China's state sponsored tweeters and their paid tweets

By B Raman


On December 9,2011, Radio Free Asia, funded by the US State Department, disseminated a report attributed to the Agence France Presse (AFP) regarding how China has been trying to counter criticism of the State and the Communist Party of China and spread of undesirable “rumours” through the Internet by micro-bloggers and other netizens.

The text of the AFP report as disseminated by the Radio station is given below:
China's Online Propagandists Revealed:

Sealed with the official stamp of "The Party Committee Propaganda Department of the Northwestern Polytechnic University of the Chinese Communist Party," the receipts confirm that money was paid to "Internet commentators."

A pair of leaked receipts from a university in northwestern China that apparently shows the pay given to government-backed Internet commentators, known as the "50 cent army," has been circulating among netizens this week.

Sealed with the official stamp of "The Party Committee Propaganda Department of the Northwestern Polytechnic University of the Chinese Communist Party," the receipts confirm that money was paid to "Internet commentators."

An employee who answered the phone at the Xian-based university confirmed that such a job exists on campus.

"You mean a propaganda specialist," he said, when asked if there was such a job as "Internet commentator" at the college.

But he said he didn't know much about the job, and supplied a second phone number for more information.

The employee who answered this number also confirmed the job exists.

"You mean a propaganda specialist," he said, when asked if there was such a job as "Internet commentator" at the college.

"Of course we do," he said. "The job is to write news ... for example, they might use their knowledge of scholarly articles."

"With editorial input from the team, they can produce something of great value," he said.
However, he hung up when pressed for further details.

China is stepping up media training for its officials, as well as an army of freelance commentators paid to direct public debate online, known as the "50 cent army," according to official media reports in recent months.

A news report from local television station, Hubei Xishui TV, said local officials from the Xishui county propaganda department had held training exercises for official spokespersons and "Internet commentators."

Media training courses for commentators and government officials include tips on how to influence coverage by the country's biggest news organizations, as well as numerous methods of using the Internet and social media to spread the government's message.

Media training courses for commentators and government officials include tips on ...numerous methods of using the Internet and social media to spread the government's message.

Internet commentators are expected to report "the truth" as fast as possible, to supplement their information with explanations for events, and to influence Internet debate in the "correct" direction, reports have said.

Veteran bloggers and online activists say that a typical workday for a 50-center would involve watching forum posts, microblog posts, and chatrooms for topics linked to a specific keyword allocated by their managers.

How much they are paid depends on the number of comments, tweets, and posts they make that steer the debate in the government's preferred direction.

According to the receipts currently circulating, which had the personal details of the 50-centers obscured, two commentaries were paid for by the university, one at 20 yuan, and one at 30 yuan.

The world of the government-backed online commentators is shadowy, with ordinary netizens left to infer how they operate from their behavior online or from the occasional leaked document.

...hired commentators are instructed to track down the source of any online "rumors," and then to order the website that first posted it to delete the offending item.

Earlier this year, the news website Canyu leaked a document titled "Internal Work Handbook" allegedly written for 50-centers.

In it, hired commentators are instructed to track down the source of any online "rumors," and then to order the website that first posted it to delete the offending item.
One Chinese student who declined to be named said he had once written articles for the government online, to earn a little extra money.

"I saw that my classmates were doing it as well, and I didn't think anything of it," he said. "I didn't know that we were the so-called '50 cent army.'"

"I didn't really understand what I was doing, and I was somewhat lacking in values," he said. "Now I deeply regret going out to bat for them with comments like that."

He said he was able to earn around 100-120 yuan a month writing the articles.
Chinese Internet expert Li Li said that while the 50 cent army appears to be growing in numbers, their effectiveness is limited.

"If you do a lot of bad things, you will lose credibility ... and eventually no one will believe anything you say," Li said.

"Then there will be a backlash; everyone will know who the 50 cent army are, and the government's credibility will be at its lowest possible level."

Blogger Wen Yunchao, known by his online nickname Beifeng, said most netizens adopted a policy of ignoring 50-centers.

"We pretend we don't hear or see them," he said. "We treat them as if they weren't there, and never give any kind of reaction."

"This makes them much less effective."

About the author

B Raman is presently Director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai & former Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat. He is also the author of The Kaoboys of R&AW, Mumbai 26/11, Terrorism: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow, Intelligence: Past, Present & Future and A Terrorist State as a Frontline Ally.

 http://www.indiandefencereview.com/homeland-security/Chinas-state-sponsored-tweeters-and-their-paid-tweets-.html

India and China : A Himalayan rivalry

Asia’s two giants are still unsure what to make of each other. But as they grow, they are coming closer—for good and bad 

Aug 19th 2010 | Beijing, Delhi and Tawang |

MEMORIES of a war between India and China are still vivid in the Tawang valley, a lovely, cloud-blown place high on the south-eastern flank of the Himalayas. They are nurtured first by the Indian army, humiliated in 1962 when the People’s Liberation Army swept into Tawang from next-door Tibet. India now has three army corps—about 100,000 troops—in its far north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which includes Tawang.


With another corps in reserve, and a few Sukhoi fighter planes deployed last year to neighbouring Assam, they are a meaty border force, unlike their hapless predecessors. In 1962 many Indian troops were sent shivering to the front in light cotton uniforms issued for Punjab’s fiery plains. In a weeklong assault the Chinese seized much of Arunachal, as well as a slab of Kashmir in the western Himalayas, and killed 3,000 Indian officers and men. Outside Tawang’s district headquarters a roadside memorial, built in the local Buddhist style, commemorates these dead. At a famous battle site, below the 14,000-foot pass that leads into Tawang, army convoys go slow, and salute their ghosts.






In wayside villages of solid white houses fluttering with coloured prayer-flags, China’s two-week occupation of Tawang is also remembered. Local peasants, aged 60 and more but with youthful Tibetan features, light-brown and creased by the wind, recall playing Sho (Tibetan Mahjong) with the invaders. Many say they remember them fondly: the Chinese, they note, helped get in the wheat harvest that year. “They were little men, but they were always ready to help. We had no problem with them,” says Mem Nansey, an aged potato farmer. The Chinese withdrew to Tibet, their superiority established but their supply lines overstretched, barely a fortnight after they had come. “We weren’t sorry to see the back of them, either,” says Mr Nansey, concerned, it seems, that no one should doubt his loyalty to Delhi, 1,500km (930 miles) to the west.


His ambivalence is widely shared. China and India, repositories of 40% of the world’s people, are often unsure what to make of each other. Since re-establishing diplomatic ties in 1976, after a post-war pause, they and their relationship have in many ways been transformed. The 1962 war was an act of Chinese aggression most obviously springing from China’s desire for western Aksai Chin, a lofty plain linking Xinjiang to Tibet. But its deeper causes included a famine in China and economic malaise in both countries. China and India are now the world’s fastest-growing big economies, however, and in a year or two, when India overtakes Japan on a purchasing-power-parity basis, they will be the world’s second- and third-biggest. And as they grow, Asia’s giants have come closer.


Their two-way trade is roaring: only $270m in 1990, it is expected to exceed $60 billion this year. They are also tentatively co-operating, for their mutual enrichment, in other ways: for example, by co-ordinating their bids for the African oil supplies that both rely on. Given their contrasting economic strengths—China’s in manufacturing, India’s in services—some see an opportunity for much deeper co-operation. There is even a word for this vision, “Chindia”. On important international issues, notably climate-change policy and world trade, their alignment is already imposing.


Their leaders naturally talk up these pluses: at the summit of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) in Brasília in April, for example, and during celebrations in Beijing earlier this year to commemorate the 60th anniversary of India’s recognition of the People’s Republic. “India and China are not in competition,” India’s sage-like prime minister, Manmohan Singh, often says. “There is enough economic space for us both.”


China’s president, Hu Jintao, says the same. And no doubt both want to believe it. The booms in their countries have already moved millions out of poverty, especially in China, which is far ahead on almost every such measure of progress (and also dismissive of the notion that India could ever rival it). A return to confrontation, besides hugely damaging the improved image of both countries, would plainly jeopardise this movement forward. That is why the secular trend in China-India relations is positive.


