Beijing bound

The three prime ministerial visits over the last two decades, Rajiv Gandhi in 1988, P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1993, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003, all made forward movement on the boundary issue — the central purpose of their travel to China. Rajiv Gandhi got a new framework for the boundary negotiations, Rao signed an agreement on maintaining peace and tranquility on the border, and Vajpayee elevated the border talks to a political level and resolved the Sikkim dispute.

The UPA Government started off impressively by negotiating a joint statement with China on the guiding principles and political parameters for the settlement of the boundary dispute in April 2005 during Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s visit to India. Despite continuous high-level negotiations since then, an agreement on mutual territorial compromise has remained elusive. China’s persistent demands for Indian concessions on the Tawang tract in Arunachal Pradesh has made it difficult to construct a final settlement.

The absence of a boundary settlement is not necessarily fatal to the bilateral relationship. There is no denying, however, that President Hu Jintao and Manmohan Singh have been unable to live up to their joint claim last November in New Delhi that “an early settlement of the boundary question will advance the basic interests of the two countries and shall, therefore, be pursued as a strategic objective.” Worse still, the two leaders know that there is a growing military unease on the Sino-Indian frontier.

Vietnam protests

It is not often that people take to streets in socialist countries and that too against a fraternal Communist republic. During the last few weeks, Vietnam has seen unprecedented public protests against Chinese assertion of its territorial claims in the disputed islands of South China Sea.

The issue is not whether these protests have official sanction from Vietnam. The protests reflect the depth of political concern in Vietnam over what they see as China’s muscular approach to territorial disputes.

Gathering at the Lenin Park opposite the Chinese embassy in Hanoi in...