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New Delhi, July 25 (IANS) China has formally invited United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi and her “family members” to attend the August 8 inaugural ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. Sources said Chinese ambassador to India Zhang Yan called on Gandhi Thursday at her 10, Janpath residence and handed over a formal invitation from the Communist Party of China (CPC).

“The Chinese ambassador took the opportunity to congratulate her on the UPA government winning a confidence vote in parliament and also handed over the invitation to attend the inaugural function of the Olympic Games,” the sources said.

A number of heads of states and governments, including US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and French President Nikolas Sarkozy have already confirmed their participation at the Olympics’ inaugural.[link]

While China has taken care to invite the formal heads of State and Government from all other countries. In the case of India it has deliberately decided to not invite either the President or the Prime Minister of the country and has instead extended an invitation to Sonia Gandhi and her “family members”. While it is common knowledge that she is indeed the power behind the throne in the current ruling setup and the PM is a mere puppet of hers. This arrangement is India’s internal matter and for all official purposes Sonia Gandhi and her “family members” who hold no official position as ministers or cabinet members are to be considered as private citizens.

China has to go through the official procedures and invite the formal heads of state and government of India which is only when it will be considered as an invitation to India. Inviting a private family is not the same as inviting India to the opening ceremony.

It is unfortunate that nobody either in Parliament or the Media has raised this issue and it is even more unfortunate that the Indian government and the MEA have remained quite in the face of this deliberate snub by the Chinese and have not lodged a formal protest with the Chinese.

When the External Affairs minister Padmashri Shri Pranab Mukherjee landed in Beijing for his scheduled meeting with the Chinese leadership. He found that neither Hu or grandpa Wen could spare any time to meet him. But they instead fixed up a meeting with the newly appointed Vice President Xi Jinping who is currently assigned for dealing with crank cases.

That has left the Indian side including both the MEA and MEdiA quite confused and they are trying to figure out whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.The current leadership shows no inclination to meet him while at the same they arrange a meeting with the supposed future leadership.

Well let me help them out of their stupor. In one short sentence- It is a BAD thing and it is a straightforward diplomatic slap in the face.

Xi Jinping might be the chosen successor of Hu Jintao slated to succeed him in 2012. but the CCP history is littered with the corpses of such “chosen ones”. from President Lin Biao to Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang there are many who one day were on the path to superstardom only to find themselves in a dark dungeon the next day holding their intenstines in their hands and begging for mercy from the red guards just because of one small real or perceived misstep.

Xi knows this very well. So all that Pranab can expect from this encounter is more homilies, platitudes, joint declarations ad hominem but nothing of substance.

And one more thing that has missed the notice of most Padmashri Shri Pranab should have chosen a better day to make his trip to Beijing than preferring to go on the 19th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in an Olympic year when the whole world is trying to use the Olympics as a leverage to pressure Beijing to improve its record on human rights. It is said that diplomacy is a lot about symbolism. The posturing matters just as much as the substance. It is unlikely that the either Pranabda or the babus of the MEA were unaware of the significance of the day.

Now the timing is definitely not an issue between India and China. Most certainly the Chinese would have been just as boorish as they have been today even if the Indian foreign minister had landed on June 6th, 7th or 8th or whenever. it wouldn’t make a dime of a difference.

But where it will come to matter is in the court of International opinion which the Indian diplomats are trying to woo for myriad reasons and especially for their coveted permanent security council seat. For a country that is drumbeating its credentials as the largest democracy in the world to gain a seat at that supposed high table. It matters what message each of its words and actions sends to the rest of the world. This unfortunately has only sent the message that India really doesn’t have any courage of conviction to act on its own professed principles and again when they see the craven attitude of Mukherjee and his ministry in the light of Chinese boorishness it doesn’t raise their confidence that India has the ability to even stand up for its own self. No wonder governments in most world capitals do not take the Indian diplomats seriously.

One another item to add to the long list of inglorious achievements of the UPA regime that will haunt India in the coming decades is helping establish a pro-China regime in neighbouring Nepal which effectively brings the communist sickle right upto India’s heartland endangering its security in ways that will only become apparent as time rolls by.

