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Hissing Dragon-Squirming Tiger:
Comparisons, Negotiations
and Attitudes continues .....
The fifth perceptual problem relates to the ‘package deal’ or ‘composite process’ versus the ‘sector-by-sector’ approach.
These two separate methodologies for resolving the boundary dispute have a see sawing history of their own. In 1960, when China’s Premier Zhou Enlai came to Delhi with a pre-declared visit of six days duration, he had obviously come to make a final settlement.
The Chinese government at that time had favoured a ‘compromise settlement’ involving both the disputed western and eastern sectors, which they considered entirely reasonable and fair to both sides. The western sector was then of greater importance to China while the eastern sector was of greater importance to India. Nehru scuttled the possible ‘package deal’ by his intransigence.
At that time India wanted a ‘sector by sector’ approach, evidently so as not to compromise on its own stand in any other sector.
Since then, whenever India has even mentioned a ‘compromise solution’, China has brought up its mantra of ‘patience’ and of leaving ‘contentious disputes to future generations to take care of “historic problems”, or ‘you cannot eat a bowl of rice all at the same time; you have to eat it mouthful by mouthful’. The Chinese aim in these situations has been to let the process deliberately drag on, while ‘ongoing peaceful negotiations’ can be maintained for public consumption. At such times, India’s earlier ‘sector by sector’ approach has then become their favoured approach.
Recognizing that ‘officials talks’ under whatever name (e.g., ‘Joint Working Groups’) can never resolve the given underlying perceptual problems, both in the diplomatic or ‘legal’ sphere, or in the technical or ‘maps’ sphere, so-called ‘political representatives’ were appointed by both sides in 2003. This was supposed to have provided a breakthrough in the deadlock over the ‘fine print’. But again, this has merely been a question of upgrading the level of the official heading the ‘negotiation’.
To be continued....