After doing his masters in economics from Madras University, C V Ranganathan joined the diplomatic service in 1959, and was sent to Hong Kong university in 1960 to learn the Chinese language. Two years later, he graduated with a diploma, with distinction.

He retired from the foreign service in 1993. Of his 34 years in the service, he spent "at least 20 years either in China, or Hong Kong, or in New Delhi, dealing with China."

In between, he has had the "privilege of some interesting posts." Like the number two at the UN mission in New York, number two in Bonn in the former West Germany, and ambassador to Ethiopia, (1983-1985), Moscow (1985-1987, and France (1991-1993). He is also the co-author of a book called India and China: The way ahead released last year.

"That's it," he says modestly, "That covers 35 years of my life."

In an interview to Senior Associate Editor Ramananda Sengupta, he ponders over the lack of trust and confidence between the two giants of Asia and explores the entire gamut of bilateral relations.

How would you describe the current state of bilateral relations?

There's no question that Sino-Indian relations have improved vastly. However, there is still a deficiency of trust and confidence on each side.

India's biggest concern is the quality of relations between China and Pakistan. Particularly China's involvement in the conventional and non-conventional fields, namely nuclear and missiles.

People often exaggerate the existence of differences between India and China on the unresolved boundary question as a major irritant. This is often seen as an issue that poses military threats to India. I don't agree with this view.

Anyone who has followed this question for many years would know that the boundary is not a scene of tension between the two sides' armed forces. Secondly, not a shot has been fired in anger in over two-and-a-half decades, and thirdly, both sides are in reasonable contact with each other to maintain military stability along what's called the line of actual control.

What about the reports that China is attempting to 'encircle' India, referring to its military support to Pakistan and Myanmar?

I feel, that that the trouble with such reports, are that they are rooted in the past. There is some plausibility to such a view.

But if you look at Chinese behaviour, not just towards India but towards the region as a whole, roughly from the late 50s to the late 70s, China's major preoccupation was the former Soviet Union and the USA.

Rooted in this history, the Chinese had a certain view -- and this was a totally wrong view, propagated under the then leadership of China, Mao Tse-Tung -- of India as a camp follower of both the former Soviet Union and the USA, in isolating and in confronting China.

There is no doubt that in the origins of Sino-Pakistani relations, the main motive was a commonly-held perception about India. So through these years, that I've mentioned, the Chinese sought to take advantage of whatever differences there were between India and her smaller neighbours, and sought to exacerbate these differences.

Nevertheless, one shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that the Chinese could somehow substitute the social and economic relations that India had with her neighbours. Whether it was Nepal or Sri Lanka, or Bhutan, the fact remains that all these nations share intimate relations with India, that go far beyond the common parameters of geo-politics and strategies.

So whether it was question of these smaller nations' dependence on the larger Indian economy, or the huge network of social and familial relations, the Chinese just could not substitute for all this.

Nor did they seek to. Nor were they generous, although they did help with some projects here and there.

What happened after the late 70s?

This negative picture changed, largely because of the enormous domestic changes brought about in China. And this was particularly evident in the early 80s, during the leadership of Deng Xioaping. From the early 80s, the main Chinese emphasis was to seek a larger environment of peace, and a peaceful neighbourhood, wherein they could pursue economic development. And also to reconcile relations with those countries with whom China enjoyed bad relations, such as the erstwhile Soviet Union and the USA.

People talk about the visit of Nixon in '72. Of course it was a breakthrough. But nobody should forget that it took almost seven years for relations to normalise, for the US to establish relations in 1979.

So by the late 70s, early 80s, there was a totally different picture, where the main thrust of China's foreign policy was lack of hostility towards the external world, the neighbourhood, as well as the US. At the same time, the Chinese also withdrew their support to communist parties and insurgencies in the Southeast Asian countries: Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, Myanmar.

So there was a total picture of a China willing to pursue a different foreign policy. And India was quick to seize the opportunity of testing this. There was the visit of A B Vajpayee in 1979, as foreign minister, followed by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1988.

Now in India there were several opinions -- that is our strength, freedom of expression -- and there were some critical remarks about Rajiv's visit not contributing towards the boundary issue or other issues. But the fact remains that in the Chinese psyche, the visit is seen as inherently important. It led to a new phase in Sino-India relations.

