Beijing the Bully
Chinas refusal to grant visa to Gonesh Koyu, an IAS officer of the Arunachal
Pradesh cadre who was among a 107-strong delegation of IAS officers set to
visit China for training at the prestigious Beijing National Academy of
Administration, has come at a time when India is leaving its past behind and
moving with diplomatic pragmatism to cement its ties with the neighbouring
giant. Mr Koyu was denied visa on the grounds that China still considers
Arunachal Pradesh a part of its own territory and not Indias, and that the
disputed status of Arunachal Pradesh obviously prevents Chinese diplomacy
from effecting a visa regime for people from its own territory. This is a
total perversion of the fact of the day. India, on its part, did the right
thing by cancelling the proposed trip of IAS officers. In this lies the Indian
assertion that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India, and just that.
In this is also manifest the unfolding of a resurgent India refusing to be
cowed down by Beijings bullying tactics. While Beijing may have stormed into
the dynamics of free-market economics and dictated terms to set new global
trends, India does not lag behind either, despite a plethora of problems. A
global player in the making and recognized by the international community
today India cannot remain a mute spectator to the overtly aggressive Chinese
design on Arunachal Pradesh. It would be reassuring indeed if Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh himself had straightaway sent a message to his Chinese
counterpart conveying Indias downright rejection of the Chinese claim on any
part of Arunachal Pradesh. The message should also have it that as long as
China cherishes Arunachal Pradesh as part of its expansionist design, there
cannot be any pragmatic move towards resolving the vexed issues between the two
countries; and that recognition of each others well-defined territories with
settled populations, leaving the phantoms of the past behind, is the
only way out of the impasse.
On the flip side of it all, one wonders whether China realizes that India has
come a long way from the Nehruvian era reminiscent of that meek psychological
surrender of 1962 when Jawaharlal Nehrus heart went out to the people of
Assam as the Chinese forces rampaged through Arunachal Pradesh. Today the
Indian Prime Minister will definitely not surrender in that characteristic
Nehruvian style. It is high time Beijing realized this Indian
politico-diplomatic metamorphosis. More important, as Beijing strives to set
new global trends by economic miracles, it would only make a laughing stock of
itself and its people by eyeing an integral part of its neighbour, India, no
less powerful and economically buoyant. We understand that there is no
likelihood of any war between India and China on Arunachal Pradesh; so what
does China want to prove by harping on Arunachal Pradesh? That it can still
bully around without being scoffed at?
http://sentinelassam.com/
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