M.D. NALAPAT cautions against the romanticism that led to the disaster of '62. News Analysis in "The Times of India", New Delhi, July 14, 1997

India was amongst the first countries to recognise the Mao Zedong regime in Beijing, and demand that it occupy the China seat at the UN Security Council. There wasn't even a ritual expression of concern on our part when units of the People's Liberation Army moved into Tibet and began Han-culturising the province. And Nehru became a cheerleader for Communist China, in the process further alienating the West.

Jawaharlal Nehru hypothesised that China would never attack India. That Beijing would accept Nehru's choleric utterances about "throwing out the Chinese" for what they were: rethoric. However, the new heirs of the Middle Kingdom wanted to show India its place, and this they did by the 1962 attack. The toy generals to whom a sentimental Nehru had given charge of the front collapsed, and very soon London and Washington were on New Delhi's back, demanding the ceding of Kashmir to their client, Pakistan. A tune that has not changed in these two capitals over four decades.

These days there is once again a new romanticism about China. The problem in this is that, as during the 1950's it confuses the Chinese government with the Chinese people. While the latter are one of the great nations of the world, with a civilization virtually unmatched in human history, the former is a group of political bureaucrats whose chief goal is their perpetuation in office. This they expect to achieve in two ways.

The first is to give freedom to the Chinese people to better their lives economically. While Christopher Patten may daydream about a swelling "democracy movement", the fact is that the emerging classes in China are likely to focus on economic betterment (rather than political freedoms) for perhaps another two decades. So long as the Chinese Communist Party gives the people it rules freedom to trade and produce wealth, they are unlikely for quite some time to oblige the Pattens.

The second prong of the Chinese Communist Party's strategy is to cover itself with a nationalist sheen. The so-called "Nationalists" led by Chiang Kai-shek disgraced themselves by their subservience to outside powers, thus enabling the Communists to grab the nationalist mantle even during the 1930s. While China's emergence as a superpower during the next decade , this protective armour will become even stronger. The carefully orchestrated Hong Kong festivities wree designed to burnish the Beijing regime's credentials as the protectors of China's "Middle Kingdom" status.

While the objective of the "nationalist" chant may simply be to preserve popular backing for the Communist regime, one secondary fallout may be the level of vehemence with which Beijing defends its percieved interests in Siberia and South-East Asia. For at least a decade, the regime is likely to focus primarily on growth. However, as the Chinese people grow more prosperous, the propensity to demand political freedoms will rise. This will have to be met with greater dosage of "mercantile nationalism", in which Beijing follows Washington's example of using superpower clout to generate advantages for its manufacturers. The Beijing regime will have to demonstratively show its efficacy in protecting Chinese interests in order to retain public acquiescence.

In the coming decade China may enter into friction with India over Myanmara. In particular, there may be an effort to get leased a Chinese naval base on Myanmar territory, a development against India's security interests. In the next decade, as China overtakes the US economically, it may attempt to get trade advantages within ASEAN, to the disadvantage of enterprises from other countries. This again will not be in New Delhi's interests: what we need is an ASEAN free of any hegemonic influence.

However, not just in the next two decades but right now China has crafted a major security risk for India by gifting Pakistan its M-9 missiles, now renamed the Hatf-3. The lack of any substantive US action against this breach of the Missile Technology Control Regime indicates that the missile supplied wre in furtherance of a common China-US strategy to "equalise" Pakistan's strike power with India's. As the Brown amendment made clear, Washington will continue to supply Islamabad with lethal technologies even while it tries through its Indian agents to choke off funding for our own nuclear and rocket programmes. Indeed, along with a probe into Bofors, a future JPC should examine how a small group of officials have tried to scuttle India's rocket and nuclear programme, on the grounds that the nation cannot "afford" it.

It is not only that missiles and their warheads make a reliable deterrent against aggression, the fact is that should India make commercial use of the technologies it has developed, an adequate nuclear and rocket programme can be financed from such commercial inflows. Hopefully Yogendra Alagh will make good on his promise to open up at least the nuclear power programme to the private sector. Billions of dollars can be earned if New Delhi were to sell hardware and provide repair and fabrication facilities to the armed forces of friending powers. However, at present key installatons such as the Mazagaon Docks are being deliberately under utilised.

Washington is downplaying the Chinese supply of M-9s to Pakistan. However, New Delhi cannot this time afford to face this threat with its weapon of choice, hot air. The Indian missile and warhead programmes need to be accelerated, even while New Delhi strives through diplomacy for a world that is weapons-free. That China has so crucially harmed India, even while New Delhi ensures (for example) that no element within the Tibetan community here is allowed to undergo arms training, nor are arms supplies allowed through Indian soil, is a repeat of history. Beijing accepts Delhi's tribute without any matching gesture on its part. Indeed, apart from the ISI, some of the Myanmar Bangkok based sources of funding for the North-east militants indicate the reverse. Sadly, just as the Indian Foreign Secretary did not deem Pakistan sponsored terrorism in India to be worthy of mention at the recent Islamabad parleys, New Delhi is unlikely to ruffle China's conscience by launching an international crusade against the lates

t hostile act against India - the so-called "Pakistani" M-9 missile. It is another matter that a future regime in Islamabad may direct these missiles at China, the way the ISI is today active in Xinjiang.

What is needed is the development of a "security crescent" from Korea and Japan in the north to India in the south. This will ensure that the ASEAN region remains free of hegemonistic threats. Neither Japan nor ASEAN appears to have yet realised the need for India as a factor safe guarding their own well-being. However, seeing that even New Delhi has not articulated such a concept, neither ASEAN nor Japan can be blamed. After all who takes hot air seriously, except other gasbags???