deal to facilitate cooperation in civilian nuclear energy has been approved; the US government has said officially that it will facilitate India’s rise as a world power; bilateral economic and commercial ties are growing; and both share common political and cultural values. These commonalities demonstrate that the quality of US–India strategic partnership has depth, and range and durability compared to China–India links. The US and India are territorially satisfied countries; there are no boundary disputes or challenges to each other’s power and prestige. America remains a country of attraction for Indian immigrants. Indo-Americans have found prosperity in America and there are no barriers against their advancement in professional and political spheres. In comparison the Sino-Indian ‘strategic’ partnership exists at the inter-governmental level but it is riddled with ambiguities and strains. The lack of extensive people to people exchanges and institutionalized non-governmental links indicate that social and cultural discourse lacks a bandwidth. Because of the dominance of China’s party and state apparatus over its public policy, and the lack of Indian inputs into China’s public policy deliberations, Chinese re-learning about India or adoption of its India policy is likely to remain a process of slow changes. The US–India Nuclear Deal. This topic deserves separate consideration because it was a game changer for India, and it altered the international security context of Sino-Indian relations. The PRC had been a fierce opponent of this deal with a distinctive set of arguments. 1. It would destroy nonproliferation efforts. 2. India should dismantle its nuclear weapons and sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 3. The US’s attempt to accommodate India was driven by geo-political and commercial considerations. 4. If the US made an exception for India, other countries would do the same with their friends. China’s critique highlighted three themes, the US was using double standards, the deal was an expression of its policy to contain China by tilting towards India and it would lead to the unravelling of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Pakistan (speaking through General Musharraf), China’s ally, threatened the US and India to be ‘ready for worse times coming’. The PRC’s approach and commentaries indicated a dual policy. First, it built the PRC–Pakistan–North Korea nuclear and missile front by the provision of nuclear weapons test data, missile parts, ring magnets for an enrichment programme, and by supporting A. Q. Khan’s nuclear proliferation activities.20 Second, it objected to the US–India nuclear deal for peaceful uses. Chinese media comments (People’s Daily, 30 August 2007) highlighted the problem China faced with the US–India nuclear deal and its approval by the international community. It brought India into the global strategic mainstream by accepting its



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nuclear status, by lifting nuclear sanctions, and by creating a Western– Indian front which was ambiguously against China. China’s assessment of the meaning of the nuclear deal was an accurate reading of Indian and Western intentions, but China’s opposition to the deal also showed that its bilateral diplomacy with India had a hidden and an ambitious agenda. Its opposition to the US–India nuclear deal showed strong opposition to the prospect of a nuclearized India. The ambiguity was in China’s bilateral agreement with India that favoured strategic and nuclear cooperation ‘keeping in mind its non-proliferation commitments’. The phrase about China’s nonproliferation commitments had two ambiguities. 1. Did China view its transfer of nuclear weapons technology and materials for weapons development and delivery a violation of the NPT arrangements? Apparently not. Its action to transfer sensitive nuclear aid to Pakistan implied that its nonproliferation commitment was of secondary importance or of no importance compared to promotion of is strategic interest in Pakistan. 2. The formula ‘nonproliferation commitments’ was meant for use against India and it contrasted with the formal agreement to develop nuclear cooperation with India. China’s positions on the nuclear question revealed complexities in its policy. Its strategic aim was to check India’s rise as a nuclear power and as a Western ally, and to pursue the UN Security Council resolution 1172 that sought India’s nuclear disarmament. Its tactical aim, however, was to keep India and the US on China’s side and to avoid losing face when the issue reached a vote in Vienna in September–October 2008. The third aspect was to build the Pakistan military and nuclear front against India.21 The contradiction in China’s policies became obvious when the issue of the US–India nuclear deal came up for approval by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the US in 2008. At the time of the deliberation of an India-specific waiver by the Nuclear Suppliers group in Vienna, a People’s Daily article voiced its opposition to the deal and indicated that China was considering opposing it at the NSG meeting 4–5 September 2008. It described the nuclear deal as a ‘major blow to the international non-proliferation regime’.22 However, the next day, China’s foreign ministry went into damage control by refusing to endorse the criticism by the communist party’s organ and indicated a willingness to consider the deal if the ‘relevant countries’ could provide assurances on nuclear safeguards and a balance could be struck between nonproliferation and peaceful nuclear energy uses. The foreign ministry position revealed a sensitivity about the far-reaching effect of a negative Chinese approach on the India–China relationship and China’s face in international affairs.23 This set of complexities or contradictions revealed China’s ‘struggle with compromises’ and its ‘building of the fronts’. One obvious front was to maintain Sino-Pakistan military ties which have a long standing history and a strategic rationale for China and Pakistan. Recent revelations by a senior US official and a nuclear weaponeer Thomas Reed, former US Secretary of Air


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Force (1976–77) confirms that ‘in 1982 China’s premier Deng Xiaoping began the transfer of nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan’ including blueprints of its nuclear test data using enriched uranium and other sensitive items.24 Thereafter China and Pakistan have maintained a process of acquisition and development of Chinese defence technology in fighter aircraft, nuclear power generation, strategic infrastructure building (Karakoram highway and its widening, and Gwador seaport) that widens the corridor for trade and military movement.25 The Sino-Pakistani–Indian case illustrates the complexity for China as it ‘struggled with compromise’ on the one hand, and on the other hand displayed its determination to build the fronts to contain Indian influences in the Subcontinent and in world affairs.26 The complications for China emerged in 2008 because the rise of US–India cooperation included cooperation on military projects, nuclear energy, counter-terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Pakistan–Taliban, Afghanistan, Indian Ocean, Kashmir and Indo-Pakistan affairs.27 In sum, a large number and complicated nature of the contentious issues divide India and China at present. The foreseeable trend is to sustain the triangularity between China, Pakistan and India in all aspects of military modernization in the Himalayan and the Indian Ocean areas and, at the same time to maintain a diplomatic dialogue between China and India to probe areas of cooperation. Nehru’s characterization of the relationship as an ‘eternal struggle’ and Mao’s view about ‘protracted conflict’ may be overblown if the judgement is that neither party in the strategic triangle is able – as evidenced by the course of events since 1962 in the Subcontinent, to fight and win and to end the three-way game but it will take time for them to struggle with compromises in their internal policy debates concerning each other’s intentions and capabilities.


9

Current dynamics and a look to the future

The final chapter explains why the Sino-Indian rivalry is more than a border dispute, and why the contention is likely to grow in intensity in the diplomatic and the military spheres despite growing trade links, on going border talks and diplomatic discourse. This book has adopted a matrix of contentious cultural and diplomatic-military worldviews of the three countries, their growing economic and military capacities, the growth of size and power of governmental agencies that manage this triangle, an expanding geo-political arena where India, Pakistan and China are in contention, and finally international institutions and outside powers are less able to influence the orientation of this triangle. Since 1947–48 the national bureaucracies of India and Pakistan have expanded their power and repositioned themselves in the regional and international environment. A similar process occurred in the case of India and China. This process is common to India, China and Pakistan. It has a robust character because it is meant to guard against serious imbalances in economic capacity, military and intelligence capacities which are required to defend and deter aggressive behaviour. The 1962 Sino-Indian War played a critical role in unleashing a process to rectify the imbalances in Sino-Indian economic and military capacities and its diplomatic attitudes and methods. The Indo-Pakistani wars of 1947–48 and 1965 clearly did not play such a catalytic role. In the 1947–48 Kashmir War the Nehru–Mountbatten approach emphasized a policy of ‘no war with Pakistan’, peaceful settlement of the issue bilaterally and under UN auspices, and development of modest Indian capacity to mount a local military defence of Kashmir. This approach dominated the discourse between India and Pakistan and members of the UN. This approach required IndoPakistani ceasefires under UN auspices if war broke out, maintenance of Indo-Pakistani military and diplomatic parity, and show of goodwill by India and Pakistan to peacefully settle the Kashmir dispute. This approach presumed the continuous involvement of great powers and the UN machinery in Indo-Pakistani and Kashmir issues. In the 1965 war Nehru’s successor Prime Minister L. B. Shastri deviated from the Nehru–Mountbatten line by ordering the Indian Army to cross into Pakistan across the international border to relieve the Pakistani military pressure in Kashmir. But this action did not


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A look to the future

change ground realities; the two sides returned to the status quo ante with a UN mandated and Soviet-US supported ceasefire in 1966. The Sino-Indian War in 1962 however, became the game changer because it made nonsense of Nehru’s China policy and the theory of peaceful international change. In addition, both the US and USSR saw the 1962 war as a sign of Chinese aggressiveness in Asia. India started to build its military weight and to alter its diplomatic orientation and alignments after 1962. This was the first game changer; the second game changer was China’s decision to turn to Pakistan to pressure India after 1962 and to lay the foundation of a strategic triangle. The third game changer occurred in the 1971 Bangladesh War when Nixon and Kissinger worked with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai and Pakistan’s military establishment to counter Indian actions. Barring Moscow’s support, India was isolated at the UN. It learned a lesson about the importance of building its material strength, and about the danger of UN and foreign interventions. These were post-1962, post-Nehru developments that sought to build India’s economic and military base and simultaneously to adjust its diplomatic stance away from a policy that relied on diplomatic and peaceful discourse to a policy that combined diplomacy and coercive intervention to manage India’s rivalries with Pakistan and China. The policy attitude changed after 1962 although the development of India’s military base was slow in the areas of conventional armament, nuclear weaponry, missile and air power, and naval capacity and reorganization of India’s intelligence and its national security machinery. The 1962 war was a signal event in psychological and policy terms because China had unleashed a process on the Indian side that it could not control or end. This is the basis of my judgement that the South Asian strategic triangle has a long shelf life, conflict is inevitable and the border talks between China and India and India and Pakistan are unlikely to change the reality of a civilizational and strategic conflict between the two in the foreseeable circumstances. A Sino-Indian border settlement could reduce the deficit of trust between the two countries but it would not end the rivalry because of key differences in their worldviews, aims and interests. China initiated the triangular strategic game, but India has perpetuated it by its refusal to accept the Chinese theory of its superiority and Indian inferiority, and the Pakistan belief in Muslim glory that goes back to the days of Mughal Empire in India. The following sections assess the current dynamics and implications for the future. Two themes are assessed. First, the major imbalances in the policies and capacities of the three members of the strategic triangle have produced an institutionalized process of conflict formation and conflict management but there is no powerful impulse to move towards a peace settlement among the three. The middle ground is occupied in each country by powerful and entrenched bureaucratic or institutionalized forces that enjoy social and political support and that shape leadership decisions. Currently the middle ground is taken by forces that do not seek war, that do not mind meddling and limited provocations of each other, that are continuously engaged in war



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preparations just in case of a nasty surprise, they are engaged in diplomatic and military manoeuvres but there is no forward movement towards a peace settlement. A process that secures the trajectory of three interactive and conflictual forces into an expectation of ‘manageable instability’ is the undeclared policy norm among the practitioners in this triangle. These imbalances required a development of geo-political or locational perspectives by the three particularly after 1962. For India the pre-1962 Nehru perspective was skewed against war, against balance of power, against diplomatic bargaining to deal with border disputes, and against American rather than Chinese policies in the 1950s. Nehru no doubt paid attention to India’s northern defences in a narrow way by creating a modest military force to prevent Pakistani takeover of Kashmir, by building India’s intelligence and administrative capacity in the border areas with China, and by maintaining treaty relations with the Himalayan kingdoms. But Nehru ignored the importance of geo-politics in Indian foreign affairs and in his assessment of China’s policies towards India. China on the other hand had a developed geopolitical view of its security in Inner and Outer Asias. The development of a triangular policy that incorporated Pakistan into China’s opposition of India was an expression of China’s geo-political approach. China faced problems in its frontier zone in Tibet and Xinjiang and the situation required Chinese action to control the Inner/Outer Asia regions. Pakistan too had a welldefined geo-political view of its security in 1947; it required parity with India, an expansion of Pakistan’s military and political space in Kashmir and by the 1980s it sought an expansion of its military and political space in Afghanistan. How the players developed their locational or geo-political perspectives and defined the range of their military and diplomatic actions is discussed in the following section. Then follows a discussion of the second theme; that is, cracks have emerged in Sino-Pakistan relations, and if these cracks grow or Pakistan implodes because of an intensification of Islamist insurgency or terrorism in Pakistan and in the Afghan area, then a key pillar of the triangle will weaken; and if the Sino-Indian contention is to persist, the conflict will acquire a bipolar character. Finally, the volatility of the situation in Tibet is noted in this chapter. Tibet is nominally not a member of the China–India–Pakistan strategic triangle but as my discussion has shown the Tibet issue has been an integral part of Sino-Indian diplomacy. Its location and China’s military position there, affects Chinese and Indian assessments of their interests in the Himalayan area. The situation in Tibet is important as a platform for the advancement of Chinese strategic and diplomatic aims in the southern zone. It is also important for India because the Tibetan government in exile is based in northern India. The presence of the Dalai Lama and the exiled community in India is a major irritant for China. This irritation is growing as the Dalai Lama has supported India’s position on Arunachal Pradesh which China claims as ‘Southern Tibet’. As such the Tibetan situation has a fallout on Sino-Indian relations and exacerbates the tensions and mistrust between the two.

