Xi Jinping’s Call for ‘Rejuvenation’ Means Taking Indian Territory: Analyst
NEW DELHI—As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrated its 100 year anniversary on July 1, Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke of the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and the “rise of the east.” These agendas that the Chinese are likely to relentlessly pursue will have a direct impact on India, the country next door with whom the PLA has been engaged in a fierce confrontation since last year, said an Indian analyst.
“All the struggle, sacrifice, and creation through which the Party has united and led the Chinese people over the past hundred years has been tied together by one ultimate theme—bringing about the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” boasted Xi in a speech that repeated “rejuvenation” at least 24 times.
Namrata Hasija, a Research Fellow with the New Delhi based Centre for China Analysis and Strategy told The Epoch Times over the phone that India shouldn’t forget that every time Xi gives a speech, particularly since the 19th Party Congress in 2017, he mentions the “Chinese dream which includes the rejuvenation of the great Chinese nation.”
She said this agenda has direct implications for India because it involves the recovery of so-called lost territory some of which today is a part of the Indian nation.
Xi said in his Party centenary speech: “The victory of the new democratic revolution put an end to China’s history as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, to the state of total disunity that existed in old China, and to all the unequal treaties imposed on our country by foreign powers and all the privileges that imperialist powers enjoyed in China. It created the fundamental social conditions for realizing national rejuvenation.”
Hasija said the Chinese leadership and the party cadres have been repeating their rhetoric about “unequal treaties” again and again, and they are not going to give this up.
“I’m repeating myself that an important component of the China dream is the rejuvenation of the great Chinese nation, which means the recovery of lost territories in the unequal treaties, which include Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, South China Sea, East China Sea, the Diaoyu Islands, and Taiwan,” said Hasija.
Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh are Indian territories that the CCP assertively claims as having been taken from China by “unequal treaties.” At both locations India has experienced repeated Chinese incursions. In Ladakh, the two countries since last year have been engaged in a heavy military standoff that intensified after the bloody conflict at Galwan in June 2020 that killed soldiers on both sides.
In the Indian context “unequal treaties” refer to the Tibet-McMahon line formalized during the Shimla Convention of 1912 between Great Britain that ruled India then, Tibet which was yet to be annexed by China, and China.
Though a draft convention was initiated between the three countries then, China immediately refused to accept it and didn’t sign the revised convention two years later that was signed between the British and Tibet.
After Mao annexed Tibet, China overruled the mandate of the former Tibetan administration about the border with India that had become sovereign by then.
Hasija said Indian policymakers should keep in mind that Xi Jinping is not going to back off from asserting China’s ownership of Indian territory.
“To do so he is instilling deeply in the cadres and common people alike, that they have to continue using the three magic weapons that the CCP has, and what are they?” said Hasija. “United front, armed struggle, and party building.”
Hasija pointed at Xi’s speech where he said: “We will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us. Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.”
Hasija said Xi “mentioned about how they [Chinese people] should be ready for war with anyone that bullies China and the days of bullying China are over.”
“See, again, he’s harping on the same narrative. And that is what the Chinese feel. And that is what Xi Jinping and his party have made people believe that time has come. The East is rising, and the West is declining. And by the East rising, he’s not talking about any other country, he’s talking about China.”
Since the Galwan incident last year, India and China have had 11 commander-level meetings where both sides talked about withdrawing militarily from the border but that’s not happening, she said.
“China is building massively when it comes to the border issue. Especially the India-China border, they’re building massively there. Now, there was a report that was published, that there is a buildup of armor at Rudok and Ngari (Ali) prefecture [in Tibet], which actually borders Eastern Ladakh. The report states that at least 448 pieces of armor have been identified in position near Rudok,” said Hasija.
The deterioration of India-China relationships started much before the Galwan incident happened, according to Hasija—it started when China started the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Project, a flagship Belt and Road Initiative project that passes through Gilgit-Baltistan, a disputed territory between India and Pakistan.
