COMMENTARY

may 18, 2013 vol xlviII no 20 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
12
The China-India Relationship
A Possible New Paradigm
Atul Bhardwaj
India has got itself trapped into
an anti-Chinese matrix set in
place by the United States. This
has led to a situation where the
military is increasing its say in
foreign and domestic policy and
pushing aggressive postures on to
the civilian government. Unless
India abandons its aspirations to
great power status and pursues
a foreign policy which builds on
Asian cooperation and strengths,
it will continue to become cannon
fodder for western strategic aims.
T
he second decade of the 21st century
offers an opportune moment to re-
assert Asian independence. The de-
clining dollar has restricted the American
promethean spirit and praetorian urges.
There is space available to recast Asian
relations away from the usual balance of
power concept. However, an Asia, free of
western hegemony remains a pipedream.
China is the country driving the United
States military and diplomatic pivot to
Asia.
1
The two major economies, India
and Japan feel threatened by Chinese
growth and are convinced that America
as an offshore balancer is a must for
security in the region. The Indians and
Japanese have entered into a tri-lateral
dialogue to assist Washingtons encircle-
ment strategy of China. The third round
of dialogue was held in New Delhi in
November 2012.
2
Commenting on the
Chinese white paper titled The Diversied
Employment of Chinas Armed Forces,
director general of the Institute for Defence
Studies and Analyses (IDSA), Arvind
Gupta, reiterates Indias tilt by stating,
Tensions between China and the US and
between China and Japan can be ex-
pected to increase. Both Japan and the
US are Indias strategic partners.
3
The western strategy gurus advise
both India and Japan to jettison their
military-lethargy and become great
and normal powers respectively.
4
The
result is that both the countries are now
doing extensive studies on the use of
force in international relations. Both
New Delhi and Tokyo have active terri-
torial disputes with China and the two
are building their military capabilities
with the Chinese threat in mind.
The Sour Spring
Incidentally, this year in the third week
of April, when India and China were
embroiled in a near-military confrontation
Ajay Bhardwaj (atul.beret@gmail.com ) is
a research scholar at the School of Liberal
Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi. visit him
at: http://purpleberets.blogspot.in/
on their unsettled border in Ladhak, Japan
too was engaged in sea-skirmishes in the
Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea.
On the night of 15 April, a Chinese
Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) platoon
consisting of 50 soldiers came about
19 kms inside the Indian claimed territory
at Burthe in Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO)
sector. This intrusion is considered to be
different because for the rst time,
instead of doing an about-turn after
walking up to a point, the PLA patrol
halted and pitched tents. India set up its
own camp just 500 meters away. Putting
the entire blame on China for the escala-
tion, Defence Minister A K Antony said
that the situation in eastern Ladakh is
not one of our creation.
5
On 23 April the Chinese sent about
eight naval ships around Diaoyu islands
to monitor the Japanese activity in the
area. Their aggressive intent was played
up by the media, while the Japanese act of
provocation was hardly highlighted. On
21 April Japans deputy prime minister and
nance minister visited the Yasukuni
shrine in Tokyo. The shrine is believed
to house the spirits of most dreaded
Japanese war criminals. The Chinese and
the South Koreans see it as a symbol of
Japanese wartime atrocities. According to
a bi-lateral norm between Beijing and
Tokyo, Japanese high ranking government
ministers are expected to refrain from
visiting the shrine, in order to keep the
relationship between the two countries
on an even keel. However, by digressing
from the norm, the Japanese announced
their intent to upset the applecart.
6

On 24 April, around the same time when
the China-India and China-Japanese
tensions were building up, 21 Muslims
were reported killed in Xinjiang province
in Chinas far west. Xinjiang is considered
to be a troubled spot where a few
extremist Islamic groups are opposed to
the Chinese Hans population.
7

It may be difcult to prove that these
turn of events were a coordinated effort;
part of a containment strategy. It is equally
difcult to state that it was synchronised
action by China to prove its military might
and fresh military posturing under the
leadership of President Xi. However, the
COMMENTARY
Economic & Political Weekly EPW may 18, 2013 vol xlviII no 20
13
international media as well as the Indian
media was unanimous in its condem-
nation of Chinas aggressive behaviour.
The Retreat
The 20-day-long face-off between the
Indian and Chinese armies ended on
5 May. The two governments agreed to
restore status quo in the western sector
as it existed prior to April 2013. The
armies retreated, calming the tempers
on Indian television channels and social
media. External Affairs Minister Salman
Khurshids upcoming visit to China is
now likely to go ahead, creating the
much needed conviviality for Chinese
Premier Li Keqiangs visit to India later
this month.
However, the anti-China pressure
groups in India are far from satised
with the Indian governments handling
of the situation. According to a recently
set up Delhi-based private think tank,
the feeble Indian response, militarily and
diplomatically, has apparently emboldened
China to press on and bring India to its knees
without really ghting a war. Psychologically,
they have won the rst round in this game
of brinkmanship and are now awaiting the
foreign minister to pay respects to the Mid-
dle Kingdom as its vassal states used to do.
8