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The long-term consequences of the 1962 war: India developed an escalation ladder against China and Pakistan This section argues that the brief 1962 Sino-Indian War unleashed a massive process of rebalancing of Indian political and societal attitudes to war/peace issues in relation to China. The reforms that followed in India’s administrative and military machineries produced a significant buildup of economic and military capacity to engage China and Pakistan in areas of conflict, and India’s national interests were redefined to imply, without a formal declaration, the importance of military defence and deterrence with India’s buildup and the aid of foreign allies. By showing that Nehru’s China policy was based on false suppositions, the 1962 war made it easier and necessary for Indian political and bureaucratic practitioners to abandon the Nehru approach without a formal declaration. My point is that this massive rebalancing process is still proceeding on the Indian side, it has created an escalation ladder which makes it necessary for China and India to engage each other by military and diplomatic means, neither side can terminate the process unless one or the other makes major concessions or if one or the other country implodes or weakens and opts out of the triangular strategic game. Furthermore, the pattern of conflictual interactions between China and India and India and Pakistan and the pattern of triangularity is intensifying in the twenty-first century because of the growing strength of statist and non-statist forces in the Afghanistan– Pakistan–Chinese frontier (the Himalayan) area and in the Indian Ocean region. The implication of the argument is that China made a major decision to militarize the Himalayan border in its entirety in 1962. But thereafter it lost control over the process of conflict or conflict resolution and the agenda. It had a tactical military advantage in the region in 1962 because its military position in Tibet gave it a logistical advantage against the poorly trained and armed Indian forces, but at the same time it had reduced diplomatic leverage because a threat to use military force after 1962 could bring Russia and the West to India’s side to check Chinese aggressiveness. The land of Sun Tsu and Mao Zedong understood the importance of building fronts against the enemy, and to avoid the buildup of an international front against itself. The decision to go to war in 1962 was justified or explained as a response to Indian provocations while the decision to unilaterally withdraw appeared as a sign of China’s limited border aims and responsible action. Had India conceded defeat in 1962 the border controversy would have ended without the need to carry the conflict process forward. But India did not concede defeat, Krishna Menon, the Defence Minister in 1962, made a call to ‘regroup and fight’ and Nehru and his Intelligence chief Mullik, called the fight an ‘eternal struggle’. Although Menon’s inept handling of the defence portfolio along with Nehru’s policies contributed to the 1962 debacle, their rhetoric after the 1962 war had practical consequences. Indian practitioners became participants in the SinoIndian process of conflict management and bilateral, and (with Pakistan),



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trilateral strategic engagement. Having docilely accepted foreign interventions, first by the Mughals and later by the British, Indian practitioners slowly learnt the importance of building a process of engagement with China by developing a position of military and economic strength and diplomatic confidence. This was achieved by developing an escalation ladder in a controlled manner where policy ends and interests, and economic, military and intelligence capacities were tailored to engage the other side by controlled escalation and negotiation. ‘Escalate and negotiate’ became the new Indian diplomatic mantra which replaced the old Nehru formula to talk peace and expect to persuade the rivals to come around to a reasoned discourse. The presumption in the new post-1962 formula is that an ability to escalate – to assert the capacity and the right to escalate in defence of national interest, and to avoid lasting punishment is the basis of leverage, and leverage is power in the world of realpolitik. Let me now explain how Indian practitioners developed the escalation ladder vis-à-vis China, how it gained strength and manoeuvrability vis-à-vis China and Pakistan, how India’s space expanded and China was forced to engage India in a conflictual process that had costs for misadventures as well as costs for maintaining old policy positions. The escalation ladder had its origin in the Nehru-Mullik policy to probe China’s frontiers by forward patrolling and establishment of border posts in contested border areas particularly in the late 1950s. Beijing viewed these actions as provocative. India’s policy then was conducted with the view that the border was well defined and negotiations were unnecessary; talk – yes, to maintain a friendly atmosphere, but negotiations – no, there was nothing to negotiate, this was Nehru’s approach. After 1962, particularly since the late 1980s, the tone and direction of India’s China policy changed. It was to enter into negotiations about the border within agreed parameters, to find a peaceful and mutually satisfactory solution, to maintain stability in the border area pending a final settlement, and meanwhile, to develop a pattern of controlled escalation to correct the imbalances in the distribution of power between China and India and to guard against the consequences of Chinese moves towards Pakistan and other countries in the Subcontinent and the Indian Ocean that had an anti-India character. The escalation ladder emerged without a formal Indian declaration and without a proper scholarly analysis, but it is significant and the steps are unmistakable, as follows. Step 1. India refused to concede victory to China in 1962; there was no formal surrender and the Chinese ceasefire was a unilateral action. India did not accept Chinese border claims and it maintained the status of the border as an active and a divisive issue between the two. Indians also described the Sino-Indian conflict as a strategic and a cultural one. This had a ‘clash of Asian civilizations’ flavour. Step 2. India started to develop the administrative and military foundation of a China-oriented national security establishment, again without a formal


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declaration that India was abandoning the Nehru approach to peace diplomacy; in fact the official publications of the Indian government such as the annual reports of the Ministry of External Affairs have maintained the Nehru posture that India seeks peaceful relations with neighbours. (The alternative line is that India seeks the best possible relations with others.) Today, India maintains one of the largest standing armies in the world, over 1 million strong. It is a professional force and it is controlled by political leaders with considerable administrative experience and national stature; they continue to advance the requirements of a modern military establishment. Indian service chiefs have a voice in policy making and have easy access to the political leadership through institutionalized channels, which was not the case in the Nehru days. India’s growing armed forces are equipped with modern arms and have access to the world arms markets including Russia, Israel, America and the Europeans; high technology transfers and joint production arrangements ensure that Indian arms are of high quality. The modernization of India’s navy is significant because it was the poor third cousin in Nehru’s time and now it is tasked to manage the challenges coming from the Chinese and Pakistani navies with a focus on the Persian Gulf, Bay of Bengal and the sealanes between South China seas and the Indian Ocean. In addition, the Indian coast guard is responsible for guarding against drug smuggling, human trafficking and illegal infiltration of terror groups. With large porous borders with Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and in the Kashmir area, the Indian army along with paramilitary forces are required to guard against terrorist activity and illegal infiltration from hostile neighbours. The growth of a Maoist insurgency in major parts of central India points to an internal security problem within the Indian Union that has an external dimension. Indian Maoists like Nepalese Maoists have gained their inspiration from Chinese Maoists while the opportunity to seek armed action is a result of poor and hopeless economic and political conditions for the unprivileged segments of Indian society. Such groups, particularly in the Indian northeast that borders China and Myanmar have received moral support and arms aid from China. This history contributes to the deficit of distrust between India and China. India’s Department of Atomic Energy led the way for India’s entry to the nuclear weapons club, and the Defence Research and Space Organisation led the way for the development of missiles that now are capable of reaching Chinese targets. In sum a formidable national security apparatus has come into being as a result of the consciousness-raising results of the war with China and the subsequent development of Sino-Pakistani military links and the course of difficult relations between China and India. Step 3. This step led to a massive reform of the Nehru-centric model of policy making relating to China. It was a reaction to the 1962 debacle and the public outcry in India against China and against Nehru’s policies. In the 1950s the formulation and execution of China policy was in the hands of Nehru, his ambassadors to China, a handful of Indian diplomatic officials and Nehru’s Intelligence chief. The Ministry of External Affairs



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(MEA) followed Nehru on China because he ‘knew best’. The Indian Army and the Ministry of Defence (MOD) were preoccupied with Pakistan. Their mandate was to defend India against Pakistan; they were not provided with resources to defend the 2000-mile long China border. Moreover, India’s military lacked the intelligence on Tibet and China. In addition, Army leaders believed that China policy and the border issue was a task for politicians and diplomats to manage. During the 1950s Nehru’s India had a posture about a friendly China but it lacked a plan to engage China by diplomatic or military means. By the late 1950s as signs of Sino-Indian border differences emerged, there was a semblance of outward unity in India’s opposition to China’s aggressiveness but internal differences about managing the China issue existed. The Intelligence Bureau with Nehru’s cognizance sought forward border patrols to assert Indian border claims and to test Chinese reactions but the Ministry of External Affairs was unsure about India’s boundary with China; it urged caution. In sum, there were different voices in India’s China policy even as the border controversy was revealed in 1956–59. India’s Parliament and the media sought a firm stand against China’s aggressiveness but the military capacity to fight China did not exist. Nehru urged Chinese acceptance of the Indian border claims but he refused to admit in the 1950s that a border dispute existed. He was open to talks with China but refused negotiations because there was nothing to negotiate on a boundary that was defined by conventions and legal documents; this was his view. His ministry, MEA, however, was less certain about the boundary lines in their debates with the IB but they lined up behind Nehru after the officials’ reports were prepared. Furthermore, the flight of the Dalai Lama into India in 1959 and the establishment of a government-in-exile in northern India injected directly the Tibetan dimension in Sino-Indian relations. In other words, the political space for non-official and non-Nehru players increased as internal controversies about China grew within India but the changes did not produce a new balance of power between Nehru and his critics by the time the 1962 war occurred. Indian bureaucratic politics changed in 1962. Military preparations to defend against China increased the role of the Indian armed forces and the MOD. Indian re-armament plans required military cooperation with the US, UK and other friendly nations and this made the MEA and MOD nodal points in the discourse with these countries. IB’s importance grew, as did that of military intelligence, given the paucity of hard intelligence regarding Chinese capabilities and intentions in the Himalayan area; Tibetans emerged as valued sources of intelligence and they acquired a position as members of the newly created Indo-Tibetan Force to help with border security. India’s Parliament and media gained a voice in China affairs and it signalled the rise of nationalism against China’s ‘aggression’. During the 1960s–90s India’s atomic energy and missile development machinery gained a rationale to maintain the development of Indian nuclear and missile capability without


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a public or formal declaration that China was a threat or a target. In sum, 1962 was a game changer in Indian bureaucratic politics and in the shift to post-Nehruvian foreign policy that had a military stance. Nehru’s China and Tibet policy during 1950–59 was a product of a personalized, over-confident, secretive, closed in-house activity that showed a lack of professionalism in the formulation of threat assessments and options for policy development. The post-1962 decision-making apparatus was still secretive but it had lost its personalized and over-confident edge and the new cohort of players included military builders as well as diplomatic negotiators. Step 4. This step responded to the buildup of the Sino-Pakistani alignment as it appeared before and during the 1965 and 1971 wars. Z. A. Bhutto had publicly maintained that Pakistan had the support of the largest state in Asia and China had built a pro-Pakistani diplomatic orientation by supporting Pakistan’s policy towards Kashmir and India and by arguing against the danger of Indian hegemony. Although events during the two wars showed that China’s conduct was more bark than bite, declaratory-Chinese antiIndian positions became a part of the calculation in Indian actions towards Pakistan. This step merits note because it reflected a new proactive orientation in India’s strategy to address the rise of the Sino-Pakistani alignment. India’s pro-activity was first shown in the 1965 war when Indian Prime Minister Shastri ordered the Indian army to cross the undisputed IndoPakistani border to relieve the pressure in Kashmir. The war ended in a military stalemate but it was a psychological game changer because it showed an un-Nehruvian willingness to threaten general war with Pakistan and not to limit the fight to Kashmir. India’s conduct during the 1971 war was another game changer and a sign of pro-activity. By breaking up Pakistan, the first case of a creation of a new state by force after 1945, India crossed a line in the thinking of Pakistan and her allies, China and the US. This was a game changer in ways that differed from 1965. India chose military action to break up Pakistan, and not simply to occupy parts and to negotiate a ceasefire and return occupied territory to Pakistan. It rejected the old approach of dealing with Indo-Pakistani controversies through UN-mandated ceasefires. It shocked the Pakistanis into a realization that China’s willingness and ability to help it in a war situation was limited. Such Indian pro-activity was unIndian and un-historical because India was known to have a history of reacting timidly to foreign interventions by Muslim and British invaders. Step 5. This step shows India’s response to the nuclearization of the SinoPakistani alignment. Apart from the activities of Dr A. Q. Khan, China and North Korea have been the main builders of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Following Bhutto’s decision in 1972 to build the Bomb and Zia-ul-Haq’s push for this programme under Dr Khan, Deng Xiaoping authorized the transfer of Chinese nuclear aid to Pakistan in 1982, and North Korean missile aid followed. Although India was embarked on a nuclear weapons programme since the 1960s, it had maintained a ‘peaceful uses’ pose and it did not make a formal declaration until 1998 that its programme had evolved in response to