What about the Sino-Pakistani relationship?

We should be aware that there are quite a few new elements, that seem to govern, what is a visible readjustment in Sino-Pakistan relations. President Jiang Zemin gave the best evidence of this when he visited India and Pakistan in 1996. He made a statement, in the Pakistani senate, that China wants a growing co-operation between the countries of the South Asian region, SAARC. And secondly, if there are differences between countries they should be set aside in the larger interest of co-operating in various other fields of benefit.

Subsequent to that, of course, there was the unfortunate Kargil development. But even there, the Chinese position was not all that different -- eventually, after some hesitation -- from the position adopted by most of the other major powers. Namely that the line of control should be respected, that restraint should be observed by both sides and that India and Pakistan should settle their existing differences, particularly over Kashmir, through dialogue.

This, of course, is a welcome change in the Chinese position and it is to be really hoped that it won't change whatever the strength of Sino-Pakistani relations.

But the Chinese also have to take into consideration certain other elements. These are connected with the way things have evolved in Afghanistan and domestically, within Pakistan.

The Chinese are very concerned about the rise of religious fundamentalism, armed militancy, cross-border terrorism, the spread of narcotics and other things. And on these issues they've developed an institution with Russia and certain Central Asian states called the Shanghai Five, (though there's more than five) to specifically look at these issues, as it affects each of those countries.

And although I'm not aware, whether a similar dialogue takes place in the new institution between India and China, namely the security dialogue, there are clearly common concerns that both our countries face, on very long borders, on these issues.

Then, if you take our other neighbours, the Chinese have been clearly been supportive of the SAARC as an organisation. They are even perhaps disappointed at the very slow pace of regional co-operation envisaged under SAARC.

What about Myanmar?

People very often -- in my opinion, mistakenly -- talk about the close links that China enjoys with Myanmar.

Without going into the historical reasons... some of which are related to the military regimes in Myanmar, it's isolation, and how the Chinese stepped in, as a very close neighbour, to substitute for many things, particularly in the military field which Myanmar could not get from the rest of the world... However, the Chinese do not view Myanmar as an exclusive zone of Chinese development. Neither do the Myanmarese view themselves as a country which should become solely dependent on China.

An example of what I'm saying is the recent successful visit of our own foreign minister to Myanmar, where he handed over a road, constructed by India, along the north-eastern border of India stretching into Myanmar.

At a purely academic level, I myself have been associated with discussions where delegations from the southwestern-most province of China, that is Yunan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and India participated.

The first round was held in the capital of Yunan, Kunming, in August 99, and the second round was held in Delhi in December 2000.

What was this about?

The effort of this academic exercise is to identify the great advantages in establishing connectivity between the four countries. This would include land routes, air, and inland waterways. And through such connectivity, to look at the prospects of trade, investments, and cultural flows. This is clearly the desire of our Northeastern states also, and there has been great enthusiasm to this exercise from our NE states.

At the same time, under the UN auspices, there's talk of an Asian highway, an Asian railway, and considerable work has been done on working out feasible routes and the obvious advantages. On of the reasons for China's spectacular growth has been the way it has opened itself up for cross-border communications, trade and investments.

Of course, Hong Kong and Macao, which are now parts of China, contributed greatly to this process from the early 80s. But even when there is political hostility, say between an entity like Taiwan and China, there have been Taiwanese investments in China, and indeed the scale and quality of such investments has vastly grown, even in 21st century terms.

Similarly, the boundary between China and Russia is largely a soft one. The same goes with Central Asia and some states of China. The Chinese have built railways from their Pacific coast stretching into Central Asia through Xinkiang, which will connect to the Russian railway system, linking them to Europe.

Similarly, the border between Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and China is an open one. There's a land route.

Overland trade between India and the autonomous region of Tibet in China has also resumed, although the quantity is not particularly high. Therefore, to talk about India being surrounded is a bit of an exaggeration and such characterisations do not gel with the times. I'm afraid such talk is the relic of a Cold War mentality, and it is high time that we get out of it, and capitalise on the new opportunities, and optimise what is undoubtedly advantageous to our own growing economy, both new and old.

