India, Tibet and China – and the complications of this is something that will engage Indians for almost all times and the problem will now remain intricate for both China and India affecting relations between these two neighbours.
Former Indian Ambassador Preet Malik, given his vast experience in diplomacy has in his essay Nehru’s Flawed Policy on Tibet explained as the title suggests what went wrong. In his conclusion Preet Malik has said that
“China continues to show its aggressive intent where India is concerned, it follows a clear containment policy to keep India focused on South Asia, it adopts a softer tone only to influence India from making any long term strategic commitments to American policies including the Asia-Pacific policies, it is at the same time keeping the economic relationship in the fore front as India is a potentially large market for its goods. India has to overcome the handicaps that the overhang of Nehruvian Tibetan policy blunders have left it to face. The strengthening of India’s defence and infrastructure development against an overpowering position that China has secured through its occupation of Tibet is an imperative that India can only ignore to its own peril. India’s nuclear weapons posture has to be China centric and this has to be developed both numerically and technologically to deter China and add to India’s security architecture. To this has to be added the threat that India would encourage if not directly take up China’s human rights violations in Tibet that is clearly reflected in the close to a hundred self-immolations by Tibetans.”
The essay underlines what we are up against.
Ambassador Malik has lent his more than three decades’ diplomatic experience in putting together this essay. His career took him on assignments to the UN, where he was a Deputy Permanent Representative in the UN (1983-86), where he handled economic issues, given his earlier experience in the Ministry of Commerce (1976-79). His last Ambassadorial assignment was to Myanmar 1990-92 before returning to New Delhi in the Economic Relations division of the Ministry. He retired as Special Secretary of the Ministry in 1995.
Since then he has written several essays on strategic and international issues, notably China.
Nehru’s Flawed Policy on Tibet
By
Preet Malik
Introduction
This paper confines itself to the Tibet Issue as it stood up to the 1949-50 period, as it is essential that people in India understand and evaluate the policy failures that continue to negatively impact on India’s national interests and way lay our playing the role inherent in our being a major Asian power.
The display of aggressive intent by China in the Ladakh region of India along the Line of Actual Control of which the intrusion in the DauletBaigOldi(Depsang) area and the refusal to withdraw by the PLA over a significant period of time is an example of the trials and tribulations that are directly related to Nehru’s policy blunder on Tibet.Thanks to what he adopted as a policy of appeasement on China’s ill-founded claims on Tibet we continue to face aggression by China on our territory as envisaged even under the hazily drawn LAC. It is quite telling that the January 2012 Sino-Indian Agreement on the ‘Establishment of a working mechanism for Consultation and coordination on India-China Border affairs that has been further supplemented by the October 23, 2013 ‘Border Defence Cooperation Agreement’ do not project the Line of Actual Control even on maps. It is clear that the Chinese are keeping all options open and have the intent to keep needling India, trying its patience, to weaken Its negotiating position and forcing settlements that are largely in China’s interests.
As part of this policy of pressurisation it continues to challenge improvements both of infrastructure and the strengthening of the defence profile that would assist India in counteracting the challenges that the China’s military related developments in Tibet pose to the security of India. Then there its constant attempts at needling India on political or developmental issues relating to Arunachal Pradesh and its being part of India. It is worth recalling here that in the Ambassador R.K.Nehru-Zhou En Lai meetings in 1960 Zhou had clearly indicated that they while not “recognising the McMahon Line they would not cross that line and enter Indian Territory[1]”. This is a significant clarification, that contradicts everything that the PRC has done since then including the issuing of stapled visa’s to residents of India’s Arunachal Pradesh and the political protests that they continue to express on visits to that Indian State by India’s leadership including the President and the Prime Minister.
The actions reflected in the statements made by generals representing the views of the PLA are indications thatThe PLA is following a policy that arises out of its perception of India,as a soft power that shies away from confrontation and while it would protest aggressive intent across the LAC adopted by the PLA India would not resort to counter the incursions by the use of force.