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Pakistani and Chinese nuclear weaponry. The 1998 Indian declaration was a major escalation in Indian rhetoric and policy as it tied India formally to the China–Pakistan nuclear issue, a linkage objected to by China. This step had two lasting effects. It made nuclear weapons an integral part of India’s military and diplomatic posture and made Indian nuclear weapons an integral part of the relationship of conflict with China and Pakistan. At the same time by declaring its willingness to act as a responsible nuclear power, India set the stage for the acceptance of its nuclear position by the Western powers. This came with the acceptance of the US–India civilian nuclear deal by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group in October 2008. This step reflected an escalatory trajectory because Indian’s nuclear weapons capacity is backed by the development of short- and long-range Indian missiles which can reach Chinese targets. Recent writings by Chinese strategic experts acknowledge India’s ability to reach Chinese targets. Step 6. This step is based on an ongoing process of rebalancing of India’s diplomatic and military alignments with the major powers that in part reflect a desire to strengthen bilateral strategic discourse and in part reflect a wariness about China’s ‘peaceful rise’ as a modern military nation. In its military acquisitions and strategic relations India is now partnering with Israel, the US and Russia as its major suppliers and it is developing strategic discourses with Japan, Australia, Southeast Asians and the major European countries. These activities indicate a continuous process of rebalancing of military power and policy with friendly countries and the process has a direct effect on relationships among the three members of the South Asian triangle. The rebalancing activity is aimed at development of power at land – with a focus on the Himalayan/Sino-Pakistan region, and power at sea – that focuses on the Bay of Bengal off the Myanmar and Bangladesh coasts, the Arabian sea off the Makhran coast which houses the Gwador port in Pakistan, and Hambantoto port in Sri Lanka – these are pivotal points in the Indian Ocean region in the Sino-Indian naval contention. Steps 5 and 6 demonstrate the widening of the geo-political basis of Indian diplomatic, economic and military relationships outside the traditional South Asian region. The interests of the three members of the triangle intersect in several points of friction: Kashmir – where Sino-Pakistani territorial claims and construction activities (Karakoram highway and dam building with Chinese aid) clash with Indian interests and policies; Tibet – where Indian sympathy with the Tibetans clashes with Chinese interests and policies; in Arunachal Pradesh – where India’s administrative, political and military control clashes with the Chinese claim that this area is disputed and is part of ‘southern Tibet’; and the Indian Ocean where Indian desire to keep it free of Chinese hegemony clashes with Chinese interests to build this into an Ocean with Chinese characteristics. As a result of these significant changes it no longer makes sense to think of ‘South Asia’ as a self-contained region or to formulate Indian foreign affairs in terms of relations with its ‘South Asian neighbours’. Absent a peace settlement between India and China and India


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and Pakistan that deals with territorial, identity and international status issues, and barring a change in state form, my analysis predicts a prolonged period of contention among the three members of the South Asian strategic triangle. My view is counter to the view of a Western scholar who claims that China is already a global power and it is likely to rule the world, and I dispute Chinese views about the importance of developing a G2 international system to solve world problems. The first is expressed by Martin Jacques.1 It sees China as an economic superpower, a civilizational state with a Middle Kingdom mentality, and as a rising global power. Jacques predicts the rise of China and the decline of the Western world; the position of India is not considered in his book. The second view comes from Qian Qichen, China’s Foreign Minister (1988–98). His book emphasizes that the US and China are ‘two world powers’ and they need to work together to solve world problems like terrorism, nuclear proliferation and stability in the Asia Pacific region. He dismissed two theories about China: the ‘China threat’ and the ‘China collapse’ views.2 Both views merit a critical analysis. In the first scenario, if China is already on the path to rule the world and the decline of the West is inevitable, then China can be indifferent towards India, treating it as politically and militarily insignificant, a minor player on the world stage, a subregional force in South Asia, and at best a nuisance against China. In the second scenario, there are two world powers – China and America, and they are likely to club together to settle world problems or to manage them through bilateral cooperation. This scenario implies that both the US and China share an interest to check the development of Indian military power and diplomatic influence and to seek to limit India’s position to the South Asian region. This scenario had a basis in the policies of Nixon and Mao in the early 1970s when India’s position as a South Asian power was recognized but it was not seen as an Asian power or an international force. The second implies that the relations between China and India need not be close or friendly and a circle needs to be established against the extension of Indian capacities and interests beyond the Subcontinent. This scenario is based on pre-Deng Xiaoping and pre-George W. Bush policies that were meant to keep India tied up with Pakistan and India’s immediate neighbours. A different academic and policy stance is warranted in lieu of the two positions outlined above. My argument is based on three trends that require China’s engagement with India. These trends point to the durability of South Asian strategic triangle in the foreseeable future. The first trend reflects India’s ability to form a ladder of escalation which enables it to leverage its growing internal strength in its approach to China. The second trend lies in Beijing’s inability to settle the issue of legitimacy and stability of its rule in its frontier areas – Tibet and Xinjiang; this trend has gained prominence following massive rioting in Tibet and Xinjiang in 2008–9. This has brought the issue of regime security to the fore in China’s internal debate. The third trend is that all major powers are building fronts in relation to China. The US, Japan and


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South Korea along with Australia and the Southeast Asian nations are wary of China’s ‘peaceful rise’ and they have taken military and diplomatic measures to ensure that China’s rise stays peaceful; India has joined this process by its bilateral policy of engagement with China and by joining Western and Asian military exercises in China’s neighbourhood. China too participates in front building which was a basic form of military and psychological warfare in the writings of Mao Zedong and Sun Tzu. Qian Qichen called it a policy of dividing and demoralizing the anti-China opposition.3 Recent Chinese analyses see India now, since 2007, as a new part of the Western front against India.4

Adjustments in China’s policies towards India and Pakistan and the new pattern of competitive co-existence The following section explains that the dual character of China’s India policy has not changed despite the adjustments in its diplomatic posture towards India and the world. It has developed cooperative economic and diplomatic linkages but at the same time there are conflictual actions in the Kashmir area, the development of its ‘pearl of strings’ policy in the Indian Ocean area arouses Indian suspicions, there is an intensifying war of words regarding territorial issues, and despite the adjustments in China’s approach to Pakistan, its policy maintains the position of Pakistan and Myanmar as vital Chinese commercial and military flanks against India. But I also argue that new complications have emerged in China’s strategic environment which could lead to changes in its approach towards India and its capacity to manage the South Asian strategic triangle. Meanwhile, China and India remain the keys to the existence of this triangle. For China the burden is to find ways to obstruct India’s rise as a regional and an international player in the twenty-first century. For India the burden is to stay in the strategic game until China alters its diplomatic and military course towards it. I now turn to a discussion of these aspects. Can China maintain the duality between a policy of diplomatic conciliation and military pressure towards India and deal with new complexities in its internal and external situation? Let me recall the pattern of Sino-Indian interactions that reveal the duality on the policies of the two. China’s actions vis-à-vis India since 1949 reveal a history of contention between two lines of thought. A tendency to harmonize relations was evident in the first part of the 1950s: Nehru harmonized India’s policy with China’s interests in Tibet and the Far East, and Zhou Enlai acknowledged India’s contributions. After 1962 the two emphasized the importance of tranquility in the border area and participate regularly in official border talks. The second approach, however, evident after 1962, repositioned each country in rivalry mode. For China the realignment of US–India relations under the Bush administration (2000–8), the Western acknowledgement of India’s nuclear


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weapons status, the development of India’s alignments with Japan, Australia and Singapore among others, the announcement that India had strategic interests in the Indian Ocean extending into the South China seas (the Look East policy which was announced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and pursued by his successors) appeared to imply a policy of containment of China. For India, China’s acquisition of access to port facilities in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan as well as the announcement that the Indian Ocean should be developed with ‘Chinese characteristics’, and China’s quest to ‘harmonious’ relations with the Himalayan countries and the assertion of claims to Arunachal Pradesh (formerly the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA)) looked like a push to encircle India with unfriendly governments and expanded Chinese military presence in India’s neighbourhood. India’s policy on Tibet changed after 1959. From 1950 to 1959 Nehru had supported China’s position in Tibet. Tibet was acknowledged as a part of China but after 1959, the basing of the Tibetan government in exile in northern India implied moral support for Tibetans and the principle of Tibet’s autonomy. Implicitly India’s position opposed China’s overbearing military and demographic presence in Tibet and the threat its growing military capacities posed to Indian defences. The contention between China’s diplomatic and military lines vis-à-vis India policy has grown with an expanding basket of issues that divide the two. Consider the following. In the 1950s the peace/harmony line dominated China–India discourse. Both adopted the rhetoric of peaceful co-existence and both tried to find a negotiated border settlement. However, the relationship lacked cooperative economic linkages, and the diplomatic niceties did not survive the border controversy. The peaceful co-existence policy of the two fell into disuse until its revival with the resumption of diplomatic contacts in the late 1980s. The harmony peace policy gained ground when the two governments built trade ties, signed agreements to establish tranquility on the Line of Actual Control, developed high-level official political and military exchanges, talked at a high political level about a border settlement and considered issues such as the situation in Pakistan and the problem of terrorism that affect the region’s security. However, a border settlement is not in sight because there are three different views about the basis of a border settlement: one that is based on a customary border line such as watersheds; another that is based on the McMahon Line (1913–14); and yet another that is based on the line of actual control – a concept agreed to by both but it is hard to establish without a physical demarcation of the ground. At the same time there are cracks or limits in its policy to harmonize relations with India. In 2009 China opposed a loan by the Asian Development Bank for a major project in Arunachal Pradesh arguing that this was ‘disputed territory’. The nuclear issue revealed a fault line between China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the PLA and communist hardliners on the other hand. China’s diplomats sought a harmonious resolution on the nuclear question, the hardliners sought international opposition; the hardliners lost in the debates at the



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International Atomic Energy and Nuclear Suppliers’ Group in Vienna in September–October 2008. These examples suggest that by joining the global economic and military mainstream Beijing is facing dilemmas in its decisionmaking. With a policy to maintain its impressive economic growth and its military modernization, it must balance its economic requirements (to grow), its internal requirements (to develop harmony within China), its strategic requirements (to build its military strength, to bid its time and then to act) and its international position (to be seen as a good and effective world citizen). Managing its peaceful rise has created pressures on its decisionmaking apparatus and the pressures continue to grow with an internal power struggle among China’s practitioners. As a result the shallow Sino-Indian peaceful co-existence posture of the 1950s has been replaced by a wide array of Sino-Indian policies that have the quality of competitive co-existence. Coexistence is evident in the formation of China’s harmony-oriented diplomatic posture in the last decade, and the vitality of bilateral economic linkages and the growth of Sino-Indian trade (estimated at $50 billion by 2009/2010). But, on the other hand, its military buildup in the Himalayan area along with Chinese media discussion of the necessity of a partial war to teach India a lesson, suggest the possibility of a return by China to a pre-Deng Xiaoping policy. In sum, duality is evident in a growing intensity to project China’s soft and hard power towards India. Both forms of power however, have limited application in relations to India. Chinese soft power failed to secure a border settlement during the 1950s; and its hard power defeated India in 1962 but it failed to contain India or to deter expansion of its military strength, economic capacity and its diplomatic influence thereafter. If China’s soft and hard power has reached its limits with India, is competitive co-existence inevitable between the two? For Indian and Chinese practitioners competitive co-existence is an ongoing process and it is a useful alternative to war. Such an approach indicates an awareness on the part of practitioners that the ideological and strategic parameters of their relations are not fixed; they are evolving according to dynamic external and internal changes which create challenges as well as opportunities. China’s strategic space post-Mao, has expanded as a result of the projection of Chinese military and commercial presence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and in Central Asia. Taiwan, however, remains an unsettled territorial and strategic issue. Without settlement of the Taiwan issue China’s naval power is bottled up in the Taiwan straits and Beijing is not able to break up the anti-China front that exists as a result of US–Japan military cooperation in the Far East. To maintain the dual character of its policy China has to successfully address three realities. First, that India has staying power in the economic, military and diplomatic spheres and it too is able to maintain a dual policy towards China in the Himalayan region, in the Indian Ocean region and within the Subcontinent with regard to its core interests. Just as China formed a front against India by its alignment with Pakistan and others in the


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Subcontinent, India has formed alignments with countries that are wary of China’s ‘peaceful rise’. Second, Pakistan cannot effectively balance India in the economic, diplomatic and military spheres. It has a demonstrated capacity to extract aid from its allies but it also has a historical record of failure in the diplomatic and military campaigns to liberate Kashmir, to balkanize India or to reduce its international appeal and linkages. Moreover, Pakistan has emerged as a hub of international terrorism which radicalizes also China’s Muslim minority in the Xinjiang province. As a result of developments within Pakistan its position in Chinese strategic affairs has changed substantially since the 1990s. During the 1960s–80s Pakistan was nurtured as a proxy for China’s strategy to check India’s regional and international position. It was also a diplomatic and an economic bridge between China and the Third World. Since the 1990s China has adjusted its policy by reducing its wholehearted support for Pakistan’s case on Kashmir; and it sees Pakistan now as an unwanted bridge for the flow of Islamist forces into China’s frontier zone. Currently Pakistan is an impaired asset as a line of pressure against India but it retains its use as a channel to support China’s economic and strategic interests in Afghanistan, Central Asia and in the Gulf region. The development of the strategically located Gwador seaport points to the military and commercial uses of Pakistan for China’s interests in the region. These two realities are however, not game changers for the future of the South Asian strategic triangle. Provided the members of the triangle can maintain their participation in regional activities and their international alignments, the dual policies of the members can be maintained for the foreseeable future. India and China can maintain their policies of contention and conflict management along the lines indicated in my discussion. Provided Pakistan remains in a state of internal crisis but it is sustained by the support of its armed forces and its allies, its inability to balance India implies that China will either have to carry directly the burden of balancing India or it may reconsider the balancing policy. Both options are on China’s table at present. The second option is labelled as ‘struggling with compromise’; the first is called ‘building fronts’.5 Current Chinese commentaries indicate that an internal debate is underway and neither side of the debate is in a winning position. The settlement of the Sino-Indian boundary is conditioned on the result of this debate. China is due to choose a successor to President Hu Jintao in 2012 and this signal event is likely to follow factional infighting within China. A border settlement is unlikely in these circumstances. The third reality requires analysis because it has the potential to be a game changer. This aspect is a new element in China’s strategic thinking. It reflects a concern with the unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang which has gained strength in 2008–9. Beijing’s inability to stabilize these areas despite its dominant military presence in the Himalayas indicates a growing perception of a threat in Beijing. Clearly 60 years of communist rule has not pacified the frontier zone. Can China expand its influence into ‘Outer Asia’ if it fails to pacify ‘Inner Asia’?



