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By making an 'assertion' during the course of an interview with a television channel that 'the whole of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory and Tawang is only one place in it', Sun Yuxi succeeded in bringing the contentious boundary issue to the centrestage of India-China bilateral relations. His repeated 'assertions' fly in the face of the 'comfortable bonhomie' created in the last couple of years by the rhetoric over 'growing congruence of interests' and 'mutual complementarity', as also debates on the 'simultaneous rise of India and China.' If anything, the economic rationale behind closer India-China relations, while welcome, can only prosper if there is a clear political direction and solution to the lingering boundary dispute.
Sun's repeated 'utterances' were met by a robust response by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement that 'Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.' To observers, Sun's statement could be interpreted as going beyond the text of the agreement between India and China on the 'Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the India-China Boundary Question,' that was signed during the visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to New Delhi in April 2005.
Article I of the Agreement specifically states that 'the differences on the boundary question should not be allowed to affect the overall development of bilateral relations. The two sides will resolve the boundary question through peaceful and friendly consultations.' Article V further states that 'the two sides will take into account, inter alia, historical evidence, national sentiments, practical difficulties and reasonable concerns and sensitivities of both sides, and the actual state of border areas (emphasis added).'
The question that arises is - are Sun Yuxi's remarks characteristic of a negotiating posture or are they reflective of China's methodology when it comes to handling territorial disputes?
The Irredentist approach
If the history of India-China relations is any indicator then one must dwell a little on the 'competing strands' that go into the making of China's 'approaches' to territorial disputes. In the immediate aftermath of the Sino-Indian border war of 1962, a popular interpretation of China's policies towards territorial disputes was that they were dictated by insatiable irredentist ambitions.
It has been claimed, that it is the belief of the Chinese that 'territory which was once Chinese (sic) must forever remain so, and if lost, must be recovered...' To observers, the theoretical basis of this irredentist interpretation is rooted in a more general cultural-historical interpretation of China's foreign policy that speaks of a 'Sinic world order' and 'their place in the world'.
The most notable empirical evidence in support of the irredentist interpretation, was a history book published in China in the early 1950s. The book -- a manual -- published in 1954 and titled A Brief History of Modern China, included a map which showed Outer Mongolia; the south-eastern parts of Kazakhstan; the eastern parts of Kirghiztan and Tajikistan, the Soviet Far East north of the Amur River, the island of Sakhalin, the Korean peninsula, the Ryuku islands, Taiwan, the Sulu islands in the Philippine archipelago, Malaya, Thailand, Burma, the Andaman islands, Assam and the North East Frontier Agency, Bhutan, Nepal and Ladakh as part of China!
Although China denied that this was an official map, it is perhaps an indicator of how extensive China's irredentist goals could be.
The realpolitik approach
Contrary to irredentism is the view that China's decisions to launch military operations along the Sino-Indian border in 1962 were motivated less by a desire to control the territories under dispute than by the concern to deter perceived threats to its security. The perception of threats to its security depended not only on local situations along the borders but also on how they were related to changes in geopolitical circumstances at the regional and/or global levels.
Timing and coincidence also played a role here - while the world was engaged with the Cuban missile crisis involving the superpowers, China attacked India in 1962. The question that arises here is - what threat could India possibly pose to China in the early 1960s?
Less obvious, but more effective has been China 's diplomatic dimension towards territorial disputes. The introduction of a 'political agenda' to influence decisions is an important aspect of Chinese posturing. Sun Yuxi's 'utterances' have brought the spotlight on the mechanism of Special Representatives dealing with the issue of the India-China boundary issue. From India's point of view, with the debacle of 1962 retreating from the perception of the decision-makers in the foreign policy establishment, then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to China in 2003 was heralded as a new beginning to resolve 'outstanding issues' (diplomatic speak for the border issue) and to secure recognition of Sikkim's accession to India.
Resolution of the stalemate over the border issue was sought by including a 'political touch' to the entire exercise of demarcation that would satisfy both sides and by the creation of 'Special Representatives' to arrive at a political solution over the border dispute.
This conformed to China's 'pragmatic preference for a negotiated settlement on the basis of mutual understanding, mutual accommodation' and most importantly, 'mutual adjustment'.
What contours these expressions eventually shape out are paradoxically the question and answer to the future of India-China relations.
Conclusion
Chinese leaders for long have realised that territorial integrity within clearly defined borders is an imperative for national security and independence. Boundary values for the Chinese have continuity in spite of changes at the leadership level. For India what is not to be lost sight of is how China behaves in handling territorial disputes -- which is equally, if not more important than what it, or its representatives actually claim. Hence, Chinese Ambassador Sun Yuxi's 'utterances' should be seen in the light of the adoption of a 'maximalist approach' aimed at influencing the negotiations leading to an eventual political settlement to be arrived at on the border dispute.
This 'strategic posturing' adopted by the Chinese is an element of realpolitik that cannot escape the attention of seasoned India-China watchers.
Raviprasad Narayanan is a China specialist at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi