ROUND THE WORLD

New Delhi, 16 January 2008

PM’s China Visit

SYMBOLISM OVER SUBSTANCE

By Seema Sridhar

School of International Studies, JNU

The Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh just concluded his first State visit to India’s largest and most awe-inspiring neighbour, the People’s Republic of China. The two sides have signed 11 wide-ranging agreements, decided to triple the trade target within the next four years and deepen their defence engagement. The current visit, just weeks after India and China held their first-ever joint military exercise in December 2007, a landmark confidence building measure augers well for bilateral ties.

China’s significance to India because of its location, it’s imposing geographical size, magnitude of its armed forces that have recently been modernized and now most importantly its economic supremacy brought about by its rather unusual blend of capitalism and communism renders this visit of prime importance to India’s foreign policy.

The historical ties between the countries, cradling the world’s ancient civilizations have been characterized by mutual mistrust and cynicism in the past. Efforts to build bridges have always been marred by this mutual suspicion rising especially from the border disputes between the two. The results that have emerged out of such State visits in the past have been if anything, cosmetic in nature.

What is it that makes this State visit different? What are the most important issues that are being addressed? And what are the possible outcomes of these?

India and China are two of the fastest growing economies and have been competing with each other for foreign investment. The two are the most populous nations of the world and have to face the common challenges of developing economies which are in transition. They are also facing the common threat of terrorism and insurgency within their respective national boundaries. These commonalities need to be found and furthered in the midst of systemic differences between these two essentially diverse nations.

One issue where the interests of New Delhi and Beijing have converged is climate change. At the UN Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change Conference in Bangkok in May 2007, China made a submission that developed countries should formally recognize they were responsible for 95 per cent of the green house gas emissions from the pre-industrial era to 1950, and for 77 per cent from 1950 to 2000.

This contention was strongly backed by India and Brazil and the three of them rejected that all the countries had to bear the responsibility of combating climate change equally. Instead, they pushed for increased focus on the rich, developed countries whose per capita green house emissions were far steeper than those of the developing world. Thus, the dragon and the elephant found their common strengthened voice against imposition of emission curbs and their own view of combating the global threat of climate change, reflecting a larger stand for the developing world.

Speaking of areas that have immense potential for cooperation, trade is one such area which is under-exploited. In 2003, the two Governments had established a Joint Study Group to examine the potential for economic engagement. The most significant decision taken during this round of talks was to set an ambitious two-way trade target of $60 billion by 2010 --- reflecting their confidence to make business the primary vehicle to lead the rapidly growing relations.

Economic ties between these two economic growth propellers in Asia, has not reached it full potential despite bilateral trade crossing $30 billion in 2007. The previous target of $40 billion by 2010 is expected to be reached this year itself. However, the high non-tariff barriers are acting as one of the major impediments towards this end. The tilt in the trade balance in Beijing’s favour is a source of discomfort to New Delhi.

The Indian exports in finished goods fall short of expectations as compared to the raw materials and these need to be reversed in New Delhi’s interests. The barriers to direct investments imposed in India and the undeclared restrictions imposed on the import of cotton by China have been key concerns. The revision of import duty on cotton in India would give respite to the Indian farmers growing cotton. Any progress in this arena would boost economic ties and set the tone for a distant vision of economic cooperation replacing competition and needs to be furthered by the Joint Study Groups.

India’s growing ties with the United States is not seen favourably by Beijing even though New Delhi has made it clear that it is not part of any ‘contain China’ strategy. The Chinese position on India's civil nuclear cooperation is also expected to be part of the discussions. New Delhi is hopeful that Beijing’s perceptions of the same would be more positive after this round of talks.

Officials in New Delhi have stated that India has not explicitly sought the support of China in the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) during the talks. Beijing has always been wary of New Delhi’s traditional support to the Tibetans and there are other issues of strategic alignments in the region such as China’s long standing support to Pakistan, the Chinese influence in Myanmar, which add fuel to the atmosphere of Sino-Indian distrust.