China Uses Deceit as a Stratagem to Get Its way with Tibetin violation of The Treaty of AD 821-822
The correct way of looking at the policy pursued by China is that it is founded on the principal of achieving its objectives by deceit that is a basic attribute to its Middle Kingdom make up. Nothing sets this out in all its specifiteas its violation of the sacrosanct Sino-Tibetan Treaty of AD 821-822 that categorically states “Tibet and China shall abide by the frontiers of which they are now in occupation. All to the east is the country of China; and all to the west is, without question the country of Great Tibet. Henceforth on neither side shall there be waging of war nor seizing of territory.” In the chapeau to this Treaty the intent is clearly spelt out that the two rulers (described as the Great King of Tibet and the Great King of China) ‘have made this ‘great treaty’ in order to fulfil their decision to restore the former ancient friendship and mutual regard and the old relationship of friendly neighbourliness.” What this Treaty sets out is the inviolability of the borders or the territories of the two countries that are further described as in a “old relationship of friendly neighbourliness” obviously underlining that they were two sovereign states.
In a subsequent substantive paragraph the Treaty states “ This solemn agreement has established a great epoch when Tibetans shall be happy in the land of Tibet, and Chinese in the land of China. So that it may never be changed, the three precious jewels of Religion, the assembly of Saints, the Sun and Moon, Planets and Stars have been invoked as witnesses. An oath has been taken with solemn words and with the sacrifice of animals; and the agreement has been ratified.”
This treaty underlines the fact that the two nations were in a binding treaty of peace that voided change of frontiers that stood in place in AD 821. More importantly it underscores the fact that these were two independent nation states that by this treaty agreed that violations of their borders or for that matter acts to defend their independence and territorial integrity, covering the two states, maintain that any violation by one party could result in retaliation and that ‘nothing that the other party may do by way of retaliation shall be considered a breach of the treaty on their part.’
This in itself suggests that the Tibetan’s have the right to defend violations of the treaty by the Chinese who are today in unlawful occupation of Tibet in violation of the provisions of the Treaty of AD 821 and that it permits the Tibetan’s under its provisions to resort to any means to defend their territory and to force if possible the Chinese occupiers from Tibet.
Chinese Claims over Tibet based on Falsehood
The Chinese claims to Tibet are based on the false understanding of the relationship that came to exist between the Mongol rulers of China and the presence in their courts of a Tibetan Religious Hierarch. The realty was that this relationship was that of a Guru and his RoyalDisciple and did not in anyway grant China the right to treat Tibet as an appendage or a part of the Chinese kingdoms. It is true that the Manchu rulers came to the support of Tibet when it was under threat from Nepal, but the intervention was at the behest of the Tibetan Authorities and not because it was part of China or seeking a political arrangement with China. It was in fact the Tibetan Guru seeking assistance to neutralise a threat to Tibet of his Royal Disciple who happened to be the Emperor of China.
Britain Adopts the Route of China’s Suzerainty over Tibet To Meets its Own Ends
At this stage what needs to be put in place is the fact the suzerain relationship was put in effect by the British Government as it tried to maintain a balance between Tibet as a buffer state keeping the Russians away from posing a threat to Tibet’s borders with British India and the trade interests that Britain considered a paramount component of its relations with China. However the British Authorities maintained through out that Tibet was an autonomous state exercising all controls of a defacto independent state, with China only having the right to advise Tibet on its foreign affairs.
For British India Tibet was a buffer State securing India’s northern frontiers while also granting India treaty-determinedrights over Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim. Article IX of the 1904 Indo-Tibetan Convention in actual fact recognised Tibet as an independent country that was treaty bound to prevent any external attempts to position themselves on the territory of Tibet and implies that British India would help Tibet maintain that position.
