Neighbors need not be enemies on the doorstep: China Daily editorial

Rounds and rounds of commander-level military-to-military talks have been conducted to ease the border tensions between India and China. But little substantial headway has been made, making some suspect the meaningfulness of such engagement.

Progress has proved even more difficult to make because of the headwinds against the peacemaking efforts of the two neighbors. Inside India, some politicians are fanning narrow nationalist feelings against China — with the high applauds for the film Bharateeyans, which means Indians, being a case in point — and fancy they can take advantage of Western assistance to confront China. The film, which speculates on the border disputes between China and India, tries to exploit and fuel the surge in anti-China sentiment.

Outside, Washington is working with its allies to enlist New Delhi in its campaign against Beijing, assigning India the role as a bridgehead. And there is no better wedge to be driven between the otherwise peaceful neighbors than the outstanding border tensions.

But considering the current state of affairs, on the border to the overall state-to-state relationship, it is in both sides' interests to keep the lines of communications open and consultations active. Under such circumstances, keeping the two militaries, particularly their frontline troops, in regular communication is of critical significance to crisis management.

So, although no breakthrough seems to have been made at the meeting between China's senior diplomat Wang Yi and Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the external affairs minister of India, on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations gathering in Indonesia last week, that the two sides agreed to hold the next round of military commander-level talks on border issues "at an early date" should be regarded as a positive outcome.

Wang's call for the two countries to "support each other and accomplish things together" may not appeal to a broad Indian audience today as many calculate the global political climate is in their favor.

Yet such a perception confines the relationship between the world's two most populous nations to the outdated prism of big-country rivalry, through which the growing legion of China hawks in India view an ultimate showdown with China as being unavoidable.

Wang told Jaishankar that the two countries should not let specific issues define their overall relationship, which may sound like a diplomatic cliché. But there is a pressing need for the two neighbors to work together to prevent the China hawks' ill- will from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Anyone who bothers to take an objective look at China-India relations will see the simple truth that border tensions constitute only a very small aspect of their overall relationship. Not to mention such discords were created and left behind by a third party, and is again being exploited by third parties.

The present commander-level talks between the two militaries may or may not produce outcomes sufficient for cooling down the general situation. But their continuation is priceless, because the issues will have to be addressed by the Chinese and Indians themselves. Or they will always be subject to outside manipulation.

Neither can afford to make their giant neighbor an enemy on its doorstep.