Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of State Security respectively), and are the
only openly distributed
publications of these two agencies. Most of the research
products of the CISS and CICIR are distributed via non-public, internal
distribution networks to China's decision makers. The two Chinese journals
surveyed in the previous section were thus
gongkai
organs of important,
authoritative, and closely supervised state organs. As such, they were expected to
conform to broad guidelines laid down by central organs of the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) in order to achieve the policy objectives specified by
the CCP's Foreign Affairs Small Group.
This is probably one reason why threats to China from India are so little talked
about. Beijing's policy objective towards India is to court that country to
'friendship and cooperation' on the basis that neither side constitutes a threat to
the other. Talking too much, publicly, about 'threats from India' would not serve
this objective.
CHINA'S GREATER SUCCESS IN SHAPING THE
EXISTING STATUS QUO: TIBET
The more fundamental factor explaining asymmetrical Indian and Chinese threat
perceptions is, I believe, China's relative success in creating the structure of
power currently existing between the two countries. This status quo includes the
status of Tibet relative to the two countries, India's deep apprehensions deriving
from the outcome of the 1962 war, the Sino-Pakistan entente cordiale, and the
new Sino-Myanmar strategic partnership. Over the past 50 years China has
created a situation in which its own security is fairly secure against challenge by
India. The converse of Chinese success, however, has been a status quo deeply
challenging to India's security. Contemporary Indian apprehensions of China
are, to a substantial degree, a function of the series of setbacks suffered by India
at Chinese hands over the past 50 years.
The status of Tibet is a key element of the status quo created by Beijing. Tibet
is, and since the early 1950s has been, under effective Chinese military
occupation. Large and potent PLA forces are deployed across the length and
breadth of Tibet. Those forces are sustained by robust logistic lines linking Tibet
to industrial-economic centers in China proper. In short, Tibet has become a
platform for the effective exercise and outward projection of Chinese military
power.
Administratively Tibet is under the effective control of China's central
authorities. The 'autonomous' nature of Tibet's political institutions is more
nominal than substantial, and, in any case, does not permit Tibetan self-rule.
Ethnic Tibetans participate in the governance of Tibet only to the extent that they
hew to Beijing's line and policies. Any opposition to those policies is suppressed.
The indigenous Tibetan population and its distinctive culture are rapidly being
