Relations with China for six decades and more in the past have taught us that Beijing is unpredictable. If we stretch the study of bilateral relations further, we can say that China is ungrateful. Soon after India won freedom, the US was formally prepared to grant India a seat in the UN Security Council. But the then Prime Minister Nehru, a man of idealistic disposition, told the US that China was a stronger claimant than India… Though Security Council membership for China didn’t come that soon, nevertheless India senselessly squandered the opportunity. And now that India is staking claim to membership, China opposes.
Vice President Hamid Ansari is in Beijing on a five-day official visit in connection with celebration of 60th anniversary of Panch Sheel agreement. This is yet one more proof of faithlessness of China. Sixty years ago in 1954, Prime Minster Nehru offered the five principles of co-existence at the Bandung Conference which China accepted and signed. The crux of Panch Sheel was that India and China, two big countries in South and South East Asia would live in peace and resolve their mutual issues in a peaceful and friendly manner. Indian Prime Minister Nehru was euphoric and gave the agreement more than necessary publicity. But China soon came out in her true colours. In 1962 China made an unprovoked incursion into our eastern territory and took us napping. Nehru could not withstand the shock.
Throwing the Panch Sheel to dust bin, China made no secret of her designs on our eastern state of Arunachal. Beijing openly said that she would not recognize the McMahon Line that had demarcated the boundary between India and China to the east and north. Not only did China lay claims to Arunachal Pradesh, she began claiming parts of Ladakh also. Her troops began making threatening postures along the border in Ladakh region. Way back in early fifties China had grabbed a large chunk of Indian Territory in Aksaichin area touching with her Xingjian province. Then again by entering into a clandestine and illegal treaty with Pakistan, China managed to grab about five thousand square kilometers of Indian Territory in Siachin region which remains in her control till date. China has built the Karakorum Highway through the region which is disputed between India and Pakistan.
Somehow one feels that there is only one-way relationship between the two countries. Despite profusion of commitments for peaceful coexistence with India, China has never relented in her clandestine claims over tracts of Indian Territory along the existing border. Beijing has only recently published a map showing Arunachal Pradesh as part of China. This is not the first time that China has issued a wrong map. In Ladakh, the PLA troops cross the border walk miles deep into Indian Territory of Ladakh, besmear stones and walls with red colour and Chinese flag and go back. What is their aim? This is simply to provoke India into retaliation.
Strangely on this plethora of hostility and animus, we go about trumpeting that there is maturity in relations between India and China and a solid edifice is being built on that understanding. China never supported us on Kashmir issue rather made its opposition clear when Beijing decided to issue visa to the citizens of J&K State and Arunachal Pradesh on an attached sheet as a mark of support to Pakistan which has been claiming the State of Jammu and Kashmir. After having built the Karakorum Highway clandestinely across Indian Territory, now China has ordered railway track survey that would connect Beijing and Islamabad again by passing through the territory that belongs to India. Beijing is unmoved by India’s protestation. In another hostile act, Chinese speed boats have been cruising inside Indian part of Pangong lake 60 kilometers east of Ladakh.
Vice President’s visit to Beijing may at best be called a symbolic visit of goodwill. We also have high ranking visitors from China and we show them due courtesy. The fundamental question is of China changing her age old policy of coveting more and more territories along her borders with other countries. She grabbed the vast buffer territory of Tibet and Aksaichin and now is claiming Arunachal and parts of J&K State in the region of Ladakh. China needs to establish her non-aggressive stance and behave as a sincere friend who cares for the interests of others as well while caring for her own.
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