India-China ties will only improve with mutual trust, starting with border talks

Is it possible to restore trust between India and China after recent events have soured the relationship?

Given the chequered history of relations between the countries since the republics were established in the middle of the last century, and after Chinese PLA actions resulted in the first deaths by hostile action on the border in 45 years in mid-2020, this appears difficult.

But given the increasing role that both countries play in Asia and the world, it is a legitimate hope that they will be more successful and consistent in managing their relationship in the future. That would require a minimum amount of trust, or at least, an understanding between the two governments.

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Today's situation in the relationship can be summed up as complicated and unsettled.

Both sides reportedly have more than 100,000 troops in forward positions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that divides them and that they are legally obliged to respect under bilateral agreements. It is fair to say from their actions on the ground and the build-up of military infrastructure that trust is today in short supply.

But there are some hopeful signs. Transactional parts of the relationship continue to move ahead. Last year, China was India's single largest trading partner, and trade set records.

Besides, both governments are signalling a desire to de-escalate the tense situation on the LAC and avoid further conflict or escalation. But an impasse is apparent, with India seeking a restoration of the status quo as it obtained in spring 2020 before PLA movements and build-up, and China wishing to move on from the present position.

So what might be done to restore trust in this situation? Is that even a realistic goal?

We will only know whether this is a realistic goal if an attempt is made by both sides to build that trust. What that effort might consist of, in the first place, is to establish an understanding of each other's approach and compulsions on the border.

The limited goal to begin with would be to establish predictability in the relationship, and to ensure, to the extent possible, that there are no surprises from either side. The only way I know of doing this is a serious dialogue on the border which then moves on to other issues that divide the countries.

As part of introducing predictability in the relationship, they might jointly review existing confidence building measures, see which ones are still workable given recent behaviour, and consider steps to reduce the risks of accidents and misunderstandings escalating into conflict on the border.

Verification and crisis management mechanisms between them will probably need to be improved considerably.

These initial steps would be insufficient to restore trust, even if both sides were to agree to restore the status quo on the border as it existed before April 2020 in terms of territorial control and access to disputed areas. That should be the minimum goal that both sides must seek and then respect.

An understanding on activities that both sides would undertake on their side of the line, and an agreed definition of the line, would help. If this minimum is not acceptable to one side, the conclusion is inescapable that this side wishes to keep the border unsettled and unstable and seeks further changes in the status quo.

This discussion could prepare the ground for a much more detailed conversation on the political and other differences between the two countries without the imminent threat of a crisis on the border hanging over the heads of the interlocutors.

The modest initial goal suggested here would enable each side to be reasonably confident that the other will follow their own definition of self-interest, and that both see peace as being in their interest.

Such an understanding, if arrived at, would enable the successful management of the present unsatisfactory border situation and then a tackling of other issues that divide the two neighbours, thus providing a possible way out of the present impasse.

Even thereafter, given the long history and experience of a difficult relationship, this attempt if successful is unlikely to result in the restoration of trust between the two sides.

It would still leave open several worrying issues such as the purpose of China's rapid build-up of military infrastructure and power projection capabilities on the Tibetan border in the absence of an external threat, other divergent interests, and China's perceived unhappiness with India's rise.

Trust, once broken, is not easy to restore. If trust is truly to be restored between these two neighbours, it will require demonstrated changes in behaviour over a period of time.

Since the initiative to change the status quo in the last decade was taken by China, much of what has to be done will also have to be initiated by China. Both sides are presumably learning lessons from this difficult phase in their relationship and will change their behaviour accordingly.

They certainly have the capability and the traditions of statecraft that should enable them to find a better equilibrium that would enable them to concentrate on the pressing internal tasks that face both societies and economies in today's difficult world.

Shivshankar Menon is visiting professor at Ashoka University, India and Chair of the Ashoka Centre for China Studies. Menon served as national security adviser to the Prime Minister of India from January 2010 to May 2014 and as Foreign Secretary of India from October 2006 to August 2009. This article was first published by the Asian Peace Programme, an initiative to promote peace in Asia, housed in the NUS Asia Research Institute.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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