A former general of the Indian army
has gone to the extent of labelling the
governments pussy footing on the issue
as an act of treason.
9
The hawks in India
have been trying to sell the threat from
China since the past ve years. However,
they did not succeed because their ex-
amples of Chinese aggression were locat-
ed either in the South China Sea or in
the logic of the string of pearls. With
the tell-tale signs of Chinese reach now
visible in our backyard, it is easy for the
anti-China lobby to sell their theories of
perceived Chinese misdemeanours.
In this entire game of brinkmanship, the
media has been used as a force multiplier.
Throughout the 20-day crisis, the Chinese
media did not beat war drums. However,
on the Indian side, the media became
the main weapon to build the anti-China
sentiment. Almost a similar media pres-
sure had been created on the way to the
1962 war, but it failed to deter Mao from
teaching India a lesson. In 1962, cor-
porate media was ideologically driven to
launch a tirade against China. The negative
projection of China was also a political
tool against domestic communists.
However, the Indian medias motives
in the current scenario are unclear. China
is Indias biggest trading partner; it is
no longer associated with exporting
anti-capitalist revolutions. Then why is
a small piece of remote land being used
to trigger rabid nationalism? Why is
China seen only from the perspective of
balance of power and not in terms of its
other utility to national interests? Is India
going to waste the next half a century in
this futile game of pin-pricks with China?
For India to view China objectively and
bridge the trust gap, it will have to
dis associate itself from the American
narrative on China.
The Rhetoric
of Chinese Aggression
The dominant discourse in India weaves
a web of paranoia by arguing that rich
China is more prone to war. For, in order
to manage the growing income inequali-
ties, it needs to ratchet up nationalism
for which war is a necessity. The same
set of people who see Chinese wealth as a
problem also argue that in 1962 poor
China went to war to divert attention from
the famine and failure that follo wed Maos
great leap forward. Irrespective of its pros-
perity, China is perceived to be arrogant
and that makes the China-India conict
almost inevitable. As the former army chief,
general Deepak Kapoor says, the seeds of
confrontation are inherent between the
two nations engaged in competition, at
both the regional and global level.
10
The fear generated by China is not new.
Ever since Maos government took over
in 1949, the pattern of western rhetoric
with regard to China has remained static.
Writing in 1970, Maxwell posits,
The assumption, or axiom, that underlies
western political and strategic thinking
about the problems of Asia is that the de-
signs of Communist China are basically
militant and aggressive. Sometimes this
is summed up in the unexamined and un-
thinking phrase the threat from China.
11

For the Anglo-American formations,
Chinese imperial ambitions and its innate
and continuing irredentist hankering
for physical expansion,
12
were strategic
tools to keep up constant pressure and to
camouage their own occupation of
Chinese territory in Macau, Hong Kong,
and Taiwan and the CIAs sinister designs
in Tibet. After independence, India joined
the chorus to demonise China. Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel, Indias home minister
who was himself not averse to using
maximum force in order to consolidate
India by having Hyderabad, Junagadh
and Kashmir sign up for the Indian Un-
ion, was the rst to take on China on the
issue of Tibet in 1950. The reasons for
Patel echoing American sentiments had
more to do with his ideological predilec-
tions than any genuine assessment of
national interest.
Patel, writing to Girija Shankar Bajpai,
Indias secretary-general, external aff airs
ministry in 1950 said,
Treat them (China) with a certain amount of
hostility, let alone a great deal of circumspec-
tion. In these circumstances, one thing, to my
mind, is quite clear; and, that is, that we can-
not be friendly with China and must think in
terms of defense against a determined, calcu-
lating, unscrupulous, ruthless, and unprinci-
pled and prejudiced combination of powers,
of which the Chinese will be the spearhead.
13
Contrary to popular perception, the
foundation of the post-independence
India-China relations was laid on class
interests of the Indian bourgeois rather
than on any sound territorial claims. In
1949 Nehru, while speaking to Indian
army ofcers in Srinagar had said,
Chinese revolution has upset the balance
of power and the center of gravity has
shifted from Europe to Asia thereby
directly affecting India.
14
The boundary
issue was easy to solve, however, by
entangling the China-India future into a
territorial trap and India tied itself down
to play the American game in the region.
In the 1960s, barring the Communist
Party of India, all political dispensations
in India favoured tough action against
China. Incursions were used to beat up
the war drums. The condence to adopt
a forward policy in border areas came
from the fact that China was isolated
and both the US and the Soviet Union
were backing India.
To America as well as the Indian rul-
ing elite, it was important that left-forces
within the Congress represented by
Krishna Menon and also the Indian com-
munists were pushed back into political
COMMENTARY
may 18, 2013 vol xlviII no 20 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
14
oblivion. More importantly, for the US,
the 1962 war was to be used to drive a
wedge between the Soviet Union and
China. That the Soviets failed to take a
clear class position in the conict con-
vinced the Chinese that they could not
trust their communist friends.
15

