A former Indian foreign secretary, A. P. Venkateswaran, has said that the new formulation of Indian position on Tibet, as contained in the India-China Joint Declaration, betrays Tibet and undermines India’s legal case concerning the border dispute.
In a commentary in the Indian daily Hindustan Times on July 19, 2003, Venkateswaran, who was a former envoy to China, said, “This unequivocal recognition in a declaration signed by Vajpayee, with no quid pro quo, further constricts India’s already weak bargaining power and continues the pattern of self-injurious Indian betrayal on Tibet that began under Jawaharlal Nehru. By now recognising TAR as part of PRC, India has further undermined its legal case on the 1914 McMahon Line.”
Saying that India the principle of reciprocity while agreeing to the Joint Declaration, Venkateswaran said, “Ever since India’s Independence — and even prior to it — there had been an abundance of goodwill in this country towards China, which, alas, has not been reciprocated to this day. The pronouncements made by either side during Vajpayee’s recent visit have once again highlighted this glaring asymmetry in the bilateral relationship.”
Following is the full text of the commentary.
Left High and Dry
AP Venkateswaran
The Hindustan Times, July 19, 2003
Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to China has been hailed by many in India as a high-water mark in the relations between the two countries. But whether that is really so has to stand the test of careful examination. The main preoccupation of the Indian side, with the general elections round the corner, was on projecting the visit as successful, to the extent that India abandoned the first principle of diplomacy — reciprocity.
In return for verbal and vague assurances by the Chinese to identify the still-undefined Line of Actual Control and to accept the reality on Sikkim, the Indian side shifted the country’s stand on Tibet in a way to categorically recognise the Chinese-named Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) as an integral part of People’s Republic of China (PRC).
This unequivocal recognition in a declaration signed by Vajpayee, with no quid pro quo, further constricts India’s already weak bargaining power and continues the pattern of self-injurious Indian betrayal on Tibet that began under Jawaharlal Nehru. By now recognising TAR as part of PRC, India has further undermined its legal case on the 1914 McMahon Line.
Furthermore, by signing a memorandum with the Chinese for trade across the Nathu-la Pass, the Indian side naively interpreted this to mean China’s recognition of Sikkim’s accession to India. Yet, the very next day, the official spokesman of the Chinese government made it abundantly clear that it did not amount to any such thing. He clarified that the agreement was purely for trade purposes and nothing more should be read into it.
The jubilation of the Indian side on this subject recalls the trap into which Delhi had fallen in the Fifties when a clarification was sought by India on Chinese maps showing India’s Aksai Chin as part of China. Beijing had responded that these maps were old Kuomintang maps, which the new PRC government had not had the time to review.
A few years later in 1958, when clashes had occurred in the area between Chinese soldiers and Indian border patrols, Chinese Premier Chou En-lai wrote to Nehru that the delineation as shown on the Kuomintang maps was indeed correct and the territory belonged to China! That was the beginning of the differences over the India-China border that remain unresolved to this day. No amount of sophistry can paper over the cracks, and the question is whether India is willing to settle the issue on Chinese terms.
Ever since India’s Independence — and even prior to it — there had been an abundance of goodwill in this country towards China, which, alas, has not been reciprocated to this day. The pronouncements made by either side during Vajpayee’s recent visit have once again highlighted this glaring asymmetry in the bilateral relationship.
While many here may wish to brush that away as not being of any serious consequence, it cannot be gainsaid that reciprocity is central to diplomacy, as it is in any relationship. In fact, no relationship can really last for long without give-and-take by both sides. Yet during Vajpayee’s visit, the Indian side willingly gave and asked for — and got — nothing tangible in return.
The attitude of China towards India all along has been patronising, at best, and supercilious, at worst. In contrast, India has been taking a low, soft posture, which further encourages a condescending Chinese attitude. In Chinese eyes, India has accepted a secondary role — a view that would have been reinforced by the one-sided bargains during Vajpayee’s visit.
The Chinese have always considered themselves to be the fabled ‘Middle Kingdom’ and superior to the rest. Despite their acknowledgement of India’s historic contribution of Buddhism, they have a palpably distinct feeling of superiority, which makes them lump all foreigners under the sweeping terminology of ‘Yanguixi’ (foreign devils). This ingrained arrogant national attitude of the Han people, who constitute over 90 per cent of the country’s population, was earlier sought to be curbed by none other than Mao Zedong. Despite sharing this quality in great measure, he is on record as having repeatedly exhorted his people to give up ‘Da Hanzhui’ (Big Han chauvinism).
During the Vajpayee visit, China worked to demonstrate its superior status to its own people and to the rest of the world by securing one-sided bargains, whether on Tibet or on Sikkim or on the border. Vajpayee came out as the head of not a nuclear-armed country but as a supplicant in Beijing, giving ground and embroidering the outcome of his visit.
By stating in writing on Tibet what the Chinese leadership wanted to hear, but accepting only some retractable verbal assertions by China on Sikkim, Vajpayee sent out a message that his government is ready to acquiesce in an inferior role for India vis-à-vis China. He even stomached the insult of being publicly told by China, while still in Beijing, that the border trade memorandum did not signify even tacit Chinese acceptance of the Sikkim reality.
India’s readiness to accept a secondary status was further highlighted by the Indian side admitting that, during the talks in Beijing, it sidelined the Sino-Pak nexus and other Indian concerns about Chinese activities so as to “keep the accent on the positive”. China’s development of port facilities in Myanmar opens up the Indian Ocean to its naval presence, and its construction of a Pakistani naval base at Gwadar enables the Chinese navy to sit astride the subcontinent. To disregard these actions and to focus instead on paying obeisance to the Middle Kingdom can only be at our peril.
A good illustration of the difference in the mindset of the Chinese and the Indians was provided by Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. Our embassy in Beijing had arranged for some private screenings for invited persons, since public showing of foreign films was not generally permitted at that time. The film was received enthusiastically by those who saw it, including a large number of Chinese.
Before long, a request was received from the Chinese Communist Party for its being shown to the ‘high leadership’ in Beijing. Of course, the request was promptly acceded to and, when the film was returned, the central committee member who had been the intermediary was asked about the response of those who had seen it. He confirmed that Deng Xiaoping was among those who saw the film. When pressed for more details about their reaction, he said that while everyone who saw the film was moved by the portrayal of the qualities of the Mahatma, they could not understand why so much importance had been given in it to non-violence!
The Mahatma’s teachings have often been cited by the Indian leadership to justify their ill-advised moves of appeasement, whether in regard to China or in regard to Pakistan. However, in the Mahatma’s eyes, non-violence was the highest form of courage and had nothing to do with cowardice. To clarify his stand, Gandhi wrote in the Harijan that it was rather late in his life that he had come to realise that many “who claimed to follow my teachings, had done so not because they believed in them, but because they served as a convenient cloak to hide their cowardice”.
In a democratic system, there should not be any scope given to the leadership to practise generosity towards other countries at the expense of one’s own nation. In the event that any exceptional gestures are to be made, they must be with the full and express consent of the people. It should never be left to the whims and fancies of any government head and his hangers-on.
We cannot do better in these circumstances than to follow this advice given by Confucius in the Analects, the compilation of his sayings: one day, his disciples asked Confucius, “Master, some say that we must return good for evil. What do you say?” Confucius thought for a moment and answered, “If you return good for evil, what will you return for good? So, return good for good and justice for the rest.”
Vajpayee’s visit has raised the question whether India, learning nothing from the past, still insists on returning good for evil.