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This reality is emerging in the policy discourse because of the growing consciousness among Beijing’s leaders about the threat to China’s ‘core interests’ and the need to secure international cooperation to safeguard them. In the first round of the China–US Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington in July 2009 State Counsellor Dai Bingquo made the following statement at a press conference with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. ‘To ensure that the bilateral [US–PRC] relationship will move forward on the track of long-term and sound development, a very important thing is that we need to support, respect and understand each other, and to maintain our core interests’. He pointed out that the major concerns include ‘safeguarding its basic systems and national security, maintaining its sovereignty and territorial integrity as well ensuring its sustained economic and social development’.6 The threats of separatism, terrorism, extremism concern Beijing’s rulers, because developments in the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Central Asia area have a negative fallout on China’s interests to the extent that the spread of Islamist influences from China’s southern zone into its frontier provinces affects its capacity to govern its border area. In addition, the activities of the Indiabased Tibetan government in exile function as a pole of opposition to China’s rule in Tibet; and finally, international support for the Tibetan cause that is extended by the US Congress to Tibetan organizations, and the support of Western organizations for the Uighurs in Xinjiang, stimulate dissent against Chinese policies in these areas. China is adapting its policies to address these realities but the process is slow, deliberate and measured. It has acknowledged the reality of India’s growing economic and military capacities and a widened sphere of diplomatic and military interests in the Indian Ocean areas, and it has adjusted its diplomatic stance to seek normalcy in its state to state relations with India. However, the conflict of strategic interests between the two affects China’s actions and its internal policy debates. Here are a few examples. Following a volatile internal debate it voted to support the US–India civil nuclear accord in Vienna at the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nuclear Suppliers Group meetings in October 2008 but it continues to lobby the Obama administration against its implementation, citing a threat to the global nonproliferation regime. In 2009 it raised its pressure on India by protesting against Indian activities in Arunachal Pradesh, calling it a disputed area; even Sikkim appears as a disputed area in Beijing’s statement, and there is an unconfirmed report that Chinese tourist maps show Kashmir as ‘independent’. In other words, the duality in China–India interactions is likely to persist on both sides and unless China defeats India in a war the contention is likely to continue. The adjustments in China’s policies towards Pakistan are subtle and fundamental although outwardly the two maintain that they are all-weather friends and it is a 50-year-old relationship. The adjustments reflect changes in the situation within Pakistan and its incapacity to balance or defeat India.


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The original rationale of China’s Pakistan policy in 1962 was to counter India’s power in the region and to divert deployment of India’s military and economic resources against China by forcing it to deal with two military and diplomatic fronts. This was a classical balance of power strategy which Beijing used following its failure to deter Indian military and economic advancement and its international diplomacy with the major powers after 1962. China’s rationale suited Pakistan’s policy to borrow foreign power to balance India; this first involved an alignment with the US in the 1950s and then with China in the 1960s onwards. The strengthening of Sino-Pakistan ties followed a belief that India’s assertiveness represented a common strategic problem for China and Pakistan. During 1959–63 President Ayub Khan, with strong support of his Foreign Minister, Z. A. Bhutto, sought border demarcation with China. The agreement was signed in 1963. This involved transfer of Kashmir territory to China which India claimed. This way China gained leverage over India in three different ways. Its support of Pakistan’s position about Kashmir affairs stimulated Kashmiri separatists, aided Pakistani diplomacy, and significantly, made China a party to Kashmir affairs as a holder of India-claimed Kashmir territory. China and Pakistan established direct air links in 1963 and an air corridor emerged between the two and beyond. In a 20-year effort PLA and Pakistani engineers built the Karakoran highway that linked China and Pakistan through the Himalayas; a land bridge that was suitable for military and commercial traffic emerged that linked with China’s military communications in the Himalayan area. In 2006 the two countries agreed to expand this highway. Still China’s Kashmir policy is prone to shifts. During the 1950s China maintained a balanced policy on Kashmir urging the two to settle the dispute themselves. In the 1960s China openly backed Pakistan’s claims. In the 1965 war China hinted at its military involvement in support of Pakistan but a second front against India did not materialize. Its war behaviour indicated a policy of threats and bluffs as a form of psychological warfare against India but its actual conduct indicated an unwillingness to go to war with India for fear that Russia and America would support India against China. Still, China’s rhetoric was fiery. Zhou Enlai urged Pakistan to fight a people’s war against India, it offered Chinese arms, and condemned Indians as reactionaries and stooges of US imperialism. From 1966 China provided defensive and offensive arms to Pakistan that included tanks, aircraft and anti-tank weapons. From the 1960s onwards Pakistan voted for China’s entry into the UN, lobbied its Muslim allies to support China, and facilitated diplomatic links between the US and China and China and Iran. In the Bangladesh war of 1971 China forcefully lobbied against India and Russia with the US and the UN, its threatened military action against India, but as in 1965, it failed to carry out the threat. After Pakistan’s defeat in 1971 China set up defence industries in Pakistan to build tanks, military aircraft and naval vessels. After 1976 China and Pakistan set up science and technology cooperation that led to transfer of bomb making technology and materials from China to Pakistan



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and missile aid. During the 1980s China opposed the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. It helped Pakistan with aid for the Mujahiddin in their fight in Afghanistan and in the process helped Pakistan in its claim that it needed space in Afghanistan to defend itself against India and to reduce Indian links with Afghanistan.7 Despite Pakistan’s inability to defeat India and to maintain parity, China adjusted its Pakistan policy by forming two tracks. First, military and economic cooperation was maintained and strengthened by China’s provision of nuclear and missile aid despite the international norm against such transfers to non-weapon states. Second, as a part of a global thaw in its diplomatic actions, it moved towards normalized relations with India. From the early 1980s China’s diplomatic orientation and style changed. China’s diplomatic relations with Mongolia and South Korea were normalized. Economic links with Taiwan were developed. The PRC widened its diplomatic and economic ties with post-USSR Central Asian Muslim states, and international energy and other economic links were pursued with Myanmar, SE Asian countries, Africa and South America. The Shanghai cooperation organization (SCO) was formed in 1996 to oppose separatism, extremism and terrorism – a sign of the PRC’s fears about its internal security in its southern zone, that is, involving Uighurs in Xinjiang and Tibetans in China and in India. Pakistan retained its value as a gateway for the projection of the PRC’s interests in the region; the development of Gwador seaport with Chinese aid on the Arabian Sea coast signalled a joint PRC–Pakistan long-range interest to make it a hub for trade and naval basing in the strategic Gulf area. But the PRC preoccupation with separatism, extremism and terrorism, and its criticism of Pakistan as a training ground of ‘Islamist Jihadis’ who were active in the Muslim Uighur area in strategic Xinjiang indicated the rise of Pakistan as a gateway against PRC interests in Xinjiang. This created a strain in PRC– Pakistan relations because of the growing influence of Islamic Jihadis, a non-state entity and a dangerous one for the PRC’s frontier security in its strategic southern zone. These changes indicated that the PRC now faced a basket of strategic (external and internal security) cultural (religious), and resource-acquisition issues that were broader than its historical interest in Indo-Pakistan affairs. With Pakistan’s diminished capacity to check India after 1971, Pakistan’s usefulness to China rested on its value as a resource bridge with the Indian Ocean, the Islamic and Central Asian areas. But at the same time the Talibanization of Pakistan posed a potential danger to the spread of extremism and terrorism from the Pakistan–Afghanistan areas to China’s frontier zone in the Himalayas. As a result of its altered diplomatic orientation and adjustment in its policy towards Pakistan, China made a few changes in its regional position. In 1980 it stopped talking about Kashmiri self-determination and urged instead a bilateral solution. This was a minor tonal change in China’s rhetoric because it has not abandoned its involvement in Kashmir affairs as a result of its aid to Pakistan for development of Pakistan-held Kashmir and it continues to


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occupy areas claimed by India. The rise of Islamist insurgency in China’s southern zone was, however, a new element that required a change in China’s diplomacy towards the region. By 1992 Pakistani and Afghani Islamists came under China’s suspicion because Uighur and Kyrgyz ‘rioters’, ‘rebels’ and ‘separatists’ gained arms and training from the Jihadis and caused disturbances in China’s frontier area that had a strong Muslim movement. Precisely when China had shed its Maoist and revolutionary rhetoric to make China into a revolutionary world power, a radical non-state Islamist force was emerging in China’s southern underbelly. The norms of the Shanghai Cooperation organization were meant to guard against the dangers of separatism, terrorism and extremism but they appeared not to work against the spread of Islamist militancy into China. This was occurring along with the growing unrest among Tibetan Buddhists. In this background a pattern of ministerial visits between China and India emerged and it was labelled as China’s charm offensive in India. In 1981 China’s foreign minister visited India. In 1988 India’s prime minister visited China. In 1980 China told Pakistan that the Indo-Pakistan dispute was ‘left over from history’ implying that political and economic links could be developed and de-linked from border talks which required a patient unwinding of a complex issue. While maintaining a military front and the border dispute in the Himalayas, the easing of tensions led to the development of significant trade links, an agreement to maintain tranquility on the border and to develop other areas of cooperation in science and technology and other issues with India. In 1996 China’s president told Pakistan to settle with India starting with minor issues, to rely on bilateral solutions and not to work through the UN. This advice was tempered by ongoing nuclear and missile aid to Pakistan and by expansion of China’s military presence in the Indian Ocean area. Gwador was established as a commercial and naval port with large Chinese investment and its location in the strategic Makran coast off the Persian Gulf indicates its utility as a Chinese gateway to the Gulf, Central Asia and the Indian Ocean areas. In the context of the Sino-Indian rivalry it could be used to counter India’s naval presence in the Indian Ocean. On 15 May 2009 chief Admiral Timothy J. Keating of the US Pacific Command (PACOM) revealed to the Indian Navy chief that a Chinese officer had proposed a deal to the US to divide the Pacific and the Indian Ocean regions between China and the US with China taking responsibility for areas west of Hawaii. The US Admiral declined the offer.8

The third reality To recap, the first reality shows India’s ability to build an escalation ladder against Chinese pressures. The second reality shows an adjustment in China’s approach to Pakistan as a result of its inability to balance India but its strategic position and cooperation is important for China’s geo-political interests in the region. The third reality relates to the unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang



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which is counter to China’s policy to seek harmony in the Himalayan region. China has adjusted its policies towards India and Pakistan by developing new parameters – dualistic with India, and supportive within limits with Pakistan – but it has shown no signs of adjusting its harsh policy in Tibet and Xinjiang despite growing internal pressures and external involvement in the politics of China’s southern frontier area. It continues to condemn two ‘terrorist’ organizations as threats to its internal security. They are the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) and the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan (IMET) of the Uighurs. Following the anti-Chinese (anti-Han) and pro-Dalai Lama uprising among Tibetans across China in 2008 (that extended from the official Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) to neighbouring areas that hold Tibetan populations) China has condemned the TYC in its campaign against terrorism, extremism and separatism, and it has used harsh methods to arrest large number of monks and Tibetan youth and to conduct trials and executions. A similar approach is used against the Uighurs following massive uprising against the Han presence in Xinjiang and the alleged ill treatment of the Uighurs. In sum, Beijing’s definition of terrorism is tied to its concern with separatism and internal security in its southern zone. Chinese pleas to America in 2009 to respect its ‘core’ interests concerning its territorial integrity and its political system show its pre-occupation with its southern frontier zone. Apart from the use of harsh methods against terrorist/insurgent groups, China has turned to the Obama administration for support. Washington is helpful to China because of the Obama administration’s financial dependence on China in its financial crisis, and its dependence on China’s diplomatic efforts to rein in North Korean and Iranian nuclear activities. The Obama administration has accepted Beijing’s overtures to respect China’s core interests. According to a report published in the Los Angeles Times on 25 May 2009, US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan travelled to China and Saudi Arabia to seek their aid to help Pakistan fight militancy. The US plea was based on the belief that China has expertise in counter-insurgency because of its fight for liberation against the KMT during the civil war, and its approach is better than Pakistan’s tactics. The Obama-Beijing dance on the issue is contrary to the evidence of China’s repression in its southern zone as reported by Radio Free Asia which is funded by the US State Department, by statements issued by the Dalai Lama and his administration, by the pleas of the Uighurs, by the Human Rights Watch and by criticism by Chinese scholars resident in China. A detailed 22-page report, the first Chinese analysis by its civil society, contradicts the official Beijing position that the Dalai Lama instigated the March 2008 riots in Tibet. The report urges Beijing to reform its Tibet policy, a suggestion Beijing has ignored. It discusses the failures of Beijing’s Tibet policies and argues for Party responsibility.9 The Obama administration has ignored this report, setting aside its international values in favour of its opportunistic need for Chinese financial and diplomatic cooperation.