The most contentious historical dispute between the two is over the boundary line that stretches across the Himalayan ranges. According to New Delhi, China is illegally occupying 43,180 sq km of Jammu and Kashmir, including 5,180 sq km illegally ceded to Beijing by Islamabad under the Sino-Pakistan boundary agreement in 1963.

China’s contention is that India possesses some 90,000 sq km of Chinese territory, mostly in Arunachal Pradesh. Since 1988, when the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, visited China, a new phase of rapprochement began, which continues to this day, without any substantive conclusion over the border dispute.

During the 1990’s, India and China held a series of talks to create the conditions for a fair boundary settlement. The 1993 and 1996 agreements to maintain peace and tranquility along the Line of Actual Control (LoAC) were results of this phase. After ten meetings of a Sino-Indian Joint Working Group (SIJWG) and five of an expert group to resolve where the LoAC lies, scant progress has been made.

The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, have decided not to let their five-decade border dispute cloud the growth in their relationship and have now set a deadline for "arriving at an agreed framework of settlement" to the problem.

With the Chinese recognition of Sikkim as a part of India by opening the Nathu La pass to trade and the Indian recognition of Tibet as an autonomous part of China, a certain degree of understanding was reached on two of the many difficult border issues between the two neighbours, no matter if they are not resolved completely.

During the Chinese President Hu's visit in November 2006 the two countries laid down a ten-pronged strategy to improve the quality of the bilateral ties. The Indian side underplayed the reports of Chinese incursions in Arunachal Pradesh during the discussions. The official position is that other mechanisms were in place to discuss any such issue.

Decades of negotiations over disputed glaciers has only resulted in a commitment to resolve the dispute through dialogue. The way both sides perceive activities on either side of the border are very different and unilateral in approach, which is why not much was expected on the boundary dispute front, during the talks.

True, emphasis upon economic relations is necessary for mutual co-operation and growth, but relations would be mired in mutual skepticism until the border issue is resolved. Since security relations are pre-dominant in the Sino-Indian relationship, no substantive result is expected in the near future as far as this sphere is concerned. This visit is therefore symbolic of a willingness to co-exist and to explore possibilities to co-operate with each other, placed in the larger regional and global context. ----INFA

(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)

ROUND THE WORLD

New Delhi, 9 January 2008

PM’s Passage to China

EXPECTATIONS & IMPORTANCE

By Dr. Chintamani Mahapatra

School of International Studies, JNU

The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began his first official visit to China yesterday (January 13). He will be on the Chinese soil for three days to cement further existing ties between the two countries. How significant is this visit? And what will be the outcome?

Whenever a summit between Indian and Chinese leaders take place, speculations and expectations go up in the air about some breakthrough in the resolution of the territorial disputes between the two countries. Similar is the case, as the Prime Minister begins his talks with his Chinese counterparts.

Ever since China invaded India in October 1962, occupied several thousand square kilometers of Indian land and unilaterally declared ceasefire, the relationship between the two Asian giants have never been quite normal. In the post-Cold War strategic scenario, the two countries agreed to maintain peace and tranquility along the border, established joint working groups and expert groups to mutually discuss the territorial dispute and come up with some formula to resolve the issue. 

Several rounds of negotiations have taken place, but no solution of this emotive issue has come about. In the meantime, reports of border tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) have periodically raised concerns particularly in the border states of the North-east, especially Arunachal Pradesh including Tawang, which the Chinese continue to claim as their territory. Also, Beijing has still not officially recognized Sikkim as a part of India.

However, the Ministry of External Affairs has already warned against high expectations from Manmohan Singh’s three days sojourn in China. Notwithstanding, that the Prime Minister discussed the vexed border issue with his counterpart Wen Jiabao over dinner last night prior to the delegation-level talks today. (More later)

The significance of Singh’s trip to China or lack of it is reflected in the fact that this is going to be the first official prime ministerial trip to Beijing in more than four years! He has visited the United States, Russia, and Japan to strengthen the strategic partnerships with all these three major powers. China comes the last.

