Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
During the India-Pakistan nuclear confrontation of 1990 Beijing, under strong
Indian pressure, dropped its previous pro-Pakistan position on the Kashmir issue.
Beijing also diluted somewhat its verbiage in support of Pakistan against
possible Indian attack—as compared to the verbiage it used earlier. But the core
of the Sino-Pakistan security relationship remains unaltered.
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This fact underlies
the frequent reiteration in India's annual defense statements about the Pakistan-
China relationship. The existence of the close China-Pakistan military
partnership confronts India with a serious threat, at least in the views of India's
security planners. There is nothing comparable in India's relations with China's
neighbors.
This probably need not have been the case. Again a counter-factual thought
experiment helps clarify the situation. What would be China's view if India and
Japan had formed a warm and deep military relationship in the 1950s or the
1960s? What if New Delhi had decided to match Beijing's partnership with
Pakistan by building a comparable partnership with Japan?
Certainly Washington would have been delighted with and encouraged such a
development the 1950s and 1960s, and perhaps even later. What if Japan had
matched its alliance with the United States with a US-encouraged strategic
partnership with India? What if Japan had financed and assisted with transfer of
advanced technology major Indian military research and development programs
over the decades? What if Japan had come to look on India as a major partner as
the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (SDF) began developing a more long-
legged naval capability in the late 1970s?
Perhaps Tokyo might have dispatched a three-destroyer squadron to pay a
friendship visit to Vishakhapatnam in early 1987 during the Sino-Indian border
confrontation at Sumdurong Chu and two years after a PLA-Navy squadron paid
a visit to Pakistani and Bangladeshi ports. Perhaps Japanese SDF leaders,
delegations, ships, and planes paid frequent visits to India, and vice versa, while
top leaders of the two countries engaged in frequent consultations about 'issues
of mutual concern'. Were such a thick Japan-India security partnership rather
than or in addition to the actually existing Sino-Pakistan partnership part of the
now-existing status quo, Beijing would feel rather more threatened by India.
Of course China did confront a hostile link-up between India and another of its
nemeses, not Japan but the Soviet Union. As Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated in
the 1960s, the Soviet Union emerged as India's major backer against China.
Existence of this Soviet-Indian link is fundamentally disadvantageous to China.
Beijing responded by making it clear to Soviet leaders that cessation of Soviet
backing for China's hostile neighbors was the price of normalization of Sino-
Soviet relations. Abrogation of the August 1971 Indian-Soviet security treaty
was
not
one of Beijing's 'three demands' on Moscow during the 1980s. (Those
demands concerned Soviet links with Vietnam, Mongolia, and Afghanistan.)
