The stormy petrel of Indian politics during his youthful days, George Fernandez had kicked up a political storm by publicly stating as country’s Defence Minister that China was India’s enemy No. 1. Leftist commentators attacked him for demonising a ‘friendly country’ and demanded his head. The Congress party, which was in opposition, accused George of throwing a spanner in the attempts to improve Sino-Indian relations. Now, less than a decade down the line, Admiral Suresh Mehta, Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee and Navy chief, who is retiring at the end of the month, has described China as one of the primary challenges to Indian security. In his famous address to the National Maritime Foundation the other day, the Admiral said China is in the process of consolidating its “comprehensive national power” and creating “formidable military capabilities” and reiterated that Beijing continues to be and will remain a primary challenge for India in the years ahead. There is no comparison, the Admiral opined, between China and India in terms of size of economy, infrastructure and military spending and that the gap is widening by the day. Further, he confessed that India neither has the capability nor the intention (mark the words) to match China force to force both in conventional and non-conventional military terms.
Strategic thinkers have, time and again, argued against our obsession with Pakistan and insisted that Beijing poses the principal threat to our national security. If George was demonised for speaking the unspeakable, it was probably because of our national hobby of “politician bashing”. The Navy chief is no politician and deserves to be listened to because of his intimate knowledge of what he is talking about. Although the External Affairs Ministry is understandably uncomfortable with the Admiral’s blunt remarks, Admiral’s intentions can’t be questioned. His intention was not to demoralise the armed forces and the nation but to effectively underline the dangers ahead. The Admiral’s courage to sound a wake-up call is commendable. In his own unique way, the top sailor of the country has brought home the truth that we-as a nation and the government-have demonstrated no “intention” to match the Dragon. Instead of finding fault with the Admiral’s well-considered observations, the government and the strategic community need to ponder over the issues he has raised. We must respond to these issues in a mature way if India is to realise its dream of emerging as a powerful, confident and developed nation capable of claiming its rightful place on the regional, if not global, scene.
The Dragon is now becoming more and more aggressive year after year. It persuaded New Delhi to declare Autonomous Region of Tibet an “integral part of China” but declined to issue visas to officials belonging to Arunachal Pradesh as “they came from a region that was part of China”. It has painstakingly strengthened its military position in Tibet by building infrastructure up to the Indo-Tibetan borders and deploying atomic weapons close to Indian borders. New Delhi has taken some measures to build roads in our border areas but a lot remains to be done. Sino-Indian talks on border dispute have made little progress during the past two decades. While India has exercised great restraint and flexibility to arrive at a mutually acceptable solution, Beijing has not shown much interest in resolving the dispute. One of the factors is that persistent unrest and recent violence in Tibet and Muslim-dominated-Xinjiang regions appear to have created a greater sense of vulnerability in Beijing. Chinese establishment’s propensity to blame anti-Chinese elements, including India, for these developments has further complicated matters. Although Beijing has immense leverage over US and has much closer relations with the superpower, it is wary of Indo-US strategic ties. It also suffers from an encirclement syndrome and is uncomfortable with the moves for a broader quadrilateral arrangement between US, India, Japan and Australia despite repeated assurances that the proposed arrangement is not aimed at China.
A recent editorial in Communist Party of China’s mouthpiece People’s Daily castigated India as a weak and backward country and the one that has failed to cope with diversity (Beijing has the cheeks to lecture India on managing diversity while it uses brute force to crush genuine protests against repression and demographic aggression against these regions). The editorial argued for a more rigid stand on border dispute. Diplomatic circles believe that the editorial is meant to test Indian waters and see how New Delhi responds to such moves. It is in this context that the Indian media took serious note of an article posted on a Chinese website of “International Institute of Strategic Studies” by a self-proclaimed strategic expert calling upon Beijing to break up the “Hindu Religious State” for its own strategic gains. Informed public opinion perceives this piece to be yet another Chinese move to tease India by unofficially suggesting what the mighty China can do to wreck a weak, backward, divided and hapless India.
Not surprisingly, the pro-China CPM has glossed over the objectionable report. But the CPI deplored it and said the so-called “individual opinion of an unknown strategic expert” has polluted the atmosphere at a time when India and China are trying to sort out their problems and cement their friendship. While there may be some merit in the perception of a section of foreign affairs experts that the article posted on an obscure website may not be Chinese official position, it is intriguing that neither the External Affairs Ministry nor the ruling party has taken a serious view of the developments. Instead of sending a demarche to Beijing on the threat to balkanize India, the Congress spokesman, Manish Tewari, dismissed it as a “paranoid hallucination of an individual” claiming that the country has received assurances about its territorial integrity form the “highest quarters” in Beijing. Chinese actions on the ground don’t match with such assurances, even if these were given by the highest quarters in Beijing. At least, there is no official word so far. The ruling party’s stand on the obnoxious editorial in the People’s Daily and the threat posted on the website is reminiscent of Nehru’s response to reports about Chinese troops having occupied Indian territory in the western sector. Responding to questions about these reports, the then Prime Minister told Parliament in late 50s that Chinese troops had moved in what Beijing claims to be its territory. The nation paid a heavy price for this folly. Has the country forgotten the bitter lesson it learnt in 1962 because of the naivety of our leaders?
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