Facing down the neighbourhood bully

Source: Indian Express

Tuesday , Apr 07, 2009 at 1534 hrs

The danger will not go away just because we refuse to see it. A clue to the coming years lies in the contrasting attitudes of governments and legislatures in the West. This very month, both the European Parliament and the US House of Representatives have passed resolutions endorsing the cause of Tibet and its people. In this very month, governments of those very countries have bent backwards to assure China that they will not inconvenience it. For two reasons, at least, I fear things are going to get much worse in the coming months. On the one hand, China is now in a position where no government is prepared to talk the truth about or to China: look at the turnaround in the policy of Australia; similarly, with the US now dependent on China for financing its bailout packages, the US will not take a stand on any issue that may offend China — look at the way China has silenced the new administration by reminding it of the extent to which China holds US government paper, and what it can do to the dollar’s value and, even more so, to its status as an international reserve currency.

The second factor concerns us in India. It is an apprehension, thus far mercifully just a possibility, but a possibility nonetheless. Namely, that in the coming years, we may have in India even weaker coalitions than we have had in the last few years, that leadership in India may pass into hands which will be even more preoccupied with its own petty calculations and even less concerned with what is happening in Tibet as in other areas around India. The rationalisation that became so convenient an alibi when China invaded Tibet will come in handy again: “When the country most affected by developments in Tibet, namely India, is silent, why should we get worked up about the developments?”

Nor is there any shortage of persons who will rationalise succumbing to whatever China dictates. Just the other day, at the India International Centre, during a discussion of my book on India’s Tibet and China policy, a commentator said, “I am a south Indian, for heaven’s sake. I have not grown up with this feeling of Delhi being the centre of things. How does what happens to Tibetans concern us? If the Tibetans want to strive for their independence, good luck to them; let them do so on their own. Why should we allow ourselves to be dragged into their problem?”

The same thing goes for the border between Tibet and India. There is a unilateral objectivity, espousing which is taken as the hallmark of “independent thinking” in India. Books have been put out showing how in regard to Aksai Chin, for instance, the Indian borders were successively advanced northwards and eastwards by British surveyors in late 19th and early 20th century. That the Chinese have similarly enlarged the entire concept of “China” is not mentioned at all: is it not a fact that the original China was only one-third of what China is today? I hear similar “objectivity” in regard to the eastern border, in particular in regard to Tawang. This cannot but dissipate national resolve; it cannot but further expose Tibetans to Chinese oppression; and it cannot but ultimately endanger India.

We must bear in mind that China has a clear view of what it wants to be — the dominant power in Asia and one of the two major powers in the world. It regards India as a potential nuisance, a nuisance that must be confined within South Asia. All its policies, including its policy of conquering and suppressing Tibet, its policy of militarising Tibet and stationing air and nuclear bases in Tibet, are part of this larger policy.

We must also be clear that China is just not going to make any conciliatory move in regard to Tibet. In fact, one sure road for Chinese leadership to ascend has been through Tibet: the present president of China won his spurs by the systematic oppression of Tibet which he directed and over which he presided. China only goes through the pretence of talking to the Dalai Lama’s delegations from time to time — as it did, for instance, in the run-up to the Olympic Games. It is only waiting for the Dalai Lama to pass away, knowing that, with this centre of gravity gone, the Tibetans will be reduced to an even more helpless situation.

It is for this reason that we can expect that, in the coming months, China will put the kind of pressure on India which it has put recently on South Africa — pressure to either silence the Dalai Lama completely or to evict him from India. And, I’m afraid, there will be no shortage of rationalisers who will say, “Why should we let one man, howsoever eminent and pious, come in the way of improving relations between China and India, as improving those relations is required for India’s own security?”

There is another feature about India’s stance towards Tibet, a feature that reveals a lot about us as a people, a feature that goes beyond the attitude of successive Indian governments. As is well known, the Buddhist tradition was forgotten in India; in fact, the Buddha himself seems to have been forgotten and the Buddhist sites erased from our collective memory till a few Britishers took it upon themselves to hunt them down and excavate them. Among the places in the world, where this great heritage of mankind, and the Buddha’s doctrine and practice, were preserved has been Tibet. The great Tibetan masters have been with us and amidst us now for 50 years. It is indeed true that Panditji helped set up institutions in which higher Tibetan learning and Tibetan arts and culture could be preserved and nourished. And there is no doubt that the Tibetans themselves feel that these institutions have been instrumental in helping save their culture and religion. But it is equally true that, as a people, we have not thought it necessary to learn from the Tibetan masters. In this sense, the policy of successive governments of India, the policy of shutting our eyes to what is happening in Tibet and what China is doing around India is representative of the way we have shut our eyes to the presence of Tibetan masters in our midst.

As a people and as a country we will pay for this ill-karma.

It is often said, “But we had no option in 1949/50.” Take that to be true for a moment. The tragedy is that six long decades later, we remain a country without options.

