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For Chinese neighbours, caution is the byword and trade the catchword - part one

By Tony Henderson - posted Monday, 20 June 2005


China, the fourth largest country in the world, has the highest population of all. Its land mass covers a vast territory in eastern Asia. The vastness of the country and the barrenness of the western hinterland have important implications for its defence strategy. While there are many deepwater harbours along the western coastline, the nation has traditionally oriented itself inland, developing as an imperial power whose centre lay in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.

China, besides attracting great interest from the potentially lucrative trade viewpoint, is also under scrutiny by neighbouring Asian nations regarding its political and economic intentions.

President Hu Jintao visited South-East Asia in April 2005, shortly after Premier Wen Jiabao's completed his South Asia tour. Those journeys provided an opportunity to put China's relationships with Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India, “onto a stable and long-term footing,” (China Daily, April 28, 2005).

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But expressions of benign intent included in China's media releases, while acceptable, may be seen more like a silver lining in a Nimbus-like thunder cloud, because China’s history is not quite that depicted in its rosy statements to the world.

This and next week's articles look at the need to study the history of relations neighbouring countries have with China when attempting to understand just how these countries can accommodate China today.

India

China’s size and extensive border bring it into hard contact with many nations. There are a number of disputed territories on all sides, but an important one is the Himalayan border with India. Very recently India and China signed an agreement in Delhi aimed at resolving that long-running dispute. These countries, as the world's two most populous, fought a bitter war over their largely unmarked border in 1962. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao officially “ceded” Sikkim to India, after the latter had annexed the small kingdom in 1975, amid strong protests at the time from Beijing.

Nepal

There is a dispute between India and Nepal that involves a 75 sq km area in Kalapani, where China, India, and Nepal meet. Indian forces occupied the area in 1962 after China and India fought their border war. Three villages are in the disputed zone: Kuti, Gunji, and Knabe. India and Nepal disagree on how to interpret the 1816 Sugauli treaty between the British East India Company and Nepal, which delimited the boundary along the Maha Kali River (Sarda River in India). The dispute flared up again in 1997 when the Nepali parliament considered a treaty on hydro-electric development of the river. India and Nepal differ as to which stream constitutes the source of the river. Nepal regards the Limpiyadhura as the source: India claims the Lipu Lekh.

Nepal has always favoured its links with India, but with the situation prevailing and King Gyanendra in charge, China is presenting Nepal with a possibly different solution to those offered by other democratically sincere nations.

China has a plan to develop its western region, linked by high speed railway and an express highway to connect Tibet with mainland China. Nepal will also benefit from these infrastructures, as Chinese visitors will then have easier access to Nepal. In addition there will be enhanced trade possibilities. Joint venture programs, such as hydro-power generation, are expected to flourish. China has also mentioned Nepal in its outbound tourist destination list for Chinese people. Because of this, in May  2005, the Sajha Bus Service, owned by the Nepalese Government launched weekly coach trips between Kathmandu and Lhasa for nine months of the year.

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In April 2005 the Nepalese Government’s support for China's newly enacted anti-secession law was speedily aired by the media.

Pakistan

China and Pakistan have enjoyed a solid strategic relationship since the 1960s and over the years China has provided Pakistan with a wide range of major conventional weapons systems. The two countries have also developed a close partnership in various defence co-operation programs. This strategic relationship arose from the mutual needs of China and Pakistan to counter what was seen as Soviet and Indian security threats. Pakistan has relied on China as an ally in dealing with India, a situation where it is in a position of military weakness. Beijing values its close ties with Islamabad both to extend its influence to South Asia and to balance against India.

Bilateral trade between China and Pakistan today stands at around US$2.5 billion, with Chinese exports to Pakistan accounting for US$1.5 billion. April 2005 saw something that will be welcome in Pakistan, a Free Trade Agreement, under which both sides have agreed to cut down excise duties and bring the tariffs to zero on a range of commonly used commodities.

Bangladesh

Bangladesh has long established diplomatic ties with China. Over time, China has set up in Bangladesh power plants, fertiliser factories, marine fisheries, and infrastructure developments including six “friendship” bridges and a Bangladesh-China Friendship Centre. However, the price has been the dumping of Taiwan by Bangladesh. Also, after all this time, there is still a negative trade balance with China. It seems the Chinese Government is materialistic when dealing with needy places like Bangladesh, even though making otherwise welcome offerings.

