By staying engaged in the useless border talks, knowing fully well that Beijing [ Images ] has no intent to settle territorial issues, India [ Images ] gives greater space to China to mount strategic pressure and gain leverage, notes strategic expert Brahma Chellaney
http://news.rediff.com/column/2010/jul/ ... -talks.htmWhat does India gain by staying put in an interminably barren negotiating process with China?
By persisting with this process, isn't India aiding the Chinese engagement-with-containment strategy by providing Beijing the cover it needs? While Beijing's strategy and tactics are apparent, India has had difficulty to define a game-plan and resolutely pursue clearly laid-out objectives. Still, staying put in a barren process cannot be an end in itself for India.
India indeed has retreated to an increasingly defensive position territorially, with the spotlight now on China's Tibet-linked claim to Arunachal Pradesh than on Tibet's status itself. Now you know why Beijing invested so much political capital over the years in getting India to gradually accept Tibet as part of its territory. Its success on that score has helped narrow the dispute to what it claims. That neatly meshes with China's long-standing negotiating stance: What it occupies is Chinese territory, and what it claims must be on the table to be settled on the basis of give-and-take -- or as it puts it in reasonably sounding terms, on the basis of 'mutual accommodation and mutual understanding'.As a result, India has been left in the unenviable position of having to fend off Chinese territorial demands. In fact, history is in danger of repeating itself as India gets sucked into a 1950s-style trap. The issue then was Aksai Chin; the issue now is Arunachal.
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