Yet China and India are in many ways rivals, not Asian brothers, and their relationship is by any standard vexed—as recent quarrelling has made abundantly plain. If you then consider that they are, despite their mutual good wishes, old enemies, bad neighbours and nuclear powers, and have two of the world’s biggest armies—with almost 4m troops between them—this may seem troubling.


Forget Chindia


There are many caveats to the recent improvement in their relationship. As the world’s oil wells run dry, many—including sober analysts in both countries—foresee China-India rivalry redrawn as a cut-throat contest for an increasingly scarce resource. The two oil-gluggers’ recent co-operation on energy was, after all, as unusual as it was tentative. More often, Chinese state-backed energy firms compete with all-comers, for Sudanese oil and Burmese gas, and win.


Rivalry over gas supplies is a bigger concern for Indian policymakers. They fear China would be more able to “capture” gas by building massive pipelines overnight. Water is already an object of contention, given that several of the big rivers of north India, including the Brahmaputra, on which millions depend, rise in Tibet. China recently announced that it is building a dam on the Brahmaputra, which it calls the Yarlung Tsangpo, exacerbating an old Indian fear that the Beijing regime means to divert the river’s waters to Chinese farmers.


As for Chindia, it can seem almost too naive to bother about. Over 70% of India’s exports to China by value are raw materials, chiefly iron ore, bespeaking a colonial-style trade relationship that is hugely favourable to China. A proliferating range of Chinese non-tariff barriers to Indian companies, which India grumbles about, is a small part of this. The fault lies chiefly with India’s uncompetitive manufacturing. It is currently cheaper, an Indian businessman says ruefully, to export plastic granules to China and then import them again in bucket-form, than it is to make buckets in India.


This is a source of tension. India’s great priority is to create millions of jobs for its young, bulging and little-skilled population, which will be possible only if it makes huge strides in manufacturing. Similarly, if China trails India in IT services at present, its recent investments in the industry suggest it does not plan to lag for long.


Yet there is another, more obvious bone of contention, which exacerbates all these others and lies at the root of them: the 4,000km border that runs between the two countries. Nearly half a century after China’s invasion, it remains largely undefined and bitterly contested.


The basic problem is twofold. In the undefined northern part of the frontier India claims an area the size of Switzerland, occupied by China, for its region of Ladakh. In the eastern part, China claims an Indian-occupied area three times bigger, including most of Arunachal. This 890km stretch of frontier was settled in 1914 by the governments of Britain and Tibet, which was then in effect independent, and named the McMahon Line after its creator, Sir Henry McMahon, foreign secretary of British-ruled India. For China—which was afforded mere observer status at the negotiations preceding the agreement—the McMahon Line represents a dire humiliation.


China also particularly resents being deprived of Tawang, which—though south of the McMahon Line—was occupied by Indian troops only in 1951, shortly after China’s new Communist rulers dispatched troops to Tibet. This district of almost 40,000 people, scattered over 2,000 square kilometres of valley and high mountains, was the birthplace in the 17th century of the sixth Dalai Lama (the incumbent incarnation is the 14th). Tawang is a centre of Tibet’s Buddhist culture, with one of the biggest Tibetan monasteries outside Lhasa. Traditionally, its ethnic Monpa inhabitants offered fealty to Tibet’s rulers—which those aged peasants around Tawang also remember. “The Tibetans came for money and did nothing for us,” said Mr Nansey, referring to the fur-cloaked Tibetan officials who until the late 1940s went from village to village extracting a share of the harvest.


Making matters worse, the McMahon Line was drawn with a fat nib, establishing a ten-kilometre margin for error, and it has never been demarcated. With more confusion in the central sector, bordering India’s northern state of Uttarakhand, there are in all a dozen stretches of frontier where neither side knows where even the disputed border should be. In these “pockets”, as they are called, Indian and Chinese border guards circle each other endlessly while littering the Himalayan hillsides—as dogs mark lampposts—to make their presence known. When China-India relations are strained, this gives rise to tit-for-tat and mostly bogus accusations of illegal border incursions—for which each side can offer the other’s empty cigarette and noodle packets as evidence. In official Indian parlance such proof is grimly referred to as “telltale signs”. It is plainly garbage. Yet this is a carefully rehearsed and mutually comprehensible ritual for which both sides deserve credit, of a sort. Despite several threatened dust-ups—including one in 1986 that saw 200,000 Indian troops rushed to northern Tawang district—there has been no confirmed exchange of fire between Indian and Chinese troops since 1967.


Hands extended—and withdrawn


It would be even better if the two countries would actually settle their dispute, and, until recently, that seemed imaginable. The obvious solution, whereby both sides more or less accept the status quo, exchanging just a few bits of turf to save face, was long ago advocated by China, including in the 1980s by the then prime minister, Deng Xiaoping. India’s leaders long considered this politically impossible. But in 2003 a coalition government led by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party—which in 1998 had cited the Chinese threat to justify its decision to test a nuclear bomb—launched an impressive bid for peace. For the first time India declared itself ready to compromise on territory, and China appeared ready to meet it halfway. Both countries appointed special envoys, who have since met 13 times, to lead the negotiations that followed. This led to an outline deal in 2005, containing the “guiding principles and political parameters” for a final settlement. Those included an agreement that it would involve no exchange of “settled populations”—which implied that China had dropped its historical demand for Tawang.

Yet the hopes this inspired have faded. In ad hoc comments from Chinese diplomats and through its state-controlled media—which often refer to Arunachal as Chinese South Tibet—China appears to have reasserted its demand for most of India’s far north-eastern state. Annoying the Indians further, it started issuing special visas to Indians from Arunachal and Kashmir—after having denied a visa to an Indian official from Arunachal on the basis that he was, in fact, Chinese. It also objected to a $60m loan to India from the Asian Development Bank, on the basis that some of the money was earmarked for irrigation schemes in Arunachal. Its spokesman described a visit to Tawang by Mr Singh, ahead of a general election last year, as “provocative and dangerous”. Chinese analysts warn against understanding from these hints that China has formally revised its position on the border. But that is India’s suspicion. And no one, in either country, is predicting a border settlement soon.


In fact, the relationship has generally soured. Having belatedly woken up to the huge improvements China has made in its border infrastructure, enabling a far swifter mobilisation of Chinese troops there, India announced last year that it would deploy another 60,000 troops to Arunachal. It also began upgrading its airfields in Assam and deploying the Sukhois to them. India’s media meanwhile reported a spate of “incursions” by Chinese troops. China’s state-controlled media was more restrained, with striking exceptions. Last year an editorial in the Global Times, an English-language tabloid in Beijing, warned that “India needs to consider whether or not it can afford the consequences of a potential confrontation with China.” Early this year India’s outgoing national security adviser and special envoy to China, M.K. Narayanan, accused Chinese hackers of attacking his website, as well as those of other Indian government departments.


Recent diplomacy has brought more calm. Officials on both sides were especially pleased by their show of unity at the United Nations climate meeting in Copenhagen last December, where China and India, the world’s biggest and fourth-biggest emitters of carbon gas, faced down American-led demands for them to undertake tougher anti-warming measures. A slight cooling in the America-India relationship, which President George Bush had pushed with gusto, has also helped. So, India hopes, has its appointment of a shrewd Mandarin-speaker, Shivshankar Menon, as its latest national security adviser and special envoy to China. He made his first visit to Beijing in this role last month; a 14th round of border talks is expected. And yet the China-India relationship has been bruised.


Negative views


In China, whose Communist leaders are neither voluble nor particularly focused on India, this bruising is mostly clear from last year’s quarrel itself. The Chinese, many of whom consider India a dirty, third-rate sort of place, were perhaps most obviously to blame for it. This is despite China’s conspicuous recent success in settling its other land disputes, including with Russia and Vietnam—a fact Chinese commentators often cite to indicate Indian intransigence. Chinese public opinion also seems to be turning against India, a country the Chinese have been wont to remark on fondly, if at all, as the birthplace of Buddhism. According to a recent survey of global opinion released by the BBC, the Chinese show a
“distinct cooling” towards India, which 47% viewed negatively.