Bhutan

Sandwiched Bhutan is located between the two giant nations of Asia - China in the north and India in the south. Bhutan maintains an excellent and friendly relationship with India and its foreign relations are overtly “Indo-centric”.

Contrarily, Bhutan does not have any diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China, despite sharing a contiguous northern boundary of 470 kilometres. Bhutan’s relationship with China has been described as “indifferent”. Bhutan’s border with China is largely un-demarcated, or remains an unresolved issue: consequently Bhutan’s Chinese relations are centred around the resolution of border disputes.

Bhutan had traditional trade relations with Tibet. However, Bhutan closed its northern borders with China after the influx of Tibetan refugees in 1960. When that age-old cross-border trade came to a halt, there was no official trade or business relations between Bhutan and China.

However, Bhutan and China signed an agreement to “Maintain Peace and Tranquillity on the Bhutan-China Border” in 1998. The agreement “reiterates its position to fully respect the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bhutan”.

Burma, now known as Myanmar

While China always protests innocence in neighbouring disputes, it has to be remembered that the Burmese Communist Party was backed by China, and the Burmese Government has supported the Naga insurgency in India for nearly two decades since the mid-1950s, bringing separatist activities into India’s north-east border regions.

The British introduced opium into Burma in the late 19th Century to increase supplies for its trade with China while the US’s CIA encouraged the production of opium in that region to finance its Kuomingtang allies in China (and ethnic groups in Myanmar). But Myanmar has taken serious and significant measures to control the menace. The area under opium cultivation in Myanmar reduced from 161,012 hectares in 1991 to 130,300 hectares in 1998 - this represents nearly 90 per cent of the production of opium in South-East Asia.

China has supplied weapons for the re-equipment and expansion of the Myanmar military machine since 1989; it has also been deeply involved in economic and trade co-operation, providing assistance in building and strengthening the infrastructure. India is strategically concerned by the port upgrades, especially at Hyanggi and the communications facilities at Coco Island in the Bay of Bengal (both with China assistance), a mere 45kms from Indian territory.

Mongolia

As a small nation situated between two giant powers - China and Russia - confronting one another, Mongolia’s Government saw no other choice but to come under the protective umbrella of one of them. For Mongolians, historical experience caused them to choose the Soviet umbrella. Consequently the relationship between Mongolia and China did not recover until the end of the Sino-Soviet confrontation when Beijing and Ulaanbaatar each recognised their shared strategic interests, and re-engaged. While Russia continues to have a political and economic influence in Mongolia, it is now the PRC which is emerging as the main political and economic partner.

Mongolians had viewed China as a hostile country before the late 1980s, but now generally regard China as a major power able to generate regional and world economic development.

As Jiang Zeming has said, there are no unsettled political, legal or historical problems between the two countries. Yet, deep-rooted distrust of China caused by historical experience still persists among Mongolians and the Mongolian media is frequently suspicious of China’s ambitions, particularly fearing Chinese expansion.

Unequal competition between China and Mongolia on the world cashmere market is a problem for Ulaanbaatar. Beginning in the late 1990s, Chinese traders started to buy raw cashmere from Mongolia's domestic market for export to China for processing. This has drained Mongolia of its cashmere supply. Mongolia's domestic cashmere manufacturers are using only about 40 per cent of their production capability and Mongolia is losing export revenues. Mongolia produces 20 per cent of the cashmere on the world market. When Ulaanbaatar increased the export tax on raw cashmere, smuggling to China became yet another issue which needed to be addressed.

Removal of the textile export quota has created a big challenge for Mongolia. In 2004, Ulaanbaatar's textile industry produced about 16 per cent of the total export revenues. To save on high transportation costs incurred due to Mongolia's inland location, some companies are preparing to move their factories into China.

A mishandling of these issues may provoke an upsurge in Mongolian nationalism that would damage Sino-Mongolian relations. Mongolians and Chinese each have different historical viewpoints and while Mongolians see themselves as one of Asia's oldest ethnically pure groups, as do the Han Chinese, the Chinese regard Mongolia as a former part of its Middle Kingdom and view Mongolians as an ethnic minority. This is a deep-rooted contrary view that could have explosive effects in the future relations of Ulaanbaatar and Beijing.

