love this quote:

Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace. -Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

I thought this was cute :-)

Aapko iss Diwali mein …

Chandragupt Ki Shakti
Meerabai Ki Bhakti
Hemendra Ka Gyan
Karan Ka Daan
Einstein Ki Buddhi
Nobel Prize Ki Siddhi
Gandhi Ki Ahimsa
India Ki Parampara
Vajpayee Ki Maryada
Nizaam Ki Sampada
Michael Jordan Ki Salary
Abdul Kalam Ki Vocabulary
Bhagat Singh Ka Deshprem
Sweetheart Ka Amarprem
Google Ke Share
Rupiyo Ke Dher
Tata Ke Senses
Ambani Ke Licenses
Birla Ka Bangla
Daler Ka Bhangra
Amitabh Ki Style
Madhuri Ki Smile
Shahrukh Ki Personality
Aishwarya Ki Popularity
World Tour Ka Ticket
Tendulkar Ka Wicket
Administrator Ke Passwords
Jokes Ke Forwards
Mercedez Ki Car
Diamond Ka Haar
Aur Logon Ka Dher Saraa Pyar Prapt Ho

… Wish you a Happy Diwali and a Prosperous New Year.

interesting article in TOI today.

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TCRM/2009/10/03&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T&PageLabel=1&EntityId=Ar00100&AppName=1  

THE TIMES OF INDIA, SATURDAY WEEK OCTOBER 3-OCTOBER 9, 2009
 
CHINESE CHECKERS
Learning To Live With China 

There’s a sense that New Delhi would prefer to play down reports of heightened tension along its border with the world’s new superpower. Is it because it doesn’t want to displease Beijing? Beyond the routine cut-and-thrust of diplomacy and defence, though, there’s a crucial, long-term dilemma that India, itself a wannabe superpower, needs to address: How does it deal with the inscrutable dragon in the room? 

INDRANI BAGCHI DIPLOMATIC EDITOR

There was a surprise in store this week for those who chose to brave Arunachal Pradesh’s damp cold and the three-hour rough ride from Tawang up to Bum La Pass, on the border with Tibet. They were greeted by “happy” arches erected by Chinese soldiers on the other side, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in power. The Chinese were preparing to receive Indian soldiers for a celebratory lunch — and some unfinished business on border management.

Most of this bonhomie is likely to evaporate in just over a month’s time when the Dalai Lama reaches the 400-year-old Tawang gompa (monastery) to offer prayers. Historically, this region has had a close relationship with the Tibetan people. The sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso, for example, was born in Tawang. So, it’s not unnatural for the current Dalai Lama (the 14th) to want to pay obeisance at the Tawang gompa. Still, anything that’s seen to accommodate the breakaway Tibetans gets Beijing’s hackles up, especially when it’s on land claimed by the Chinese.

And so it alternates — blow hot, blow cold — in the uncertain relations between India and China: one day, it’s jaw-jaw, another day it’s claw-claw. The inscrutable Chinese and the argumentative Indian find each other equally indecipherable. It’s not surprising, therefore, that India’s China policy rides a trough-peak roller coaster.

New Delhi has been playing down media reports of Chinese “incursions” in an apparent bid not to ruffle feathers in Beijing. Almost simultaneously, the ministry of external affairs was lashing out at China for stapling not stamping visas to the passports of Kashmiri Indians, a signal that J&K was disputed.

The rise and rise of China represents one of contemporary history’s tectonic shifts. For an India that fancies itself as an emerging superpower, learning to live with an assertive China is one of its greatest foreign policy challenges, especially as its ambitions are sometimes aligned with the Chinese and sometimes at odds. A People’s Daily commentary (Sept 15) points out, “India is still a lesser power than China in terms of its economic and military might, both conventional and non-conventional.”

How can New Delhi and Beijing achieve a steady state of equilibrium that gives both sides the comfort of predictability, and a resultant confidence in each other? That’s a question nagging not just India’s foreign policy mandarins, but students and practitioners of diplomacy worldwide. As one of the architects of India’s China policy (who will be unnamed as will be many interviewed for this story) says: “For India, coping with the rise of China is not a luxury; they’re right next door.”