In garrulous, democratic India, the fallout is easier to gauge. According to the BBC poll, 38% of Indians have a negative view of China. In fact, this has been more or less the case since the defeat of 1962. Lamenting the failure of Indian public opinion to move on, Patricia Uberoi, a sociologist at Delhi’s Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, notes that while there have been many Indian films on the subcontinent’s violent partition, including star-crossed Indo-Pakistani romances, there has been only one notable Indian movie on the 1962 war: a propaganda film called “Haqeeqat”, or “Truth”, supported by the
Indian defence ministry.


Hawkish Indian commentators are meanwhile up in arms. “China, in my view, does not want a rival in Asia,” says Brajesh Mishra, a former national security adviser and special envoy to China, who drafted the 2005 agreement and is revered by the hawks. “Its main agenda is to keep India preoccupied with events in South Asia so it is constrained from playing a more important role in Asian and global affairs.” Senior officials present a more nuanced analysis, noting, for example, that India has hardly been alone in getting heat from China: many countries, Asian and Western, have similarly been singed. Yet they admit to heightened concern over China’s intentions in South Asia, and foresee no hope for a settlement of the border. Nicholas Burns, a former American diplomat who led the negotiations for an America-India nuclear co-operation deal that was concluded in 2008, and who now teaches at Harvard University, suspects that over the past year China has supplanted Pakistan as the main worry of Indian policymakers. He considers the China-India relationship “exceedingly troubled and perturbed” and thinks that it will remain “uneasy for many years to come”.


Fear of encirclement


For foreign-policy realists, who see China and India locked in a battle for Asian supremacy, this is inevitable. Even fixing the border could hardly mitigate the tension. More optimistic analysts, and there are many, even if currently hushed, consider this old-school nonsense. Though both India and China have their rabid fringe, they say, they are rational enough to know that a strategic struggle would be sapping and, given each other’s vast size, unwinnable. Both are therefore committed, as they claim, to fixing the border and fostering better relations. Yet there are a few impediments to this—of which two are most often cited by analysts in Beijing and Delhi.


One is represented by the America-India nuclear deal, agreed in principle between Mr Singh and Mr Bush in 2005. Not unreasonably, China took this as a sign that America wanted to use India as a counterweight to China’s rise. It also considered the pact hypocritical: America, while venting against China’s ally, North Korea, going nuclear (which it did a year later), was offering India a free pass to nuclear-power status, despite its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Indian analysts believe that China, in a cautious way, tried to scupper the deal by encouraging some of its opponents, including Ireland and Sweden, to vote against it in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 46-member club from which it required unanimous approval.


This glitch reflects a bigger Chinese fear of encirclement by America and its allies, a fear heightened by a recent burst of American activity in Asia. The United States has sought to strengthen security ties with South-East Asian countries, including Vietnam and Indonesia. It has also called on China, in an unusually public fashion, to be more accommodating over contested areas of the South China Sea—where America and India share concerns about a Chinese naval build-up, including the construction of a nuclear-submarine base on the Chinese island of Hainan. In north-east Asia, America has launched military exercises with South Korea in response to North Korea’s alleged sinking of a South Korean warship in March. Some Chinese analysts, with ties to the government, consider these a direct challenge to China.


China is deeply suspicious of America’s military campaign in nearby Afghanistan (and covertly in Pakistan), which is supported from bases in Central Asian countries. It is also unimpressed by a growing closeness between India and Japan, its main Asian rival. Japanese firms are, for example, expected to invest $10 billion, and perhaps much more, in a 1,500km “industrial corridor” between Delhi and Mumbai. In 2007 Japanese warships took part in a naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal, also involving Indian, Australian and Singaporean ships and the American nuclear-powered vessels USS Nimitz and USS Chicago, which was hosted by India and was the biggest ever held in the region.


This seemed to back a proposal, put about by American think-tankers, for an “axis of democracies” to balance China. Officially, India would want no part of this. “We don’t want to balance China,” says a senior Indian official. But, he adds, “all the democracies do feel it is safer to be together. Is China going to be peaceful or not? We don’t know. In the event that China leaves the path of peaceful rise, we would work very closely together.”


India also fears encirclement, and with reason. America’s Pentagon, in an annual report on China’s military power released on August 16th, said China’s armed forces were developing “new capabilities” that might extend their reach into the Indian Ocean. China has also made big investments in all India’s neighbours. It is building deepwater ports in Pakistan and Bangladesh, roads in Nepal and oil and gas pipelines in Myanmar. Worse, it agreed in 2008 to build two nuclear-power plants for its main regional ally, Pakistan—a deal that also worried America, who saw it as a tit-for-tat response to its nuclear deal with India. (China has become Pakistan’s biggest supplier of military hardware, including fighter jets and guided-missile frigates, and in the past has given it weapons-grade fissile material and a tested bomb design as part of its nuclear support.)


Muffling Tibet


Hawkish Indians consider these Chinese investments as a “string of pearls” to throttle India. Wiser ones point out that India is too big to throttle—and that China’s rising influence in South Asia is an indictment of India’s past inability to get on with almost any of its neighbours. Under Mr Singh, India has sought to redress this. It is boosting trade with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and sticking, with commendable doggedness in the face of little encouragement, to the task of making peace with Pakistan. That would be glorious for both countries; it would also remove a significant China-India bugbear.


The other great impediment to better relations is Tibet. Its fugitive Dalai Lama and his “government-in-exile” have found refuge in India since 1959—and China blames him, and by extension his hosts, for the continued rebelliousness in his homeland. A Tibetan uprising in March 2008, the biggest in decades, was therefore a major factor in last year’s China-India spat. It led to China putting huge pressure on India to stifle the anti-China Tibetan protests that erupted in India—especially one intended to disrupt the passage of the Olympic torch through Delhi en route to Beijing. It also objected to a visit to Tawang by the Dalai Lama last November, which it predictably called a “separatist action”. This visit, from which leftover banners of welcome still festoon the town’s main bazaar, perhaps reminded China why it is so fixated on Tawang—as a centre of the Tibetan Buddhist culture that it is struggling, all too visibly, to control.


Mindful of the huge support the Dalai Lama enjoys in India, its government says it can do little to restrict him. Yet it policed the protest tightly, and also barred foreign journalists from accompanying him to Tawang. India would perhaps rather be spared discreet balancing acts of this sort. “But we’re stuck with him, he’s our guest,” says V.R. Raghavan, a retired Indian general and veteran of the 1962 war. Indeed, many Indian pundits consider that China will never settle the border, and so relinquish a potential source of leverage over India, while the 75-year-old lama is alive.

A dangerous child

After his death, China will attempt to control his holy office as it has those of other senior lamas. It will “discover” the reincarnated Dalai Lama in Tibet, or at least endorse the choice of its agents, and attempt to groom him into a more biddable monk. In theory that would end a major cause of China-India discord, but only if the Chinese can convince Tibetans that their choice is the right one, which seems unlikely. The Dalai Lama has already indicated that he may choose to be “reborn” outside China. There is talk of the important role Tawang has often played in identifying incarnations of the Dalai Lama, or even that the 14th may choose to reincarnate in Tawang itself.


For the abbot of Tawang’s main monastery, Guru Tulku Rinpoche, that would be a great blessing. “If his holiness chooses to be born in Tawang, we would be so happy,” he says in his red-carpeted monastic office, as half a dozen skinny lads file in to be inducted into monkhood. Silently, they prostrate themselves before the abbot, while he scribbles down their new monastic names. Outside his window, the early morning sun sparkles through the white clouds that hang low over Tawang. It is hard to think that this remote and tranquil spot could have caused such a continent-sized ruckus. Yet, if the abbot has his wish, it will cause a lot more trouble yet.

 http://www.economist.com/node/16843717

Three Indian blunders in the 1971 war

Pakistan's Lieutenant General A A K Niazi, left, greets Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, GOC-in-C, Eastern Command

Pakistan army officers got away without being tried for genocide in 1971: Colonel Anil Athale (retd) identifies India's three blunders in that war.

The 1971 Indo-Pak war was one of those rarest of rare occasions in our history when India took the military initiative.

