India-China Ties Come in From the Cold Rani Singh, Observer

Opinion, July 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

India-China Ties Come in From the Cold

Rani Singh, Arab News

LONDON, 31 July 2003 — The world’s two most populous nations, China and India, have taken the first steps toward ending decades of enmity and have embarked on a program of mutual cooperation which could “turn the 21st century into an Asian century.” The warming of relations between the two countries was marked by a visit to Beijing by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for talks with his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabaoa, in June during which the first-ever joint declaration — in Hindi, Chinese and English — was issued marking a strengthening of ties. Only five years ago Vajpayee had cited his deep “distrust” of China in a communication to US President Bill Clinton as a reason for India’s nuclear tests and ten years have elapsed since an Indian prime minister last visited China, when an agreement was signed to maintain peace along the 4,500 km border that was contested in a bitter war in 1962.

Vajpayee’s distrust and the idea that China posed the predominant regional threat to India so angered Beijing that bilateral ties were buried even deeper in the permafrost. But there is mutual benefit in the new warmth between the two countries. China wants peace on its borders to help it reach its goal of becoming a developed nation by 2020-25 while India has similar economic aspirations. In St. Petersburg on May 31 this year, Vajpayee told Chinese President Hu Jintao, “The population of India and China constitute one-third of the world’s total. If these two countries are to join hands, the 21st century could be turned into an Asian century.”

But the realists know economic cooperation requires attention to thorny issues such as border disputes and in a move thoroughly in keeping with their thawing relations, both countries will appoint special representatives to give a political push to hitherto deadlocked territorial talks. After the 1962 war, China gained 38,000 square kilometers of land in the remote Aksai Chin plateau, to the west of the Sino-Indian border, and drove a road through it into Tibet. India says this land is illegally occupied and this dispute is still not resolved. China also claims 90,000 square kilometers to the eastern section of the border.

But matters are moving on since Vajpayee recognized the Tibetan Autonomous Region as a sovereign territory of the People’s Republic of China — a decision the Chinese media presented as a major concession by New Delhi — while China chose its words very carefully when referring to the mountainous kingdom of Sikkim which lies between the two Asian giants. Vajpayee, in the wake of his Tibet decision, was accused at home of selling off the interests of the Dalai Lama and his 100,000 followers but China’s styling of the “Sikkim state” and its use of the phrase “desirous of opening another pass on the India-China border” (in reference to Sikkim) in a memorandum amounted, say the Indians, to Beijing’s tacit recognition of Sikkim as part of India — a reversal of China’s long-held previous position of refusal to recognize India’s annexation of the border kingdom.

Under a new accord between Beijing and New Delhi, Sikkim is to become the setting of a border trade market, neighboring a site in Tibet. This means a revival of the silk road that ran between Sikkim and Tibet and brings the number of trade routes between India and China to three.

The economic benefits to be gained through closer relations with China, now the world’s fastest growing economy, were not lost on the 75-strong commercial delegation which accompanied Vajpayee to Beijing in June and the consensus was that Shanghai may well become Indian business’s most-favored destination this decade. India’s annual exports to China are growing in double digits. Bilateral trade could, according to Krishan Kalra of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, jump from the current $5 billion to $10 billion in the next three years. Presently 40 Indian companies have operations in China. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has just opened a new East Asia office in Shanghai and part of the commercial delegation representing automobiles, IT, and chemicals, is launching an “India Club Shanghai”. Indian goods are competitive, and manufactured items have already made a dent in the Chinese market.

The Indian business lobby hosted an IT conference recently with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, attended by Vajpayee, when it was agreed to hold an annual meeting of key businessmen from each side “to discuss strategy on how to bring the business community of both countries closer.” In October this year, the group is organizing two exhibitions, “Made in India” and “The India-China Hi-tech show”.

But there is a way to go in the new Indo-Chinese rapprochement. Old grievances will not go away. India has not forgotten, for instance, China’s military assistance to Pakistan which New Delhi says helped Islamabad with its nuclear and missile programs.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).