Match-up: The dragon versus the elephant

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The chess moves are fascinating as well is intriguing!

• Tibet irks China and Dalai Lama is a scourge for them. India’s Tibet policy is well known to each and everyone. Kashmir is a problem which India is trying to sort out, Pakistan tries to show her stakes in Kashmir which always proved futile and China has its own economic stakes in Pakistan especially so PoK. Thus the concoction is lethal but is India making the right moves?
• There is unrest in China internally with Muslim militancy troubling Western Chinese provinces, the population implosion has ensured that the unemployment has increased manifold. Cheap Chinese goods have their own sprawling market in India. Thus the Chinese maneuvers have to be replied in an appropriate manner which India is not doing. Rather, India is downplaying everything that includes the intrusions.
• Physical geography alone does not form or carve or determine geographic entities. The activity of people also is of critical importance to this process. Geographic units, from blocs and countries to regions, must be understood as a product of people interacting in socio-economic and political terms.
• Top defense scientists, on the sidelines of the annual DRDO awards on Monday, said that they were quite confident India would have ICBMs and SLBMs, even though their strike ranges would be much lesser than American, Russian or Chinese missiles, as also a functional BMD system soon after the turn of this decade. The nature of such a military build-up must be questioned. Who is it aimed at and what are its primary objectives? Are these capabilities meant to act as a deterrence or are they part of something more? These are important questions. Chinese defense policy makers are searching answers for these questions!

( The writer is Editor-in-Chief of a Jammu based English daily Kattu Satya)

By R.K Dubey

JAMMU, NOV 3: Two very important and pertinent things as regards Sino-Indian relations have happened in the last two months or so. One was Chinese first intrusion into Indian territory in Ladakh and then following it up in Arunachal Pradesh. The second thing was Chinese embassy on its own deciding to issue separate Visas to the Kashmiris thereby in another words challenging India’s principled stance on Kashmir. The question which is not yet been answered is why is China doing it. Though the Chinese premier and Indian Prime Minister met in Thailand and lots of good vibes flowed but nothing concrete came out as it was expected. China definitely is doing some serious shadow punching trying to provoke Indian to take on some big measures, but so far everything that is happening is being through the mouthpieces of the men who matter. For example Sashi Tharoor came out with a statement that visas to the Chinese labor would be placed under securitization within the policy framework of Sino-Indian ties. But will this solve the current crisis of Visas since Chinese embassy has adopted a no-holds bar attitude of going along with their policy of issuing separate visas to the Kashmiris. No, it doesn’t solve. The Indian influence on Tibetians definitely is irking the Chinese and thus to counter that frustration the Chinese policy makers are adopting the needle-pricking tactics to pressurize India on Kashmir. Just as a reminder readers Chinese policy on Kashmir till late fifties was neutral Another move that the Chinese initiated was when they began to fund some projects in POK to which again India has objected and the reason for is that POK is still part of Jammu and Kashmir. Another thing which is giving impetus to the Chinese maneuvers as far as Jammu and Kashmir goes is the separatist brotherhood in the valley who perhaps over the years have lost faith in Pakistan and its Kashmir policy and thus are hailing each and every overture that China is making on Kashmir. In fact China is making some real time calculated moves..

Due to tensions with China, the Indian ruling establishment still holds onto a vision about a showdown with the Chinese. An encircling military ring that involves India has been created around China. New Delhi has been involved in the framework of military cooperation with the Periphery aimed at China. Under this framework, India has joined Japan, the U.S., and Australia in forming a de facto “Quadrilateral Coalition” to neutralize China through the establishment of a ring of containment that could see a naval blockade form in the event of a war around the borders of China.

In a war between China and an outside power, cutting off Chinese energy supplies would be central to defeating Beijing. Without any fuel the military hardware of the People’s Liberation Army would be rendered useless. It is from this standpoint that India is building its naval strength and cooperating militarily in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific with the Periphery. It is also with Chinese energy supplies, Indian naval expansion, and the encirclement of China in mind that the Indian military has prepared to introduce, by 2014, what it calls “Indigenous Aircraft Carriers” (IACs), each with two takeoff runways and one landing strip for up to 30 military aircraft.

New Delhi has also been working to upgrade its military capabilities to match those of the U.S., Russia, and China. The process involves the possession of inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM), submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), and ballistic missile defence (BMD) capabilities. It was reported on May 13, 2008 that Indian military scientists predicted that India would posses all three capabilities by 2010 or 2011: By 2010-2011, India hopes to gatecrash into a very exclusive club of countries, which have both ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) and SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles) as well as BMD (ballistic missile defence) capabilities.

Only the US and Russia strictly qualify for this club as of now, if all the three capabilities — ICBM, SLBM and BMD — are taken together, with countries like China not too far behind.

Sino-Indian Border Conflict was a war between China and India that occurred in 1962. A disputed Himalayan border was the main pretext for war, but other issues played a role. There had been a series of violent border incidents after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when India had granted asylum to the Dalai Lama. In response to Chinese incursions, India initiated a Forward Policy in which it placed outposts along the border, including several north of the McMahon Line, the eastern portion of a Line of Actual Control proclaimed by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1959. The Chinese launched simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line on 20 October 1962, coinciding with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Chinese troops advanced over Indian forces in both theaters, capturing Rezang la in Chushul in the western theater, as well as Tawang in the eastern theater. The war ended when the Chinese declared a ceasefire on 20 November 1962, and later withdrew from the disputed area.

2009 is not 1962. The world ahs changed by leaps and bound and India today is amongst global powers standing at the rim of getting into the elite of club of nations who are both economically and militarily strong. As far as China goes it seems that the policy makers are fearing that in the coming decade the Indians may overtake the Chinese in the race to the top. This insecurity is driving Chinese back to 1962 tactics where they started first needle pricking the Indians and the use other tactics. China’s sudden change in its policy towards India whether intrusion, Jammu and Kashmir policy, borders along China, or Dalai Lama’s (exiled leader of Tibet) visit to Arunachal Pradesh are fair indicators that China acknowledges India at par with it and indirectly doing the things which it cannot do directly sensing India’s growing economic/military strength.