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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and external affairs minister Salman Khurshid are trying to calm the rising stridency in some circles, especially here, over the continuing standoff with China in the eastern Ladakh area, also called the 'western sector', by likening it to a "localised" problem, a developing pimple in an otherwise beautiful face.
Having the face temporarily scarred by this eruption, Khurshid has said, doesn't mean it will remain so. Both countries are in touch with each other to return to the status quo. In fact, Khurshid has decided not to cancel his trip to Beijing on May 9, signalling that Delhi is willing to give Beijing another chance to tell its troops to turn back from their 19-odd-km transgression across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) into India.
Why
This is a mature thing to do. First, the India-China relationship has grown by leaps and bounds since the 1962 border conflict. Bilateral trade is touching $72 billion and China is only second to the US in terms of being India's largest trading partner. Interestingly, Delhi's calm reaction is based on the calculation that Beijing would not like to upset a fellow-developing country with which it has a significant economic relationship.
There is a second reason. Chinese premier Li Keqiang has announced that he will pay his first visit abroad as prime minister to India. This decision was made at the recent BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) meeting in South Africa and was meant to signal China's interest in revamping relations with a fellow Asian power, to put it at par with relations with Europe and the US. Certainly, Li cannot come to India when Chinese troops have camped 19 km deep inside Indian territory, notwithstanding the different interpretations of the LAC. This is as good a time as any for both sides to seriously look at settling the border issue, but it is common sense that the status quo must be maintained before that can happen.
Which is why it is interesting that Delhi has decided to tone down the confrontation but remains firm about having the other side withdraw to its earlier positions. Once that is done, all issues can return to the negotiating table, including the fact that India will lose a large chunk of Aksai Chin if it agrees to the LAC becoming a border. The map of India will definitely change and if the Chinese were smart, they would press for a deal in which both sides keep territory on an as-is-where-is basis, give or take a few kms, depending upon watershed principles.
In this new world order, India must come to terms with the fact of China's invincible rise, taking advantage of America's relative decline. China's economy is about four times the size of India on Sunday. In power, telecom and white goods, Chinese brands are making large strides and Delhi has welcomed Chinese investment in Indian Special Economic Zones. The intimacy of Chinese goods are felt most directly during Diwali and Holi, when Ganesh and Lakshmi idols as well as Holi colours, now often come from there.
It is in this light of China's growing importance, not only in India but across the South Asian region, a place Delhi has traditionally considered its own sphere of influence, that the recent imbroglio must be seen.
Factors
In Pakistan, the "all-weather relationship" with China has been strengthened by the recent takeover of the Gwadar deep sea port by the Chinese. In Maldives, the eviction late last year of Indian company GMR was followed by the Chinese offer to strengthen a security relationship with Male. In Sri Lanka, the Chinese are building roads and other infrastructure with impressive abandon. In Nepal, former prime minister Pushpa Kumar Dahal or Prachanda, recently called upon the Chinese to develop roads and hydropower facilities, as well as develop the birthplace of the Buddha at Lumbini (this has raised Indian eyebrows). In Bangladesh, the Chinese have offered to develop Chittagong port. In Myanmar, the presence of President Thein Sein at the Boao Forum, the Chinese version of the Davos summit in Switzerland, earlier this month and his meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping signals that Beijing is still Naypyidaw's most important partner.
Certainly, India is concerned that this "string of pearls" strategy employed by the Chinese in South Asia is aimed at displacing India as the most favoured partner. India is now trying to leverage new ways to woo old friends, since each of these countries are intimately related to India - common ethnicities, language, religion and a common historical past.
Since economics is the new name of the game, the ministry of external affairs has mounted large-scale projects in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Nepal, in the hope that economic benefit will pave the way for greater bilateral good.
But India is also hoping to do exactly to China's neighbourhood what China has done inside South Asia, a sort of reversal of the "string of pearls". In recent years, India has significantly ramped up engagement with Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Australia. Using strategic partnerships with India, the latter quad hopes to balance deep-rooted economic ties with China.
The 1962 link
The extent to which both India and China have changed since their conflict in 1962 must be appreciated to fully understand China's "transgressions" inside Indian territory on Sunday. Equally, it is important to understand why the Chinese withdrew from the Arunchal Pradesh area - the 'eastern sector' - in 1962 but overran Aksai Chin, large parts of which it still controls on Sunday.
Nine years after the Chinese took Tibet in 1950, the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India. In the intervening years, relations had deteriorated considerably. Once the Dalai Lama arrived in Bomdila, the tension grew by leaps and bounds. Once the Chinese crossed the McMahon Line in 1962, India quickly lost territory across the eastern sector. Within three weeks, though, the Chinese were back on their own side of the Line, having failed to maintain the lines of supplies.
In the western sector, on the other hand, Aksai Chin was integral to keep control over Tibet, a province that still needed to be properly subdued. Part of the territory was illegally ceded to Pakistan and. soon, construction of the Karakoram Highway was begun.
Much of that motive remains in place on Sunday. India has begun to build and modernise infrastructure near the LAC for the first time since 1962 -- building roads, upgrading the airstrip at the Silk Road town of Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO)and even creating a new armoured corps for the eastern sector. And, the Chinese are beginning to feel the Indian presence is too close for comfort.
As China continues to upgrade, build and modernise infrastructural projects in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and the Northern Areas, it does not want the Indians, either at DBO or elsewhere, to watch over their movements in neighbouring Pakistan.
The Chinese must withdraw and return to the status quo and they know it. India is allowing them to save face, which explains Khurshid's determination to keep his date with Beijing on May 9. In a sense, this becomes an invisible deadline for the Chinese to withdraw their troops by then. Watch this space.
