Two important articles have just been published on the India-China rivalry, the border issue, the Indian Ocean and Asian stability:
the first by Sreeram Chaulia in THE GLOBALIST of June 22 titled, "Sino-Indian Rivalry and Asian Stability" and
the second by Jeff Smith in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL of June 24 titled, "The China-India Border Brawl."
Sreeram Chaulia makes the following points:
**Just as Sino-Japanese relations have been described as ”hot economics, cold politics,” Sino-Indian political ties are headed for showdowns and skirmishes.
**The only option for India to prevent the Chinese navy from taking over the Indian Ocean is to ramp up its own naval capabilities and ensure that friendly navies in Southeast and East Asia do not get overshadowed by their Chinese counterpart.
**A nexus between the United States and China is a formula for managed chaos in Asia under the Chinese thumb.
**The lowered priority that the Obama Administration has accorded to India compared to China raises the spectre of a U.S.-China entente to erect barriers to Indian ambitions.
**Unless the Obama Administration consciously discards policies which embolden China to escalate its aggressive designs against India, Asia cannot achieve elusive continental strategic stability.
Jeff Smith’s piece, while discussing the historical background of the border issue between China and India, China’s effort to surround India with its "string of pearls" and the strident tone of China’s recent behavior, concludes as follows:
**What is Washington’s role in this Asian rivalry? In the short term, a priority must be to tamp down friction over the border. In the longer term, Washington should leverage its friendly relations with both capitals to promote bilateral dialogue and act as an honest broker where invited. But it should also continue to build upon the strategic partnership with India initiated by former president George W. Bush, and support its ally, as it did at the Nuclear Suppliers group and the ADB, where necessary. Washington must also make clear that it considers the established, decades-old border between the two to be permanent.
**Most importantly, though, the Sino-Indian border dispute should be viewed as a test for proponents of China’s "peaceful rise" theory. If China becomes adventurous enough to challenge India’s sovereignty or cross well-defined red lines, Washington must be willing to recognize the signal and respond appropriately.
Both the articles are reproduced in full below.
Ram Narayanan
US-India Friendship
http://usindiafriendship.net/
http://www.sreeramchaulia.net/Sino-IndiaNavy.pdf
THE GLOBALIST, 6/22/2009
Sino-Indian Rivalry and Asian Stability
By Sreeram Chaulia
The lowered priority that the Obama Administration has accorded to India compared to China is causing deep unease in Indian strategic circles. As Sreeram Chaulia explains, the conceptualization of wide-ranging geostrategic cooperation between Washington and Beijing is a rude awakening to New Delhi’s dream of being a strategic partner of the United States to counterbalance China.
The lowered priority that the Obama Administration has accorded to India compared to China in its first few months in office is causing deep unease in Indian strategic circles. It raises the spectre of a U.S.-China entente to erect barriers to Indian ambitions of climbing up the totem pole of the international system.
Underlying the Indian discomfort is the harbouring of designs by some Washington policy gurus of a ”G2” (Group of Two) between the United States and China to cope with global problems, including mediation in South Asia to solve the India-Pakistan dispute. India considers South Asia to be its equivalent of Russia’s ”near abroad” or sphere of influence and is loath to any Chinese or American interference there.
The conceptualization of wide-ranging geostrategic cooperation between Washington and Beijing is a rude awakening to New Delhi’s dream of being a strategic partner of the United States to counterbalance China. China and the United States becoming joint arbiters of South Asia is an even bitterer pill to swallow for India.
Adding to India’s wariness are revelations by its naval chief, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, that a top Chinese Navy official offered to divide the Pacific Ocean between China and the United States once Beijing launches its own fleet of aircraft carriers.
The breadth of this grand bargain was spelt out by the Chinese officer to the chief of the U.S. Pacific Command as follows: “You, the United States, take Hawaii East and we, China, will take Hawaii West and the Indian Ocean. Then you will not need to come to the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean and we will not need to go to the Eastern Pacific. If anything happens there, you can let us know and if something happens here, we will let you know.”
Obvious in this scheme is the allocation of an ocean named after the pre-eminent power along its waters, India, to China. The context of this daring thought from Chinese military planners is their ongoing aircraft carrier building program. Unlike India, China does not yet have aircraft carriers. But it is well on its way to constructing multiple naval carriers that can be operational by 2020.
China’s goal of ruling not only the East and South China Seas but also the Indian Ocean can only succeed if it manages to secure a “deal” with the United States on the lines disclosed by Admiral Mehta.
Assuming that Chinese economic growth and military modernization will remain ahead of India in the coming decade, Beijing has only one obstacle to prevent it from becoming the prime littoral power on Asian waves — the U.S. Navy.
