Road ahead for Sino-Indian ties

AS INDIA AND China mark the completion of half a century of diplomatic engagement, looking back on the lost opportunities during most of the past five decades, there must be genuine hope that the next 50 years will see greater mutually-beneficial cooperation between the two Asian giants. The transparent warmth with which the President, Mr. K. R. Narayanan, has been received in Beijing and the expressions of goodwill from the Chinese leaders signal that the bilateral relationship has finally emerged from the dark days of the summer of two years ago following Pokhran-II, even justifying optimism over the direction in which the ties are moving. The Chinese President, Mr. Jiang Zemin's repeated highlighting of the need for the two countries to take a long-term strategic perspective of the bilateral relations as much as Mr. Narayanan's significant description of cooperation with China as a historical necessity underscored the desire on both sides to move the ties forward. For the two countries to ``scale heights'', as Mr. Jiang wanted, there are opportunities in the bilateral sphere and in the fast-evolving global situation provided there is a willingness to jettison the baggage of the past.

On the long-standing boundary question, China again counselled patience while the President conveyed India's eagerness for imparting a sense of urgency to the bilateral effort to find acceptable solutions. Each country had its reasons, but as Mr. Narayanan said such ``inherited'' problems must not be left over for history. Mr. Jiang's expression of appreciation for the way India handled the arrival of the Karmapa Lama and his decision not to raise the nuclear issue despite continuing differences were the diplomatic red carpet that Beijing rolled out for Mr. Narayanan. They give rise to the hope that China may one day be ready to give up attempts to keep India in the South Asian straitjacket and acknowledge its arrival on the international arena. The President's visit must simultaneously have served to remove whatever misgivings Beijing might have harboured over the decision of India and the U.S. to enter a new strategic relationship. Far from joining any real or imaginary plan to encircle China, India is interested in exploring ways of working with China and other like-minded countries to build a new international order and end the instability of the present unipolar world.

If there are opportunities, there are also persisting irritants. Two issues on which gaps in perspective remain are the result of a continuing Chinese failure to rid the bilateral relations of the millstone of third country ties. The first relates to the fight against international terrorism. While ready to come out forcefully against terrorism, China has been reluctant to join India in condemning Pakistan for terrorist acts. Its all-weather friendship with Pakistan also ensured that China refrained from extending support to India's claim to a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council while it readily agreed with India on the need for reforming and restructuring the world body. China's continued deference to Pakistan, which wants allotment on a rotational basis, and Beijing's reluctance to come out in support of India are inexplicable, especially in the context of the open declaration by two of the five big powers, Russia and France, in favour of New Delhi's candidature and the urgency of democratising the U.N.

The diplomatic engagement between the two neighbours began half a century ago on a note of high expectancy. The first decade of Hindi-Chini bhai bhai gave no hint of the impending catastrophe of the border war. It has taken three decades and more for the scars to get erased and a new beginning to be made. As the bilateral relations remain on the threshold, the most enduring impression from the historic Presidential visit is one of a desire on both sides to widen the interaction between the two peoples at different levels for mutual benefit.

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