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China-India: Ancient Route to
Peace
Ranjit Devraj
June 24, 2003
NEW DELHI - The world's two most populous countries,
India and China, plan to resolve long-standing
disputes over their 3,500-kilometer-long border by
reviving a centuries-old trade that was halted
abruptly by a brief but bloody war in 1962.
On Monday, the two countries signed a memorandum of
understanding (MoU) to revive border trade but steered
clear of outstanding issues that might not be resolved
during Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's
six-day visit to China. He arrived there on Sunday.
Vajpayee, the first Indian prime minister to visit
China in 10 years, spent two hours on Monday with
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao who, official sources here
said, described the visit as a "the beginning of a new
era in China-India relations".
In a televised briefing in Beijing soon after their
historic meeting at the Great Hall of the People,
Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said the two
sides had agreed that one bilateral issue - the
unresolved border - could not hold hostage other areas
where cooperation was possible.
The neighbors signed as many as nine agreements,
including those for the easing of visa norms and
strengthening bilateral cooperation in various fields.
Wen, who assumed office barely three months ago,
announced that China had earmarked US$500 million for
investment in India. Vajpayee returned the gesture by
saying that Chinese firms investing in India could
expect the best possible treatment.
Among those who welcomed the development was Professor
Alokesh Baruah, a well-known economist and expert on
India's neglected northeastern region that is likely
to benefit greatly by the reopening of the ancient
trade routes through the Indian states of Sikkim and
Arunachal Pradesh, which border China.
"The only way that the northeastern region can be
developed is through trade and the whole area has
remained dormant for too long only because of closed
borders," Baruah said.
Reporters accompanying the Indian team were informed
by Foreign Minister Sinha that the issue of Chinese
recognition of Sikkim - a Himalayan kingdom until its
merger with India in 1975 - as an integral part of
India came up during Monday's discussions.
Apart from the Sikkim issue, China claims 90,000
square kilometers of land in Arunachal Pradesh.
Likewise, India holds that China occupies 38,000
square kilometers of the Ladakh region of the former
princely state of Kashmir.
Wen was reported as saying on Saturday that Beijing
was ready for a mutually acceptable solution to the
boundary issue, which he described as a "historical
burden on our two countries left over by the
colonialists".
"The Chinese side stands for a fair, reasonable and
mutually acceptable solution to the issue, a solution
that can be found through bilateral talks in
accordance with the principles of consultation on an
equal footing, mutual understanding, mutual
accommodation and mutual adjustment," Wen was quoted
as saying.
Baruah said the idea that trade could help achieve
peace was a novel one made possible by the economic
liberalization of both countries.
Baruah said the present government has also been
vigorously pursuing a "Look East" policy that
envisaged the opening of India's insurgency-ridden
northeastern states to the economies of Southeast Asia
and the Far East.
"The attempt to use trade as a bridge has not worked
too well on the western side, where Pakistan has until
recently insisted that the issue of settling the
dispute over Kashmir must precede everything else,"
Baruah said.
China has in recent years toned down its stand on
Sikkim's accession to India, even conceding that the
state is a non-issue so far as the border dispute was
concerned although it has yet to accept Sikkim
officially as a part of India.
While details of Monday's MoU are yet to be made known,
China may want to reopen its border post in the
Himalayan town of Kalimpong in West Bengal state and
the consulate it maintained in Kolkata. Both had been
functional until the 1962 war.
After India and China took their first slow steps
toward peace during the 1980s, China opened a
consulate in the western port city of Mumbai and India
did likewise in Shanghai, but reopening the Kolkata
consulate was considered too sensitive.
In spite of the movement forward on the border-trade
issue, some analysts say there has been no
breakthrough yet on the substantial issues that have
kept China and India divided for four decades -
including the annexation of Tibet by China.
"It will be something of a miracle if the Vajpayee
visit can make serious headway on the boundary
question," commented Anand Sahay in Monday's Hindustan
Times, an influential daily newspaper.
"At the root of the boundary problem is India's 1954
one-sided acceptance of China's annexation of Tibet
without Beijing's acceptance of the Indo-Tibetan
border," said Brahma Chellaney, a strategic-affairs
expert with the prestigious Center for Policy
Research.
Chellaney said the border talks have reached a "dead
end" because China is unwilling to take even the
preliminary step of exchanging maps.
Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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