India and China Start Talking

...The reminder was not addressed to Gromyko alone It also was aimed at domestic critics who charge U S prodding is behind New Delhi's stepped-up efforts to improve Sino-Indian relations That these would include Mrs Gandhi herself and the pro-Moscow Communist Party, each eager to score political points, was anticipated Unanticipated was the sizeable rift that alleged American influence has created in the ranks of Prime Minister Morarji R Desai's already less than cohesive Janata Party...

...When Chou En-lai visited India in April 1960, he offered a settlement based on a "reciprocal acceptance of present actualities in both sectors ' Undci Chou's proposal, China would observe the MacMahon Line separating India's northeastern frontier from Tibet and China, and India would have to accept the Chinese occupation of part of Ladakh Province in the State of Jammu and Kashmir in the Himalayan region Nehru balked at the latter and suggested further explorations...

...Nehru was adopting what George Kennan has aptly called the "moralistic-legalistic approach " With public opinion incensed by China's aggresive acts, Nehru soon gave up trying to educate it about the realities of political power The Prime Minister's opponents regarded his initial efforts toward a Sino-Indian reconciliation as appeasement and did not hesitate to use the issue to embarrass him A weak government, they contended, could hardly negotiate on a give-and-take basis...

...A G Noorani, a new contributor to these pages, is a Bombay lawyer who often writes for the India Express...

...AS MOSCOW WATCHES India and China Start Talking by a g noorani Bombay When Indian Foreign Minister Atal Behan Vajpayee postponed a scheduled visit to China last October 30 for health reasons, many observers speculated that his real affliction was political pressure not only at home but from abroad as well They were wrong, the illness was authentic, as Peking's failure to raise the specter of "Russian intrigue" soon confirmed The visit is now expected to take place sometime this month, although at this writing no precise date has been announced...

...Among the most vehement Janata opponents to any rapprochement with China is Madhu Limaye, a former Socialist who is one of the ruling coalition's general secretaries He does not encourage calm public discussion of the issue by criticizing the government' s policy from the platform of the Indo-Soviet Cultural Society Instead, his demands are often emotional and often unrealistic "Full normalization of relations with China can be achieved only when the Chinese vacate our territory and, as a first step, withdraw their Armed Forces from our occupied territories ". To the Chinese, these are virtually terms of surrender, reminiscent of Prime Minister Nehru's famous preconditions 20 years ago for opening negotiations with Prime Minister Chou En-lai over the bitter border disputes dividing the two countries to this day On September 26, 1959 he advised Chou by letter "No goverment could possibly discuss the future of such large [occupied] areas which are an integral part of their territory No discussion can be fruitful unless the posts on the Indian side of the traditional frontier, now held by Chinese forces, are first evacuated by them and further threats and intimidations immediately cease ". Nehru had every reason to resent China's duplicity, since Chinese leaders had been repeatedly assuring him that the maps he took exception to were Kuomintang leftovers slated for revision In 1959, for the first time, the Chinese declared that the "dated" maps were correct after all and began using force to bring the situation on the ground into line accordingly These strong-arm tactics were employed with equal success against Nepal and Burma, until Peking's strategists decided it would be to their advantage to settle those disputes in order to isolate India...

...In 1963, with its forces in striking distance of the northeastern city of Assam, China declared a unilateral ceasefire India had by then withdrawn its ambassador from Peking but had not broken off diplomatic relations The Chinese, rejecting all mediation efforts, demanded bilateral negotiations "without preconditions"-which, in context, meant on the basis of the November 1962 lines...

...It is true, however, that the trip has proved to be far more controversial than expected Predictable as Soviet resentment may have been, for example, its intensity was something of a surprise Vajpayee took care to visit Moscow early in September and reassure the Kremlin that India would not normalize its diplomatic relations with China "at the cost of friendship with dependable friends like the Soviet Union " Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko nevertheless threw protocol to the winds at a luncheon he gave in honor of his Indian counterpart and launched into a frontal attack on China Vajpayee responded by pointedly reminding his host that the "process of normalization" had been "initiated by the former government of India'' under the leadership of Indira Gandhi, a firm advocate of Indo-Soviet entente It merely was being "accelerated," he said...

...In Parliament last December, Vajpayee described his proposed visit to Peking as an exploratory mission" that he hopes "will result in crystallizing suggestions for a peaceful resolution of problems between the two countries " The foreign minister is too realistic to attempt anything more at present Yet even that is quite a lot when viewed against the background of two decades of estrangement between India and China...

...The Chinese have no doubt been carefully following the border debate in India For during their talks in New York Huang had urged Vajpayee to make specific proposals on the border questions-a step as necessary as it is hazardous, given the state of public opinion in India and China's negotiation techniques...

...When the Janata Party came to power in March 1977, the Chinese no doubt expected a decisive break from the past because several of the new leaders had criticized the Indo-Soviet Treaty Like the Soviets and the Pakistanis, though, they were to discover that Janata places a great deal of faith in continuity As Vajpayee said in explaining the government's approach, "There is continuity and there is change The continuity is more pronounced, the change is more subtle ". Thus Sino-Indian relations improved slowly vet perceptibly In Ma\ 1977 trade was resumed after a lapse of 15 years In September further progress was made when Vajpayee attended the UN General Assembly session in New York and held talks with the Chinese Foreign Minister Huang Hua He had already conveyed to Huang through "common friends"-secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milos Mime-India's willingness "to normalize its relations with China notwithstanding the border question which will have to be resolved ". Last March a Chinese cultural delegation led by Wing Pin-nan, president of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, visited India in response to a government-approved invitation from an unofficial Indian organization Wang met with Prime Minister Desai and then with Vajpayee, whom he invited to visit China at a "convenient" time Vajpayee accepted "in principle ". Public announcement of the invitation revived a familiar argument Should settlement of the border dispute precede or follow normalization of diplomatic relations with China'' Desai has emphasized a settlement "to our satisfaction" prior to the "restoration of normalcy," while Vajpayee has preached the need for normalization to pave the way for a settlement...

...Officials of the two countries appointed to examine "the factual material" proceeded very much in the manner of attorneys investigating title deeds in a real estate litigation This exercise yielded nothing and there was a steady drifting apart, thanks as much to India's diplomatic clumsiness as to China's arrogance Peking, determined to settle the issue once and for all, attacked India's northern and eastern frontiers in October 1962...

...Fourteen years passed before the first breakthrough came in September 1976 Following a protracted argument over who should take the initial step, the two countries again exchanged ambassadors But China was distrustful of the Indira Gandhi regime because of its close ties to the Soviet Union...