Is another Indo-China border war in the offing?

After the Beijing World Olympics in August 2008, maybe!



Washington, D.C., Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - Is another Indo-China border war in the offing? The current Indian rulers have started strutting around just like Prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru (1889-1964) who got a swollen head in 1961 after the easy capture of the tiny Portuguese colony of Goa by an invading Indian Army.

China’s recent diplomatic protest against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s late January ‘bad-faith’ provocative first visit to the disputed North East (Arunchal Pradesh) following his state visit to Beijing also in January 2008, is understandable. It is sad that the Manmohan Singh government in New Delhi is trying to copy the jingoistic behavior of the Nehru government in 1962 – which had just conquered tiny Portugese colony of Goa in 1961 - before it was administered a thrashing by the Chinese Army in October/ November 1962. The world in general, and New Delhi in particular, is fully aware that China has been patiently negotiating with India, for the past 46 years, its claims on the entire Arunchal Pradesh territory, most of which it had returned in 1962 after the PLA (Chinese People’s Liberation Army) had captured it. This voluntary withdrawal was despite that fact that, that territory’s isolated  800, 000 mongoloid (Chinese-looking) inhabitants, who look and dress like China’s Tibetans, are as different from a Delhi ‘babu’ as a South African Zulu warrior is from a London banker. The disputed territory (83, 600 sq. Kilometers) has been named Arunachal Pradesh by India (capital Itanagar) and  South Tibet by China had a 2001 population of 800, 000. The territory was known as North-East Frontier Agency under the Colonial British.

As a backgrounder for the readers who might remember the PLA (Chinese People’s Liberation Army) had attacked Indian forces near Se La and Bomdi La in November  1962, in the North Eastern sector. These positions had been dug up and were defended by the Indian 4th Division which had been ordered by PM Nehru to throw the Chinese ‘intruders’out. Instead of attacking by road as was expected, PLA forces approached via a mountain trail, and their attack cut off a main road and isolated 10,000 Indian troops. During the 1962 Indo-China border war the PLA (Chinese Army) captured both banks of the Namka Chu river. Some skirmishes also took place at the Nathula Pass, which is in Sikkim, (a Himalayan Kingdom, a protectorate of India at that time) and dominates the strategic narrow Siliguri ‘chicken neck’, twenty five miles away. A narrow land corridor which connects the seven states of North Eastern India with the rest of India and which strip of land can be over run in a matter of hours. Chinese troops launched an attack on the southern banks of the Namka Chu River on October 20, 1962. The PLA penetrated close to the outskirts of Tezpur, Assam, a major frontier town nearly fifty kilometers from the Assam-North-East Frontier Agency border. The Indian government in a panic ordered the evacuation of the civilians in Tezpur to the south of the Brahmaputra River, all prisons were thrown open, and government officials who stayed behind destroyed Tezpur's currency reserves in anticipation of a Chinese advance.

For political reasons, the PLA (China’s People Liberation Army) did not advance farther, and on November 19, 1962, China declared a unilateral cease-fire. Chairman Mao Tse-tung (b.1893-d.1976) and the Chinese leadership had earlier issued a directive laying out the objectives for the war. “A main assault would be launched in the eastern sector, which would be coordinated with a smaller assault in the western sector. All Indian troops within China's claimed territories in the eastern sector would be expelled, and the war would be ended with a unilateral Chinese ceasefire and withdrawal to prewar positions, followed by a return to the negotiating table.”

The then Chinese Prime minister Zhou Enlai (b.1898-d.1976) declared a unilateral ceasefire to start on midnight, November 21, 1962. Zhou's generous ceasefire declaration stated, that, “Beginning from November 21, 1962, the Chinese frontier guards will cease fire along the entire Sino-Indian border. Beginning from December 1, 1962, the Chinese frontier guards will withdraw to positions 20 kilometers behind the line of actual control which existed between China and India on November 7, 1959. In the eastern sector, although the Chinese frontier guards have so far been fighting on Chinese territory north of the traditional customary line, they are prepared to withdraw from their present positions to the north of the illegal McMahon Line, and to withdraw twenty kilometers back from that line.”

