28 July 2020, NIICE Commentary 5706
Dr. Jivanta Schoettli
Managing relations with neighbours and specifically, the demarcation and delineation of borders is a key challenge for any country’s foreign policy. In the case of South Asia, a number of borders remain disputed or pending full settlement. India, located at the centre of the region shares borders with a number of the SAARC members. A quick overview of border relations with each of these neighbours reveals the complexities involved in each case, which by and large relate to a common set of historical legacies and the existence of cross-border, trans-national ethnic groups. In addition to deeply historical and contextual dynamics that frame long-running border disputes, there are contingencies that emerge at various points in time, enabling breakthroughs in negotiations or contributing to a further entrenchment of divergent perspectives.
In the case of India’s border dispute with China, this ranks as one of the longest-running border negotiations in the world, ongoing since 1981. The Line of Actual Control is the demarcation line that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory but there is a dispute on the actual parameters of the demarcation. India considers the LAC to be 3,488 km long, while the Chinese consider it to be only around 2,000 km. It is divided into three sectors: the eastern sector which spans Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, the middle sector in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and the western sector in Ladakh. The most recent outbreak of deadly violence in the western sector, and specifically close to Aksai Chin has highlighted most starkly the gap, not simply in terms of perception but in actual fact on the scale of the dispute at stake. It can be argued that the events of June 2020 mark a watershed in India-China relations due to the nature, timing and general context within which it took place. These include the brutality involved, the impact this has on public opinion, the implications for bilateral relations, aggravated by the timing given the COVID-19 pandemic and the general context of global developments and geo-political competition.
The recent developments can be put into historical context, drawing a parallel with the 1950s. This was when the border dispute first took shape as a bilateral issue between two newly founded nation-states. India gained Independence from British rule in 1947 and China emerged from a long civil war as the People’s Republic in 1949. The two newly established states soon demonstrated a willingness to pursue an active foreign policy position, within the developing world but also on the international stage, articulating a new vision for global politics. China’s view of revolution and anti-imperialism was inevitably more radical than India’s turn towards non-alignment. While this fundamental divergence set the limits to a cooperative relationship, there was nevertheless a concerted attempt during the early 1950s to pursue the idea of Asian solidarity. “Hindi-Chini bhai bhai” (a slogan signifying ‘India and China are brothers’). This was given an institutionalised format with the signing of the Panchasheela Agreement in 1954 and the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’ which were to govern relations between the two and, which in turn made its way into a number of other international documents that were signed.
How relations spiralled from apparent bonhomie in the early / mid-1950s to war in 1962 has been the subject of many discussions and investigations. While not exploring the causes and reasons for the break-down in relations in 1962, it can be posited that the calculations surrounding the decisions to sign the 1954 Panchasheela Agreement reveal how domestic and international compulsions can lead to a sub-optimal policy outcome. The conditions and goals set out in the Panchasheela Agreement of 1954 provided very little material gain to India. Instead the primary rationale behind, and outcome of, the agreement was more reputational given that it was the first international agreements signed by the PRC with a non-Communist state. India neither obviously held the upper-hand in the relationship at the time, nor was it under any particular threat or experiencing obvious coercion from China.
The fiasco of 1962 and the failure of Panchasheela, which should have led to a massive rethinking of India’s strategy vis-à-vis the border and China, instead gave way to a state of limbo in the relationship. This argument has to be seen in terms of the highly personalised nature in which diplomacy was conducted during the 1950s, hindering the emergence of institutional framework and format from, then and thereafter. Ultimately this meant that there were high personal stakes involved in the need to pursue and demonstrate good relations between the two countries and subsequently high stakes in the need to stand firm on the border issue.
Negotiations between the two countries were initiated in the 1980s and went on into the 1990s. The most recent escalation is seen as having challenged and violated the terms that had been set in key agreements during the 1990s and thus indicates an important change in the prior preference for status quo. India’s response is also indicative of a substantive change given the consideration and use of economic measures in retaliation and seen within the context of a larger stepping up of strategic engagement with key global partners.
Being cognisant of the domestic dynamics and the international drivers can help to understand and analyse (a) why it has been so difficult for successive Indian governments to resolve the border dispute with China and (b) to explore the extent to which the situation today has changed, compared with the 1950s.