Perhaps, Mao was aware of Americas
strategic aim to keep the communist giants
apart. He was probably also aware of the
vested interests of the Indian elite and
Washingtons strategic calculations that
wanted India to lose the war. Hence Mao
sent his forces to move deep into Indian
territory. At the end of the war, Krishna
Menons political career took a nosedive.
In the wake of war, the communists
patriotism came under scrutiny, while the
RSS contingent was permitted to partici-
pate in the 1963 Republic Day parade.
Both the Indian elite as well as America
achieved its purpose. As Y B Chavan,
who saw victory in defeat said at the end
of the war, The rst casualties of the
unashamed aggression of the Chinese
on India are Marxism and Leninism.
16

In the end, war brought no tangible
alterations on the border, it cost India the
loss of 3,000 soldiers and a further slide
into the debt trap laid out by the World
Bank and the International Monetary
Fund. During Eisenhowers second term,
US assistance grew substantially surging
from $400 million in 1957 to a record
$822 million in 1960.
17
According to the Reserve Bank of India
history, foreign securities held in the
Issue Department dropped to about
Rs 126 crore in January 1962. Thereafter
they fell once more to about Rs 92 crore
in June 1962.
18
And four years later India
had to face a balance of payment (BoP)
crisis in 1966.
It was also a personal defeat for Nehru.
He was not betrayed by the Chinese but
by the Americans. When he wrote to John
F Kennedy on 19 November 1962 asking
for F-104 ghters and B-57 bombers
19

during the war, America refused to
come to his aid.
Mortgaged Militaries
War had once again reiterated that the
use of force in relations between two
medium powers with coterminous borders
was not a judicious option. Despite these
lessons from 1962, India continues to
explore the option to acquire great power
status through the use of force. As Indias
national security advisor, Shiv Shankar
Menon, says, (W)hile domestic societies
have evolved or are evolving towards
rule of law, international society is still
much closer to primeval anarchy. Menons
postulation is an inadvertent admission
that international order is constructed
by empires where small and medium
powers are helpless actors with no lever-
ages to mitigate anarchy in their vicinity.
Perhaps it is to erase this feeling of
emasculation among the local ruling
elite that the empire encourages them to
grab limited opportunities to indulge in
limited wars. It is for this reason that
military leaders and the conservative
strategic community continue to insist
on the efcacy of limited wars to solve
issues with neighbouring countries.
That Pakistan fought four futile limited
wars with India, draining its resources
and militarising its polity and society, is
a lesson that the strategic community
refuses to look at. Limited wars between
neighbours are tailor-made to help the
global arms industry make its bottom-
line healthy and to serve the vested
interests of some sections of the national
bourgeois. Limited wars, like the 1962
war, only help big powers to use the small
and medium powers as pawns in the
larger international political economy.
Using the military as a springboard to
jump to the global high table is fraught
with dangers for medium powers like
India. It entails sharing military resources
and manpower with the empire. In the
beginning such sharing appears benign
as it happens through joint exercises
and training. However, as the imperial
appetite for militaries increases, it begins
to lure the armed forces away from the
client or vassal state. The process of
mortgaging the military to the empire
also involves giving an increased role
to the military leadership in domestic
decision making structures.
The worst fears related to allowing the
US to court the Indian armed forces are
beginning to manifest. Close interactions
with the US armed forces has inuenced
and emboldened the Indian armed forces
to seek greater say in foreign policy
matters. In the recent case, involving the
Chinese incursions, a clear divide between
the Ministry of External Affairs and the
armed forces is discernible. While the
MEA asked for a measured response to
the Chinese incursions, the armed forces
pushed for a more aggressive stance.
The question is: Can the armed forces be
given the prerogative to guide public
opinion on the size and intensity of the
threat posed to the country? For example,
if the government says that a particular
incursion is localised, can the local army
commander raise the level of the problem
to make it appear war-like?
The Indian strategic thought vis--vis
China remains embedded in cold war
history. Despite Chinas switchover to a
capitalist economy, Indians continue to
view it as a communist monster that
intends to devour India. They fear that
communism may travel from Beijing.
Another specious argument to keep India-
China relations on the boil is that China
is aiding Pakistan. India is having a
special relationship with America that
has partnered Pakistan in the growth of
Taliban and other Muslim terror outts.
More recently, the US hinted at having a
civil-nuclear deal with Pakistan.
20

