COVER STORY

A defensive strategy

Perception about China in India are not always rooted in the reality; this situation calls for change.

GIRI DESHINGKAR

IT has been an article of faith in India for almost 40 years out of the 50 years of existence of the People's Republic of China that it is an aggressive and expansionist country. In the immediate aftermath of the 1962 border war, such a perception was pe rhaps understandable. But it has persisted although the India-China border has essentially remained tranquil since that short war. This is because India's leaders projected an image of China, which was almost racist. "Whenever China has been powerful in history it has been expansionist," declared Jawaharlal Nehru, without consulting any history book. Much play was made about the literal translation of Zhongguo, the Chinese name for China, as the "Middle Country" as proof that China considered itself to be the centre of the world. Radio programmes such as "India and the Dragon" were aimed at creating a feeling of disgust about Chinese culture, food habits and so on.

Belief accumulates "evidence" to reinforce itself and rejects all contrary facts. So when China exploded its first nuclear device in 1964, there was panic in India; the perception was that those atom bombs were surely aimed at India. China's "no first us e" declaration was laughed at by the very people in India who today want other countries to trust India's "no first use" doctrine. India's think tanks treated the Sino-Soviet dispute as proof that China could not live in peace even with its ideological b rothers. Reports in India spoke of nuclear-tipped Chinese missiles deployed in Tibet, targeted at Indian cities; Defence Minister George Fernandes asserted this a year ago without checking out the facts with military intelligence. He also spoke of Chines e naval bases on the Cocos islands off Myanmar, again without the benefit of an opinion from naval intelligence.

Why did China withdraw to essentially India's claim line in the eastern sector after advancing to its own claim line in 1962? Why has China never conveyed even the hint of a nuclear threat against any country? Why has the India-China border remained larg ely peaceful for so many years? Why did Rajiv Gandhi's visit to China in December 1988 suddenly improve India-China relations? India and China have signed two agreements over the Line of Actual Control. The first operative sentence of the agreement of 19 96 says: "Neither side shall use its military capability against the other." Why did China bind its hands with such agreements? Such questions must be asked and answered in order to get beyond the prevalent one-line conclusions with which public opinion has been "educated" about China in India. Only then can India come up with an intelligent, sober China policy for the 21st century.

With this in mind, let us look at China's security and defence policies as they have evolved over the last 50 years. These have gone through two phases: the first, ideologically dominated one lasted approximately until the end of the 1970s. During this p hase, ideology defined who China's friends and enemies were, regardless of what the actual situation on the ground was. China's actual conduct of foreign relations was, however, laced with pragmatism. But the pragmatism came to an end with the onset of t he Cultural Revolution in 1966. Foreign policy until the early years of the 1970s was no longer determined by professionals in the diplomatic service but by the highly ideologically indoctrinated Red Guards.

THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
On a visit to India in June 1954, Premier Zhou Enlai with
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, President Rajendra Prasad and Vice-President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.

Ideology told the Chinese that another world war, a nuclear war, was inevitable, and that it would come sooner rather than later. China would therefore remain in a permanent state of mobilisation. Everyone in China became a soldier. Deep and extensive tu nnels were dug under all the big cities to withstand anticipated nuclear attacks by imperialist enemies such as the United States and "social imperialists" such as the Soviet Union. China's general defence posture in those days was one of giving the tit- for-tat response. This led to quite a few armed clashes on the Sino-Soviet border. Later China was to launch a "punitive" strike against Vietnam as well.

This astonishingly tough posture was based on a People's Liberation Army (PLA) which was high on manpower (at one point it had 6,000,000 soldiers) but very low on technology when it came to weapons and equipment. The basic military doctrine asked for a c ombination of millet and rifles, or a simple lifestyle and whatever weapons were available. The weapons were of old Soviet design. China's attempts to design new weapons were unsuccessful. What it lacked in weaponry was supposed to be made up with troop morale, that is, revolutionary fervour. Notwithstanding its deficiencies, the Chinese Army projected a formidable image of power, reinforced undoubtedly by a growing nuclear arsenal and a missile force. During this phase China's defence expenditure also remained high.