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Can the Obama administration help Beijing by being complicit with its repressive policies in Tibet and Xinjiang when the international community, Chinese civil society and the US Congress support the demand for autonomy and good governance in these areas? Will the Tibet problem go away with the passing away of the Dalai Lama? International legal scholars like van Praag who has worked with the International Commission of Jurists recognized the existence of a Beijing–Delhi–Dharamsala triangle (referenced in a earlier chapter). This book has argued that the Sino-Indian–Pakistani triangle is the strategic triangle because it has emerged as the primary driver of diplomatic and military relationships in the Subcontinent and the neighbourhood. The Beijing–Delhi–Dharamsala triangle is an adjunct of the Sino-Indian– Pakistani triangle. The importance of both triangles has grown but one must recognize that the geo-political scope of the latter is limited to the Himalayan area, while the geo-political scope of the former is wider. The following discussion indicates the continuing relevance of the Beijing–Delhi–Dharamsala triangle as a sub-set of the China–India–Pakistan triangle because of the growing importance of the Tibet issue in China’s core interests, and because India is able to play the Tibet card in its relations with China. The situation in Tibet since 2008 is worrisome for China. In late November 2008 the Tibetan exile community met in Dharamsala, its north Indian headquarters, following the Dalai Lama’s announcement that his discussions with Beijing had failed to secure a negotiated settlement and recognition of Tibet’s autonomy and cultural identity. The Dalai Lama sought a conclave of Tibetans to consider various options and to have a grassroots discussion without his presence. The meeting assessed various options – to continue with the Dalai Lama’s ‘middle way’ to negotiate with Beijing, or to seek independence or self-determination or autonomy by non-violent means within the framework of the Chinese constitution. The meeting confirmed its faith in the Dalai Lama’s leadership but rejected the status quo and it gave the Dalai Lama an option to seek self-determination and cultural autonomy or even independence, and it signalled to Beijing that these ideas were in the thought process of the younger Tibetans and had entered the political discourse in a public way. Beijing’s approach revealed a hardening in its stance on the Tibet issue precisely when the political process in Tibetan politics was widening and intensifying. In the seventh round of talks with the Tibetans (1–2 July 2008) prior to the Olympics, Beijing sought the Dalai Lama’s suggestions for stability and development of Tibet and his views about autonomy. The Dalai Lama’s representative provided a detailed memorandum on the subject. At the eighth round of talks with the Tibetans (30 October– 5 November 2008) following the successful end of the Olympics, Beijing summarily rejected the Dalai Lama’s memorandum and refused to discuss autonomy. This was a major deviation from Beijing’s traditional position on Tibet as laid out by Deng Xiaoping (12 March 1979) that ‘apart from



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independence, all other issues can be discussed’. The Deng view was reiterated by several Beijing officials in subsequent years. In the ninth round of meetings (26–31 January 2010) between PRC and Tibetan officials, the latter sought autonomy regarding religious rights, immigration and education policies in Tibetan majority areas in TAR, parts of Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan. China rejected these points. The speculation is that as a result of the easing of the threat of Western boycott of Olympics, economic meltdown in the West since 2008, and given Dalai Lama’s age and poor health, Beijing had moved into a post-Dalai Lama mode and it has hardened its position vis-à-vis the Dalai Lama and the issue of Tibetan autonomy. In addition, Beijing hardened its position on the Sino-Indian boundary question; it now seeks the transfer of Tawang monastery in Arunachal Pradesh and reiterates its claim to the entire province calling it a part of Southern Tibet, although the Dalai Lama has renounced a claim to this area and Tawang; and India exercises effective administrative and military control over the area, and the local population is oriented towards India, not China. Beijing’s hardened stance towards Tibet and India and the termination of the negotiations with the Dalai Lama on autonomy complicates the process to stabilize and develop Tibet and to negotiate an early border settlement with India. The November 2008 conclave of Tibetans opened up the Tibet file and brought out the position of the pro-secession TYC to the discussion in a post-Dalai Lama scenario. The context for speculation about the future is that presently Tibetans renounce the use of violence against China in the TAR but Tibetans along with India as well as Western countries, have also expressed their views about the repressive situation in Tibet. Presently, their policy is to deal with the ‘Tibet issue’ and it is not to develop a ‘Tibet card’ as a point of leverage in their dealings with China. However, delays in a permanent political settlement of the Tibetan autonomy issue in the context of the Chinese constitution allows a buildup of radical sentiments among TYC members. If and when countries reduce their dependence on China trade and goodwill Western and other governments may move to develop their Tibetan cards based on their faith in human rights as an operative principle in a value-based international society. Such moves are not imminent but neither are they irrelevant in the context of an unstable Tibet, growing internal unrest within China and Chinese leadership concern about the spread of Christianity in China and North Korea. (Might the spread of Buddhism be preferable in this case?) Beijing realizes the potential volatility in Tibetan and Dalai Lama/post-Dalai Lama politics but with ongoing factional debates in Beijing in the context of a looming succession battle in 2012, China has a dilemma. It is studying the role of Dalai Lama’s representatives at their talks with them, it sees them as representatives of the Tibetan government in exile rather than personal envoys of the Dalai Lama, and this implies that their thinking had moved to a post-Dalai Lama mode;


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it also recognizes the rise of a wider canvas of opinions in the Tibetan constituency that supports the Government in exile. The second tier Tibetan leaders may not follow the Dalai Lama’s agenda and method and it may be hard for Beijing to manage them through blandishments and propaganda. Beijing also recognizes the fluidity in India’s position towards Tibet and the PRC. Thus far India has maintained a dual Tibet policy: it expresses concerns about Tibetan human rights and seeks negotiations to settle the autonomy issue; and it requires a non-violent solution which implies restraint by Tibetans and the Chinese. Chinese practitioners appreciate Indian restraint in banning social contact between Dalai Lama’s representatives and Indian ministers and officials, and the injunction against Tibetan political activity that affects Chinese nationals. But they also know that India’s right wing BJP and its leaders are sympathetic to Tibetan aspirations and are critical of Chinese methods in Tibet and they could, in the future, if they come to power, alter the Indian stance. Even now a grey area has emerged in Indian political actions on the Tibet and China questions. For instance, Beijing sought Indian intervention to stop the Tibetan conclave from meeting in November 2008 to deliberate on future Tibetan options and methods. The Indian government declined to accommodate Beijing and allowed the meeting to proceed. Thus far, India’s pre-Olympics and post-Olympics position has steered a course away from supporting Western non-governmental organization (NGO) activism in the ‘free Tibet’ campaign from March 2008 and steered instead a course urging Beijing to ‘remove the cause of such trouble in Tibet’ and to seek a negotiated settlement towards Tibetan autonomy using dialogue and non-violence. Currently India’s emphasis on this approach is its ‘Tibet card’; it is a weak one but it is not an irrelevant intervention as it maintains its concerns with its Tibetan constituency and it keeps China engaged with Indian thought processes about the changing situation in the Himalayan area. This weak and ambiguous Tibet policy has the potential to grow in depth and breadth in the context of the evaluation of SinoIndian border question and Chinese diplomatic tactics. Here is a scenario of potential change in India’s stance. Thus far, the Indian government has extended courtesies to the Dalai Lama and the Government in exile with a base in Dharamsala, northern India. This is justified because the Dalai Lama is a revered Buddhist world leader, and India is the original home of Buddhism. At the same time the Indian government has distinguished between the Dalai Lama’s religious and political positions, the latter as the head of the Government in exile and as the former head of the Tibetan administration in Tibet. Delhi’s explicit injunction is against the conduct of political activity and violence against Chinese nationals but there is a significant ambiguity in the Indian stance. The Tibetan government in exile has a ‘political’ platform in India because it is the base of Dalai Lama’s international presence and political



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activity in meeting international leaders, in supporting international protests by non-violent means against Chinese rule in Tibet and the lack of freedom, and by functioning as the symbol of Tibet’s search for autonomy and its cultural rights in the framework of PRC’s constitution which protects minority rights. The Indian government could widen the political arena for Tibetans in India by facilitating or tolerating social and cultural discourse between Tibetans and Indians on an unofficial basis or to allow ministerial attendance at Tibetan cultural events. Such small steps could build leverage in a non-provocative way between Indian and Chinese practitioners and alter the context of bilateral negotiations. Tibetans are already a part of the Dharamsala–Delhi–Beijing triangle in the sense that the Dalai Lama has adopted the Indian view that Arunachal Pradesh and Tawang are a part of India, a position that is contrary to Beijing’s view. It is in India’s long-term interest to pursue the Dharamsala–Delhi–Beijing triangle in a geo-political and historical context by slowly increasing the cultural – and in an ambiguous way, the political – content of Tibetan issues in the difficult Sino-Indian border talks. The suggestion is based on several assumptions. 1. China surely understands that the March–April 2008 Tibetan revolt showed the lack of political and cultural integration between the Han and the Tibetan populations despite years of Chinese forceful occupation of Tibet (TAR) and adjoining Tibetan areas. Han migration and patriotic education may have the same effect as Russian migration and forceful measures in the Baltic areas. We know that the Russian approach failed because demographic engineering bred resentment by the local population, which in turn stimulated more demographic engineering and coercion, and thus the cycle of repression and resentment was tied together. 2. China’s India policy has been based on building antiIndian fronts but as noted earlier, it has started to think about ‘struggling with compromise’. There are several signs of an ongoing policy, and possibly a power struggle in China’s leadership. 1. At the meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna in September 2008 China shifted from a position of strong opposition to the US–India nuclear agreement to a lukewarm acceptance of the accord; and both positions were strongly argued in the Chinese party media. 2. There was a major shift in its negotiating position on consideration of Tibetan autonomy; Deng Xiaoping’s pledge to discuss anything but independence of Tibet was repudiated in the meeting between Chinese officials and representatives of the Dalai Lama in October–November 2008. 3. Chinese officials and media aggressively claimed Arunachal Pradesh (currently in Indian hands) as a part of ‘Southern Tibet’ and Chinese media threatened to take military action to assert the claim; this was however, counter to the stance of the Chinese foreign ministry which pointed to tranquillity in the border areas. These important examples point to the existence of competing policy lines and internal controversies between the ‘hawks’ and the ‘doves’ in the Chinese political arena. Thus far, PRC has not blinked on Tibet but

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neither did Moscow until the USSR collapsed like a house of cards. China’s hardened stance against the Dalai Lama may hide an anxiety about losing control over its frontier zone – Tibet, Xinjiang and possible Inner Mongolia – which represent about a quarter of China’s territorial area, and which played an important role in China’s imperial history.10 The premise of the preceding discussion is that the Obama administration may not be able to bail out China in its quest to protect its core interests by repressive means. China’s inclination to club together with the US and to apply the G2 model to its internal security problem is not likely to succeed in the long term because of the rise of non-state forces in the volatile AfghanistanPakistan-Kashmir-Xinjiang-Tibet areas and because geo-political interests of the players in the region – Russia, Iran, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, the US – are competitive and contested.

Summing up The first reality points to the escalating potential in Sino-Indian interactions pending a peace settlement between the two. The second reality points to a process of adjustments – of softening in some areas and hardening in other areas – by China in relation to India and Pakistan. The third reality points to an emerging dilemma in China’s frontier policy which is likely to persist until China’s succession is determined in 2012. This reality seems to rule out the prospect of a Sino-Indian settlement in the foreseeable future; it predicts a continuation of competitive interactions among the three members of the South Asian strategic triangle. ‘Competitive co-existence’ is the likely pattern of relations among the three players in my assessment because even as China has emerged as a major player in the global economy, its geo-political weight is hemmed in by strategic presence of India in China’s volatile southern zone.


Notes

1 Introduction 1 Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1966, p. 214, 2nd ed. 2 Selected Works of Zhou Enlai, Vol. 2. Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1989, pp. 97–99, 1st ed. 3 See Hongqian Zhu, ‘China & the Triangular Relationship’ in Yufan Hao and Guocang Huan, eds., The Chinese View of the World, Pantheon Books, New York, 1989, pp. 31–56. 4 Neville Maxwell, India’s China War, Jaico Publishing House, Bombay, 1971. 5 F. S. Aijazuddin, ed., The White House and Pakistan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002, pp. 526–39 records the conversations of President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Zhou Enlai and Mao expressing contempt of Indian philosophy, foreign policy and leadership. 6 Michel Peissel, The Secret War in Tibet, Little Brown & Co., Boston, 1972 is a reliable study that brings together China’s propaganda, India’s complicity, Western indifference and Dalai Lama’s docility and the role of the CIA. 7 John Gittings, The World & China, 1922–1972, Eyre Methuen, London, p. 216. 8 Ibid., pp. 216–17. 9 Alan Lawrance, China’s Foreign Relations Since 1949, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975, p. 106. 10 Ibid., p. 118. 11 Ibid., p. 123. 12 Ibid., pp. 128–29 and 119. 13 Ibid, p. 130. 14 Ibid., p. 7. 15 Cited in Ibid., pp. 132–33. 16 US Ambassador to India, Chester Bowles, notes Nehru’ views. 1. US foreign policy assumption about communist affairs – that the primary threat to US security was communism – was questionable and dangerous. ‘The primary world-wide political force, in [Nehru’s] view, was not communism but an intense nationalism. The Chinese–Soviet association, he said, was unlikely to last for more than a few years. It was only a matter of time, he said, before a confrontation of some kind would occur’. 2. Nehru was concerned about the long-term problem China posed for India. 3. Nehru’s hope for a peaceful relationship with China rested not on China’s goodwill but on a premise that China needed a period of peace to solidify its revolution and its economy. These were Nehru’s views in late 1951. See Chester Bowles, Promises to Keep, Harper & Row, New York, 1971, pp. 488–90.

