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B.Raman’s response to Ananth Krishnan

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?261359

AUG 17, 2009

OPINION

An op-ed in

The Hindu

says the controversial Chinese article'China Should Break Up The Indian Union' was 'translated and analysed with some significanterrors'. Really?

B. RAMAN

Normally, I do not pay serious attention to reports and articles on China carriedby

The Hindu

of Chennai. But I did take notice of an article titledDoes Beijing Really Want To break Up India? carried by

The Hindu

in its Op-Ed page onAugust 17, 2009, for two reasons. Firstly, it tries to cast in a negative light theChennai Centre For China Studies, which has been closely monitoring theChinese language press and bringing interesting, significant or worrisomewritings to the notice of the Indian readers. I have been given to understand thatin recent months the Chennai Centre has been blacklisted by the Chineseauthorities and I was intrigued to notice that the article reflects some of thearguments used by the critics of the Centre in China.

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The second reason is thatthis article tries to cast doubts on the credibility of an article titled'China Should Break Up The Indian Union',written by Shri D.S.Rajan, of the Chennai Centre onAugust 9, 2009.

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This article has been written by Shri Ananth Krishnan, whohas recently taken over as the Beijing correspondent of

The Hindu

. One does notknow his background and credentials as a China analyst. It is important for thereaders to have some idea of the credentials of Shri Rajan. Before the Sino-Indian war of 1962, the government of India was largely dependent on the mediamonitoring agencies of the UK and the US for monitoring and analysing thewritings and broadcasts of the Chinese language media. After the war, thegovernment of Jawaharlal Nehru realised that it was unwise to totally depend onthe Chinese media monitoring and analysis services of the West and decided tobuild up our own capability. In the years following the 1962 war, a crash drivewas undertaken by the government to recruit and train a group of young peoplefresh from the universities in the Chinese and Japanese languages and makethem responsible for monitoring and analysing the Chinese and Japaneselanguage media.

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Shri Rajan was one of those thus recruited and trained bybeing sent abroad for improving his proficiency. Shri Rajan, who is now 67 yearsold, had spent about 35 years as a Chinese analyst by monitoring writings in theChinese and Japanese language media. Of these 35 years, he had spent threeyears in Hong Kong when it was a British-administered territory, three years inChina and six years in Japan in two spells. During his service, he was associated

with the visits of a number of Chinese delegations to India as well as with thevisits of a number of Indian delegations to China.

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Shri Rajan's article has eightparagraphs. The first paragraph gives Shri Rajan's comments on the web sitewhich carried the article. The last paragraph gives Shri Rajan's assessment of the article. The remaining paragraphs are a gist of the contents of the article. Thefirst paragraph on the background of the Chinese article says:"Almost coinciding with the 13th round of Sino-Indian border talks (New Delhi,August 7-8, 2009), an article (in Chinese language) has appeared in Chinacaptioned “If China takes a little action, the so-called Great Indian Federation canbe broken up” ( Zhong Guo Zhan Lue Gang, www.iiss.cn , Chinese, 8 August2009). Interestingly, it has been reproduced in several other strategic and militarywebsites of the country and by all means, targets the domestic audience. Theauthoritative host site is located in Beijing and is the new edition of one, which sofar represented the China International Institute for Strategic Studies(www.chinaiiss.org)."Shri Ananth Krishnan says in his first paragraph: "The post was translated andanalysed with some significant errors..." One would have lauded Shri Krishnan if he had specified these errors so that one could have stood corrected. Were theerrors in translation or analysis? Shri Krishnan is silent on this question. If theerrors are in translation and if Shri Krishnan's command of the Chinese languageis better than that of Shri Rajan, why does he not specify them?