High-alert military preparedness, however, went with a totally defensive strategic doctrine. The motto was: "We will not attack unless we are attacked but we will certainly counter-attack if attacked" was the motto. This kept peace between China and othe r countries for the most part but the posture was also susceptible to over-reaction; retired Chinese officials admit today that China over-reacted to India's provocative "forward policy" in 1962. Their Indian counterparts agree that the policy was unnece ssarily adventurous.

Chinese leaders at last digested the evidence which cast serious doubts on what Marxist-Leninist ideology had been telling them and came to a new conclusion. By 1985 they were ready to declare that a nuclear world war was unlikely in the foreseeable futu re. So China should divert towards economic development its resources that were earlier earmarked for national defence. Since the new strategic doctrine did not envisage any large-scale invasion of China, the PLA's manpower could be gradually reduced: as of now it has been reduced to 2,500,000 and may see further reductions as the PLA's mobility improves. China's military industry has virtually stopped producing weapons of obsolete designs, among them long-range bombers, the MiG series of combat aircraf t, main battle tanks, army vehicles of different types, and some classes of submarines. Both troop reduction and a virtual end to arms procurement have enabled China to reduce the defence budget to a level that is lower than India's. (Journalistic opinio n of course dismisses the official budget figures as false but China-specialists say that the official figures are correct.) China's attempts to produce new designs for its weapons systems have not been successful so far. So, departing from past principl es and practice, China has begun to import advanced combat aircraft, submarines and anti-aircraft missiles from Russia and some military technology from Israel.

N. RAM
Deng Xiaoping with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in December 1988.

Since the change of strategic doctrine, China has made special efforts to improve relations with its neighbours and these efforts have yielded results. The earlier antagonism between China and Vietnam has now given way to a cordial relationship; the bord er problem between them is close to being resolved. Russia, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries have already resolved their border problems with China. As a result, China has drastically reduced its troops strength on its northern border. The di spute between China and some of the islands in the South China Sea is alive on paper, but things are under control despite an occasional skirmish between the Philippines Navy and Chinese fishermen. China has become an active member of several multilatera l forums in the Asia-Pacific region.

CHINA'S relations with the U.S. had their ups and downs; at the moment they are at a new low. But there is no military tension between the two except insofar as the U.S. is prepared to involve itself in the event of China using force to integrate Taiwan with itself. The same problem plagues China-Japan relations, in addition, of course, to the historical distrust China has for Japan. Two earlier adversaries, Outer Mongolia and South Korea, are now on friendly terms with China.

The end of the Cold War has given China a feeling of security and facilitated several of these relationships, but China's foreign and defence policies had changed well before the end of the Cold War. Mikhail Gorbachev's Vladivostok initiative of July 28 1986 (the Soviet leader had unveiled an ambitious project for a dramatic recasting of Moscow's diplomacy towards the Asia-Pacific region, which included demilitarisation and an end to nuclear weapons development) may have induced Rajiv Gandhi to visit Ch ina and agree to a mutually acceptable solution to the border dispute (India had earlier refused to grant any legitimacy to the Chinese position) but by that time China's new policy of befriending earlier adversaries was already under way. Once relations started improving the pace picked up remarkably; the fact that China "readjusted" its policy towards Pakistan also helped the process along.

The perception in India that China is inherently an aggressive country and it will "show its teeth" when it becomes a super power is still deep-rooted, particularly in the armed forces and the bureaucracy. Without an enemy the military loses its mission and importance. The bureaucracy is institutionally unable to admit that the policies it made were wrong. The politicians have no such inhibitions but their views are dictated by the needs of domestic politics; they are often the victims of public opinion , which they had created in the first place.

Both independent India and China are 50 years old. China has learned the hard way quite a few lessons during this period. India has been slow in understanding China. Today, the fact is that there is no basic conflict of interest between the two countries ; there are only specific bilateral problems, as they exist between any two countries. It is important for India to watch China's security policies in order to see how a country can formulate a security doctrine, which is not imported or outmoded like th e "draft" Indian nuclear doctrine, but is a product of its own genius.