To be precise the British defined Tibet’s position in official terms to Imperial China as follows:
- That HMG formally recognised the suzerain rights of China in Tibet;”
- “Never recognised, and not prepared to recognise right of China to intervene actively in the administration of Tibet, which should remain as contemplated by the Treaties in the hands of Tibetan Administration.”
- While the right of China to station a representative with a suitable escort at Lhasa, with authority to advise the Tibetans as to their foreign relations is not disputed.”
- The British Government was not prepared “to acquiesce in the maintenance of an unlimited number of Chinese troops either at Lhasa or in Tibet generally”
The British Envoy to the Imperial Court at Beijing who spelt out the British position was Sir John Jordan. He reiterated this position in 1909 when he stated that Great Britain “ would not tolerate any attempt to reduce Tibet, who had independent treaty relations with Great Britain to the condition of a province of China and he warned the Chinese Government that grave complications might ensue if the Chinese expedition crossed the frontier into Tibet.”
The Eden Memorandum is Categorical in Defining Trilateral Relations That Followed on The Shimla Agreement of 1914
The matter was clarified in categorical terms in a memorandum addressed by the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden to Dr T.V.Soong the Chinese Foreign Minister dated 5th August, 1943. The Eden Memorandum was in response to Dr Soong querying Britain’s ‘attitude’ towards Tibet. Eden respondingstated, “since the Chinese Revolution of 1911, when Chinese forces were withdrawn from Tibet, Tibet has enjoyed de facto independence. She has ever since regarded herself as in practice completely autonomous and has opposed Chinese attempts to reassert control.” What is more the Eden Memorandum makes the following significant points:
- That the ‘rock on which the Convention (Tripartite Convention between India-Tibet- China of 1914) and subsequent attempts to reach an understanding were wrecked was the question of the boundary between China and Tibet, since the Chinese Government claimed sovereignty over areas which the Tibetans claimed belonged to their autonomous jurisdiction.”
- That in 1921 Lord Curzon as Foreign Secretary of Britain’s Government informed the then Chinese Minister Dr. Wellington Koo, “that the British Government did not feel justified in withholding their recognition of the status of Tibet as an autonomous State under the suzerainty of China, and intended dealing on this basis with Tibet in the future.”
- That in principle they were prepared to “recognise Chinese suzerainty over Tibet but only on the understanding that Tibet is regarded as autonomous.”
- That while India and Britain did not have any territorial ambition in Tibet they were “interested in the maintenance of friendly relations with, and in the preservation of peaceful conditions in an area that was coterminous with the North-East frontiers of India.”
The key elements of British policy that were also the policies of British India were clearly: the stress on complete Tibetan autonomy and a loose suzerainty over it to be exercised by China. This followed the realisation that in actual fact China had no control over Tibet who had refused to recognise the Anglo-Tibet Treaty of 1890 or the Regulations governing trade between India and Tibet that had been worked out by Britain with the Chinese without the involvement of Tibet. The other important aspect was British India ensuring that the Chinese presence in Tibet did not reflect on the position that Tibet acquired as a consequence of the 1904 and the 1907 Treaties as a buffer state for India against Russian ambitions or an overwhelming Chinese position that went against the understanding on the Autonomy enjoyed by Tibet.
Independent India and its Tibet Policy Contradictions Et Al
In what follows we throw light on the problems that we have inherited by the blunderscommitted by Nehru and the Socialist fellow traveller K.M.Pannikar on Tibet It would be justified to treat Nehru’s Tibet Policy as one of appeasement that recognised claims of China over Tibet without questioning them as contradictory to historical facts that spelt of Tibet being a defactoindependent nation and the Chinese claims being imperial in nature in violation of its long standing Treaty relations that were entered into as by both as Sovereign Nations.
There is a mythology built around Nehru and his prowess as a global foreign policy thinker and leader, his conceiving nonalignment as the guiding principle of India’s foreign policy, and the one who defined the core principals that projected India’s national interest. However his policies when placed under the microscope of independent scrutiny fail to meet the real demands of safeguarding India’s national interests in fact he left India facing permanent ordeals that have cost and continue to cost the country dear.