One of the first acts of the Maoists after seizing power in the recently held elections was to dictate the end of Nepal’s 240 year old monarchy thus removing a sizeable thorn in the way of their ultimate aim of seizing absolute power in Nepal in incremental steps. They haven’t yet disbanded their militia and reports are that they used them extensively to intimidate opposition party candidates and supporters in the recent elections.

In the meanwhile the Maoist leader is on a charm offensive. In an interview with Karan Thapar on Devil’s Advocate he has laid out his vision for the future course of Indo-Nepal relations. It is a very charming interview where Prachanda or Pushpa Kumar Dhamal has tried to make all the right noises and lull his enemies into a false sense of security. In that he has learnt from the example of his predecessors from across the globe ranging from Stalin to Mao to Castro and others on how to charm the gullible left-liberals and use the enemy’s own free media against him. that in itself begs the need to keep an eye out for this hooded serpent.

Read the rest…

Karan Thapar: You always believed that India should stand up to China. How did they receive you when you went to China as defence minister?

George Fernandes: I was well received. The Prime Minister had come to receive me.

Karan Thapar: Breaking protocol?

George Fernandes: I don’t know if it was protocol.

Karan Thapar: I believe he also put his personal plane at your disposal.

George Fernandes: Yes the entire plane was at my disposal.

Karan Thapar: For the full one week.

George Fernandes: For one full week and if I wanted to stay more as long as I stay there.

Karan Thapar: I believe they also tried to make you happy. They put women at your disposal.

George Fernandes: Not in that sense. Some people will think that I had some fun. I didn’t have any fun.

Karan Thapar: But the women were made available. You had three or four women with you all the time – pretty women.

George Fernandes: Yes. When I came back they were waiting at the doors.

Karan Thapar: Whenever you came back they were waiting at the door?

George Fernandes: Yes.

Karan Thapar: So China in other words, despite the fact that you are a critic, went out of its way to make you happy. This is proof that if you stand up to China, China respects you.

George Fernandes:Yes I believe that.

The only problem here is Karan’s Interpretation. He doesn’t seem to have considered the possibility of Honeytrapping. One of the oldest tricks of trade in the spying and subversion profession[link].

Update: An earlier post on Chinese subversive activities targeting important Indian politicians, bureaucrats and business leaders with gifts, bribes and inducements.

The young Mongol knelt “reverently upon the ground” and “with the deepest gratitude”, acknowledged himself “to be a Mongol slave of inferior ability, perfectly unable to repay in the slightest degree the imperial favours of which his family have been the recipients for generations past, he declares his intention of performing his duties to the best of his feeble powers”. He then “turned himself toward the palace and beat his head upon the ground…in grateful acknowledgement of the imperial bounty.”

The above passage is excerpt from an 1878 report in the Peking Gazette and quoted in Jack Weatherford’s book ‘Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World’, giving a glimpse of the ceremony of receiving an Ambassador from a vassal state in the Manchu court of those days.

And this is exactly how future Indian Ambassadors could be sworn in a decade from now at the Chinese court if the recent events are any indication of the path the MEA and its political master the UPA are hell bent on dragging India towards.

The Chinese of course were rude and discourteous enough to summon the Indian ambassador and a lady at that at 2 am in the morning to express their “displeasure” at the scaling of their embassy wall in New Delhi by Tibetan protestors. Now this is something that could have easily been taken up during working hours. And one can easily blame the Chinese for their uncivilized conduct. But what one cannot excuse is the pusillanimous behavior of the MEA in the light of such reprehensible behavior on the part of the Chinese. Not only did the Ambassador meekly turn up at the doorstep of the Chinese foreign ministry to face the music, the MEA did not even lodge a protest at this public humiliation later on!

