Seventy-Five Years of India-China Relations

India-China relations, since Independence 1947/Liberation 1949, have swung between romance and rancour. Romanticism was based on our shared civilizational interactions; rancour on the contradictions that emerged from the hard-headed practicality of two Westphalia states pursuing their perceived national interests as they have evolved over the last seven decades plus.

The ancient civilizations of India and China made an unparalleled contribution to human values and thought through philosophy, religion, culture and literature. Human lives have been enriched, over centuries, by their innovations and creations. They created prosperity through trade and commerce, connected peoples and regions through overland and maritime linkages. Our interlinked past has been one of mutual learning and mutual respect; also, of a few disagreeable aberrations.

India and China, thus, should not seek to disregard our inherited past in looking at our future. At different points, both have recalled and identified with our glorious past as a guide for successes that can be achieved when we work together. At the same time, our recent colonial past is seen in China as a ‘teacher by negative example’. Colonial subjugation of India and imperial domination of China exposed starkly the deleterious consequences of a lack of internal cohesion and the absence of a commitment to independence. They have also left behind a lingering legacy of unresolved disputes and conflict.

The two countries have occupied the territories on either side of the Himalayas over the centuries. Neither, historically, was in the form it acquired since 1947/1949. Inevitably, there was contact—mostly peaceful though not always so. Civilizational values, culture and commerce defined the relationship for the major part. From time to time, rulers on either side sought to expand their territory at the expense of a weaker ruler on the other side. Indians would recall General Zorawar Singh’s conquests in Tibet as recently as in 1841.

The inherited perception of each other was described by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore:

The lamp of ancient Greece is extinct in the land where it was first lighted, the power of Rome lies dead and buried under the ruins of its vast empire. But the civilization, whose basis is society and the spiritual ideal of man, is still a living thing in China and in India.

It was echoed by Professor Ji Xianlin (季 羡 林):

China and India, standing in the Asian continent, have been neighbours created by Heaven and constructed by Earth. ‘天造地 设’ Viewing from the entire human history, there are four great cultural systems inclusive of those of Chinese and Indian which may be described as half of the cultural treasury of humanity.

‘A powerful religion was transmitted from India to China not vice versa.’ Without Buddhism, ‘the development of China’s philosophy would have been beyond our imagination…Alongside… came Indian philosophy, art and culture etc.’ ‘Influence of Indian culture on China had become a household phenomenon, too prominent to be overlooked.’

Professor Zhu Qingzhi of Peking University says it was ‘one of the most spectacular examples of intercultural exchange in human history: during nearly ten centuries from the Eastern Han to the Northern Song Dynasty, hundreds of Buddhist masters coming from India….(they) made known to Chinese people not only Buddhist teachings, but also an extensively rich set of Indian cultural information, which finally even had effects on their daily life.’

Professor Tan Chung of Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, under whose tutelage generations of Indian scholars of China have emerged, distinguishes between civilizational and Westphalian states thus:

The two subcontinents of India and China have been one permeated with the spirit of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam/the earth is one family. They both belong to the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Himalaya is the creator of life and ‘cultures’—rice culture, wheat culture, cotton culture, hemp culture, sericulture culture, cattle culture, pig culture etc. ‘In modern times, the civilization-states of India and China are oases besieged by the desert of nation-states, and the dynamics of geo-civilizational paradigm of the former are obstructed, inhibited, damaged and side-lined by the geopolitical paradigm of the latter.

Spiritually, India and China have lived for millennia in a Chan 禅—Buddhist description of ‘你中有我 我中有你’ (I in you and you in me).

Tan Chung recalls that Xuanzang recorded that his Indian hosts during the 7th century called China ‘Mohe Zhina guo 摩诃至那国 Mahacinasthana’. 2000 years ago, as the ancient Greek account Periplus Maris Erythraci (Periplus of the Erythraen Sea) shows Greek sailors visited the Indian coasts to buy Chinese silk. In the process, they got the idea of ‘cinabhumi’ and created the name of ‘Serica’ (the land where silk comes from) for China. Take another example—the Sanxingdui 三星堆 excavation—a mini-India on Chinese soil more than 3000 years ago. The Surya-cakra, with four birds flying around the sun and the Garuda (possibly the oldest presentation of this legendary bird) are symbols well known in India. The Surya-cakra is now the city symbol of Chengdu. Not surprisingly, the Chinese differ; they have their own explanation.

