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.
