New weapon in Beijing’s armoury!

Disclaimer: Let me start off by posting a disclaimer!!

The below written thoughts on recent Indo-China International relations are based on my personal analysis of recent developments of both nations and have nothing to do with Delhi-Beijing bilateral talks and strategic and economics dialogues. [Disclaimer ends]

China, the geographical hub of Asia, is the source of transboundary-river flows to the largest number of countries in the world — from Russia to India, and from Kazakhstan to the Indochina Peninsula. Recently china has strongly objected the Indian oil exploration campaign (By ONGC-videsh ltd) in south china sea , saying that it would be treated as stepping in the sovereignty of china. This has been answered by India’s external affair minister in his recent tour to Vietnam , by clearing the fact that ONGC would continue its oil exploration project in those blocks.

If we look back, we can find that block no. 127 &128 are under the jurisdiction of Vietnam by 1982 UN agreement and hence there is no need to seek permission for the exploration in them from anyone, except Hanoi.

In the month of July, China had captured Indian water jet craft –INS-Aeravat, which was patrolling in the international sea boundary near South China Sea. Unfortunately the biggest impediment before such an important task is the attitude and self-deception of the Indian ruling class. Although George Fernandes, the Defence Minister during the NDA regime, always voiced concern about Chinese intentions, he did not get sufficient support from other members of the Vajpaiyee Cabinet. Manmohan Singh, the present Prime Minister, is also advising restraint with respect to the attitude towards China. Obviously he is trying to sweep every uncomfortable information beneath the carpet. Manmohan Singh has reasons to do so as he is in the best position to know how unprepared his government is to match with inside scams !

From the above few examples what I want to convey is- China is not only trying to capture the mammoth oil and gas deposits by muscular power in that part of the globe but also trying to get a despotic control over the sea route which is considered as the backbone of trade and commerce in far-east. If India’s presence in the south china sea is hurting so much to Beijing , then by the same analogy China should stay away from the activities in PoK.

For the expansion of the India’s regime in south-china sea, Vietnam would be key for New-Delhi. Delhi-Hanoi defence pact could be a milestone in this direction. Now India is in the position to use Taraang port of Vietnam. In the decade of 70-80s China maintained good relations with the neighbours (especially Pakistan) of India to keep New-Delhi on its toes, now its time for India to establish pragmatic relations with the countries like Vietnam to pressurize china. Basically, its ‘Message-giving Strategy’ is that the relevance of Chinese communism and despotism is not over. To counter the Chinese strategy India has option to spread the message all over the world and indirectly all democratic authorities.

Now, the Chinese response is not very enthusiastic. We could not find out the answers; this is an unsolved question paper. Recently Montek Singh Ahluwalia went to China; took many issues with them in 1^st ever SED, but he returned to India almost empty-handed. What does it signify? To get the answer to the query we have to understand the basic perception of China towards India!