Politically, the war began in April 1971 when Pakistan pushed nearly nine million refugees into India through a campaign of rape, murder and terror that statistically comes close to Hitler's genocide of Jews in the Second World War, in scale and brutality.

Military force remained the only option when it became clear that the rest of the world had decided to ignore this crime. India bided its time till the winter snows closed the Himalayan passes, rendering Chinese intervention difficult.

Around November 26, 1971, India began to nibble at East Pakistani territory. Pakistan, instead of cutting its losses and calling quits, in a desperate gamble escalated the conflict by launching air/ground attacks in the West on December 3, 1971. By escalation, it hoped to rope in China and the US in widening the conflict and hoped for a UN intervention a la Kashmir.

The Indian Air Force achieved remarkable success when within the first 48 hours it achieved complete air superiority in the Eastern theatre of war. This enabled the advancing army columns to move without any fear of detection even in daytime.

With supply from the air assured, the army did not have to be dependent on opening of roads, which were heavily defended by the Pakistanis. The five division-strong Indian forces advanced from three directions and secured choke points well in the rear.

The bypassed Pak forces had no option but to up stick and attack the Indian troops in order to go back to Dhaka. This was a classic case of 'offensive strategy' and defensive tactics devised by the indomitable General J F R Jacob.

These tactics were reminiscent of the Israeli tactics of 1967 war when they bypassed the Egyptian forces in front and seized the passes in the rear (the Mitla and Giddi passes in the Sinai mountains).

The Indian Army in Bangladesh similarly bypassed the Pakistani forces on the border and headed for the river ferries/crossings/bridges in the rear. This war strategy took advantage of the fact of modern warfare that tactically 'defence' is always stronger than offence.

The Eastern prong led by Lieutenant General Sagat Singh found a chance opening and exploited it. In 24 hours, 12 small helicopters of the air force ferried brigade strength across a mile wide Meghan river.

The Pakistani defenders were totally taken aback and Indian troops reached Dhaka by December 13-14.
The navy had blockaded the sea and All India Radio constantly drummed into the Pak soldiers that they had no choice but to surrender.

Surrender by the 93,000 strong garrison was only a matter of time.

It is interesting to note that the Indian troops had less than 1:2 superiority and were on the offensive.
Normally that means more casualties. But it is tribute to Indian general-ship that the Indian loss was 2,000 men as against that of Pak at 6,000.

Credit for this goes to the dash and efficiency of the three services. The Bangladesh attack has been compared by many to the famous Blitzkrieg of the Germans. It must be never forgotten that the military success was a joint Indo-Bangladeshi effort.

Without the whole-hearted support from the Bangladeshis, this war could have never been won. The people of Bangladesh paid a very heavy price for their freedom.

Kashmir was not an issue at all in the 1971 war

Indian troops on the move

In the West, both sides played a waiting game. In northern Kashmir, in the dead of winter, the Indian Army that was better trained and equipped, captured large amount of territory. There were minor losses in Chhamb and in Punjab.

India captured the Shakargarh tehsil in Punjab and many jump-off points on the western front. When the cease fire came on December 17, India had shifted many troops from the East to West and was in a military position to over-run West Pakistan as well.

The move of USS Enterprise and American threats of retaliation as well as Russian caution possibly saved Pakistan. An abortive Pakistani attempt to break through in Rajasthan at Longewala was foiled by a dogged infantry and the Indian Air Force that came to the army's rescue.

The navy in the course of the war sunk the Pakistani Ghazi submarine and also raided Karachi harbour. The air force carried out limited attacks only on military targets.

All in all, the 1971 war was a comprehensive victory for India and Bangladesh.
India's three strategic blunders:

In 1971 India lost a golden opportunity to sever the Sino-Pak communications by land and threaten the Karakoram highway.

In the 1971 war, all attention was focussed on the Eastern front. The Indian successes in Punjab, Shakargad, Chicken's Neck near Akhnoor, the thrust towards Naya Chor in the deserts were substantial. We also lost Chhamb in Jammu and Kashmir and small areas in the Fazilka sector.

The rest of the Cease Fire Line (as it was then called) was quiet with the exception of some 'local' initiatives in Ladakh, largely due to the valiant efforts of the great Colonel Rinchon and his Ladakh Scouts.
Kashmir was not an issue at all in that war.

Later at the Simla Peace Conference, India brought in the Kashmir issue. The conversion of the Cease Fire Line (agreed as per the Karachi agreement of 1949) was converted to the LOC or Line of Control, a sort of half-way house between the Cease Fire Line and the international border.

Though not marked on the ground, it is marked on the map in great detail after a ground survey. But at the conference in Simla, it was also agreed to let each side retain the territory captured by each other in Jammu and Kashmir.

In spite of extensive study of all the official documents connected with this war (including the minutes of the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, the top decision-making body in the country at the time), there is no hint that this was a considered policy of the government of India before the war and that the armed forces were aware of it.

In the 1971 war in Kashmir, Pakistan gained some territory in Chhamb as the Indian Army poised for an offensive was caught off guard by the Pakistani attack. A determined Pakistani attack against the city of Poonch was thwarted by superior Indian strength.

India captured strategic outposts in the Kargil area, posts that dominated the Srinagar-Ladakh road link and was a constant irritant. In a war fought at the height of winter, the better-trained and equipped Indian mountain troops also captured vast areas north of Leh in the Partapur and Turtuk sector.

The recognition India gave the 'Kashmir dispute' in the Simla Agreement was a blunder

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Simla, July 1972

 
On the western front, much of the military effort was concentrated in the plains sector in Punjab, gains that had to be given up. On the other hand, an excellent opportunity to consolidate Kashmir or liberate Pak-occupied area was wasted.


If India had plans to retain the captured territory in Jammu and Kashmir a major thrust towards Skardu or Gilgit could have threatened the land access between Pakistan and China.

Unlike in 1965 when the Chinese served an ultimatum, in 1971 the Soviet build-up on the Sino-Soviet border on the Amur river border (of almost 44 divisions from the normal 3 or 4) kept China out of this conflict. An opportunity that is unlikely to present itself in the future.

As India faces a Sino-Pak joint military threat in the north, one can only wonder the effect this blunder has had. It is difficult to blame the military leadership for this as in retrospect it appears that the decision to retain gains in Kashmir was a 'spur of the moment after thought.'
It is amazing to note the cavalier manner in which issues of war and peace continue to be dealt in independent India.

The second blunder was the explicit recognition that India gave to the 'Kashmir dispute' in the Simla Agreement.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to Simla as the head of a defeated nation with nothing to bargain. 93,000 Pakistani prisoners were in India and the tehsil of Shakargarh as well as large tracts of desert were under Indian occupation.

The Pakistani State itself was tottering and the only card Bhutto had was to play on the Indian need to have a viable Pakistan survive. Using his weakness dexterously, Bhutto made sure that India could never drive a hard bargain.

All that Pakistan conceded at Simla was that it would not use force to solve the Kashmir problem and it would deal with the issue bilaterally. It is indeed astonishing that a militarily weak and defeated nation promising 'non use of force' against another country ten times its size, being seen as a concession.
This naivete was to cause immense difficulties in the future. The acceptance of the disputed status of Kashmir was a major diplomatic blunder and India continues to pay a heavy price for it. In the words of a sports commentator, India snatched diplomatic defeat from the jaws of victory.

The 'Ashoka Syndrome' of the Indian leadership

Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru

Pandit Nehru was the original Ashoka of modern times. Out of all the historical period great rulers of India, that include Chandragupta, Samudragupa or Vikramaditya, Ashoka seems to fascinate all.

From Nehru to Vajpayee and now Manmohan Singh, all want to emulate the great emperor and usher in peace. Even a supreme realist and tough leader like Indira Gandhi succumbed to this temptation at Simla in 1972.

Indians have forgotten that Ashoka embarked upon his 'peace offensive' only after the Kalinga victory. 1971 was a decisive victory only in the East, and the Pakistan army remained largely undefeated in the West.
Indians do not still realise that international agreements are honoured for either of the two reasons -- The agreement gives some tangible benefit to the countries involved or breaking of the agreement can mean loss for the violator.

