Di era global village ini perselisihan antara negara sungguh tidak perlu
diselesaikan dengan senjata lagi..
Dan serdadu itu sungguh tidakada gunanya lagi.
Bikin susah aja dan ngabisin duit.
---
China and India's smoldering problem
By Jonathan Levine, Special for CNN
May 20, 2013 -- Updated 1315 GMT (2115 HKT)
Chinese premier goes to India
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Chinese premier makes first foreign trip since taking role to India
* Visit comes weeks after Chinese troops crossed the border into India
* Two countries have been involved in a land dispute for more than a
century
* Analyst says there's no appetite for a fight between the two most
populous nations
Editor's note: Jonathan Levine is a freelance journalist and contributing
analyst at the geostrategic
consulting firm Wikistrat. He is a frequent China commentator for
leading international news sites and also works as a lecturer of
American Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing. You can follow him
on Twitter
@LevineJonathan.
Beijing (CNN) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is in
India on his first foreign trip since assuming the post and has begun
diplomatic talks at a delicate time for the world's two most populous
nations.
Just weeks ago, the world witnessed the latest chapter in one of Asia's least
understood disputes when soldiers from China's People's Liberation Army crossed
the border
and set up an encampment in the mountains at the edge of the Indian
region of Ladakh.
The troops have since
withdrawn, but the incident served as a stark reminder of the smoldering
problem that still bedevils the Asian behemoths.
The origins of the
struggle for this charged corner of the world lies in the realpolitik
and imperialism of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Jonathan Levine
According to a report by
the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, the British, installed
in their Indian colony, attempted to demarcate their holdings with the
"Johnson Line."
CNN iReport: Indians protest China's incursion
Drawn by the surveyor,
William Johnson in 1864, it claimed the area known as Aksai Chin as part of
India's Ladakh territory. The British later repudiated the line and, in 1899,
replaced it with the Macartney-MacDonald line. The new line
moved Aksai Chin back to China.
Disputed islands buzzing with activity
Huntsman: China, U.S. interests aligned
Richardson: China could fix Korea crisis
After World War I, the
British reversed themselves again, placing Aksai Chin back in India, but never
made any effort to exert formal authority. In 1947, newly
independent India drew their border to reflect the more generous Johnson Line
even though they had not exerted an iota of control over Aksai
Chin for almost half a century.
The Ladakh incursion puts a wrinkle on what seemed to be a burgeoning era of
Sino-Indian
bonhomie. In recent years, both nations have bent over backwards to
demonstrate their mutual good will.
Bilateral trade is
expected to hit $100 billion by 2015, joint military exercises were held last
year (after previously being suspended) and both sides had agreed
to respect a more favorable boundary for China known as the "Line of
Actual Control."
READ: Does upsetting China matter?
But China's recent advance beyond the de facto border is hardly without
precedent.
According to The Times
of India, China has violated the LAC more than 500 times since 2010.
Though experts have described many of these transgressions as "routine," and
regular military contact exists between the two governments, any
"mistake" that were to occur by the Chinese army on Indian soil could be
volatile. Particularly in China, journalist-stoked jingoism can turn
even the most banal activity into an absurd ballet of face-saving.
Far-fetched? In 2002,
American soldiers in South Korea accidentally ran over and killed two
14-year-old girls. The Yangju Highway Incident, as it became known,
sparked a fury of anti-American protests and severely tested the
U.S.-Korea relationship -- and America was there legally. How would
India and China resolve a similar incident?
READ: Why America and China can't trust each other
"Mistakes can be made,"
said Anil Gupta, professor of strategy & globalization, at the
University of Maryland at College Park and co-founder of the China-India
Institute. "However, I do not believe that either China or India is
looking for a fight." Gupta stressed that China's latest incursion
should be seen in a regional context as a test of "muscle-flexing" and
that its actions were not indicative of any real desire to acquire new
territory.
Muscle-flexing or not,
what is certain is that in recent years China has become a very bad
neighbor. Their Indian claims extend over a 6,530-kilometer (4,057-mile)
border, which includes a sizeable chunk of the Indian state of
Arunachal Pradesh and large swaths of Bhutan. In the last year the world saw
the strident revival of China's long dormant claim to the
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, as well as a string of others extending as far
south as the James Shoal, a mere 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the
Malaysian coast.
Mistakes can be made. However, I do not believe that either China or India is
looking for a fight
Anil Gupta, China-India Institute
While the risk of
conflict between China and India will always remain until a final
resolution is reached, going forward, there are reasons to believe that
the two sides will be able to continue on a relatively peaceful track.
China's relationship
with India is far more benign than its one with their other regional
antagonist, Japan. The 1962 Sino-Indian war, fought for this very
territory, is all but forgotten among Chinese citizens, while memories
of Japanese hostilities during World War II are as raw as ever. As the
Sinologist Susan Shirk reported in her book: "China: Fragile
Superpower," China's relationship with Japan is highly sensitive and
thus subject to the counterproductive impulses of popular nationalism.
By contrast, China's relations with India stir no such emotions and are
handled out of the spotlight with greater room to maneuver.
Economics too will
likely promote cooler heads. As Gupta noted, India's importance to China will
only increase as India's economy grows. As a market for exports
and investments, he predicted that India would become an invaluable
partner. "I see the next five years as high risk," said Gupta. "Then I
think we can all be a lot more relaxed."
Unfortunately, it
remains a truism that facts on the ground often move faster than
governments' ability to respond to them. In the absence of a resolution, the
world can only hope that India and China succeed in kicking their
differences down the road indefinitely, because if their dispute ever
does come to a head, the consequences could be catastrophic.
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.
Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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