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Notes

17 Weixing Hu, Gerald Chan and Daojiong Zhu, China’s International Relations in the 21st Century, University Press of America, New York, 2000, p. 153. 18 Mao, op.cit., p. 85.


2 1950s: from China–India pretensions and complicity to strategic contention 1 Marx/Engels, On Colonialism, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1978, pp. 214–21. 2 Michael C. van Walt van Praag, The Status of Tibet, Westview Press, Colorado, 1987. 3 For the Second World World military communications between India, Burma and China, see Donovan Webster, The Burma Road, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 2003; also Barbara W. Tuchman, Stillwell & the American Experience in China, 1911–45, The Macmillan Co., New York, 1970, 1971. 4 J. L. Nehru, Glimpses of World History, Allahabad, Kitabistan, 1934–35; India and the World, Allen and Unwin, London, 1936; Discovery of India, Signet Press, Calcutta, 1946; Selected Speeches, September 1946 to April 1961, Government of India, Publications Division, Delhi, 1961. 5 Harold C. Hinton, An Introduction to Chinese Politics, Praeger, New York, 1973, p. 103. 6 Select Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, Peking. Foreign Languages Press, 1966, pp. 187–267; for importance of deception see pp. 239–40 (hereinafter Mao’s Military writings). 7 Hinton, op.cit., p. 104. 8 State Department Briefing Book, 2 February 1972, in F. S. Aijuzuddin, ed., The White House & Pakistan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002, pp. 502–3. 9 Neville Maxwell, India’s China War, Jaico Publishing House, Bombay, 1971, p. 218, notes Nehru’s distinction that ‘talking does not mean negotiating anything’; his policy was of ‘no negotiation’, p. 226. 10 G. S. Bajpai, one time head of India’s Foreign office cautioned that it was a mistake to assume that the military threat to India came only from Pakistan. He advised that military strength was important for an independent policy and India was a stabilizing factor for peace in Asia. See ‘India & the Balance of Power’, The Indian Yearbook of International Affairs, vol. 1, 1972, University of Madras, pp. 1–8. Patel’s warning to Nehru about China’s malign intentions was in his letter dated 7 November 1950. He described China as a ‘potential enemy’ of India, published in full in Mullik, My Years with Nehru, Allied, Bombay, 1971, pp. 115–22. 11 T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Penguin, London, 1962, p. 193. 12 Alastair Lamb, Asian Frontiers, Praeger, New York, pp. 24–25. 13 B. N. Mullik, op.cit., Ch. 8. Mullik was head of Indian intelligence 1950–65. 14 L. J. Kavic, India’s Quest for Security, Defence Policies 1947–1965, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1967. Ch. 2 explains Nehru’s and India’s approach to defence. 15 S. B. Cohen, Geography & Politics in a World Divided, Oxford University Press, New York, 2nd ed., explains China’s locational perspective, Ch. 7. 16 Owen Lattimore, The Situation in Asia, Little Brown, Boston, 1949, p. 184 notes ‘Encouragement of political organization within the framework of religion had after the First World War, become the principal British device for splitting the onslaught of a united nationalism’. 17 C. Dasgupta, War & Diplomacy in Kashmir. 1947–48, Sage, New Delhi, 2002, p. 26, Ch. 7–9 shows Mountbatten’s role in crippling India’s defence actions in Kashmir, and in managing Nehru to adopt a peace policy and to internationalize the Kashmir issue.


Notes

203

18 U.S. Embassy, New Delhi to U.S. Secretary of State, 2 May 1947. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, Washington, 1972, III, pp. 154–55 outlines Jinnah’s views and offer. 19 George McGhee, Envoy to the Middle World, Harper & Row, New York, 1983 explains the US tilt towards Pakistan, 1949 onwards. 20 Mujtaba Razvi, Frontiers of Pakistan, Army Education Press, Rawalpindi, 1971 is a useful study. 21 For a well-informed critique, see Walter Crocker, Nehru, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1966, pp. 87–88. Crocker served as Australia’s High Commissioner to India. 22 Pakistani elite psychology was tied to the idea of Indian (read ‘Hindu’) subservience to Mughal rulers, and carried the dream of restoring Muslim glory in the region. See comments by Z.A. Bhutto to Ambassador George Bush (senior), and by Pakistani Foreign Secretary, cited in Ashok Kapur, India – From Regional to World Power, Routledge, London, 2006, pp. 163–64. 23 John Rowland, A History of Sino-Indian Relations, D. van Nostrand, London, 1967, p. 54 outlines the PRC’s propaganda about India as a running dog of imperialism; also, Mullik, op.cit. p. 61. Liberation of Tibet was standard Chinese communist party line since the 1930s. Mullik explains that the idea of bringing India into the communist fold was Moscow’s and Mao had the responsibility to direct communist revolutionary movements in Southeast Asia and India, p. 110. 24 Michael C. van Walt van Praag, The Status of Tibet: History, Rights & Prospects in International Law, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1987, Ch. 3, 4 and 7. 25 See Rowland, op. cit., pp. 52–61, for the lack of moral or strategic sense in Nehru’s Tibet policy, and his vulnerability to Chinese pressure. 26 The relationship between Tibet and the five fingers is in Rowland, op.cit., xv. 27 For the PRC’s willingness to negotiate on the McMahon Line see Maxwell, op. cit. 3 Theory of strategic triangles and its relevance in the Indian subcontinent and Himalayan Zone 1 Martin Wight, Systems of States, Leicester University Press, 1977, pp. 174–79. 2 Ibid., p. 175. 3 Michael C, van Walt van Praag, The Status of Tibet: History, Rights & Prospects in International Law, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1978, p. 168. 4 Neville Maxwell, India’s China War, Jaico Publishing House, Bombay, 1971, provides details about the poor quality of Indian political/diplomatic direction of relations with China and the reactive, ad hoc character of India’s China policy. See Part 1 especially pp. 82–170 for details. 5 Wight, op.cit., p. 179. 6 Ibid., p. xx. 7 Karl Marx and F. Engels, On Colonialism, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968, p. 81, 4th ed. 8 Wight, op.cit., p. 175. 9 Ibid., p. 17. 10 Ibid., p. 187. 11 George McGhee, Envoy to the Middle World, Harper & Row, New York, 1983. 12 John Kenneth Galbraith made the link between US military aid to India and Kashmir settlement as a ‘part of the arrangement’. See Ambassador’s Journal, Houghton Mifflin Col, Boston, p. 410; also, p. 499. Galbraith reports that the Indians did not rule out ‘giving the Pakistanis some position in the Valley’, p. 474. 13 I have detailed the robust anti-India pattern of US actions in the 1971 Bangladesh campaign in India – From Regional to World Power, Routledge, London, 2006, pp. 158–60.


204

Notes

14 Kissinger asked Zhou Enlai for ‘Chinese military help’. See F. S. Aijazuddin, ed., White House & Pakistan, declassified US government documents, Kissinger memorandum to Nixon, 10 December 1971, p. 455; and US–China conversations, various memoranda, pages 586, 600, 438–39. 15 ‘We recognize India as a major Asian power’, Kissinger memo to Nixon, 3 November 1971, White House & Pakistan, op.cit., p. 316. 16 K. Arif, ed., America – Pakistan Relations, Documents, vol. 2, Vanguard Books, Lahore, 1984, pp. 45–50. 17 Buchan argued that India possessed little external influence, she was a static power diplomatically, her conceptions and initiatives lacked influence, and she was not seen as a great alternative society or a pole of attraction by others. Alastair Buchan, The End of the Postwar Era: A New Balance of World Power, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1974, p. 294. Also, Escott Reid, Envoy to Nehru, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1981, pp. 190, 219. W. R. Crocker, Nehru, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1966, pp. 87–116. 18 Wight, op.cit., p. 195. 4 Strategic triangles in the Himalayan Zone; pre-1949 history and 1949–50 1 W. P. S. Sidhu and Jing-dong Yuan, China and India: Cooperation or Conflict? Lynne Rienner, London, 2003, p. 45. 2 Cheng Ruisheng, ‘India: A Major South Asian Power Adhering to Independent Foreign Policy’, Liao Wang Weekly, 14 February 2000, cited in Sidhu and Yuan, op.cit. p. 167. Compare India’s South Asian status in Chinese thinking, with Washington’s (Henry Kissinger, Bush administration) view of India as a major Asian power. Cheng Ruisheng served as the PRC’s ambassador to India. 3 S. B. Cohen, Geography & Politics in a World Divided, Oxford University Press, London, 1973, Ch. 7, 2nd ed. 4 Ramtanu Maitra, ‘Pakistan in China’s Long Term Scheme of Things’, Aakrosh, vol. 2, no. 38, January 2008, pp. 44–48 details the characteristics and importance of Karakoran Highway and Gwador port in the PRC’s strategy. 5 Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China, American Geographical Society, 1951, Ch. 1, 4, 5 and 7. 6 Alastair Lamb, Asian Frontiers, Praeger, New York, 1968, p. 21. 7 S. Gopal, Radhakrishnan, Unwin & Hyman, London, 1989, Ch. 10. 8 Lamb, op.cit. p. 25. 9 Van Praag, op.cit., p. XVIII. 10 Ibid., p. XIV. 11 James Chieh Hsiung, Law & Policy in China’s Foreign Relations, Columbia University Press, New York, 1972, pp. 315, 294, 289, 100–102. 12 Dorothy Woodman, Himalayan Frontiers, Praeger, New York, 1969. Alastair Lamb, op.cit. Neville Maxwell, op.cit. 13 Lamb, op.cit., p. 127. 14 Van Praag, op.cit., p. 27. 15 Dorothy Woodman, op.cit., Ch. 4 (e.g. p. 85) and Ch. 5 (e.g. p. 125). 16 Van Praag, op.cit., pp. 27–33; also Lamb, op.cit., pp. 126–27. 17 Ibid., pp. 30–32. 18 Dorothy Woodman, op.cit., pp. 11–17. 19 John Rowland, op.cit., pp. XI–XII. 20 Select Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, op.cit., ‘Fighting for Perpetual Peace’, pp. 222–24; and Rowland, op.cit., p. XV. 21 Rowland, op.cit., pp. 46–49. 22 Rowland, op.cit., p. 53. 23 Select Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, op.cit., pp. 252–53, also 114.

Notes 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

205

Rowland, op.cit., pp. 55–61. Alastair Lamb, op.cit., p. 125. Neville Maxwell, op.cit., p. 63, and pp. 545–63 for British calculations. Ibid., p. 98. Ibid., p. 99. Martin Wight, op.cit., p. 194. Ibid., p. 195.


5 The making of Sino-Indian conflict: role of bilateral actions-reactions, third party Foreign influences & domestic politics in Foreign policy 1 L. J. Kavic, India’s Quest for Security, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1967, Ch. 3 and 4. B. N. Mullik, My Years with Nehru, Allied Publishers, Bombay, 1971, p. 178. 2 S. Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, vol. 2, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1979. Chapter 3 explains Nehru’s pro-China bias, and caution about the US and USSR. For his views about ‘cautious friendliness’ towards China, see pages 64–65. 3 Allen S. Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deferrence, The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1975, pp. 48, 168. 4 Ibid., Ch. 3, pp. 95, 115. 5 John Gittings, The World and China, 1922–1972, Eyre Methuen, London, pp. 260–61. 6 Whiting, op.cit., p. xvii. 7 Ibid., p. 200. 8 Ibid., p. 48. 9 Ibid., p. 76. 10 Ibid., p. 38. 11 Ibid., pp. 128, 142, 156–58. 12 Ibid., Ch. 4, pp. 114–18, 127–32. 13 ‘India’s Political and Economic Position in the East-West Conflict’, State Department, Office of Intelligence Research, no. 5526, 15 May 1951, p. 12. Also, ‘Nehru’s Attitudes Towards Communism, The Soviet Union, and Communist China’, State Department Intelligence Report, 24 July 1953, no. 6269, pp. ii, 23–26. 14 According to Soviet and Chinese archival records of Stalin-Zhou Enlai meetings in 1950, discussion of Xinjiang caused ‘unpleasant feelings’ on China’s side. See ‘The Cold War in Asia’, Cold War International History Project, Bulletin, issues 6–7, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. Winter 1995–96, pp. 20, 26. 15 Ashok Kapur, India – From Regional to World Power, Routledge, London, 2006, Ch. 8. 16 Owen Lattimore, The Situation in Asia, op.cit., p. 184. 17 This is recorded in the State Department’s intelligence assessments. See Note 13. 18 S. Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, vol. 2, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1979, pp. 102–9, Ch. 5. 19 The Agreement of the Central Peoples’ Government & the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, 23 May 1951, in van Praag, op.cit., pp. 337, and para. 4, p. 339. 20 Gopal, op.cit., p. 108. 6 The inevitability of Sino-Indian conflict 1 Allen S. Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence, The University of Michigan Press, 1975, p. 201.