The truth is harsher and lies in what Guru Nanak said:

Bal chhutkeyo, bandhan parhe, kachhu na hot upaaye / Kahe Nanak, Hari gaj jyon hi ho sahaaye / Bal howa, bandhan chhute, sab kuch hot upaaye/ Nanak sab tumre haath mein, tum hi ho sahaaaye

(My strength is exhausted andI am in bondage/ I cant do anything at all says Nanak/ Now the Lord is my support; He will help me as he He did the elephant/ my strength has been restored and my bomds have been broken / Now I can do everything Nanak! Everything is in your hand, Lord! You are my helper and support)

It is weakness that lies at the root. The rest, accepting Chinese “suzerainty” one day, “sovereignty” the next; accepting Tibet as an autonomous region within China one day and as an internal affair of China the next — these are just successive steps to “operationalise” that weakness, so to say. Unless we acquire strength comparable to that of China; unless we build up an alliance system with other countries that are concerned about Chinese intentions and might, we will be left with hope as our only policy: the hope that “ultimately truth triumphs,” that “ultimately tyrannies dissolve,” the hope that like all else “ultimately China too will evolve towards freedom and democracy.”

(Concluded)

The writer is a BJP MP in the Rajya Sabha

Digging our head deeper in the sand

Source: Indian Express

Tuesday , Apr 07, 2009 at 1533 hrs


- Tibet’s cause is just;

- Tibetans have given no cause for offence;

- China has already reduced Tibetans to a minority, even in Lhasa. It is systematically obliterating the Tibetan culture and the identity of the Tibetan people;

- It has not succeeded as yet, but nor has it loosened its vice;

- People across the world feel intensely about this injustice and oppression, but governments are silent.

India’s policy towards Tibet has to be assessed on the touchstone: how does it address the danger that these facts pose for India?

The policy has moved from viewing the government of Tibet as the government of an independent country; to viewing Tibet as an autonomous country or region under the overall “suzerainty” of China; to viewing Tibet as an autonomous region under the “sovereignty” of China; to viewing Tibet as a region that is an integral part of China and one in which China can do as it pleases — what happens to Tibet and Tibetans being an internal affair of China; to not merely viewing Tibet as such, but to accepting what the Chinese say is “Tibet”(as is well known, China has hacked off half the area of Tibet that encompasses half the population of Tibetans and submerged it in Han provinces).

From the time of Pandit Nehru, India’s policy has been to shut its eyes to what is happening in Tibet. In particular, what the Chinese are doing to the culture and people of Tibet; and to the military buildup. This was evident in the way in which, under Pandit Nehru’s firm hand, the Indian government shut its eyes to the roads and other infrastructure being built in Tibet.

Indeed, the “policy” was carried further. The view was taken, and enforced, that we should not only not ourselves raise, we should oppose efforts by others to raise in fora like the United Nations, what was being done to Tibetans. This, Panditji laid down, is what would be in the best interests of the Tibetans themselves!

Along with this shutting of eyes to Chinese buildup is a turning away from the fact that India’s security is inextricably intertwined with the existence and survival of Tibet as a buffer state and to the survival and strengthening of Tibetan culture and religion. One reason of this, of course, is that it is the representative of the government of Tibet who signed the Simla Agreement and not the representative of the government of China — though, it must be remembered, that the objection of the Chinese representative was not to the border between Tibet and India but to the border between Tibet and China. The second reason is that unless there is an area of peace between China and India, an area in which there is no great Chinese military presence, our northern borders are directly exposed. The ecology of India is just as closely interlinked with what happens across the Tibetan plateau. The deforestation of eastern Tibet that has already taken place; mining and other activities that China is pursuing with vigour across Tibet; the diversion of Tibetan waters to the north by China engineering works for which have already begun — all these are bound to affect the entire plain of north and east India, as, indeed, they are bound to affect the countries all along the Mekong.

And this shutting of eyes is typical: we shut our eyes to the Talibanisation of Pakistan; to the Talibanisation of Bangladesh; to the ingress of Bangladeshis into the Northeast; to the consequences for us of China encircling India — Myanmar as a colony, a military pact with Bangladesh, a fully militarised and nuclearised Tibet, a willing and dependent instrument in Pakistan.

In the case of China and Tibet, as the years have gone by, we have shut our eyes tighter and tighter. In the last few years, in particular up to 2007, the Chinese attitude towards Tibet has hardened; the buildup of infrastructure in Tibet — an infrastructure that can be used for military purposes as much as for anything else — has become more intense; and the incursions and other hostile acts towards India have become much more frequent, and much broader in range. To take just two examples, recall how China has striven to prevent closer relations between ASEAN and India and how it has striven to snuff out any chance that there might have been of India, along with countries like Japan, joining the Security Council.

It was only when, during the build-up to the Olympic Games, China felt it necessary to show a benign face to the world, that these hostile acts were tempered. But, the Olympics over, China has resumed its oppression in Tibet just as it has resumed its hard stance towards India in general and on the border issue in particular.

