X: @prashanthamine
New Delhi: Call it comical irony of sorts that India and China celebrated their 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations on April 1 – All Fools Day! Chinese President Xi Jinping in his message to Indian President Droupadi Murmu, described China-India ties as the “Dragon-Elephant Tango.”
For 70 years of those 75 years of diplomatic ties, it has been more of long frosty ties often crusted with mistrust and suspicion. It is the hapless, once independent ancient kingdom of Tibet that has borne the brunt of that Tango, getting trampled in the process.
Chinese President Xi Jinping in his message described “China-India ties as the “Dragon-Elephant Tango, symbolizing a harmonious partnership between the countries’ emblematic animals. He noted that realizing the “Dragon-Elephant Tango” is the right choice for the two sides, as it serves the fundamental interests of both countries and their peoples.”
It was no surprise then that the Chinese welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent conversation with Lex Fridman, an MIT research scientist and a popular YouTube podcaster, wherein he stressed on strengthening relations with China despite past tensions, insisting on dialogue over discord and cooperation over conflict.
In fact if one were to look at the recent message of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks on the Lex Fridman Podcast, both the leaders can be seen using the same diplomatic clichéd words like “long history”, “importance of mutual understanding”, or “ancient cultures and civilizations.”
Prime Minister Modi argues that “past historical records reveal that for centuries, India and China have learned from each other. Together, they have always contributed to the global good in some way. At one point in history, India and China together accounted for more than half of the world’s GDP. Buddhism, which had a big influence on China, originated in India, and played a key role in cultural exchanges between the two ancient civilisations. If we look back centuries, there’s no real history of conflict between us. It has always been about learning from each other and understanding one another.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping in his message too talks of such diplomatic necessities arguing as to how China reclaimed its position as India’s top trading partner last year, surpassing the United States after a two-year gap, according to the latest report from the Global Trade Research Initiative. Bilateral trade between the two Asian giants reached $118.4 billion in 2024, reflecting a four-percent increase from $113.8 billion in 2023.
Both countries have leveraged their strengths in technology and production. While China remains a vital supplier of industrial goods such as electronics, machinery and chemicals, it imports pharmaceuticals, agricultural products and software services from India, added President Xi Jinping.
Prime Minister Modi, does acknowledge that tensions arose in 2020 following clashes along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Pangong Lake and Galwan regions in May-June 2020.
“We are now working to restore conditions to how they were before 2020. Slowly but surely, trust, enthusiasm, and energy will return. But of course, it will take some time, since there’s been a five-year gap. Our cooperation isn’t just beneficial, it’s also essential for global stability and prosperity. And since the 21st century is Asia’s century, we want India and China to compete in a healthy and natural way. Competition is not a bad thing, but it should never turn into conflict,” added PM Modi.
The remark that stands out from PM Modi are, “If we look back centuries, there’s no real history of conflict between us. It has always been about learning from each other and understanding one another.”
Remarks of PM Modi may sound music to the ears of the Chinese, but it must be disheartening to the Tibetan leadership that has been fighting off the Chinese illegal occupation of their ancient kingdom.
In September-October of 2020, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) had carried a blog titled “When China talks of peace, India must prepare for war.”
Quoting late US President Theodore Roosevelt, “The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future”, Utpal Kumar argues that If one wants to know what is happening at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, and why it’s happening, one just has to go back to the 1950s and the early 1960s.”
“But apart from that, the entire Chinese modus operandi on the Ladakh front, as seen today, would be a photocopy of the decade leading to the 1962 war—when, while the Chinese political class led by the suave and sophisticated Zhou Enlai would talk of peace and brotherhood, the military wing would be busy encroaching into Indian territories!”, argues Utpal Kumar.
Although for some experts on Tibet and Sino-Indian ties the seeds of the present day conflict may have been sown in the Chinese invasion of Tibet on October 7, 1950, the seeds of the border dispute were sown much earlier in the Shimla Convention of July 3, 1914.
The Shimla Convention, clarified Tibet’s semi-autonomous status and demarcated the border between Tibetan territory and British India, was signed on July 3, 1914. It is also known for the McMahon Line, the boundary line that was drawn by Sir Arthur Henry McMahon. The Chinese representative at the Shimla Convention Ivan Chen walked out of the meeting without signing the document.