India was not the only country where the local Chinese embassy was targeted by protestors during the last one week. Protests took place in dozens of countries all over the world. The Chinese embassies were also targeted in New York, Sydney, Paris and Austria. But not one of the Ambassadors of these countries was humiliated in this way. Infact in these cities the incidents were even more violent involving mob violence and in one case protestors scaling the embassy building itself and tearing down the Chinese flag which never happened here.

In all these cases the Chinese expressed “satisfaction” with formal apologies from these countries. Only India was targeted in this manner and this begs an explanation. What is the MEA doing wrong in representing India and its interests abroad?

The Chinese embassy in New Delhi is huge even by the palatial standards of the embassies in the Chanakyapuri enclave. Big enough to host an entire PLA armoured division. There is a huge open ground in front of it and as far as one can tell there are no barricades around the embassy like there is around the US embassy nearby, it is easy for anyone to walk right up to its walls. So the Chinese themselves are not blameless here. To prevent the incident where a small group of Tibetan protestors tried to scale the walls of the embassy the Delhi Police would have had to form a two layer thick human chain all around this huge building 24 hours a day seven days a week in anticipation of such an event which might or might not have happened!

The MEA couldn’t even be trusted to put forth this point forcefully in front of the Chinese and protest the horrible treatment meted out to its envoy and one wonders why? Unfortunately when an incident like the public shaming of the ambassador by a foreign country happens it automatically morphs into an issue of “insult to the country itself” and the people automatically line up behind their man (or woman in this case) .

But in this case this will merely shield the MEA from accountability for its sins which brought about such a situation in the first place. Atleast in this case the Indian public can save their anger and direct it where it should be, not at the Chinese but at their own foreign office. Because the trend since the days of KM Panikkar and going right upto and including the current foreign secretary when he himself was posted there has been for the Indian embassy in Beijing to act as a surrogate for Beijing rather than as a representation of India. No wonder the Chinese, practitioners of realpolitik have developed a healthy disregard for Indian diplomats and treat them as their doormat. This is perhaps what made the difference for an insomniac Chinese foreign office clerk ordered by his masters to find a scape goat among the nearly two dozen countries to trouble early in the morning to pick up the phone and dial the Indian ambassador’s number.

The situation today has many parallels to the situation just before 1962. We have a defence minister AK Antony in the mould of VK Menon, a foreign secretary Shivashankar Menon in the mould of KM Panikker, an Army General Gen Deepak Kapoor, an ignorant and pompous chief in the mould of BM Kaul, and ofcourse the most pusillanimous PM India has ever seen in the shape of Manmohan Singh, a Nehru wannabe to square it up and all this ofcourse in the backdrop of a rapid Chinese military buildup on the Tibetan plateau and increased incursions long the Indo-Tibetan border by Chinese occupation troops just like back in the late 1950s. History repeating itself again as a farce.

The only silver lining is that we have the option of kicking this crowd out anytime within the next one year unlike back in the 1950s when there was no credible opposition party to get rid of that romantic statesman and his rotten core of sycophants.hopefully we get to the polling booth sooner than later.

NEW DELHI: India’s defensive and ultra-cautious mindset towards China has now firmly made its way even to the normally hawkish environs of the Defence Ministry (MoD).

The latest MoD annual report makes it seems that all is hunky-dory as far as the Chinese military threat is concerned, with Beijing even coming in for some glowing mention as an ”important player in global affairs”, proceeding firmly ahead on its ”well chartered out goals”.

It’s not as if the extreme wariness of the armed forces towards China has suddenly vanished into thin air, but the MoD report is yet another indicator of India’s reluctance to say anything to ruffle a prickly Beijing.

China’s hugely aggressive border posture with India is evident from the fact that around 350 cases of intrusions by its troops have been recorded all along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control - right from east Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh to Joshimath in Uttarakhand and Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh - over the last three years.[link]

For nearly five decades the present Dalai Lama, the 14th in line, Tenzin Gyatso has been the most recognised symbol of the Tibetan nation. But the question that after him who is going to take over his mantle occupies the minds of most Tibetans and international observers. At present it seems that it is only the communist mafia in Beijing with a clear succession plan in mind, to simply install their own puppet in his place after his death as they did with the Panchen lama and thus eliminate the most potent symbol of opposition to their continued brutal occupation of Tibet.