The Simla Agreement was honoured by Pakistan till such time as the Indian troops did not vacate captured territory and the Pakistani prisoners did not return. Once these two short-term objectives were achieved,
Pakistan found no reason to go on to implement the next step -- normalisation of relations.
Improvement in relations and people-to-people contacts were never permitted by Pakistan and the hoped for atmosphere to tackle the Kashmir issue never built up.

Today after violating all the other clauses of the Simla Agreement, Pakistan now harps on Article 6 that had provided for Indo-Pak talks at head of the government level to solve the Kashmir issue.
This is sheer sophistry, but effective diplomacy and the Indian diplomats have been stumped.
But the greatest blunder was to let the Pakistani army get away with its 'genocide' in Bangladesh.

There is massive evidence of Pakistani army brutality in Bangladesh. The evidence is from Pakistani sources itself, the Justice Hamidur Rehman Commission Report. Some of the testimony in that report makes very chilling reading, even 40 years after the event.

There is a mountain of evidence about Pakistani army atrocities. What did the Government of India do? We banned the short film made by S Sukhdeo, Nine Months to Freedom at Bhutto's request. The Pakistani army selectively targeted Hindus, members of the Awami League and Bangladesh intellectuals. It was a well known secret that the bulk of the refugees (close to 70 per cent) were Hindus.

Rumour has it that even the much maligned right wing organisation in India kept quiet on this issue so that communal peace in India should not be disturbed. The playing down of Pakistani genocide let a Rogue Army escape the consequences of its misbehaviour.

India only stored trouble for the future. The Nazis were tried for massacring the Jews, the Khmer Rouge, Saddam Hussein, Serbian militants, all faced international courts -- only the Pakistani army got away with murder, rape and loot.

While Bangladesh attempts to get justice for the victims, India is silent.


Colonel Dr Anil Athale (retd) is a former head of the War Studies Division, ministry of defence. He is currently the coordinator of Inpad, a Pune-based think-tank.
 
http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news.php?id=1422

China and India : Contest of the century

As China and India rise in tandem, their relationship will shape world politics. Shame they do not get on better

A HUNDRED years ago it was perhaps already possible to discern the rising powers whose interaction and competition would shape the 20th century. The sun that shone on the British empire had passed midday. Vigorous new forces were flexing their muscles on the global stage, notably America, Japan and Germany. Their emergence brought undreamed-of prosperity; but also carnage on a scale hitherto unimaginable.

Now digest the main historical event of this week: China has officially become the world’s second-biggest economy, overtaking Japan. In the West this has prompted concerns about China overtaking the United States sooner than previously thought. But stand back a little farther, apply a more Asian perspective, and China’s longer-term contest is with that other recovering economic behemoth: India. These two Asian giants, which until 1800 used to make up half the world economy, are not, like Japan and Germany, mere nation states. In terms of size and population, each is a continent—and for all the glittering growth rates, a poor one.

Not destiny, but still pretty important

This is uncharted territory that should be seen in terms of decades, not years. Demography is not destiny. Nor for that matter are long-range economic forecasts from investment banks. Two decades ago Japan was seen as the main rival to America. Countries as huge and complicated as China can underachieve or collapse under their own contradictions. In the short term its other foreign relationships may matter more, even in Asia: there may, for instance, be a greater risk of conflict between rising China and an ageing but still powerful Japan. Western powers still wield considerable influence.

So caveats abound. Yet as the years roll forward, the chances are that it will increasingly come down once again to the two Asian giants facing each other over a disputed border (see article). How China and India manage their own relationship will determine whether similar mistakes to those that scarred the 20th century disfigure this one.

Neither is exactly comfortable in its skin. China’s leaders like to portray Western hype about their country’s rise as a conspiracy—a pretext either to offload expensive global burdens onto the Middle Kingdom or to encircle it. Witness America’s alliances with Japan and South Korea, its legal obligation to help Taiwan defend itself and its burgeoning friendships with China’s rivals, notably India but also now Vietnam.

This paranoia is overdone. Why shouldn’t more be asked from a place that, as well as being the world’s most-populous country, is already its biggest exporter, its biggest car market, its biggest carbon-emitter and its biggest consumer of energy (a rank China itself, typically, contests)? As for changing the balance of power, the People’s Liberation Army’s steady upgrading of its technological capacity, its building of a blue-water navy and its fast-developing skills in outer space and cyberspace do not yet threaten American supremacy, despite alarm expressed this week about the opacity of the PLA’s plans in a Pentagon report.

But China’s military advances do unnerve neighbours and regional rivals. Recent weeks have seen China fall out with South Korea (as well as the West) over how to respond to the sinking in March, apparently by a North Korean torpedo, of a South Korean navy ship. And the Beijing regime has been at odds with South-East Asian countries over its greedy claim to almost all of the South China Sea.

India, too, is unnerved. Its humiliation at Chinese hands in a brief war nearly 50 years ago still rankles. A tradition of strategic mistrust of China is deeply ingrained. India sees China as working to undermine it at every level: by pre-empting it in securing supplies of the energy both must import; through manoeuvres to block a permanent seat for India on the United Nations Security Council; and, above all, through friendships with its smaller South Asian neighbours, notably Pakistan. India also notes that China, after decades of setting their border quarrels to one side in the interests of the broader relationship, has in recent years hardened its position on the disputes in Tibet and Kashmir that in 1962 led to war. This unease has pushed India strategically closer to America—most notably in a controversial deal on nuclear co-operation.

Autocrats in Beijing are contemptuous of India for its messy, indecisive democracy. But they must see it as a serious long-term rival—especially if it continues to tilt towards America. As recently as the early 1990s, India was as rich, in terms of national income per head. China then hurtled so far ahead that it seemed India could never catch up. But India’s long-term prospects now look stronger. While China is about to see its working-age population shrink (see article), India is enjoying the sort of bulge in manpower which brought sustained booms elsewhere in Asia. It is no longer inconceivable that its growth could outpace China’s for a considerable time. It has the advantage of democracy—at least as a pressure valve for discontent. And India’s army is, in numbers, second only to China’s and America’s: it has 100,000 soldiers in disputed Arunachal Pradesh (twice as many as America will soon have in Iraq). And because India does not threaten the West, it has powerful friends both on its own merits and as a counterweight to China.

A settlement in time

The prospect of renewed war between India and China is, for now, something that disturbs the sleep only of virulent nationalists in the Chinese press and retired colonels in Indian think-tanks. Optimists prefer to hail the $60 billion in trade the two are expected to do with each other this year (230 times the total in 1990). But the 20th century taught the world that blatantly foreseeable conflicts of interest can become increasingly foreseeable wars with unforeseeably dreadful consequences. Relying on prosperity and more democracy in China to sort things out thus seems unwise. Two things need to be done.

First, the slow progress towards a border settlement needs to resume. The main onus here is on China. It has the territory it really wants and has maintained its claim to Arunachal Pradesh only as a bargaining chip. It has, after all, solved intractable boundary quarrels with Russia, Mongolia, Myanmar and Vietnam. Surely it cannot be so difficult to treat with India?

That points to a second, deeper need, one that it took Europe two world wars to come close to solving: emerging Asia’s lack of serious institutions to bolster such deals. A regional forum run by the Association of South-East Asian Nations is rendered toothless by China’s aversion to multilateral diplomacy. Like any bully, it prefers to pick off its antagonists one by one. It would be better if China and India—and Japan—could start building regional forums to channel their inevitable rivalries into collaboration and healthy competition.

Globally, the rules-based system that the West set up in the second half of the 20th century brought huge benefits to emerging powers. But it reflects an out-of-date world order, not the current global balance, let alone a future one. China and India should be playing a bigger role in shaping the rules that will govern the 21st century. That requires concessions from the West. But it also requires commitment to a rules-based international order from China and India. A serious effort to solve their own disagreements is a good place to start.

 http://www.economist.com/node/16846256

Unmasking China

 

By Bharat Verma
Issue: Vol 24.3 Jul-Sep 2009 | Date: 13 June, 2011

China will launch an attack on India before 2012.

