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| MEA still grappling in dark | | China’s Intentions II An Early Times Special | | ABID SHAH | 9/9/2009 12:34:08 AM |
| New Delhi, Sept 8: Over 48 hours after the discovery of China bound arms and ammunition at Kolkata airport in a UAE aircraft, Indian officials do not know as to what to do with it. Sent into a tizzy by the bizarre discovery with a clear Chinese link amid reports of frequent intrusions by Chinese forces in Ladakh, the External Affairs Ministry, just maintains that the aircraft and the crew are being detained as “investigations are on” whereas UAE points a “technical mistake” on the part of the captain of the plane.
Sadly at the same time, the Minister, Mr SM Krishna, as also his lieutenant, Mr Shashi Tharoor, are themselves mired in the controversy over their stay in five star hotels for past over three months as their official residence are still being done up for them. Even as Union Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, and AICC spokesman, Mr Manish Tiwari, are doing fire fighting to bail the two party peers out, their long and regular hotel errands, nay home, is being taken as symptomatic to the larger disaster vis-à-vis foreign policy. The question that is being asked in the wake of this is why the External Affairs Ministry does not get over its stupor when Army smells rat in Chinese moves.
Army Chief Deepak Kapoor has asked for strong measures to be taken ever since Ladakh incursions by China were reported. Yet the polite refrain from the External Affairs Ministry vis-à-vis the incursions has just been that that since the Line of Control is not demarcated, it cannot be regarded as intrusion from the Chinese viewpoint.
As the South Block mandarins try to inform themselves about other’s viewpoint, China has been making diplomatic strides too in South Asia besides the Stride 2009 military exercise that it has started within its borders at an unprecedented scale.
Even a cursory look at Chinese foreign policy can bring home its clout within the region. And as for bigger powers Americans never go against China and of late Russians have come so close to China as to even undertake joint military exercises. This has, indeed, been giving China an important edge over a neighbour like India that finds fewer friends nearer home besides creating doubts about its preference between powers like US and Russia.
Yet none of these can justify China’s recent and not so recent moves in the border areas of Ladakh. According to one report Chinese intrusions in Ladakh have been on since the beginning of this year. The report says that the District Magistrate of Leh, Mr Ajeet Kumar Sahoo, wrote a letter to Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir on January 4, 2009 to share information regarding sighting of Chinese soldiers inside Indian territory by local shepherds whom the Chinese dared to clear off the place since it did not belong to the poor herdsmen. This is what the District Magistrate wrote after sending a colleague to forward region from where intrusions were reported.
Army Colonel Anil Bhat finds intrusions in Jammu and Kashmir “worrisome” since earlier there have been reports about such movements by Chinese only in Eastern Sector’s Arunachal Pradesh.
In a recently published article Colonel Bhat points to as many as 26 violations of Indian airspace in Jammu and Kashmir by Chinese choppers in past few months, including two air droppings of canned food at Chumar, near the picturesque Pangong Lake. This is besides People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers entering and “filching fuel” meant for troops guarding border posts. Colonel Bhat says that Army reported and confirmed these incidents.
Despite this assertion by the colonel, it is not that China has forgotten the eastern front. There have been reports about Beijing arming dissatisfied youth of Manipur via Burma. And thus India finds itself surrounded by China friendly States that are always too keen to oblige Beijing.
Professor P Stobdan, a senior fellow with the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) says that not Burma alone but Sri Lanka too feels obliged to Beijing for helping the island state in the fall of LTTE. Nepalese Maoists are looking for help towards China and Pakistan is already a long term ally and partner of Chinese and Islamabad’s plutonium based nuclear quest is being mainly fulfilled by the Chinese.
On the other hand India has relatively distant friends like Japan and South Korea who are mainly ready to cooperate in economic sphere alone without allowing this to be enlarged into diplomatic and strategic cooperation.
Significantly, before the chance landing of the UAE air force plane at Kolkata, India had intercepted North Korean ships in Indian waters. The ships were suspected to be loaded with missile and other armaments’ parts. Here too the nuclear and other defence related North Korean programmes are largely China backed. The question in the wake of such developments is clearly whether India is getting isolated as Chinese spread their wings all over Asia, or New Delhi expects to get away by doing little or nothing about the large trap that China is creating around India besides frequent intrusions that are being resorted to by the Chinese with impunity.
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