Situation worsens for Tibetans as China dictates terms to Nepal and Myanmar

My article Situation worsens for Tibetans as China dictates terms to Nepal and Myanmar appeared in Mail Today/DailyO

Here is the link...

It is perhaps time for India to wake up and recognise that Tibetan refugees have never created any problems for India over the last 60 years.

While addressing a Chinese Lunar New Year reception held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, President Xi Jinping remarked: “From now to the middle of this century, the Chinese people will strive to build China into a great modern socialist country.”
“It will be a great era in which a new splendid chapter of the Chinese civilisation will be written. Every Chinese person must feel proud of living in such a great era,” Xi added.

Nepal capitulates
Sadly, Beijing’s ‘minorities’ — the Uyghurs, Tibetans or Mongols — do not seem to have been given a decent place in “the glorious goal of national rejuvenation.” The Tibetans in Nepal suffer most from Beijing’s new policies. When Xi visited Kathmandu in October 2019, the PM of Nepal, KP Sharma Oli, told Xinhua that he was committed to strengthening bilateral friendship. The two sides signed 18 cooperation documents but not an expected extradition treaty. It did not stop Xi from saying: “Anyone attempting to split China in any part of the country will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones.”
“Following apprehensions, it could infringe on its sovereignty” a milder pact on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters was signed, the Nepali media reported. It targets Tibetans leaving their country to take refuge in India. The illusion that the former Himalayan Kingdom could control its own destiny did not last long.
If the Tibetans were so happy in China, why would they take the risk of crossing the perilous Himalayan passes to escape the ‘Communist Paradise’?
On January 23, Nepal and China are said to have agreed to hand over citizens ‘illegally’ crossing their border. Meanwhile, the boundary management system signed during Xi’s state visit incorporated a provision to hand over individuals. The secret clause is now out in the open: Article 26 (2) of the agreement says: “The boundary representatives or competent authorities of both sides shall investigate cases of persons found while crossing the border illegally, ascertain their identities, crossborder facts and reasons as soon as possible and hand them over to the side where they stayed before crossing the border, within seven days from the day they are detained.”
According to experts interviewed by MyRepublica: “The provision could immediately target refugees from Tibet who sneak across the border to Nepal to make a safe passage to India.” Since the 1980s, Nepal has had a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ to let the refugees proceed to India (mostly to Dharamsala, the headquarters of the Dalai Lama) on humanitarian grounds. The new agreement will supersede this arrangement.

Myanmar enlisted
If the Tibetans were so happy in China, as projected by Beijing’s propaganda, why would the Dalai Lama’s followers take the risk of crossing the perilous Himalayan passes to escape the ‘Communist Paradise’? Beijing has a lot to answer on this. The truth is that today China is dictating terms to Nepal. Kathmandu does not have much choice. Nor does Myanmar.
During Xi’s recent visit to Myanmar, a joint statement said that “each side was pleased with the economic and social progress of the other.” Later, it was asserted that “the Myanmar side reiterates its firm commitment to the One China Policy and supports the efforts of China to resolve the issues of Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang, which are inalienable parts of China.” It was the first time that such a formula was imposed by China on a country. Myanmar has its reasons for wanting to please Beijing. The latter will now support the country on the Rohingya issue.
Meanwhile, the situation is worsening for Tibetans in Tibet. According to the official Tibet Daily, on January 12, the legislative branch of the Tibetan Autonomous Region voted in favour of new regulations to ‘strengthen ethnic unity’ in Tibet. In 2016, similar rules were introduced in Xinjiang. These were later used to justify crackdowns on Uyghurs.

A Xinjiang in Lhasa?
Tsewang Gyalpo Arya, the spokesperson of the Central Tibet Administration (CTA) in Dharamsala objected to the new regulations, arguing that the Chinese government wanted to make Tibetans a minority in their own country through systematic state-sponsored migration of a large number of Han Chinese. “This forebodes a very difficult and harsh time ahead for Tibetans in China,” he said.
Meanwhile, Kunchok Tsundue, the CTA’s Chief Planning Officer affirmed that “the demographic landscape of the Tibetans in exile has drastically changed, with more than half the population shown by a survey to have moved from India to Western countries.” According to a survey conducted in 2009, there were 94,203 Tibetans in India, 13,514 in Nepal, 1,298 in Bhutan, and 18,999 in the rest of the world, scattered in 27 countries, mostly Western countries.
“The Tibetans are now moving towards the West,” affirmed Tsundue. It is perhaps time for India to wake up and recognise that Tibetan refugees have never created problems for India over the last 60 years. In fact, they have been (and are) an asset for the country. The only ray of hope for Tibet is the immense difficulties faced by Xi Jinping; the coming Rat Year promises to be even more problematic for the Communist Party.

The Trumpisation of Indian Foreign Policy

My article The Trumpisation of Indian Foreign Policy appeared in Mail Today/DailyO


Are we witnessing a Trumpisation of the Indian Foreign policy?
Some signs tend to show that, like the US president, Delhi is too often changing its stance, principally in its relations with China; though ‘destabilization’ of the opponent might not be the prime Indian motivation, as in the American case.

Leaked Missive
Take the program ‘Thank you India’, planned by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in Dharamsala.
On February 22, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale wrote to Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha, advising Indian government officials, including ministers, to skip the events organized by Dharamsala.
Sinha obliged and ministries were informed to stay away from a function to celebrate the 59th anniversary of the arrival of the Dalai Lama in India.
The Indian and foreign press abundantly commented on Sinha’s ‘leaked’ missive. The MEA apparently said that it was not supposed to have been ‘leaked’, but India is an open society, such things are bound to happen.
Now, despite the missive, two government representatives attended the function which had in the meantime been shifted to Dharamsala.
Indrani Bagchi, the diplomatic editor of The Times of India wrote: “After a stunning volte face on its China policy that made it seem like India was suddenly kowtowing to China, India is trying recalibrate its approach.”
Union Minister for Culture Mahesh Sharma and BJP general secretary Ram Madhav participated in the Dalai Lama’s ‘Thank you India’ programme.
Gokhale had personally met the Dalai Lama and Lobsang Sangay, the Tibetan ‘president’ to ask them to move the celebrations outside Delhi.
In order not to rock the boat with China, the government had earlier refused permission to the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), funded by the Ministry of Defence, to have a conference on India-China relations in its premises in Delhi. A global parliamentarians’ conference on Tibet scheduled for April, was also not permitted.
Apart from the latest summersault, which does not give a mature image to the Indian diplomacy, a question remains: why did Gokhale and Sinha need to put their warning in writing?
China was certainly delighted by the circular, even though it has not incited Beijing to be ‘nicer’ to India or accept compromises on any of the contentious issues between the two nations. For the last 60 years and more, each time India has kowtowed, China has given nothing in exchange.
The best example has been the Panchsheel agreement; during the four-month negotiations in 1954, India surrendered one by one all its rights in Tibet, and hardly one month after the signature of the accord, the People’s Liberation Army started intruding in Barahoti, in today’s Uttarakhand, while a road was being built on Indian territory, in the Aksai Chin area.

Logical Approach
Has any lesson been learnt?
An article in Bloomberg commented: “That the letter was leaked a day before the foreign secretary was visiting Beijing suggests that a message was also being sent to China – that India would not allow the Dalai Lama to agitate the Tibet issue in India publicly.”
There is no doubt that the high profile Tibetan event in Delhi would have irritated China, but why could the government have not discreetly informed the Office of the Dalai Lama and the CTA, that important visits were due in the coming months (Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and the Prime Minster will soon pay visits to China) and that Delhi did not want any provocation which could trigger a new Doklam when the snows melt.
South Block has a Liaison Office, with a senior officer posted in Dharamsala to communicate with the Dalai Lama and the CTA. The logical approach was to send a message to the Tibetans explaining the situation.
Some have suggested that the objective was to slight the CTA. This is possible and though not verified, it was rumoured that the CTA had gone ahead without coordinating with the Ministry; if true, it would be a slip.

Serious Issues
It has also been said that the November 2017 clandestine visit to China of former Tibetan Prime Minister Prof Samdhong Rinpoche, had irritated South Block. The Chinese government would like the Dalai Lama to accept that Tibet has always been a part of China. That would create serious problems for India as it would mean that the McMahon Line, agreed to by independent Tibet and British India on the side of the Simla Conference in 1914, would have no legal worth. It is however doubtful if the Dalai Lama will ever concede something which is blatantly untrue.
It is also true that the CTA has not always been sensitive to India’s problems. When during the Doklam standoff, Lobsang Sangay unfurled the Tibetan flag on the shores of the Pangong Lake, bordering Tibet in Ladakh, it was not of very helpful to cool the tempers at the trijunction.
In the meantime, deep reforms are taking place in China. For example, the United Front Work Department which deals, amongst other things with Tibet, has been given an increased importance, taking-over the State Council Overseas Office, the National Ethnic Affairs Commission and the State Administration for Religious Affairs. Observers expect that it will translate into a tighter control over religion and ethnic issues, in particular in Tibet and Xinjiang. This has implications for India.
These are serious issues which should be taken as priority by South Block while India’s Tibet policy should discreetly be fine-tuned in coordination with Dharamsala; one party should not embarrass the other.
As for the ‘Thank you India’ program, one way for the Tibetans to ‘thank’ India would be to reassert the Indo-Tibet borders in places such as Demchok, Chumar or Barahoti.
In the meantime, ‘Trumpisation’ will not help anybody …except China.

