China, India on right track

After two intense days of parleys between State Councillor Dai Bingguo and India's National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon in New Delhi on Tuesday, China and India signed a breakthrough agreement to set up a joint border management mechanism seeking to prevent occasional misperceptions from flaring up.

The proposal to set up the mechanism was initiated during Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to New Delhi in December 2010. Now, apart from providing the much-needed momentum to the rather lackadaisical special representatives' (SR) talks, the mechanism is also expected to boost Sino-Indian mutual trust and generate atmospherics for delineating their border on the map followed by demarcating it on the ground.

More specifically, the mechanism aims to facilitate "real-time" contacts in case of allegations. But if viewed from a narrow perspective, even the innovative mechanism has its limitations.

First, since officials in New Delhi and Beijing will head the mechanism, how they will come to know the local situation immediately remains a challenge.

Second, civilian bureaucrats will be heading these meetings while allegations are made by their militaries.

Third, the mechanism envisages regular as well as emergency meetings involving both countries' ministries of defense, interior and foreign affairs along with representatives from their armies, paramilitary forces and intelligence agencies. This could make the mechanism inefficient if not altogether ineffective.

Finally, unlike the "hotline" between the Chinese premier and the Indian prime minister that was set up in 2010, the border mechanism will not be able to provide instantaneous relief; it will only set in motion an official process for such a relief. The outcome of this process, of course, will depend on the general spirit of mutual understanding and accommodation. It is in this respect that the 15th round of SR talks makes a critical contribution to Sino-Indian ties.

Therefore, if viewed from the broader perspective, that is, as part of the overall positive spirit of the 15th round of SR talks, the mechanism appears far more promising. Like earlier border talks, the SR talks too have become a generic but leading forum for discussing all topical issues and initiatives. The focus thus remains on building mutual trust and confidence. In this context the 15th round of SR talks was especially significant for at least a couple of reasons.

First, it was held in the backdrop of various contentious issues shadowing bilateral ties over the past several months. Second, Dai Bingguo and Shivshankar Menon both have been interacting with each other for several years and have developed a warm and comfortable style of negotiating. The positive impact of the 15th round of SR talks, therefore, goes much beyond what meets the eye. Both countries' special representatives have projected how China and India have learnt lessons from their earlier fracas and a clear momentum is visible in their reformulations which seek to redefine old paradigms.

Last week, speaking at the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, Menon described the boundary question as "difficult", but he appeared optimistic on the "settlement" (not resolution) issue and emphasized that bilateral negotiations were already "in the second stage of the three-stage process of agreeing principles, a framework and finally a boundary line".

But this seems to be a deviation from the earlier known three stages of (a) guiding principles and general parameters agreement of April 2006, (b) a Framework Agreement, anticipated anytime from the November 2006 and (c) sharing of maps and delineation of boundary on a mutually agreed map before demarcating boundaries on the ground.

Likewise, Dai Bingguo began his three-day visit to New Delhi on an extremely positive note as if Sino-Indian ties had no difficulties. In a signed article in The Hindu, one of India's major English language newspapers, on Monday, he underlined the new positive tone saying that he was happy to note that "since the beginning of the new century, the China-India Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity has continued to grow rapidly (and) China-India relations have entered a fast track of growth".

It is in this optimistic tenor that the countries' special representatives have projected that their deliberations are not restricted to bilateral ties, but also involve their worldview on various regional and global issues including the likely impact of the continuing global economic crisis on China and India, their future joint strategies on climate change negotiations and especially on the summit of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), scheduled for March in New Delhi.

The attempt to locate Sino-Indian interactions in the larger canvass of their inordinate responsibilities to jointly contribute to regional and global trends and discourses is expected to fundamentally change the tenor of bilateral ties.

The author is a professor of international studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

(China Daily 01/18/2012 page9)