India should rethink the ‘One China’ policy and exploit Beijing’s fault lines: Experts

A group of experts have said India should rethink and revise its ‘One China’ policy and exploit the geographic, ethnic, and economic fault lines within the Asian giant, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang.

At a webinar jointly organized by Law and Society Alliance and Defence Capital on the topic "Revisiting 'One China' policy: Economic and Political Options for India: Hong Kong, Tibet, Taiwan, and Xinjiang", the experts said India’s non-interference when Tibet was annexed by China 70 years ago, thereby changing its geographical boundaries, has come back to haunt India since 1962.

The experts at the webinar were Arvind Gupta, former deputy national security adviser of India and now director of Vivekananda International Foundation; Jayadeva Ranade, former additional secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat and present day President of Centre for China Analysis and Strategy; Seshadri Chari, secretary-general of Forum for Integrated National Securityand Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, senior fellow at Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.

In his remarks, Arvind Gupta said what ‘One China’ policy was considered as a reciprocity to the ‘One India’ policy. However, India gave up its influence on Tibet in the 1950s and accept its annexation by China. This situation as far as Tibet is concerned continued till date.

However, India has taken a flexible approach in the past few years on Tibet, Gupta said and pointed out to the 2010 India-China joint statement that didn’t mention the ‘One China’ policy, then external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj’s statement in 2014 on the reciprocity on the unity and sovereignties of each other, and the invite to the Taiwanese representative to join the 2014 Narendra Modi oath taking ceremony.

He expressed his concerns about not taking a dynamic approach and said that we have not moved very much in revising policy and taking forward what was said in the statements. On Tibet, Gupta suggested that India should be supporting the effort of the Tibetans to have self-rule and should give the Dalai Lama more recognition and position in diplomatic engagements, apart from visibility in India’s political circles.

Along with this, India must begin economic and technological engagements with Taiwan, besides supporting it politically. He also recommended garnering India’s support to the democratic movement in Hong Kong, even if we do not join the western countries’ joint efforts at isolating China in geopolitics. He also recommended Indian support to the voices against human rights violations in Xinjiang at global fora.

Gupta also stressed the need to build India’s capacity on dealing with China and be ready to anticipate the Chinese intentions and mind when we begin to revise our ‘One China’ policy.

Jayadeva Ranade stressed the need to build up India’s own capabilities in countering China - not only on the border, but on all fronts. He predicted that the tensions between the US and China will certainly either put India in a sweet spot or in a delicate position in the days to come. He said that the government should provide scholarships to those wanting to learn Madarin from Taiwan instead of China, where the visitors are brain-washing into becoming slaves of Chinese supremacy.

On Hong Kong, Ranade favoured greater engagement by India on democracy issues and human rights. On Taiwan, he wanted India to provide equal stature and opportunities to their businesses like it is currently being done for China.

“Why should we deny the same opportunities to and from Taiwan as compared to China? We can benefit from Taiwan by shifting their chip building and shipping companies here in India. It will tackle unemployment in India and help businesses to grow.”

On Tibet, Ranade noted that the Dalai Lama’s old age meant India needed to expand its Buddhist links with the Tibetans and strengthen the relationship. “China does not have a good track record on Buddhism. We need to build up our own Buddhist religious sites as it is one of the fastest-growing religions of the world, thereby, bringing all the Asian countries to India. We should also try to link Lumbini with Gaya and Sarnath, and other Buddhist sites in India. We need to prevent China from building the Buddhist circuit connecting Lumbini with China through aerial connectivity.”

Sheshadri Chari argued that India should never accept the ‘One China principle as propounded by Beijing. On Xinjiang, Chari pointed out that the region was annexed by China because of which it created borders for itself with Central Asian nations, Afghanistan, and India.

“Chinese admit themselves that it is not their land. In 1955, they converted the new province into the ‘Autonomous Region’. Saifuddin Azizi was the chairman of the autonomous territory and opposed Mao Zedong’s terminology of Xinjiang, which was later named Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).”

He said, “By occupying Tibet, China occupied an additional landmass and got borders with India, Bhutan, and Nepal, which they didn’t have. Because of occupation of Xinjiang, they got direct borders with India (Aksai Chin), Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia, Pakistan, Tibet, Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan. It was an important strategic move by China.”

The development of Urumqi-Kashgar road, an all-weather road, China will get access to South Asia. Thus, China will be making a road in Indian territory to dominate the region, he added.

“In a changing world order, we have rejected the offer to join the RCEP. We should tell the RCEP authority that if Hong Kong and Taiwan are made members of the RCEP, it would be more suitable for India to join it.”

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra began by classifying three major problems of India with China - cutting off the Pakistan-China nexus, the need for a problems free border, and China’s veto power at UNSC.