A double whammy

India’s opportunity

As it prepares to lay out the red carpet for Hu next month, India should recognise that strong interlocutors make for productive negotiations.

Hu’s visit provides India a rare opportunity to make some big moves, especially on the long-standing boundary dispute. The Janata Dal Government led by H.D. Deve Gowda, that received President Jiang at the pinnacle of his power during 1996, did not have the political will to lift Sino-Indian ties above the ordinary. The NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee was certainly bolder. But by the time it was poised for a breakthrough, its time had run out.

The UPA government built upon the advances made by the NDA and completed the negotiations on the guiding principles for resolving the boundary dispute during Chinese premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India in April 2005.

For years, Chinese analysts have argued that ever since Rajiv Gandhi, India has not had governments with the strength to negotiate seriously on the boundary. Yet for the first time in decades, there appears to be a strong domestic political consensus in India for a pragmatic settlement of the boundary dispute with China.

With the inevitable support from the Communist parties, and the blessings of Vajpayee who led creative Indian thinking on China for nearly three decades, Singh has the opportunity to pull off India’s biggest foreign policy coup in six decades. Singh has one of India’s most experienced China hands, Shiv Shankar Menon, at the helm of the foreign office. As the Americans might say, let the real bargaining begin.