There are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India the final lesson, thereby ensuring Chinese supremacy in Asia in this century. The recession that shut the Chinese exports shop is creating an unprecedented internal social unrest. In turn, the vice-like grip of the communists over the society stands severely threatened.

Unemployment is on the rise. The unofficial estimate stands at a whopping fourteen percent. Worldwide recession has put thirty million people out of jobs. Economic slowdown is depleting the foreign exchange reserves. Foreign investors are slowly shifting out. To create a domestic market, the massive dole of loans to individuals is turning out to be a nightmare. There appears to be a flight of capital in billions of dollars in the shape of diamond and gold bought in Hong Kong and shipped out towards end 2008.

... the most attractive option is to attack a soft target like India and forcibly occupy its territory in the Northeast.

The fear of losing control over the Chinese masses is forcing the communists to compulsorily install filtering software on new computers on sale to crush dissent on the Internet, even though it is impossible to censor in entirety the flow of information as witnessed recently in Tibet, Xinjiang and Iran.
The growing internal unrest is making Beijing jittery.

The external picture appears to be equally dismal. The unfolding Obama strategy seems to be scoring goals for democracy and freedom without firing a single shot. While Bush unwittingly united and arrayed against himself Islamic countries and radical Islam worldwide, Obama has put radical Islam in disarray by lowering the intra-societal temperature vis-à-vis America and the Muslim world. He deftly hints at democracy in his talk without directly threatening any group or country and the youth picks it up from there – as in Iran. With more and more Chinese citizens beginning to demand political freedom, the future of the communists is also becoming uncertain. The technological means available in the 21st century to spread democracy is definitely not conducive for the totalitarian regime in Beijing.

India’s chaotic but successful democracy is an eyesore for the authoritarian regime in Beijing. Unlike India, China is handicapped as it lacks the soft power – an essential ingredient to spread influence. This further adds fuel to the fire.



In addition, the growing irrelevance of Pakistan, their right hand that operates against India on their behest, is increasing the Chinese nervousness. Obama’s AF-PAK policy is primarily a PAK-AF policy. It has intelligently set the thief to catch the thief. The stated withdrawal from Iraq by America now allows it to concentrate its military surplus on the single front to successfully execute the mission. This surplus, in combination with other democratic forces, enables America to look deep into resource rich Central Asia, besides containing China’s expansionist ambitions.

To offset this adverse scenario, while overtly pretending to side with the West, the Chinese covertly ordered their other proxy, North Korea, to test underground nuclear explosions and carry out trials of missiles that threaten Japan and South Korea. The Chinese anxiety is understandable. Under Bush’s declared policy of being ‘a strategic competitor’ alongside the ‘axis of evil’, they shared a large strategic maneuverability with others of similar hues. However, Obama policies wisely deny such a luxury by reclaiming more and more international strategic space ceded by the previous administration.

The communists in China, therefore, need a military victory to unite the disillusioned citizenry behind them. This will assist in marketing the psychological perception that the 21st century belongs to China and assert their deep belief in the superiority of the Chinese race. To retain the communist party’s hold on power, it is essential to divert attention from the brewing internal dissent. In an autocratic system normally the only recipe to unite the citizenry is by mannpulating their nationalistic feelings. The easy method for Beijing to heighten the feeling of patriotism and forging national unity is to design a war with an adversary. They believe that this will help them to midwife the Chinese century. That is the end game rooted in the abiding conviction of the communists that the Chinese race is far superior to Nazi Germany and is destined to “Lord over the Earth”.

At present, there is no overall cost benefit ratio in integrating Taiwan by force with the mainland, since under the new dispensation in Taipei, the island is ‘behaving’ itself. Also, the American presence around the region is too strong for comfort. There is also the factor of Japan to be reckoned. Though Beijing is increasing its naval presence in the South China Sea to coerce into submission those opposing its claim on the Sprately Islands, at this point of time in history it will be unwise for recession-hit China to move against the Western interests, including Japan. Therefore, the most attractive option is to attack a soft target like India and forcibly occupy its territory in the Northeast.

Keeping in view the imminent threat posed by China, the quickest way to swing out of pacifism to a state of assertion is by injecting military thinking in the Civil Administration to build the sinews.

Ideally, the Chinese believe that the east-wind should prevail over the west-wind. However, despite their imperial calculations of the past, they lag behind the West, particularly America, by many decades. Hence, they want the east-wind to at least prevail over the other east-wind, i.e., India, to ensure their dominance over Asia. Beijing’s cleverly raising the hackles on its fabricated dispute in Arunachal Pradesh to an alarming level, is the preparatory groundwork for imposing such a conflict on India. A sinking Pakistan will team up with China to teach India “the final lesson”.

The Chinese leadership wants to rally its population behind the communist rule. As it is, Beijing is already rattled, with its proxy Pakistan, now literally embroiled in a civil war, losing its sheen against India. Above all, it is worried over the growing alliance of India with the United States and the West, because the alliance has the potential to create a technologically superior counterpoise.

All these three concerns of the Chinese communists are best addressed by waging a war against pacifist India to achieve multiple strategic objectives. But India, otherwise the biggest challenge to the supremacy of China in Asia, is least prepared on ground to face the Chinese threat.

How will India repel the Chinese game plan? Will Indian leadership be able to take the heat of war? Have they laid the groundwork adequately to defend India? Is the Indian military equipped to face the two-front war by Beijing and Islamabad? Is the Indian Civil Administration geared to meet the internal security challenges that the external actors will sponsor simultaneously through their doctrine of unrestricted warfare?

The answers is an unequivocal ‘NO’. Pacifist India is not ready by a long shot either on the internal or the external front.

It is said that long time back, a king with an excellent military machine at his disposal could not stomach the violence involved in winning wars. So he renounced war in victory. This led to the rise of the pacifist philosophies. The state either refused to defend itself or neglected the instruments that could defend it.
Any ‘extreme’ is dangerous, as it tends to create imbalance in statecraft.

We saw that in the unjust unilateral aggression in Iraq. It diminished the American aura and recessed the economy. China’s despotic regime is another extreme, scared to permit political dissent. This will fuel an explosion worse than the Tiananmen Square. Despite the use of disproportionate force and the demographic invasion of Tibet, Beijing’s hold remains tenuous. Pakistan’s over-aggressive agenda in the name of jihad haunts it now to the point of fragmentation of the State.

Similarly, India’s pacifism is the other extreme. 26/11s will occur on a regular basis as it infects policy-making. Such extreme postures on either side invariably generate wars. Armed with an aggressive Wahabi philosophy, Pakistan, in cohort with China, wants to destabilize a pacifist India. India’s instruments of state steeped in pacifism are unable to rise to its defence.

In the past sixty years, the deep-rooted pacifism contributed to the Civil Administration, ceding control of forty per cent of the Union’s territory to the Maoists and ten percent to the insurgents, effecting a shrinking influence internally, as well in the ‘near abroad’.

India must rapidly shift out from its defeatist posture of pacifism to deter China. New Delhi’s stance should modify, not to aggression, but to a firm assertion in statecraft. The state must also exclusively retain the capability of intervention by use of force internally as well as externally. If it permits the non-state actors to develop this capability in competition, then the state will whither away. On the contrary, the state machinery should ensure a fast-paced development in the Red Corridor even it if has to hold Maoists hostage at gunpoint. The state’s firm and just intervention will dissolve the Maoist movement.

Keeping in view the imminent threat posed by China, the quickest way to swing out of pacifism to a state of assertion is by injecting military thinking in the Civil Administration to build the sinews. That will enormously increase the deliverables on ground – from Lalgarh to Tawang.

Bharat Verma, Editor Indian Defence Review.
 http://www.indiandefencereview.com/2009/08/unmasking-china.html

The Coming China-India Conflict: Is War Inevitable?