Moreover, leaders from very many countries have made their annual pilgrimages to the People’s Republic of China where capitalism is thriving under Communist rule, but the father of the Indian economic reforms chose Beijing as his last destination among the major global powers.

True, the Prime Minister hosted the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, in 2005 and may have inter-acted with him and other Chinese leaders in various international forums, but there have been very few summit meetings between Indian and Chinese leaders under the UPA Government that came to power in mid-2004.

There is no doubt that Sino-Indian relations in the economic field are on the upswing. There are predictions that China at the current rate of growth of trade with India may even surpass the United States and become the largest trading partner of India in the near future. This can actually serve as great rhetoric, but the reality is it can hardly replace the strategic significance of the Indian economic ties with the US.

Besides, it is very difficult to beat China in statistical representation of its economic successes. It is emerging as a big challenge to the US dominance in Asian trade even with American allies, such as Japan and South Korea. But as far as India is concerned, China will be co-existing with considerable uneasiness for a considerable time in the future.

India’s increasingly intense engagement with China is a positive development for both the countries as well as for peace and stability in the Asian continent. The territorial disputes between the two countries have not been allowed to pose an insurmountable road-block in the economic and socio-cultural exchanges between the two countries. Both the countries have also developed adequate deterrence to refrain from military exchanges.

All these are good news. But the economic geography and the geo-politics of Asia will make China and India competitors in the short term and rivals in the long term. And this explains the uneasy co-existence of these two Asian giants. India’s geographical and demographical size, comparable civilization and historical depth along with its rapid economic progress and military modernization have made China sit up and look at India as its major emerging challenge in Asia.

There was a time when Beijing was not prepared to sit and discuss with New Delhi security issues, including the nuclear issues, on the ground that India was not a major power actor in international politics. Today, when the whole world looks at India as a rising power, China has altered its opinion and engagement policy. What are the Chinese concerns and approaches?

Firstly, Beijing has been apprehensively watching the unprecedented improvement in Indo-US relations in the security and defense sectors and appears to be more concerned about the Indo-US nuclear deal that may truly elevate New Delhi’s strategic partnership with Washington to new heights. If this materializes, China’s misplaced fear of encirclement by the US and its allies/partners would look more real to Beijing.

Secondly, China appears to be envious of India’s rising defense and security relationships with Japan, the Indo-Chinese countries and the South-East Asian nations. As India enters into more and more agreements with these countries on naval cooperation, arms transfer, military exercises and intelligence sharing which China has not been able to do so at a similar scale, Beijing’s apprehensions are further compounded.

It is a fact that East and South-East Asian countries consider China as a potential threat and tremendous challenge to their security. The same countries have little to fear from democratic India. Whatever little apprehensions were there in late 1980s and early 1990s regarding the Indian military, particularly naval, modernization and expansions have disappeared with New Delhi’s close inter-actions with these countries.

Thirdly, India’s naval exercises with Japan and the United States in the Pacific and with Australia, Singapore, Japan and the US in the Indian Ocean, coupled with proposals for closer ties among Asian democracies have generated a sense of isolation among the Chinese leaders.

Somehow the Chinese now feel the need to be in the centre of activities and attractions in whatever sub-regional or regional groupings that are being formed in Asia. Any forum where India is in and China is out creates doubts and suspicion in the Chinese minds.

Beijing has, of course, not kept quiet. It tries its best to keep India out of several initiatives and conflict management efforts in Asia. Firstly, India should have been ideally a member of the multi-lateral mechanism to address the nuclear question of the Korean Peninsula.

The Group of Six should have been the Group of Seven by including India. Since North Korea has been a long standing arms supplier to Pakistan and has illegal Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) linkages with Pakistan, New Delhi should have been part of the diplomatic efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. It is China that could be held responsible for India’s exclusion.

