Hira Bahadur Thapa

The intermittent skirmishes in the Himalayan border areas between China and India, the world’s two rising economies, painfully remind us of cooling of their bilateral relationship. However, in its heyday of early 1950s, Sino-Indian relations were described as an era of “Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai”. It marked the period of heightened Indo-China solidarity contrasting with present day bitterness.
Then both China and India had two visionary leaders, Mao Zedong and Jawahar Lal Nehru, who demonstrated self-confidence and zeal to work together. They were euphoric of their countries’ independence gained recently. The People’s Republic of China was born following successful revolution in 1949 and India had become an independent nation in 1947. When the Indian Prime Minister Nehru visited Beijing in October 1954, expectations were high that the two leaders of the world’s two most populous countries could build a bilateral relationship based on dignity and respect. It is understood that Mao had asked to work together with India to oppose the western imperialism and champion of the Third World.

Natural friendship
India’s friendship with China once seemed natural whose constitution enshrined the principles of socialism. It also prided itself on Cold War neutrality. India under its first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru was keen in broadening ties with other newly created socialist countries, and China became one of them. The key foundation of the Indo-China relationship was the Panchasheel Agreement, a political doctrine with five basic principles to govern the inter-state relations. It was doctrine popular among the newly independent countries of Asia and Africa in the early 1950s. It stresses mutual respect for territorial integrity and independence, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit and peaceful co-existence.
Being world’s apart on multiple grounds including culture, ideology and politics, China and India in the course of history have become rivals to each other guided by their own aspirations to assume leadership regionally, if not globally. There are more powerful factors in play than short-lived ideological affinity seen in both China and India’s leaning on socialist principles. These factors knocked off the warm relationship that characterised the Indo-China brotherhood fostered seven decades ago.
In less than a decade of the spirit of ‘Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai’, both countries got mired in a border conflict that first erupted in 1959, the resolution of which has eluded them despite their diplomatic efforts for years till now. The irony of the Sino-Indian border dispute is that there has been no demarcation of boundaries as yet and both countries stake claims to each other’s territories. The history of independent Tibet until it became an autonomous region of China and British India constitutes the bone of contention between them. It is because there is the legacy of uncertain colonial boundaries.
In the British era the Ardagh-Johnson Line was a border drawn by then rulers that placed Aksai Chin inside Jammu and Kashmir in India. Understandably, China claimed to have never accepted this border and instead argued for Macartney-MacDonald Line, a later boundary that gave it more territory. Meanwhile the McMahon Line, named after a former British foreign secretary Henry McMahon in India, came into being following the 1914 Shimla Agreement signed by McMahon with then effectively independent Tibet. China has rejected this agreement.
Historical evidence suggests that there were talks in India in April 1960 between Prime Minister Nehru and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai to resolve the border issues but of no avail. But treating Tibet as strategic barrier between the two nations is no more the Indian position now as both China and India have tacitly agreed that they would keep aloof from the opposition movements by Tibetans and the Kashmiris against China and India respectively. This exemplifies how great powers cooperate to take care of their core national interests.
Against this historical backdrop comes the August 2019 revocation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution abolishing the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. Though a sovereign India has the right to do, this move has added new complications to resolving the disputed border in the Himalayas, in particular, India’s northwest. Geopolitics has got a role to play here.
The ending of Jammu Kashmir’s special privilege has resulted in the carving of the state into two viz Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Some part of Ladakh’s new territory contains land that Pakistan gave to China in the Sino-Pak Agreement of 1963. Strategists opine that China sees India’s abrogation of the Article 370 as a kind of aggressiveness and this is why it has become more assertive on this border area for the last few months. They believe that China’s increasing ability to project naval power in South Asia and its strengthening ties with regional players cast a shadow over Sino-Indian friendship. Some refer to frenemy ship between Asia’s two biggest powers, which is a matter of concern for all.

Silver lining
Notwithstanding this, there are glimmers of silver lining as evidenced by the recent 5-point agreement reached between the two foreign ministers of China and India on measures to deescalate the situation in the border. It remains to be seen how such measures are implemented. The Chinese and the Indian leaders are emphatic that theirs is not a rivalry but a partnership of equals. The two informal summits between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping in China and India in the past signal that they are equally eager to benefit from their increasing economic relations, despite their unresolved border disputes.

(Thapa is a former foreign policy advisor to the Prime Minister from 2008 to 09. thapahira17@gmail.com)