Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
on a visit as foreign minister in 1979. But there was no real breakthrough till Rajiv Gandhi
visited Beijing as prime minister in December 1988. 'The high point of the visit came when
Deng Xiaoping smiled and shook his hand for eight and a half minutes in the Great Hall of
the People in full view of the world's cameras to signal the start of a new era in India-Ch-
ina relations,' 14 says Mani Shankar Aiyar, who was with Gandhi. Deng called Gandhi 'my
young friend'. 15
Since then, China has played at alternately confronting and co-operating with India. It
teases with friendship, with trade, with border talks that make little progress, and occasion-
ally with international co-operation on multilateral issues such as climate change, banking
reform and anti-piracy ship patrolling in the Gulf of Aden. Simultaneously, it taunts with
warnings and incursions on the border, tripping India up in international forums such as the
Geneva-based Nuclear Suppliers' Group where India wants to become a member.
Border Dispute
The border dispute has been exacerbated by China's lack of confidence about the security
of Tibet. It calls Arunachal Pradesh 'Southern Tibet' and basically refuses to settle the bor-
der with India unless India hands over Tawang, which it occupied in 1962. Tawang lies in
an area that was administered remotely by Buddhist monks from Tibet till it was annexed
into British India in 1914. It was here that the Dalai Lama first fied in 1959, and the mon-
astery town has become a focal point of the two countries' differences.
Talks in the early 1980s and 1990s did not produce an agreement, despite some optimism
at the time though no lives have been lost in confrontations on the border since an Agree-
ment on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity in 1993 that was followed by new
'confidence building measures'. The mood changed in 2005 when China became far more
strident after India's co-operation agreements with the US that included defence and sales
of armaments. China then hardened its demands, claiming in particular that Arunachal
Pradesh is not part of India, and objecting when Manmohan Singh visited the state during
campaigning for assembly elections in 2009. It has refused visas to Arunachal people, in-
cluding official visitors, and condemned India's increased militarization and highway con-
struction activity in the area. In tit-for-tat measures late in 2012, China launched passports
with maps showing Arunachal (and Aksai Chin, the second disputed border area in the
Ladakh area of Jammu and Kashmir) as part of its territory, and India printed its own ver-
sion of maps on visas issued to Chinese nationals.
Throughout these years, China 'has used Pakistan as a cat's paw to keep India distrac-
ted,' says Shyam Saran. 16 China uses Pakistan as a 'proxy' - for example, by helping it to
develop a nuclear bomb to counter India's capability. Pakistan is its primary customer for
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