China was influenced over the last two millennia, by two foreign cultures—Buddhism and western. It took more than a thousand years for Chinese culture to completely absorb Indian influence. In contrast, the impact of western culture, since 1840, has been all-encompassing, including technology, the organization of production, political systems, culture and philosophy. China has absorbed western mores speedily. It has much to show for it.

However much we may value our common past, it is the present that we live in and the present that determines how we deal with each other. We define our interests on that basis.

The ups and downs of India-China relations are well-enough known.

Nehru (1947-1964) and Mao (1949-1976) were the two dominant players in their times. In their own different ways, they made concerted efforts to remake their worlds rather than simply accepting them as they were. Both were willing to test their world views against the prevailing international powers and norms. Both were pre-eminent leaders in their respective countries. The template of the relationship was, thus, determined by them during their lifetimes. Neither, as it turned out, passed on their beliefs to their successors though the national perceptions they created have lived on after them.

They were products of national liberation movements. India’s anti-colonial, nationalist movement under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi was nonviolent. Nehru’s world view was shaped by Gandhian philosophy with moral values at its core. His generation of Indians was dedicated to the values of individual liberties, democracy, social justice and equality of opportunity for every citizen, economic prosperity. Nehru’s international posture was of diplomatic boldness combined with military restraint.

Mao led the Chinese in war—civil and anti-Japanese—for over two decades before the Communist Party was able to establish its sway and take control of the country. Mao’s world view and beliefs and his appetite for war were shaped in, and by, those years of armed struggle. The CCP’s instrument of choice was the gun.  Power, Mao said, grows out of the barrel of the gun (枪杆子里面出政权). He was willing to take on superior military forces. He challenged one and the other superpower at different points—the US in Korea and Vietnam; the USSR along the Sino-Soviet borders. In each case, though, he had the support of the other superpower. He was willing to accept the human and material cost. This was evident even in domestic matters. Mao was willing to sacrifice human lives to serve what he perceived as the higher purpose of creating a socialist society. The ravages that China went through in the Great Leap Forward (estimates vary but between 20 and 50 million people were said to have died during this campaign) and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which convulsed the country for over a decade, are cases in point.

The relative economic strength of the two countries was not dissimilar in their lifetimes. Both were poor. (One calculation by two former Jawaharlal Nehru University Professors says that between 1785 and 1938, Britain drained India of $ 45 trillion—seventeen times UK’s current GNP in current terms. What was the drain on account of the ‘cutting of the Chinese melon’?) China was more populous than India (547 million to 359 million); the share of the two countries’ GDP in global GDP was about the same at just over 4%.  China’s per capita GDP was, in fact, much lower—about 70% of India’s. China’s military, though, was more numerous and well equipped.

Nehru’s initial vision of China was rosy, idealistic optimism of China as a postcolonial partner in peace and development regionally and globally. The two would work together for an Asian resurgence in a ‘bhai-bhai’ spirit. In his Glimpses of World History (1935) he had referred to China as ‘the other great country of Asia’, and as ‘India’s old-time friend’. He paid a two-week visit to China in 1939—the only international personality of stature to be invited by both KMT’s Chiang and CCP’s Mao. (He could not visit the CCP held area; the visit was cut short with the outbreak of war.) He wrote that the visit was ‘memorable’ ‘both personally for me and for the future relations of India and China’. ‘I found, to my joy, that my desire that China and India should draw ever closer to each other was fully reciprocated by China’s leaders.’ ‘I returned to India an even greater admirer of China and the Chinese people than I had been previously, and I could not imagine that any adverse fate could break the spirit of these ancient people, who had grown so young again.’ Writing as progressive and anti-imperialist, he saw contemporary China (still under KMT) as comparable to India. They were both freedom-fighters: fighting foreign control and domestic feudal forces. Both stood for national unification and were modernizers. The Indian people would naturally sympathize with the Chinese people. One concrete manifestation was the decision of the Indian National Congress, in June 1938, in a show of solidarity, to boycott and ban all Japanese goods and to collect funds to aid the Chinese people against Japanese oppression, mistreatment and invasion. The CCP’s General Zhu De, made an urgent petition to Nehru for sending medical help to China. The INC, then led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, sent a Medical Mission, funded by public contributions, of five doctors headed by Dr Madan Mohanlal Atal from Allahabad with an ambulance. Dr Dawarkanath Kotnis (Oct 1910-Dec 1942) from Sholapur was a member of this team; he stayed back in China, joined the CCP and married a Chinese national. Chinese commemorations eulogize Dr Kotnis; Dr Atal and that fraternal Indian gesture find no mention.

