Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Deal with China firmly' that was published in Newsband

Deal with China firmly

China is against allowing the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang monastery in early April, and it threatens that it would “seriously damage” bilateral ties.

 The controversy over the Tawang area goes back to the Shimla meet of 1914, when the Chinese representatives just initialled, and didn’t sign, a trilateral agreement with British India and Tibet. Later, in 1959, when the current Dalai Lama fled Tibet, he came into India through Tawang. He has not visited Arunachal Pradesh since 2009

The Chinese government should not unnecessarily create tensions with India over the issue of Arunachal Pradesh. Beijing should not raise objections over access for the Dalai Lama as a spiritual leader to a religious shrine. Beijing has been touchy about visiting delegations from Taiwan and the grant of visas to those it perceives as dissident activists.

China always wants to be treated as a great power. But what are its goals? We have no strategy to deal with China but the emphasis is on being goody-goody which is not enough.

China can't distinguish between Dalai Lama and Masood Azhar and yet it wants to be a global power. Does it have any moral ground? Also China should start looking at India as a bilateral issue rather than a tri lateral issue between India, China & Pakistan.

It is true that India aspires for the help of China to become a member of NSG group and that China will watch Indian government with alertness. But the visit of Dalai Lama to the controversial sites of Arunachal Pradesh should not be made an issue by China. China is always thinking of its own benefit

Another thing is why India should allow the world to antagonize her as much as they want, or kick her around, and she is meant to simply play nice. With this defeatist mindset, the enemies will have a field day. Yes, agreed that in absence of willingness to go to war, Peace may not be defeatist necessarily but "Realistic". It wouldn’t be wise for India to test its military strength against China if worse comes to worst. But being Realist should not mean to appease China no matter how unfair its demands are. India has been giving in to Chinese diktats since 1962 debacle but to what end? As China gains in stature the more hegemonistic and condescending is its attitude to India. In other words India giving in to China didn't help India gain any considerations from China on its concerns such as large trade deficit, unblocking opposition to India's entry in UNSC, NSC or Azhar issue and now building CPEC through POK. In an armed confrontation it is not just India which stands to lose, so does China. It takes India for granted because of its defeatist mentality. China understands and respects strength and countries willing to stand up for their interests.

The Chinese are 'extremely sensitive' about their 'core issues' but ride roughshod over Indian sensitivities such as cross-border terrorism, sovereignty, access to markets, legitimate Indian membership in world fora such as UNSC or NSG (they opposed strongly India's entry even into ASEAN) etc. As for Dalai Lama, tell the Chinese in their own words, "We cannot allow issues that cannot be worked out for the moment to stop us from moving forward.”

Modi government is dealing with China perfectly including Taiwan issue by linking it to POK. But there are Indians who prefer to be sub servant to China. The sub servant culture which was forced on India by British is still lingering in India.