中国外交政策中的南亚

PaciŽ ca Review, Volume 13, Number 1, February 2001 South Asia in China’s Foreign Relations J. MOHAN MALIK* (Asia–PaciŽ c Center for Security Studies, Honolulu) This article examines the key characteristics underlying China’s policy and perceptions about South Asia and surveys China’s relations with South Asian countries in the 1990s and beyond. Beijing’s South Asia policy is tied to China’s military security concerns vis-a`-vis that of India and territorial disputes. Chinese leaders regularly visit Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to demonstrate a continuing determination to remain involved in South Asia and to reassure China’s friends that improvement in Sino–Indian relations would not be at their cost. Beijing insists on the resolution of bilateral problems and disputes in accordance with the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and remains critical of India’s coercive diplomacy to guard its security interests. Beijing’s entente cordiale with Pakistan continues to  ourish, underpinned by nuclear and missile co-operation. New Delhi continues to keep a close eye on the political and strategic relations between China and India’s neighbours. Current strategic and economic trends indicate that South Asia’s importance in China’s national security calculus is likely to increase in the 21st century. A Sino–Indian rivalry in southern Asia and the northern Indian Ocean may well be a dominant feature of future Asian geopolitics. South Asia ranks third in importance after the Northeast and Southeast Asian regions in China’s Asia policy. China shares common borders with four (Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan) out of seven South Asian states (the other three are Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives), making it an integral part of South Asia. China’s military security concerns vis-a`-vis South Asia’s largest and most powerful state, India, coupled with territorial disputes and the need to protect its ‘soft strategic underbelly’, i.e. Tibet, provide a key to understanding Beijing’s South Asia policy.1 In the last decade, China’s relations with India have gone through a rollercoaster from the highs of the early and mid 1990s to the lows of the late 1990s. Sino–Indian relations remain poor, with or without a risk of confrontation, despite a dramatic increase in bilateral exchanges at the political, economic, military, and cultural levels including some high-level visits. Beijing’s entente cordiale2 with Pakistan continues to  ourish, underpinned by nuclear and missile co-operation. Chinese leaders regularly visit Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to demonstrate a continuing determination to remain involved in South Asia and a desire to reassure China’s friends in the region that improvement in Sino–Indian relations would not be at their cost. New Delhi keeps a close eye on the political and strategic relations between China and India’s neighbours. This article begins by outlining the key characteristics underlying China’s policy and perceptions about South Asia before surveying China’s relations with South Asian countries in the 1990s and beyond. * The views in this paper are those of the author and do not re ect the ofŽ cial policy or position of the Asia–PaciŽ c Center for Security Studies, the US Department of Defense, or the US government. 1 Swaran Singh, ‘Sino–South Asian Ties: Problems & Prospects’, Strategic Analysis (New Delhi), 24,1 (2000), p. 31. 2 John W. Garver, ‘China and South Asia’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 519 (1992), p. 79. ISSN 1323-9104 print/ISSN 1469-9974 online/01/01/0073-18 Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/13239100120036054 74 J. Mohan Malik Key Characteristics of China’s South Asia Policy A key feature of Beijing’s South Asia policy has been its ‘India-centric’ approach, which, in turn, has seen military links with India’s neighbours dominating the policy agenda. The major objective of China’s Asia policy has been to prevent the rise of a peer competitor, a real Asian rival to challenge China’s status as the Asia–PaciŽ c’s sole ‘Middle Kingdom’. As an old Chinese saying goes, ‘one mountain cannot accommodate two tigers’. Beijing has always known that India, if it ever gets its economic and strategic acts together, alone has the size, might, numbers and, above all, the intention to match China. In the meantime, perceiving India as weak, indecisive and on the verge of collapse, Beijing took the view that all that was needed was to keep New Delhi under pressure by arming its neighbours and supporting insurgency movements in India’s minority regions. All of India’s neighbours have obtained much of their military arsenal from China—indeed 90 per cent of China’s arms sales go to countries that border India. For its part, Beijing has justiŽ ed military relations between itself and South Asian countries as legitimate and normal state-to-state relations well within the purview