Just as New Delhi was beginning to believe that Galwan misadventure by People’s Liberation Army in May 2020 is in the past and the thaw in relations with Beijing is real, the baseless claim of Arunachal Pradesh as “Southern Tibet” or Zangnam has cropped up once again. An Indian national, Pema Wangjom Thongdok, had narrated her “long ordeal” and stated that she faced harassment from Chinese immigration officials at Shanghai Pudong Airport. Local officials “mocked and raised questions” over her Indian citizenship, and asked her to get a Chinese passport. Her 18-hour ordeal came to an end with the help of officials from India’s missions in Shanghai and Beijing, she said.
The government promptly issued a démarche, communicating formal protest with all the seriousness that the incident deserves, asserting India’s sovereignty over the entirety of Arunachal Pradesh. Instead of apologising for the incident and inconvenience caused to an Indian woman passenger, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning has brazenly denied the incident during a media briefing, saying there was no so-called “detaining” or “harassing” by the Chinese authorities. She repeated Beijing’s stance that “Zangnan is China’s territory and that the Chinese side has never recognised the so-called ‘Arunachal Pradesh’ illegally set up by India, a claim which has always been categorically rejected by India.
Several past experiences have demonstrated that India-China bilateral relations, far from being friendly, have totally lacked these three elements—mutual trust, acknowledgement of India’s sovereignty, and respect of India’s security concerns and sensitivities.
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A tumultuous history
India began trusting China blindly after Independence. The first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, who credulously built his foreign policy within the “Hindi-Chini-Bhai-Bhai” framework, got a rude shock in 1962. After the armed occupation of Tibet, much to his embitterment, China belied the trust and mounted a surprise attack in 1962 when Indian defense forces were least prepared and ill equipped to mount a full-scale retaliation.
Long after the 1962 Chinese aggression, China breached the historic 1993 Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement (BPTA), in Galwan, which like the Panchsheel, had six solemn declarations to avoid conflict and maintain peace for better relations and trust between the two ‘neighbouring’ countries. India and China incidentally became neighbours only after China invaded and illegally and with brute military power established total control over Xinjiang in 1949 and Tibet in 1959.
Going by the BPTA, both countries are expected to respect the status quo and the LAC, reduce the risk of confrontation, avoid use of force, reduce military presence and initiate confidence building measures (CBMs) to keep these promises in place. After Beijing decided to junk these agreements in 2020, it was a long wait and watch game for New Delhi, which decided to bury the hatchet and to open a new page in bilateral cooperation. The subsequent agreement on patrolling protocol in Eastern Ladakh is only a small part of larger sentiments expressed in BPTA.
While the BPTA was negotiated after the Sumdorong Chu standoff, the Agreement on Military Confidence Building Measures signed in 1996, assumes greater importance in the present circumstances, especially in the wake of China claiming ownership over Arunachal Pradesh.
The 1996 Agreement and the border talks can be suspended to allow the participation of Tibet in the talks as it is under illegal occupation of China.
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Time to strike economically
New Delhi needs to follow up the démarche with appropriate action, show that India of 2025 is different from what it was in 1962. The military, economic and diplomatic weightage now is far more than it was six decades back. Galwan and Operation Sindoor have proved that the military asymmetry between India and China has ended.
India’s renewed diplomatic outreach has earned new friends, strengthened South-South Cooperation and provided India a leadership role in economic and regional groupings. New Delhi would be well advised to scale up its economic diplomacy to a much higher level. There is little doubt that on the economic front we have several challenges, but beginning with the remarkable recovery since the Covid-19 pandemic, India has positioned itself as the fourth largest economy in the world.
This is the right time for New Delhi to tweak its economic policies and initiate the process of increased economic and diplomatic engagements and propose an India-Japan-Singapore-Taiwan quadrilateral to tackle issues of security, economic cooperation and regional stability. The US initiated Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) may not be productive as long as Trump keeps using tariffs as an economic tool.
In the context of the Union Cabinet approval of the Rs 7280 crore scheme to promote manufacturing of Sintered Rare Earth Permanent Magnets (REPM), the Secretary, Science & Technology ministry should lead a team of scientists and industrialists to Taiwan and sign up for joint ventures. The present Taipei Economic and Cultural Center (TECC) in India should be upgraded to the status of full-fledged diplomatic entity of Taiwan to facilitate greater economic, strategic, security and cultural exchanges. A similar approach toward the exiled Tibetan government’s Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), based in Dharamshala, will facilitate CTA to issue independent passports and visas for Tibetan travelers.
Since China does not recognise or respect One India policy, New Delhi need not be burdened with the historic obligations of the past, which in any case are not guided by any sovereign agreements. India should also be free to exercise its rights on its territory illegally occupied by Pakistan and ceded to China to use for building assets as part of the BRI’s China–Pakistan Economic Corridor project. These assets and projects should be dismantled and the territory reclaimed.
It is time for New Delhi to crack the whip. An unstable neighbourhood adversely impacts economic growth. This is the right time to intervene and reduce the impact of China’s influence in our immediate and extended neighbourhood.
Seshadri Chari is the former editor of ‘Organiser’. He tweets @seshadrichari. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)