Just how the Doklam crisis plays out is still a matter of speculation. Nearly two months into the stand-off, the Chinese verbal bombardment
has not abated. The Bhutanese and Indian responses have remained low
key after their respective press releases of June 29 and 30.
One important consequence of the stand-off is already evident – the
parallel processes of negotiating China’s border with India and Bhutan
seems to have reached a logical dead-end. The three countries now
urgently need to come up with a new format if they wish to continue
their conversation. Such talks are not merely technical discussions on
the border, but since they are handled at a senior level, they are also a
means of managing the relationship in depth and over a wide range of
areas.
Since the Border Peace and Tranquillity Agreement of 1993,
India’s relations with China had been stable and even predictable. The
two countries managed their border issues well and have created layers
of confidence building measures that aided the process.
Yet, in fact, they did not manage to actually settle their border dispute.
There have been two distinct cycles here, the first between 1993 and
2002 when the official level joint working groups sought to stabilise
and work out a mutually agreed Line of Actual Control (LAC) – as per the
agreement of 1993 – as a prelude to resolving the dispute itself. This
process came to a grinding halt when the Chinese refused to exchange
maps of the western sector. They came to believe that finalising a
mutually agreed LAC could solidify it as a border and, as we have seen
since the mid-1980s, they have been insistently making major claims in
the eastern sector, which they now call southern Tibet.
Special representatives to deal with border issues
The two sides thus decided in 2003 that a political dimension needed
to be added to the border settlement process and nominated a special
representative each to deal with the issue.
The process was at a ministerial level, the current Chinese special
representative, Yang Jichei, is a state councillor and senior even to
the foreign minister Wang Yi. The special representatives have had 19
rounds of talks till April 2016 and, in 2005, they had signed what was
hoped to be a far reaching agreement on the political parameters and
guiding principles of a border settlement.
This agreement baldly stated that “the two sides are seeking a
political settlement of the boundary question ….” In 2014, the Indian
special representative, Shivshankar Menon, acknowledged that all the
technical work relating to the border settlement had been done, now all
that was needed was a political go-ahead from the leaders of the two
countries.
But more than a decade later, they are no nearer towards clinching a
deal. In 2012, Dai Bingguo, the Chinese special representative, and his
Indian counterpart Menon, drew up a 18-point consensus document on the
eve of the former’s retirement, summing up the work they had done. The
disclosure of some portions of this document and some earlier
understanding, in the current war of words over Doklam, could well be
the clearest signal that the special representative process has run out
of steam. This is not surprising, the moment the Chinese stepped back
from the political parameters agreement, sometime around 2007, this had
probably happened.
China, Bhutan peace agreement
Parallel to this, China and Bhutan have had 24 rounds of border
talks. According to reports, the two sides came close to a settlement in
1996-2001, based on China agreeing to concede two parcels of land in
northern Bhutan for three lots, including Doklam in the western part of
the country. But thereafter Bhutan revised its claims and the process
has not moved much. Yet, like the process of the special
representatives, the Chinese and the Bhutanese continue to hold talks.
However, in the case of the Bhutanese, the peace and tranquillity
agreement they signed with the Chinese in 1998 barely worked. This
agreement committing both sides to maintain status quo as of 1959 has
most obviously been violated in the Doklam area. The reason for this is
that while India has steadily enhanced its border management capacities
along the LAC, the Bhutanese simply lack the population or resources to
police their 470 km border with the Chinese. The present crisis has
shown that as of now, any resolution of Bhutan’s boundary issue is
likely to be embedded in a Sino-Indian border settlement, unless Bhutan
takes the drastic decision of making a deal without taking India into
confidence.
With the Sino-Indian and the China-Bhutan processes at a dead end,
the time has come for the countries to explore new institutional
mechanisms of resolving their border dispute and maintaining “peace and
tranquillity” on their border.
Rising frictions between the two Asian giants
There is also a larger view of the friction between a rising China and a rising India.
From the 1970s, India has seen the manner in which Beijing has sought
to limit India to South Asia by using Pakistan. Now, a much richer and
militarily more powerful China is pushing into not only South Asia but
also the Indian Ocean Region in an unprecedented fashion. It is not that
Bhutan will become a new platform for Chinese forays into South Asia
like Pakistan, but that it will neutralise an important South Asian
friend of India and add to Beijing self-worth as a regional power
without compare. As it is, in Nepal and Sri Lanka, India must now
compete directly with China for influence.
In response, New Delhi is intensifying cooperation with the US and
Japan. India’s actions are still constrained by its self image as an
independent player in the international system. It, therefore, does not
have a military alliance with the US and will therefore not be
privileged to receive US assistance in the event of a conflict with
China. In a recent article, historian John Garver suggested that Beijing may be seeing India as “the weakest link in the chain of ‘anti-China containment’ being built” in Asia.
India’s military modernisation is delayed by a decade and a half, and
there is nothing to suggest that it is doing anything about it.
That China has become more assertive since 2008-2009 is well known,
but Modi’s India also sets a value by adopting an assertive stance in
the South Asian and Indian Ocean region. And, unlike the smaller
countries of the region, India does have the capacity to deal with China
on its own terms. And almost everyone is agreed that in the
coming decade, this capacity will only increase. As the more powerful
party, China is the one that needs to figure out how it must deal with
India because whether India becomes more powerful, or, for that matter
flounders, it can still cause a lot of trouble for Beijing.
Conflict between the two Asian giants will act as a drag on their
rise. It was famously said that there is enough room for both of them to
grow at the same time. As of now, unfortunately, their simultaneous
growth is causing dangerous friction and their unsettled border can
always provide the spark for conflict.
With their dispute resolution processes not working, the two giant
neighbours urgently need to devise a newer mechanism. And this must be
done in a larger framework of engagement to promote what Xi Jinping says
is a “win win” relationship. It does not take much imagination to
predict what will happen otherwise.
The Wire August 7, 2017
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