Indian policy makers find China’s approach to India quite mystifying. On the border, China has vastly superior military machinery. Its economic muscle is much bigger. And yet it appears keen to avoid any confrontation along the 4,056-km undemarcated border. But on many issues of bilateral import, China takes a far more belligerent stand — like seeking to nix India’s bid for a place at the UN Security Council; mounting a last-minute scramble to stop the nuclear deal in Vienna; trying to keep India out of an Asian economic community; blocking ADB from giving Arunachal money for a water project; and denying Arunachal residents Chinese visas.

BULLY ON THE BORDER?

Indian officials will tell you China’s assertiveness is there for all to see — in Australia, in Japan, with the US. Susan Shirk, former diplomat and author of China: Fragile Superpower, tempers the growing unease about Chinese aggressiveness. “I don’t see China as being very assertive,” she told TOI Crest. “Its influence has certainly grown. But China makes a great effort to avoid being seen as aggressive, especially in international organisations and in diplomacy. With neighbours, China has been trying to prevent clashes, but that seems to have changed with India recently.”

Shirk is possibly referring to the contrast between Chinese attitude with, say, Russia, with which it has speedily worked out border problems, and its tardiness with India on border issues. In a conversation with TOI Crest, Ashley Tellis, author of Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy, described China’s reaction to India as “atypical”. “China has generally been muted with the countries on its periphery. Except India.”

That’s not sinking hopes. Said a senior Indian diplomat, “The last thing China wants now is an aggravation of a dispute with the only other rising power in Asia. They have a greater stake than us in de-escalating problems.” China analyst, Claude Arpi, offers a more nuanced view: “While the official stand is still the ‘peaceful rise of China’, some PLA generals believe ‘China cannot emerge in the midst of nightingale songs and swallow dances’. The official line is to avoid a confrontation that will lead nowhere for China.”

A greater symmetry on the border, where India is still at a severe disadvantage, would probably give more traction to this official line. “While China has mobilized huge resources to develop its side of the border, our policy has been to keep the border areas underdeveloped because we believed the inhospitable terrain would deter the Chinese from trying to get to Arunachal Pradesh, where China claims 90,000 sq km of territory,” says a senior government official. It’s only as recently as five years ago that India woke up and started beefing up both military hardware and border infrastructure.

In 2007, former foreign secretary Shyam Saran in a report proposed a big ramp-up of border infrastructure: for instance, two inter-basin roads spanning four rivers in Arunachal, crossed by seven north-south aligned roads at precisely the points where there is a “perception difference” with the Chinese. In Sikkim, where the Chinese have “activated” what was believed to be a “settled” border, India has only one roadlink (NH-31A), no railhead or airport.

The pace of construction has been maddeningly slow, often impeded by objections from the environment ministry, understandably hyper-sensitive about anything that threatens to unsettle the delicate eco-system of the eastern Himalayas. The glacial pace has meant that officials have had to think of innovative solutions. In Arunachal, where road building is painfully slow, one official said that entire construction teams were airlifted to the line of actual control (LAC), so that the road could be built backwards! In any case, India believes it is in its interest now to keep things quiet along the LAC as long as it is hamstrung by sloppy infrastructure and defences.

GLOBAL SWEEPSTAKES

In the global sphere, the story is somewhat different. Despite the pretence that the world is big enough to accommodate the rise of both India and China, the competition remains intense — over markets, construction orders, minerals, land banks – you name it.

Says Mohan Malik, professor Asian security at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies, Honolulu: “The steady emergence of India as a powerful player is not looked upon favorably by China. China’s strategic culture is to distrust strong, powerful neighbors and prefer small, weak, subordinate or client buffer states. A theme dominant in all Chinese commentaries over the last few years is that India’s growing power — backed by the US — would bring about a shift in the Asian balance of power detrimental to China.”