In India, on the other hand, we continue to shut our eyes to both — what the Chinese are doing in Tibet and to what they are doing towards India.

The net result is that the Chinese, having already swallowed Tibet, are now making systematic inroads onto the southern slopes of the Himalayas. The pace at which they are extending their presence and influence in Nepal since the Maoist government took over are to be seen to be believed — and yet to this also India continues to shut its eyes. Nor should any of it surprise us. After all, a China that is spreading its influence in Latin America, Central Asia, Africa is not going to overlook these countries along its southern rim. Had not Mao declared, “Tibet is the palm of China, the Himalayan kingdoms are its fingers”?

(To be concluded)

The writer is a BJP MP in the Rajya Sabha

Shilpa Shetty trumps Arunachal again

Arun Shourie: Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Every time China advances a claim, watch how our government — and media — react in feeble, confused, and contradictory ways, writes Arun Shourie

November 21, 2007: We were all at the weekly meeting of the BJP members of Parliament. L.K. Advani was presiding. Two of our colleagues represent Arunachal in the Lok Sabha — Tapir Gao and Kiren Rijiju. They drew attention to the fact that Chinese incursions into Arunachal were not just continuing — these were becoming more frequent and the Chinese soldiers were coming in deeper into our territory. They pointed to the statement of a senior official heading our force that is deployed on the border: the official had felt compelled to disclose in a public statement that there had been 146 incursions in just 2007. The MPs — who know the area well, who tour extensively across the state, to whom local inhabitants regularly and naturally bring information — said that the Chinese were now preventing locals from going up to regions where they had been taking their animals for grazing; that they were being supplied goods from Chinese shops...

They drew even sharper attention to an incident that had occurred just three weeks earlier. For as long as anyone could remember, there had been a statue of the Buddha — well inside Indian territory. Local inhabitants used to go up to it — pray, make their offerings. The local commander of the Chinese troops had told Indian soldiers that the statue must be removed. Our soldiers had pointed out that the statue was well within Indian territory, and so there was no question of removing it. The Chinese had come, and blown off the statue...

I raised my hand for permission to speak. It so happened that I was half-way through a book, Why Geography Matters, by the well-known geographer, Harm de Blij. Setting the stage, Blij points to the clues that one can get from maps, and why it is important to pay attention to them — especially when governments publish them. He recalls ‘a telling experience’ he had in 1990. A colleague of his, working then at the University of Baghdad, had sent him an official map that had been published by the Government of Iraq. The map showed Kuwait as the 13th province of Iraq. At a meeting in Washington, Blij had drawn the attention of the then chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the US House of Representatives to the map and its implications. The gentleman had told Blij not to worry, the US Ambassador, he said, was on top of things... A few days had not passed, and Iraq had marched its armies into Kuwait... The first Gulf War...

But it was the passage that followed that was of urgent interest to us, and I sought Advani’s permission to read it. The passage is as follows — please do read it carefully:

‘Cartographic aggression takes several forms. Some overt, as in the case of Iraq, others more subtle. In 1993 I received a book titled Physical Geography of China, written by Zhao Sonqiao, published in 1986 in Beijing. On the frontispiece is a map of China. But that map, to the trained eye, looks a bit strange. Why? Because in the south, it takes from India virtually all of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, plus a piece of the state of Assam. Now this book is not a political geography of China, nor is the matter of appropriated Indian territory ever discussed in it. China’s border is simply assumed to lie deep inside India, and the mountains and valleys thus claimed are discussed as though they are routinely a part of China. Make no mistake: such a map could not, in the 1980s at least, have been published without official approval. It should put not just India but the whole international community on notice of a latent trouble spot.’

BJP members of Parliament are acutely sensitive to national security issues. Here were two colleagues from the state testifying to what the Chinese were doing in Arunachal, and now here was a book that was warning about what was afoot — a book published far away, a book written by an author who had no interest in either running down China or upholding India’s position on anything. The effect was palpable. Advani said that the two MPs and I should attend the BJP press conference that afternoon, and draw the attention of the media to the facts. Advaniji said that, in addition to explaining the background, I should read out the passage too.

When Parliament is in session, the press conference is held every afternoon. The large room was packed with journalists. After Sushma Swaraj and Vijay Kumar Malhotra had dealt with events of the day, Tapir Gao and Kiren Rijiju narrated the facts. I set out the context — and read the foregoing passage.

I had hardly concluded that the usual clutch — pro-Congress, pro-Left — was up in arms. ‘When was the book published?’ one demanded. I couldn’t get the relevance of the question: what has the date of publication got to do with the warning that the author had penned, even more so with the facts that the MPs have set out? ‘No, no. As the book must have been available even during the NDA regime, what did your government do about the matter?’ I hadn’t looked up the date of publication. I did now. The edition I had in hand had been published in 2007! It records that the book was first published in 2005! The journalist subsided. In any case, I pointed out, trying to soften the deflation-by-date, the vital thing is not what the book says — the passage from the book just illustrates that, while others are concerned, we continue to sleep. The thing of vital consequence is what is happening on the ground, and this is what my colleagues here — who represent the area in Parliament — have just narrated.

