A view on China

THAT we have not been able to mend fences with China since the conflict in 1962 is one of the negative aspects of our otherwise fairly successful foreign policy. But it is only fair to concede that this has not been for want of efforts on our part. On many occasions, the government had signalled to Peking its readiness to begin a dialogue with China, but there was not much of a response. In fact, we have made too much of a fleeting Mao smile or the courtesies extended to Indian diplomats or visitors by Chinese officials at the social level. At the government-to-government level, the ice is yet to be broken, though there has been a thaw in the sense that the Chinese attitude is not wholly discouraging as it used to be in the 1960s and for a short spell during the Bangladesh crisis. The PM’s letters to Chou En-lai went unanswered. Whether the Afghan President’s envoy, Mohammad Naim, who visited Delhi on his way back from Peking had anything new and significant to say regarding the Chinese thinking on India is still a matter of speculation. An indication of the Indian view on the subject is given by PN Haksar, who said in his Sardar Patel memorial lecture that India was ready to talk to China but this was not possible if the Chinese thought they could “mess about” in the peripheral regions of India. Evidently, he had in mind China’s reaction to the Sikkim developments and its encouragement of secessionist elements in the North-east. Recently, there were Soviet allegations of Chinese aspirations behind the idea of a “Himalayan federation”, including Sikkim and Bhutan. Not that the idea has the remotest chance of fruition.