There was no reciprocal empathy evident in the CCP leadership. Indeed, the early leaders of the CCP saw India as a ‘lost country’. Chen Du xiu, one of the founders of the CCP, warned the youth against being ‘Indianized’ and end up serving foreign masters. There was no time for adoring or eulogizing ‘eastern civilization’ either. Mao Dun was critical of Tagore’s praise for China as a ‘long lived race’ attributing it to ‘centuries of wisdom nourished by your faith in goodness and not in strength’. His view was that with militarists within and imperialism without, ‘there is no time for dreaming’. What China needed was ‘not philosophy but materialism’.

Post-Liberation China, in Mao’s words, would ‘Lean to One Side’ (一 面 倒) i.e., the side of socialism or the USSR. India was non-committal; and, in due course, enunciated nonalignment. China viewed India’s refusal to take sides between the two military blocs during the Cold War with suspicion. This Indian word view was seen as sophistry to cover its role as a ‘Running Dog of Imperialism’ ((帝国主义走狗).

Professor VP Dutt once noted, ‘No country can adopt a policy that is demonstrably to the disadvantage of the country…At the same time, we must strive to harmonize the national interests of various countries while advancing our own.’ China might have approved of the first strand; the subtlety of the second was clearly beyond its conception or comprehension. Why would one want to harmonize one’s interests with that of the others?

In this backdrop, the veneer of friendship remained just that.

During his October 1954 visit to China, Nehru, as his security officer, KF Rustamji noted, was greeted and cheered by a million people lining up the streets in welcome.  That may have confirmed to Nehru his belief, expressed earlier in his letter to the Chief Ministers in June 1952 that ‘there is a definite feeling of friendliness towards India in China’.

For Nehru, it stood to reason that the two neighbours would be friends and partners when finally free of foreign domination. Nehru saw ‘not the slightest reason to expect any aggression on our frontiers’. He rationalized that it was a frightfully difficult task for any army to cross Tibet, a most difficult and inhospitable terrain, and the Himalayas and invade India. Logistics and supply would become stretched; climate was an adversary. He saw ‘no particular reason why China should think of aggression in this direction’.

It was just a matter of time before the substantive differences in national positions manifested themselves.

China proved Nehru wrong on each count. Nehru was forced to change his view: the Chinese state was ‘more nationalist than communist’. But that was in the aftermath of what he had all along rejected as inconceivable: China inflicting a war, and a humiliating defeat, on India—aimed, in Mao’s words, at ‘teaching India a lesson’.

Tibet had already been an issue at the time of the Asian Relations Conference in 1947. China was still under the KMT; CCP rule (‘Liberation’) was two years away. Gandhi was reported to have told the Tibetan delegation that the Conference report would serve as documentary proof of Tibetan independence. The Indian assumption was that Tibet, as an independent entity, would remain a buffer between India and China.  Nehru had anticipated, nearly two years before the Chinese occupation in 1950 that the future of Tibet might become an issue between India and China. Yet, he was against deployment of Indian troops for its defence ‘so as not to get embroiled in enterprises which are beyond our strength.’ India, he felt, could not ‘bring any effective pressure to change the course of events in Tibet’. Then there was the logic of harmonizing interests: the belief that such intervention would not be consistent with the policy of befriending a newly emergent China. There were sufficient warnings from within the Indian leadership challenging this cosy view. But even Sardar Patel did not suggest confronting China on its occupation of Tibet. He doubted that India could face up to the Chinese on its own. Neither Nehru nor Patel saw a resort to military measures as a practical option. India had been engaged for over two years in the war against Pakistan over J&K. It just did not have the resources for a two-front war. Indeed, even beefing up India’s defence posture and augmenting our forces along the frontiers was denied and delayed till too late. The Panchsheel Agreement of 1954 legitimized the Chinese position.

