Category: On World Affairs

India and China agree to step up mutual engagement

The recent visits of the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to India and Pakistan during the same week went off on predictable lines.

In India the visit has left behind somewhat better atmospherics leading habitual optimists to hope for better days ahead for the Sino-Indian relations; while  experienced analysts tend to believe that another opportunity to sort out the vital issues that have marred the relations between the two Asian neighbour over the years has been lost.

Both optimists and the analysts with bitter memories of the past, however, are in agreement that it is better to keep the Chinese engaged and New Delhi should avail of any opportunity to make it clear that India is ready to discuss any issue across the table but not at the cost of its national interest.

As it transpires, it is Wen Jiabao  who told Dr Manmohan Singh at Hanoi a few weeks ago that he would like to visit India for talks and see whether some prickly irritants in the relations could be removed so that the two nations could have more comfortable relations with each other. There was enough space for them in this wide world.

Few had thought that big issues like the boundary dispute and India’s serious reservations on relations between China and Pakistan would be resolved during the visit. No one believes that the boundary disputes, the worst of the divisive bilateral issues, can be pulled out from the back burner it has been consigned to by both countries. May be the status quo on the boundary questions suits both countries as neither is prepared for a give-and-take approach a settlement requires.

India has a parliament resolution suggesting that the Indian territory under Chinese occupation has got to be vacated. The Chinese too could be having problems within the present Communist party leadership which might be thinking it has no authority to part with any territory. Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao are going out of office in less than two years and no one knows how the succession issue will ultimately pan out towards the end of their tenure.

How relations between China and Pakistan have changed the security environment in South Asia figured at the talks.  But judging from the statements the Chinese Prime Minister has made in Islamabad the relations between India’s  northern and western neighbours seem to have further deepened, leaving intact for India a two-front situation to contend with.

Pakistan has in fact become China’s client state and not just an ”all weather friend” as the Chinese like to describe it.  Over the years Beijing has been liberally passing on nuclear and missile technology and  military hardware to Pakistan and is now underwriting its failing economy.

China, as a part of larger scheme is also using Pakistan for gaining access to the Arabian sea, mineral resources in Afghanistan and greater influence in Central Asia.

The Sino-Pakistan ties add another dimension to its stand on Jammu and Kashmir.  Lately there is vagueness about its  earlier position that it is a bilateral dispute to be sorted out by India and Pakistan themselves.

China’s denial of visa to our Northern Commander and stapling of visas for the  J and K residents amounted to questioning India’s sovereignty over J & K. India had to make it clear at a meeting at Wuhan that China ought to be sensitive about India’s concerns on J and K, just as India had been sensitive about Beijing’s concern over Tibet.

Wen Jiabao might have thought of the visa question as just an “irritant” but for India it is too serious a matter to be brushed aside. Some rethinking may be taking place in Beijing on stapled visas.

Differences on political issues notwithstanding, the Wen Jiabao-Manmohan Singh talks focussed on economic relations. The two sides  chose to step up annual  trade to $ 100 billion  in five years. China has agreed to find ways to buy more goods from India so that the balance of trade does not remain hugely against India.

The prospects which Wen Jiabao’s last visit to India threw up in 2005 may have got blurred, but he must have gone back with greater awareness of Indian concerns about the emerging regional and international scenario.

This might turn out to be Wen Jiabao’s last visit to India although the two agreed to step up annual bilateral engagement between the two countries.

Competent analysts are of the view that essentially the visit was aimed at arresting the decline in relationship during the last two years, removing “irritants” and letting  the new leadership in China decide its foreign policy after two years.

Essentially, India and China have come to agree that it is better to step up mutual engagement than make strident noises that add to mistrust.

– DNA, December 29th, 2010

India explores options abroad

India has been batting on the back foot in handling its affairs at home, but on issues of foreign policy it has lately been looking for new openings, showing greater confidence in itself. In at least four areas it has made moves which befit a nation of billion-plus people keen to emerge as a major power of the 21st century.

The country  has chosen to explore oil and gas in the South China Sea; abstained on the vote on Syrian resolution in the Security Council; the Prime Minister has met President  Mahmoud  Ahmadinejad on the sidelines at the United Nations to promote better ties with Iran; and, most significantly, signed a strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan.

All these initiatives are aimed at making the point that a country like India cannot but follow a foreign policy that is independent in nature and is aimed at protecting its national interest, without meaning  to harm the interest of any other nation, in the region or beyond.

It is possible the Chinese are going to feel  upset with India about  its decision to explore oil and gas in the South China Sea  — which in Beijing’s reckoning belongs to its area of influence.  The abstention on the vote on the Syrian situation and the Prime Minister’s meeting the Iranian President in New York may have made Washington unhappy; but India has its reasons and the right to pursue a policy that advances its interests without tripping on other countries toes.