China’s plans to seek out and enthrone the next Dalai Lama on its own have been known for well over a decade. Nevertheless, the Dalai Lama admitted that he and his government in exile had really come to no decision about how they would manage the search for and recognition of the next Dalai Lama.

China has long been convinced that the Dalai Lama’s passing will deflate the Tibet issue as an international concern. It will handle the succession process by itself, installing its own Dalai Lama on its own terms. It has done this with a Panchen Lama who is rejected by most Tibetans and has long believed it can now install a Dalai Lama with little regard for popular approval.

In India, the Dalai Lama’s stated uncertainty about selecting his successor, combined with the fractures that lie under the surface of the exiled community, may make it likely that at his passing he will leave a resident Tibetan refugee community adrift. For all of his missteps in dealing with China, the Dalai Lama’s achievement in securing the cohesion and stability of the exiled community is considerable. And he is the most universally recognisable symbol of Tibet. Given what has just transpired in Tibet, China feels that the elimination of that symbol can come none too soon.[link]

Update: Brahma Chellaney on the importance of the institution of the Dalai lama.

Second, if Tibet is to be the means by which India coops up the bull in its own China shop, it has to treat the Dalai Lama as its most powerful ally. As long as the Dalai Lama is based at Dharamsala, he will remain India’s biggest strategic asset against China. The Tibetans in Tibet will neither acquiesce to Chinese rule, as their latest defiance shows, nor side with China against India. If after the death of the present incumbent, the institution of the Dalai Lama gets captured by Beijing (the way it has anointed its own Panchen Lama), India will be poorer by several army divisions against China. To foil China’s scheme, India should be ready with a plan.

To the fattened lards of Beijing and their idiotic apologists in the Indian diplomatic establishment who foolishly rushed the Indian government into officially recognising Tibet as a part of China back in 2005 as a fait accompli comes a sharp reminder that even after six decades of brutal repression Tibet is far from pacified. And if the Communist regime still continues to refuse to negotiate a political settlement with the Dalai Lama, Tibet could well turn out to be the Achilles heel of their carefully constructed “harmonius” society where the cookie will begin to crumble like it did back in 1989.

For a repressed society like China whose regime depends for its survival in successfully enforcing a climate of fear any act of defiance of the regime in any part of the country could easily give the others in other parts of the country with their own grievances the courage to rebel against it. A bushfire that the Chinese regime is very aware of and would want to avoid.This is what exactly happened back in 1989 when months of street protests in Tibet which though later brutally crushed also gave courage to people in the Chinese heartland to also come out into the streets in defiance of the murderous regime and which was again crushed by the authorities in tianamenen square with the very same brutality.

But the China of 1989 is not the same as the China of 2008. In the intervening years China has emerged from its hermetical isolation to being very closely integrated with the rest of the world and it can at this time ill afford to use the same tactics that it did back then to continue to hold onto power if things reach a tipping point and people come out onto the streets again especially if they do so on the eve of the olympics in August.

Because inspite of the breathtaking economic development that has taken place in the last 19 years raising the living standards of millions of people there is no shortage of grievances against the regime in every part of the country. The regime is guilty of illegally seizing land from farmers and homeowners without adequate compensation to build its shiny factories and business parks whose proceeds go onto line the pockets of the communist party bosses. There are periodic protests against such land acquisition in China, The Chinese regime also brutally supressed the falungong spiritual movement and
imprisoned, tortured and murdered thousands of its adherents in the Chinese heartland itself, It has failed to keep the solemn promise it had made to Hong Kong of allowing democratic self rule on the eve of its return to Chinese rule a decade ago and has since then delayed the holding of free and fair elections with universal sufferage there on some pretext or the other gaining the ire of the people there and thus making Taiwan wary of any reunification talks with Beijing.

This entire edifice of fear could come crumbling at a moment’s notice and especially if one group can show sustained defiance of the regime or a considerable period of time. And the Tibetans have a history of doing just that.