According to recent Indian media reports, (almost a week after Dr. Manmohan Singh visited Arunachal Pradesh and claimed that the state was ‘our land of rising sun’) Chinese Foreign Ministry officials have conveyed to officials in the Indian Embassy in Beijing that they were unhappy with the Indian Prime Minister’s visit and the comments he made there as they feel that it was not (> http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/000200802082074.htm <) appropriate for the Prime Minister to visit a state, major parts of which Beijing claims are Chinese territory. In a sharp reaction, Indian External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee asserted that Arunachal Pradesh was part of India and the Prime Minister has every right to visit any part of the country. He said that, “Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of our country. We are having regular representation in our Parliament elected by people of Arunachal Pradesh. Therefore, it is quite obvious that the Prime Minister will visit any part of the country."

Our reliable sources in Delhi report that as if the provocation to China of Dr. Manmohan Singh’s visit to disputed Arunchal Pradesh/ South Tibet was not enough the Indian government, as is its wont, gave a ‘wink and a nod’ to the right wing Neo-Nazi BJP opposition political party to send a high powered delegation to China’s breakaway province of Taiwan Island which activity goes against India’s stated position on the ‘one China’ policy about which China is very touchy. Incidentally General Chiang Kai Shek (b.1888-d.1975) the loser of the Chinese civil war looted China’s museums and carried away 5, 000 years of priceless Chinese object d’art (heirlooms) to Taiwan when he took refuge there in 1950 to set up a government in exile. The BJP delegation, on the trip to Taiwan, from January 30 to February 4, 2008, was led by former Indian power minister Suresh Prabhu Rijiju who was accompanied to Taiwan by BJP spokesperson Prakash Javdekar and Arunchel Pradesh Member of Parliament  Khiren Rijiju. In Taiwan the BJP delegation met the Taiwanese Prime Minister Frank Hsieh as well other political leaders of the KMT and the Democratic People’s Party of Taiwan. Interestingly in the Indo-Chinese joint statement released in Beijing, about three weeks ago during Dr. Manmohan Singh’s state visit to China, India committed that it would oppose any activity that goes against the ‘one China’ principle. Despite the China-India joint statement Taiwan has been allowed an ‘unofficial Embassy’ in New Delhi called ‘Taipei Economical and Cultural Centre’ which takes care of travel permits and ‘other’ things like covert nuclear collaboration. Appointing the just retired Army Chief General J. J. Singh as governor of Arunchel Pradesh has also raised eye brows in Beijing.

In a coordinated move with the above, the Indian media has started a vicious and offensive and provocative propaganda campaign against China study centers in Nepal, a China-supported informal civil society groups promoting cultural interaction, similar to numerous Chinese study centers which have been opened all over South America, Asia  and Africa. A report  (Indian dezinformatsiya really) by one Pranab Dhal Samanta carried on February 11, 2008, in the Indian Express, claims, among other things, that the Chinese Study Centers in Nepal are meant to convince (>  http://www.indianexpress.com/story/271636.html <) people of Nepal  that China is playing a prominent role in preventing “Sikkimization” of Nepal (like the 1975 Indian takeover – putsch – of Sikkim) and that China’s strong presence in Nepal will prevent India from interfering in Nepal’s internal affairs.  Obviously Indian propaganda is unwittingly showing India’s intentions and ambitions in Nepal – Delhi wants to annex the Himalayan kingdom a la Sikkim, Hyderabad, Goa and Junagadh. It forgets that Chinese policy will always follow the guidelines laid down by  Chairman Mao Tse-tung that China must ‘protect’ its five fingers in the Himalayas – Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and South Tibet.

Diplomatic observers feel that the Middle Kingdom – China – has a long historical memory. It is presently biding its time, and prefers to ignore the numerous Indian provocations and pin pricks on the boundary issue and on Taiwan, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Myanmar and Pakistan, at this point in time, as Beijing wants to hold the World Olympics in August 2008 without any political or other hitch or loss of face.

Once the World Olympics are over successfully, by September 2008, than it will be another story and all bets are going to be off on the India-China front. China has an overwhelming geographic and military advantage over India from its Tibetan province which hovers over major Indian population centers from Chandigarh to Delhi, to Lucknow, to Allahabad to Patna to Kolkutta. India’s rulers will then realize that their ‘Hindu’ nuclear bombs  provide no deterrence and any India China clash will be conventional and short range non-nuclear missilery will play a decisive role.