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India-China border deal |
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In a remarkable move last month, India and China were able to exchange maps on which each has marked out a 545-km section of the international border between them in the middle sector. For decades they have shied away from doing anything so definite as putting their positions on paper. The delineation of maps, followed by discussions to resolve differences thus marks a major
milestone on the road to resolving the border dispute.
The agreement is significant, first because, it moves the talks from broad principle to the practical details of physical features and measurements, and so on. Second, confidence on both sides, among the political leadership as well as the people of India and China, will improve as a middle sector settlement is reached and this will make possible forward movement on settling the eastern and western sectors of the border. Above all, it shows the leaders on both sides understand that standing still is not in their countries interests. In an era when both countries are looking forward to increasing trade and investment contacts, it is essential to put the past behind them. And the past can be buried only when the border dispute is finally closed.
The stretch along Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal, known as the middle sector, is a small part of the almost 2,500-km-long border between the two countries and has relatively few disputes compared to the western and eastern sectors. However, even to start the process of settling the easiest, least contentious stretch has taken half a century. The first major step forward was Rajiv Gandhi's groundbreaking visit to China in 1988. This was followed by other high level visits on both sides. Narasimha Rao took the process forward with the agreement in 1993 in Beijing to maintain peace and tranquility on the border. Increased political contacts and agreements in principle were important preconditions to the stage now reached.
Although it is conducive to an eventual settlement that, except for the Sumdurgong Chu hiccup in 1987, both sides have kept the peace on the border for four decades, practical gains have been very slow to come. After 12 rounds of meetings, the last in April, the joint working group was no nearer to delineating the border.
Since 1996 there has been a mechanism to prevent such occurrences, but there seems to have been a glitch in its functioning and the local Army commanders do not seem to be too inclined to take up the issue with their counterparts. At one level, this could mean that New Delhi does not want to do anything that would offend Beijing's sensibilities. This is intriguing, considering the generally muscular approach of the V Ajpayee government ever since the 1993 agreement on the maintenance of peace and tranquility along the Line of Actual Control was signed.
There have been several versions of the Line of Actual Control. One was the True Lines of Actual Control as of November 1959, which is considerably west of the present line claimed by China. Even the present line has had several variations. There was one line that was put forward in 1956 and affirmed by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1959 which passed through Khumak Fort, some 10 km east of Siri Jap on the Pangong Tso lake, and excluded the Galwan and Chip Chap river valleys. Then there is the 1960 claim line which the Chinese pushed to in their October 1962 invasion and the one they claim. And in the featureless wastes of the Aksai Chin, it is impossible to figure out just who was where and when.
Unlike the eastern sector, Indian forces fought the Chinese tenaciously in Rezang La and Chsuhul in the 1962 war. However, in the larger context, India suffered a humiliating defeat. This encouraged the Chinese to expand their claim to the present Line of Actual Control, which was certainly not what, they really held at that time. The Chinese have by their activity remained us that the Sino-Indian border problem remains and that much more will have to be done before it can be resolved.
As remarked by a known China basher. former Union Minister and an eminent lawyer. Ram Jethmalani. Rajiv Gandhi made a visit to China in December 1988. The only thing Rajiv Gandhi salvaged by his visit to China in December, 1988 was the setting up of a Joint Working Group of officials of both countries to "discuss issues relating to the boundary dispute and to prepare the ground for resolving it". Mr. Jethmalani calls it "a classic case of a mountain in labour producing a tiny mouse." In Nineties, Narasimha Rao agreed that both countries will undertake a detailed re-examination of the matter and gifted to the Chinese a confession that must have pleased the latter not a little that the Mc Mahon line was not accurately drawn.
In September 1993, a Treaty of Peace ad Tranquility was signed between the two countries. It certainly did not bring back a single square mile of the territories lost. It only added to the piled up humiliation, says Mr. Jethmalani. An aggressor who has occupied some 90,000 sq km of Indian territory will want nothing more than peace and stability for continuance of the status quo. The treaty was thus a betrayal of national interest, he alleges.
The Vajpayee Government has continued the same policy of national humiliation without anything to show in return. His Government has not even been able to stop the Chinese from arming regimes in Pakistan and Myanmar. All that India has achieved is a flooding of Indian markets with under-priced Chinese good crippling our small scale industries in bicycles, pumps, fans and other articles of daily use.
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