Just a few days before the Chinese President is due to arrive in India, the Chinese ambassador declares to a news channel that Arunachal Pradesh is a part of China. Typical of the Indian government, there is no strong condemnation of the statement, just a milksop statement that this is just a re-iteration of the known Chinese position. True, but the Chinese never shoot from the hip in diplomacy.This statement to the press at this juncture is a part of carefully thought-out strategy to raise the ante ahead of any negotiations that Hu Jintao may have with Manmohan Singh.We, on the other hand continue to stick to our time-honoured tradition of ad hocism and of dealing with issues only when they explode in our faces.
Pranab Mukherjee, the new Foreign Minister tried to put on a brave face in front of the cameras and said that the whole of Arunachal is a part of India and that there could be no exchange of populated areas. But the damage has already been done. The Chinese have succeeded in setting a cat among the pigeons. There has been no response from Manmohan or from the super-PM, Madame Italiano. The Indian Commies are scrambling for cover & wondering how they are going to justify this Chinese salvo. Till their Chinese masters dropped this bomb, these self-same Commies were pressurising the Indian government to allow Hu to address a joint session of the Indian Parliament, a privilege we hadn't extended even to George Bush! Karat, Yechury & company were also raising Cain because Chinese companies were not allowed to bid for projects in Indian ports or to invest in sectors like telecommunications, etc. for security reasons. Next, they'll want us to allow the Chinese and Pakistanis to design software for our armed forces and our intelligence agencies. After all, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
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