The respective territorial claims surfaced early on—in the very first decade of Independence/Liberation. The Himalayan Sphere, to which India and China both belong, became contentious as China challenged India’s territorial assertions in the Western sector (Aksai Chin and Ladakh) and laid claims in the Eastern sector (NEFA, later Arunachal Pradesh). The July 1958 Chinese map depicted large parts of territory claimed by India as Chinese. The map revealed the China-built road linking Xinjiang to Tibet through an uninhabited stretch of Ladakh.

Relations got complicated in March 1959 with the Dalai Lama fleeing and being given refuge in India. Still consolidating its hold over Tibet, China was enraged, distrustful of Indian intentions. It refused to accept Indian protestations that its action was in deference to His Holiness’s stature as a religious and spiritual leader venerated by Buddhists the world over.

Soon after Liberation in 1949, China had indicated willingness to accept the McMahon Line in the Eastern sector in exchange for Indian recognition of Aksai Chin in the West. China’s border agreement with Burma (now Myanmar) in 1960 accepted this line.

During his visit in 1960, Zhou En Lai had offered this as a quid pro quo in an attempt to find a settlement. Chinese interests were greater in the Western sector where the access road linking Tibet and Xinjiang lay; in the Eastern sector, their strategic interests were minimal. The offer—denied soon thereafter—involved China not challenging Indian control of the Eastern sector in return for Indian acceptance of Chinese incursions that had taken place in the West. It was a practical proposition. Some even considered it reasonable in terms of realpolitik.

It was not to be. Nehru chose not to pursue the idea.

Nehru’s approach had two elements: seek peace and friendship; eschew territorial concessions. His commitment to peaceful resolution of differences was absolute; China was willing to resort to arms if peaceful means did not yield desired results. In consequence, the refusal or inability to back territorial claims with military preparedness and deployment proved disastrous.

The infamous month-long war in Oct-Nov 1962 resulted in the consolidation of the Chinese position in the Western sector even as the Eastern sector remained largely unaffected territorially post-war, following the unilateral Chinese withdrawal.

In December 1962, Nehru accepted the lack of foresight of the political leadership (an implicit indictment of his own perspicacity) in not building up border infrastructure and ensuring military preparedness. China, in contrast, was militaristic as also battle ready. The Liberation War was followed by the Korean War where the adversary was the US, a superpower. (Before the end of the decade, Mao had taken on the other superpower in the Chenpao/Damansky clashes.)

As for the motivation, Nehru reasoned that China believed in the inevitability of war; did not want to lessen global tensions; disliked nonalignment and preferred polarization. In that sense, Nehru still considered China’s aggression not being about the border dispute per se.

The war hastened Nehru’s departure (27 May 1964) from the scene. Mao lived another dozen years during which he did immense damage through his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in the process of regaining total control over the CCP and the country. His successors now acknowledge him as a leader who led China to ‘Liberation’ but assess his role as 70% right, 30% wrong since then.

India-China relations went into a deep freeze, post-war. It was not till 1976 that Ambassadors returned to either capital. In that interlude, India had two wars (1965, 1971) imposed on it by Pakistan. On both occasions, China supported Pakistan.

China had withdrawn from the world, so to speak, during the GPCR. As China was restoring its politics, economy, education and everything else—picking up the pieces, post-GPCR—the conflict with the USSR erupted. There were armed clashes along the Ussuri river in March 1969.

China then found it expedient to reach out to befriend the US. In September 1971, in that secretive, intrigue-ridden, conspiratorial domestic environment presaging the emerging China-US entente, the top leadership of the PLA including the Defence Minister Lin Piao, designated at the IXth Party Congress in 1969 as successor to Mao, disappeared allegedly while fleeing to Moscow. China went on to prove a reliable ally as it sided with the US on Bangladesh (1971), in support of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, against the USSR in Afghanistan, and in Europe and elsewhere.