206

Notes

2 Ibid., p. 217. 3 Ibid., p. 13. 4 Said Stalin to Mao: ‘It is good that you are preparing to attack [Tibet]. The Tibetans need to be subdued’. Record of Conversation between Stalin and Mao, Moscow, 22 January 1950, in The Cold War in Asia, Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, Washington, D.C., Winter 1995/96, Issues 6–7, p. 7. 5 B. N. Mullik, My Years with Nehru, Allied Publishers, Bombay, 1971, pp. 454–55 describes Nehru’s view of ‘eternal conflict’ – where China wanted to show the world that ‘India was no match against China’. For Nehru ‘India’s China problem. was a permanent problem’, and the fight started with the border issue but was likely to last for decades. See his view, p. 576. 6 Bowles notes ‘Nehru [in 1951] expressed concern over the long-term problem Communist China posed for India’. Chester Bowles, Promises to Keep, Harper & Row, New York, 1971, p. 490. 7 InWhiting, op.cit., p. 136. 8 Ibid., pp. 116, 243–45. 9 For example, S. Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, vol. 2, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1979, comments on Nehru’s naivety regarding China, failure of India’s Ambassador to China (K. M. Pannikar) to follow Delhi’s instructions on Tibet, and ignored internal high-level objections to his China policy by his Deputy Prime Minister and head of the Foreign Service, pp. 106–8. 10 Dorothy Woodman, op.cit., pp. 18–19. 11 I have summarized US attitudes in ‘China’s Destructive Policies’, in P. Nanda, ed., Rising India, Lancer Publications, New Delhi & Olympia Fields, IL, 2007, pp. 71–75. 12 ‘Nehru’s Attitudes Towards Communism’, Dept. of State, Intelligence Report, no. 6269, op.cit., p. 24. 13 China’s threat is recorded in Mullik, op.cit., pp. 228–29. Following his visit to Beijing Bhutto implied that China would help Pakistan in a War with India. (Peking Review, 46: 12, November 1971). Also, Nehru told Canada’s High Commissioner to India that he wanted ‘India to be compared with China in every way’ but the Chinese were a very proud people and they ‘looked down on foreigners as inferior’. Escott Reid, Envoy to Nehru, Oxford University Press, Toronto, 1981, pp. 54–55. 14 Mullik, op.cit., p. 83. 15 Ibid., p. 177. 16 Ibid., p. 84. 17 Ibid, pp. 177–80. 18 Ibid., pp. 82–84. 19 Ibid., p. 173. 20 Ibid., pp. 178, 183–84. 21 Ibid., p. 161. 22 Ibid., p. 174. 23 Ibid., p. 184. 24 Ibid., pp. 185–89. 25 Ibid., p. 69. 26 Ibid., p. 70. 27 Ibid., pp. 80, 175–76. 28 Ibid., pp. 104–5. 29 Ibid., pp. 110, 115–23. 30 Ibid., pp. 147, 151, 153, 156. L. F. Rushbrook Williams, The State of Pakistan, Faber & Faber, London, 1962, p. 120. 31 Mullik, op.cit., Ch. 13, especially pp. 240–44, 194–205.

Notes 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

207

pp. 9, 228, 239. Ch. 17, pp. 264–65. pp. 297–98. pp. 288–92, 296. pp. 293–96. pp. 228–29. p. 230. pp. 262, 293.


7 India regrouped, China’s irredentist escalation continued (1962–) and the China–India–Pakistan triangle emerged (1963–) 1 Office of Intelligence Research, Dept. of State Intelligence, report no. 6269, “Nehru’s Attitudes Towards Communism, the Soviet Union, and Communist China’, 24 July 1953, pp. 25–26. Also ‘India’s Political and Economic Position in the East-West Conflict’, Office of Intelligence Research, Dept. of State, report no. 5526, 15 May 1951. 2 For the extensive official exchanges between China and India on the boundary question see the following: Atlas of the Northern Frontier of India, Govt. of India, New Delhi, 1960. Chronology of Pakistan, 1947–57, Govt. of Pakistan, Karachi, 1958. Notes, Memoranda and Letters Exchanged and Agreements Signed Between the Governments of India and China; White Paper, Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India, New Delhi, 1959–63. Prime Minister on Sino-Indian Relations, Govt. of India, New Delhi, 1961, 1963. The Question of Tibet, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1959. Report of the Officials of the Governments of India and the People’s Republic of China on the Boundary Question, Govt. of India, New Delhi, 1961. The Sino-Indian Boundary Question, enlarged edition, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1962. 3 My paper “China’s Destructive Policies’, in P. Nanda, Rising India, Lancer Publishers, New Delhi, 2007, pp. 72–74 has the US archival references. 4 For details see ‘India, National Security Structure’ in Yahoo.com, Library of Congress Country Studies; also the annual and analytical reports of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London for the size and orientation of India’s armed forces. 5 The Kissinger Transcripts, ed. William Burr, National Security Archives, New York, 1998, preface, pp. 1, 13. 6 Yaacov Vertzberger, The Enduring Entente, Sino-Pakistani Relations 1960–1980, The Washington Papers, no. 95, vol. X, Praeger, New York, 1983, p. 3. 7 Ibid., pp. 3–9. 8 Ibid., pp. 12–13. 9 I have formulated this list of motives based on Vertzberger’s analysis, ibid., pp. 17–28. 8 Sino-Indian manoeuvres that led to a strategic stalemate and conflict formation 1 2 3 4

Nehru to Mullik, op.cit., 1963, pp. 454–55. Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, op.cit., p. 239. Martin Wight, op.cit., pp. 194–95. Ashley Tellis, ‘China & India in Asia’, in Francine R. Frankel and Harry Harding, eds., The India–China Relationship, Columbia University Press, New York, 2004, pp. 136–37. 5 Mullik, p. 587.


208

Notes

6 Top Secret, Memorandum of Conversation, 13 December 1971, between Presidents Nixon and Pompidou and aides, in Burr, op.cit., p. 42. 7 Foreign Minister Bhutto argued that an ‘attack by India on Pakistan involves the territorial integrity and security of the largest state in Asia.’ (17 July 1963). China’s note to India (19 September 1965) said that the ‘Chinese government gives all-out support to the people of Kashmir in their struggle for the right of national selfdetermination’. Foreign Minister, Chen Yi told a press conference (29 September 1965) that if ‘the situation is aggravated, it is certain that the Chinese Government and people will give moral and material support to Pakistan’. See K. Arif., ed., China Pakistan Relations Documents, Vanguard Books, Lahore, 1984, pp. 43, 89 and 93, respectively. 8 Burr, op.cit., p. 48, and Top Secret, Memorandum of Conversation, 10 December 1971, p. 51. See Ambassador Huang’s view, ibid., p. 53. 9 Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1966, pp. 78, 83, 84, 208, 212, 214, 221, 236, 239, 250. 10 Bill Clinton, My Life, Knopf, New York, 2004 notes that Pervez Musharraf crossed the line of control between India and Pakistan and by doing so wrecked his bilateral India–Pakistan dialogue, pp. 864–65. 11 This section is based on D. S. Rajan, C3S paper no. 168, 10 June 2008, ‘China: An Internal Account of “Startling Inside Story of Sino-Indian Border Talks” ’, p. 1. The report is based on a briefing by a China insider named ‘Zhuhua’ in the Blog ‘Zhuhua 148’, Chinese language, 18 March 2008, ‘Discussions’ page, with the title given above. Mr Rajan is the Director of the Chennai Centre for China Studies, and is a former Director, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India. 12 Ibid. 13 These points are summarized from ‘Joint Declaration by the Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China’, 21 November 2006 on the occasion of the visit of Hu Jintao, President of the People’s Republic of China. 14 Press Trust of India report from Beijing, The Hindu, 15 January 200; also N. Ram, ‘China is positive towards civilian nuclear cooperation with India’, The Hindu, 14 January 2008. 15 James Chieh Hsiung, Law and Policy in China’s Foreign Relations, Columbia University Press, New York, 1972, p. 294. 16 D. S. Rajan, ‘China: Latest assessments of strategic experts on Sino-Indian ties’, South Asia Analysis Group, paper no. 2039, 27 November 2006. 17 Ahmad Faruqui, Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan, Hampshire, Ashgate, 2003, notes that China has problems with Pakistan’s Taliban links and export of fundamentalist Islamist political ideas, p. 88. 18 Willy Lam, ‘Beijing’s Post-Olympic Shakedown in Xinjiang and Tibet’, China Brief, vol. 8, no. 17, 3 September 2008; letter by Shashi Tharoor et al., The Hindu, 10 April 2008; D. S. Rajan, ‘China Adjusts Fast to the Situation in Nepal-Implications’, C3S paper no. 202, 14 August 2008, Chennai Centre for China Studies. 19 D. S. Rajan, ‘China: Latest Assessments … ’, op.cit. 20 Mohan Malik, ‘China Responds to the U.S. – India Nuclear Deal’, China Brief, Jamestown Foundation, vol. 6, no. 7, 29 March 2006. 21 ‘Indo-US Nuclear Deal: Beijing Harps on US “Containment” Theory’, D. S. Rajan, C3S paper no. 191, 24 July 2008. 22 ‘N-deal: China Daily questions NSG waiver’, Times of India, 2 September 2008. 23 ‘The day after, China in damage control mode’, Times of India, 5 September 2008. 24 Thomas C. Reed, ‘The Chinese Nuclear Tests, 1964–96’, Physics Today, September 2008, p. 53.

Notes

209

25 Tarique Niazi, ‘Thunder in Sino-Pakistani relations’, China Brief, Jamestown Foundation, vol. 6, no. 5, 2 March 2006. 26 Christopher Griffin, ‘Hu loves whom? China juggles its priorities on the subcontinent’, China Brief, Jamestown Foundation, vol. 6, no. 25, 19 December 2006; also Col. R. Hariharan, ‘China’s Influence in India’s Neighbourhood – part 2’, C3S paper no. 201, 12 August 2008, Chennai Centre for China Studies. 27 Bruce Riedel, ‘US–Indian Relations: A New Agenda for a New Era’, Centre for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, 19 March 2007.


9 Current dynamics and a look to the future 1 Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World, Allen Lane, London, 2009. 2 Qian Qichen, Ten Episodes in China’s Diplomacy, Harper Collins, New York, 2005, p. 319. 3 Ibid., p. 149. 4 Shen Qiang, ‘Strategic Factors in the Transformation of Indo-US Relations’, International Strategic Studies, China Institute for International Strategic Studies, Beijing, 1, 2008, Serial no. 87, pp. 58–62. 5 The tension between the two approaches exists in the differences between the tranquility or stability-oriented approach of China’s foreign ministry and the Chinese Ambassador in New Delhi, and the confrontational approach of the PLA and its media organs on two major issues since 2007: the approval of the US–India nuclear accord by the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers group in 2008, and the controversy about Arunachal Pradesh as a part of ‘Southern Tibet’ which China claims is disputed territory although it is located below the McMahon Line and Chinese forces vacated this area having overrun it in the 1962 war. At the time of writing (2010) the tension between the two lines in Chinese policy pronouncements is unresolved. It is evident in a comparison of provocative and inflammatory commentaries and statements issued in the People’s Daily and Global times – both are controlled by the Chinese communist party and the PLA, and on the other hand the comparative calm statements which emerge from the Chinese foreign ministry and its embassy in India. The difference is significant because China’s PLA is not a part of the government. It is outside government control, it reports to the communist party and it has functioned as the military arm of the Party before 1949 and after the communist takeover of China. 6 ‘Senior Chinese official calls on U.S. to respect China’s core national interests’, www.chinaview.cn, 7 July 2009. 7 See Ahmad Faruqui, Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan, Ashgate, Hampshire, UK, 2003 for an overview of strains in Sino-Pakistan relations. 8 ‘China proposed division of Pacific and Indian Ocean regions between China and the US’, Indian Express.com, 19 May 2009. 9 ‘An investigative report into the social and economic causes of incident in Tibetan areas’, Gongmeng Law research centre, www.Savetibet.org/media-center/ict-newsreports/bold-report-beijing-scholars-reveal, 12 June 2009. 10 D. S. Rajan, ‘China: New Trend to Look Beyond the Dalai Lama’, C3S Paper no. 225, 17 November 2008. R. Raman, ‘Tibetan Diaspora and India–China Relations’, C3S Paper no. 233, 27 November 2008. B. Raman, ‘Tibet: How Trustworthy is China’, C3S Paper no. 231, 24 November 2008. Both authors are retired senior Indian intelligence officers who worked for India’s Cabinet Secretariat. I have also drawn on confidential interviews with Tibetan and Indian practitioners in November 2008.