War with China is not an option be-
cause we cannot afford it and jeopardise
our developmental goals. We need un-
interrupted peace for at least half a
century to reach close to where China
stands today. When India was buying an
old British aircraft carrier in 1957, the
Soviets offered Mao a joint nuclear sub-
marines otilla that would use Chinese
naval bases, Mao refused. For China,
retaining independence was more im-
portant than borrowed nuclear weapons.
21

India must learn the need to wait and
grow. Talk of peace does not necessarily
mean giving up on preparedness.
China-India relations need to cast off
the transient and reveal the truth.
These words of a 13th century Japanese
Buddhist priest, if applied to the India-
China context would mean awakening
to the true Asian values of compassion,
cooperation and belief in the innate dig-
nity of life and discarding the lesser
self that seeks destruction and war.
Such a constructivist approach in the
evolution of China-India relations needs
COMMENTARY
Economic & Political Weekly EPW may 18, 2013 vol xlviII no 20
15
What Is Behind the Chinese
Incursion at Daulat Beg Oldie?
Neville Maxwell
Behind the nationalist hysteria
which has been whipped up over
the Chinese army setting up camp
in territory claimed by India in
Ladakh lies a long history of
self-delusion and aggressive
posturing on the border. This
article throws a contrary, and
sobering, light on Indias latest
border scrap.
T
hat is a familiar question with an
old answer: aggressive moves by
the Indian army, precautionary
reactions by the Chinese in case India
intends to renew the forward policy
attempt to drive them out of Indian-
claimed territory. This is exactly how the
1962 border war began, with a Chinese
reaction to aggressive moves by the
Indian army, which reaction, in turn,
aroused in India a clamorous press and
political demand for a belligerent res-
ponse, leading a deluded Indian govern-
ment in effect to declare war on China.
That is how it was with Dhola Post, set
up by India several miles north of the
McMahon Line at its western extremity
in June 1962 in implementation of
Nehrus absurd forward policy, with
which he planned to extrude the Chinese
from Indian-claimed territory in a process
of semi-violent harassment. For over a
year Beijing had been meeting that puny
challenge passively, using its overwhelm-
ing advantages in mobility, numbers and
armament merely to block the Indian
armys gallant attempts to carry out its
besotted orders Mao Zedong quipping
that since the Indians rejected peaceful
coexistence they would have armed co-
existence. Accordingly an outnumbering
Chinese force laid siege to Dhola Post.
Historical Trap
The Nehru government had trapped itself
years before when it began accusing
China of committing aggression by the
mere fact of being in occupation of terri-
tory India claimed. Thus, Nehru put
himself under increasingly erce political
pressure to unleash the army to repel
the aggression, and when the Chinese
investment of Dhola Post was misrepre-
sented as a transgression of the McMahon
Line he gave way and ordered the army
to attack the Chinese at Dhola Post and
drive them back, publicly announcing
that decision. The operation he had sanc-
tioned looked to driving Chinese troops,
who greatly outnumbered and outgunned
Neville Maxwell (nmaxwell@hinet.net.au) is
a British journalist, best known for his work
Indias China War (1971).
This article was earlier posted on the
Web Exclusive section of EPW.
to be pursued. The realist approach is
very restrictive; it only gives the options
of a limited or a proxy war both kinds
of war boomerang on the initiator itself.
Pakistan is the prime example where the
boomerang effect of waging limited wars
has given them a monster military and
proxy warriors gnawing at their own roots.

