Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
What is certain is that there is no prospect of India and China being at ease with each
other. Looking back, there never was, from the time of India's independence, because Ch-
ina saw itself as a future regional and world power and was not prepared for India to be in
the same league. There is however broad stability, despite increasing militarization on the
Himalayan border, with rapidly growing economic ties, tedious and literally endless border
negotiations, and occasional constructive bilateral co-operation on international issues.
'India-China relations are complex and require careful management. There is need for
firmness but also prudence. The Chinese are sometimes contemptuous of India but at times
there is a respectful wariness. This is matched by our own ambiguous posture on China.
This is likely to continue,' says Shyam Saran, a former Indian foreign secretary.
Nehru's Dream
Nehru idealistically saw India and China as parallel civilizations that could work together
and did not realize till it was too late that this clashed with China's ambition to achieve
regional supremacy. On the ground, his attitude may have been indicated by the size of the
30-acre plot allocated for China's embassy compound on Shanti Path, New Delhi's diplo-
matic boulevard, which is bigger than any other country's. 'He didn't understand China,'
says Jagat Mehta, who was a young Indian diplomat in the 1950s and later became foreign
the two countries lacked the common bond that Nehru envisaged. Mehta says that Nehru
did not consult his officials sufficiently: 'He lacked in that he did not know how to ask
questions, and we in the civil service did not have the courage to tell him'.
In what must have been the biggest mistake of his foreign policy, Nehru was persuaded
to turn down an offer from China in 1959-60 to settle the disputed Himalayan border.
Based on what is known as the McMahon line, it had been drawn up by Britain and agreed
with China and Tibet in 1914. China now rejects that agreement because it does not accept
that Tibet, which it annexed in 1950-51, was a sovereign country qualified to settle border
disputes.
Initially, Nehru's strategy of friendship appeared to be working and he signed the Five
Principles of Peaceful Co-existence with China, known as the Panchsheel Agreement, in
1954. But Nehru went too far and appeared, in Chinese eyes, to be patronizing Chou en-
Lai, the premier, when he introduced him in 1955 at an international conference of Afric-
an and Asian nations in Bandung, Indonesia. Relations soured and Nehru, by now himself
feeling patronized, is said to have told India's ambassador to Peking in 1958: 'I don't trust
the Chinese one bit. They are a deceitful, opinionated, arrogant and hegemonistic lot'.
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