In that framework, India was also a hedging bet; an option for conciliation. On May Day 1970, the famous Mao ‘smile’ signalled willingness to revive bilateral relations. It was projected as an ‘initiative’ by Mao himself. The subsequent follow up at the official level, however, revealed lack of clarity in what was intended as an outcome and methodology to get there. This became evident when, in follow-up of the ‘smile’, the Chinese Foreign Office insisted that India needed to make a ‘concrete’ response since for their part, the Mao ‘smile’ was China’s ‘greatest concrete action’. There was, clearly, no thought-through plan for forward movement. China was then in the throes of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The only word that counted was that of Chairman Mao. In the absence of instructions from Mao himself, there was little else that the Foreign Office could say. The PMO in Delhi remained sceptical, even dismissive. In a reciprocal stalling move, India indicated willingness for dialogue to normalize relations. This desultory minuet at the official level tapered off, overtaken by the more substantive US-China dialogue and the events in Bangladesh. The ‘initiative’—if it was one—was stillborn.

In the event, the ‘opening up’ to the US overshadowed and obviated all other initiatives.

China, under Deng Xiao Ping, in a complete turn-around, changed course after Mao’s death (9 September 1976). ‘Politics in command’ and ‘Class struggle as the key link’ were abandoned. The goal set was, instead, Four Modernizations (四个现代化): agriculture, industry, defence and Science & Technology. One immediate objective was to double China’s 1980 GDP by 2000. It was achieved by 1995 whereupon it was again targeted to double in the next five years which too happened. Deng said ‘Let some people get rich first’ (让一些人先富起来). That set China on its new course of becoming a prosperous country driven by the dictum attributed to Deng, ‘it is glorious to get rich’. (It is actually derived from a traditional Chinese expression—‘致富光荣’). In consequence, China by 2021 had become the second largest economy in the world but also a highly corrupt society and among the most unequal with a Gini coefficient of 0.48, higher than that of many western developed countries as also above the Asian average (0.35).

It took a dozen years post-Mao and the visit of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1988 to break the mould. Both sides, given their respective domestic needs and compulsions, felt that freezing differences might make it easier to improve relations. In 1989, India was one of the few countries to refrain from condemning China over Tian An Men ‘incident’—as it is now referred to by official China. In 1996, Jiang Zemin became the first Chinese President to visit India. Among others, an agreement on CBMs was signed in follow up to the 1993 agreement on border peace and tranquillity. He went on to Pakistan where he counselled the joint session of the Parliament—much to the dismay and annoyance of his hosts—to freeze differences over J&K and improve relations with India. The times seemed to be changing.

As China became progressively more committed to modernization and, in consequence, a market-oriented economy, it sought peace and stability in the neighbourhood and globally as an imperative. In ensuing years, China achieved sustained double-digit growth to now become the second largest economy with an estimated GDP of $15 trillion in 2021.

India-China relations prospered in that framework for nearly four decades. Yes, it did mean compartmentalizing politics and economy. The political difference remained unresolved but trade and investment progressed. In 2021, India’s trade with China surpassed the $100 billion mark for the first time. At $125 billion, India’s imports were $97.5 billion; exports $20 billion. China has reason to draw satisfaction as the bilateral trade yields large annual surpluses of $70 billion—around one fifth of China’s global surpluses.

The 1998 nuclear tests shattered the emerging template and launched another phase of rancour. Fortunately, it was short-lived. The Indian Prime Minister’s communications to world leaders was forthright in providing the rationale for the tests. It referred to ‘an overt nuclear weapon state on our borders, a state which committed armed aggression against India in 1962’; despite improvement in relations ‘an atmosphere of distrust persists mainly due to the unresolved border problem’; ‘that country has materially helped another neighbour of ours to become a covert nuclear weapons state.’ The canard spread by a TV Talk Show host that the Raksha Mantri, George Fernandes, had called China ‘Enemy number One’ gained wide currency. (The acknowledgement that he had never said so came from the same source only some years later!) The Chinese denunciations were reminiscent of the acrimonious years. Holding the rotating Presidency of the UNSC, China made common cause with the US to insist on a ‘roll-back’. It insisted on sequencing Indo-Pak nuclear tests in the UNSC resolution 1172 of 6 June 1998 to pin greater culpability on India. All bilateral talks were broken off.