The Chinese Navy’s breathtaking future planning is in line with its mantra of “peaceful rise,” wherein it will not engage the U.S. Navy in worldwide competition, provided the latter allows it to flex its muscles in the Indian Ocean and tie down India in its backyard. China’s rise would be “peaceful” only insofar as it would avoid confrontation with the U.S. Navy, while being gunboat-like when it comes to dealing with the Indian Navy or navies of Southeast Asian countries.
The Chinese plan of striking an agreement with the United States on their respective portions of the Pacific Ocean is reminiscent of the Tordesillas Accord of 1494 between Spain and Portugal, the pre-eminent seafaring superpowers of that time.
In this understanding, areas to the west of a demarcation line in the Atlantic Ocean (South America) belonged to Spain, while areas to its east (Africa) were to be the exclusive preserve of Portugal. The history of European colonization in subsequent centuries got its specific characteristics by virtue of this G2-like bargain to carve out the world without the imperial powers having to clash directly.
The chances of a Sino-U.S. condominium appear brighter in the context of a long global economic crisis. Washington’s dependence on what economist Paul Krugman labels the “T-Bills Republic,” China, is so absolute for preserving the reserve currency status of the dollar and financing huge budgetary deficits that the Obama Administration cannot afford to displease its largest creditor. In this scenario, Delhi’s misplaced faith in an India-U.S. strategic partnership to enable India’s rise as an equal of China could undergo a quick burial.
Apparently, the U.S. Pacific Command chief politely turned down the Chinese offer of dividing the oceans. But continued economic decline is likely to lead to a drawdown of American naval and overall military presence around the world in coming years. In the medium run, a coexistence covenant with China on the high seas of Asia may get the American nod due to exhaustion of Washington’s capacity to project power globally.
India will then have to contend with a rapidly expanding Chinese navy with no one but itself to fall back upon. Russia has its own anxieties about Chinese naval expansion, but its fleet is far too distant from the Indian Ocean to enter into alliance with the Indian navy.
The only option for India to prevent the Chinese navy from taking over the Indian Ocean and possibly renaming it the “South West China Sea” is to ramp up its own naval capabilities and ensure that friendly navies in Southeast and East Asia do not get overshadowed by their Chinese counterpart.
However healthy the economic relations are between India and China at present, armed conflict between the two cannot be ruled out in the future due to the expansionist naval maneuverings of the latter and the unresolved territorial dispute between the two. If one adds to this mix the gap in economic growth rates, wherein China could continue to surge ahead of India, an arms race and perpetual tension are guaranteed.
Just as Sino-Japanese relations have been described as ”hot economics, cold politics,” Sino-Indian political ties are headed for showdowns and skirmishes. In the event of a U.S.-China pact, Delhi will have no one to rely on if it is attacked by a belligerent Chinese navy and/or army.
This proposition is not far-fetched if one follows Chinese military journals and communist party mouthpieces. A recent editorial in the party-run People’s Daily warned India not to live in “false anticipation that China will cave in” and chided India for “not yet realizing that India can’t actually compete with China in a number of areas, like international influence, overall national power and economic scale.”
A nexus between the United States and China is a formula for managed chaos in Asia under the Chinese thumb. It sows the seeds for a hurtling collision between power-drunk China and anxious India.
Wars during economic depressions are not uncommon, even between countries with hitherto booming bilateral trade. Unless the Obama Administration consciously discards policies which embolden China to escalate its aggressive designs against India, Asia cannot achieve elusive continental strategic stability.
Sreeram Chaulia is associate professor of world politics at the Jindal Global Law School in Sonipat, India.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124578881101543463.html
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, June 24, 2009
The China-India Border Brawl
By Jeff M. Smith
The peaceful, side-by-side rise of China and India has been taken for granted in many quarters. But tensions between the two giants are mounting, and Washington would do well to take note. On June 8, New Delhi announced it would deploy two additional army divisions and two air force squadrons near its border with China. Beijing responded furiously to the Indian announcement, hardening its claim to some 90,000 square kilometers of Indian territory that China disputes.
To understand what the tussle is about, consider recent history: The defining moment in the Sino-Indian relationship is a short but traumatic war fought over the Sino-Indian border in 1962. The details of that conflict are in dispute, but the outcome is not: After a sweeping advance into Indian territory, China gained control over a chunk of contested Tibetan plateau in India’s northwest but recalled its advancing army in India’s northeast, leaving to New Delhi what is now the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Relations have been characterized by mistrust ever since, but neither nation has shown any inclination to return to armed conflict
In recent years however China has been raising the temperature at the border. Chinese claims to Arunachal Pradesh and frequent Chinese "incursions" into the nearby Indian state of Sikkim have begun to multiply in line with Beijing’s rising economic and political influence. Moreover, unlike India, China has methodically developed its infrastructure along the disputed border, littering the barren terrain with highways and railways capable of moving large numbers of goods and troops.