THE US FACTOR

One of India’s top strategic analysts, K Subrahmanyan, says India should take a page out of China’s own history to respond to Chinese aggressiveness. “In 1969, when China clashed with the Soviet Union and Alexei Kosygin wagged his finger at China, what did China do? It went over and made friends with the US.” Since 2000, that lesson has been well learnt in India. In 2005, the US-India strategic partnership created a greater diplomatic space for India, opened up a prospect of a counterbalance to China. It was US power that pushed the Indian nuclear deal through the NSG in 2008, despite Chinese machinations in Vienna.

But 2009 is another year. After the global economic meltdown last winter, the international context changed. Despite Manmohan Singh being seated next to Barack Obama at the G-20 banquet last week, the usefulness of the US as a strategic counterpoint to China has diminished, not least because the US and China are joined at the hip in the crisis. The US under Obama has been remarkably muted in its approach to China. As China has grown more assertive, for instance on views on the dollar, the US is seen to be retreating. While slapping cosmetic duties on Chinese tyres, Obama made sure he wouldn’t be available for the Dalai Lama when the Tibetan leader visits Washington.

China’s economic performance and clout makes it absolutely central to the global economic recovery, which gives China first dibs in the new international system, particularly as a new financial order is being crafted. India is preparing for a big battle there because China will do its damnedest to keep India out. “It is logical to expect the Chinese to want to stop us,” said one official resignedly.

Despite the US and China’s growing efforts to co-habit, India’s relationship with the US is still cited as one of China’s biggest concerns. Both Shirk and Tellis say two factors, one new, the other old — expanding US-India ties and India’s continuing accommodation of the Dalai Lama’s band of Tibetans — have made India a hot-button issue for Beijing. A September 14 article in the Chinese Communist Party’s theoretical organ, Qiu Shi, titled, “The strengthening of US-India military cooperation will change the strategic situation in South Asia”, argues that while this cooperation may not amount to a military alliance, it is a long-term arrangement and US could rope in India to realize its global and regional strategic objectives.

There’s another interesting situation building up on the climate front. As the world’s largest emitter of GHGs, there is now a scramble to get China “around” to sign a deal. It suits both India and China, for the moment, to hang together against the West, figuring the two together have a better bargaining chance. But the first country to strike a “deal” with the US (and it’s unlikely to be India) will abandon the other.

BUSINESS BATTLES

India’s poorly thought-out attitude towards Chinese skilled and semi-skilled workers as well as business enterprises (like Huawei) is another complicating factor. New Delhi allowed in all Chinese workers, including 25,000 semiskilled ones, on business rather than work visas. Now it wants to turf them out. And Beijing is deeply unhappy. While China’s foreign direct investment in India is very low, over the next couple of years, it stands to earn some $45 billion in contractual projects (current earnings: $12 billion). New Delhi faces a tight-rope walk. It wants skilled workers, but it also wants Chinese companies to replace semi-skilled ones with trained Indian workers. That will take time. And the pot will keep steaming.

TENSION OVER TIBET

Because the Dalai Lama and his followers have been in India for decades now, there is little attention in India on the Tibet issue. But we should not underestimate the huge potential for trouble it has between India and China. Says Tellis, “In the Chinese mind, India has a lock on domestic secession, particularly in Tibet. China is mortally afraid India could play a problematic role.” India has kept its nose clean on the Dalai Lama, who has the run of the country but only for spiritual purposes. But that doesn’t stop the Chinese from wondering whether India will use him for geopolitical ends. Indian strategists believe this anxiety drives China’s claim on Arunachal Pradesh and Tawang. But if China’s aggressiveness becomes more strident, India’s political options on the Dalai Lama could increase. Certainly, his upcoming trip to Tawang could be a subtle hint by India. After the Dalai Lama passes on, the ensuing political uncertainty could easily turn into military misadventure by China, if it’s tempted to “teach India a lesson.”