Things changed—yet again—within months. With the US attitude softening and in the backdrop of a suo moto, an informal statement in end-January 1999 by President Narayanan to former Chinese Ambassador to India, Cheng Rui-sheng, that India did not consider China a threat, bilateral dialogue resumed, at the Joint Secretary level, in February 1999. Even then, it appeared that a change in line had not percolated to the functional levels. The Director General in the Foreign Office (equivalent to a Joint Secretary) told his Indian counterpart that the talks were a failure. Two hours later, in the post-lunch meeting with the Assistant Minister Wang Yi (now the Foreign Minister), the leader of the Indian delegation was welcomed as an ‘old friend’ and told the talks were a complete success. This paved the way for dialogue at the Foreign Secretary level in April and, more significantly, the Foreign Minister level in June 1999—at the height of the Kargil war. China was not backing Pakistan on that war. High level visits resumed thereafter. The President visited China in May 2000.

China, by the early years of the 21st century, had galloped way ahead of India economically and militarily. At the XIX Party Congress in October 2017, Xi Jinping could speak of the ‘China Dream’ (zhongguomeng 中国梦): ‘moderately well-off China’ (xiaokang shehui 小康社会) by 2021; and ‘a rich and powerful’ (fuqiang 富强) China by 2049. India, in contrast, is seeking to be a $5 trillion economy by 2024.

The long-term implication of the falling out dating back to 1962 was played out yet again in 2020 with the Galwan incidents.

Galwan was a jolt; an abrupt volte face. Before that, China had made common cause with Pakistan in the aftermath of the abrogation of Article 370 on 5 August 2019 by the Indian Parliament. J&K was sought to be transformed from a bilateral, to a three-way dispute.  Trust was a severe casualty. The legacy of ‘trust deficit’ which has remained unbridged, has intensified.

President Xi Jinping said at the CCP Politburo session in January 2013 that while China would remain on a path of peaceful development, it would ‘never give up’ legitimate rights or sacrifice ‘core interests’. ‘No country should presume that we will engage in trade involving our “core interests” or that we will swallow the “bitter fruit” of harming our sovereignty, security or development interests.’ Is regaining claimed territories from neighbours, including through use of force, a ‘core interest’?  If yes, does China look upon India, and deal with it, as a strategic adversary? Is this legitimate considering we have agreed to a Strategic Partnership?

In 2017, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that the stand-off (Doklam) ‘affected and undermined’ relations and both sides should ensure ‘the relationship should not be derailed’ and ‘differences do not go out of control’. Reiterating Xi Jinping, he said harmonious relations and win-win cooperation was ‘the natural choice and the right choice’; ‘there should be no confrontation’; ‘We need to build strategic mutual trust and the two sides need to work to really look at each other as cooperative partners rather than be driven by an old-fashioned mind-set and regard each other as rivals or threats.’

Xi Jinping himself said in Xiamen (5 September 2017) that ‘Sound and stable China-India relations conform to the fundamental interests of both peoples. Both countries should insist on basic judgment of seeing each other as development opportunities but not threats.’ His Vice-President, Wang Qishan, told the Indian EAM that China-India relations were developing with good momentum and that the two countries should work together to lay a ‘firm foundation’ for ‘sustainable and healthy development of bilateral ties’.

In August 2019, the Indian EAM visited China within a week of the Indian constitutional amendments abrogating Article 370. He conveyed to Foreign Minister Wang Yi that ‘the map of India has not changed. We have not made any additional—again, I emphasize the word—claims on anybody. The Line of Control between India and Pakistan and the Line of Control between India and China—the LoC is where the troops go up to—has not changed so that is no cause for external debate.’

There is now a 70-year history of claims and counterclaims, several skirmishes, even war. We have not been able to agree on a common border.