‘But what did the NDA do about the incursions?’ another member of that clutch demanded. First, the head of the force at the border has spoken about the incursions that have taken place this year, in 2007, I pointed out. What could the NDA government have done about them? But assume that incursions were taking place then, and that the NDA government did nothing. Does that in any way become reason for not doing anything today? Please do have some mercy on our country, I said. Here is China claiming our territory; here it is, having begun that well-rehearsed series of steps which precede a grab. Are we going to divert ourselves from that reality by the usual ‘tu-tu, mein-mein, NDA vs UPA?’

‘No, Mr Shourie,’ — it was the pro-Left journalist — ‘but you have to acknowledge that there is no agreed international border between India and China. So...’ That is the Chinese position as articulated by your paper often, I said. It has not been the position of any Indian Government...

By now enough diversion had been created. The press conference was soon over. My Arunachal colleagues were, of course, disheartened — ‘If this is how much the national press cares...’ I was incensed. For years I have seen such clutches divert attention from life and death issues and been unable to do anything about it. Here was another painful instance.

Not only was the question at hand a matter of life and death for our country. It was one on which we had the most recent historical experience to keep us alert. When Acharya Kripalani, Ram Manohar Lohia, K.M. Munshi and others had first drawn attention to Chinese maps that showed vast swathes of Indian territory to be part of China, Panditji had replied that he had taken up the matter with the Chinese and they had said that these were old, colonial, faulty maps, and, as they had just gained independence, they had not had time to correct them. Later, these very maps were used to argue that the areas had always been part of China. Mao had then declared, Tibet is the palm of China, and the Himalayan kingdoms are the fingers of that palm... Did the journalists not remember any of this?

An anchor from a news channel phoned. I saw your press conference, he said. We have been following this story for many months. Can you please come to our studio?... No, I said, I really am very upset at what happened... But I give you my word, he said, we think this is an important issue, and we are going to follow it in the coming months also. I will send an OB-van to your house.

The van came. The late night news. The earpiece in my ear... All set. Delay — quite understandable: some new eruption in Nandigram... Eventually, the anchor and I are talking.

‘But are you sure about the facts or is the BJP indulging in its usual fear-politics?’ the anchor asks. But why don’t you ascertain them from the two MPs who represent the area? I respond. Better still, why don’t you send your own correspondents and photographers to the area? I inquire. We will, we will, I assure you. I was just making sure...

In any case, look at what the ambassador of China has himself said, I remarked. Remember, just days before Hu Jintao, the Chinese President, was to come to India, the ambassador declared, right here on Indian soil, that Arunachal is a part of China...

‘But maybe he was saying it for rhetorical effect,’ said the anchor.

Rhetorical effect? I skipped a heartbeat. Is the Chinese Ambassador also running after TRP ratings like the TV channels? Would an ambassador say such things just for effect? And that too the ambassador of China, of all countries? You mean an ambassador, you mean the ambassador of China of all countries would claim the territory of the country to which he is accredited, that he would lay claim to an entire state of that country for rhetorical effect? I asked. And remember, I pointed out, he repeated the claim in Chandigarh later. And look at the government of China — it has not distanced itself from the claim advanced by its ambassador. On the contrary, its ‘think-tanks’ have held ‘seminars’ in the wake of the ambassador’s statement. In this the ‘scholars’ and ‘diplomats’ and ‘strategic thinkers’ have declared to the man that Arunachal is ‘Chinese territory under India’s forcible occupation’; that it is ‘China’s Tawang region’; that it is ‘Southern Tibet’ which must be brought under the control of the Tibet Autonomous Region. And you call this rhetorical? That is just lunatic...

The anchor was off to the next item. ‘Be that as it may... Another controversy... Thank you, Mr Shourie. Always a pleasure talking to you. Moving now to a slightly less controversial story...’ ‘SHILPA SHETTY,’ he said, his voice rising, ‘has not been in the news since the famous Richard Gere kiss, but we have her back today. Here she is, SHILPA SHETTY...’

The sound on my earpiece cut. Shilpa Shetty had once again trumped poor Arunachal.

Both sets of exchanges — at the press conference as well as over the TV news channel — had been typical. In part, the problem is extreme, brazen partisanship — and this takes two forms. One is the premise of many: India can never really be in the right: you just have to see the play Musharraf’s devious formulae have got in many of our magazines — the presumption is that we are in the wrong in Kashmir, and so we are the ones who must bend, and go on bending till Pakistan expresses satisfaction. This premise is compounded in the case of many others by commitment: you can rely on several of our colleagues to see merit in China’s stance on everything. The second variant is domestic predilection: the BJP is evil incarnate; because the BJP has raised the issue, the issue itself must be trashed. That is how the mortal danger from Bangladeshi infiltrators has been shouted out. That is how the dual-faced, anti-national politics of many in Kashmir has been shouted out. That is how appeasement of narrow sections for votes is routinely shouted out. That is how what is happening in Arunachal is being shouted out.

And then there is what has become the nature of the media: the obsession with the sound bite on the one side and with the next ‘breaking news’ on the other. Issues like Kashmir, the nuclear deal, the way China is translating its economic strength into military might — these require more than a sound bite. The media has no time for that.

Similarly, to deal with China, to counter Pakistan’s proxy war, the country must sustain a policy for 20-30 years. And for that, you have to keep readers and viewers focused on that issue for decades at a time. But the media is fixated only on what it can project as ‘breaking news’ in this shift — what was ‘breaking news’ in the last shift is ‘old hat’ by this one.

Even more than partisanship, and the obsessions of the current media with the next ‘breaking news’, the problem is superciliousness — this has become the reigning ideology today. What we see every day in papers — that ‘Shilpa Shetty over Arunachal’ business — was brought home to me directly one day. We happened to meet while flying to Mumbai — the owner of one of the country’s foremost newspapers and I. I accosted him about what his paper was carrying on Kashmir — every allegation, every smear that any and every secessionist thug was spitting out at our country and our forces was being carried on the front pages of his paper as fact. Aren’t you reading the nonsense that your paper is printing on Kashmir? I asked. And I gave examples from the preceding few days. The entrepreneur listened. And then exclaimed: ‘Arun bhai, yehi to faraq hai aap mein aur hum mein. Aap abhi bhi hamara paper padhte ho!’ — ‘That is precisely the difference between you and us, Arun bhai. You still read our paper!’

That such a person no longer bothers to read his paper was just a pose. His real message was, ‘Kashmir, did you say? I am above such trifles...’

This weak-kneed government is a problem, of course: its nominal leaders have lifted helplessness to new heights. But the even graver problem now is that the one instrument by which it could be shaken up, the media, has become a problem of its own.

Make no mistake: China watches all this. It watches the feeble, confused, contradictory ways in which our government, and even more our society, reacts each time it advances a claim. And it pursues its policy:

• Claim;

• Repeat the claim;

• Go on repeating the claim;

• Grab;

• Hold;

• Let time pass.

And they will reconcile themselves to the new situation. Has the policy not succeeded in regard to Tibet? No Indian Prime Minister will dare mention the word ‘Tibet’ or ‘Taiwan’ — lest doing so offends China. But China will go on claiming what it wants — for reasons that we must understand!

But why think of Tibet and Taiwan? Has the six-step policy not succeeded in regard to Aksai Chin? In spite of the unanimous resolution that the Parliament passed at the time under Panditji, is there an Indian leader who will today demand that China hand back Aksai Chin? And do you think that when they deliberate over what they are to do in regard to Arunachal, the Chinese do not remember the success they have achieved in Aksai Chin?

The writer is a BJP MP in Rajya Sabha

China’s economic growth is not just ‘economic growth’

Arun Shourie: Wednesday, November 08, 2006

It is a grave error to be mesmerised by China’s economic growth as if it were just ‘economic growth’.

To begin with, much of ‘economic growth’ consists of things that add military muscle. When China produces modern weapons-systems — apart from many other systems, it has made major advances in cruise and ballistic missiles, space technologies including technologies to disable enemy satellites, electronic warfare capabilities; when it lays out ‘infrastructure’ in Tibet — that is all ‘economic growth’. But it has direct military implications for India. The train that traverses heights of 16,000 feet to reach Lhasa can carry tourists, no doubt; but also men and materials of the PLA. When — as satellite imagery shows and ground information confirms — China builds 39 transport routes from its interior to the borders with India, and upgrades 15 of them for heavy vehicular traffic, including a four-lane highway right up to the border of Sikkim, all that too is ‘economic growth’; but that ‘growth’ should awaken us to what it implies for our security.

Second, economic growth translates directly into the ability to bend others to subserve a country’s interests. No country in South East Asia — and that includes Australia — will take a step today without factoring in the likely reaction of China to that step. Nor can even the US Administration be oblivious of the fact that China is today the largest financier of its deficit, that it holds one of the largest chunks of US securities, that US firms have such high exposure in China. When the Chinese president announces during his visit to Latin America that China will invest $ 100 billion in that region, and gives $ 20 billion on the spot to beleaguered Argentina; when he announces another $ 100 billion investments in the five Central Asian Republics; and the country chalks up projects to invest yet another $ 100 billion in Iran, China acquires deep and pervasive influence. Will these countries heed us or China when they have to vote on reorganisation of the Security Council? Similarly, the fact that, in the contention for influence in Central Asia, China can deploy resources of an order that Russia just cannot today set aside, has compelled the latter, anxious as it is to check US advances in these five states, to accept being a sort of junior partner to China in the region. The mining boom in Australia, including its production and export of natural gas, are directly linked to China’s growth. ASEAN, and even Taiwan, have been already sucked into the Chinese sphere — their incomes are directly linked to continued Chinese growth. China does not have to deploy any means — certainly not military ones; of their own accord and in their own interest, these countries keep China’s likely reactions in mind.

