Jyoti Malhotra/ New Delhi, December 16, 2010
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao arrived here this afternoon on a three-day visit to India and straightaway launched into a business event, where deals worth more than $18 billion were signed. However, as business gives way to politics tomorrow, the fact that China is a party in the India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir is perhaps the biggest change that has begun to resonate through Delhi’s policies on China.
Manmohan Singh Wen will begin his day with a ceremonial welcome at the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan tomorrow morning, but once the protocol is over, the real conversation will begin in Hyderabad House. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to reiterate the view that while there is space for both India and China to grow worldwide, Beijing must understand and accommodate India’s concerns on Jammu & Kashmir being an integral and inalienable part of the union.
However, India is “highly unlikely” to get any assurances from the Chinese side on the specific question of the “stapled visa” issue for residents of Jammu & Kashmir, according to highly-placed government officials. The issue of stapling visas for J&K residents for about two years now, while Indians from the rest of the country have visas pasted on their passports, has been a significant source of concern for Delhi, as it indicates that Beijing does not accept Indian sovereignty over J&K.
Even when Lt Gen B S Jaswal, the army commander of Jammu & Kashmir, was refused a visa to visit China in July, China explained the refusal by saying “their policy on this part of India was different from that for the rest of the country”, the Indian officials said.
Delhi hopes that once Gen Jaswal retires at the end of this month, there could be some movement on this issue, so that China is not seen to lose face to the Indian “demand”.
Significantly, the jargon in the Sino-Indian relationship seems to have somewhat evolved over the years. From “mutual understanding and mutual accommodation”, a phrase that dominated the 80s and 90s and referred to the give-and-take that Delhi and Beijing should employ over the protracted and complex border problem that is pending since the 1962 conflict, the new phrase that is currently gaining ground is “mutual sensitivities to each other’s concerns”.
Baldly put, this means that if India acts in accordance with China’s demands that Tibet – and Taiwan – are part of the People’s Republic, China must in turn accept that Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of India.
Both sides will sign 6-7 agreements at Hyderabad House. Of these, two will be related to the banking and financial sector, and the remaining around culture and climate change. A joint communiqué will also be issued after the official talks tomorrow.
Wen flies to Pakistan from here on Friday, naturally to reiterate China’s “all-weather relationship” with that country, but clearly, any considered comments on Kashmir that he makes to the Indian leadership will have deep resonance in Pakistan.
This is not only because India and China are currently negotiating their 4,000-odd-long km boundary through a mechanism set up in 2003 of Special Representatives (under the BJP-led government) or that in 2005, both sides agreed to delineate guiding principles to solve the border issue (under the Congress-led government), but also because Pakistan ceded the Karakoram tract (albeit, under Pakistani control) to China in 1963, after India resoundingly lost its own border conflict with Beijing.
India’s loss of control over Aksai Chin in 1962 will become a fact of life once the 2005 agreement on the border is activated, thereby changing the map of India. Analysts point out that Aksai Chin, barren and totally unpopulated is nevertheless crucial to China because it links Tibet with Xinjiang, both outlying regions dominated by ethnic unrest.
For several years, China has sat on the fence on the Kashmir question, not indicating whether it is an integral part of India or not but also staying silent on the matter. The recent assertiveness can be attributed to a growing sense of purpose in the Communist Party as well as in the People’s Liberation Army that is backed by its booming economy.
From Wen Jiabao, over the next two days, India’s political class — in the ruling party and the Opposition — will seek to find if China has also come to terms with India’s growing international stature, especially after the Indo-US nuclear deal which Beijing sought to block at first at the Nuclear Suppliers Group, then gave in.
Interestingly, the change in China’s visa posture towards residents of J&K can be traced back to about the same time that the NSG decided to clear India’s nuclear status in mid-2008.
(Courtesy : www.business-standard.com)
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