China’s land grab and its local estate agents

Yatho –dh- darati nirdata kaksham dhanyam ch rakshti, Tatha rakshen nripo rashtram hanyacha pari-panthina. The Raj Dharma code mentioned in our scriptures prescribe that “just as an agriculturist removes the weeds and preserves the paddy plants, a King must remove the enemies and protect the people”. Be it the partition of Bengal and Punjab, gifting Tibet and Kashmir to enemies or ceding of large parts of the North East to the Chinese, the Congress has earned a notorious distinction of engineering and facilitating such attacks on India’s territorial integrity over several decades, a fact documented by security experts. This piece is being written in the background of Shri Shyam Saran’s report that 640 sq km of Indian Territory is in unauthorised occupation of China as per recent intrusions. Though denials have been issued by the defence minister (AK Antony) and Saran himself, these don’t inspire any confidence in the light of earlier statements and their fragility. While I was researching on this subject a few facts caught my attention.[caption id=“attachment_1098571” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Strained bonhomie. Reuters[/caption] General Giap, a Vietnamese General 20 year ago said that the Chinese dragon is about to fly; when it flies it always scorches the neighborhood; to prevent this the Japanese Samurai must get hold of its snout ; the Vietnamese people will catch the dragon’s legs; but the Indian elephant must hold on to its tail. Thus, the General predicted 20 yrs ago that whenever Beijing is strong it becomes expansionist. To know whether India learnt from history or not, I have chosen to examine the events of the last 20 years or so. After the humiliation of 1962 we virtually abstained from any interaction with China till 1977. Any interaction worth its name started only after the death of Smt. Indira Gandhi in 1984, through Rajiv Gandhi at the helm of affairs. Most prime ministers ever since, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, took a cautious approach in handling Sino-Indian affairs. Interestingly Rajiv Gandhi’s flawed China policies and eagerness to facilitate China compromising Indian interests has its foot prints seen in UPA 1 & 2’s tenure. Despite India-China signing the Most Favoured Nation Agreement trade was as low as $ 2.92 billion till 2003. But in 2011-12 India’s trade with China reached $ 75.6 billion which is likely to increase to $100 billion by 2015. From 2005, the trading ties between India and China have been ever increasing and so have the incursions. The trade deficit with China has become highest in the world which is equivalent to $41 billion. India exports iron ore to China and imports Chinese steel manufactured with Indian iron ore. This is reminiscent of what British did to us for more than 100 years of colonisation, i.e. take the raw materials at lower cost and export the finished goods at higher rates. Chinese usually buy iron ores and commodities at lower prices from India and then use them to make valued added goods and sell them back to India at higher prices. Now they are doing similar to Africa now. Of course this trade relationship favors the Chinese immensely to the disadvantage of their trading partners like India. China is systematically killing Indian manufacturing sector. China has a fixed currency. It is not a market economy like ours. Chinese manufacturers don’t operate under the same laws of economics as their trading partners including india. Land and labour are not an issue for China. We know that when local government decides to build a plant, Chinese peasants have to forego their land. On the other hand, entrepreneurs in India have ghost of Singur haunting their minds .We have taxes on goods manufactured locally, but none on imported products (from China). This is an unfair situation for Indian goods. This is why certain Indian private companies are recommending 25 percent anti-dumping duty on Chinese products. The Indian power companies including government agencies placed huge orders for power plant equipment with China, while ignoring better performing, cheaper & easy maintenance turbines produced by PSU’s like Bhel. China should not be allowed to grow at the cost of Indian companies but unfortunately we are not taking any steps to stop it. The UPA created conditions since 2004 which encouraged Chinese imports of even non essential goods and those which can be manufactured within India. Today, we are importing almost our entire requirement of Television set top boxes from China. Chinese companies and their local agents are minting billions of dollars in the entire Sino-India policy facilitated by Rajiv’s heirs and their supporters. We could have manufactured the same and helped our industry and economy benefit from the same instead of importing from China. We import small things like kites, earthen pots all electrical home fittings etc. from China. While doing so, we are hardly concerned about poor artisans and SME sector. Other surprising elements are the proposal to raise a mountain brigade which is yet to see the light of day as much as an old proposal of 2001 to build border roads. Daulat Beg Oldie, Chumar, City Zap, Ladakh and other bordering regions have suffered incursions from the Chinese but the Indian government appears to be funding the same and is empowering China. If the UPA 1 & 2 is to be squarely blamed for engineering the great Chinese loot, equally responsible are its partners and supporters be it Sharad Pawar, Karunanidhi and the Left parties. If you do not work to address a problem, you are part of the problem. BJP’s majestic isolation among these notorious alliances and interest groups is for all to see. It will endeavor to a template of nationalism which would never seek to compartmentalise and dis-integrate India. Serving family interests, can by no stretch of imagination means serving the nation. China shares its borders with 14 countries; India must befriend those 13 if not all the 14 countries. Since the Chinese have conceded nothing we must look beyond China to contain its expansionist avatar and serve Indian geo-political interests. The author has been a socio-political activist for over 20 years, is a practicing lawyer and national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Views published are personal and do not reflect or are intended to represent those of Firstpost.