India, China bonhomie runs aground with border row

The "Great Game" played out even today in the mountains of the Hindukush has found a new theatre in the impenetrable fastness of the Himalayas. Here, the leading actors, the Chinese, perfecting an altogether more fascinating 21st century version, tested the resolve of the other protagonist, the Indians, and found them wanting.

The fact that the test has come so soon after the hype of a recent Sino-Indian thaw is reason enough to pause and reflect. It may have been only a minor border incursion, but despite all the bonhomie generated during Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's six day trip to China, described as "path-breaking" and "a major success", the bid to move away from contentious issues and forge a new relationship has run aground in the unsettled border at the heart of uneasy relations between the two Asian giants.

This was the last thing New Delhi wanted – a reprise of the 1979 visit by then Indian foreign minister – the hapless Vajpayee, who cut short his visit after the Chinese attacked Cambodia.

This time, Prime Minister Vajpayee returned from his visit, roundly declared a success in Delhi, only for the nightmare scenario to unfold – on June 26, while he was in China, a 21 member Chinese patrol had detained and then released a ten-man Indian intelligence team 14 kms inside territory that India considers part of its eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

The deliberate leak of the story a full month after the incident may have been timed for the reopening of the parliament session in a bid to embarrass the prime minister. Vajpayee has never lived down 1979, and has been striving manfully to wrestle with the more difficult betrayal in the aftermath of his Lahore visit – the Kargil war.

Was this to be the third such perfidy? Was this naivete, on par with that of prime ministers like Jawaharlal Nehru, whom Vajpayee had himself berated in parliament for his "Himalayan blunder" in giving in on Tibet, and Inder Kumar Gujral, for giving away too much on Pakistan?

The Chinese response has been illuminating. It is a firm reiteration of stated positions: the Indians had "crossed the eastern part of the Sino-Indian Line of Actual Control, LAC"; China "does not recognise the so-called Arunachal Pradesh"; in future "India should strictly abide by the regulations of the agreements signed by the two countries".

India's response – it sought to play down the incident. Beyond emphasizing that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India, and has been administered by India for 50 years, and that the two neighbours have a long border with many such incursions reported, India's Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha offered the platitude "of differing perceptions on the LAC" as the reason for the Neiphu incursion.

Delhi has asked Beijing for an explanation. But India's cool response to China's red flag, will be judged in the weeks to come either as a weak-kneed diplomatic disaster or a measured response by a mature leadership. Which is it to be?

Certainly, the fact that the intrusion took place when the Vajpayee visit was on, could not have been planned by Beijing. But the fact that the Chinese patrol disarmed and detained the Indian team before releasing them, a violation of a 1996 agreement that specifically provides for face-to-face encounters between patrols, is only one aspect.

The other is the niggling questions – if border incursions are common as Sinha admitted in parliament, how can New Delhi even begin to believe that the broader issue can be put aside, and second, how can India legitimately claim to be in control of the area where Chinese patrols operate freely?

The issue of the border, which is over 3,500 kms long, was sought to be dealt with by the two sides with the appointment of two senior officials – India's National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra and China's top ranking Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo - as envoys to border talks during Vajpayee's recent visit.

But this glosses over the reality that the border dispute is a potential flashpoint and does not acknowledge that leaving it unresolved is not in either country's interest. The two sides have held talks for 22 long years to map the border. They have exchanged maps but these have not been accepted by either side.

Indian officials involved in the border negotiations were asked before Vajpayee's visit to stop being "intractable" and not pour cold water on warming ties held hostage by India's bureaucratic intransigence. Vajpayee may have been desperate for a public relations success in China after finding it difficult to notch Pakistan down as one.

But the warning bells in Arunachal are only clanging the same harsh message the Chinese delivered on the northeastern state and on India's 'annexation' of Sikkim when Vajpayee was in Beijing, that he chose to ignore.

At issue is not just the north eastern state where China claims 90,000 sq kms, but China's refusal to accept Tibet's negotiations with British India in 1913 that delineated the McMahon line as the Sino-Indian border, while resolving the chunk that runs through Myanmar. China now claims 38,000 sq kms in Aksai Chin and some 5,000 kms in northern Kashmir in all its maps.

Vajpayee said on his return that border talks would begin immediately. A month later, and there are no signs of even a preliminary date being set. His major concession to the Chinese, ceding suzerainty over Tibet - autonomous or otherwise - may be a nuanced repeat of an old 1959 formula - but in return the Chinese have not only not offered India a face saver on Sikkim.

Deep reservations about the Tibetan diaspora, who access their homeland through these routes, remain.

India's foreign policy mandarins may discount the restive Tibetan population both in Tibet and in India, but the scare scenario by conflict resolution experts the world over have factored a Tibetan uprising as the trigger for the next Sino-Indian conflagration.

While trade and economic ties are essential building blocks towards a saner world, a border dispute of this nature cannot be dusted away. One only has to look at Kashmir to see how problems fester. Therefore, unless Vajpayee takes a more hardheaded view, he could well find he has a Himalayan blunder of his own making.