At present, Mongolian nationalist movements may be found in Mongolia, the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, and Russia's regions of Buryatskaya and Kalmykia. Based on their common traditional culture, Mongolian nationalism began quickening during 1989 when Mongolia was making a political turnaround. In 1990, after the Mongolian Democratic Party publicly stated its: "Uniting the Three Mongolias" stance (Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Mongolian Buryatskaya), the party also advocated "providing a unified spoken and written language and a nationality which could naturally be linked together". There was also support for a union between Inner Mongolia, Mongolian Buryatskaya, Mongolian Xinjiang, and other regions which would in turn unite Mongolians under one "Great Mongolia". China is taking note of those moves.

China’s northwest borders

Joint Pakistan-China military exercises began in August 2004 in Xinjiang in China's far west. The drill, including live firing, took place at a region of very high-elevation near China's border with Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan. The people of the area are mostly Tajiks, a Muslim ethnic minority who speak an Iranian language. In this region it might be better to look at cultural-linguistic affiliations rather than at national borders. This is because expansionist line-drawing has made a complex mess of the physical geography and has treated people more like things to be fitted inside borders rather than seeing their intrinsic value as human beings with a culture and way of life.

The Uighur ethnic group of north-western China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region are a Turkic Muslim people numbering about 9 million (the total population of the huge, resource-rich region is 19.25 million which includes about 9 million Han Chinese). Of all China's 56 official ethnic groups, the Uighurs are the most dissimilar to the majority Han Chinese and, along with the Tibetans, have caused the Han the most headaches since the Communist took over in China in 1949.

A Caucasian people, the Uighurs speak a Turkic language that is most like that spoken by the Uzbeks. As both are Muslim, they share a commonality. Uzbekistan is home to many Uighurs who have moved there in several waves since the 19th Century. Xinjiang, however, does not border Uzbekistan: it borders Afghanistan (with a tiny frontier), Kazakhstan and Krygyzstan and lies adjacent to Tibet.

The Uighur people, though they have maintained contacts with the Chinese for more than 2,000 years, consider the Han Chinese presence in Xinjiang, or Eastern Turkistan as they prefer to call it, an occupation of their ancestral homeland. This places a bias on all affairs with China and consequently causes the China Government to dig in its heels.

In the areas of China that colour the country with their different ethnicities there is a certain level of lip service paid to allowing locals to use their own language. But in reality the result of the cultural incursions by the Han is a roughshod standardisation of languages - with the Pu tong hua language topping the charts. Pu tong hua is creeping into bordering countries too and has become language of choice in both the street and in school curricula.

Global water commons

The Himalayas (claimed by China) give rise to all the principal rivers of Asia and form a natural boundary on the south-west just as the Altai Mountains do on the north-west. Countries that share China’s rivers voice strong complaints about uncaring developments that affect the quality of river waters and the rate of flow. What has happened to the Mekong has been well documented; it has its source in Tibet, an Asian-Himalayan country under the control of China.

Along with the strategic military advantages in holding onto the Tibet claim, there are also neighbourly responsibilities which go hand-in-hand. But so far China has refused to join Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam in the Mekong River Commission.

Maybe it is the Communist doctrine that has given birth to a highly materialistic outlook among Chinese Government officials, the military and private sector elite, but certainly roads, dams, bridges, more and more buildings and expanding cities, are this era’s phenomena within China. Notwithstanding that city gardens, parks and lakes do indicate there is an aesthetic side to the Chinese perspective, something that brings meaning into life, despite the strong control of a government with very earthly objectives.

Bridging East and West

China instigates and attracts major infrastructure projects which directly affect adjacent places. One such is a super highway planned to link far away India with China, via Bangladesh and Myanmar. The East-West Highway is attracting huge interest with its promise of other infrastructure projects. While some commentators see great bilateral trading opportunities with China as the fulcrum, others see a one-way flow of goods streaming into lesser capable countries and an economic-cultural dominance. The grand plan envisages rail, road and waterway communications but these themselves are subsumed under an even grander plan for a transcontinental route bridging Xinjiang, Central Asia and Europe.

When it comes to China and the stance of its neighbours, caution is the byword, trade is the catchword. In part two, next week, I shall examine the history and relationships China has on its other borders including Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia.

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Read part two here.



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About the Author

Tony Henderson is a freelance writer and chairman of the Humanist Association of Hong Kong.

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