INDIA, CHINA MARK 70 YEARS OF DIPLOMATIC TIES

Both India and China have decided to celebrate the year 2020 with large scale functions and fanfare to mark the seventieth anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between the two newly emerged Asian nations, in April 1950. Currently, the situation has changed radically, out of the planned programmes how many can be implemented and to what extent and in what form has become a real question? The unexpected and totally cataclysmic outbreak of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic has upset the calculations and planning of national institutions and the public at large. Hence, it will be very difficult to predict the outcome of the planned programmes and celebrations at this juncture. Yet nobody can deny the significance of these relations in Asia and the world at large.

- M V RAPPAI

However, the real issue will not be the functions and the added news value it brings, but how much these two neighbours can manage and improve their relations. One of the real tests will be how much they can improve their bilateral relations or how much they can reduce the trust deficit among them. Some of the recent meetings between the heads of governments of both nations give a lot of hope in this regard. In India we need to evolve various measures to improve our relations with China, keeping our supreme national interest intact. We need to set new examples in the conduct of our bilateral relations, a new and evolving diplomatic work style is absolutely necessary. We must always keep in mind the old dictum that ‘one cannot choose one’s neighbour’. Both India and China are bound by the Himalayas forever.

It was not an easy decision for the then Indian leadership under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to diplomatically recognise the newly established Communist regime in China under the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong. Within the National Congress leadership itself there where powerful lobbies which opposed India’s decision to formally establish diplomatic relations with the newly emerged nation in its neighbourhood. When we look back, it was the right decision to make, thus globally India became the first non- socialist bloc nation to officially recognise China on 1st April 1950.