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India Today / Archive / The Big Story  / November 7, 2011 / Story

BRAHMA CHELLANEY OCTOBER 29, 2011 | UPDATED 20:04 IST

Dragon's familiar danceChinese aggression mirrors pre-1962 era

As the 50th anniversary of China's invasion approaches, history is in danger of 

repeating itself, with Chinese military pressures and aggressive designs against India

not only mirroring the pre-1962 war situation but also extending to Pakistan-occupied

Kashmir (PoK) and the oceans around India. China's expanding axis of evil with

Pakistan, including a new troop presence in PoK, heightens India's vulnerability in

Jammu and Kashmir, even as India has beefed up its defences in Arunachal Pradesh.

By muscling up to India, what is China seeking to achieve? The present situation,ominously, is no different in several key aspects from the one that prevailed in the run-up to the 1962 war.

• The aim of "Mao's India war" in 1962, as Harvard scholar Roderick MacFarquhar has called it, was largely political: to cut India to size by demolishing what itrepresented-a democratic alternative to China's autocracy. The swiftness andforce with which Mao Zedong defeated India helped discredit the Indian model,boost China's image, and consolidate Mao's internal power. The return of theChina-India pairing decades later riles Beijing.

• Just as the Dalai Lama's flight to India in 1959 set the stage for the Chinesemilitary attack, the exiled Tibetan leader today has become a bigger challenge for China than ever. The continuing security clampdown across the Tibetan plateausince the March 2008 Tibetan uprising parallels the harsh Chinese crackdown inTibet during 1959-62.

• The prevailing pattern of cross-frontier incursions and other border incidents is nodifferent to the situation that led up to the 1962 war. Yet, India is repeating thesame mistake by playing down the Chinese intrusions. Gratuitously stretching thetruth, Indian officials say the incursions are the result of differing perceptions

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about the line of control. But which side has refused to define the line of control?It speaks for itself that China hasn't offered this excuse. The fact is that Chineseforces are intruding even into Utttarakhand-the only sector where the line of control has been clarified by an exchange of maps-and into Sikkim, whose 206-km border with Tibet is recognised by Beijing.

•

The 1962 war occurred against the backdrop of China instigating and arminginsurgents in India's North-east. Although such Chinese activities ceased after Mao's death, China has come full circle today, with Chinese-made armsincreasingly flowing into guerrilla ranks in north-east India via Burmese frontorganisations. In fact, Pakistan-based terrorists targeting India also rely onChinese arms.

• China's pre-1962 psychological war is returning. In recent years, Beijing hasemployed its state-run media and nationalistic websites to warn of another armedconflict. It is a throwback to the coarse rhetoric China had used in its build-up tothe 1962 war. Its People's Daily, for example, has warned India to weigh "theconsequences of a potential confrontation with China". China merrily builds

strategic projects in an internationally disputed area like PoK but responds withcrude threats when other nations explore just for oil.• Just as India in the early 1960s retreated to a defensive position in the border 

negotiations after having undermined its leverage through a formal acceptance of the "Tibet region of China", the spotlight now is on China's revived Tibet-linkedclaim to Arunachal Pradesh rather than on the core issue, Tibet itself. India, withits focus on process than results, has remained locked in continuous border negotiations with China since 1981-the longest and the most fruitless processbetween any two nations post-Second World War. This process has only aidedChina's containment-with-engagement strategy.

• In the same way that India under Nehru unwittingly created the context toembolden Beijing to wage aggression, New Delhi is again staring at theconsequences of a mismanagement of relations. The more China's trade surpluswith India has swelled-jumping from $2 billion in 2002 to more than $30 billionnow-the greater has been its condescension toward India. To make mattersworse, the insidious, V.K. Krishna Menon-style shadow has returned to hauntIndian defence management and policy. India has never had more cluelessdefence and foreign ministers or a weaker Prime Minister with a credibilityproblem than it does today.

In fact, as it aims to mould a Sino-centric Asia, China is hinting that its real geopoliticalcontest is more with India than with the distant US. The countries around India havebecome battlegrounds for China's moves to encircle India. From a military invasion in1962 and a subsequent cartographic aggression, China is moving towards ahydrological aggression and a multipronged strategic squeeze of India. China'sdamming of rivers flowing from Tibet to India are highlighting Indian vulnerability on thewater front even before India has plugged its disadvantage on the nuclear front bybuilding a credible but minimal deterrent.Whether Beijing actually sets out to teach India "the final lesson" by launching a 1962-style attack will depend on several factors. They include India's domestic political

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situation, its defence preparedness, and the availability for China of a propitiousinternational timing of the type the Cuban missile crisis provided in 1962. If India doesnot want to be caught napping again, it has to come out of the present political paralysisand inject greater realism into its China policy, which today bears a close resemblanceto a studied imitation of an ostrich burying its head in the sand.