Beyond Kargil: Changing Equations

10 Jul, 1999    ·   224

Mira Sinha Bhattacharjee analyses the visits to China by both Indian and Paksitani Foreign Ministers at the height of the Kargil crisis
June 1999 may go down in history as the month in which three visits to Beijing and a Chinese statement promised to unravel the complex knot of interlocking relationship between India , China and Pakistan . If the June promise holds good, then the consequences will be far reaching, affecting power relations at the bilateral, South Asian regional and international levels.

 

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The visits of the Foreign Minister and Prime Minister of Pakistan had the crisis in Kargil as the spur, and a somewhat attenuated relationship as background. Clearly, both could draw only cold comfort from China 's continued official silence on the Kargil issue. By contrast the visit of the Indian Foreign Minister did not focus on Kargil, though it did feature in the talks. Instead, centrality was given to rectifying the bilateral relationship and, more importantly, to an exchange of views on their role in a post-Kosovo world. Nevertheless, China still kept its silence on Kargil.

 

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Perhaps out of courtesy for Nawaz Sharif, the open statement of Beijing 's 'neutrality' in the Kargil conflict was made only after he had left China . But it is significant that it also came after Jaswant Singh successfully closed the 1998 threat chapter, and restored the relationship to the pre-Pokhran2 level. Taken cumulatively, all this means that Pakistan has to accept the redefinition, if not the end, of that 'special' India-specific relationship with China , that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto crafted in the after years of the India-China border war of 1962.

 

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The Beijing statement clarified what was a worrying ambiguity in the Chinese comments on Kargil, and spelt out what can be taken to be the official government position. Beijing has, for the first time, urged respect for the LoC but has carefully called on both sides to do so. The statement also reiterated Beijing 's known preference for a bilateral and negotiated resolution of the Kashmir problem in the spirit of the Lahore Declaration. This formulation falls short of placing the onus on Pakistan for the present crisis, as India would have liked, for it makes no mention of â??intrudersâ?? or â??intrusionsâ?? across the LoC. Nevertheless the overt support that Pakistan may have hoped for, is absent. On balance, then the political score after the three visits reads â??deuce, advantage India â??.

 

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Beijing has thus untied the knot and all three sets of relationships are now free floating, while the process of creating new equations has only just begun. All indications are that China regards India as a major power and a potentially important player in a putative multi-polar world. The prospects of such realignment and of multi-polarity cannot but reflect on the status and influence of the US . This may be an additional reason for the personal involvement of President Clinton in helping to bring an end to the Kargil fighting. The 4 July Clinton-Sharif agreement came subsequent to the Chinese statement and the recapture of Tiger Hill by Indian forces. Unlike the Chinese statement, the Washington agreement â?? by implication â?? places the full onus for the Kargil crisis on Pakistan . The involvement of Pakistani forces is also, by implication, acknowledged. It placed the primary responsibility for ending the fighting on Pakistan by committing Nawaz Sharif to take â??concrete stepsâ?? to â??restoreâ?? the LoC. Private assurances have been given by Sharif that Pakistan will also use its influence to persuade the Mujahidden to withdraw from Indian territory. In stating that the President would â??envisageâ?? a cease-fire only after these steps have been taken the agreement, by implication, legitimizes continued military operations by India in the interregnum.

 

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For India this wide support is an important but limited gain: it extends specifically only to restoring the status quo ante along the LoC. Pakistan, on the other hand, may have made more strategic gains. Both the Washington agreement and the Chinese statement look beyond Kargil to Kashmir . For both, as for the world community, Kashmir is now inextricably conjoined with the larger issue of non-proliferation and nuclear war and peace. Kashmir and India have also acquired a new salience for the US and China which is likely to increase should their strained relations deteriorate further. The dimensions of the Kashmir problem threatens the bilateralism that India demands and which the international community in principle upholds.

 

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Should the Washington agreement by some rare Sharif alchemy be implemented in letter, in spirit, and on the ground, India will still have to navigate Kashmir related shoals. How it does so, and what innovative solution acceptable to Pakistan it may devise for the Kashmir issue, will play a major role in shaping the strategic equations of the post-Kargil future.

 

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