Welcome to an emerging Asia: India and China stop feigning friendship while Russia plays all sides

By Harsh V Pant

In a hard place.

After a few timid signs of warming, Sino-Indian relations seem to be headed for the freezer. 

While Beijing refuses to take Indian security concerns seriously, New Delhi may have decided to take the Chinese challenge head-on. 

To complicate matters for India, its erstwhile ally Russia, which has become a close friend of China, is showing interest in establishing closer ties with Pakistan.
The latest move that clenches teeth in India is China refusing to lift a hold on Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, accused of plotting multiple acts of terrorism against India, and blocking him in December from being listed as a terrorist by the United Nations. 

Since March, China has blocked India’s attempts to put a ban on Azhar, under the sanctions committee of the UN Security Council, despite support from other members of the 15-nation body. 

In response, India has gone beyond expressing dismay by testing its long-range ballistic missiles—Agni IV and Agni V—in recent weeks. 

Pakistan, aided by China, has also jumped in by testing its first sea cruise missile that could be eventually launched from a Pakistani submarine.
China has upped the ante, indicating a willingness to help Pakistan increase the range of its nuclear missiles. 

China’s official mouthpiece, Global Times, contended in an editorial: “if the Western countries accept India as a nuclear country and are indifferent to the nuclear race between India and Pakistan, China will not stand out and stick rigidly to those nuclear rules as necessary. At this time, Pakistan should have those privileges in nuclear development that India has.”

China’s $46 billion investment in the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, also troubles India as the land corridor extends through the contested territory in Kashmir which India claims as its own. 

India views CPEC as an insidious attempt by China to create new realities on the ground and a brazen breach of India’s sovereignty and territory. 

The Chinese media have suggested that India should join CPEC to “boost its export and slash its trade deficit with China” and “the northern part of India bordering Pakistan and Jammu & Kashmir will gain more economic growth momentum.”
New Delhi has questioned if China would accept an identical situation in Tibet or Taiwan, or if this is a new phase in Chinese policy with China accepting Pakistan’s claims as opposed to the previous stance of viewing Kashmir as disputed territory.

Faced with an intransigent China, India under the centre-right government led by Narendra Modi is busy reevaluating its China policy. 

Modi’s initial outreach to China soon after coming to office in May 2014 failed to produce any substantive outcome and he has since decided to take a more hard-nosed approach. 

New Delhi has strengthened partnerships with like-minded countries, including the United States, Japan, Australia, and Vietnam. 

India has bolstered its capabilities along the troubled border with China and the Indian military is operationally gearing up for a two-front war. 

India is also ramping up its nuclear and conventional deterrence against China by testing long-range missiles, raising a mountain strike corps for the border with China, enhancing submarine capabilities, and basing its first squadron of French-made Rafale fighter jets near that border.
More interesting is a significant shift in India’s Tibet policy with the Modi government deciding to bring the issue back into the Sino-Indian bilateral equation. 

India will openly welcome the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader who has lived in exile in India since 1959, at an international conference on Buddhism to be held in Rajgir-Nalanda, Bihar, in March. 

And ignoring Beijing’s protests, the Dalai Lama will also visit the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh which China claims as part of its own territory.
After initially ceding ground to Chinese sensitivities on Tibet and refusing to explicitly acknowledge official interactions with the Dalai Lama, a more public role for the monk is now presented as an essential part of the Indian response to China. 

In the first meeting in decades between a serving Indian head of state and the Dalai Lama, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee hosted the Buddhist leader at the inaugural session of the first Laureates and Leaders for Children Summit, held at the president’s official residence in New Delhi in December.

Pawn for giants: China strives to curb the influence of the Dalai Lama, who lives in India. The religion emerged in India during 5th century BC and has numerous sects.

China has not taken kindly to these moves by India and vehemently opposes any attempt to boost the image or credibility of the Dalai Lama.
China has been relentless in seeking isolation for the Dalai Lama and often succeeds in bullying weaker states to bar the monk. 

