Enter the dragon?

China is supposed to be a rising power and full of self-confidence. We are often told how Beijing views all issues from a lofty perspective. A series of recent moves from Beijing on Arunachal Pradesh suggest otherwise. First, it was Chinese ambassador to New Delhi, Sun Yuxi, asserting territorial claims over all of Arunachal Pradesh on the very eve of President Hu Jintao8217;s visit to India last November. Now it is the denial of a visa to an IAS officer belonging to Arunachal Pradesh on the familiar ground that the entire state belongs to China. These actions suggest that Beijing remains utterly insecure when it comes to Tibet and the long contested Indo-Tibetan border.

Chinese territorial claims over entire Arunachal Pradesh are indeed well-known. India has been dealing with them since the Chinese gained control over Tibet in 1950. What offends the Indian sensibility is the incredible pettiness of the Chinese officialdom in looking for, identifying and denying visas to any Indian citizen from Arunachal Pradesh. This comes at a time when there is growing sentiment across the Indo-Tibetan border for restoration of traditional contact and cooperation amidst improved political relationship between New Delhi and Beijing. Traditionally it is India that has been accused, by our own Communists and friends of China around the world, of lacking imagination in dealing with the complex boundary dispute. In the last few years, India has shown extraordinary flexibility by discarding much of its past unrealistic posture and offering to negotiate on a practical and political basis, the final disposition of the Sino-Indian border. China, in contrast, has hardened its negotiating position on Arunachal Pradesh. In making fresh claims to the Tawang tract in the state, Beijing has begun to disavow the mutually agreed principle in 2005 that there would be no exchange of territories with settled populations.

All these add up to the suspicion that Beijing is not serious about settling the boundary dispute with India. While New Delhi can surely live without an early resolution of the dispute, Beijing should recognise that its reprehensible actions on Arunachal could rekindle the slowly dying embers of Sinophobia that gripped this country after the 1962 war. If these continue, China risks reviving Indian nationalist sentiment on the boundary dispute and losing the considerable goodwill it has earned for itself over the last two decades.