Indian foreign policy towards China is truly being tested now, with over 40 Chinese troops pitching a few tents across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Indian territory. Considering China has intruded 19 km into Indian territory, the nature of the Indian response assumes importance — New Delhi should accordingly talk and act tough with Beijing. Clearly, it is not a localised action as was made out in the initial stages. To compound the challenge, the Chinese have lately pitched a few more tents, which signals their intention to further entrench themselves on Indian territory.

China seeks to stake claim to the territory through the physical presence of its troops on ground. All along, the two neighbours have sought to assert their presence through patrols, which periodically pass through these disputed borders, and leave tell-tale signs such as food packets, cigarette butts or other items, to stake their territorial claims. However, the two sides have never attempted to maintain a semi-permanent presence on these territories, such as pitching tents. To reciprocate the Chinese move, the Indian troops too have now pitched tents that have resulted in a face-off between the two sides.

Feeble foreign policy won't do

Today, New Delhi is completely at a loss on how to deal with such a tricky situation, considering it demands close coordination between the army and the diplomacy with higher direction from the political leadership. To add to the complexity of the challenge, the newly installed Chinese President is due to visit India shortly.

How should New Delhi craft its policy towards Beijing in such a situation? For India, the two options towards China are: whether or not to take a hardline policy. Till now, India, with its feeble foreign policy has never ventured to adopt a hardline policy towards China, and only adopted such a policy in the case of Pakistan.

New Delhi needs to realise that when dealing with China, only a hardline policy pays dividends, especially with incidents of territorial violations of such a serious nature. This is borne out by the fact that the 1986-87 Sumdorung Chu episode, when the Indian and Chinese troops were in a similar face-off against each other, was resolved through an Indian show of force at the tactical level. If the Indian Ministry of External Affairs was solely allowed to manage the crisis, the chaos perhaps would have been unimaginable. Fortunately, the Indian Army had good field level commanders who acted as they deemed fit which saved the day in the Sumdorung Chu episode.

Evidently no other government agency, apart from the army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, really knows the lay of the land; but their local commanders are not allowed autonomy to act instantaneously and instead have to await instructions from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) mandarins based in New Delhi. The problem is that the MEA bosses are not familiar with the terrain, which proves a major handicap in their decision-making during crises of a territorial nature.

Jolt relations with China

If New Delhi needs to adopt a hardline policy, how does it translate on the ground? New Delhi should act tough with Beijing by suspension of trade ties, which is bound to impact China, however small it is. The forthcoming visit of the Chinese President needs to be called off. In a sense, New Delhi should start treating China just the way it would relate to Pakistan. Why does New Delhi have to bend backward and be worried or overly sensitive about Beijing’s sentiments? It is high time that New Delhi speaks tough with Beijing and not project a meek face and ‘we-are-desperate-to-be-friendly with you’ attitude.

The problem with the Indian political leadership and its MEA bureaucracy is that they are afraid to rock the boat and take hard decisions in the context of China. The nature of decision making is ad hoc and not necessarily in tune with reality. The decision makers are more worried about criticism from the Opposition if something goes wrong, instead of taking bold decisions. The public pronouncements suggest ignorance of statecraft and diplomacy, especially those by political leaders steeped in domestic politics.

The only way out of such an impasse is to jolt relations with China and convey clearly to Zhongnanhai — the seat of Chinese government, that South Block means business and India is strong in political, military and economic terms. Any other policy approach would amount to appeasement and convey the wrong signal to Beijing.

(The writer teaches International Relations at the Christ University, Bangalore)

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