After the Dalai Lama’s November visit to the predominantly Buddhist Mongolia, where he is revered as a spiritual leader, the nation incurred China’s wrath and soon apologised, promising that the Dalai Lama would no longer be allowed to enter the country.
But India is not Mongolia. 

There is growing disenchantment with Chinese behaviour in New Delhi. 

Appeasing China by sacrificing the interests of the Tibetan people has not yielded any benefits for India, nor has there been tranquility in the Himalayas in recent decades. 

As China’s aggressiveness has grown, Indian policymakers are no longer content to play by rules set by China. 

Although India has formally acknowledged Tibet as a part of China, there is a new push to support the legitimate rights of the Tibetan people so as to negotiate with China from a position of strength.
This Sino-Indian geopolitical jostling is also being shaped by the broader shift in global and regional strategic equations. 

Delhi long took Russian support for granted. 

Yet, much to India’s discomfiture, China has found a new ally in Russia which is keen to side with it, even as a junior partner, to scuttle western interests. 

Historically sound Indo-Russian ties have become a casualty of this trend and to garner Chinese support for its anti-West posturing, Russia has refrained from supporting Indian positions.
Worried about India’s growing proximity to the United States, Russia is also warming up to Pakistan. 

The two held their first joint military exercise in September and their first bilateral consultation on regional issues in December. 

After officially lifting an arms embargo against Pakistan in 2014, Russia will deliver four Russian-made Mi-35M attack helicopters in 2017 to Pakistan’s military. 

It is also likely that the China-backed CPEC might be merged with the Russia-backed Eurasian Economic Union. 

Jettisoning its traditional antipathy to the Taliban, Russia indicates a readiness to negotiate with the Taliban against the backdrop of the growing threat of the Islamic State in Afghanistan. 

Towards that end, Russia is already working with China and Pakistan, thereby marginalising India in the regional process.
As the Trump administration takes office in Washington on Jan. 20, it will be rushing into headwinds generated by growing Sino-Indian tensions and a budding Sino-Russian entente. 

Trump’s own pro-Russia and anti-China inclinations could further complicate geopolitical alignments in Asia. 

Growing tension in the Indian subcontinent promises to add to the volatility.

Hundreds of Tibetans defy China, gather at birthplace of Buddhism in India

By Annie Gowen

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is assisted by his aides as he prepares to perform rituals during the inauguration of a Mongolian Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, India, Jan. 9, 2017. 

BODH GAYA, India — The young Tibetan monk was taking his elderly aunt and uncle on a trip of a lifetime — a tour of holy Buddhist sites in India and a chance to meet the Dalai Lama. 

But halfway through, word came from China: The family was to return right away.
Chinese police had descended on the monk’s home five times in December, fingerprinting his parents and forcing them to sign documents guaranteeing his return.
But the monk and his family were determined to see the Dalai Lama speak at Bodh Gaya, the Indian city that many consider the birthplace of Buddhism. 

So they defied Chinese authorities and continued their journey, risking imprisonment, harsh questioning or loss of identity cards when they return home.
“I’m very worried,” the monk said on a chilly evening, sitting in a tent not far from a teaching ground where thousands have gathered each day since Jan. 3 to pray, meditate and hear their religious leader. “If we are put in prison, they will interrogate us: ‘Why did you go to India?’ This can be very dangerous.”
Authorities from the Tibetan government in exile say the Chinese government barred an estimated 7,000 Tibetan pilgrims from attending this month’s 10-day gathering in India, an unprecedented move that further erodes the rights of 6 million people who live in the Tibetan region of China. 

It was also a fresh reminder that the Chinese are threatening to control the selection of the next Dalai Lama after the eventual demise of the renowned religious leader, who is now 81.

An Indian fan takes a “selfie” photograph with actor Richard Gere in Bodh Gaya on Jan. 12, 2017. 

“It’s tragic,” said Lobsang Sangay, the head of Tibet’s government in exile in India. 