In the end the document in reality remained just a bilateral agreement between British India and Tibet. Following the signing of the convention the British set up their Mission at Dekyi Lingka in Lhasa, which later became the Indian Mission on August 15, 1947, following India’s independence. Besides the Indian Mission in Lhasa, it had Trade Agencies in Gartok, Yatung and Gyantse.
If one were to consider the British setting up the Mission in 1914, then historically India’s diplomatic ties in the modern era are 111 years old. From India’s independence of August 15, 1947, the diplomatic mission in Lhasa would have completed 78 years.
India’s ties with Tibet, particularly regarding Buddhism and cultural exchange, are believed to have begun during the spread of Buddhism to Tibet from India in the 6th century AD, though some Tibetan traditions suggest even earlier connections.
India and China’s ties, encompassing cultural and trade exchanges, have roots dating back to at least the 2nd century BC, with the spread of Buddhism into China from India in the first century AD marking a significant period of interaction.
Historically or in terms of modern diplomacy, India’s ties with both China and Tibet predates modern times. It is significant to note that despite the spread of Buddhism to China, Tibet and the far-East, India has never displayed hostile, aggressive expansionist tendencies in the region.
But the same cannot be said about China. The break-down at the 1914 Shimla Convention could well be taken as the inflection point as the Chinese envoy Ivan Chen had walked out without signing the agreement over the McMahon Line that demarcated the boundaries of Tibet, Burma and North-East India. Today with China annexing Tibet, the McMahon Line is now the de-facto boundary line between India and China.
It is pertinent to note here that for the last 111 years China has been persistently refusing to acknowledge the McMahon Line as its international boundary either with Tibet or with India.
The Shimla Convention provided that Tibet would be divided into “Outer Tibet” and “Inner Tibet”. Outer Tibet, which roughly corresponded to Ü-Tsang and western Kham, would “remain in the hands of the Tibetan Government at Lhasa under Chinese suzerainty”, but China would not interfere in its administration.
The British drew the McMahon Line in 1914 with the sole aim of keeping the Czarist Russia in check, by creating Tibet as the buffer between an expansionist Russia and India. In reality, post-independence in 1947, Tibet was the rooftop of the world and acted as the buffer between China and India.
The genesis of much of India’s current border disputes lies in the haphazard manner in which the British drew international boundaries, granted independence to territories under the then British India Empire without bothering to understand ancient history of the region.
The British granted independence to Afghanistan in 1919, to Burma (Myanmar) in 1937, Pakistan in 1947 and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1948. The British also messed up and created the Tibet issue in 1919, with the Chinese refusing to accept the 17 point Shimla Convention.
Today China disputes the McMahon Line, and Afghanistan disputes the Durand Line, its international border with Pakistan. The Durand Line is the international border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, established in 1893 by Sir Henry Mortimer Durand and Afghan Emir Abdur Rahman Khan, and is a 2,640-kilometer (1,640-mile) line that runs from China’s border to Afghanistan’s border with Iran.
Since the mid-1950’s the Tibetan leadership had been sending warning signals to India about the expansionist tendencies of China. According to noted expert on China affairs, Claude Arpi, “India lost the “Roof of the World”, less due to the Chinese betrayal, and more because of the monumental failure of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to see the writing on the wall.”
Claude Arpi in his fourth book on India-Tibet relations (1947- 1962), “The End of an Era: India Exits Tibet” argues that diplomatic cables sent then from the Indian embassy in Lhasa were ignored. So much so that the “Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai” catch-phrase was aggressively pushed.
Worst still India approved the supply of rice for the invading PLA troops in Tibet when the latter were busy rampaging and decimating the Tibetan way of life and culture in the early 1950s. “Without Delhi’s active support, the Chinese troops would not have been able to survive in Tibet,” writes Arpi.
Barely was the staple diet of the Tibetan people for centuries. The Chinese PLA soldiers were not used to consuming Barley. According to Arpi, upon the request of the Chinese government the Indian government supplied rice for almost four years.
For some strange reason, India did not use its then far-superior air-force to evict the Chinese land forces from Tibet, a perplexing move according to some foreign policy experts. The fact that China had built an all-weather road to Tibetan capital Lhasa, came much as a shock to the Indian government then.
Unable to resist the Chinese aggression, His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama) finally fled from Tibet and made his way to India on March 17, 1959. Seventy years later, the now 90 years old Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people have all but given up their hope of ever returning to their home land. Neither is the Dalai Lama is interested in naming his successor after the mysterious disappearance of the Panchen Lama in 1995.
