India and China - Implosion: India's Tryst with Reality - page 299

conventional weapons and the two countries' defence and industrial co-operation includes
co-production of fighter aircraft and jet trainers, air-to-air and other missiles, frigates and
battle tanks according to a US Pentagon report in May 2013. 17
China's support for Pakistan runs alongside assistance from the US, which has its own
Afghanistan-oriented reasons for helping. Between 1982 and 2011, the US provided $13.5
bn in economic aid and $17 bn in military assistance to Pakistan which included fighter air-
craft and other weaponry. 18 The US is in effect therefore condoning the nuclear and military
supplies that China gives to Pakistan - it has sometimes told Beijing that it knows about
Chinese missile companies' sales (revealed by WikiLeaks 19 ), but has apparently done noth-
ing to stop the trade. There are however limits to how far China will go. It surprised
Pakistan by not being supportive during its Kargil near-war with India in 1999, presumably
realizing that to have done so would have upset the equilibrium with the US, and may have
escalated the confrontation into an unnecessary crisis. China is also wary of Pakistan-based
terrorists' possible links with Muslims in its restive western Xingjian province.
The messages from China come from different sources which often conflict with each
other. In August 2009, a Chinese strategic issues website was claiming China could 'dis-
member the so-called “Indian Union” with one little move'. 20 It said that 'there cannot be
two suns in the sky - China and India cannot really deal with each other harmoniously'. 21
The following March, a westernized Beijing adviser called at a Delhi conference for China
and India to see their disputed Himalayan mountain border 'not as an insurmountable bar-
rier' but as a 'bridge linking these two ancient civilizations together, for mutual benefit,
and for mutual enrichment'. 22 In April 2012, after India launch-tested an AGNI V missile
with a 5,000-km range that could strike Beijing or Shanghai, China's Communist Party-
owned Global Times newspaper warned aggressively that India 'would stand no chance in
an overall arms race with China'. 23
China knows that India will not over-react to whatever happens because Delhi realizes it
is unlikely to win an argument, and is also aware it might have problems gaining diplomat-
ic support from other countries in a dispute. 'Overt tensions with China only constrain our
foreign policy choices vis-à-vis other powers,' wrote Kanwal Sibal, former foreign secret-
ary, in December 2012. 24
India Encircled
China has encircled India with a 'string of pearls' 25 by establishing its presence in neigh-
bouring countries - not just its traditional targets of Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and My-
anmar, but also Sri Lanka and the Maldives archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Activities
range from military, infrastructure and economic aid to intelligence cooperation and en-