India-China talk about `soft borders'

JYOTI MALHOTRA

New Delhi, January 18, 2007 : Even as India and China agree not to transfer territories with settled populations, as part of their ongoing border negotiations, one way to break a potential logjam could be to delineate a ``soft border’’ in areas which Beijing continues to claim.

In keeping with the political directives given to them by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese president Hu Jintao, Special Representatives M K Narayanan and his Chinese counterpart Dai Bingguo ended their fifth round of border talks in the capital today.

Highly placed sources said the Prime Minister was very keen that along with Pakistan, New Delhi also resolve all issues left over by history as soon as possible with Beijing.

Especially with China, the sources pointed to a special confluence of circumstances that could help make this possible, sooner rather than later : Key Left party allies in the UPA government which maintain a special, political relationship with the Communist Party of China, economic reform-minded leaders like Manmohan Singh and Hu Jintao, and not least, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shanker Menon and India’s ambassador to China Nirupama Rao, both of whom understand the nitty-gritty of the border, even in Mandarin.

Under the circumstances, New Delhi is believed to have proposed that one way to solve the prickly border, to enable both sides to keep face, is to have a ``soft border’’ in areas such as Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, which Bejing continues to insist must become part of China at the end of any negotiation.

National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, India’s special representative in the border talks, in a recent interview with rediff.com, referred to the sticking point over Arunachal, and hinted that Tawang continued to be an obstacle.

``Arunachal Pradesh has always been seen by Indians as an integral part (of India). That is our position. What we are negotiating is, are there parts of Arunachal Pradesh on which there could be differences and if that needs solutions?’’ Narayanan said.

He went on to add : ``It is possible that there may be some amount of changes in territory. But what we have agreed upon is that where there are settled populations, we don’t want to have a Partition-kind of situation. People moving across borders, creating problems on both sides, and god knows, what will be the other consequences.’’

If the Indian proposal of a ``soft border’’ at Tawang on the Line of Actual Control is acceptable to Beijing, the arrangement would allow Chinese people, especially Tibetan pilgrims, to cross over and pray at the major Tibetan monastery in Tawang.

Tawang is an especially sensitive issue with China because the sixth Dalai Lama (known as the ``mighty Sixth’’) was born there, and because Beijing is keen to assert public control over all Tibet, despite the presence of the current Dalai Lama in India.

Such a ``soft border’’ in Tawang, for example, would be very similar to the concept of the ``soft border’’ that is the Line of Control dividing the two parts of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

The ``soft border’’ principle, if agreeable to Beijing, could well become the instrument that cracks the entire disputed border, over 4000 km from the Aksai Chin area in the western sector to Arunachal Pradesh in the eastern sector.

It also fits like a glove into the Manmohan Singh thesis that India’s boundaries are not cast in stone, but must be flexible enough so as to allow the trade of goods and ideas to flow both ways.

Its not accidental that the Nathu La pass in Sikkim was opened with some pomp and circumstance last July, even if it was for border trade. Or that the cross-LoC bus between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad as well as the cross-border bus between Poonch and Rawlakot have had their moments under the Congress government.


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