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Tranquil steps
Despite booming trade ties, Sino-Indian relations remain more promising than real. Hu Jintao has reiterated some old assurances and added a few new ones.
Despite their booming trade ties, Sino-Indian relations remain more promising than real. Chinese President Hu Jintao has essentially reiterated some old assurances and added a few new ones. The most welcome assurance is that of a pledge to cooperate in the civil nuclear energy sector consistent with China’s “international commitments”. As pledges go, this is not a bad one. Beijing is recognised as an ‘official’ nuclear weapons State by the NPT and it is a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). It would be too much to expect Beijing to commit itself to breach the rules embargoing nuclear dealings with India, an unofficial nuclear weapons State. However, the very reference to ‘civil nuclear cooperation’ in the joint declaration is a signal that the Chinese will not stand in the way of an NSG move to open up civil nuclear cooperation with India.
The promise to resolve the border dispute at the earliest remains a promise. There has been little movement in the 1993 commitment to define the 4,056-km Line of Actual Control that marks the disputed border. Despite several rounds of official talks spanning decades, and a dialogue between the Special Representatives mandated in 2003 to give a political push to the border settlement, little has happened on the ground. The talk of strategic ties between the two countries belies the mutual suspicion that characterises Sino-Indian relations. While India’s national security bureaucracy tends to be clumsy in showing its hand, the Chinese are masters of hardball. The problem seems to be a certain ambivalence in Beijing’s stance towards New Delhi. On one hand, it seeks as it does elsewhere in the world, opportunities in the trade and investment area.
On the other, it seems to treat India as a strategic adversary that must be checked through the instrumentality of an unsettled border, or by encouraging Pakistan’s hostility. China should be wary of overreach in India. The 1998 nuclear tests showed that New Delhi can react in unpredictable ways with negative consequences for China’s security. As it is, its economic growth and geopolitical sinew is not to be sneezed at. An estranged India, especially aligned to Japan and the US, can be a formidable adversary.