Secondly, China is currently on its way to creating road blocks for the successful evolution of the East Asian Summit forum where India is an original member. While New Delhi wants this forum to be an inclusive one, Beijing supports the idea of making it a two-stage process, the first being the ASEAN. And the second, where China is a member but India is not.

Thirdly, China has not endorsed the Indian proposal for establishing an Asian Economic Community to include all the countries located in a region spanning from the Himalayas to the Pacific. Beijing would not like New Delhi to steal the show by making such grand initiatives and becoming the core of such a community.

Thus, the nature of China-India relationship in the years to come has begun to unfold. It would be characterized by competition and subsequently rivalry for the Asian leadership. Nonetheless, it is imperative for New Delhi to engage Beijing in all aspects and dimensions of its foreign policy. The goal should be to immunize this competitive spirit from escalating into a conflict. Manmohan Singh’s trip to China would certainly be a step further in this direction. ---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

ROUND THE WORLD

New Delhi, 9 January 2008

PM’s Passage to China

EXPECTATIONS & IMPORTANCE

By Dr. Chintamani Mahapatra

School of International Studies, JNU

The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began his first official visit to China yesterday (January 13). He will be on the Chinese soil for three days to cement further existing ties between the two countries. How significant is this visit? And what will be the outcome?

Whenever a summit between Indian and Chinese leaders take place, speculations and expectations go up in the air about some breakthrough in the resolution of the territorial disputes between the two countries. Similar is the case, as the Prime Minister begins his talks with his Chinese counterparts.

Ever since China invaded India in October 1962, occupied several thousand square kilometers of Indian land and unilaterally declared ceasefire, the relationship between the two Asian giants have never been quite normal. In the post-Cold War strategic scenario, the two countries agreed to maintain peace and tranquility along the border, established joint working groups and expert groups to mutually discuss the territorial dispute and come up with some formula to resolve the issue. 

Several rounds of negotiations have taken place, but no solution of this emotive issue has come about. In the meantime, reports of border tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) have periodically raised concerns particularly in the border states of the North-east, especially Arunachal Pradesh including Tawang, which the Chinese continue to claim as their territory. Also, Beijing has still not officially recognized Sikkim as a part of India.

However, the Ministry of External Affairs has already warned against high expectations from Manmohan Singh’s three days sojourn in China. Notwithstanding, that the Prime Minister discussed the vexed border issue with his counterpart Wen Jiabao over dinner last night prior to the delegation-level talks today. (More later)

The significance of Singh’s trip to China or lack of it is reflected in the fact that this is going to be the first official prime ministerial trip to Beijing in more than four years! He has visited the United States, Russia, and Japan to strengthen the strategic partnerships with all these three major powers. China comes the last.

Moreover, leaders from very many countries have made their annual pilgrimages to the People’s Republic of China where capitalism is thriving under Communist rule, but the father of the Indian economic reforms chose Beijing as his last destination among the major global powers.

True, the Prime Minister hosted the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, in 2005 and may have inter-acted with him and other Chinese leaders in various international forums, but there have been very few summit meetings between Indian and Chinese leaders under the UPA Government that came to power in mid-2004.

There is no doubt that Sino-Indian relations in the economic field are on the upswing. There are predictions that China at the current rate of growth of trade with India may even surpass the United States and become the largest trading partner of India in the near future. This can actually serve as great rhetoric, but the reality is it can hardly replace the strategic significance of the Indian economic ties with the US.

Besides, it is very difficult to beat China in statistical representation of its economic successes. It is emerging as a big challenge to the US dominance in Asian trade even with American allies, such as Japan and South Korea. But as far as India is concerned, China will be co-existing with considerable uneasiness for a considerable time in the future.

India’s increasingly intense engagement with China is a positive development for both the countries as well as for peace and stability in the Asian continent. The territorial disputes between the two countries have not been allowed to pose an insurmountable road-block in the economic and socio-cultural exchanges between the two countries. Both the countries have also developed adequate deterrence to refrain from military exchanges.