“If you read the Chinese-language materials, media during the Doklam crisis, they have left no stone unturned to humiliate India, write ill about India. They personally attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ajit Doval [India’s current National Security Advisor], Sushma Swaraj [India’s then Foreign Affairs Minister], everyone,” said Hasija.
Doklam refers to a military standoff that happened between the Indian army and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in June 2017 over the construction of a road the Chinese were building in Doklam, a tri-junction between India, Bhutan, and China in the central Himalayan region.
“During Doklam again and again they were saying what we did in 1962 [the Sino-Indian War], we do again. Two important things emerge from the Doklam crisis—one the Chinese said they are going to take back the recognition from Sikkim. Second was that they will restart the insurgency movement in the north east of India [that borders China],” said Hasija.
Sikkim is a northeastern Indian state that borders Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal. It joined the Indian union in 1975, much later than Indian independence from the British in 1947.
China’s Agendas in Tibet
The action points under the planned “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” also include infrastructure projects in Tibet, which mean the massive deployment of the PLA in the region, according to Hasija.
This has direct repercussions on India’s security, as India shares a long border with China along the Tibetan plateau.
“In the NPC [National People’s Congress] when the 14th five-year plan was passed—that’s another reason for worry for the Indian government because in that plan they have actually kind of included massive infrastructure projects in Tibet. Now any project in Tibet, we all know needs approval from the PLA, and it’s for the PLA’s benefit,” said Hasija.
“Now, all these massive infrastructure projects and events will enable the PLA to rapidly transport troops, military cargo, hardware into Tibet.”
Under its five-year plans, China aims to build dams on the cross-border rivers that originate from Tibet and flow into India and this will “adversely impact” the populations in the downstream regions in India, said Hasija adding that China is building a massive dam on the river Brahmaputra or Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet and at least 17 other dams on its lower reaches.
This is estimated to impact at least one billion people in the lower riparian countries who are dependent on the river and the tributaries feeding it, she said.
“The huge influx of people and the large-scale construction activities in Tibet, including building border airports and 200 border defense villages, will certainly result in warming of temperatures. In turn, this will accelerate the retreat of glaciers and drastically reduce the flow of water in the glacier-fed rivers that irrigate the Indo-Gangetic plain where the majority of India’s population resides,” said Hasija.
Historical Uneasiness
Hasija said India and China always had an uneasy relationship and contrary to beliefs that the period prior to 1950 was a “honeymoon” between the two countries, her research shows that it was never so.
“When India got independence our main problem has always been Kashmir and Pakistan. Now India was the first non-communist country to give recognition to the PRC [People’s Republic of China]. There were of course calls at that time in our Parliament that we should wait,” she said.
“According to my analysis Kashmir is a factor that contributed majorly towards Nehru’s [India’s first Prime Minister] policy toward China,” said Hasija adding that the Indian government would have then thought that if they recognize PRC, the Chinese leadership will support India over Kashmir.
“There’s one letter that Nehru wrote to Mohan Singh Mehta [dated] 20 September 1952. Now in this letter, he says that India is only threatened by Pakistan, and he is not in the least worried about China. And he’s been advised that China would be a major support to India’s stance on Kashmir in the coming years,” said Hasija. Mehta was India’s ambassador to Pakistan during that time.
India followed a policy of appeasement towards China after the annexation of Tibet for this reason, according to Hasija.
“And then China’s claim on Formosa Taiwan, of course, India always said during that time that it is an extension of the Chinese Civil War, and we are not bothered if Formosa is a part of China,” said Hasija adding that the same Kashmir factor was behind this stance.
China never supported India. Hasija believes the Indian leadership wasn’t able to understand the Chinese communist leadership, and it’s high time India invests in research for understanding Chinese thought.
“We have hardly invested in China studies, we do not have enough scholarship on understanding and knowing Chinese,” she said adding India can also build new partnerships and strategic alliances to counter the Chinese agenda of “great rejuvenation.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/xi-jinpings-call-for-rejuvenation-means-taking-indian-territory-indian-analyst_3890289.html
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