DEFENCE AND DIPLOMACY

In the military field, India, like China, is one of the biggest defense markets in the world. But India has an advantage, which it seldom appreciates, but which China feels acutely. India today can access sophisticated US weapon systems, and buy from Europe, Russia and Israel. China has an arms embargo from EU, and doesn’t get access to the high-end stuff from the US or Israel, leaving Russia as their main supplier. This is also said to be contributing to Beijing’s anxiety.

China has been steadily building stakes in India’s neighbourhood, a result of a lack of an Indian strategic vision. If India can’t mend relations with Bangladesh, or Myanmar, there’s only one other country that can fill that space. And if Sri Lanka gave Hambantota to the Chinese, it’s because India failed to come to Colombo’s aid. India’s strong moralising streak as well as its disregard for ruling elites in neighbouring countries is costing us.

But India’s learning. Apart from deepening ties with the US, it’s moving closer to Japan, Australia, South Korea and Vietnam, albeit at the old “Hindu” rate of growth.

China fears encirclement just as we do, except we know that India has the harder climb in the region. It’s big power politics.

RISE OF CHINESE NATIONALISM

Finally, there’s public opinion in both countries, which is today far sharper than the official tone. Not everyone in Beijing speaks the soft, nuanced tongue of the foreign ministry. There’s an increasingly nationalistic streak in Chinese public opinion and officially-sanctioned media commentary. Shirk traces this to the growing importance of Chinese public opinion and pressure on authorities to take a tough stand on emotive issues like Tibet. After the riots in Lhasa in 2008, it’s been elevated to a core issue of national sovereignty. “India was not viewed as a serious threat in China… but now some of the statements are becoming more symbolic and aimed more at China’s own public.” This basically means we can expect serious fireworks when Dalai Lama visits Arunachal Pradesh.

Sunday Times of London says that Thursday’s National Day parade is expected to trigger a spike in virulent nationalism, and the “enemy” most commonly spoken about is India. “Help the Maoists take over power in India to pay them back for hosting the Dalai Lama,” says a contributor to an internet site allowed by the Chinese censors.

In India, an assertive middle-class often finds the government response to Chinese “aggressiveness” somewhat spineless. The recent media hysteria over Chinese incursions in the border areas is symptomatic of a growing restlessness with “supine acceptance”. The media here is private and it hardly helps that the government is chary of sharing worthwhile information with the public, limiting itself to inanities.

THE WAY FORWARD

So, how do we go ahead and change the pattern of the ungainly Indo-Chinese dance? The discourse on all of these will have to be tempered and gradually modified for either New Delhi or Beijing to develop mutual trust and breathe easier. Some say this may never happen. K. Subrahmanyam says there is history behind the official Indian reaction. “India’s 1962 burden stems from the fact the defeat of Sela-Bomdilla was papered over and the nation never had the chance of a catharsis. That festering wound continues.”

At the same time, there’s growing realization in both the capitals that the simmering tension just can’t be allowed to get out of hand. As both the countries rise and become more influential, they will frequently rub each other the wrong way. If left uncontrolled, matters could indeed spin out of control.

Given the fundamentally divergent systems in both countries, Indian officials are reluctantly coming to the conclusion that good diplomacy is not just how they deal with the Chinese, but how these are explained in India.

India needs to build the kind of interdependences with China that will give both nations increased stakes in each other. Former foreign secretaries Shyam Saran and Shiv Shankar Menon have both proposed that India and China embark on collective security in some areas.

Economic strategists meanwhile suggest that India’s best deterrence is a continued 7-8% annual growth rate, which will give it greater confidence. India must also build a better neighbourhood based on mutual prosperity and connectivity. And it needs to strengthen its footprint in the Indian Ocean so has to have greater control over the sea lanes through which 80% of Chinese energy supplies travel.

Above all, India’s approach to China should be more strategic and proactive, because, China will be a long-term challenge. Therefore, engage, engage, engage.

May be the power of the chant will lead to a new learning of how to stay calm knowing there’s a 900-pound dragon in the room. It needs quiet confidence — neither bravado, nor obsequiousness.

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