All these are good news. But the economic geography and the geo-politics of Asia will make China and India competitors in the short term and rivals in the long term. And this explains the uneasy co-existence of these two Asian giants. India’s geographical and demographical size, comparable civilization and historical depth along with its rapid economic progress and military modernization have made China sit up and look at India as its major emerging challenge in Asia.

There was a time when Beijing was not prepared to sit and discuss with New Delhi security issues, including the nuclear issues, on the ground that India was not a major power actor in international politics. Today, when the whole world looks at India as a rising power, China has altered its opinion and engagement policy. What are the Chinese concerns and approaches?

Firstly, Beijing has been apprehensively watching the unprecedented improvement in Indo-US relations in the security and defense sectors and appears to be more concerned about the Indo-US nuclear deal that may truly elevate New Delhi’s strategic partnership with Washington to new heights. If this materializes, China’s misplaced fear of encirclement by the US and its allies/partners would look more real to Beijing.

Secondly, China appears to be envious of India’s rising defense and security relationships with Japan, the Indo-Chinese countries and the South-East Asian nations. As India enters into more and more agreements with these countries on naval cooperation, arms transfer, military exercises and intelligence sharing which China has not been able to do so at a similar scale, Beijing’s apprehensions are further compounded.

It is a fact that East and South-East Asian countries consider China as a potential threat and tremendous challenge to their security. The same countries have little to fear from democratic India. Whatever little apprehensions were there in late 1980s and early 1990s regarding the Indian military, particularly naval, modernization and expansions have disappeared with New Delhi’s close inter-actions with these countries.

Thirdly, India’s naval exercises with Japan and the United States in the Pacific and with Australia, Singapore, Japan and the US in the Indian Ocean, coupled with proposals for closer ties among Asian democracies have generated a sense of isolation among the Chinese leaders.

Somehow the Chinese now feel the need to be in the centre of activities and attractions in whatever sub-regional or regional groupings that are being formed in Asia. Any forum where India is in and China is out creates doubts and suspicion in the Chinese minds.

Beijing has, of course, not kept quiet. It tries its best to keep India out of several initiatives and conflict management efforts in Asia. Firstly, India should have been ideally a member of the multi-lateral mechanism to address the nuclear question of the Korean Peninsula.

The Group of Six should have been the Group of Seven by including India. Since North Korea has been a long standing arms supplier to Pakistan and has illegal Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) linkages with Pakistan, New Delhi should have been part of the diplomatic efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. It is China that could be held responsible for India’s exclusion.

Secondly, China is currently on its way to creating road blocks for the successful evolution of the East Asian Summit forum where India is an original member. While New Delhi wants this forum to be an inclusive one, Beijing supports the idea of making it a two-stage process, the first being the ASEAN. And the second, where China is a member but India is not.

Thirdly, China has not endorsed the Indian proposal for establishing an Asian Economic Community to include all the countries located in a region spanning from the Himalayas to the Pacific. Beijing would not like New Delhi to steal the show by making such grand initiatives and becoming the core of such a community.

Thus, the nature of China-India relationship in the years to come has begun to unfold. It would be characterized by competition and subsequently rivalry for the Asian leadership. Nonetheless, it is imperative for New Delhi to engage Beijing in all aspects and dimensions of its foreign policy. The goal should be to immunize this competitive spirit from escalating into a conflict. Manmohan Singh’s trip to China would certainly be a step further in this direction. ---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