 By Ishaan Tharoor

A Chinese soldier stands with an Indian soldier at the ancient Nathu La border between India and China

Diptendu Dutta / AFP / Getty Images

 
By sheer demographics, it's the world's most important relationship. China and India comprise 40% of humanity and boast economies that are expected to loom large over the 21st century. They also represent two of the world's fastest-growing militaries, armed with nuclear weapons, and are expanding their spheres of influence across oceans. Jonathan Holslag, a Brussels-based scholar of Chinese foreign policy and author of the recent book China and India: Prospects for Peace, is among a growing number of observers who have dismissed the idea of "Chindia" — a term once often invoked, expressing optimism over the joint geopolitical rise of the two Asian giants. He spoke to TIME about the fault lines between the two neighbors, Washington's place in the region and how tensions could escalate into war.

The subtitle of your book suggests that conflict is already under way. Is greater confrontation and perhaps even war inevitable in the coming years?
It's not inevitable, but peace cannot be taken for granted. The scope for these two countries to develop peacefully and fulfill their national interests without entering into competition is getting smaller due to internal social pressures and rising nationalism. I am not arguing that they don't want to develop peacefully, but that the options for doing so are not that great. They'll be competing at all levels, not only for economic opportunities, but for regional influence. This will lead to an uncomfortable and risky situation.  



The last war fought between India and China was almost 50 years ago. How much of a strain is its legacy?

Ever since the 1962 war, both sides have been extremely cautious and suspicious of each other. There has been no resolution to the border issue [over remote, heavily militarized territories in the Himalayas] in spite of numerous rounds of negotiations and tensions that have flared recently. It's a kind of historic scar that impedes progress.

And this traditional sticking point is now compounded by a newer contest.

Yes, we see now that both sides' economic aspirations are leading to more competition, especially in Asia, and this is slowly spilling over in a negative way into the realm of high politics of security and diplomacy.
India still has to start the industrialization of its society — a process that China began well before.

Inevitably, there will be a fierce contest for raw materials, mainly in Asia. We see this already happening in Burma, in parts of Central Asia, Africa and elsewhere. This is only going to become fiercer. It's also a myth that somehow the two economies, with their different strengths, will be able to complement each other in the long term. India has to turn to manufacturing and China is not going to give up suddenly its own industries. They're too important for the country's stability. 

In India, there is already a widespread wariness in the media and in the public domain of China's designs for the region. Is there a similar nationalist feeling in China, which in many ways is far more developed and capable than India?

Yes, you can clearly see that Beijing officials are increasingly worried about India's ambitions. If you look at the writings of Chinese experts, they refer to Indian military posturing in the Indian Ocean and also to military partnerships India is developing with several countries in Southeast Asia and East Africa. In the public realm, Chinese Netizens' views of India are very negative. You get the sense the Chinese never seemed to expect India to climb up to the ranks of the great powers. Now, as India attempts to make that leap, the Chinese are very worried of its impact on China's primacy in Asia.

Hypothetically, how could some sort of military clash come about?

It wouldn't first be open war. China and India are building up their interests in conflict-prone and unstable states on their borders like Nepal and Burma — important sources of natural resources. If something goes wrong in these countries — if the politics implode — you could see the emergence of proxy wars in Asia. Distrust between India and China will grow and so too security concerns in a number of arenas. It's an important scenario that strategic planners in both Beijing and Delhi are looking at.


What role is there for the U.S. to play in this context?

Since the U.S. has prioritized stabilizing Afghanistan over everything else in Asia, it has lost a lot of credit in both Delhi and Beijing. It is increasingly reliant on China, but has also undertaken security exercises [under the Bush Administration] that tried to work together with democratic countries like Japan, India and Australia at the exclusion of China. This fed into the traditional political claustrophobia many in China have — a sense that, in the end, Asia will be a very hostile environment for their development and geopolitical rise.

At the same time, India won't let itself be drowned in America's orbit. It's important for India to have its strategic independence. It has a very long and historically close relationship with Russia, which in turn is close to China. So it's a little more complicated. I don't think the Americans have thought very strategically about all of this.

How much of the trouble between India and China stems from the accident of geography — that they exist side by side in a very volatile part of the world?

The tragedy of continental states is that they have ever shifting spheres of influence that constantly create friction. Geographic proximity has always been one of the main factors in conflicts between great powers on the Eurasian landmass. Neither country can hide away from the other: a kind of increase of influence of one country in a border state is automatically perceived by the other as a loss in its own leverage. It creates a sense of a zero-sum game, which will be a hugely important and defining element in this relationship going forward.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1974028,00.html#ixzz1gA8bmiBf

Passive neighbours

 Bharat Lal Seth

China says its massive hydro-power projects will not affect downstream areas in India and Bangladesh whereas scientists believe otherwise. While there is some concern, India is not openly objecting to China’s plans to dam the upper Brahmaputra, writes journalist Bharat Lal Seth .

India and Bangladesh breathed a sigh of relief last month after China denied it had plans to divert waters of Brahmaputra River to its arid region. At a press conference in Beijing on October 12, the Chinese Vice-Minister of Water Resources Jiao Yong said such a project on Yarlung Zangbo River, as it is known in Tibet where its headwaters is, would affect relations with downstream countries. This statement came with an admission that the project is neither technically feasible nor environmentally sound.

Indian activists hold placards and a banner that reads 'Save Brahmaputra' as they march past the Brahmaputra River in Guwahati, India, on 6 January 2011 (File)/ Photo credit: AP

But Beijing has not given up on its plans for the Brahmaputra.

Since the 1990s India has been wary of China’s plans to divert the Brahmaputra to its drought-prone north-western region. Several Chinese hydropower lobbyists had been calling for greater use of the river. The Brahmaputra courses 1,700 km through the Himalayan roof of the world before entering India at Arunachal Pradesh. Tensions had heightened with the publication of Tibet’s Waters Will Save China in 2005, which detailed routes of the water diversion project through undulating highlands.

The book was written by well-known Chinese hydrologist Guo Kai in consultation with the country’s water resources ministry. Critics, both inside and outside the government, had cautioned that the project would cause irreparable damage to a unique and fragile ecosystem. China’s former water resources minister Wang Shucheng had termed it as building castles in the sky.

An eyewash

Soon after Jiao’s announcement, India’s External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said the clarification on the long-standing row had come as a relief. But the clarification seems to be just an eyewash.

While Beijing has shelved the diversion project, it has begun damming the upper reaches of the river, with a series of six hydropower projects. Together, they have a potential of generating 60,000 MW, around one-third of India’s total installed capacity. Construction is under way on one dam that will be operational by 2014, while the rest are in different stages of planning and proposal. All of them are run-of-the river type where water is diverted to a lower point to generate electricity and later allowed to re-enter the river.

 

While Beijing has shelved the diversion project, it has begun damming the upper reaches of the river, with a series of six hydropower projects

The most ambitious of these projects is the one proposed at Metog, close to the Indian border and on the Great Bend of the Brahmaputra. Here the river plunges from the roof of the world, curling down towards the plains of India and Bangladesh. The idea is to build a 50-metre-high dam at an altitude of 3,000 metres and harness the river energy as it falls 2,000 metres—at a rate of 15 metres per kilometer—along the world’s longest and steepest canyon.

Hydro-engineers estimate this could generate 49,000 MW—more than twice the capacity of Three Gorges dam, the world’s largest power station. To tap electricity, Brahmaputra water will be diverted into a 20-km tunnel dug through the mountains across the bend. After driving turbines at nine different falls along the channel, water will be released into a tributary, which joins the Brahmaputra after a 300 km stretch around the Great Bend. The river takes a sharp turn from the Himalayan range into India at this confluence (see map).

China says the dams will not affect downstream areas as run-of-the river technology is non-consumptive; the only loss of water is through evaporation and percolation en-route. Unlike the conventional hydel power project, run-of-the river project also does not require large dams and reservoirs and hence, deemed harmless. During his visit to Beijing in May last year, former environment minister Jairam Ramesh had told a conference that the projects would have little impact downstream.

Sensitive zone

Scientists do not agree. The projects are in a seismically active and ecologically fragile region. The area around Metog is particularly highly unstable, says Yang Yong, an independent Chinese scientist who has travelled up to the headwaters of the Brahmaputra in Mount Kailash and trekked the region (see ‘Yang Yong: the river voyager’). The Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates keep colliding beneath the Tibetan plateau and there is a lingering fear of earthquakes, rock falls and mud flow.

