By Dr. Rajkumar Singh
The border line difference between India and China despite being in existence took an alarming proportion with the developments in Tibet at the close of 1950s and it resulted in a declared war in October 1962 with India’s humiliating defeat, which sealed the fate of India-China relations in all spheres for the long fourteen years.
In 1962 while China was ready for massive aggression on India, the later think the disaster either physically or mentally and no one who lived in India through the winter months of the year can forget the deep humiliation felt by all Indians, irrespective of party. However, even after the border conflict New Delhi did not close its option of a negotiated settlement of all outstanding problems and sought a realistic co-existence with Beijing, yet adverse relationship between the two by and large, operated at stabilised level and sometimes became more intense on account of open chinese support to Pakistan in its 1965 and 1971 war with India.
It was only from the mid 1970s that both sides began to feel the need of mutual cooperation and keeping in view the aspirations, they responded positively which suggested the winds of change in their relations. In line India-China talks on border problem began in December 1981 and passed on from normal border talk to Joint Working Group (JWG) to meeting of Special Representatives. Till today, in all along the period above 40 round of talks have been conducted but the problem is nowhere near in its solution. Although over the years, India’s relations with the People’s Republic of China have, no doubt, improved largely in economic sphere, in particular, the continuation of the vexed border problem between them tells us sufficiently about their mutual deficit of trust and sympathy in each other’s perception and pursuit.
Background of Initiation of Border Talks
The unresolved border issue, a legacy of the India-China war of October 1962 cast a long and deep dark shadow on areas of engagement in the post-war period. Although ambassadorial level relations between them was restored in April 1976 the first positive development on the part of China came when greeting the Indian diplomat in 1970 said that India is a great country and that India and China should be friends again. The border issue between them was intensified after administering a blistering defeat in 1962 war, the Chinese forces withdrew 20 Kilometers behind the Mc Mahon Line, which China called “the 1959 line of actual control” in the eastern sector and 20 Kilometers behind the line of its latest position in Ladakh, which was further identified with the “1959 line of actual control in the western sector. This left China in possession of 23,200 square kilometer of territory in Ladakh. India asked for status quo-ex-ante as of September 8, 1962 in all sectors, which China rejected. It resulted in a stalemate on the boundary dispute.
The Indian suggestion of status quo was further refuted in December 1964 by Chou Enlai while speaking to the National People’s Congress in Beijing he called the suggestion of restoration of the status quo as of September 8, 1962 “an unreasonable Indian pre-condition”. He declared on the occasion that China would never dismantle its posts and reminded India that China had not relinquished its claim to an additional 90,000 square kilometer south of the Mc Mahon Line. This territorial demand was in addition to the 23,200 square kilometer in Ladakh that was already with China. Thus, the bigger border issue, if made central to further development of Sino-Indian relations, would effectively freeze any progress towards entente.
Chinese views on border
In fact the conflict left a trail of bitterness whose traces are still present in their relations. For many years to come their mutual hostility determined their foreign policy. There were no ambassadors is each other’s capital for many years and there was virtual absence of contact. There is nothing worse for a country’s image than defeat, as the prestige and image of a nation gets tarnished. Its capacity to influence other nations gets seriously affected. As J. F. Kennedy aptly put it: ‘Victory has many fathers, defeat is an orphan’. Internationally, they traded abuses and generally adopted opposite standpoints. Peking was engaged in a full-scale campaign against India, a chief purpose of which was to carry conviction that India was no longer non-aligned but was firmly in the American camp.
With Chinese propaganda and its alliances against India, now the later was deeply suspicious about Chinese motives and designs. India believed that China wanted to dominate Asia as Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minister of India, said in Parliament, ‘To justify its aggressive attitude, China is pretending to be a guardian of Asian countries, who, according to China are being bullied by India. The basic objective of China is to claim for itself a position of dominance in Asia, which no self-respecting nation in Asia is prepared to recognise’.
The annual report of the Ministry of External Affairs for the year 1964-65 spelt-out India’s perception of Chinese motivations. After a long period of hostility and strife from the mid-1970s the two countries felt the need to normalise their relations and accordingly they moved in this direction, although slowly. In line, China participated in the 33rd Table Tennis Championship at Calcutta in February 1975. Peking began to respond to the earlier Indian initiatives.
Effects of change of guard
Major change of guard took place almost simultaneously in India and China. As a result of general election held in early 1977, for the first time since country’s independence in 1947, a non-Congress Government of Janata Party coalition, under the leadership of Morarji Desai, assumed the office of Prime Minister. The Chinese confidently expected that the Janata Government would considerably distance itself from the Soviet Union and move towards new bonds with Washington and Peking.
The change of Government was welcomed in Peking and as reported in The Times (London), it expressed the hope that the new Indian Government would bring changes in the hitherto pro-Soviet policy of the Government of India. The new Government and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, its Minister for External Affairs, assured the Chinese Government by reiterating that India considered Tibet as a part China and normal relations maintained in the period with exchange of delegations from both sides, it however, made clear to the Chinese authorities that border issue between the two is central to normal relations when Wang Ping Non visited India in March 1978 as the leader of a goodwill delegation and emphasised that the bitterness that had developed between the two countries as a result of the border conflict sixteen years ago was a thing of the past.
From the Government of India’s points of view complete friendship with China will be possible only after the return of its territory. Morarji Desai, the Prime Minister of India, also told the Rajya Sabha that there was no possibility of having full friendship with China-border solution first amity after. Thus, the question in India was seen as a precondition to the normalisation of relations between the two countries.
Author: Dr. Rajkumar Singh, Professor and Head, University Department of Political Science, B.N.Mandal University, Madhepura, Madhepura-852113, Bihar, India.
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights).