It has been a busy year for India when it comes to international relations. India has already hosted leaders of 4 of the P5 countries and the 5th will be coming soon. The most awaited visit was that of Wen Jiabao in the context of growing tensions between the two.
Despite the panchsheel and myriad other agreements China finds means and ways to irritate India. The latest being the stapled visa issue. India’s response has often been weak to the challenges thrown up by China. Post crisis China ‘s stakes in the global economy has raised to high and it now wields great power. But with great power comes great responsibility which is clearly lacking in the chinese way of politicking. It has constantly been at loggerheads with its neighbours be it japan, India or South Korea.
The growing presence of India in international fora has clearly irked China which seeks to be the dominant power down south. India’s policy towards China is flawed and lacks direction. At a time when China is putting its foot forward aggressively India is taking a step backward and pacifying the dragon. When China began throwing tantrums on Arunachal issue, India declared that it supported one China policy. At a time when trade deficit has reached unsustained levels, we have doubled our trade targets. While china puts up trade barriers for frontline indian industries, we are opening up our sensitive sectors like banking and finance to China .
On the stapled visa issue, India has been repeatedly imploring China to review its policy despite China giving a crass reply that it is an administrative issue!!How can a state belonging to India be an administrative issue for a foreign nation?? India needs to take a tit for tat stance on Tibet. In this regard India seems to have made some progress by not mentioning that it supports the one China policy in the joint statement. Also India’s decision to attend nobel prize ceremony should have sent a clear message to China .
Post 1962 war China captured a large chunk of J&K area known as aksai chin. Till date India has never demanded China to return back the land and even China has never bothered to tender apology to India for violating the panchsheel doctrine.
The widespread public view is that with the growing trade ties, China would be less aggressive and more obliging to India’s concerns. That doesn’t seem to be true. During the visit none of the core concerns of India seem to be addressed by China . The joint statement says that the ties have now be elevated form bilateral to global level. But what use are ties when they have divergent views? Even on a issue like terrorism, China refrained form taking a hard position.
India and China have agreed to cooperate on nuclear disarmament declares the joint statement. This seems to be more of a platitude than a commitment. This is clearly reflected in the fact that China has been actively empowering Pakistan , a state that is on the brink of failure, with nuclear technology.
On the whole Mr Wen’s trip was a mere PR operation. In the last 5 years there have been 4 high level delegation visits by India to China while from China this is the only visit. This sums up how the relationship is playing out. We need to make amends on our policy towards China .