There has been a change in the Chinese position. There were clear-cut statements by Zhou, Deng and other leaders till about the eighties about China’s willingness to accept India’s position in the Eastern sector in exchange for Indian acceptance of the Chinese position in the Western sector. True, the ‘swap’ suggested at different points came with the caveat that the Eastern sector was much the larger dispute; had economic value in contrast to the Western sector which had no such value; the Western sector had strategic value only to China because of the road it had built. Also, that Tibetan sentiments were associated with several of the places along which the McMahon line ran. The references to ‘South Tibet’; insistence on major concessions in the Eastern sector; attempts at military dominance, are more recent. The conclusion is inescapable that while China was seeking a ‘give-and-take’ settlement in the past to ensure a peaceful periphery, today, it is seeking—unrealistically—a settlement on its own terms.

The agreement that pending a mutually acceptable solution of the boundary question both sides should maintain peace and tranquillity on the border, held for some thirty years. Also, that when any intrusion takes place, it should be settled through peaceful consultations. In consequence, not a single shot has been fired across the border/LAC since 1967. But the ground positions have been altered in places; not all such have seen restoration of status quo ante.

Relative peace along the frontiers provided stability to the relationship while it lasted. Both sides drew satisfaction that no bullet had been fired by either side for over fifty years even as prolonged border incursions continued: 2013 (Depsang), 2014 (Demchok) and 2017 (Doklam). The June 2020 incidents in Galwan and other areas involving significant loss of lives nullified that hard-won achievement. China’s consistent refusal to back off since has only served to deepen the trust deficit, wiping out over thirty years of hard work by leaders and officials on both sides to bridge it through constructive engagement.  The borders will remain in an armed state with both sides vigilant and wary. The future, regrettably, portends continuing tension.

The last time an offer was made to settle on an as-is-where-is basis was in 1979, during the meeting between Deng Xiao Ping and the then EAM Atal Behari Vajpayee. As on earlier occasions, this too was subsequently denied on the Chinese side; the Indian response was shackled by history. (The BJP, in its earlier incarnation, had been a strong critic of Nehru accusing him of surrendering Indian territory to China.)  The ‘swap’ is not on the table any longer. Indeed, the denials that quickly followed the ‘offers’ make one wonder if they ever were. The Joint Working Group (JWG) set up following the Rajiv Gandhi visit in 1988 crafted major agreements like the Border Peace & Tranquillity Agreement (1993) and the CBMs (1996) and made some progress, including with exchange of maps to clarify and confirm the LAC. The JWG was done away with in 2005.

The irony is that both sides know that it is impossible for either to get their maximalist position accepted by the other side at the negotiating table. Equally, both sides know that war will not result in the gains they may be looking for. Indeed, neither side has displayed the political will to fight a prolonged war for such territorial gains. (Note: The Russia-Ukraine war is now in its fourth month, as this is being written.) It is clear to both sides that India cannot get Aksai Chin; nor can China get Arunachal Pradesh. It may not suit the political leadership in either country to say this out loud, but that is the reality.

What is it that has changed? Why Galwan? There is no ready explanation from the Chinese side.

Both sides have long seen advantage in seeking betterment of bilateral relations where possible and not allowing the border issue to become an obstacle. There are also common regional and global interests. Here too, though, divergences have made inroads—anti-terrorism, unsustainable trade deficits, blocking India in multilateral institutions are cases in point–casting a shadow on evolving cooperative frameworks. Both sides, for their own reasons, have a stake in peace. But in the absence of a mutually acceptable agreement and commitment to shared objectives, the threat perception and compulsion to be prepared for a potential conflict remains; mistrust persists.

India and China will need to work together in the coming decades to accommodate differing, competing, even conflicting, interests in a cooperative arrangement. This is for mutual benefit. Both are large and populous, together constituting nearly two-fifths of humanity. Their primary objective is to eliminate poverty and want, to provide prosperity, or at the very least livelihood security, to their peoples.

China’s Premier Wen Jiabao once said, ‘It is when India and China become really powerful and are able to fully bring out their vitality that a true Asian century will arrive.’

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi observed in his address at the Tsinghua University in Beijing (15 May 2015), ‘The prospects of the 21st century becoming the Asian century will depend in large measure on what India and China achieve individually and what we do together.’

TCA Rangachari is a former Indian diplomat.