Why go that far? Do we not do so? Our silence on Tibet speaks for itself. Similarly, it is well known that six years ago Vietnam offered us access to the strategic Cam Ranh Bay. We declined — so as not to offend China. Even six years after establishing a Tri-Services Command structure in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, we have not positioned any significant assets there — in part out of the apprehension that doing so would bring us into direct contest with the Chinese footprint in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Third, China is already translating its economic power into military might. The 2006 Report of the US Secretary of Defence on China’s military prowess records that the modernisation of Chinese forces is proceeding at a pace faster than US agencies had earlier thought likely.

Fourth, more directly, the scale of China’s and India’s economic development is already making us compete for natural resources — like oil and gas. And the resources that China has accumulated are enabling it to outbid India in contest after contest. In the contest for PetroKazakhastan, China defeat our bid of $ 3.6 billion by bidding $ 4.2 billion. It already has acquired exploration rights for the overwhelming area of Kazakhstan, and has already built a 1000 km pipeline to carry oil from that country into Xinjiang province of China. We depend on Iran for being a counter to Pakistan; for much of our oil and natural gas. But China has now become Iran’s largest market for oil. It has identified projects for investing $ 100 billion in that country in the next 25 years — and this has contributed in no small measure towards its securing deals to import 100 million tons of Iranian LPG and also 150,000 bbl/day of oil — the latter deal is itself worth $ 100 billion. In far away Ecuador too China’s Sinopec and CNPC beat ONGC and won access to 143 million tons of proven oil reserves. In Angola, we had almost got the deal to take over Shell’s operations for off-shore exploration — China swooped it away by extending a 17 year, $ 2 billion soft loan to the country... This rivalry is bound to intensify in the coming years, and the differences in the resources that each side can deploy for each contest is bound to make all the difference to the outcome.

And the country is China

These factors are by themselves enough to raise concerns about the future. They are compounded by the fact that the country we are talking about is China, and not just any other country.

The dominant orientation of China throughout its history has been to power — the acquisition of power, the use of power, the manipulation of the symbols of power. Second, its singular concern in this regard has been to ‘control the periphery’ — that is, to control the areas from which, and the groups by which its security may be threatened. As the areas from which its security may be threatened now include those that are at great distances from it — say, the US — it is determined to acquire capacities that would enable it to keep those distant areas in check also. In any event, India lies literally on its periphery.

Third, and most consequentially, during the last two decades, China has completely rewritten its military doctrine — from ‘Peoples War fought on Chinese soil’ to ‘Local wars under high technology conditions’ to the current doctrine of ‘Force projection under high technology conditions’.

Fourth, China has been doggedly pursuing the consequential ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’, and the ever-new weapons systems that go with it. In particular, a novel danger stems from its emphasis on building capacities to hurl ‘the assassin’s mace’ at the ‘acupuncture points’ of integrated, modern economies — to disrupt power grids, financial systems, air traffic control networks, railway traffic control networks, communications and broadcasting networks... and to do so suddenly, simultaneously and on a fatal scale.

In no doubt about India

And China has a clear idea about India — that it is a potential nuisance. It views us as one of the ‘claws of the crab’ — the crab is the US whose aim is to contain China; a crab with South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia and India as its claws. The recent moves for closer relationship between the US and India, advantageous though they are for us, have had the incidental effect of reinforcing this perception.

Accordingly, China has pursued a consistent strategy of containing India in return, of keeping it confined to, and busy in South Asia.

With this aim, it has given aid to Pakistan for all sorts of purposes — including the development of atomic weapons and acquisition of missile technology. And it has a long tradition of doing so. Recall the counsel of The Wiles of War, “Murder with a borrowed knife” — that is, instead of doing anything overtly aggressive yourself, find the entity that is naturally predisposed to do your enemy down; arm it. China has entered into a military pact with Bangladesh. There have been reports of its offering to build an atomic reactor for Bangladesh. Myanmar is a dependency of China. In fact, the largest supplies of Chinese arms go to four countries in our region — Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Iran.

Tibet has been militarised — to put the Tibetans down, no doubt; but only to put them down? China has redoubled its efforts in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius. It already has access to the ports of Myanmar — from which it has also taken on lease the Coco Islands just 30 miles from the Andamans. Now it is helping build and it thus acquires access to deep-sea ports round us: Chittagong in Bangladesh and Gwadar in Pakistan — the latter alone at a cost of $ 3 billion. It is also upgrading the naval base in Omara for Pakistan. Along with constructing the port at Gwadar, it is building highways that will link Gwadar to locations within Pakistan but also to Urumchi in China. The most consequential of this string of ‘initiatives’ is the project to dredge Myanmar’s Irrawaddy River — this is to be done by Chinese engineers and much Chinese labour. It isn’t just that a good proportion of this workforce will stay on in or around the new facilities. Once the project is completed, China will acquire a useable waterway giving direct access from its Yunnan province to the Bay of Bengal...