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip for Tibetans, like Muslims going to Mecca. It’s a sad commentary on the Chinese claim to have religious freedom — or any kind of freedom in Tibet.”
The Dalai Lama told reporters that the move was “unfortunate.”
China has denied that threatening pilgrims or blocking their departures, but local authorities in Tibet declared this ritual gathering, called the Kalachakra, illegal in 2012, the last time it was held in Bodh Gaya. 

Most of the 7,000 had already traveled legally to India and were forced to return early. 

Only 300 remain.
Since unrest broke out across the Tibetan plateau in 2008, the Chinese government has enacted sweeping measures that have curtailed freedom of expression, notably by prioritizing Chinese over the Tibetan language in schools, posting police in monasteries and increasing surveillance.
China’s Communist Party seeks to break the connection between Tibetans and their revered leader to ensure compliance with ambitious party objectives in Tibet, a region rich in mineral and water resources.
“What we’re seeing is new,” said Kate Saunders, of the International Campaign for Tibet. 

“It’s a systematic attempt to prevent Tibetans from having any access at all to the Dalai Lama.”

Buddhist monks participate in a special religious teaching prayer attended by the Dalai Lama during the Kalachakra event at Bodh Gaya on Jan. 6, 2017. 

An estimated 10,000 Tibetans attended the last such gathering in Bodh Gaya in 2012, but many were jailed or detained for “reeducation” in military camps when they returned, Saunders said.
Around 200,000 maroon- and saffron-robed monks and nuns and Buddhist devotees from around the world — including American actor Richard Gere — converged on the town in eastern India for days of chanting and lessons on Buddhist thought. 

As darkness descended, many of them performed prostrations and encircled the ancient stupa next to the tree — a descendant of the original — where the Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment.
Since the Dalai Lama escaped over the mountains from Tibet to India in 1959, Indian governments have treated him as an honored guest in Dharamsala, a hill town in northern India, but they long kept him at arm’s length to avoid offending the Chinese. 

Now, that may be changing.
The Dalai Lama appeared prominently at an event with India’s president in Delhi last month. 

And Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made preserving India’s ancient heritage a priority, becoming the first prime minister in decades to visit Bodh Gaya.
“I don’t believe it’s a fundamental shift of position, but certainly what you’re seeing is trending towards perhaps a less self-conscious expression of our sentiments and our support for the Tibetan cultural identity and the high standing the Dalai Lama enjoys here in India,” said Nirupama Menon Rao, a former foreign secretary and ambassador to China.
The support is key, as the Tibetan exile community faces uncertain times. 

The Dalai Lama has said that when he dies, he may choose not to be reincarnated, as Buddhist belief holds, or that he could come back as a woman. 

But China has signaled it will control the search for the next Dalai Lama by anointing its own Panchen Lama, another important religious figure in Tibetan Buddhism.
Some of the attendees said they are worried it will be the last such ceremony the Dalai Lama will perform. 

The octogenarian moves and speaks more slowly now, and he had to be helped to the elaborate throne on the dais by two monks.
“He can’t go into top gear anymore,” said Gaden Tashi, a Tibetan from Kathmandu. 

“But he keeps saying he’s happy and healthy.”
One young Tibetan-language tutor who made the risky journey from China recalled that when he first unrolled his prayer mat at Bodh Gaya and got his first glimpse of the Dalai Lama, “I couldn’t control myself; I thought it was a dream.”
The tutor, 29, arrived Jan. 3, weeks after his trip began in a small village in the Tibetan area of Amdo. He paid a guide to take him to Kathmandu, where he then received legal papers from the Indian Embassy to make the pilgrimage.
Almost immediately, he said, frightening messages began appearing on his WeChat, China’s popular social media platform. 

He said police sent a warning through his parents that he should return by Jan. 3, the day the Kalachakra would begin. 

His mother cried and begged him to come home soon. 

Others sent photos of pilgrims who were met at the airport only to have their passports sliced into pieces by police.
He now feels he cannot return to China, but he believes his sacrifice has been worth it.
“Every Tibetan has a dream — to meet the Dalai Lama,” he said. 

“I told my parents I have no regret, even if I die.”