OPEN FORUM    

New Delhi, 14 December 2006

       Disastrous Gas Emissions

SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS NEEDED

By Dhurjati Mukherjee

reenhouse gas emissions by industrialized nations rose to the highest levels in 2004 since the early 90s and governments must do more to fight global warming, according to the UN climate change secretariat. Emissions by 40 nations, including bashers of caps under the UN Kyoto Protocol and outsiders, led by the United States, rose to 17.9 billion tonnes in 2004. There is a unanimous feeling that industrialized nations will need to intensify efforts to implement strong policies which reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The rise put overall emissions, mainly from burning fossils fuels in power plants, factories and cars, just 3.3 per cent below 18.6 billion tonnes in the Kyoto benchmark year of 1990. This was the highest since soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, defying efforts at cuts meant to avert disastrous changes such as more floods, erosion, heat waves and higher sea levels. It may be mentioned here that 35 countries have agreed to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol by about five per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

Meanwhile, a British government report has reiterated that global warming will devastate the world economy. Echoing this, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said unabated climate change would eventually cost the world the equivalent of between five and 20 per cent of global gross domestic product each year. He called for bold and decisive actions to cut carbon emissions and stem the world of the temperature rise.

The report emphasised that global warming can only be fought with the cooperation of major countries such as the US and China and represents a huge contrast to the Bush Administration’s wait and use global warming policies. According to Sir Nicholas Stern, government economist and author of the report, acting now to cut greenhouse gas emissions would cost around one per cent of global GDP each year.

The need for a low carbon economy has been very aptly recommended through measures, including taxation, regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon trading. Meanwhile, the British Foreign Minister, Margaret Beckett, during her visit to India, pointed out that moving to a low-carbon economy does not mean stopping economic growth and/or condemning people to poverty.

It is a well-known fact that an unstable climate affects the basic building blocks upon which individuals and nations lay the foundations of their food, water and energy. Climate change could lead to a fall in crop yield in the Sub-Continent by as much as 20-40 per cent, dry areas experiencing massive increases in rainfall and warmer and more humid conditions. This has already been witnessed in many parts of India, leading to malaria in new areas and the worsening of infection rates in those already affected.

Scientists have now predicted, Beckett informed, that one billion people in the South Asian Sub-Continent were likely to suffer from the reduction in Himalayan melt-water and from changes in the monsoon that would make it “more variable, less predictable and more prone to extremes”. In this connection, she said that India had the technological capacity to move towards three clean energy markets-- wind, solar and bio-fuel plus fuel cells that were expected to grow four fold and reach $ 167 million by 2015.

A way of life which embodies exorbitance, waste and excess now bears upon providing resource-base. And, with the demands of the industrialized and also of Asian giants (Japan, China and India) no alternative concrete path has yet been crafted. Thus, these warnings to both the developed and the emerging economies need to examined as the future appears quite bleak if corrective measures are not taken now.

 Another very significant report of the WWF, Living Planet Report 2006, has revealed that nature is being stripped by humans at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets worth of natural resources every year on current trends by 2050. It has clearly stated that the footprint from use of fossil fuel, whose heat-trapping emissions are widely blamed for rising temperatures, was the fastest growing cause of strain. “Much will depend on the decisions made by China, India and other rapidly developing countries”, the WWF Director General, James Leape has observed. However, the promiscuous life styles of countries such as the US, UK, and Canada need to be checked to save the planet from its degradation.

The alternative strategy for a low-carbon economy has to be made mandatory not only to check greenhouse gas emissions but to save the planet. Already the population of many species, from fish to mammals has fallen by about a third from 1970 to 2003. This is largely because of human threats such as pollution, contamination by 40,000 or so chemicals, effects on climate change, clearing of forests and over-fishing etc. It is not the salvaging of the social and economic system that should be at the heart of the current emergency but a reassurance that the resource-base upon which systems depends will be conserved so that it may provide a secure sufficiency for all humanity for an indefinite period.

Keeping in view these happenings the world over, the warnings have to be taken seriously and a sustainable development strategy evolved. As countries work to improve the well–being of their people, they should keep in mind that there is need to match development strategies with sustainable solutions. It is inevitable that any disconnect will “limit the abilities of poor countries to develop and rich countries to maintain their prosperity”. ---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)