For its part, New Delhi has become both increasingly aware of its disadvantage and exceedingly suspicious of China’s intentions. India’s June 8 announcement that it will deploy two additional army mountain divisions to the northeastern state of Assam will bring India’s troop levels in the region to more than 100,000. The Indian Air Force, meanwhile, announced it will station two squadrons of advanced Sukhoi-30 MKI aircraft in Tezpur, also in Assam. They will be complemented by three Airborne Warning and Control Systems and the addition or upgrade of airstrips and advanced landing stations. This is part of a broader effort to bolster India’s military and transportation infrastructure in its neglected northeast.
Upon hearing India’s plans, Beijing became irate. The People’s Daily, a Communist Party mouthpiece that serves as a window into the thinking of Beijing’s insular leadership, published an exceptional broadside against New Delhi on June 11. It described India’s "tough posture" as "dangerous," and asked India to "consider whether or not it can afford the consequences of a potential confrontation with China." China is not afraid of India, the editorial taunted, while mocking India for failing to keep pace with China’s economic growth. The editorial reminded New Delhi that Beijing had friends in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal but most importantly, it left no doubt about Beijing’s future position on Arunachal Pradesh: "China won’t make any compromises in its border disputes with India."
This is not the first time China has lost its cool over the border issue. Back in 2006, China’s Ambassador to India ignited a political firestorm when he declared the "whole state of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory... we are claiming all of that. That is our position." Later, on two separate occasions, China denied visas to Indian officials from Arunachal Pradesh, explaining Chinese citizens didn’t require visas to travel to their own country.
Generally coy about its suspicions, India has been turning up the diplomatic heat. Indian officials have been speaking more openly about their concerns with China of late. A growing chorus in New Delhi is arguing that India’s uniform focus on Pakistan may be exposing it to a threat from the East. Indian officials have also accused China of supporting the Naxalites, a tenacious and growing band of Maoist insurgents Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as the "greatest threat to [India’s] internal security."
China has been applying pressures as well. This March, China broke with Asian tradition and tried to block a $2.9 billion loan to India at the Asian Development Bank, furious that the loan would fund a $60 million flood-management program in Arunachal Pradesh. (Last week China was overruled with help from the U.S., and the loan went through.) Before that, Beijing clumsily attempted to torpedo the U.S.-India nuclear deal from its seat at the Nuclear Suppliers Group. And of course, China remains an opponent of India’s bid to join the United Nations Security Council and a staunch ally of India’s nemesis, Pakistan.
But what riles India most is China’s incursion into its backyard and the belief China is surrounding the subcontinent with its "string of pearls" -- Chinese "investments" in naval bases, commercial ports and listening posts along the southern coast of Asia. There are port facilities in Bangladesh and radar and refueling stations in Burma. Thailand, Cambodia and Pakistan now all host Chinese "projects;" China’s crown jewel is the Pakistani deepwater port of Gwadar.
Then there are Sri Lanka and Nepal, India’s immediate neighbors, where civil wars have opened space for Beijing to peddle influence. A bloody insurgency by Maoist rebels in Nepal gave way in 2006 to power-sharing agreement now on the brink of collapse. China has openly supported the Maoists against the royalist establishment backed by India. In Sri Lanka, meanwhile, the decades-long civil war between the Hindu Tamil minority and the Buddhist Sinhalese majority was decisively ended by the latter May, but not before Beijing could gain a foothold in the island-nation. Appalled by the brutality of the fighting, India had scaled back its arms sales to Colombo in recent years. China happily filled the vacuum, in return gaining access to the port at Hambontota on the island’s southern coast.
What is Washington’s role in this Asian rivalry? In the short term, a priority must be to tamp down friction over the border. In the longer term, Washington should leverage its friendly relations with both capitals to promote bilateral dialogue and act as an honest broker where invited. But it should also continue to build upon the strategic partnership with India initiated by former president George W. Bush, and support its ally, as it did at the Nuclear Suppliers group and the ADB, where necessary. Washington must also make clear that it considers the established, decades-old border between the two to be permanent.
Most importantly, though, the Sino-Indian border dispute should be viewed as a test for proponents of China’s "peaceful rise" theory. If China becomes adventurous enough to challenge India’s sovereignty or cross well-defined red lines, Washington must be willing to recognize the signal and respond appropriately.
Mr. Smith is the Kraemer Strategy Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.