of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.3 Second, boundary disputes have shaped China’s relations with South Asia. Whilst Beijing has resolved its disputed boundaries with Nepal and Pakistan, territorial disputes with India and Bhutan are yet to be resolved. Much like China, the states of South Asia are multiethnic, multireligious, multilingual and multicultural. All South Asian states have historic, cultural, linguistic, and religious ethnic links with India and they all share borders with India rather than with each other. The postcolonial geopolitical landscape has created a number of overlapping ethnoreligious and linguistic problems in South Asia. For example, Bengalis live in Bangladesh as well as in India; Kashmiris, Sindhis and Punjabis live in both India and Pakistan; more Tamils live in India than in Sri Lanka; Nepalese live in Nepal as well in India and Bhutan; and Tibetans live in China as well as in India, Nepal and Bhutan. Internal security issues in one state inevitably have external security ramiŽ cations. Broadly speaking, India’s relations with South Asian states have been guided by two major concerns: (1) geostrategic concerns, that is, a desire to insulate the Subcontinent from adverse external forces that might ‘Ž sh in troubled waters’ and thus destabilise India’s security environment; and (2) geopolitical concerns, that is, a desire to ensure that geographical proximity and ethnoreligious afŽ nities do not lead to instability on or near its borders, particularly as they inevitably affect India’s domestic, ethnic, religious and political relationships, and could give rise to secessionist demands within India. To achieve these policy objectives, India has since independence resorted to a combination of diplomatic, economic and military means to establish (order) in South Asia. For instance, in 1949– 1950, India signed treaties with Bhutan, Nepal and the small protectorate of Sikkim to strengthen its close links with the Himalayan kingdoms, and it took on the responsibility of securing their northern frontiers with China. However, South Asian states have always resented India’s hegemonic ambitions in the region and have tried to resist the imposition of the Indian version of the Monroe Doctrine by seeking to build security links with extraregional powers, mainly China and the United States, as a counterweight to India’s domineering role. This has led to ongoing con ict between South Asia’s largest state and its smaller neighbours. China insists that problems and disputes should be handled strictly according to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence without resorting to force or other means. From 3 Garver, ‘China and South Asia’, p. 73. Interestingly, China saw the former Soviet Union’s military alliances with Mongolia, Vietnam and Afghanistan not as part of ‘normal state-to-state relations well within the purview of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’ but as ‘containment’ and made an end to such alliances a precondition for normalisation of Sino–Soviet relations in the 1980s. South Asia in China’s Foreign Relations 75 Beijing’s perspective, ‘whether China and Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, or Pakistan wish any particular relations is exclusively for them to decide. For India to attempt to dictate or limit those relations is unacceptable.’4 In their meetings with these countries, the Chinese continue to bemoan India’s ‘big brotherly’ and ‘hegemonic attitude’. Emphasising that ‘all countries, big or small, should be treated equally’, Beijing has long been critical of the use of coercive strategies aimed at ensuring New Delhi’s security interests are not compromised by their ties with China.5 Because of the asymmetry in size and might, India is invariably drawn into the big-brother syndrome or small state versus big state (David versus Goliath) syndrome in relation to its smaller neighbours. Whenever South Asian countries have tried to play ‘the China card’ in their relations with India, problems have arisen between India and China as well as between India and its South Asian neighbours. Third, of all China’s relations with South Asian states, those with Pakistan outweigh and overlay any other bilateral relationship. No other Asian country has armed another in such a consistent manner over such a long period of time as China has armed Pakistan.6 The Beijing–Islamabad ‘special relationship’ is part of China’s grand strategy that moulds the South Asian security environment. It provides a good example of using China as a counterweight to what smaller South Asian regimes perceive as India’s attempts at bullying them. It demonstrates that much like Pakistan, other South Asian countries can follow an ‘independent’ policy and need not allow India to in uence their decision making. Fourth, China remains a major economic aid donor to Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Beijing’s economic ties with South Asian states supplement and reinforce its military security objectives and