 

"The projects are in a seismically active and ecologically fragile region"

- Yang Yong, an independent Chinese scientist

This could put at risk the downstream population, both in Tibet and India, Yang says, adding that a landslide in Tibet in 2000 caused “the largest geological disaster of its kind in the world”.

The landslide created a 3 km-wide, 90 m-high wall of mud and rocks on the Brahmaputra, 300 km upstream of the Indian border. Within three months, a lake called Egong was formed on the throttled river.
The Chinese government planned to drill through the wall to release water and evacuated 7,000 people in low-lying areas. But the wall collapsed, leading to a massive flood that killed hundreds of people in Tibet and inundated five districts of Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Assam.

Over the years, siltation in the river has increased because of rise in the sediment yield in the Himalayan range, says Partha K Das, head of the water, climate and hazard programme at Aaranyak, a non-profit in north-eastern India. Though there is no data on siltation, it is highly visible. The water carrying capacities of the channels have reduced, resulting in frequent floods. This could have detrimental effect on the projects, says Das, calling for more work on their safety and environmental impacts.

While there is some concern, India is not openly objecting to China’s plans to dam the upper Brahmaputra. Rather, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently relayed the message that he had been assured at the highest level that the Chinese are doing nothing detrimental to interest of the country.

Perhaps, the government is ignoring China’s plans because India is constructing similar projects in the Indus basin, which it shares with Pakistan, and plans to construct 70 large dams on major tributaries of the Brahmaputra before it enters Bangladesh.

 

Source : Down To Earth

 

China Considers Diverting the Brahmaputra River

Faced with severe challenges brought by reduced water resources and a severe drought that has affected a large portion of the country, China has started to consider diverting water from the Brahmaputra River, the watercourse that originates upstream from southwestern Tibet (where it is known as the Yarlung Zangbo River) and finally enters India, a recent report by Xinhua News Agency says.

Wang Guangqian, a scholar at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said on June 3 that Chinese experts have raised a new proposal to divert water from the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River to the country’s northwestern province of Xinjiang. The water diversion route in the proposal, named the “Grand Western Canal,” is slightly different from the “western canal” mentioned in China’s well-known South-North Water Diversion Project approved by the State Council in December 2002.

While the previous canal aims to alleviate water shortages in Qinghai, Gansu, and Ningxia and plans to divert water from three rivers in the Yangtze River’s upper reaches – namely the Tongtian River (Qinghai), the Yalong River (Sichuan) and the Dadu River (Sichuan) – the newly proposed route is expected to start from the Brahmaputra River, from which China can reroute the water to Xinjiang along the Qinghai-Tibet
Railway and the Hexi Corridor – part of the Northern Silk Road located in Gansu Province.

Wang admitted the serious water crisis across China has forced experts to think about the new water diversion scheme earlier than they had wanted to.

“We thought this would be a plan 50 years later,” he said.

Due to the increasing demand for water along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River – China’s two largest and most heavily-exploited domestic watercourses – the upper reaches of the two rivers have seen a significant decline in their water reserves. What is worse, as a result of surface water deficiency, almost all of China’s first and second-tier cities have the problem of groundwater overdraft and are threatened by potential risks brought by the lowering of the water table (the level at which the submarine pressure is far from atmostpheric pressure).

In fact, experts originally brought up various plans to reroute water from the largest river in Tibet a long time ago. One of the most famous proposals was raised in 1990 by Guo Kai, a water expert, suggesting a project that diverts 200.6 billion cubic meters of water every year from the Brahmaputra River to the Yellow River. However, according to a 2009 Xinhua report, Wang Shucheng, the previous minister of the Ministry of Water Resources, somewhat denied the feasibility of the plan. At the time, Wang Shucheng believed the water diversion from the Yangtze River is enough for North China’s water supply and redirecting so much water from the Brahmaputra River every year is not even practical, because such a huge flush will destroy all the dams over the Yellow River.

Presently, Chinese experts and governmental officials are still studying the feasibility and possible impacts of distinct proposals.

Although China has claimed first-use-rights over the Brahmaputra and all of the other rivers in Tibet, the water resource exploitation of those international rivers is not only a domestic issue. Downstream, the Brahmaputra flows through India as well as Bangladesh and serves as a major fresh water source for a myriad of people.

While China finally confirmed the construction of a dam project over the Brahmaputra last year, India’s Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh already commented that the project is “unacceptable” and stressed the “great fear in India” would be China’s water diversion of the Brahmaputra, which may impact Northeastern India ecologically and bring the threat of drought to the region.

 http://www.2point6billion.com/news/2011/06/08/china-to-consider-diverting-the-brahmaputra-river-9430.html

Water is the new weapon in Beijing’s armoury

The three red lines on the map represent three separate
routes to divert river waters to China’s parched northern plains.

By Brahma Chellaney
Financial Times, August 31, 2011

China has aroused international alarm by using its virtual monopoly of rare earths as a trade instrument and by stalling multilateral efforts to resolve disputes in the South China Sea. Among its neighbours, there is deep concern at the way it is seeking to make water a political weapon.

At the hub of Asia, China is the source of cross-border river flows to the largest number of countries in the world — from Russia to India, Kazakhstan to the Indochina peninsula. This results from its absorption of the ethnic minority homelands that make up 60 per cent of its land mass and are the origin of all the important international rivers flowing out of Chinese territory.

Getting this pre-eminent riparian power to accept water-sharing arrangements or other co-operative institutional mechanisms has proved unsuccessful so far in any basin. Instead, the construction of upstream dams on international rivers such as the Mekong, Brahmaputra or Amur shows China is increasingly bent on unilateral actions, impervious to the concerns of downstream nations.

China already boasts both the world’s biggest dam (Three Gorges) and a greater total number of dams than the rest of the world combined. It has shifted its focus from internal to international rivers, and graduated from building large dams to building mega-dams. Among its newest dams on the Mekong is the 4,200 megawatt Xiaowan — taller than Paris’s Eiffel Tower. New dams approved for construction include one on the Brahmaputra at Metog (or Motuo in Chinese) that is to be twice the size of the 18,300MW
Three Gorges — and sited almost on the disputed border with India.

The consequences of such frenetic construction are already clear. First, China is in water disputes with almost all its neighbours, from Russia and India to weak client-states such as North Korea and Burma. Second, its new focus on water mega-projects in the homelands of ethnic minorities has triggered tensions over displacement and submergence at a time when the Tibetan plateau, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia have all been wracked by protests against Chinese rule. Third, the projects threaten to replicate in international rivers the degradation haunting China’s internal rivers.

Yet, as if to declare itself the world’s unrivalled hydro-hegemon, China is also the largest dam builder overseas. From Pakistan-held Kashmir to Burma’s troubled Kachin and Shan states, China is building dams in disputed or insurgency-torn areas, despite local backlash. Dam building in Burma has contributed to renewed fighting, ending a 17-year ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Army and government.
For downriver countries, a key concern is China’s opacity on its dam projects. It usually begins work quietly, almost furtively, then presents a project as unalterable and as holding flood-control benefits.

Worse, although there are water treaties among states in south and south-east Asia, Beijing rejects the concept of a water-sharing arrangement. It is one of only three countries that voted against the 1997 UN convention laying down rules on the shared resources of international watercourses.

Yet water is fast becoming a cause of competition and discord between countries in Asia, where per capita freshwater availability is less than half the global average. The growing water stress threatens Asia’s rapid economic growth and carries risks for investors potentially as damaging as non-performing loans, real estate bubbles and political corruption.

By having its hand on Asia’s water tap, China is therefore acquiring tremendous leverage over its neighbours’ behaviour.

That the country controlling the headwaters of major Asian rivers is also a rising superpower, with a muscular confidence increasingly on open display, only compounds the need for international pressure on Beijing to halt its appropriation of shared waters and accept some form of institutionalised co-operation.

The writer is a professor at the independent Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi and author of Water: Asia’s New Battleground.

 http://chellaney.net/2011/08/31/water-is-the-new-weapon-in-beijing%E2%80%99s-armoury/