Index

Page numbers in Italics represent tables. Acheson, D. 18, 38, 134, 149 Afghanistan 6, 146, 159; Mujahiddin 193; Pakistan-Central Asia triangle 191 Aijazuddin, F. 8 Aksai Chin 105, 107, 112, 117, 119, 127, 167 Al Qaeda 156 ‘all-weather friendship’ 20 Anglo-Russia Accord (1907) 86 Anglo-US imperialists 128, 130 The Art of War (Sun Tzu) 142 Arthasastra (Kautilya) 47 Arunachal Pradesh 171–3, 179, 185, 188, 191, 197–9 Asian Development Bank 188 Assam 97–8 Atomic Energy Agency 168, 185 Axworthy, L. 14 Bajpai, G. 34, 41, 95, 106, 116, 137 Bandung Conference 17, 110, 126–7 Bangladesh War (1971) 66–7, 70, 146, 158, 178 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 188 Bhutto, Z.A. 35, 73, 120, 145, 149–50, 158, 184, 192; Kashmir 149–50, 158 The Big Powers 42 The Big Three 61 Blackwill, R. 154 Bowles, C. 18, 116 Bozeman, A. 77 British India 1–2, 57–8, 118 British India–Tibet–Manchu China: the first triangle 84–5, 136 Buchan, A. 69 Bulganin, N. 113

Bundy, McGeorge. 138 Bush, G.W. 161, 165, 186–7 Cariappa, Gen. K. 125 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 154 Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) 130, 149 Chen, Yi 8, 15, 17, 19, 101, 127 Chiang Kai-Shek 23, 77 China Institute for International Strategic Studies 8 China–Burma boundary 17, 30 China–India boundary 17 China–India pretensions and complicity 23–51; foreign policy 32–3, 129–33; international studies 31–2; methods and purposes 34–46; orientations 29–46 China–India rivalry 141–5 China–India–Tibet triangle 35, 50–1, 123 China–Pakistan–India Triangle 4, 119, 148–53, 159, 196; characteristics 5–8; China’s policies 187–94; the Kashmir issue 62–5, 74–5; the third reality 194–200; the triangle emerges 134–53 China–US Strategic and Economic Dialogue 191 China’s actions in Tibet 25–8 China’s diplomatic and military policy 128–33; primary and secondary targets 129–33; principles and flexibility 129–33 The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence (Whiting) 102


Index Chinese Nationalist Government 77, 84 Chinese sovereignty 97, 127 Chinese suzerainty 97, 127 Chou-en-lai see Zhou Enlai Clinton, H. 191 Clinton, W. 14, 48, 59, 159, 161, 163 Cohen, S. B. 46, 77, 80 Cold War 10, 12, 65, 134, 147; China’s strategy 31, 61, 78; India and British Empire 83, 124 Communist China-Buddhist TibetDemocratic India 89–99; Cold War 89; the second triangle 89–99 Crocker, W.R. 69 cultural revolution 68, 120 Curzon, Lord George 88 Dai Bingquo 191 Dalai Lama 88, 94, 107, 121, 127–8, 156, 179, 183, 198; government in exile 79 Dasgupta, C. 38 Defence Coordination and Implementation Committee 138 Defence Planning Staff 138 Defence Research and Space Organisation 182 Delhi–Beijing–Dharamsala triangle 76, 111 Deng Xiaoping 22, 159, 161, 166–7, 176, 184, 196, 199 Department of Atomic Energy 182 Dharamsala 79, 121 Dharamsala–Delhi–Beijing relationship 76, 111–12, 199 diplomatic controversies 63, 75 Dulles, J.F. 18, 134, 149 Eisenhower, D. 146, 149 The Enduring Entente (Vertzberger) 13 Escalate Stabilise and Negotiate 11, 181 Faruqui, A. 171 Fitzgerald, C. 77 Ford, R. 25 ‘fraternal China’ 19 ‘friendly India’ 19 Friends not Masters (Khan) 149 Galbraith, J. 66 Gandhi, Indira 70, 145 Gandhi, “Mahatma” M.K 4, 142 Gandhi, Rajiv 143, 157, 166

211

Gittings, J. 8, 14–17, 22, 102, 116; The World and China, 1922–1972 Griffin, C. 176 Han Chinese 80, 123 Hanification of Buddhist Tibet 171 The Himalayan Zone (to 1950) 77–99; the first triangle 84–5; scholarship 80–4; the second triangle 89–99; worldviews and methods 85–9 Himalayan-Tibetan-Pamir region 16, 19, 24, 30, 41 ‘Hindu expansionism’ 38 History of Sino-Indian Relations (Rowlands) 12 Hsuing, J. 86, 171 Hu, Jintao 169, 190 Human Rights Watch 195 ideological-cultural differences 63, 75 India: Ministry of Defence (MOD) 17, 38, 102, 183; Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) 102, 183; Ministry of Finance 135; Ministry of Home Affairs 17 India Re-groups 134–53; changes 137–41; pattern 136; swing elements 145–8 India–China partnership in Science and Technology 169 Indian Foreign Service 39, 132 Indian players and the China file 106 India’s China War (Maxwell) 14 India’s Quest for Security (Kavic) 12 Indo-Pakistan 46 Indo-Pakistan War (1947–48) 178 Indo-Tibetan Force 183 infrastructure development 173–4 Intelligence Bureau of India (IB) 17, 102, 105, 121, 125–6, 139, 183 Internal Atomic Energy Agency 21, 189, 191 international geo-political rivalries 60 International Peace Academy 77 irredentism 11, 130–1, 134–53 Islamic Atom Bomb 150 Islamic Movement of East Turkestan (IMET) 195 Jacques, M. 186 Jinnah, M. 120 Karakoran highway 62, 81, 121, 173, 192


212

Index

Kargil: Pakistan military actions (1999) 145–6, 162–3 Kashmir issue 43–4, 49, 118–20, 155, 164–6, 179, 191–2 Kavic, L. 12, 36; India’s Quest for Security 12 Keating Adm. T. 159, 194 Kennedy, J.F. 13, 138, 146 Khampas 26–8 Khan, A. 13, 149–50, 174, 184, 192; Friends not Masters 149 Khrushchev, N. 5, 15, 101, 113 Kissinger, H. 66–8, 128, 143, 148, 156–9, 163, 178 KMT–Japan–China triangle 2 Komer, R. 138 Korean War 9, 19, 35, 48, 80, 100, 155, 163 Kosygin, A. 138 Kuomintang (KMT) 1, 23, 35, 46, 79, 113 Lam, W. 172 Lamb, A. 12, 77, 82, 86–7, 97 Lattimore, O. 12, 37, 77, 82 Lawrance, A. 16–19, 22; China’s Foreign Relations since 1949 Lawrence, T.E. 34; Seven Pillars of Wisdom 34 Lenin, V. 163 Lhasa 94–5 Line of Actual Control (LAC) 160, 167, 188 ‘Look South’ policy 23–4, 93, 118 MacArthur, Gen. Douglas 48, 163 McGhee, G. 38 McMahon Line 45, 107, 123, 171–2; China’s ‘big compromise’ 162; Lhasa 97–8; validity 17, 112, 129, 139, 167 Made in China 96 Made in India 96, 135 Maitra, R. 81 Malik, M. 174 Manchu China 1, 57, 79, 94 Mao, Zedong 95, 107, 155, 178–80; ‘do and learn’ 160, 162, 173; India policies 65–6, 101–3; strategies 15, 18–20; Tibet 23–30, 44, 58 Maoism 41, 45, 48, 78, 91–2, 161 Marshall, G. 38 Marx, K. 23, 29, 60

Maxwell, N. 14–15, 17, 22, 59, 86, 101–5, 111, 116, 131; India’s China War 14, 122 Mehta, Jagat 106 Menon, Krishna 65, 69, 70, 116, 180 Michael, F. 85 military duels 63, 75 Monterey Institute of International Studies 77 Moscow–Delhi–Beijing triangle 108 Mounbatten–Nehru injunction 145 Mountbatten, Lord Louis 37–8, 43, 58, 70 Mullik, B. 15, 116, 135, 154, 180–1; China 101–6, 121–6, 131–2; My Years with Nehru 12, 17 Musharraf, Pervez 162–3, 174 My Years with Nehru (Mullik) 12 Nazi Germany 52 Nehru, Jawaharlal 7–61, 90–3, 123, 179–85 Nehru and Kashmir 70 Nehru and Tibet 65, 78–9, 83, 110–12, 162 Nehru–Gandhi philosophy 113 Nehru–IB–China interactions 107, 111–12, 139–40, 154 Nehru–Khruschev relationship 108 Nehru–Mountbatten policy 178 Nehru–Stalin 113 Nepal 12, 157, 163 New China News Agency 26 Niazi, T. 176 Nixon, R. 30, 66–8, 128, 143, 148, 156–8, 163 Nixon–Kissinger 32, 161, 178 Nixon–Kissinger–Clinton 48, 59, 161 Nonaligned Movement 18 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) 54 North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) 39, 127, 188 North Korea 121, 146, 156, 184 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) 70–1, 144, 174 Nuclear Suppliers Group 21, 168, 175, 185, 189, 191, 199 Obama, B. 159, 196 Pakistan Inter-Service Intelligence Agency 74 Pakistan–China–US coalition 140


Index Panikkar, K.M. 69, 96, 125–6, 135 Patel, V. 34, 41, 43, 95, 106, 116, 126, 137 Patterson, G. 25 ‘peaceful rise’ 161 Peissel, M. 9 Peloponnesian War (Wight) 63 People’s Daily Chinese newspaper 174–5 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) 26–8, 103, 172, 188 People’s Republic of China (PRC) 47–8, 77–8, 101, 144, 161, 163–6, 170 Political Parameters 167 PRC–Pakistan–North Korea triangle 174 Priest-Patron 85, 88 Qian, Qichen 8, 186 Radhakrishnan , S. 65, 69, 83, 101 Radio Free Asia 195 Rahman, Sheik Mujibur 150 Rajan, D. 167, 171, 200 ‘realistic opportunism’ 42 Reed, T. 175–6 Reid, E. 69 Riedel, B. 176 Rowland, J. 12, 39, 77, 94–5; History of Sino-Indian Relations 12 Ruisheng, C. 77 Russia–India–China triangle 19 Second World War 6, 52–4 Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Lawrence) 34 Shastri, L.B. 73, 138, 145, 178, 184 Sidhu, W. 77 Sikkim 170–1 Simla Conference 94–5, 98, 139 Singh, Manmohan 170 Sino-Indian relations 46–9, 100–14; attitudes and aims 122–4; conflict inevitability 115–33; conflict origins 100–14; domestic foreign policy 100–14; stalemate and conflict formation 154–76; third party foreign influences 100–14 Sino-Indian War (1962) 178 Sino-Indian–Pakistan triangle 53, 118; distinctive features 56–62; relationships 120–33 Sino-Pakistan boundary agreement 150–1; Kashmir 151 Sino-Pakistani alignment 119 Sino-Soviet 46 Sino-Tibetan agreement 125

213

Sino-US 46 South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) 31, 152 South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) 130, 149 ‘Soviet imperialism’ 38 Stalin, J. 5, 9, 15, 30, 48, 80, 101, 107, 112, 115 The Status of Tibet (Van Walt Van Praag) 12 Strategic and Cooperative Partnership 168–9 “strategic stalemate” 160 Strategic triangle theories 52–76; protracted conflict 63–71 Sun Tzu 16, 48, 95, 180; The Art of War 142 Sun Yat Sen 58 Taliban 6, 22, 156; in Pakistan 193 Tashkant agreement 138 Tawang Tract issue 97–8 Tellis, A. 154 Terrorism 169 Thimayya, Gen. K. 125 Tibet 30, 44, 46, 54–9, 78–81, 119, 136, 156, 196–200; China–India border 17; liberation 65, 115, 137; Southern 162, 179 Tibet autonomous region (TAR) 169, 173, 195, 199 Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) 195, 197 Treaty of Nanking (1842) 87–8 Truman, Harry S. 38 Uighur people 46, 195 UK–US–Pakistan triangle 2 United Nations (UN) Security Council 37–8, 43–4, 56, 127, 156, 164; resolution (1172) 175 US Pacific Command (PACOM) 194 US–India nuclear deal 174–6 US–Japan–China triangle 2, 8 US–Kuomintang–Communist triangle 1 US–Pakistan alliance 4 US–Pakistan–India triangle 2 US–UK–USSR triangle 52 US–USSR–PRC triangle 67, 143 Vajpayee, A. 170 Van Walt Van Praag, M. 12, 23, 41, 57, 77, 86, 196; The Status of Tibet 12 Vertzberger, Y. 13, 148; The Enduring Entente 13, 148

214

Index

Viceroy of India, see Curzon, Lord George Vietnam War 19

Williams, R. 8 Woodman, D. 12, 86, 117 Yuan, J. 77


Wen, Jiabao 170 Western non-governmental organisation (NGO) 198 Whiting, A. 103–4, 106, 115–16; The Calculus of Deterrence Wight, M. 6–7, 53–6, 59–63, 74, 99, 154

Zhou Enlai 15, 100–6, 178; Kashmir and Tibet 49–50, 92; McMahon Line 98; relations with India 17–19, 23–30, 111–16 Zhouism 45, 48 Zia-ul-Huq, Muhammad 74



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