goals. China’s use of economic means in its rivalry with India for in uence in Nepal and Bangladesh is a case in point. Despite some improvement in Sino–Indian ties since the early 1990s, Beijing has not lost its motivations to prop up these smaller states against India. However, in contrast with Southeast and Northeast Asia, the interplay between economics and security is rather weak in South Asia, since geostrategic considerations predominantly shape China’s policy towards the region. China and India: Bound to Collide? As ancient civilisations, China and India coexisted in peace and harmony for millennia. However, as postcolonial modern nation states, with the exception of a very short period of bonhomie (the ‘Hindi–Chini bhai bhai’ era) in the early 1950s, relations between the two Asian giants have been marked by con ict, mutual suspicion, distrust, estrangement, containment and rivalry. Just as the Indian subcontinental plate has a tendency to constantly rub and push against the Eurasian tectonic plate causing friction and volatility in the entire Himalayan mountain range, India’s bilateral relationship with China also remains volatile and tense. Is there a fundamental clash of interests rooted in geopolitics between the two Asian giants? Is it a clash of civilisations? Or, is it a temporary divergence of interests between two rising powers with overlapping strategic interests? To understand the present and future roles of China and India on the international stage, we Ž rst need to return to history to gain an understanding of the roles they played on the world stage and vis-a`-vis each other several millennia ago. 4 Garver, ‘China and South Asia’, p. 72. 5 Garver, ‘China and South Asia’, p. 68. 6 The China–Pakistan type of nuclear/missile cooperation, in particular, is unprecedented in the history of post-1945 international relations. Even the United States and Britain did not share such a relationship. See Amitabh Mattoo, ‘Shadow of the Dragon’, in Gary K. Bertsch, S. Gahlaut and A. Srivastava (eds), Engaging India (New York and London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 219–220. 76 J. Mohan Malik Past Perfect: Ancient Civilisations China and India are the two oldest civilisations, each with the quality of resilience which has enabled them to survive and prosper through the ages against all odds. During the past 3000 years every one of the Asian countries—some situated on the continental landmass, others being offshore islands—has at some stage been directly in uenced by one or both of these two great civilisations. Much like China in eastern Asia, modern India has inherited, and recognises, a long historical and cultural tradition of Indic civilisation in southern Asia. Since the future originates in the impulses of the past, it is appropriate to consider some of the in uences that this history and culture and the physical facts of geography and demography may have upon the Chinese and Indian worldviews and their roles in the international system. The burden of history indeed weighs very heavily on the policy-making elites in China and India. The discourse of civilisation is also critical for the construction of Chinese and Indian identities as modern nation states. Both nations have a long, rich strategic tradition: Sun Zi’s treatise on The Art of War (Sun Zi Bingfa) in China and Kautilya’s Arthshastra (a treatise on war, diplomacy, statecraft and empire) in India were written over 2000 years ago. The traditional Chinese concept of international relations was based upon concentric circles from the imperial capital outwards through variously dependent states to the barbarians on the outside. It bears remarkable resemblance to the Indian concept of mandala or circles outlined in Arthashastra, which postulated that a king’s neighbour is his natural enemy, while the king beyond his neighbour is his natural ally. The Chinese dynasties had followed a similar policy of encircling and attacking nearby neighbours and maintaining friendly relations with more distant kingdoms (yuan jiao jin gong). Much like Imperial China, the rightful fruit of victory in ancient India was tribute, homage, subservience and not annexation. China and India coexisted peacefully for millennia, each with its own sphere of in uence, with the mighty barrier of the Himalayas separating the two empires. Political contacts between ancient China and India were few and far between. In the cultural sphere, it was mostly a one-way street—from India to China: Hindu and Buddhist religious and cultural in uence spread to China (and then to Korea and Japan) and Chinese scholars were sent to Indian universities at Nalanda and Taxilla. The Chinese and Indian civilisations also existed in close juxtaposition in Southeast Asia, greatly modifying the indigenous cultures of the region. Though Chinese and Indian civilisations reacted to one another during the Ž rst few centuries of the Christian era, the process of religious–cultural interaction on any signiŽ cant scale ceased