ABSTRACT
In a study commissioned by the International Peace Academy (New York) and the Monterey Institute of International Studies it is alleged that China did not take the South Asian region seriously as an area of strategic importance to Chinese interests until 1998 when India conducted its nuclear tests. Sidhu and Yuan base this assessment on their reading of China’s defence papers.1 This view is at odds with the history of Chinese involvement – initially by imperial Manchu China in the promotion of its frontier policy in Mongolia, Tibet, its northern and western borders, and in the Himalayan area – Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal and northeast India. There were other pre-1949 channels of contact between China and India. British India promoted opium exports to China that led to war (1839-42) and defeat and formed a historical memory about the ill-effects of British imperialism on China. The China-Burma road was used to ferry supplies to China to support the Chiang Kai-Shek war effort against Japan and the communists. This road re-emerged as a physical gateway between China, Burma and India, and is currently, since the early 1980s, an active strategic corridor. The territorial claims of the Chinese Nationalist government (1912-67) were assumed by China’s communist government and remain an issue between China and India since 1949. China’s involvement was at times indirect and unstable as in relation to Tibet; at times it was direct and unstable as in relation to development of trade along the Silk route but Chinese imperial history and accounts of reputable Western scholars like Owen Lattimore, Alastair Lamb, John Rowland, S. B. Cohen, Michael C. van Walt van Praag, A. B. Bozeman, C. P. Fitzgerald and others record imperial China’s strong interest and involvement in the frontier areas of the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. Beijing projects a public view of India as a sub-regional (South Asian) force
in the contemporary world.2 However, in my view, the PRC’s dismissive pose about India is not a serious indication of the nature and scope of China’s India policy. My view is that the PRC follows an active China-centric policy in its approach to India; it takes it seriously as a strategic rival, and acts to contain its regional and international presence. The retreat of the European
empires from south and Southeast Asia gave the PRC an opportunity to enlarge its territorial and strategic frontiers. Its belief in the need to reform the world system through Chinese pressures came from Maoist confidence in its aims and methods in war and peace issues. For China, India was the main regional rival for influence in the southern zone. It had access to the major world capitals since the early 1950s as a result of Nehru’s diplomacy. It had influence as a moderating force in a bipolarized Cold War and in relation to radical elements in the Third World. Also, Nehru’s ability to play on Sino-Soviet, Sino-US, and US-Soviet rivalries added to China’s mistrust of Nehru’s policies and the role of China’s rivals in the strategic Himalayan area. Because of India’s geographical location and diplomatic capacity to get involved in big power games in Asia, China’s leaders could not leave India alone. Its democratic credentials made it an attractive alternative to radical China. From its perspective China adopted a realist perspective towards India.
It saw it as a ‘reactionary’ force that was aligned with two Chinese enemies – US and Soviet ‘imperialisms’. This line was consistent with Mao’s politics of hate and western diplomatic practices that require formation of ‘us versus them’ distinctions to build coalitions against enemies. Demeaning ‘Indians’, their leaders and their institutions and capacities is a form of psychological warfare. The chapter shows the rise of the Tibetan-Himalayan area as the southern
epicentre of Chinese military and diplomatic strategy in 1950 just as the Korean peninsula, Japan and Taiwan emerged as the northern epicentre of its military and diplomatic strategy. Both strategic flanks engaged Beijing’s attention and both emerged as points of strategic interactions between China and the world. The 1940-50 period was one of high activism in communist Chinese
strategy towards the area. It had several significant drivers. 1. Territorial – where China was driven to assert its territorial interests in Tibet and to consolidate its frontiers with Soviet Union and India and to manage its physical security in its southern region. 2. Legal – where China was driven to assert its legal rights on the basis of Nationalist claims and treaty negotiations with British India and Tibet before 1947. 3. Geo-political – where China was driven to assess its position in relation to the geo-politics of the Tibet-Himalayan region, the cockpit of rivalries between British India, imperial Russia and imperial China with Tibet as a historical buffer between Russia, British India and China. 4. Ideological – where China was driven to liberate the Tibetans from feudalism and to check the policies of Indian ‘reactionaries’ and their ‘imperialist’ associates. In Maoist view, Tibet was the palm with five fingers – Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh-Xinjiang and India’s northeastern area, and the area was a focus of China-inspired revolutionary change. The early experiences with two strategic triangles occurred in the context of
rapidly changing state forms in India and China, the retreat of European
empires from Asia, the failure of US and Japanese interventions in China in the 1930s and the 1940s and the rise of a centrally organized, highly motivated and militarized Communist China. It gained the confidence that its stronger political will, better political and military organization, psychological preparation of the Chinese people and united front tactics could defeat superior Japanese and US/KMT military power. These triangles had three tipping points. The first related to the retreat of the British India Empire in 1947 from the Himalayan scene and the breakup of the unity of its frontier policy in Afghanistan, northwest and northeast India and the Himalayan area as a result of the geographical and political division of British India. The second related to the rise of a communist controlled China with internal political unity and military strength in 1949 where a militarily weak country had waged a successful rebellion against foreign powers. The third related to the decision to use military intervention to force China’s occupation of Tibet without Tibetan consent. These tipping points altered the distribution of military power in the
region. It had been asymmetrical in favour of British India and against a weak Manchu China and an autonomous Tibet before 1947. Nehru’s policy emphasized political diplomacy over development of Indian military strength; he did not understand the importance of geo-politically driven diplomacy. As a result his policy increased the asymmetrical distribution of military power in the Himalayan region. The pattern of inter-state relationships also changed in a fundamental way. In the pre-1947 British India-Tibet-Manchu China triangle the involvement of British India and Manchu China in Tibetan affairs was indirect and stable for Britain because Tibet’s internal institutions, the treaty arrangements, its political consciousness and capacity to negotiate with outside powers gave it autonomy; and Britain used Tibet’s autonomy, and China’s suzerainty in Tibet as a way to keep Russia out of Tibet. Manchu weakness, however, kept its influence indirect and unstable in Tibet. The calculated ambiguity in British India’s Tibet policy on the one hand managed the British India-Tibet-Manchu China triangle, and on the other hand contained Russian expansion. It played as well on China’s interest to maintain Tibetan autonomy as a check against Russian expansion, a common interest of imperial Britain and imperial China vis-à-vis imperial Russia. This delicate pattern of relationships was altered as a result of changing state forms and regional policies with only one thread of continuity: the Russia-China rivalry of the imperial past was replaced by the strategic and ideological rivalry between the two communist neighbours. As a result of China’s military intervention in 1950 in Tibet its indirect influence was replaced by direct military occupation. Following the surrender of Indian rights in Tibet and acknowledgement that Tibet was a part of China, the government of India abandoned its position in the Himalayan triangle. The pre-1947 British India-Tibet-Manchu China triangle was replaced by a new triangle between China, India, the Dalai Lama’s government in exile in Dharamsala (Northern India) and the world community.
