Why Chinese envoy needs to see the mirror

INDIA’S External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar surely knows better about the Himalayan frontier than the Chinese envoy parroting his Communist leaders’ line.

Just compare the factual or actual statement of the Indian minister with the unpalatable remarks of the envoy. “LAC stand-off surely most serious situation after 1962,” was Jaishankar’s incisive statement. However, Sun Weidong, the former Chinese ambassador to Pakistan (June 2013-October 2017) and now India, has a diametrically opposite take. He summarily brushes off India with these words: “It’s unreasonable to link the boundary question with normal bilateral cooperation… (India) should put the boundary question at an appropriate place in bilateral relations and not allow differences to disturb the relationship.” Despite the accuracy and logic put forth by the minister? How undiplomatic!

Will Sun Weidong clarify? What’s the appropriate time to take up the boundary question? Does he really believe every Indian is gullible and ignorant enough to accept the Chinese logic that “our normal bilateral cooperation” remains outside the boundary question? If so, how long should the violence-creating boundary question be kept under the carpet? Is this to facilitate Chinese penetration of Indian territory unopposed? Or is it because of India’s failed boundary protection track record?

The real tragedy, however, starts with some Indians’ chronic myopia and their inexorable attraction towards foreign envoys, power, money, capital and goods. And then there are influential, though bruised and battered, Indian hosts seeking misguided foreign envoys who tell lies, and more lies, for their own country’s national interest.

Sun knows he can get away without a whimper, as he’s been doing with renewed vigour from July 30 with cryptic sermons (45 days after the Galwan massacre of Indian soldiers), using words like ‘new world order’, ‘economics’, ‘trade”, ‘commerce’, ‘win-win situation’.

Today, the envoy nevertheless needs to see the mirror and not mislead and take unethical advantage of democratic India’s inherent goodness. Thus, indisputably, the Chinese virus (aka Covid-19) originated from Wuhan. The World Health Organisation visited Han-land for investigation, but was not permitted to visit the ‘birthplace’ of the pandemic.

The Chinese trampling nevertheless began a decade ago. Beijing has given $1.5 trillion loans/credits to 150 countries, but the debt too shot up: $500 billion to $5 trillion. Today, there are countries whose perilous economy stares stark at billions of mounting debt: Kenya ($6.5 billion); Maldives ($3 billion); Ethiopia ($13.5 billion); Cameroon ($5.7 billion); Pakistan ($6.2 billion, plus CPEC $62 billion); Angola ($25 billion); Mozambique ($2.2 billion); Republic of Congo ($7.3 billion); Zambia ($7.4 billion) and Sudan ($6.4 billion).

Coming back to the boundary question, one just needs to see the recorded Chinese mind, and application thereof: “select spot where resistance is weakest. Avoid or by-pass strong defence; to assault weak spot. Make detour… to attack rear or flank. Confuse enemy, and create chaos in their high command.” For India, it started in the 1950s. Has anything changed since then? In between, India cut off ties with China from 1962 to 1978, mostly under the redoubtable Indira Gandhi. Didn’t India progress and win the biggest 1971 war defying Red China? But post-Indira, India simply caved in with a unilateral act. In 1979, India’s Foreign Minister visited China under the direction of the then PM. Deng Xiaoping lit up. India again exposed its weakness in 1988 when its Prime Minister visited Beijing.

Little wonder, within 11 years, India opened the door to China in 1999, preceded by a red-carpet welcome (1998) to the PLA chief. Unsurprisingly, the situation now is worsening owing to India’s terrible error of judgement of considering China a strategic partner. China is hell-bent on destroying the Indian economy. The Chinese virus has already inflicted a crippling blow on the entire Indian economy. In the Chinese calculation, India has to be made bankrupt and forced to queue outside Chinese banks and financial institutions, compelled to become another poor third-world country and a duty-bound henchman.

Now, read Sun’s words again: “China’s traditional customary boundary line is in accordance with the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the north bank of Pangong lake”! When did “China’s traditional customary boundary line” come into existence inside India? Before or after October 1950?

Sun says “China isn’t a strategic threat to India”. Yet, he threatens against “forced de-coupling” of the China-India relationship. Why? Because “our economies are highly complementary, interwoven, interdependent”. Bizarre indeed! The China-India economic relationship is a one-way monopoly profit for Beijing and a total loss for Delhi. The trade balance is adverse. Chinese investment is penetrating to destroy India’s industry and even critical security apparatus. It has forcibly captured strategic landmass, water resources, and attempting access to Indian Ocean through Delhi’s ports. The list is endless.

In Self-deception: India’s China Policies (2013), Arun Shourie describes the Chinese land-grabbing/expansionism — “Claim. Repeat the claim. Go on repeating claim. Grab. Hold. Let time pass. And they will reconcile themselves to new situations.”

There is another chilling fact that India should remember. Wang Yilin, chairman of a Chinese firm which supplies 10 per cent of the UK’s energy needs, reportedly said: “Deep-water rigs around the UK are China’s mobile national territory and strategic weapon.” The Indian External Affairs Minister is right. The Chinese envoy is wrong. Border and territory precede business and trade.