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Mending Fences in India, China, and Pakistan
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16441 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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5 / 1989 |
2,967 Words |
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Sumit Ganguly
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Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's recent visits to the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Pakistan have focused renewed attention on India's troubled relations with its two most important neighbors. Historically, visits by India's prime ministers to these nations have not yielded positive results. The bonhomie and goodwill generated in the wake of Prime Minister Nehru's visit to the PRC in the early 1950s quickly dissipated as a dispute over the Sino-Indian border came to the fore. Relations deteriorated further when the Chinese ruthlessly suppressed the Tibetan rebellion and large numbers of Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama (the temporal and spiritual head of the Tibetans), sought, and received, sanctuary in India. Despite diplomatic efforts to reach an amicable settlement, the conflict erupted into full-scale war in 1962.
A similar fate befell Nehru's successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, in his dealings with Pakistan. Within six months of his visit to Pakistan in September 1965, war broke out between India and Pakistan over the state of Kashmir. In both cases India's adversaries inferred that the Indian military was ill-prepared and that the political leadership lacked stomach for battle.
In 1962, the Chinese had reached this conclusion on the basis of the poor quality of Indian defense preparedness along India's northeastern borders. However, in 1965, the Pakistani regime made the same assessment without the benefit of sound intelligence. Instead, their war plans were driven by their fears of Indian military expansion in the wake of the 1962 war and the concomitant concern that the last chance of regaining Kashmir was about to go. But the experience of 1962 had fundamentally altered Indian defense and security policy. India raised a million-plus army, including some 10 mountain divisions, to protect its Himalayan frontiers. This military superiority enabled India to prevail over Pakistan in the 1971 war, which led to the creation of Bangladesh.
This legacy of conflict and discord has long bedeviled relations between India and its two principal neighbors. Important events, such as the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, failed to markedly change security perceptions on the subcontinent. While Pakistan renewed its security nexus with the United States, it continued to deploy the bulk of its forces on the Indo-Pakistani border. India, in turn, was more concerned about the reemergence of the U.S.-Pakistan military relationship that the Soviet presence in Afghanistan.
Neither Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi nor her son and successor Rajiv proved able or willing to undertake any bold diplomatic initiatives to lessen bilateral tensions in view of the changed strategic configurations on the edge of the subcontinent. Instead, Pakistan continued to dramatize the Soviet threat, while India simply protested U.S. arms sales to Pakistan. On a bilateral level the two nations engaged in mutual posturing on the issue of nuclear proliferation and traded accusations about interference in each other's internal affairs.
On the China front, an Indian attempt to improve relations had come to an abrupt halt in 1979 with the Chinese attack on Vietnam. Indian Foreign Minsiter Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was in Beijing at the time, cut short his visit. His decision was influenced not only by the timing of the Chinese attack, but more so by the Chinese statement that they were "teaching Vietnam a
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