Invading Tibet is a way for China to wipe its tears: Vajpayee

Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the 1950s

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has been conferred India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna.
The announcement came yesterday, a day before Vajpayee's 90th birthday.
It is a welcomed development, hailed by practically all political parties.
On this occasion, I post an article which appeared in 'Swadesh', a Hindi journal published from Lucknow.
It is dated October 26, 1950, the day after the invasion of Tibet was reported in the news.
Vajpayee was then a journalist  working for several publications linked to the RSS.
A Rajya Sabha intervention of the new Bharat Ratna about Tibet (in April 1989) is also posted below.

English translation of the 'Swadesh' article:
The 'Shanti Path' of the 6th anniversary of the UN was not even finished when we heard of a new invasion. The armies of communist China were ordered to invade Tibet. Although behind the iron curtain they try to hide all news, the news of the invasion, even before being received officially from Peking, was sent by China News Agency  [Xinhua] and it is why the world received the first news of the invasion of Tibet not from Peking but from London.
Some people did not believe in these news, because several times in the past there had been rumours of invasion of this kind. So much so that the Tibetan representatives who had arrived in India also said that they did not believe in the truth of these news. One reason for this disbelief was that the negotiations between China and Tibet. The Indian government had arranged for the talks through the Ambassador to India of Communist China. But he declared that not Delhi but Beijing was the proper place for the talks. And the delegation of Tibetan representatives was thus today to go to Peking via Calcutta. On one side, peace talks, on the other side invasion, naturally nobody could believe it, but with the Peking government officially announcing the invasion has removed all doubts.
With the announcement of the invasion the communist government has thrown some light on its causes and its aims. Yet the causes and the language are the same as those of all invaders, that is to say, the aggressor is never attacking for egoist purposes, he attacks to liberate the people of the attacked region. And they had to take this step to save the people from the evil conspiracy of imperialist forces. The communist China invades also for this same reason -- to save the people of Tibet from the grip of imperialist forces, the communist armies marched in Tibet. But the efforts it made till today for getting the membership of UN surely put on them some moral responsibility to respect the principles of UN. China can reject it saying that it is an internal matter, but Tibet is a free country, even if at the time of imperialist China there were sovereignty in name of China over it. Communist China which is so opposed to imperialism surely is not bound by this tradition, nor can it be a ground for declaring legal this invasion of the independent state of Tibet. More than Tibet Formosa is a part of China, but nobody included America would accept its invasion. If an invasion of Formosa is considered as contrary to the ideals of the UN, then how much more for Tibet? Will the UN pay attention and help Tibet? It is possible that the powers, trapped each one in its own interest, will not pay attention to Tibet. The reason for the invasion of Tibet is not the discovery of uranium and the greed of the imperialist powers for it; it is an attempt to strengthen the moral of the communist block. The invasion of South Korea by North Korea and the initial victory over the army of UN had given a boost to the communists of all countries. But the victory of UN has put cold water on their enthusiasm. The influence of Russia has diminished somewhat. When the question came on the UN armies crossing the 38° latitude, then China warned that if it happens then she will attack the UN armies. But the UN did not worry and ordered its armies to get full victory. Russia felt that with the cold war becoming hot they had to suffer defeat.  Seeing the state of North Korea, China did not have the courage to up its army against UN army. In consequence it was not possible for the Chinese armies to advance towards Formosa and Korea…
Invading Tibet is a way for China to wipe its tears.

Prime Minister Vajpayee
receives the Dalai Lama

Atal Bihari Vajpayee's intervention in the Rajya Sabha on April 28, 1989:
The Prime Minister [Rajiv Gandhi] went to China, he went to Pakistan. There is a bitter chapter of our relations with China. Myself I went to China in 1978, the talks were good, but during that time they attacked Vietnam and that spoiled the whole trip. This time there was nothing of the sort, I am happy about it. But how many minutes this leader's hand remained in that leader's hand, this cannot be the touchstone of the success of a foreign tour...  Whether the  Prime Ministers, the Presidents of two countries address each other by their first names, cannot be a criteria of the fruitfulness of the relations. As if I would say: "Narasimha Rao, how are you?" And then Narasimha Rao would say: "Atal, I am all right. How are you"
The other day I had raised also this question in the advisory committee: when the Prime Minister went to China and the leaders of China raised the question of Tibet, they had given us the opportunity to say something about Tibet. I am an admirer of Nehru but in accepting that Tibet is a part of China, he made a Himalayan blunder. I don't want to go into detail in the reason why he made that mistake. Tibet has also the right to be free. But the mistake was done. China had recognised Tibet as an 'autonomous region'. Today where is the autonomy? There is violation of human rights, martial law has been proclaimed, there is repression on a big scale, there is terror. Now the leaders of China raising the question of Tibet themselves had given us an opportunity to raise the issue of human rights, to draw the attention of the Chinese leaders on this, and to talk in an atmosphere of friendship. We did not seize this opportunity. There has been a change in the point of view of the Dalai Lama.  Peking should have welcomed this change. But the Tibetans fight for their recognition, for their honour. There is an effort to rectify the mistakes that were committed during the days of the Cultural Revolution -- the mistakes that were done in the internal affairs. China should also rectify the mistakes that were committed in the foreign affairs. We should encourage them on this. But if we remain silent about Tibet, we will neither do justice to Tibet nor to ourselves.

Is New Russia a Reliable Partner?

As Ukraine and NATO accused Russia of sending troops to launch a new offensive in eastern Ukraine, experts had warned of a showdown between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Western leaders at the G20 summit held in Australia.
Before reaching Brisbane, Putin had denied sending tanks into Ukraine and said that he would not bring up the issue of the G20 meeting ‘it'll make no sense’. He however had a tough time.
But to show his muscles, Vladimir Putin had come to Australia accompanied by 4 warships, which he stationed off the country’s northeastern coast.
One can understand that in these circumstances Russia’s popularity has touched new lows. Tony Abbott, the Australian Prime Minster bluntly told the Russian President: “Russia would be so much more attractive if it was aspiring to be a superpower for peace and freedom and prosperity, if it was trying to be a superpower for ideas and for values, instead of trying to recreate the lost glories of tsarism or the old Soviet Union.”
The world media agreed that the West ‘lined up to browbeat him over Ukraine’; as a result, Putin left before the farewell lunch.
All is not well between India and Russia too. Take the project of a fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA). New Delhi is more and more concerned about the slow progress of the joint venture between India and Russia.
A few months ago, Mid Day reported: “Driving India's worries is the fact that the Russians are neither explaining why a prototype aircraft caught fire during a technology demonstration earlier this year nor addressing other technical doubts expressed by India.”
The worst is that despite being equal partners in the FGFA project, Moscow is not keen to share technical details about its next generation stealth fighter.
In 2010, officials of Hindustan Aeronautics Ldt. (HAL) and Russia’s Sukhoi Design Bureau had signed a preliminary agreement to jointly design and produce a FGFA to be later used by both countries. Delhi and Moscow are said to have invested US $ 295 million for the preliminary designs. Unfortunately, differences on the work share have cropped up between HAL and Sukhoi with the Indian side rightly insisting on parity. Ultimately the project is supposed to cost over $30 billion for about 400 aircraft, out of which India requires a total of 144. But when the IAF asked a twin-seat variant, Moscow demanded an additional $1 billion, which was refused by Delhi.
The precursor for the FGFA is the PAK-FA (an acronym for Perspektivnyi Aviatsionnyi Kompleks Frontovoi Aviatsy or Prospective Aircraft Complex of Frontline Aviation); also referred to as the T-50 by Sukhoi, the aircraft first flew in January 2010. Moscow says that five prototypes are currently being tested.
According to The Business Standard on January 15, 2014, during a meeting at the MoD in Delhi to review FGFA progress, some Indian officials affirmed that: “the FGFA's engine was unreliable, its radar inadequate, its stealth features badly engineered, India's work share too low, and that the fighter's price would be exorbitant by the time it enters service.”
In November, Russian Deputy Premier Dmitry Rogozin visited New Delhi (ahead of Vladimir Putin’s arrival in India in December) to discuss issues related to the FGFA. Some sources said that the differences have now been ironed out and that a deal is expected to be inked in December during Mr. Putin’s visit. It is highly improbable.
Another irritant has recently emerged in the bilateral relations between India and Russia; it will also have to be sorted out before Putin’s arrival: a ‘Chinese’ Brahmos appeared at the Zhuhai Airshow 2014 in China.
The new CX-1 supersonic anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM) developed by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) strangely resembles the Russian-Indian BrahMos cruise missile.
Russia immediately rubbished the claim that it has offered to China the BrahMos missile technology. NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM), DRDO’s partner declared that reports saying that they had ‘given’ to China the BrahMos technology, in order to develop its CX-1 missile, are completely inaccurate. Another Russian military source is quoted by Russia and India Reporter (RIR): “NPOM believes that neither the BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles nor the Yakhont missiles manufactured in Russia have anything in common with the Chinese missiles except for some external characteristics …Judging by the photos, indeed, the missiles are observed as having a similar external shape.” It however admitted “the missiles have a similar maximum speed and flying range,” though “these characteristics cannot be used to make a judgment about the rocket. There are many other indicators.”
Well, the Government will have to look into the issue in greater detail and check if the Russians are as reliable partners as they have been in the past.
A small mercy, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha announced that the Indian Air Force (IAF) was able to find the technical defects in the Sukhoi-30 (SU-30) aircraft which resulted in a crash of one aircraft and the grounding of the fleet.
Raha said: “The court of inquiry has not yet finalised the final findings. But preliminary findings we know and we know we will be able to tackle it. I don't want to tell you exactly the reason, but we know the reason."
On October 14, a Su-30 had crashed when both seats of the aircraft were ejected; fortunately both pilots survived. At that time, a MoD released a statement: "One Su-30 fighter of the IAF was involved in an accident … in which both ejection seats had fired whilst the aircraft was coming in to land. A Court of Inquiry (CoI) had immediately been constituted to investigate the cause of accident. Meanwhile, as is the procedure in such cases, the flying of the Su-30 fleet has been temporarily suspended [while] certain specific checks are being conducted on the aircraft."
The CoI has not been able to give its conclusions so far, as the Russians insist that it was a ‘pilot error’. Anyway, according to Raha, the IAF will start flying the aircraft in a few days.
This does not stop Russia to be more and more aggressive in its marketing ways. Alexander Kadakin, Russia's ambassador to India recently declared that “fighter planes fall into two categories – the hunters and the hunted.”
While the French “are pitching their Rafale as the dogfight duke that is the crème de la crème of jet fighters,” the Russians assert that Chinese-made Sukhoi-27s would be able to swat the Rafales like ‘mosquitoes on an August night.’
The Russians say that the Rafale is “a largely unknown commodity in aviation circles. Like most French fighters, it is most likely an unassuming, unspectacular but honest aircraft.”
Ambassador Kadakin explained to some Indian journalists: "We (Russia) are still very surprised that Rafale is being bought, because if the Rafale is intended to oppose Pakistani or Chinese planes, then the Sukhoi which the Chinese produce, or mobilizes, but which is only 50 percent of the Sukhoi which you (India) produce, then even for the Chinese Sukhoi, these Rafales will be like mosquitoes on an August night. They will be shot down like mosquitoes. That's why I don't understand why..."
Francois Richier, the French envoy to India wisely answered that he would not like to make any comments uttered by a ‘grumpy competitor’, adding “The negotiations [for the Rafales] are progressing well." He quoted statements made by Indian defence officials in the recent past about the progress and the recent visit to Delhi of Chairman of French Dassault Aviation:"It is a signal that it is moving in the right direction."
To conclude, an amazing story found on chinasmack.com: according to the website, which provides to English-speaking readers ‘glimpse into modern China and Chinese society by translating popular, trending Chinese internet content and netizen discussions’. The story shows the functioning of Old Soviet Union. Du Wenlong, a Chinese military expert admitted on Yunnan TV: “Back when we [the Chinese Air Force] were importing Su-27s, Russia was also having economic difficulties. They only wanted three things: One, flashlights; two, vacuum flasks; three, dog pelt coats. 10,000 dog pelt coats, that created a lot of pressure/difficulties for us. It takes 18 dog pelts to make one dog pelt coat. So that winter we killed all the dogs in the three provinces of Henan, Shandong, etc. in order to trade for Su-27s. So dogs in China had made significant contributions to China’s military and weapons modernization.”
Whether the story is true or not, the times have changed, though it is apparent that Vladimir Putin is still suffering from the Soviet Union ‘nostalgia’.
Let us hope that this will not disrupt India’s old partnership with Russia, though Delhi should remain firm with Moscow and refuse to take any bullying.

Modi’s Vietnam outreach marks India’s new assertive foreign policy

My article Modi’s Vietnam outreach marks India’s new assertive foreign policy appeared in NitiCentral.

Here is the link...

Modi was clear about the ‘aligned’ policy when his Government decided to sell to Vietnam Brahmos short range cruise missiles (co-developed with Russia), a long-standing demand from Hanoi. The Congress Government had been hesitant, hiding behind reservations by Russia.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invented a new concept in Foreign Policy, ‘Assertive Alignment’.
Take Vietnam for example.
At the end of the meeting with the visiting Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, Modi asserted: “Our defence cooperation with Vietnam is among our most important ones. India remains committed to the modernisation of Vietnam’s defence and security forces. This will include expansion of our training programme, which is already very substantial, joint-exercises and cooperation in defence equipment.”
Modi was clear about the ‘aligned’ policy when his Government decided to sell to Vietnam Brahmos short range cruise missiles (co-developed with Russia), a long-standing demand from Hanoi. The Congress Government had been hesitant, hiding behind reservations by Russia. Modi was not shy to tweet: “My Government has promptly and purposefully intensified our engagement in Asia Pacific region, which is critical to India’s future.”
India is also likely to coach Vietnam Air Force pilots in flying Sukhoi SU-30 fighter planes. Quoting a source, The Times of India asserted: “The training would be on the pattern of the ‘underwater combat training’ already underway for Vietnamese sailors at the Navy’s submarine school in Visakhapatnam since October 2013.”
Perhaps touchier for Beijing, the two countries will also work on joint oil exploration in the South China Sea, a region disputed by China.
This comes after Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States where he reiterated that Washington was India’s ‘natural’ ally.
We have come a long way from the Krishna Menon days and his obsession with the American ‘imperialists’.
After their dinner at the White House, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama issued a vision statement and wrote a joint editorial whose theme was ‘chalein saath saath’ (‘forward together we go’).
The joint editorial published on The Washington Post, while invoking Swami Vivekananda and Martin Luther King Jr., emphasised: “India and the United States are bound by common values and mutual interests.”
It speaks of India and the US building ‘a transformative relationship’, again far from the often aggressive stance of Nehru towards the United States.
Two days after Modi had left the US, Phil Reiner, senior director for India in the National Security Council at the White House declared that Modi’s meeting with President Barack Obama had ‘re-energised’ the strategic relationship between the world’s two largest democracies: “I would say that the assessment on our part is that the PMs visit was extraordinarily successful. It has provided a boost in terms of the vision and focus that we have for our bilateral relations,” he stated.
Narendra Modi also met some of the US top business leaders who promised to invest in India. In a survey, the US-India Business Council (USIBC) found that US businesses were ready to commit $42 billion over the next two-three years. IANS reported that what added to the investor confidence was Prime Minister Modi being very conversant with the business ‘nuts and bolts’.
The Prime Minister’s visit to Japan too was a special one. Modi’s first bilateral meet outside the subcontinent was also an ‘aligned’ exercise.
Interestingly, there was a cultural and spiritual dimension to the visit.
Whether it is Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore or Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, many great Indians have been associated with Japan in the past and became admirers of Land of the Rising Sun.
Then, Modi reiterated his alignment with some of India’s neighbours, Nepal and Bhutan. Regarding Modi’s visit to Thimbu, The Times of India reported that Modi has “stepped up a charm offensive with neighbours to try to check China’s influence in the region.”
Before leaving, the PMO had released a statement putting the visit in perspective: “Bound by common interests and shared prosperity, India and Bhutan enjoy a unique and special relationship, which has been forged by ties of geography, history and culture. Therefore, Bhutan as the destination for my first visit abroad as Prime Minister is a natural choice. Relations with Bhutan will be a key foreign policy priority of my Government.”
All these moves demonstrate a more pro-active and ‘aligned’ foreign policy. Even with less ‘aligned’ nations, assertive engagement has been the motto.
When President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan, landed in Ahmedabad on September 17, they had a taste of Modi’s hospitality first hand, a flavour of the friendly culture of Gujarat (as well as its delicacies) on the banks of a clean Sabarmati river.
Both India and China wanted to show the world that the two most populated countries of the planet can live harmoniously together.
Of course, the next day, the Chumar incident took place and Modi’s India had to remind the Chinese President of its position on the LAC. Whether the incident was the outcome of differences within the PLA or not, Delhi remained firm on the ground, while ‘engaging’ China.
It is perhaps time for historians to have a deeper look at India’s non-aligned policy.
Officially, the Non-Aligned movement came into being during the Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, under the Chairmanship of the Yugoslav president, Josip Broz Tito in September 1961 in Belgrade.
It seems that the term ‘non-alignment’ was coined by VK Krishna Menon, the Indian (Communist) Representative to the UN during a speech in New York in 1952. Menon could obviously not have been ‘non-aligned’.
However, it is probably in Bandung in 1955, that Nehru firmly decided to go for the policy of ‘non-alignment’. The conference of Asian and African states, hosted by Indonesian president Sukarno brought together several ‘Third Word’ leaders and the Machiavellian Zhou Enlai. With most participants heavily tilting towards Soviet Union, the conference adopted a ‘declaration on promotion of world peace and cooperation’ and a collective pledge to remain ‘neutral’ in the Cold War.
Nehru was greatly influenced by his ‘friend’ Zhou Enlai, the Chinese Premier who also swore by the Five Principles (Panchsheel), which became the ideological foundation stone of the Movement. The principles such as ‘Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity’ or ‘Mutual non-interference in domestic affairs’ were music to the ears of the Chinese Premier, who thus could keep at bay those who were tempted to come to Tibet’s defence. Four years earlier, the Roof of the World had been invaded by a neo-imperialist China; it was indeed a very clever move on the part of Zhou!
The end of the non-alignment came on November 19, 1962 when a panicky Indian Prime Minister shot two missives to the US President imploring him to help his country.
Modi’s new Indian assertive foreign policy, ‘aligned’ with friends as well as less friendly countries, is refreshing. We are living in an interdependent world, and ‘non-alignment’, apart from the fact that it never served India’s interests, is not suited to the 21st century; ‘alignment’ and ‘engagement’ are.

Does India have the Diplomacy of a Major Power?

South Block in Delhi

Here is a longer version of the article posted yesterday.
I had written this a few years ago, it is still valid, I think.

On meeting new Indian friends, if I tell them that I have been living for nearly 4 decades in their country, they are usually amazed.
They can’t really understand: “We Indians we dream of migrating to the West where everything is clean, organized, politicians are not that corrupt, trains run on time, the streets are safer, etc… Why would you stay in India all these years?”
I usually answer that I see two Indias, one ‘incredible’ India which attracted me in the early 1970s; the India I still love, and then there is the other India which make want to many migrate.
Whether one sees India ‘shining’ or only perceives the less likable India, one can’t deny that the nation is fast becoming a major world power.
Many questions remain, one of them is: has India the means to assume her new status?
The field of Foreign Policy is particularly symptomatic and worth looking at. Can the present Foreign Service be an effective tool for the ‘major power in-becoming’?

What is a ‘Major Power’?
At the outset, it is important to define what a ‘major power’ is.
Is it a moral power (like Nehru wanted India to be in the 1950’s); a scientific/innovator power (like Finland and the Noika experience); a soft cultural power (like Buddhist India during Ashoka’s times); a military power (like the US today, and to a lesser extent, the People’s Republic of China) or an economic power (like several emerging nations). In today’s world, it is all these attributes together?
It is true that in the past India has been a soft-power; she has exported her philosophy and civilization far away upto Central Asia, South-East Asia, East Asia and elsewhere.
Not only does the Indian civilisational input seem to have been forgotten by most of the Asian nations, but in today’s world, it is not really enough to be ‘soft’ alone.
It is when India became an economic power in the 1990’s that India started to become respected as a ‘major power’ on the planet.
We are living today in the age of globalization and ‘economy’ is unfortunately the main factor taken in consideration to determine if a nation is a ‘big’ or an insignificant power.

When did India become a ‘big’ power?
In the 1990s, India emerged as a power to reckon with.
It was mainly due to the economic ‘liberalization’ introduced by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao; suddenly out of the straitjacket of Soviet-type planned economy, India started blooming.
The main turning point was perhaps Pokharan II.
On May 11, 1998, Operation Shakti was carried out.
‘Shakti’ was the codename of a thermonuclear device which was exploded in the Pokhran test range in Rajasthan; since then, the tests are known as Pokhran II. Though it resulted in several sanctions against India by a number of major states, on that day, India entered the club of those who ‘have it’.
Interestingly, western nations then began to dissociate India and Pakistan; earlier, the equation had been purposefully kept by some ‘powerful’ nations, particularly the United States, to create a ‘balance’ in the subcontinent.

What does a big power’s diplomacy require?
Let us return to the question: has India the required Foreign Service to support the diplomacy of a major nation?
An interesting research was published a few years ago by Daniel Markey, a Senior Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington DC. Markey pointed out some of the issues which prevent India’s diplomacy to grow:

• expand, reform, pay, and train the Indian Foreign Service to attract and retain high-caliber officers.
• encourage the growth of world-class social science research and teaching schools in India through partnerships with private organizations.
• invest in Indian think-tanks and exchange programs that build capacity for foreign policy research.
• bring non-career officers into the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and other parts of the foreign policy establishment as term-limited fellows to improve outside understanding of the policy process.
• support the efforts of Indian researchers to maximize public access to material related to the history of India’s foreign policy.

A friend who had been associated with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) once told me: “more than 60% of the Foreign Service Officers have not read the Markey report. I think the problem starts from here. The Foreign Service Officers are generally full of themselves and have the attitude that what they don't know is not worth knowing”.
This is a real problem.
How to make the Indian Foreign Service more responsive?
This is a serious issue which has to be looked into and tackled if India is to grow into a ‘major’ power.

What can be done?
Several suggestions can be added to the points made by Markey.

1- Far too small diplomatic service
The Indian diplomatic corps is far too small in number for a ‘major’ nation. Recently, The New Indian Express reported that the MEA “is suddenly waking up after little ambassadorial activity since June, causing both a backlog and logjam in the Indian diplomatic service. Many senior diplomats will be retiring in the coming months and final decisions have to be taken to fill up important seats—Islamabad, Kabul and New York.”
There are simply not enough senior officers to fill up all these posts.
Shashi Tharoor, a former Minister of State in the MEA, wrote a remarkable report on the subject. He noted: “India is served by the smallest diplomatic corps of any major country, not just far smaller than the big powers but by comparison with most of the larger emerging countries. At just about 900 IFS officers to staff India’s 120 missions and 49 consulates abroad, India has the fewest Foreign Service officers among the BRICS countries. (In addition, there are some 3,000 stenographers, cyber experts and clerks in the IFS ‘B’ service that provide support staff to the MEA.) This compares poorly not just to the over 20,000 deployed by the United States, and the large diplomatic corps of the European powers—UK (6,000), Germany (6,550) and France (6,250)—but also to Asia’s largest foreign services, Japan (5,500) and China (4,200). The picture looks even more modest when compared to the 1,200 diplomats in Brazil’s foreign ministry. It is ironic that India—not just the world’s most populous democracy but one of the world’s largest bureaucracies—has a diplomatic corps roughly equal to tiny Singapore’s 867.”
No further comment is required.
A collateral is that some senior officers are overburdened. Take the Joint Secretary (EA) which stands for East Asia,; responsible for China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Mongolia, Taiwan, the Tibetan refugees in India (what are they doing in EA?) and the border talks with China.
Tharoor concludes: “Inevitably, China consumes most of his attention and relations with the other crucial countries within his bailiwick are neglected or assigned to one of the five junior officials working under him.” This is a real issue.

Vision Plans
The lack of ‘vision’ or ‘plan’ for the next 20 or 30 years has been a serious difficulty which has hindered the advent of a powerful diplomacy. South Block today does not have a 5-year or 10-year plan, like for example the one released last year by President Obama on “Priorities for 21st Century Defence”.
Take an example, does South Block have a clear policy on issues like Iran, Syria or more recently Mali or does the Indian diplomacy only react in an ad hoc manner?
India should have a consistent and clear foreign policy, with India’s national interests clearly defined. India should not emulate the model followed by some Western nations, of short term opportunism which neither gets respect nor lasting friends.

Advisors
There can be structural and operational improvements in the Foreign Service. Academics of proven scholarship with research capacity should be posted as advisers to ’Ambassadors’ in all major Indian Embassies, where they would be free to pursue their studies as well as give inputs on policy to the IFS establishment. This would improve the situation in the Universities by stimulating the demand for courses related to foreign policy and social sciences.
This, of course, may not be acceptable to the Foreign Service, who often has a ‘know-it-all’ attitude.

Language
Language remains a handicap at different levels of the Foreign Service. Take the example of France, most of the time, the Indian Ambassador to France and his entire supporting staff do not speak French. The Ambassador would certainly make a greater impact if he would speak French. One may say that it is the problem of the French, who cannot speak English fluently, but it does not solve the problem.
The remark is even more valid for countries like China.
More time and money have to be invested in teaching the lower echelons of the Foreign Service different foreign languages. There should also be a ban on recruitment of persons of Indian origin who do not know the local language as ‘local staff’.

Training
Not many officers look forward to mid career training opportunities given to the Foreign Service. There should be a balance of compulsion and incentives to make sure that diplomats periodically undergo training programs. The question of incentives should be clearly studied. At the end of the day, there is no miracle; India will not get a top level Foreign Service, if India does not invest in it.

US Posting
Postings abroad are classified and everyone hankers for a posting in the US — it helps educating and later settling the children — or in Europe, where allowances are higher. India could afford to adopt a compensation system which makes it difficult for a diplomat to choose a posting in Washington DC over a posting in Harare or South Sudan.
All these are suggestions, but first and foremost a Vision is required and then the will to take all necessary measures to go in that direction is required.

An Action Plan
In 2008, Shivshankar Menon, then Foreign Secretary prepared a note for the Cabinet in which he proposed doubling the Foreign Service strength. It was agreed that the cadre would be increased by 320 officers in the IFS category and 200 in the support staff.
The move was however blocked by some serving officers, too jealous of their privileges. As Tharoor put it, it would have meant: “infusion of external professional talent at all levels of the MEA by mid-career recruitment from the other services or even (perish the thought!) from the private sector.”
Finally the implementation of the Report was stretched over 10 years by simply increasing the annual intake into the IFS (including promotions of the IFS ‘B’) by 32 a year.
Tharoor commented: “Lateral entrants have not been encouraged; a circular to the other government departments soliciting candidacies have turned up few whom the MEA is excited about. The chronic understaffing is therefore likely to continue for more than another decade.”
These issues are not new; they existed when India was not yet on the verge to become a ‘major power’.
In June 1965 already, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri appointed a committee to look into the functioning of the MEA. It was chaired by N.R. Pillai, a former Secretary-General of the Ministry.
Pillai and his colleagues found four flaws in the Foreign Service: the diplomatic corps was not large enough; it did not draw on wide professional experience; the coordination within the MEA was poor and with other ministries was non-existent; and professional training was limited and inadequate.
What to say?
The mindset has to change; it is the only way for India to become a truly ‘major’ power. And it should not only change in the Foreign Service, it should do so the government in general, in the society at large and more particularly in the gender issue.
Then, India would really shine.
Both Indias will have joined in One!

China will be litmus test for India’s foreign policy

My article China will be litmus test for India’s foreign policy appeared in NitiCentral.

Here is the link...

During the eventful campaign for the legislative elections, the candidates hardly mentioned India’s external affairs and defence, areas which are so crucial at a time when India aspires to become of superpower.
Take the recent spat between India and Vietnam.
Last week, after China attempted to install an oil rig near a disputed island, claimed by both Beijing and Hanoi in South China Sea, the spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi stated: ‘We have been following with concern recent developments in the South China Sea. We believe that maintenance of peace, stability, growth and prosperity in the region is of vital interest to the international community”.
His Chinese counterpart, Hua Chunying answered a few days later saying the Indian people need ‘not worry too much’ about the issue.
Fine, but India is facing similar expansionism issues in Ladakh; should the new Government not worry for its own territory too?
It was how Nehru’s government handled the situation in the 1950’s. Not only did the ‘not-to-worry’ attitude not solve the issue, but it made it far worse.
The BJP manifesto affirmed that the new government plans to “reboot and reorient the foreign policy goals, content and process …We will build a strong, self-reliant and self-confident India, regaining its rightful place in the comity of nations.”
That is not an easy thing!
In an interesting analysis in The Times of India, Indrani Bagchi quotes some of Modi’s advisors who suggest that ‘export promotion’ and ‘defence’ should be added to the script of the MEA: “While the US is rightly accused of over-militarising its foreign policy, India leans too far in the opposite direction. Think Colin Powell,” Bagchi writes.
It is not sure if the Indian MEA can think ‘Powell’, but one can hope that at least the MoD will think ‘military’. A small sentence in the BJP manifesto could indeed make a difference for India’s preparedness: “Ensure greater participation of Armed Forces in the decision-making process of the Ministry of Defence”.
After years of hibernation, it may not be easy for the new government to find individuals who have the capacity to breathe a new life into the dusty offices of South Block; old habits will not disappear in a day. Hopefully the next Prime Minister will find some ‘rare birds’ who will be able to rejuvenate the MEA and the MoD.
Another issue will be to find long-term and reliable partners.
In order to rebalance India’s foreign policy, India should deepen its relations with old friends such as Japan, Vietnam or France, who are aware of the consequences of ‘expansionism’.
The way Delhi will deal with China may show her true status in the world. When Nehru abdicated  India’s responsibility in Tibet, he lost the consideration and respect from most African and Asian countries.
India has today the means to assume her new status; hopefully the new political leadership should have the will too.
The diplomatic field is particularly crucial and worth looking at. The question is, can the present Foreign Service be an effective tool for the ‘major power in-becoming’?
At the outset, it is important to define what a ‘major power’ is.
Is it a moral power (like Nehru wanted India to be in the 1950’s); a scientific/innovator power (like Finland and the Noika experience); a soft cultural power (like Buddhist India during Ashoka’s times); a military power (like the US today, and to a lesser extent, the People’s Republic of China) or an economic power (like several emerging nations)? In today’s world, it is all these attributes together.
It is true that in the past India has been a soft-power; she has exported her philosophy and civilization far away upto Central Asia, South-East Asia, East Asia and elsewhere.
Not only does the Indian civilisational input seem to have been forgotten by most of the Asian nations, but in today’s world, it is not really enough to be ‘soft’ alone.
We are living today in the age of globalization and ‘economy’ is the main factor taken in consideration to determine if a nation is a ‘big’ or an insignificant power.
In the 1990s, India emerged as a power to reckon with. It was mainly due to the economic ‘liberalization’ introduced by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao; suddenly out of the straitjacket of Soviet-type planned economy, India started blooming.
The main turning point was Pokharan II.
On May 11, 1998, Operation Shakti was carried out. ‘Shakti’ was the codename of a thermonuclear device which was exploded in the Pokhran test range in Rajasthan. Though this resulted in several sanctions against India by a number of major states, on that day, India entered the club of those who ‘have it’.
Interestingly, western nations then began to dissociate India and Pakistan; earlier, the equation had been purposefully kept by some ‘powerful’ nations, particularly the United States, and create a ‘balance’ in the subcontinent.
An interesting research was published a few years ago by Daniel Markey, a Senior Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington DC. Markey pointed out some of the issues which prevent India’s diplomacy to grow:

• expand, reform, pay, and train the Indian Foreign Service to attract and retain high-caliber officers.
• encourage the growth of world-class social science research and teaching schools in India through partnerships with private organizations.
• invest in Indian think-tanks and exchange programs that build capacity for foreign policy research.
• bring non-career officers into the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and other parts of the foreign policy establishment as term-limited fellows to improve outside understanding of the policy process.
• support the efforts of Indian researchers to maximize public access to material related to the history of India’s foreign policy.

A friend who had been associated with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) once explained to me: “more than 60% of the Foreign Service Officers have not read the Markey’s report. I think the problem starts from here. The Foreign Service Officers are generally full of themselves and have the attitude that what they don't know is not worth knowing”.
The next government will have to deal with this.
Is it possible to make the Indian Foreign Service more responsive?
This is a serious issue which has to be tackled if India is to bloom and become a ‘major’ power. The mindset has to change; it is the only way for India to become a truly ‘major’ power. And this new approach should not prevail in the Foreign Service, it should spread to the government in general and the Indian society at large.
India’s China policy will be an indicator to show if India is really able to become a nation that matters.

Writing is on the wall, but India doesn’t read

My article Writing is on the wall, but India doesn’t read apperared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer today.
Click here to read...

National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon could not even meet the new Chinese leadership during his recent visit to Beijing. On the other hand, the Maldives’ Defence Minister was given the red carpet treatment

Is India a ‘big’ country? One should ask this question to the mandarins in Beijing. If they genuinely answer, one might be surprised. In any case, certain facts speak for themselves.
Soon after the conclusion of the 18th Communist Party of China’s Congress in Beijing, Chinese official Li Junru headed towards Delhi as the leader of a goodwill delegation from the CPC. Mr Li also visited Pakistan and Sri Lanka. But who is Li Junru who was busy in Delhi meeting political leaders at the end of November? When you type his name on China Vitae, a website listing thousands of Chinese officials, you get, ‘no match’.
According to the Chinese embassy in Delhi, Li Junru is a former Vice President of CPC’s Central Party School, and till March he was a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. One could ask: Why did Beijing not send a very senior Party official to India? A commentator in a ‘national’ newspaper rightly remarked that ‘much higher’ delegations were due to visit the West (and particularly the United States) to brief the Governments and local parties there about the outcome of the 18th Congress.
At 65, Mr Li is still an active official. He is apparently Vice-Director of the China Reform Forum and Vice-Director of the China Society for Human Rights Studies. What these organisations are, is a separate issue.
Mr Li’s unique selling proposition seems to be his fluency in English and the fact that he is able to eloquently convey the position of the Party in proper perspective; further he obviously enjoys the CPC’s trust. During the 18th Party Congress in Beijing, Mr Li was already spotted answering overseas TV channels’ reporters. His trip to South Asia was sponsored by the International Department under the Party’s Central Committee.
In the past, this Department used to liaise with other so-called fraternal Communist Parties (It probably explains the casual dress worn by Comrade Li when he met Comrade Yechury). Today, the Department has contacts with all political parties. The delegation’s job was to brief foreign party leaders and the media about the ‘peaceful’ transition witnessed during the 18th Party Congress.
According to the Chinese Embassy’s communiqué: “During the visit, the delegation met with Mr PJ Kurien, Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha, Mr Karan Singh, Chairman for Foreign Affairs of the Indian National Congress Party, Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad, Deputy Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and chief spokesperson of the BJP, Comrade Sitaram Yechury, a senior member of the Politburo of the CPI(M) and Comrade Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, the General Secretary of the CPI.”
The embassy added: “During the meetings, Mr Li thanked the Indian political parties for their congratulations to the 18th National Congress of the CPC and the newly elected leadership, briefed them about the CPC Congress, and had an in-depth discussion on party-to-party exchanges and cooperation, China-India relations as well as regional and international issues. The delegation also held seminars with the India China Economic and Cultural Council and the Observer Research Foundation on the 18th CPC National Congress, China’s future development road, regional and international issues.”
Mr Li also gave a joint Press conference for the Indian and Chinese media during which he acknowledged that the border issue has ‘hindered development’ of bilateral ties, though he asserted that both countries “should try to turn over to a new page as soon as possible so that the matter is resolved forever.”
He also affirmed: “Border issue is a headache and trouble left over to us by the British colonists. It happens because of historical reasons and we did have some unhappy and unfortunate incidents in this regard in the past.”
Most journalists were delighted to hear his sweet words: “I think we should try to turn over to a new page as soon as possible.” And of course, he brushed aside the problem of the visas issued on maps showing Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin as part of China. The question remains, why did not a senior Chinese official visit India?
One can always argue that National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon went to Beijing and was briefed by Dai Bingguo, Mr Menon’s outgoing counterpart ,in the border talks and still a State Council for a couple of months. Though the NSA said that India and China had made ‘considerable progress’ on the border dispute, many observers remained doubtful for the simple reason that he did not meet anybody of the new team.
In fact, though ‘official sources’ had announced that Mr Menon was expected to call on Vice Premier Li Keqiang, the number two in the seven-member new Standing Committee (and soon-to-be Chinese Premier), the meeting did not materialise. Instead, the NSA met Wu Bangguo, the outgoing head of the National People’s Congress, and State Councillor Dai Bingguo. In other words, Mr Menon did not meet tomorrow’s leaders of China.
It has not been the case with Mohamed Nazim, the Maldives’ Minister of Defence and National Security when he visited China. His visit occurred in the midst of the controversy which recently erupted between infrastrucutre firm GMR and the Male Government. The Indian company had been operating the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport at Male after investing some US$511 million, but after a dispute, GMR had to eventually hand over the airport to the Maldives government. Rumours that Beijing was behind the move started circulating.
In Beijing, the Maldives’ delegation met General Xu Qiliang, the newly appointed Vice-Chairman of the all-powerful Central Military Commission. General Xu, a former Air Chief, is also a member of the CCP’s Politburo (which is not the case of Dai Bingguo).
According to Xinhua, Mr Xu asserted that the Maldives and China have in recent years increased “mutual political trust, expanded trade and economic cooperation, diversified cultural exchanges and set an example for countries to treat each other as equals and cooperate with sincerity”.
The last sentence was probably meant to send a message (not delivered by Li Junru) to India. More importantly, the CMC Deputy Chairman told Mr Nazim that “the two armies should continue to enhance high-level contact, strengthen pragmatic cooperation, expand the scope of cooperation and upgrade military relations.”
Interestingly, Mr Xu also briefed the Maldives’ Minister on the 18th CPC’s Congress. He affirmed that “China will continue to hold high the banner of peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit and commit itself to world peace and development”.

For Beijing, the Maldives is definitively more important than India, but it does not seem to bother anybody in New Delhi, where officials declare that the relations are on fast-track to normalisation.

Advising the Leadership

The article of The Wall Street Journal posted below, explains the importance of the 'internal references papers' prepared for the Party leadership by various Chinese 'experts'.  
Yiyi Lu, the writer says: "At a recent conference of Chinese political scientists and international relations scholars in Beijing, a western academic remarked that he was struck by how Chinese scholars often seemed keen to use their research to come up with advice for the Chinese state on how to advance its goals. He observed that, by contrast, western scholars were more likely to act as critics rather than aspiring advisers to their governments."
In the meantime, the Chinese top leadership gathered for a summer conclave in the resort of Beidaihe to decide the future of the Middle Kingdom. 
Jeremy Page for The Wall Street Journal wrote: "Vice President Xi Jinping, the man widely expected to take over the Communist Party's top job in the fall as part of the transition, met officials and academics advising the government in the northeastern beach resort of Beidaihe on Sunday, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. It was the first official confirmation that he and other top Chinese leaders were in Beidaihe, where current and retired Communist Party chieftains usually gather in late July or early August to rest and hold informal talks in sprawling villas along a private beach."
Incidentally, it was in Beidaihe, that 50 years ago Mao Zedong decided to 'teach a lesson' to Nehru and India. I have dealt the subject in my article Why Mao attacked India in 1962.
The question of experts advising the Government will make many smile in India, where politicians do not need 'advice', having been elected by the People of India and in any case, being all-knowing.
The role of 'advisers' is certainly over-all positive, as in any case, it is up to the leaders to accept or reject the suggestions. However, often in China (perhaps due to the competition), these advisers offer the most extreme views.
Take the case of Zhao Gancheng, director of South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, an India's expert. He recently criticized India's proposal to reopen the Indian Lhasa Consulate in Lhasa. He analyzed that the move was motivated by political, rather than economic interests: "The Indian government hopes to closely watch, observe, and infiltrate the Tibetan area after the opening of a Lhasa consulate, ... The issue regarding Tibet is an internal affair and we won't tolerate any external forces imposing a negative impact on the situation in Tibet." 
So, why to have a Nepali Consulate in Lhasa.
This is not sound advice. Zhao Gancheng, who, by the way is often invited by Indian think-tanks, seems unaware of the traditional bonds between Tibet and India.The Indian presence on the Roof of the World is older that the British 'imperialist' (for the Chinese) inroads in Tibet. 
One of the best proof is the collections of thousands of 700-year old Sanskrit manuscripts found in Tibetan monasteries by the scholar Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan visited Tibet in the 1930's. Such examples could be multiplied.
If the Indian Government had wanted "to watch, observe, and infiltrate" Tibetans, they could have done it long ago, with or without a Consulate General in Lhasa.
It is a pity that Zhao, the India's expert, does not see the good (for China, as well as India and Tibet) that could result of reopening an Indian Consulate Consulate in Tibet. 
China should not always listen to advisers, as they often see issues in a narrow nationalistic prism which may please some of the leaders, but will not bring long-term solutions to vexed issues.

Advising Chinese Leaders: Futile Efforts?
Wall Street Journal
Yiyi Lu
August 6, 2012
At a recent conference of Chinese political scientists and international relations scholars in Beijing, a western academic remarked that he was struck by how Chinese scholars often seemed keen to use their research to come up with advice for the Chinese state on how to advance its goals. He observed that, by contrast, western scholars were more likely to act as critics rather than aspiring advisers to their governments.
One can think of a number of explanations for the different dispositions of Chinese and western scholars. One important reason would be the Chinese system for generating “internal references” – internal reports written exclusively for high-ranking officials, and financial and other rewards for those whose reports make a good impression on those officials.
A large number of reports and analyses are produced daily by Party and government organs, state-owned research institutes, media organizations and quasi-governmental organizations in China, according to the many who have written them over the years. These reports are not published for the benefit of society at large. Rather, their circulation is restricted to senior officials, in order to keep them better informed of the situation in the country. Because they are kept as internal documents, these reports discuss problems more candidly and often include data and information that are deemed sensitive and are therefore withheld from the public.
Many organizations produce internal reference reports for the leadership in parallel to their work for general release. For instance, China’s state-run news agency Xinhua publishes thousands of news reports every day. At the same time, Xinhua journalists also write reports for internal publications produced exlcusively for senior Party and government officials. The several thousands of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences publish books and journal articles just like scholars in other academic establishments, but they also contribute articles to the academy’s own internal publication produced for the state leadership.
The performance evaluation of researchers in government research institutions takes into account both their academic publications and their contributions to internal publications. For example, a CASS researcher would earn points toward her evaluation for publishing academic books and journal articles. She would also earn points for writing articles for the internal publication. If her article in the internal publication is read by a senior official — ministerial level and above — who appreciates it enough to write a comment, then the researcher would earn not only points but also cash rewards, say those who have been on the receiving end of these transactions. It would also increase her chances of winning a promotion. For some government-funded research projects, there is even the rule that no evaluation is necessary if the researchers write an internal reference article that has been read and commented on by a top leader.
The system that encourages or even requires researchers to produce internal analysis for the state apparatus is one reason why many Chinese scholars appear to enjoy playing adviser to the government. Another reason is that the state has increasingly become the main source of funding for social-science research in China in recent years. In addition to centrally administered funds such as the National Social Science Fund, individual Party and government agencies also provide funding directly to universities and research institutes to carry out research projects on their behalf. The state and individual agencies set the framework for the research projects and define their objectives. Naturally researchers are expected to produce output that serves the needs of their state sponsors.
The extensive and elaborate system for utilizing social-science research to develop policy recommendations for decision-makers should have made the Chinese government one of the best informed and advised in the world and uniquely equipped to address challenges facing the country. Yet, in many areas, the billions of yuan poured into government-funded research and the page after page of internal reference advice offered by the country’s best scholars do not seem to have resulted in any improvement in the government’s performance.
Take for example China’s soft power and international image, an area where Beijing appears eager to score points and has funded many research projects in the past several years. The National Social Science Fund alone has funded organizations such as the Xinhua News Agency, China International Publishing Group, Renmin University of China, Shanghai International Studies University and China Radio International to conduct research on how to build up China’s international communications capacity. On many occasions over the past few years, I have heard Chinese researchers and communications professionals discuss this issue. It is clear that they have a good grasp of what need to be done to improve China’s international communication. It is also clear that their analyses and recommendations have been fed to the decision-makers.
Yet, looking at China’s actual practice in international communication, which is marked by one blunder after another, there is no evidence that the generous investment in research and the collection of advice and suggestions have made any difference. At the above-mentioned conference of Chinese political scientists and international relations scholars, many of the longstanding criticisms of China’s soft-power projection attempts and international communication policies and practices were again aired by participants. For example, one scholar suggested that absolute statements such as “China will never seek hegemony” are logically flawed and not persuasive. Another researcher remarked that the thinking of state organs such as the Party’s International Liaison Department and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was still stuck in the pre-Internet age—they still think that any message they send out would be accepted without question.
A third researcher compared the microblogs of the U.S. embassy and consulates in China with that of the Foreign Ministry, pointing out that the popularity of the former among Chinese internet users is attributable to their style of communication, among other things. The Americans’ microblogs have such endearing features as “being talkative” and “playing cute.” MFA’s microblog feeds, in contrast, are often just official statements broken up and released bit by bit.
I asked a government researcher why all the good advice people like him had offered decision-makers did not seem to have any effect. “A lot of it is filtered out and does not reach people at the very top,” he said. “Besides, the thinking of many decision-makers has ossified and just can’t be changed.”
Seeking advice is always easier than following it. The Chinese state has developed a sophisticated system for collecting information, analysis and policy recommendations. Whether it has made good use of the system is an entirely different matter.
Yiyi Lu, an expert on Chinese civil society, is currently working on a project to promote open government information in China. She is the author of “Non-Governmental Organisations in China: The Rise of Dependent Autonomy” (Routledge 2008).

Indian Consulate in Lhasa

Dekyi Lingka, the Indian Mission in Lhasa

If I was asked to cite the biggest blunder of Nehru’s foreign policy, I would find it hard to answer, but in the end it would probably be: “the downgrading of the Indian Mission in Lhasa in 1952.”
It was the most gratuitous act done by the Indian Government.
Let us go back a couple of years in history.
When Mao’s troops invaded Tibet at the end of 1950, India enjoyed several privileges in Tibet; apart from the full-fledged Mission in Lhasa, there were three Indian trade marts managed by Agents posted in Gyantse, Gartok (Western Tibet) and Yatung (near the Sikkim border). These Agents were entitled to a military escort. The Post and Telegraph Service, a chain of rest-houses and the principality of Minsar (near Mt Kailash) were also under the Indian Government’s control.
Ideologically, Nehru was not comfortable with these ‘imperialist’ advantages, though he admitted that they were useful for trade. However, after the invasion of Tibet, the Indian government found it increasingly difficult to retain these benefits on the ground. The new masters did not want any trace of foreign power on their newly acquired territory.
When Indian visitors, traders (and even diplomats) began to be harassed; Delhi could have protested, but they meekly bowed to the Chinese.
On 3 November 1951, during a press conference when a journalist pointed out ‘differences’ between India and China, especially about the status of the Indian Mission at Lhasa, the Prime Minister remarked that the Indian mission would continue to remain there.
A few months later, the issue of the Indian Mission in Lhasa came up again during an interaction with the press, Nehru vaguely answered that the Mission was dealing “with certain trade and cultural matters more or less [sic!]”. He added that technically the Mission never had any diplomatic status. This was far from correct. Before Independence, the British Head of the Mission had for years negotiated with the Tibetan Foreign Bureau bilateral issues concerning India and Tibet, including the frontier in Tawang area.
By June 1952, the situation further evolved. The Chinese were physically in control of most of the plateau; the Tibetans had begun discovering the hardships caused by an invading army. When asked about the negotiations with China on Tibet, Nehru hinted at changes: “Obviously once it is accepted and admitted that the Chinese Government is not only the suzerain power in Tibet, but is exercising the suzerainty, then something will flow from it. Then you cannot treat Tibet as an independent country with an independent representation from us. Though our Representative remains, this changes his character somewhat, and the trade mission and other things also follow.”
The Prime Minister therefore admited that ‘due to the circumstances’, the status of the Mission may change.
During the following months, Nehru’s position continued to shift; it became vaguer and vaguer: “the status of the representative in Lhasa has never been defined for the last thirty years,” said the Prime Minister once, adding “from an independent country, Tibet had become a country under the effective suzerainty of China, China is now exercising its suzerainty”.
It is in these circumstances that the decision was taken to downgrade the diplomatic relations between Tibet and India; the Indian Representative in Lhasa would thereafter be re-designated as a Consul-General.
A few weeks later, the silver-tongued Zhou Enlai told KM Panikkar, the gullible Indian Ambassador in China that he “presumed that India had no intention of claiming special rights arising from the unequal treaties of the past and was prepared to negotiate a new and permanent relationship safeguarding [China’s] legitimate interests.”
But that was not all! Nehru informed Panikkar that there was no objection to convert the Mission in Lhasa into a Consulate-General …and to open a Chinese Consulate in Bombay.
Nehru however added: “We would naturally prefer a general and comprehensive settlement which includes [the] Frontier.”
That is why I called it a ‘gratuitous gesture’. If the Government was so keen to downgrade India’s relation with Tibet, the bare minimum would have been to settle the border issue at the same time. It was easier then, than now!
But nothing happened on the frontier front; the Mission in Lhasa was downgraded and a new Consulate was offered to the Chinese in Mumbai, as a bonus.
The Chinese eventually closed the Consulate General after the 1962 conflict with India.
It was refreshing to recently read in the Indian media that Delhi was keen to reopen its Consulate General in Lhasa.
As an article in The Business Standard put it: "India and China are sparring over the opening of consulates in Lhasa in exchange for Chennai, in what amounts to a second round of diplomatic confrontation between Asia's largest powers (after the one in the South China Sea)."
It is an important move by India, and this for one good reason, in the past India had 'interests' in Tibet; today it continues to have them.
What are these ‘interests’?
The 4,057 km common border between India and China; the presence in India of the Dalai Lama and more than one lakh of his people; the environment issues; the rivers of Tibet flowing to India, but also traditional and civilisational interests such as the Nalanda tradition of Buddhism (which has been preserved for centuries in its purest form in the Tibetan monasteries), without forgetting pilgrimages such as the Kailash/Mansarovar as well as trade.
Last week, the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies released a new report stressing the importance of increased economic engagement between India and China. It argued: "India should facilitate more border trade with China with better connectivity and more commerce opportunities including on the Nathu La trading point in Sikkim."
The writers of the report strongly believe that India's attempt at facilitating economic exchanges with China will benefit all players in South Asia.
The reopening of the Consulate in Lhasa should be seen in this context.
Paradoxically, it is not that Nehru did not understand the ‘interest’ of having a representation in Lhasa. In November 1958, in a note written from Bhutan, after meeting the Consulate General in Lhasa, the Prime Minister remarked: “it is obvious that some places require special attention. Thus, our mission in Tibet has to be considered quite apart from any other place in the world. I can hardly imagine a more dreary life, both climatically and to some extent politically, than has to be faced in Tibet.”
He then suggested giving a grant for buying books and the latest movies for a library for the staff of the mission (he even said that Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Big B’s father, then an OSD in the MEA should select the Hindi books).
Would China agree to reopen the Consulate, it will be an occasion for Beijing to show its ‘peaceful’ face.
Take the example of the Indian army delegation which made a rare visit to Tibet, earlier this month and interacted with the officers of a Chinese military regiment based in Lhasa; with a Consulate, such confidence-building measures could become routine; it could not only facilitate bilateral trade, but also help the large number of Indian tourists wanting to visit Tibet and its holy sites.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the closure of the Indian Consulate General in Lhasa, the reopening of an office, even if it is no longer a full-fledged Mission like in the old days, would go a long way to heal the wounds of 1962 and restart the Indo-China relations afresh.

Indian Missions in Tibet

Dekyi Lingka, the Indian Mission in Lhasa

The Indian media recently mentioned India's demand to reopen a Consulate General in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. 
For example, an article in The Business Standard affirms: "India and China are sparring over the opening of consulates in Lhasa in exchange for Chennai, in what amounts to a second round of diplomatic confrontation between Asia's largest powers, in the wake of their recent disagreement over an oil block in the South China Sea that is controlled by India, owned by Vietnam and counter-claimed by China."
Though the discussion over the opening of new consulates has, for the time being, remained within the confines of the Foreign ministries in Delhi and Beijing,it is an important topic for India, which always had and still has, 'interests' in Tibet.
One of these interests is trade.
Last week, the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies released a new report stressing the importance of increased economic engagement between India and China.
It argued that: "India should facilitate more border trade with China with better connectivity and more commerce opportunities including on the Natu La trading point in Sikkim."
The writers of the report strongly believe that India's attempt at facilitating economic exchanges with China will benefit all players in South Asia: "Moreover, intangible gains in terms of acquiring a substantial stature within the region will also be important for India."
The reopening of the Consulate in Lhasa should be seen in this context.
It is also interesting to quote from a note, written by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian Prime Minister when he visited Paro in Bhutan in September 1958.
The note was addressed to N.R. Pillai, Secretary General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Commonwealth, Subimal Dutt, Foreign Secretary, M.J. Desai, Commonwealth Secretary, and B.N. Chakravarty, Special Secretary, MEA. A copy of this note was sent to Apa B. Pant, Political Officer in Sikkim and Bhutan, and J.S. Mehta, Deputy Secretary, MEA.
Some of Nehru's remarks, school teacher-like, may seem childish, but it nevertheless shows the importance of the Indian mission and the trade agencies in Tibet for the Prime Minister at the end of the 1950's. 

S. Sinha, head of the Indian Mission in the early 1950's

Indian Missions in Tibet 

During my brief stay at Yatung [Nehru stayed at Yatung ovenight on 18 September on his way to Bhutan], I met our representatives in Tibet that is, our Consul-General at Lhasa [S.L. Chibber] and our Trade Agents at Gyantse [R.S. Kapoor] and Yatung [K.C. Johorey].
At Yatung, I saw the land and buildings attached to our Trade Agency. In regard to the other two places, I was given some account of the position there.

2. We divide up our missions abroad on some basis of importance and according to the standard give amenities, etc. While this may be good enough as a general rule, it is obvious that some places require special attention. Thus, our mission in Tibet have to be considered quite apart from any other place in the world. I can hardly imagine a more dreary life, both climatically and to some extent politically, than has to be faced in Tibet. People have to live at an altitude of 10,000 to 12,500 ft or perhaps more. The winter is terribly severe and the long nights must be enough to try anyone's nerves. There is hardly any social intercourse or cultural activities.

3. The first thing to be sure about is that, in so far as possible, our representatives who are sent there are physically capable of supporting that altitude (I might mention that the present representatives did not complain to me about the altitude and apparently did not fare badly because of it). Twice at least in the past we have had trouble about our Ambassadors who were sent to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia because they had to live at an altitude of 9,000 ft. Tibet is generally much higher and the climate much more rigorous. Every person who is sent to these places must have his heart and blood-pressure examined carefully and only when he passes the test should he be sent there. On the whole, the term of a person's tenure there should not be too prolonged. I realise the difficulty of having short tenures because work in Tibet is of a very specialised kind and it may not be easy to find suitable men for it. If a person is healthy and does not suffer from the altitude or the climate, he may continue to remain there for a relatively longer period. But we should have reports about his health periodically. It should be remembered that this is not merely a question of health of the officer concerned but of his family also.

4. A certain minimum standard of comfort and conveniences should be provided. Comfort obviously includes proper residence, adequate heating and water supply and lighting. This is the barest minimum anywhere, but in these cold regions its importance is all the greater. The long cold nights require warm rooms and proper lighting for reading or other work or amusement. The water supply should include running hot water wherever possible.

5. I am suggesting the barest minimum for residential purposes. Without this life tends to become intolerable in these regions for any normal family with children. Another aspect of this is the provision of cultural facilities for all our staff and their families. These facilities include (1) radios; (2) films; (3) books and periodicals; (4) games.

6. I believe some kind of radios have been supplied through Shri Apa Pant to these places in Tibet. It is essential that properly functioning radios should be given to these missions. I should imagine that one radio is not enough. There should be one in our representative's house and one in some common room for the rest of the staff.

7. Films. These again are important, not only our documentaries which are much appreciated, but also feature films. Both these types of films are also very popular with the general population and are good publicity. Arrangements should be made for a regular and frequent supply of our documentaries. As for feature films also, more might be sent. The normal price charged by the film companies is based on some kind of competitive charges. This does not apply to Tibet at all and we ought to try to get some of these feature films at cheaper rates for Tibet especially. It would be good propaganda for them.

8. Books and periodicals. This again is very important for the long winter evenings for our people cut off from their homeland and living in an alien and sometimes even hostile atmosphere. We must build up good libraries there, principally in English and Hindi, and definitely set aside an adequate sum for this purpose. These libraries should also be available to the local residents should they require to use them. That is an important aspect, but I am thinking principally now of the members of our own missions and their families who should have not only a good basic library but new books sent to them from time to time.

9. I suggest that immediately a set of books worth about Rs 500/- each set should be sent to Lhasa, Gyantse and Yatung through our Gangtok Agency. This may form the base and should be added on annually. I am suggesting the figure of Rs 500/- as a minimum figure. I do not quite know how far that will help.

10. This Rs 500/- may be split up into Rs 300/- for English books and Rs 200/- for Hindi books. There are some very good cheap editions of English books appearing in Bombay and perhaps elsewhere too. Old Indian classics or their translations have been brought out and they cost from Re 1/- to Rs 2/ 8/- each. I suggest that full sets of these popular editions might be obtained. Once before I suggested that we should get these books to be sent to all our missions abroad. I do not know what was done about that. In any event, a full set should be obtained for these three missions in Tibet.

11. Another type of books which will of course be more expensive should be those relating to Tibet or problems of that area, travel books and others.

12. Among our books, children's books should always be included for the children of our people in the missions, both in English and in Hindi.

13. Dr Bachchan  should be asked to make a selection of the Hindi books to be sent to these three missions in Tibet.
I have suggested Rs 500/- as a beginning. It should by no means be thought that this is the ceiling.

14. Games. It is desirable to send some equipment for games, both indoor and outdoor. These are useful for the members of our missions and their families.
They are also very useful for other residents of the towns who I am told welcome them and take part in them.

15. At present, I am told, there are practically no suitable buildings for us in Lhasa and Gyantse. In Gyantse the terrible flood of two-three years ago destroyed our building and killed 60 or 70 of our people. Since then our Agent there has lived in a very unsuitable and uncomfortable hired place. I understand that there have been proposals for putting up some buildings and possibly also a dam to protect them in future from floods. As usual with such proposals, they take a mighty long time to materialise. We have to face two almost insuperable difficulties. One is on our side, the CPWD, etc. The other is on the Chinese side who even excel us in delaying matters.

16. In both Gyantse and Lhasa I understand that the land in our possession at present is both spacious and well-suited. In fact it is probably the best land in those towns. If we do not utilise it quickly, we might well find part of it slipping away from us. Therefore, early steps should be taken to finalise the buildings, etc., which have to be put up there. The plans for these buildings should be adequate and spacious, even though the en tire plan should not be given effect to immediately. We may build quickly the central part of it, leaving the rest for a future period as convenient. There is some importance in having good and solid buildings put up there. I do not attach much importance as a rule to prestige in such matters. Nevertheless, this aspect cannot be ignored in Tibet as things are.

17. This will require a competent engineer to be sent by us to these places, more especially for the proposed dam. Any such dam at Gyantse really should have been the business for the Chinese to put up. I have no idea of its extent or cost. I think that we should start at the house first and take a risk if necessary about the dam. After all the terrible accident that occurred at Gyantse was not the kind of thing which repeats itself perhaps in less than a century. It was due to a big lake in the mountains breaking its barriers and the water rushing down suddenly. So the dam may well be postponed for some time, though it must be kept in mind. The engineer could report on it.

18. So far as the dam is concerned, we must necessarily act according to the advice of the Chinese. Our first attempt should be to ask them to make it. If this does not succeed, even so we should take their advice and our engineer should work in close cooperation with the Chinese engineers.

19. I have mentioned books above. Current periodicals are essential. Our Publications Division sends some of its published literature to Gangtok from where it is distributed to our Tibetan missions. It seemed to me that a very poor supply was sent even of this output of the Publications Division which should be increased.