Policy Research Group   - Strategic Insight: Menon: Politically feasible framework needed on India-China border row

Menon: Politically feasible framework needed on India-China border row
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editor on 03 April, 2010 10:50:00
 
India and China should work out a detailed framework for resolution of the
boundary issue in a manner that is "politically feasible for both leaderships",
National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon said while speaking on Sino-India
relations in New Delhi on Thursday, April 1
A career diplomat, Menon, who has succeeded M K Narayanan as the NSA, is the new
Special Representative of India for the boundary talks with China.
Delivering the keynote address at a seminar on “India and China: Public
Diplomacy, Building Understanding”, Menon, who was until recently India’s
foreign secretary, said ‘both countries can now actively consider together the
next steps in the evolution of our bilateral relations; evolve a detailed
framework for the resolution of the boundary issue in a manner that is
politically feasible for both leaderships; and, seize the opportunities for
cooperation that the domestic transformations of our economies and the evolving
global situation have opened up’.
Menon went on to say: ‘Our experience suggests that there is space in Asia and
the world for both India and China to grow and develop, and for us to do so in a
way that is mutually reinforcing, if we both wish it. We also have the
experience and ability in India and China to continue to manage our relationship
successfully.
In his view it is only on the basis of informed and supportive public opinion
that it will be possible to grasp the opportunities and move forward on the
ambitious agenda that awaits India-China relations. This is the way to realise
the potential of the India-China strategic cooperative partnership for peace and
development.
Excerpts from the address:
For ancient nations and neighbours like India and China, sixty years is only a
brief moment in a long record of civilisational contact between our peoples.
Ours has always been a broader engagement, not just between our states but
between our peoples. Throughout history it was the scholars and pilgrims, the
traders and travellers, who carried ideas, goods and science from one country to
another. It is even argued by some that Buddhism, that great import from India
which was so successfully Sinicised, flourished in China until it acquired the
disadvantages of state patronage and of being a state religion, and that it was
its place in the people’s hearts that enabled it to survive and flourish until
today in China.
It was awareness of the historical contact between the two peoples of India and
China that created the basis for the attempt in the fifties to build a new type
of relationship based on Panchasheela or the Five Principles. That attempt
foundered on the boundary question and the politics that prevailed in the late
fifties and sixties internationally and in China, leading to the difficult phase
of bilateral estrangement during the sixties.
When we began the process of rebuilding state-to-state relations in the
seventies, we tried to learn the lessons of history and to bring into play the
strength of people to people links and public diplomacy as your seminar calls
it. Beginning with Foreign Minister Vajpayee’s 1979 visit to China and
culminating in Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s historic visit to China in 1988,
Indian and Chinese leaders decided that the difficult and complicated boundary
question would be addressed, but would not stand in the way of the expansion of
relations in other areas, including the economy and functional cooperation. This
approach was taken one step further by the 1993 agreement on the maintenance of
peace and tranquillity in the border areas and the 1996 CBMs agreement, which
committed both sides to preserving the status quo and established procedures to
deal with difficulties that might arise on the ground.
The results of this policy of engagement speak for themselves. Today China is
India’s largest trading partner in goods, over 3,000 Indian students study in
China, and India is one of China’s largest markets for project exports. India
and China cooperate in international organisations and on global issues. We have
established a practice of regular leadership visits and meetings that has
resulted in high level political understanding and impetus for the relationship.
By 2003 both countries were confident enough to re-address the most complicated
and difficult issue that affects bilateral relations, the India-China boundary
question, at the political level. It was decided to entrust the issue to Special
Representatives of the leaders. This decision too has borne fruit in the Guiding
Principles and Political Parameters for a boundary settlement that were agreed
during Premier Wen Jiabao’s 2005 visit to India.
In other words, differences in world view, structure, systems and foreign policy
decision making have not prevented and will not prevent an expanding engagement
between India and China, successfully managing contradictions while building on
congruence. The two countries have found a modus vivendi to deal with the fact
of the boundary issue and to manage their different approaches to issues where
their peripheries overlap. India and China both cooperate and compete at the
same time because of their interests and how they perceive the balance of power
and situation around them. We have also shown through practice that our
bilateral relations are too important to be affected by our relations with any
third country.
