New Delhi, June 14: Amid the ongoing standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladkah, experts are of the view that India should rethink and revise its ‘One China’ policy and exploit the geographic, ethnic, and economic fault lines within the Asian giant, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang.
At a webinar jointly organised by the Law and Society Alliance and Defence Capital on the topic, ”Revisiting ‘One China’ policy: Economic and Political Options for India: Hong Kong, Tibet, Taiwan, and Xinjiang,” the experts said India’s non-interference when Tibet was annexed by China 70 years ago, thereby changing its geographical boundaries, has come back to haunt India, since 1962.
In his remarks, former deputy national security adviser and now director of Vivekananda International Foundation Arvind Gupta said ‘One China’ policy was considered as a reciprocity to the ‘One India’ policy.
However, India gave up its influence on Tibet in the 1950s and accept its annexation by China. This situation as far as Tibet is concerned, continued till date.
However, India has taken a flexible approach in the past few years on Tibet, Mr Gupta pointed out, referring to the 2010 India-China joint statement that didn’t mention the ‘One China’ policy, then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s statement in 2014 on the reciprocity on the unity and sovereignties of each other, and the invite to the Taiwanese representative to join the 2014 Narendra Modi oath-taking ceremony.
On Tibet, he suggested that India should be supporting the effort of the Tibetans to have self-rule and should give the Dalai Lama more recognition and position in diplomatic engagements, apart from visibility in India’s political circles.
Along with this, India must begin economic and technological engagements with Taiwan, besides supporting it politically.
He also recommended garnering India’s support to the democratic movement in Hong Kong, even if ”we do not join the western countries’ joint efforts at isolating China in geopolitics”.
StratNewsGlobal and BharatShakti Editor Nitin Gokhale, in his arguments, said China’s actions regarding ‘One India’ policy such as stapled visas to Indian citizens from the states of Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh, denying visa to an Indian military commander who was heading the Army in Jammu and Kashmir and Beijing’s opposition to Mr Modi visiting Arunachal Pradesh, were all reasons enough for India to rethink the ‘One China’ policy.
”Taiwan is the low hanging fruit as far as a rethink on ‘One China’ Policy is concerned. We should think of increasing our economic and technological relations with Taiwan. They are wonderful in electronic chip manufacturing, semiconductors, and 5G technologies,” Mr Gokhale said.
”The world is looking towards India for support. It must not necessarily be in conjunction with the Western countries, but standing with protesters will certainly mean a lot and send a message that India means business – democracy promotion is a game India is well-versed in,
”We should keep talking about Xinjiang at global platforms and try to raise human rights issues. The issue of Xinjiang should be further explored,” he added.