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What has ShriRajan said in his analysis of the contents of the article:"The Chinese article in question will certainly outrage readers in India. Itssuggestion that China can follow a strategy to dismember India, a country alwayswith a tradition of unity in diversity, is atrocious, to say the least. The write-upcould not have been published without the permission of the Chinese authorities,but it is sure that Beijing will wash its hands out of this if the matter is taken upwith it by New Delhi. It has generally been seen that China is speaking in twovoices – its diplomatic interlocutors have always shown understanding duringtheir dealings with their Indian counterparts, but its selected media is pouringvenom on India in their reporting. Which one to believe is a question confrontingthe public opinion and even policy makers in India. In any case, an approach of panic towards such outbursts will be a mistake, but also ignoring them will proveto be costly for India."What is wrong in this analysis? In the 1950s, a number of maps of the Indo-Chinese border started circulating in China and appearing in sections of theChinese media. The Indian intelligence rightly brought these to the notice of Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister, who took up the matter with Chou En-lai, his Chinese counterpart. He assured Nehru that these maps were circulatedby private individuals and had been prepared by the Taiwanese before 1949. Hetold Nehru that India should not worry about them. Nehru was shocked beforethe 1962 war when the Chinese used the very same maps, which Chou haddescribed as not official, for claiming large parts of Indian territory and occupying

much of it. Today, it is on the basis of the very same maps which the Chineseportrayed as not official that they are claiming Arunachal Pradesh as Chineseterritory.

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Was Shri Rajan mistaken in sounding a word of caution that while "anapproach of panic towards such outbursts will be a mistake, but also ignoringthem will prove to be costly for India"? This was a sound word of caution basedon our past experience of dealing with China. I leave it to the readers to decidewhat they will believe -- Shri Rajan's word of caution or Shri Krishnan's soothingwords on China?

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Shri Krishnan also writes:"The post in question appeared in an important-sounding web site calling itself the International Institute of Strategic Studies (which has no relation to theLondon-based think-tank of the same name). The Chennai Centre For ChinaStudies, which first translated and analysed the post before it was circulatedamong the Indian media, assumed that this was a Government-sponsored think-tank and also wrongly claimed that this was linked to the China Institute For International Starategic Studies (CIISS), a Beijing think-tank. But a quick-checkrevealed that the IISS web site where the post appeared actually has nogovernment ties and is by no means an established Beijing think-tank---it is just aweb site."Dear Mr.Ananth Krishnan, where has the article said that this was a Government-sponsored think-tank? Where has it claimed that this was linked to the ChinaInstitute For International Strategic Studies? Mr Krishnan, we know more thanyou probably do about the China Institute For International Strategic Studies,which is a highly reputed think tank of the Chinese Defence Ministry. Its chief isgenerally a senior retired officer of the People's Liberation Army. Its past chiefsand scholars had visited India. Shri Rajan had interacted with it during his stay inChina. Where is the question of Shri Rajan confusing the web site with thisprestigious think-tank?

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Following the uproar in Indian non-governmental circlesover the contents of the Chinese article, there was a damage-control exercisemounted by Beijing through the owners of the web site in question as well as aformer Chinese Ambassador to India and others. Many of us were in receipt of e-mails from Beijing making some of the same points which Shri Krishnan hasmade in his article, which I am inclined to see as part of this damage controlexercise.

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Shri Rajan had drawn attention to this anti-India web site as early asNovember 27, 2006, immediately after the visit of President Hu Jintao to India inan article which can be found athere. He was also the first to draw attention in2006 to the fact that Chinese writings had started referring to Arunachal Pradeshas "southern Tibet" and not as Arunachal Pradesh. One was told at that time thatthese were all private writings, that China was changing and that non-governmental views in China no longer necessarily reflected the governmentalview. We know the reality today.

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It is a fact that some sections of our mediawent to town with Shri Rajan's article and sensationalised the contents of theChinese article, but the concern in large sections of the Indian civil society over the implications of the theme of the Chinese article is understandable if oneremembers the fact that China before 1979 had trained many of our Nago and

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China Breaking India

Ananth Krishnan's op-ed on China's intentions towards breaking up India deserves to make it to "Hall of Shame". B.Raman's rebuttal of Ananth Krishnan's op-ed in The Hi... (More)

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