World Tibet Network News

Published by the Canada Tibet Committee

Sunday, July 4, 2004

http://www.tibet.ca/en/wtnarchive/2004/7/4_4.html

Kowtowing to Beijing: a note on the Panchsheel 'celebrations'

Claude Arpi

The Chinese can rewrite the history of relations between India and China with great facility and strangely nobody protests in India. Even the Indian Ministry of External Affairs seems to have been fooled by the change of the dates of the first proclamation of the Panchsheel philosophy.

What are the facts?

An "Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet region of China and India" was signed by Chang Han-Fu, the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China and Nedyam Raghavan, the Indian Ambassador to China in Beijing on April 29, 1954.

The preamble of the Agreement on Tibet contained the famous Five Principles; it was later dubbed the "Panchsheel Agreement". It was valid for 8 years and lapsed on June 3, 1962. It was not renewed by Nehru who in 1962 had begun to understand that he had been fooled by his 'brother' Zhou Enlai.

Beijing has now changed the date of the Agreement from April 29 1954 to June 28.

June 28 2004 has been declared to be the 50th anniversary of Panchsheel by Beijing and Delhi followed suit without checking its own records.

But let us take a look at what has exactly happened in 1954 and what are the likely motives behind this 'smart' move?

In June 1954, on his way back from the Geneva Conference, Zhou Enlai stopped for a few days in Delhi. > From June 21 to 26, he had 5 long sessions of talks with the Indian Prime Minister, mainly discussing the situation in Indochina and the progress of the Geneva Conference.

At the end of Zhou's stay in India (June 28), both parties decided to issue a Joint Statement (as it is usual after any bi- lateral talks). In this communiqué, the situation in Indochina was reviewed and the importance of the Five Principles was reiterated.

Cleverly, Beijing has used the date of the Joint Statement and unilaterally decided to fix the beginning of the Panchsheel policy to this date.

By postponing the real date, the Chinese leadership avoids embarrassing questions on the total failure of the Panchsheel Agreement. Not only did Tibet lose its independence (for the first time in the Agreement, Tibet was termed as "Tibet's Region of China), but as Zhou was leaving Delhi for Rangoon and Beijing (on the night of June 28), the first recorded intrusion of the People's Liberation Army on Indian territory occurred in Barahoti (South of Shipki-la border pass in Uttaranchal). This incident triggered the exchange of a voluminous correspondence between the two governments. It was the beginning of the end of the grandiose principles of peaceful co-existence, mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty and non-aggression and non-interference in each other's internal affairs. Hardly two months had elapsed since the signature of the Panchsheel Agreement.

The reasons why Beijing conveniently has changed the dates of the Panchsheel could be many:

1- Probably the NDA government was not keen to 'celebrate' in a grandiose manner the Panchsheel which was a disaster for India (and for Nehru).

2- Beijing did not want to remind the world that the Panchsheel Agreement lapsed on June 3, 1962 and was never renewed.

3- By changing the date, Beijing avoids to reopen the thorny Tibetan question, particularly the India-Tibet relations (the Panchsheel Agreement was only on this subject) and the fact that legally the trade regulations between India and Tibet lapsed in 1962 and were never replaced creating a vacuum.

4- The Dalai Lama's Administration is soon scheduled to begin informal negotiations with Beijing. By brushing the Panchsheel Agreement under the carpet, the Chinese government believes that they may avoid giving the minimum autonomy demanded by the Tibetan people, which was (in a small way) acknowledged by the Panchsheel Agreement.

5- Today, the grand celebrations are useful for Beijing new campaign on the "Peaceful rise of China". Fifty Years ago, the Five Principles, (primarily the Principle of non-interference) was useful to counter a possible US intervention in Indochina. In both cases, it is obvious that Beijing first considers her interests, friendship with India is not a factor.

6- In 2004, as in 1954, Beijing needs time to develop proper communications in Tibet. On June 27, in a special report, the People's Daily announced "the historical moment for Tibet came at about 11:30 am on June 22, when two 25-metre-long rails were laid at the Amdo Station, some 440 kilometers from Lhasa, at the foot of the Tanggula mountain range in Amdo County of Tibet." In 1954, the Tibet-Xinjiang Highway cutting across the Aksai Chin had just started; Beijing needed time to complete the road 'to secure her borders". The Five Principles provided the necessary time. Today the insistence on the Panchsheel and on the "peaceful rise of China" will provide Beijing the time to complete the railroad in readiness for any eventuality.

Will history repeat itself?

One should also point out another irony: during the months when the negotiations for the Panchsheel Agreement were going on in Beijing (December 1953- April 1954), it was the Chinese side which did not want to include the Five Principles in the Agreement. They could not see the point Nehru wished to make with these 'vague' principles. They rightly held that the Panchsheel were basic ordinary principles regulating diplomatic relations between nations, nothing more.

It is only on India's persistent insistence that the Principles were incorporated. Today, the Chinese press claims that Zhou Enlai initiated the Five Principles. One more 'rewriting' of history!

And worse of all, nobody seems to be bothered by all this in India.

PS: To thank India for its kindness, the day of the celebrations, China declared that "it was not in favour of welcoming India and Pakistan into the five-member exclusive nuclear club and hoped the international community would stick to principles of Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty as well as the spirit of the UN Security Council resolution passed soon after the South Asian nuclear tests of May 1998."

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