Friday, 7 April 2017

Why is China hurting its ties with India over the Dalai Lama’s Tawang visit?

After all these years, do the Chinese expect the 82-year old to lead a revolution in Tibet?

POLITICS | 3-minute read | 07-04-2017

COLONEL  R HARIHARAN @colhari2

China does not seem to have realised that India, under the stewardship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is different from the one ruled by the Congress for a decade. 

It is difficult to understand, why China is getting worked up over the Dalai Lama’s visit to Tawang.

The Buddhist spiritual leader fled his homeland and arrived in India, nearly six decades ago, as a young monk of 24 to save himself from the Chinese army, who sought to crush the mass uprising in Tibet. 

After all these years, do the Chinese expect the 82-year old to lead a revolution to “liberate” Tibet?

Apparently, some sections of Chinese leadership think so, however absurd it may seem, particularly as the Dalai Lama has repeatedly been saying his demand was that Tibetans gain autonomy to preserve the identity and religion.

Whether he visits Tawang or not makes an iota of difference to the status of Tibet and to China’s territorial disputes with India.  

These problems are not going to vanish into thin air if the Dalai Lama prays at the monastery in Tawang.

The territorial disputes between the two countries have long been on the dialogue table for long, and are waiting to go through the ordeal of talks for the umpteenth time.  No light is visible at the end of the “dispute tunnel” as neither side has look to a resolution.  

What then does China achieve when its foreign ministry demands that “India stop using the Dalai Lama to do anything that undermines China’s interests” and that “the Indian side not hype up sensitive issues between India and China,” or by calling the Indian Ambassador to China Vijay Gokhale to lodge a protest.

China’s hype on the Dalai Lama’s has done one thing: it has given wide publicity to his visit.

It has raised a lot of heckles among the public leaving little manoeuvring space for both the governments.

The Dalai Lama does not make front page news in India till the Chinese make a noise about him. The Indian media makes very little space for him.

The Tibetan cause has to jostle for media space in the land full of sadhus (including the corporate ones who have entered our breakfast cereal and shampoos), spiritualists, fakirs and a whole tribe of religious leaders whose message the electronic media beams 24x7. 

The Chinese have done a favour to the Tibetan leader by creating a ruckus over his visit.  

We can expect the Dalai Lama’s address at the Dirang monastery to be widely broadcast.

The Chinese, on the other hand, would do well to read his message: “Situation inside Tibet is tragic. The situation in 21st century will be miserable if it continues like this. The world suffers from short-sightedness which is not good. We shouldn’t bully each other.” 

Pondering on the last sentence of Dalai Lama’s message would help cool the tempers to take a realistic view of the situation.  

China feels, by disregarding its concerns and “obstinately” arranging the visit to the disputed part of Sino-Indian border, India is “causing serious damage” to China’s interests as well as India-China relations.

It is difficult to believe that the Dalai Lama’s visit would cause more damage to the bilateral ties, than when the Chinese have repeatedly trampled upon India’s concerns.

 It has blocked India’s efforts to get the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist Azhar Masood black listed by the UN, although it knows India has been under serious threat from Pakistan-based jihadi terrorist outfits.

Can it be worse than China finalising the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, in utter disregard to India’s objections, and start executing the project through Indian territory illegally occupied by Pakistan? 

China should seriously ponder how it is dealing with India. India is not Mongolia to be brow beaten by words.  Beijing needs good relations with New Delhi as much as the latter does.  But they won’t improve by threats or warnings. 

India is not China; it is a vocal democracy where public perception impacts how India acts, probably, much more than it does in China.  The earlier the Chinese realize the better the relationship building will be.


The writer is a retired Military Intelligence specialist on South Asia with rich experience in terrorism and insurgency operations.

Courtesy: India Today Opinion portal www.dailo.in    


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