Pranab to tell wary Chinese: Asia has enough room for the two of us

Days before Mukherjee arrived here, Global Times, a sister publication of the Communist Party of China’s People’s Daily, expressed concern about India’s forward policy in Asia and the Indian Ocean. Referring to unconfirmed newspaper reports on Delhi’s alleged plans to set up an air base in Ayni in Tajikistan and the growing military contacts between India and Mongolia, the Global Times suggested India might be widening her military ambitions beyond South Asia.

“With its growing overall national strength, India does not want to limit itself to the subcontinent; instead, it wants to expand its military and strategic influence throughout Asia,” the newspaper said.

The paper gave an extensive analysis of Minister of State for Defence Pallam Raju’s visit to Mongolia in early May and Delhi’s plans to join a multilateral peace keeping exercise there called ‘Khanquest.’

India’s traditional security thrust in South East Asia, the paper suggested, is now being extended to East Asia and the Pacific and is being complemented by a ‘Push North’ attempt in Central Asia.

Taken together, these Indian efforts, the Global Times concluded, “would bring about profound changes in the Asian geopolitical scene.”

Delhi has often dismissed these reports on India’s search for bases in Asia. But India is increasingly becoming aware of the danger that both countries might end up painting worst-case scenarios about each other. Chinese fears of Indian bases in Central Asia and Mongolia seem very much a mirror image of concerns in Delhi about Beijing’s search for military and naval access in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Myanmar.

These in turn reinforce the traditional apprehensions in both capitals — the belief in New Delhi that China seeks to surround India in South Asia and the fear in Beijing that India might join the US and Japan to contain China.

On his part, Mukherjee is expected to put across a simple message: there is room enough for two rising powers in Asia.

Given the inevitable overlap of the Chinese and Indian security footprints in Asia, Delhi believes the two sides should minimise mutual misperceptions, maximise areas of bilateral defence cooperation and avoid treading on each other’s strategic interests.

Mukherjee is likely to address whatever concerns the Chinese might have without in any way being apologetic about India’s new defence diplomacy in Asia and the Indian Ocean or Delhi’s growing military ties with the US and Japan.

At the same time the Indian defence minister would reaffirm India’s readiness to expand the scope and ambit of Sino-Indian defence engagement as well as the enduring Indian commitment to an “independent” foreign policy.

Mukherjee is keen to elevate the current interaction between the two military establishments into a structured and sustainable process.

A memorandum of understanding on military cooperation is expected to take the process beyond mere confidence-building measures towards mutually beneficial joint exercises.

This is the first visit by a defence minister to China since George Fernandes of the previous NDA government came here in 2003.