Bhaskar Roy, who retired recently as a senior government official with decades of national and international experience, is an expert on international relations and Indian strategic interests. In this exclusive column for Sify.com, he advises Chinese leaders to rethink their 20th Century policies. It is no longer the era of Chairman Mao Zedong when one quotation from the Little Red Book was equal to ten thousand from others.
This is the 21st Century, we have entered the age of globalisation and interdependence, and terrorism threatens the world. Under such conditions, therefore, making false and irresponsible charges of “terrorism’ against any person, group or a geographical area can be highly dangerous.
Hence, it is of no small concern when the Chinese Communist party (CCP) organ, the People’s Daily (May 5, 2008) accuses the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) of running terrorist training camps, with help from the al-Qaeda, in Dehradun, India. One of the two articles carried by the People’s Daily said: “Further more, they set up bases for training in terrorist activities. TYC has opened military training ground in Dharmasala, India, and set up a ‘Tibetan Freedom fighters’ association for arms sabotage”. The article included the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) and the East Turkistan separatists in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region as TYC’s affiliates which sought “reciprocal” support.
The other People’s Daily article quoted a Chinese Tibetologist Liu Hongji to say the same TYC pro-independence group had “actively engaged in training its armed forces and reserve troops”, and sought mutual support from international terrorist organisations such as the al-Qaeda and East Turkistan Groups.
On the one hand, the Chinese authorities are trying to demonise the Dalai Lama and weaken him and his negotiating position by saying the Tibetan spiritual leader had adopted a dual approach — one peaceful and the other terrorist-to achieve Tibetan independence. This, of course, is being dismissed the world over as false propaganda in the worst taste. On the other hand, the Chinese policymakers are clearly creating a future internal problem for themselves. The common Chinese have little access to the foreign media on this issue. They are fed with the official propaganda, bound to create rather bitter division between the overwhelming Han population and miniscule Tibetans. Even those Tibetans inside China who are supporting the authorities may not be spared the Han ire and distrust.
On the other hand, the People’s Daily articles carry a serious, and not so hidden, attack on India. The article claims that internationally branded and banned terrorists are freely active on the Indian soil, running terrorist camps, and enjoying sanctuary if not outright hospitality. They make two significant points (a) India encourages international terrorism on its soil and (b) India is abetting, if not sponsoring, terrorism against China to split China. It is well-known that the People’s Daily is the official bulletin of the CCP and airs the Party’s official position. And the Party is above the government.
The references to India are by no means accidental or inadvertent. They are well considered at the highest level of the Party, and deliberately. They send a message that China is not inclined to accept the presence of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan refugees in India any longer.
China, today, is heady with the power of its market and elevated to the position of third largest economic power in the world, and Asia’s No. 1 military power. As writings by Chinese strategists suggest, neighbouring countries are either “China’s vassals” or they will be “trampled upon”. This is much more threatening that the American President George Bush’s ultimatum “either you are with us or against us” when he launched the US war on terrorism in 2001.
The Chinese have imbibed the virtues of Confucianism – society as family, discipline within the family, the benevolent patriarch, and the entire family obeys the patriarch without asking difficult questions. The Confucian philosophy also saw the family as the world and not much beyond. Hence, the tendency to be self-centred and pretend there is no world beyond the family, wishing everything outside must conform to the rules of the inside.
The philosophy or policy worked to an extent for the early new China. But economic and social presences made it unsustainable. The Confucian family had to open up, but still finds it difficult to adjust well.
China’s missile and nuclear weapons proliferation against all international laws and regimes is well known. Its more recent illegal weapons transfers to unstable places like Darfur and Zimbabwe are also well documented internationally. They, of course, deny everything with impunity though well aware of the truth. The only thing that matters is the strengthening of the family as ordained by the Patriarch, today’s CCP polit bureau.
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China’s proliferations one stand alone nuclear power, Pakistan, and several quasi or potential nuclear powers, which, at least theoretically, could enable terrorists with nuclear weapons. This has put a heavy load on the international community in countering the rise and spread of terrorism.
But accusing India, one of the worst victims of international terrorism, of harbouring and promoting terrorism, is a totally different matter. As it is said selling contraband is a crime. But planting false evidence on someone else is trying to murder with poison.
Given China’s latest position with regard to blackening India with the terrorism paint brush, it would be relevant to briefly revisit China’s record in sponsoring militancy, arming separatists bordering on terrorism in its neighbourhood.
The Chinese leaders would do well to recall that when they were fomenting revolutions and separatism in India and Burma and Indonesia in the 1960s and 1970s, those separatist leaders were invited guests seated in VIP enclosure along with other top Chinese leaders during national day parades at the Tiananmen Square. This was after China, along with India, enunciated the “Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence” at the Bandung Conference in 1956.
Separatists from North East India have received Chinese support in the past in terms of guerrilla warfare training, and supply of arms and ammunition. This has not stopped, however. The NSCN (Both factions) and the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) still procure arms, ammunition and communication equipment from China’s Yunnan province through the jungles of Myanmar and Bangladesh.
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The Chinese authorities must answer another question. If the Tibetans are so happy in Tibet, why are so many of them leaving the country risking their lives and walking into an uncertain future? There, obviously, is a major problem.
China insists the Tibet issue is its internal affair. But an internal affair is one that does not impact outsiders in any way. When the majority of the international community sees it as an issue of their concern for good reasons, then it hardly remains such. Even Japanese Prime Minister Yashuo Fukuda has gone public to assert that the Tibet issue is no longer an internal affair of China. Chinese President Hu Jintao has taken it in as an acceptable loss of face, and commenced his 5-day trip to Japan on May 6, where he was supposed to play ping-pong with Fukuda and hope for a “warm spring” in bilateral relations. Of course, the Chinese know where they can push and where they cannot.
Beijing apparently perceives New Delhi as a soft government, having got away with arrogant behaviour from the border issue to the Indo-US under deal, India’s military development and the Tibetan issue.
But now China may be crossing the red line. Of course, they have their acolytes in India’s political and intellectual establishments who would support them under any condition. India is much larger than a handful of revisionists. China is, in a way, starting to charge India with harbouring pro-al-Qaeda elements.
It may be recalled that following the “9/11” al-Qaeda terrorism in the US, and Washington’s counter-attack in Afghanistan on the al-Qaeda and the Taliban in 2001, the Chinese President Hu Jintao had questioned US evidence and had given a clean chit to the Taliban. That is, because, China was conducting business with the Taliban including military business. It was unethical business, as both the Taliban and their guest the al-Qaeda were designated terrorist organisations. China has done business with terrorists and dined with them.
It is time that the Chinese leaders rethink their policies and cease their attack “without gunsmoke”. It will be good for all concerned. Otherwise, it would be unfortunate for all.
ORGINAL FROM SIFY NEWS:
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14676986