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, better known as the Panchen Lama was born April 25, 1989 and was kidnapped on May 17, 1995, three days after he was declared and announced as the 14th Dalai Lama. Since then there has been no trace of him. He was just six years old then, today he must be 36 years old. China instead has handpicked Gyaltsen Norbu as its own puppet 11th Panchen Lama.
Though India granted asylum to the Dalai Lama and allowed the Tibetan government in exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) to operate from Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh, much of the younger generation of Tibetans have left Dharamshala for better life opportunities abroad.
The Five Point Peace Plan articulated 38 years ago by the Dalai Lama during his address to the U.S. Congressional Human Right’s Caucus on September 21, 1987 still holds true.
This peace plan contains five basic components:
1. Transformation of the whole of Tibet into a zone of peace;
2. Abandonment of China’s population transfer policy which threatens the very existence of the Tibetans as a people;
3. Respect for the Tibetan people’s fundamental human rights and democratic freedoms;
4. Restoration and protection of Tibet’s natural environment and the abandonment of China’s use of Tibet for the production of nuclear weapons and dumping of nuclear waste;
5. Commencement of earnest negotiations on the future status of Tibet and of relations between the Tibetan and Chinese peoples.
Although, many foreign policy experts attribute the current aggressive behaviour to China’s Five Fingers and Palm Policy to Chairman Mao Zedong who is believed to have coined the phrase on November 15, 1939 in the run-up to the cultural revolution later. China considers Tibet as the Palm of its mythical right hand with Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and North-East Frontier Agency (now Arunachal Pradesh) being its Five Fingers.
In the aftermath of the June 2017 Doklam stand-off and the June 2020 Galwan valley stand-off, as part of its Five Fingers and Palm Policy, China has aggressively opened up new fronts along its Himalayan borders with India.
According to some media reports China has built dual use villages called as Xiaokang (well-off) villages along its international borders with Nepal, Bhutan and India (Arunachal Pradesh). Most of these villages also have military bases within them which can be used as potential launch pads for any military offensive against India across the Himalayan ranges.
As part of its String of Pearls strategy, China with the help of Cambodia has built the Ream naval base on the eastern side of the Strait of Malacca in the Indian Ocean. It is a choke-point for China in its maritime trade route through the Indian Ocean.
If that is not enough, the latest front opened by China is its ambitious plan to construct a super-mega dam on the Brahmaputra River, known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet. The project poses serious ecological and geopolitical impacts on India and Bangladesh.
Since the Chinese invasion of Tibet began in the 1950’s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been closely watching the developments in the Himalayan region. It was only after the U.S. goods trade deficit with China shot-up to $295.4 billion in 2024, a 5.8 percent increase ($16.3 billion) over 2023, that the Trump administration first on April 2 imposed 34% on China.
Yesterday US President Donald J Trump further threatened to impose new 50% tariffs if China did not withdrew its counter-measures against the US. The Trump administration has invoked the July 2024 Resolve Tibet Act and the December 2018 Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act as an excuse to use tariffs as a tool to force China to resolve the Tibet issue. In June 2024, former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had led a bipartisan delegation of US Congressmen that had called on the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala.
It is not without rhyme or reason that the US is offering its latest F-35 stealth fighter jets to India, Patriot Missile Defence System or the earlier offer of F-16s.
According to a declassified CIA document of May 2021 titled “US Strategic Framework For The Indo-Pacific”, talks about strengthening, upgrading India’s military technology, support India’s membership to Nuclear Suppliers Group, support India in its dispute over the Brahmaputra river waters issue, support India’s “Act East Policy”, and the Quad membership.
The US now needs India’s support as it wants to use India as a counter-balance to China. Amidst the on-going US-China trade and tariff war and the Sino-Indian Dragon and Elephant Tango, hope that Tibet does get trampled upon and realises its dream of an independent Tibet. Today some world leaders are vying for the Nobel Peace Prize, trying to be the Peace Dove, with many still unresolved regional conflicts, at least Tibet sees the light of freedom that it has yearned for in the last 70 years.
Sakarya Elit Escort Kızlarla Vip Bayanlar Esort Güzel Vakit Geçirin
you are in reality a just right webmaster. The web site loading velocity is amazing. It seems that you are doing any distinctive trick. Furthermore, The contents are masterwork. you have done a great activity on this topic!
Keep working ,impressive job!