And this time comrade Hu Jintao as President may not have the same tools at his disposal to deal with widespread unrest if it erupts now that he had as martial law administrator of Tibet back in 1989. Any act of mass murder whether in Tibet or in the Chinese heartland could seriously backfire by leading to a boycott of the Olympics and also the products with a Made in China label from the rest of the world destroying the basis of the very export led economic growth and perceived “national prestige” that has temporarily pacified some sections of society there.

So one can expect the Chinese authorities to move very carefully till atleast the end of the Beijing Olympics and then seek revenge against its tormentors later.that is hoping that they can somehow put the lid on things till then.

The Hindu, the unofficial communist mouthpiece in India cannot hide its glee at what it calls a “meticulously planned attack” by the Naxals on a police armoury, station and a training school in Nayagarh, Orissa last night which killed more than 14 people and injured many more including many civilians.

Maoists kill 14 in meticulosly planned attack in Orissa 

Nayagarh (Orissa) (PTI): Maoists killed 14 people, including 13 policemen, and took away a huge quantity of arms and ammunition in a meticulously planned attack on a police station, police training school and armoury here in Nayagarh district late Friday night.

A group of nearly 100 maoists, including women cadre armed with guns and bombs launched the attack at 11:00 pm last night, the first attack in coastal Orissa a mere 90 km from the state capital, and a rerun of the March 2006 attack on a sub-jail in Udaygiri in Gajapati district and looting of an armoury in Koraput town earlier in February 2004.

Nayagarh Superintendent of Police Rajesh Kumar said while 10 policemen were were shot dead by the maoists at the police training school, a civilian died after being caught in the crossfire at the Daspalla police station, 30 km away.

The two other police casualties occurred when the maoists, retreating after attacking the Mahipur police outpost shot them dead, the SP said.

The maoists took away all the arms in the district armoury and the police training school in a truck and a hijacked bus.

Landmines laid by the maoists while retreating at Majuriapali near here injured one person.

Very difficult to miss the triumphant language used while recounting the body count of this gruesome incident and the spoils taken away by the marauders. there is absolutely no sympathy for the innocent people killed in the barbaric attacks anywhere in this article by this newspaper. It makes one wonder where the sympathy of this paper really lies? what kind of an India do they envision if they condone violence and lawnessness in this manner? Is this how a “respectable” newspaper should behave in this hour of tragedy?

At the beginning of the 17th Chinese Communist Party Congress Hu Jintao’s protege Li Keqiang was widely expected to be positioned as the next in line to succeed Hu  as President in 2012. But when the Politburo standing committee was unveiled it was Xi Jiapeng who stepped out on the Podium ahead of Li. This was blamed on the machinations of the Jiang’s camp during closed door party meetings to deny Hu the satisfaction of having anointed his favourite disciple as his successor.

But then this reuters report sheds some light into the murky waters of Chinese politics. It was Li’s own background as a Liberal during his college days along with connections to many radical student leaders some of whom  went on to become radical dissidents against one party rule must have given the Communist appartchiks reason to pause. Whatever the rivalry among the two camps of Jiang and Hu their primary goal is to maintain the supremacy of the Communist party rule in China. And surely they wouldn’t want to experiment with someone who could turn out to be a watered down Chinese version of Gorbachev.

So prudence would demand that Li Keqiang be placed in the care of a more reliable Xi Jiapeng. so for all practical purposes barring a major upheaval or some unexpected developments Xi Jiapeng and Li Keqiang will be anointed as President and Prime Minister of China respectively when Hu and Wen Jiabao step down from their posts in 2012.

This shows the trauma that the events of 1988-89 that swept China and the rest of the Communist world has inflicted on the Communists in China. Many of them fear that if they loosen control even a little bit or the blistering economic growth slows down even slightly they could be in danger of being swept out of power, thrown in prison or even possibly killed. that explains their paranoid obsession with what they call social “stability”, “harmonius” society etc… only time will tell how long this farce works out for them. The clock seems to be ticking away furiously for them.