NEW DELHI: US President-elect Donald Trump can take strategy lessons from one Asian country on how to effectively deal with China without the latter blowing its gasket, suggests noted American magazine Foreign Policy.
The entire world by now knows about how China threw a fit because of Trump’s unintended or deliberate gaffe in taking a congratulatory call from Taiwan’s President. As well, about how US State Department mandarins have been wringing their hands ever since this ‘sleight’ to China by ignoring the decades-old ‘One China’ policy.
What they seem to have forgotten, or overlooked, is that one particular country got away without acknowledging there is just ‘One China’, which is mainland China, not Taiwan. And that country did it not just without blow-back, it even worked the situation to its advantage.
That country is India.
Therefore, Foreign Policy magazine suggests Trump and US State Department mandarins learn a thing or two from New Delhi and the Indian Foreign Service.
“In an era when global powers are shunning both Taiwanese and Tibetan leaders (like the Dalai Lama) under the weight of Chinese pressure, one country has been openly challenging Beijing’s One-China policy for more than six years: India,” the magazine writes this week.
The article talks about how in 2010, the Congress party-led Manmohan Singh government took “uncharacteristically swift and punitive action” against China and suspended all bilateral military ties and any form of joint exercises. This was done in retaliation for China refusing a visa to Lieutenant General BS Jaswal because he was then on head of India’s military command in Kashmir. Being Pakistan‘s “all-weather friend”, meant Beijing was refusing to acknowledge Indian sovereignty over Kashmir.
Following that, Foreign Policy points out how joint statements between India and China continued to omit the One-China policy. PM Modi continued to take that position when he assumed office two years ago.
“For India to agree on a one-China policy, China should reaffirm a one-India policy,” External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said right before Chinese President Xi Jinping‘s first trip to New Delhi in September 2014. “When they raised the issue of Tibet and Taiwan with us, we shared their sensitivities…. They should understand and appreciate our sensitivities regarding Arunachal Pradesh,” the minister added.
The American magazine talks of how China, two years later, “relented” on the visa issue, after which India restored military ties with it.
“More important, six years after India’s change of heart on One-China policy, it has suffered no discernible political or economic backlash that can be tied to the policy shift… It’s notable, then, that beyond its broad refusal to endorse the One-China policy, New Delhi has given no indication that it plans to walk back its repeated reaffirmations of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet (much less Taiwan). On the other hand, Prime Minister Modi has adopted several initiatives short of that threshold to signal a more defiant posture on Tibet and the border dispute,” notes Foreign Policy.
“It’s notable, then, that beyond its broad refusal to endorse the One-China policy, New Delhi has given no indication that it plans to walk back its repeated reaffirmations of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet (much less Taiwan). On the other hand, Prime Minister Modi has adopted several initiatives short of that threshold to signal a more defiant posture on Tibet and the border dispute,” the US magazine says.
Bureau Report
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