DEALING WITH THE DRAGON
India China strategy has to strike a careful balanace between cooperation and competition, economic and political interest
Liberation Army and Indian troops who moved in afterwards continued for nearly three weeks, when alarmed negotiators finally agreed on a simultaneous withdrawal— just in time for a scheduled visit to China by Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid.
Why the incursion happened now is still unclear. Was it fuelled by Chinese concern over Indian structures at Fukche and Chumar, or simply a reminder that the border negotiations should resume? As Premier Li prepares for his first trip abroad since assuming political office, it reveals India’s significance in China’s foreign policy and the role China hopes India will play as its own global influence expands.
“China and India still have conflict over territory. It’s a hidden danger for the China- India relationship as the border is not clearly demarcated. But my personal thinking is that the conflict will not influence the two countries’ general cooperation,” says Li Xiangyang, director of the National Institute of International Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government- linked research institute.
“India worries about China so much. Whether it’s economic development or regional events, India uses China as a reference point. But China is not so worried about India,” says Li.
An editorial in the state- backed China Daily newspaper on May 13 said as much. “That the much- hyped border incident was solved so quickly indicates the two neighbours are getting more mature in handling their differences,” it read. “Both Beijing and New Delhi are at a new starting point and by inputting positive energy into their interactions they can lift ties to an even higher level. And as long as they continue to deepen mutual trust and cope with their differences in a constructive manner, they will prove to the outside world that the much hyped ‘ DragonElephant’ rivalry is nothing but a figment of the imagination.”
That is not to say India’s concerns about China’s military ambitions are misplaced. Part of its growing national pride has been showing its military capabilities. China’s defence budget has increased an estimated 175 per cent since 2003 and is now second only to the US. Regionally, Chinese and Japanese vessels have narrowly avoided conflict in recent months over Chinese claims to the islands known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, which controls them; China is also engaged in territorial disputes in the East China Sea with the Philippines and Vietnam. Also
of concern for India is China’s close relationship with Pakistan. The two refer to each other as “allweather” friends and China supplies military and nuclear technology to its neighbour; the two have strong economic ties and China sees Pakistan as a future route for exports from its western border and possibly imports from Pakistan’s Gwadar port. However, here too the relationship is nuanced. China also has concerns that growing militancy in its western, predominantly Muslim Xinjiang region, may be fed by Pakistani spillover. Some of its own workers inside Pakistan— resented as modern colonials— have also been subject to attack.
Yet achieving the Chinese dream also requires the economic cooperation of its neighbours, however complicated the relations might be. Part of building this new prosperous China involves opening up its western regions, which have fallen well behind its flourishing eastern coastal cities economically.
So, while China may have set India on the back foot with this latest border