Both countries can now actively consider together the next steps in the
evolution of our bilateral relations; evolve a detailed framework for the
resolution of the boundary issue in a manner that is politically feasible for
both leaderships; and, seize the opportunities for cooperation that the domestic
transformations of our economies and the evolving global situation have opened
up.
The Prospect
Today, India has been transformed, China has changed beyond recognition, and the
two countries are increasing the well being of their people and contributing to
the emergence of a multi-polar world.
The global trend towards multi-polarity and a more even distribution of power
has been accelerated by the recent global economic crisis. While the immediate
financial aspects of the crisis may have been addressed, its structural causes
in terms of global imbalances remain unsolved. Both the trend towards
multi-polarity and the financial crisis have actually increased the opportunity
and need for India and China to work together on global issues. As the visionary
joint statement issued by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Premier Wen Jiabao
in January 2008 made clear, both countries share common positions and approaches
on several major international issues of long-term significance such as the
environment and climate change, energy security, food security, remaking the
institutions of global governance, and international support for national
economic and social development efforts.
In the immediate region in which both countries are located, Asia, as well,
there is common ground between India and China on combating terrorism and
extremism, enhancing maritime security, and on the need for a peaceful
environment to permit the domestic transformation of the two countries. While
there may be differences in method and choice of tools, in most cases there is a
marked similarity of goals. Naturally, the bilateral modus vivendi which has
been in place for some time may need to be reworked periodically in the light of
developments in our countries and around us.
Our experience suggests that there is space in Asia and the world for both India
and China to grow and develop, and for us to do so in a way that is mutually
reinforcing, if we both wish it. We also have the experience and ability in
India and China to continue to manage our relationship successfully.
As India and China continue to pursue their interests, so long as their
overwhelming preoccupation remains their domestic transformation, and both
understand that this goal requires a peaceful periphery, it is my understanding
that the elements of competition in the bilateral relationship can be managed
and the elements of congruence can be built upon. As our interests get
progressively more complex, the costs of withdrawal from engagement rise.
The larger issue is whether India and China can work together to help to manage
the complicated regional security environment in Asia. India’s preference is
for the open security architecture and the sort of multi-polarity that China too
has advocated previously for global issues, and from which we have both
benefited in the recent past.
To do so, India, China and other rising Asian powers must be willing and capable
of contributing to global public goods in terms of security, growth and
stability that the region and world require. How will we help to preserve
security in the global commons? Asia has proved that she can do the economics.
Can she also do the politics that come with power?
You might ask what this has to do with public diplomacy by India and China, the
topic of your seminar. Everything is my answer, for two principal reasons. One
is the shrill and over excitable commentary on the relationship that has
appeared in both countries in the last year or so. The emergence of
“nativist” voices, and the loud expression of opinion as fact in the new
media which purports to express public opinion, could introduce volatility in
perceptions. We have all witnessed this phenomenon in India-China relations in
the last year or so. When the world is changing so rapidly, and when uncertainty
in the international system is at unprecedented levels, neither India nor China
can afford misperceptions or distortions of policy caused by a lack of
understanding of each other’s compulsions and policy processes.
Secondly, in a democracy like India foreign policy has a symbiotic relationship
with public opinion; it is both formed by it and needs its support to be
legitimate, coherent and implementable.
And that is why public diplomacy by both countries becomes important, to bring
issues into perspective and to make clear the context and implications of public
policy.
It is only on the basis of informed and supportive public opinion that we will
be able to grasp the opportunities and move forward on the ambitious agenda that
awaits India-China relations, the pursuit of which would place India-China
relations on a sound footing for the twenty-first century, and enable us to
realise the potential of the India-China strategic cooperative partnership for
peace and development.
I therefore wish you success in your seminar. You have a wide canvas to cover in
terms of the relationship and the contribution that public diplomacy can make to
it – whether through academic exchanges, journalism, civil society contacts
and so-called track two dialogue between Indians and Chinese, all of which are
becoming richer by the day. I wish you well and look forward with anticipation
to learning the results of your deliberations.