Could all this be out of absent-mindedness? The fact is that China has effectively ‘ringed’ India, and is redoubling its efforts to ring it tighter.

Furthermore, in every international arena, there is a pattern to its actions vis a vis India. It has exerted much effort to keep ASEAN from establishing closer links with India — it has campaigned to have ASEAN+3 (ASEAN, Japan, South Korea and China) and not ASEAN+4 which would have included India. It has summarily rejected the G-4 framework for the expansion of the Security Council. It did not condescend to let India enter the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation — through which it is institutionalising its influence in Central Asia. In the end, it agreed to grant us “observer status” — but only along with Pakistan and Iran; and only when we agreed to it getting the same status in SAARC and BIMSTEC: for the latter, it was vigorously supported not just by Pakistan and Bangladesh but also by our ‘traditional friends’, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Learn from China

None of this is ground for complaint against China. It is pursuing its interest as it sees them. The question we have to ponder is: ‘What are we doing for our interest?’

The lessons are manifest:

• Do not get swept off again by the ‘bhai-bhai’ business.

• Get out of the ‘see no China, speak no China, hear no China’ policy. See what China is doing with clear eyes.

• In particular, do not leave the formulation of a response to just four/five desk-officers working on the China desk.

• Reflect on the capacities that it is acquiring — as Musharraf once said, once capacities are acquired, intentions can change swiftly.

• The time to start preparing for that sudden change of intentions is the time it would take to develop the counter — that is, decades before the change ‘suddenly’ erupts in view.

• Remember, to fall behind a neighbour is to tempt him to assault us.

• Indeed, if the present distance continues, and all the more certainly if it increases, China would not have to ‘assault’ us. The distance will ensure that other countries heed it rather than us. And that we heed it too.

(Concluded)

Talk at India First Foundation

Arun Shourie

A 40-volume book series project, India: Religions and Political Challenges was launched on 23rd August 2002, by the India First Foundation. Among those present at the launching ceremony included Minister for Disinvestments, Arun Shourie, Gyanpeeth Awardee Nirmal Verma and Thinker and Social Worker S. Gurumurthy.

Excerpts of Arun Shourie's Inaugural Address at the Launch:

In the sense American intellectual activity has been built on foundations. Agar aap koi bhi ek American scholar ko dekhen, he is one of the great psychologists today. They work the most on the physiology of the mind on consciousness. If you read any book of his, in its first five pages aap yeh dekhiye ki woh kin-kin ko acknowledge karte hain. The unknown foundations and it has been one of the great omissions of the Indian tax system that we have not allowed, not made it profitable for business houses and other people to set up foundations for intellectual activity. I also feel in the sense that we underestimate, what Ramswarup Ji used to call, the seed value of ideas. In India, intellectual effort is not gaining the attention that it should. I believe that no movement can be sustained for any length of time without a continuous influx of new ideas. Its very good example is the conservative revolution in economic and social policies in the UK and the United States. Ms. Margret Thatcher's coming, and Ronald Reagan's accession were turning point and, it was a result of twenty years of strenuous intellectual efforts. The settings of institutions like the Institute of Public Policy and so on, in which they themselves worked for twenty years ki ek taxation policy par aapko chaahiye there is an answer that has been worked out. It has been debated for a day. You want something on ecology, it has been worked out in detail. That kind of effort we must put in and foundations are the real way to do it because they bring persons together.