Two outstanding examples of his failures were the Kashmir issue that he without need internationalised and the burden of that failure is continuing to plague India; the other was the Tibet issue where he failed to leverage India’s prevailing position to strike a deal on the borders with the PRC before he acceded to the Chinese claims on Tibet, instead he ended up creating a permanent problem that China continues to exploit. The reality is that Nehru failed to safeguard India’s interests in Tibet and gave up those interests without leveraging them to at the very least have the borders between the two countries defined and settled logically along the watershed principle.
He also failed to support the Tibetan People and their aspirations to remain an independent nation that was being forcibly occupied by a militarily stronger power that was following in the footsteps of colonial powers that both India and China had fought to oust in their national struggles to become truly independent countries disavowing colonialism.
The relations with Tibet that India inherited on the British withdrawal at the time of India’s Independence granted India inherent rights arising out of the Anglo-Tibet Conventions of 1904 that were endorsed by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906. These rights were linked to the projection of Tibet as an autonomous country that had a relationship with Imperial China and subsequently with Republican China that accepted China’s loose suzerain rights over Tibet limited essentially to Tibet’s External Relations. What is more Nehru failed to take into account the strategic importance of Tibet remaining a buffer State safeguarding India’s borders with Tibet. Let us not forget that the PRC not only laid claim to Tibet as a part of China despite its undertaking that Tibet would not become a province of China thus retaining its autonomy but at the same laid claim to Ladakh and the areas to the North of Assam with Brahmaputra being India’s northern frontier thereby claiming the then Union Territory of NEFA that subsequently became the State of Arunachal Pradesh as part of China. These claims were not taken into account by Nehru who was willing to go along with the position adopted by Zhou that these were claims that were reflected on old maps and they would be rectified in due course. Pannikar as India’s envoy to China advised that he was in agreement with Premier Zhou’s views and it was in India’s interests to let this issue alone as the Chinese were not questioning India’s position.
How contradictory was Nehru’s position comes out his treatment of Tibet in 1947-1948 that reflected the understanding in India of Tibet being a “neighbouring country” with whom India had relationship inherited as a continuum of the relations between Tibet and British India; it was in keeping with these relations thatit invited Tibet to the Asian Relations Conference that was held in Delhi in March 1947. Obviously at this stage Tibet was treated as an independent state and was treated as such despite protests by Republican China.
The Treaty Rights that British India had acquired in Tibet were automatically passed on to India on August 1947;this was similar to what happened at the same time to India’s relations with Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim that were inherited from British India. Why then did Nehru take a unilateral decision on Tibet when the PRC was formed and renewed its claim to Tibet that it undertook to enforce through the use of force?It was also completely contradictory the position that Nehru adopted in the case of Sikkim and Bhutan where he refused to countenance any claims that were put forward to those two states by the PRC.
It is a fact that in 1947, prior to 15 August when India secured its independence initially as a Dominion and subsequently adopting a Constitution that established India as an independent republic, Nehru treated Tibet as andefacto independent nation. It is of interest to focus on this aspect and to project what were the driving principles that made him change his mind, to the extent that he failed to support Tibet’s attempt to stand up to the PLA when it effectively occupied Tibet in violation of all its time honoured commitments to recognise Tibet as an Autonomous state that was not a part of China. In 1950 China while playing lip service to the commitment on autonomy colonised Tibet, treating Tibet against all its past commitments as a defacto province of China. On several occasions China had shown that it adopted a pragmatic stance on the issue of autonomy that it reversed in its own interests whenever it felt strong enough to ignore external pressures like the one’s that the British had employed on the subject of autonomy for Tibet.
