August 24, 1998

Two months after Pokhran, there is no thaw in strained ties.

By Manoj Joshi

Earlier this month, when some newspapers reported, erroneously as it turned out, that Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Jaswant Singh was to visit Beijing on a fence-mending visit, the Chinese foreign office spokesman beat his Indian counterpart by several hours in issuing a denial. Such alacrity coming from the normally cautious Chinese is a mark of the persisting tension between China and India, a situation that is unlikely to change in the coming months, say Indian diplomats. Tough words from Beijing and even tougher action indicate that the road to normalisation has become rocky. In the early '80s, Deng Xiaoping used to say that China did not pose a threat to India and conversely did not view India as a threat. Now reports from Beijing and from American sources claim that the Chinese concerns over India's nuclear capability may compel it to target India with nuclear weapons.

In Manila last month, Jaswant Singh and Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan confirmed that the two countries would continue official-level consultations. There are no signs as of now that the Joint Working Group on resolving the border issue will meet this year as it had been meeting for the past 10 years since Rajiv Gandhi's historic Beijing visit in 1988.

Conventional wisdom has it that Beijing's wrath is a consequence of the verbal bombardment begun by Defence Minister George Fernandes last April, culminating in India citing China's 1962 attack on India as one of the reasons for its nuclear tests. V.P. Dutt, the doyen of India's Sinologists, says, "Ten years' effort in normalising Sino-Indian relations has been wasted by these statements."

Sino-Indian relations are no longer something that can be viewed in a bilateral framework. China piloted the June 5 resolution of the UN Security Council calling on India to stop testing, stop weapons' development programmes, "cease development of ballistic missiles", sign the CTBT and the NPT. On July 2, US President Bill Clinton and his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin issued a statement calling for "close coordination" between China and the US in achieving the benchmarks set by the resolution. China is now seeking similar endorsements from Japan and Russia.

A senior Indian diplomat in Beijing says that the Chinese are watching to see how the situation develops. The key watershed will be the annual session of the UN General Assembly which will begin next month. This could see a condemnation of India and Pakistan's nuclear tests as well as moves to expand the permanent membership of the Security Council minus India. But, the diplomat notes, "despite their success with the joint statements, the Chinese have some reasons to pause. In the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) meeting, they were isolated when they sought to get an endorsement of their UN Security Council resolution."

While both sides maintain a facade of wanting good relations, facts seem to indicate that China may be taking a lead role in trying to punish India for its May nuclear tests. "The US is asking India to sign the CTBT and not deploy its weapons," says a senior official, "but China is systematically campaigning for India to sign the NPT as well." In essence, demanding that India dismantle its nuclear-weapons capability.

The hard-line against India has its roots in China's security establishment. "Tang Jiaxuan and the Chinese Foreign Ministry do not make Chinese foreign policy," says an Indian diplomat in Beijing. "Qian Qichen, the previous foreign minister who is now vice-premier, the People's Liberation Army and the security apparatus play the major role." In this view, the Chinese reaction is not merely a matter of hurt feelings over Fernandes' statements or Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's leaked letter to Clinton. "There is a straightforward calculus of security that has come into play," he adds.

Chinese officials like to portray their country as a "victim" of India's aggressive intentions. As Chinese Ambassador to Delhi Zhou Gang puts it, "It is up to the doer to undo the knot." However, as a senior Indian minister countered, "It takes two hands to untie a knot." China, say officials, cannot talk peace to India and, at the same time, aid Pakistan's nuclear and missile ambitions. Beijing's policy of blandly denying any role in aiding Pakistan and its efforts to fashion a global coalition to contain India are not the stuff out of which good neighbourly relations are built.

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