I also feel that there is a second lesson in India. Mr. J.P. Nayak khehte they ki India mein problem aata hai we don't looked at it for many years. So that problem grows, it swells, it balloons, and explodes. Dekha... are problem hai isika. So what do you do? You set up an institution to deal with the problem. Ten years later the problem is still there and the institution is become another problem. The Institute for Advanced Studies, Nirmal Verma knows this very well. Hamaare yahaan advanced study nahin hai to Princeton ka naam lekar wahaan ki institution ek beautiful viceries ke lounge ko ruined kar ke institution banati hai. Institution has become a problem very little has come out of it. So may be there is another model and that is, we should not set up an institution which in a conventional sense has a building and a corpus. Those then become a points of contest. Jaise property inheritance per fight ho jaati hai families mein, isi tarah sansthaoon mein un cheezoon per fight ho jaati hai. May be what we should attempt in India is an Institution which disburses funds to individual scholars to meet there needs wherever they are. There are many examples of this kind that we should do and that requires a minimal need only connected with that particular work and it should be made available to the scholar wherever he/she is. There are two rules and this one is regarding in selecting the scholar. We must be brutally objective. Yeh lihaaz ki, he is a good person, he has a difficult times should not to be a criteria. The main issue is the objective of the series or of the books that we are planning and if it is able to do that, fine, and if it is not able to do it well, because he is starving then, we have to find some other way of helping him. We should not sacrifice the objectives of the institution etc. The second is that, there must be absolute strictness in standard and in delivery. If the time has been given January 2003 it must be January 2003, a particular date. In India, too many journals come up and they fade away. Foundations are set up and they fall into disuse. So that beginning is a good thing but it must be preserved. I think, the third point, which strikes me is that it is said that for intellectual work, actually very few persons are required. Aaj kal probably more are required because our mind was bombarded with impressions and images from all sides. But if you go back to 19th century the number of British Civil servant, who worked and actually forged the spectacles through which we came to see our history and our own tradition, was probably 25 or 30 percent. But the interesting thing was, that they did sustain work of the highest standard. Even today, India terms Dawson's volumes are masterly thing and that time koi woh nahin thi district mein, koi electricity nahin thi, koi communication nahin tha, koi railway line nahin thi. A scholars was sitting on his own working day and night and producing things which would last for ages. So, that kind of sustained effort is very necessary. The second point in that individual's effort is excellence. In India shoddiness is regarded as proof of commitment. Hamara libaas vaisa ho, jhola phata hua ho. That is regarded. Room untidy hai, contrast to Gandhiji's meticulous ways, so that is excellence and actually in India excellence is under assault. Today mediocrity is the norm and that is why I feel this is very important especially in groups that are disciplined or dedicated and therefore they are groups on to themselves. They become deaf to others. So that striving effort that absolute determination that whatever I shall do will meet the approbation of the experts in that field. It is true the experts may be motivated. Often it is Marxist historians who will comment adversely on what this group produces for on history. But that is separate matter.

So, excellence should be one. I think the next point is that a group is that our work must add up. It must reinforce each other's work. Kyonki ek aatish baazi jalaane se diwali to hoti nahin. Gurumurthy once used a very important phrase to me. He said a revolution is that when can we find that their is a revolution on that is when a million persons are spontaneously doing something that contributes to a particular phase and this is one of Gandhiji's many incomparable skills that whatever any individual was doing he roped him/her into the national struggle. If somebody could give up his life he was the part of the nation, if he couldn't but could go up to jail he was the part of the nation struggle, if he could not but could wear Khadi, he was the part of the nation struggle. Still if you couldn't but only spin at home because he was a government officer could not go to Khadi and become black ball in the office he could spin at the home and still be the part of the nation's struggle. If you couldn't do that and you just did Sandhya which was roped into the nation's struggle. It was accumulation and therefore the work of scholars must also add to each other that is why the importance of what Dina Nathji has initiated of doing -- a series and not just an individual book.

We had many great examples of series for instance, Max Muller's fifty volumes on "The Secret Books of the East" changed the west view about the east because it was a series and not just one book. In our own time the corpus that Sita Ram Goyal has produced has presided over has got it the people doing to Voice of India publications actually are cumulated. They reinforce each other from different direction. That is why they provide a pair of spectacles. One of the best examples I have seen, is by the Dalai Lama's initiative there is a thing called the Library of Tibet. It's a series of books and the second is that you know its great truths need to be restated in a language and example and medium and addressing problems of the time. We just keep reading the classics. Many of us may infer the lesson that holds our life at this movement. We often discover that in the reading The Dhampad or The Gita or any thing that this is the phrase that oozes into my heart today because my circumstances has allowed me to see the truth of that but most people will not be able to do it most of us are not as reflected. Therefore the great truths have to be restated and that's a very interesting point in this library of Tibet series. They are just not reprinting the Tibetans religious literature the Dalai Lama and the other Lama's are giving discourses on those teachings and thereby introducing them into our current labs. That is why the spectacles that we may have or the truths that we may have internalise or which we want to propagate and share with others. They have to be restated in the medium and contact of our child's.

I end by reflecting on the point of books. I think the first point that I have learnt Nirmal Verma and others are creative writers so they think spontaneously. But people like me are bookish writers and we read books and write our own books. Two, for example stood are in good steps one is reading is the enemy of writing. Many of us continue to read and accumulate. I have a sister in law who has done a book on The Ramayana and Indonesia because she discovered a temple of Shiva in a remote Island in Indonesia. But she has gone eight years on that book but can we even right the perfect book. One of the greatest in world influential economics and trade marshal wrote a principles of economics which we all memorize, which is the great text book on micro-economics but he never wrote the second volume because he was always perfecting this particular volume and reading more about it. So we should read to accumulate evidence and then just not wait to write for a charity. Second thing I found is re-writing is the secret of good writing. It is very necessary but that we should try to re-write even ideological works. I feel that strong words detract from the force of the argument. I give an example of a friend. Look at Baljit Roy's work on Bangladeshi infiltration. It is very important. It contains primary evidence but it uses strong words and thereby the words over come the facts. So while writing the books one has to remember that the facts speak for themselves.

Thank you.

India First Foundation