Nehru perhaps driven by the twin desires of a bilateral relationship with China that would drive Asia back to being central to global power equations and policy formulation, and his feeling that the inherited rights in Tibet being the fruits of colonial policies adopted by British India should be disavowed and there should be no bargaining with China on the shoulders of such rights, only go to prove that the romantic in Nehru overshadowed the reality that was China’s intent to colonise Tibet.
The reality was that the Peoples Republic of China was intent on having its way with Tibet and certainly had no desire to recognise the borders that Tibet had with India particularly as Maoist China saw itself as the precursor of global domination as a Communist country that would ride to the top on the destruction of democratic and capitalist countries. It therefore was in China’s interests to keep India and Nehru in a pliant mood that would not question the PRC’s imperialist designs and actions against China. The irony was that the Foreign Policy establishment at the level of two of the first Secretary Generals had pressed Nehru that pressure should put on China to accept Tibet’s borders with India in keeping with the Shimla agreement of 1914. The only explanation of the contradictions that highlightedNehru’s blunders on Tibet can be derived from his emphasis on the Asia policy and his assumption that China had to be central to his ambitions for Asia. The only other assumption that would be even more dangerous in intent is that he permitted his socialist bent of mind that coincided with two of his closest advisors on China who were effectively communist sympathisers if not card carrying members, they being Pannikar and Krishna Menon. Whatever may be the reality history can not ignore the fact that Nehru was wrong and his Tibetan policy was gravely flawed and was responsible for the aggravations that India continues to remain at the receiving end of China’s actions that are against India’s national interests.
Conclusion
Nehru failed to keep the strategic aspects of India’s interests on Tibet, he did not take the warning that Vallabhbhai Patel provided to him in a letter that is an outstanding analysis of what India was faced with as a result of the Chinese invasion and forcible occupation of Tibet. His warning that this posed a security threat to India and the need to strengthen India’s defences and armed forces fell on deaf years. Nehru also failed to take into account the schemata that underlay British policy and the eventual adoption by it to force China’s hands in order to secure India’s borders with Tibet and to re-enforce Tibet as a buffer state that would have secure borders with China and would retain its defacto independence. Nehru permitted either his socialist leanings or his romantic conception of a China that along with India would restore Asia to its past position as a global power that would secure international peace and security, to overcome the need to secure India’s borders against occupied Tibet. It is ironical that while he let Tibet down by not standing up for its independence, refused in the process to support Tibet’s attempts to bring the UN in as a party that would secure Tibet from China’s occupation, or took up the issue of human rights violations by China in Tibet, in contradiction to these positions permitted support to the Khampha revolt and permitted the Dalai Lama to remain in India. Logically, given the view that he had refused to stand up to the rights in Tibet that he had unilaterally given up he should have refused to let the Dalai Lama enter India. Instead he was officially received and escorted to safety in India. All of this only goes to show that Nehru had sensitivity but was a bundle of contradictions who allowed his role as a global leader to overshadow his responsibilities to the security, the strategic interests and the defence of India against a aggressive and authoritarian China that only understood power but not logic or clever negotiating skills as a substitute for safeguarding a nations interests.
China continues to show its aggressive intent where India is concerned, it follows a clear containment policy to keep India focused on South Asia, it adopts a softer tone only to influence India from making any long term strategic commitments to American policies including the Asia-Pacific policies, it is at the same time keeping the economic relationship in the fore front as India is a potentially large market for its goods. India has to overcome the handicaps that the over hang of Nehruvian Tibetan policy blunders have left it to face. The strengthening of India’s defence and infrastructure development against an overpowering position that China has secured through its occupation of Tibet is an imperative that India can only ignore to its own peril. India’s nuclear weapons posture has to be China centric and this has to be developed both numerically and technologically to deter China and add to India’s security architecture. To this has to be added the threat that India would encourage if not directly take up China’s human rights violations in Tibet that is clearly reflected in the close to a hundred self-immolations by Tibetans.
By Former India Ambassador Preet Malik
[1]Taken from the book ‘My China Years’ 1956-88 page 100 by K. Natwar Singh
