Modi Should Note How Rajiv Gandhi Handled China

If the Chinese Foreign Minister's visit last week went off without a hitch, that is largely because it was not a Modicentric initiative in foreign policy. A thoroughly professional exercise, it involved our China experts led by the Foreign Secretary, himself a former Indian Ambassador to Beijing, under the overall guidance of a competent Minister of External Affairs. Fortunately, Modi's involvement was limited to a 20-minute courtesy call on him by our distinguished visitor. So, there were no hi-jinks, no grandstanding, no showmanship. A preparatory visit that proposed two wholly new forums, one, of the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries to supplement the on-going border talks between the National Security Advisers, plus a new dialogue between disarmament officials on NSG and related questions to smoothly prepare the way for the Chinese President's visit a few months from now. That is how diplomacy should work. Thorough professional preparation before the Big Boys jump in. Let us hope Modi doesn't blow it like he did two years ago and, more recently, on the eve of the NSG meeting in June.

I was on the fringe of the most important breakthrough in India-China relations - Rajiv Gandhi's journey to China in December 1988. Preparations had begun nearly four years earlier, on the morrow of his decisive win in the late December 1984 elections, when he had been returned with a thundering majority of over 400 seats. The preparations were at several different levels through our very able and reputed ambassador in Beijing, C.V. Ranganathan, and his highly-trained Chinese-speaking staff in concert with the desk officers in Delhi, most of whom were also experienced China hands. (The Ambassador himself was arguably the best Chinese-speaking Indian Foreign Service officer of his day). The PMO and MEA were brought on the same page.

Second, at the military level. There had been a Chinese incursion at Sumdorong-chu, near the Bhutan border. Even if there was the danger that this might derail the China initiative, our defence forces were told to make it clear to the Chinese that the incursion was unacceptable. There was little ostentatious sabre-rattling but the message went out unambiguously that this was no longer the army of 1962. The Chinese withdrew. And Rajiv Gandhi travelled to Bhutan to reassure the King that there was no danger to his kingdom.
 Then the very complex internal political situation had to be tackled. Most importantly, Indira Gandhi's veterans like PN Haksar and G Parthasarathy who had won their political stripes confronting the Chinese in the aftermath of the 1962 disaster, were sent to meet the Chinese leadership on exploratory visits. Their reports constituted key inputs in the preparatory process and in bringing round the hawks to a more conciliatory attitude. Then public opinion within the nation had to be evaluated and educated through general outreach, the Opposition and, above all, academia and the media. That took many years of diligent, constructive endeavor. 

There remained the key question of Arunachal Pradesh that the Chinese called "South Tibet" and wholly claimed. A visit to Mizoram had been scheduled in the spring of 1988 for the swearing-in of the newly re-elected Congress Chief Minister of Mizoram, Lalthanhawla (who is still CM). Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi decided to avail of the opportunity to announce full statehood for Mizoram that had hitherto been a Union Territory.

In the midst of preparations for this visit, I received instructions, in my capacity as "Manager, Tours and Travels" as one leading journal had my job description, to add a quick trip to Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh, to the programme being drawn up for Aizawl at the other end of the North-east region. That presented a logistical nightmare, particularly because night-landing and take-off facilities were few and far between at that time in the North-east. But with the affable cooperation of the wonderful Air Marshall Keeler at Air Headquarters, we were able to sort things out and put Itanagar into the itinerary for the day. 

I was standing at the foot of the stage when I heard to my astonishment the Prime Minister conferring full statehood on Arunachal Pradesh! When we were back in the plane, I sought him out in his cabin and asked but what was going to be the impact of this announcement on the proposed China visit. Rajiv Gandhi beamed at me and said, "Mani, if we do not know where the borders of our country lie, how can we expect the Chinese to know?" It worked. India's position had been made crystal clear. The visit to China went forward. A combination of firmness on basics and flexibility on the road ahead ensured that all that was needed to signal the historic breakthrough was Deng Xiao Ping's eight-minute handshake with Rajiv, almost waltzing round the Great Hall of the People for TV cameras the world over to record that a dramatic new chapter had been opened in the relationship between the two Asian giants. Modiji, solid preparatory work, not empty last-minute showbiz gestures, lies at the core of effective diplomacy.
 The Rajiv-Deng breakthrough has endured over the last quarter century and more. Reinforced by the 1994 Treaty on Peace and Tranquility at the border, India and China have been engaged for as many as years as they were distanced before Rajiv Gandhi went to China 26 years after the India-China war. While many contentious issues, particularly the long border, remain, and are likely to remain unresolved for a long time to come, mutual engagement has opened so many windows of cooperation that China has become one of our most important trade destinations, and we find ourselves together and often in agreement on numerous regional and international forums. Despite tensions from time to time, sometimes intense conflict situations have been contained by the institutional mechanisms put in place. We are edging back to the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence that once informed our relationship and constituted such a beacon to the world that Panchsheel came to be the fundamental foreign policy doctrine, at least in principle, for a substantial majority of newly-independent countries in the midst of the Cold War. It is a doctrine often invoked by China in contemporary times. 

All this could be put at risk if India does not remain non-aligned in the Second Cold War that shows signs of developing between the US and China. During Modi's state visit to the US last June, Obama declared India a "Major Defense Partner". The capitals M-D-P were provided by the Americans, as was the American spelling of "Defense"! It raises the same question that Nehru asked of Ayub when the Pakistani military dictator and firm military ally of the US suggested a mutual defence pact between his country and ours: "Defence against whom?" If we are going to be a Major Defense Partner of the US in various military adventures that it is prone to embark on in the Asian region on land, sea and air, then we will meet the fate of Pakistan in Cold War I. The Chinese Foreign Minister has very diplomatically and cleverly left it to us to decide what India's stand should be on the South China Sea where US military confrontation with China is being stoked. One prays Modi won't bungle the answer when he meets President Xi. 

(Mani Shankar Aiyar is former Congress MP, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.)

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