I'm not underestimating the difficulties -- you will have all the undesirable features of softer borders: narcotics, crime, spread of AIDS, armed terrorism by dissatisfied elements. But the way to tackle these social and other types of criminality is also to open up opportunities for social and economic developments.

But India seems to be citing security reasons against this...

In India, there are a variety of opinions. We sort of mentally shut out everything by citing security reasons, and I'm afraid this goes back to the Cold War mentality. But we need much more imagination, much more investments. Undoubtedly there are costs, but there's no gains without bearing the costs.

China has sorted out its border differences with most of its other neighbours, why the 'dithering' over ours?

We need to be objective about this. We need to ask ourselves whether China has really been dithering.

The boundary dispute can only be solved if either side is willing to make territorial concessions, or modify the claims that each side makes on the other.

This process, as far is India is concerned, would require taking public opinion on it, particularly a consensus seeking across various political parties. And obviously any agreement would have to pass the tests of public opinion, as well as that of the Constitution and things like that. Now this whole thing involves a leadership that is willing to boldly face reality and start an internal debate.

It cannot be an issue of party politics, it can't be ruled by an emotional hang over, following the humiliations felt from the 1962 armed conflict, it can't be based on bravado, or false notions of the status of Tibet.

It'll have to based on realistic features such as defensibility, administrative capability, not disturbing settled populations, and in accordance obviously with certain customs, conditions, and geographical features which make for more natural boundaries.

It cannot be claimed that on each of these criteria, our original stand is watertight. Similarly, neither can the Chinese claim be considered watertight.

In any case, this is not an issue that is going to be 'caught' in a court of law. It can only be solved with political give and take, and we need the right leadership and atmosphere for such give and take. In other words in an overall atmosphere of greater trust and confidence, surely the boundary question can be solved.

But what happens until then?

Pending the solution of the boundary dispute, fortunately, both sides have shown maturity in keeping the boundary areas peaceful and tranquil. There have been two agreements, one signed in 1993 and other in 1996, specifically devoted to Confidence Building Measures along the Line of Actual Control. In other words, a de facto, informal way of ensuring peace and stability is maintained. These two agreements give a very formal basis on which the line of actual can be respected by both sides, without any possibility of tension, or even worse, armed conflict.

What happened at the last Joint Working Group meeting held here recently?

It was a step forward... in the sense that maps were exchanged, and unless maps are exchanged, each side's perception of the Line of Control won't become clear. Then there was the experts' group meeting and also the security dialogue. These are very good for building up the trust in each other's intentions.

What about the Karmapa?

The Karmapa has not been treated in any distinct way other than what has happened to the 150,000 Tibetans. They are allowed to stay here -- obviously we don't want a situation where they go back and be persecuted -- as long as they don't use our soil for anti-China activity.

There's no doubt that the Chinese have been extremely embarrassed by the fact that he's managed to come across, because he was officially recognised by them, but on the other hand, there's no big deal.

If you'll pardon my saying so, we have many young journalists who don't know much about the background, so these things capture the headlines.

The Karmapa being here is like other Tibetans. But of course, he has a position, and therefore it puts a bigger onus on the Government of India to be careful about his position. It would be tragic if something happens to him, it is an extra burden on our security agencies.

What do you feel about the fact that there while there are at least 35 Chinese journalists, including a television team, in India, there's only a solitary Indian journalist in China?

Well I'm sorry to say that our people seem to be overtaken by a certain sub-culture of poverty, and our owners of media do not invest in stationing correspondents in China because it is costly.

But if we are only comfortable about stationing ourselves in London and the USA and refuse to look at developments in our own neighbourhood, how can you help build a better understanding? Frankly, it is very short-sighted that our media ownership is not going into the investment, that is so necessary to try to understand China better.

This is a deficiency that needs to be remedied, and indeed even on the part of our business circles. Doing business with China is not easy, but how have others done it? Investments, long gestation, long period of getting to know each other, identifying mutual complementary areas... then the market and the scope is huge. But you need to make the seed bed investments. There can be no gain without bearing the costs.

Design: Uttam Ghosh

ALSO READ:
'Narayanan can help improve ties with Chinese'
The President in China
Li Peng in India