The most important, perhaps a departure, is India’s decision to go in for  a strategic partnership with Afghanistan. The strategic partnership agreement, signed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Hamid Karzai, provides for India to train the Afghanistan National Army and the supply of military equipment to enable it to do its job better against the  security threats the country is facing.

Many in Pakistan are bound to feel disturbed by India and Afghanistan signing the strategic partnership agreement. Islamabad has always been living with the self-cultivated belief that Afghanistan is a part of its strategic depth it has been seeking to achieve.

Afghans, irrespective of their  dispensation, have never liked the notions of  strategic depth which  smack of Pakistan’s extra-territorial ambitions,  or at least a  keenness to have a quisling rule in Kabul to govern Afghanistan  — for Islamabad.

The strategic partnership agreement between India and Afghanistan cuts into Pakistan’s plans to acquire this strategic depth in Afghanistan and as such is certainly bound to be unpopular with the Pakistan Army.

Essentially, Pakistan has been wanting to fill the vacuum  in Afghanistan, first left by the Soviet withdrawal and now after the US has pulled out its troops in 2014. After  the Soviet withdrawal two decades ago it sustained the Taliban regime in the 1990s until it was replaced by US-Nato troops in the wake of  9/11.

The induction of US-Nato troops aimed at fighting Al Qaida terrorists operating from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border was never liked by Pakistan. It followed a strange two-track approach which ostensibly was meant to support the US  war on terrorists and at the same time backing the Taliban groups in Afghanistan on the sly was a part of Pakistan’s ground plans. This kind of a two-faced policy followed by Pakistan was bound to lead to a fractured relationship between the US and Pakistan one day.

The Haqqani groups attack on the US-Nato interests in Afghanistan has made mending the US-Pak relations extremely difficult.  It looks like Islamabad may soon have to choose between Haqqani and the US.

For years, India has been kept at bay by Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan.  Indian Embassy and other interests in Afghanistan have been attacked by the ISI-backed Taliban. Even if the level of India’s training to Afghan National   Army and the supply of equipment to ANA to augment its capability under the new agreement remains low,  any Indian interest in Afghanistan is bound to get under Pakistan’s  skin, although it is the sovereign right of Afghanistan to enter into arrangement with another country, particularly when it wants to equip itself to deal with threat to its security.

It is not that Indian presence in Afghanistan is going to be  massive in size that should cause  fear in Islamabad.  India has already been training a few Afghan army personnel in India. The new agreement may eventually lead to training in Afghanistan itself and supply of some basic  military equipment.

A day after signing the agreement for strategic partnership, Dr Karzai in a keynote lecture in New Delhi felt it necessary to assure Pakistan, which he described as “a twin brother” and India, “a great friend”. It is unlikely that his assurance and any that India might convey, are likely to be taken at face value by Islamabad, judging from the reports that the Pakistan top generals are already discussing the new situation.

India also does not want to be sucked into  any internal Afghan conflicts as it knows about the fate that  other powers – the Soviet Union or US-Nato and others, have met after getting into the country’s internal power struggles. India does not want to be a part of any game, great or otherwise — often played by international powers in the past.

New Delhi’s only strategic interest is that Afghanistan should emerge from its continuing travails and grow according to its own genius, as an independent country, free from any foreign interference.

India has already been favouring the idea that an international conference should be called to work out  future of Afghanistan after the US-Nato troops have pulled out from the war-torn country.

Participants in this conference should be the permanent members of the UN Security Council, the European Union, and Afghanistan’s, regional nations like India, Pakistan, Iran and Central Asian neighbours. This conference should guarantee a kind of international status that ensures Afghanistan’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-interference into its affairs by any outside power, among other things.

The idea for such a conference has always been looked at with scorn by Pakistan which has considered Afghanistan to be its redoubt  and a part of the  strategic depth.

The US has so far been lukewarm to the idea of such a conference, mainly because it did not  want to hurt Pakistan’s sensitivities, but in view of the kind of the problems that are now dogging the US-Pakistan relationship, it may come to  the view post-pull out guarantees for Afghanistan more favourably. Several other western countries are increasingly accepting the need for such a conference.

Much depends on how the Pakistan Army  top brass reacts to the present situation in the region. There is a possibility that it may misunderstand Indian intentions.

Rightly considered, India and Pakistan should think of ways for how they can cooperate with each other in the economic development of Afghanistan. This will require statesmanship of a high order and an element of mutual trust, which in turn will help resolve India-Pakistan problems and ensure  durable peace in the region.

– Zee News, October 17th, 2011