The case for a more flexible policy towards China, as it has been argued so far, can broadly be summed up in three points. All these refer to India’s own requirements and appreciation of its own situation. They are not at all concerned either with the Chinese view of the world and India or the internal situation in that country or its likely response to an Indian initiative. The three points are:
First, India cannot afford to have two hostile neighbours indefinitely. It involves too much strain on its resources, makes it difficult to establish a viable defence system and lowers its status in the world. Since Pakistan has failed to respond to all Indian initiatives it is worthwhile for New Delhi at least to explore the possibility of normalising relations with China.
Soviet Attitude
Secondly, since the Soviet Union has decided to adopt a generally neutral attitude in Indo- Pakistan disputes and even to sell military hardware to Pakistan, New Delhi needs to increase its options by somehow resuming the dialogue with China.
Finally, in view of the country’s fairly impressive military build-up since 1962 there is no danger of Peking mistaking New Delhi’s flexibility for weakness and thereby becoming even more intransigent. The inference is that India need no longer insist on the Colombo powers’ proposals being the only basis for border negotiations.
These arguments cannot impress anyone outside the country except to show that New Delhi does not have a firm assessment of the nature of the Chinese threat even in the short run and that it fluctuates between the two extremes of seeking guarantees against a possible attempt at nuclear blackmail by Peking and of expecting to work out a modus vivendi with it. Moreover if the vague talk of a dialogue with China has not yet provoked intolerable suspicions in Moscow it is only because the latter has a fairly clear idea of what is or is not possible for New Delhi to attempt in the near future. But unwittingly New Delhi is providing substance to the Pakistani propaganda that the Chinese threat to India is not serious and that the Indians know it.
The first two arguments in favour of a new posture towards China make two assumptions – that New Delhi’s policy towards Peking has led it into an impasse and that it is in the latter’s interest also to help the former to come out of it. The first unstated assumption is the result of a hangover from the past when the country was supposed to enjoy an unlimited room for manoeuvre and represents a hankering to escape from responsible behaviour that hostile neighbours impose vis-a-vis other powers. The second assumption has not been even examined so far.
The point regarding the military build-up is not at all germane to the issue. It gives the country a certain sense of security and it has undoubtedly helped to raise the nation’s morale. But it is not clear how the build-up in the Himalayas can persuade the Chinese to abandon their hostile policy towards this country or to stop encouraging and assisting Pakistan and hostile Nagas and Mizos.
This does not mean that there is no case at all for expecting the Chinese to moderate their hostility towards this country. There is. The world has changed beyond recognition since 1962 and some of the reasons which were believed to have prompted the Chinese aggression at that time have lost much of their force. A reappraisal of its policy by Peking, agonising or otherwise, is on the cards.
Chinese hostility towards India was the result of two separate though inter-dependent factors, the first relating strictly to bilateral issues like Tibet and the border claims, and the second to larger problems like the Sino-Soviet dispute and the leadership of Afro-Asia. The relevance of the second set of factors has been considerably reduced in recent years in Sino-Indian relations. Three of these deserve special attention.
First, it is common knowledge that India figured prominently in the Sino-Soviet debate from 1959 onwards. The Chinese have themselves said that they tried hard to convince Mr. Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders of the legitimacy of their stand vis-a-vis India from 1959 to 1962. They have even traced their conflict with the Soviet Union itself to the 1959 “Tass” statement which failed to side with the Chinese “brothers” against the Indian “friends”.
Economic Aid
When the Chinese criticised the Soviet policy for extending economic aid to so-called bourgeois governments and for failing to support and assist “wars of national liberation” they had primarily the Nehru regime and India in view. It is only too obvious that they gave an ideological garb to their essentially nationalistic conflict with India. But the more relevant point is that the Chinese conflict with India and ideological dispute with the Soviet Union reinforced each other so much so that in Peking’s view they became two facets of one struggle.
Now that the Sino-Soviet split has become irrevocable at least to the extent that the two countries cannot possibly work together in a common cause ever again, Peking is clearly under no compulsion, ideological or otherwise, to shape its posture towards India in conformity with its policy towards the Soviet Union. If indeed Russia has come to occupy the top place in the Chinese demonology it can even be argued that Peking’s attempt should be to reduce Moscow’s influence in New Delhi and not strengthen it by keeping the latter preoccupied with the problem of security.
Secondly, in retrospect it appears to be a reasonable view that foreign policy, specially relations with the Soviet Union, figured prominently in the internal struggle which led to the so-called cultural revolution in China. In spite of the absence of reliable evidence it is also possible that some of the Chinese leaders did not approve of the policy of aggravating tensions with India as well. If the aggression against India was undertaken in the context of either the debate with the Soviet Union or the internal power struggle, the need to pursue a hostile policy towards this country should abate with the Maoist faction’s victory over Mr. Liu Shao-chi and his group.
Thirdly, the Chinese saw themselves in the ‘fifties and early sixties as natural leaders of Asia and Africa and the Soviet Union and India as rivals. If there ever was any substance in Peking’s view it no longer makes sense for it to think of India as a rival in that context for the simple reason that the concept of Afro-Asia as an independent entity has proved a flop and that most African and Asian countries now maintain much closer ties with former imperial powers than with fellow African and Asian nations.
Even in South-East Asia the Chinese should be able to recognise that they will face competition not from India which is economically weak and militarily over-extended but from Japan which bids fair to emerge as the third effective super-power. Tokyo has the additional advantage of being able to operate in the region in co-operation with the United States which will remain the preponderant power in the Pacific and the Far East and whose influence will continue to be felt in South-East Asia irrespective of the outcome of the Viet Nam war.
There is the additional fact that both China and India are already fully occupied with domestic problems of economic, social and political organisation and they are likely to become more so in coming years. Both these old civilisations are going through the extremely painful and unsettling process of modernisation.
Old World View
On this reasoning it will be natural to conclude that China is faced with the problem of evolving a new framework for its foreign policy. Its old world view has clearly become dated and does not answer to the realities of the international scene. The claptrap about American imperialism, Soviet revisionism, Russo-American collusion, and Indian and Japanese reactionaries can at best serve to provide a convenient cover behind which Peking can come to terms with the world as it exists. But there are two snags. First, the process of adjustment can be spread over years, and, secondly, there can be no assurance that even when Peking decides to cut its losses the processes, particularly in its earlier phases, will cover India.
The talk of a dialogue and a more flexible policy will not do much harm if care is taken to see to it that it does not create unnecessary misunderstanding in Washington and Moscow, specially the latter which has not unnaturally turned out to be far more sensitive than the former. It can prove dangerous if it is followed by a lowering of guard or if it is allowed to cloud understanding with the Soviet Union.
(To be concluded)
The Times of India 15 January 1969