China's aggression on border with India brings into question Modi Govt's policy

China’s aggression along its disputed boundary with India has brought into question the policy, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been pursuing over the past two years to mend New Delhi’s ties with the neighbouring communist country.

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The Modi Government has been carefully avoiding hurting the sensitivities of China, be it on the issue of Tibet or Taiwan or Hong Kong. It started sometime in early 2018, when New Delhi was trying to bring back on track its relation with Beijing after it had reached its nadir over the 72-day-long military face-off between the two nations in Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan the previous year.

Two months before the Prime Minister had an “informal summit” with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Wuhan in central China on April 27 and 28, 2018, the cabinet secretariat issued an advisory in New Delhi asking “senior leaders” and “government functionaries” in the states as well as at the Centre to stay away from events attended by the Dalai Lama. It also made the Tibetan Government-in-Exile based at Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh scale down an event it was planning to hold to mark the 60th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s escape to India in the wake of Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s occupation of Tibet in 1959.

Read: At least 20 Indian Army personnel martyred in face-off with China in Ladakh

New Delhi’s move was obviously intended to avoid irking Beijing ahead of Modi-Xi “informal summit”.

Nudged by Beijing, India in July 2018 virtually re-asserted its adherence to “One-China” policy, with the national carrier Air India replacing “Taiwan” with “Chinese Taipei” in the list of destinations on its website.

When Modi took oath for his second term in office on May 30, 2019, the chief of Tibetan Government-in-Exile, Lobsang Sangay, was not invited to the swearing-in ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. His presence in the same ceremony five years ago had riled China.

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New Delhi also maintained silence on protests in Hong Kong. Unlike many other nations, India did not send any official of its consulate in Hong Kong to go out and meet the protesters when they came at the gate of the mission on June 26, 2019.

Beijing, however, did not bother to reciprocate to the series of gestures by New Delhi. It continued to oppose India’s bid to get the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. It supported its “iron brother” Pakistan’s campaign against India at the United Nations on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir. It continued to China-Pakistan Economic Corridor through areas India claims to be its own and accuses Pakistan of illegally occupying.

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No wonder, the continuing stand-off along the disputed boundary in eastern Ladakh, particularly the brutal killing of 20 Indian Army soldiers in a premeditated attack by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army personnel at Galwan Valley has triggered call for the Modi Government to give a hard look to the policy it has been pursuing in its engagement with Beijing.