after about the 10th century AD. Since then, the two countries lived, as it were, oblivious of each other’s existence for over a thousand years until about the advent of the 19th century, when both came under the in uence of European powers. In fact, until the 15th century China and India were far ahead of Europe in almost all aspects of life, and the  ow of manufactured goods and technological know-how was mostly from east to west. Before the age of European colonisation, China accounted for about 33 per cent of the world’s manufactured goods and India for about 25 per cent. China under the Song dynasty was the world’s superpower. Under the Moguls, India’s economic, military and cultural prowess, too, was an object of envy. Then in a complete reversal of fortune, the mighty Asian civilisations declined, decayed and disintegrated, and were eventually conquered by European powers. Present Imperfect: From Civilisations to Nation States The gradual westward expansion over the centuries had extended imperial China’s in uence over parts of Central and Inner Asia (Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang). In contrast, India South Asia in China’s Foreign Relations 77 lacked a central authority and did not engage in the physical subjugation of neighbouring countries. India’s boundaries shrank further following the 1947 Partition that broke up the strategic unity of the subcontinent, which goes back 2000 years to the Ž rst Mauryan empire. Then came the Chinese occupation of the buffer state of Tibet in 1950, as a result of which the two nations for the Ž rst time came in close physical contact and clashed. These two developments in the middle of the 20th century also allowed China to extend its reach and in uence in South Asia, where historically, culturally and civilisationally it had exercised no in uence at all. As a result, China–India relations have been tense ever since. A territorial dispute became a full-scale war in 1962 and the two countries came close to Ž ghting another war in 1987. Several rounds of talks over the last 20 years have failed to resolve the disputed border claims.7 Agreements on maintaining peace and tranquillity on the disputed border were signed in 1993 and 1996. While Chinese leaders counsel patience in resolving the boundary dispute ‘left over from history’, Indians want the dispute to be resolved expeditiously and ‘not left to history again’. The prospects of a negotiated settlement of the Sino–Indian border dispute in the near future, however, seem remote. Tensions caused by the territorial dispute have been compounded by rivalry between the two for power and in uence in Asia. Nor can China brush aside third-party (its ally, Pakistan’s) interests in the territorial dispute. This was not the case with the settlement of China’s territorial boundaries with Russia or Vietnam. For, a resolution of the Sino–Indian border dispute would lead to the deployment of India’s military assets on the India–Pakistan border, thereby tilting the military balance decisively in India’s favour, much to Pakistan’s disadvantage. This would deprive Beijing of powerful leverage in its relations with Pakistan and undermine its old strategy of keeping India under strategic pressure on two fronts. The result is that the 4,004 kilometre frontier, one of the longest interstate borders in the world, remains the only one not deŽ ned, let alone demarcated, on maps or delineated on the ground, following the negotiated settlement of China’s territorial disputes with Russia, the Central Asian states and Vietnam in the late 1990s. Even if the territorial dispute were resolved, China and India would still retain a competitive relationship in the Asia–PaciŽ c region. Other factors, apart from the territorial dispute, contribute to the fractious and uneasy relationship. These include China’s ties with India’s South Asian neighbours, especially Beijing’s military alliances with Pakistan and Burma; unrest in Tibet and Kashmir; differences over Sikkim;8 terrorism;9 multipolarity and UN Security Council expansion; their ties with the United States and Russia; power asymmetry; Chinese encroachments into what India sees as its ‘sphere of in uence’, as evident in Beijing’s plans for a naval presence in the Indian Ocean and India’s counter- moves to establish closer strategic ties with Vietnam and Japan; and, more recently, nuclear and missile proliferation issues. Chinese policy makers’ preference for a balance-of-power approach in interstate relations has led them to provide military and political support to those countries that can serve as counterweights to Beijing’s perceived enemies and rivals. Beijing’s rhetoric about the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence notwithstanding, classic Chinese statecraft 7 The Indian position is that China continues to illegally occupy 38,000 km2 of Indian territory in Kashmir, besides the 5180 km2 ceded by Pakistan to China. On its part, Beijing lays claim to 90,000 km2 of territory in Arunachal Pra