Notes
1 John Garnaut (2013), Xis War Drums, Foreign
Policy, May/June, http://www.foreignpolicy.
com/articles/2,013/04/29/xis_war_drums, ac-
cessed on 1 May 2013.
2 Ananth Krishnan (2012), India-US-Japan Meet
Rankles China, The Hindu, 30 October, http://
www.thehindu.com/news/international/indi-
ausjapan-meet-rankles-china/article4048212.ece
(accessed on 1 May 2013).
3 Arvind Gupta (2013), Chinas Defence White
Paper 2013: Lessons for India, IDSA, 25 April,
http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/ChinasDe-
fenceWhitePaper2013LessonsforIndia agupta_25
0413 (accessed on 30 April 2013).
4 Can India Become a Great Power? (2013),
Economist, 30 March , http://www.economist.
com/news/leaders/21574511-indias-lack-stra-
tegic-culture-hobbles-its-ambition-be-force-
world-can-india
5 Sujan Dutta (2013), Delhi Spies Airstrip Design
in China Tents, The Telegraph, 30 April.
6

For Whom the Bell Tolls, Economist, 27 April
2013, http://www.economist. com/news/asia/
21576724-visit-controversial-yasukuni-shrine-
upsets-neighbours-whom-bell-tolls (accessed
on 1 April 2013).
7 Kathrin Hille (2013), China Says 21 Killed in
Xingjian Clashes, Financial Times, 24 April,
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8487a202-acaf-
11e2-9454-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2S7TOjhOY
(accessed on 1 April 2013).
8 Saisa (2013), Ladakh and the War Zone Cam-
paign Doctrine of China, http://southasiani-
dea.com/foreign-policy/ladakh-and-the-war-
zone-campaign-doctrine-of-china/ (accessed on
05 May 2013)
9 P C Katoch (2013), Chinese Intrusion Psycho-
logical Challenge?, The United Services Institu-
tion of India, http://www.usiondia.org/Article/
?pub=Strategic%20Perspective&pubno=36&
ano=1667 (accessed on 5 May 2013)
10 Deepak Kapoor (2013), Chinese Provocation: Is
India Prepared?, The New Indian Express,
2 May, http://newindianexpress.com/nation/
Chinese-provocation-Is-India-prepared/2013/ 05/
02/article1571736.ece (accessed on 2 May 2013).
11 Neville Maxwell (1971), The Threat from China,
International Affairs , Vol 47, No 1, January,
pp 31-44.
12 Ibid: 32.
13 Letter from Sardar Patel to Sir Girija Shankar
Bajpai, New Delhi, 4 November 1950, http://
www.claudearpi.net/maintenance/uploaded_
pics/19501104PatelonTibet.pdf (accessed on
1 May 2013).
14 British Foreign Ofce document 371-84457.
15 M Y Prozumenschikov (1962), The Sino- Indian
Conict, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the
Sino-Soviet Split, October 1962: New Evidence
from the Russian Archives, Cold War Interna-
tional History Project Bulletin, p 251.
16 India: Never Again the Same, Time, 30 Novem-
ber 1962, http://www.time.com/time/printout
/0,8816,829540,00.html (accessed on 30 April
2013).
17 Dennis Kux (1993), Estranged Democracies: India
and United States 1941-1991, Sage Publications
India, p 150.
18 Dealing with Scarcity-1957-63, RBI History,
Volume II (1951-1967), http://rbidocs.rbi.org.
in/rdocs/content/PDFs/90038.pdf
19 M Y Prozumenschikov, The Sino-Indian Con-
ict, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Sino-Soviet
Split, October 1962: New Evidence from the
Russian Archives Record of Conversation
(from East German archives) between Chinese
Premier Zhou Enlai and Mongolian leader
J Zedenbal, Beijing, 26 December 1962, http://
www.claudearpi.net/maintenance/uploaded_
pics/Cuba_and_SinoIndian_conict.pdf
20 US Expert Urges Civilian Nuclear Deal for
Pakistan, The Nation, 3 May 2013, http://www.
nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-
english-online/national/02-May-2013/us-ex-
pert-urges-civilian-nuclear-deal-for-pakistan
(accessed on 3 May).
21 Michael M Sheng (2008), Mao and Chinas
Relations with the Superpowers in the 1950s: A
New Look at the Taiwan Strait Crises and the
Sino-Soviet Split, Modern China, Vol 34, No 4,
October, pp 477-507.