The decision makers within the ruling Indian establishment in New Delhi would most likely be estimating the nature of China’s “necessary measures” following Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama’s recent visit to Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh.
In her official briefing on the subject, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying quite strongly asserted, “India in disregard to China’s concerns obstinately arranged the Dalai Lama’s visit to the disputed part of the eastern part of the China-India border, causing serious damage to China’s interests and China-India relations.” She further maintained, “China firmly opposes this move as India is keenly aware of the role played by the 14th Dalai Lama. The visit for sure shall trigger Chinese dissatisfaction. This will not bring any benefit to India.”
These are indeed strong words laced in uncertainty from an Indian perspective at this crucial juncture.
For starters, China cancelled Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Delhi, scheduled for April 14. The trilateral meet of Russian, Chinese and Indian sides was to be hosted by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. The action possibly further complicated the slippery terrain of Sino-Indian ties which had sedimented somewhat to a degree of propriety in the last one decade or so, but now confronts a fresh set of uncertainties since the Dalai Lama’s Arunachal sojourn.
Meanwhile, reacting to the delay in Indian affirmation to join the Belt and Road Forum, scheduled to be held in Beijing on May 14 and 15, linked to the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative mentored by President Xi Jinping himself, a Chinese official statement, with a stentorian diplomatic advisory on record, averred, “If India does not attend the forum, it will give a feeling that it is not interested.” He later added unflinchingly, “If you are absent, you have no voice”. This exuberant diplomat needs to be gently reminded that Indian civilisation has flawlessly handled with confidence and self-integrity many such challenges in the past.
The Indian Republic is more than prepared to meet any challenge whatever be the odds. India only seeks a voice in fora where it is heard and respected, not where conditionalities mount and suspicions surmount about its mere presence. A strong believer in global ethics, India adheres to the strain of parity and transparency in its actions within and outside its realm of the State. It believes in the dictum, “One should treat others as one would want to be treated oneself.”
Being a self-confident democracy, India can adjust without equivocation to a friendly neighborhood and with equal intensity to any potentially hostile “ring around of doubting neighbours”. Former French politician and former President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors in an essay on global imperatives once penned: “While searching for additional building-blocks of a global ethics, we should not only look to what is conventionally called cultures. There is evolving in our time a global civic culture, a culture which contains further elements to be incorporated in a new global ethics. The idea of human rights, the principle of democratic legitimacy, public accountability and the emerging ethos of evidence and proof, all prime candidates for consideration”.
When India seeks these templates or ideas in its statecraft processes, it remains equally confident that its near neighbourhood, too, is not distantly removed from such prescriptions. Commonality of interests and shared destiny predicate a partnership of equity, and equality remains none too far from attaining either. Large segments of Indians, watching the Chinese economic miracle closely, are intellectually aware that despite irritants, Beijing under the stewardship of President Xi would attain greater synergy levels with India in times to come. There is also a sense of shared mutuality and a degree of interpersonal commonality of vision between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi, who had met in Gujarat soon after Modi assumed power in Delhi and had a useful forward-looking dialogue.
There have been serious divergences in views of the two leaders beyond the Dalai Lama issue. These are over India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group and in getting formal UN Security Council declaration in identifying certain heinous Pakistani criminals as terrorists responsible for major attacks targeting India. There are other areas, too, such as the long pending border issues which await resolution premised on prudent dialogue of synergy where the exemplary diplomatic skills of the two leaders could craft a common pathway. Hopefully, the anticipated “necessary measures” lie in that zone of positivity in times ahead.
Mohan Das Menon
Former additional secretary, Cabinet Secretariat
mdmenonconsulting@gmail.com