China – Aggressor on all fronts?

Liu Xiabao

Our northern neighbour – China – is a very sensitive country which readily moves to aggression both verbally and by other means if applicable. The latest tussle is regarding India’s diplomatic participation at the Nobel peace prize awarding ceremony at Oslo on Dec 10, 2010. With Chinese premier Wen Jiaobao due to visit India on Dec 15-17, the Chinese threats hinted at having undesirable consequences on the dignitary’s visit. The Indian government dillydallied for some time in the usual fashion of the Manmohan Singh government, but took a brave and commendable decision at last to attend the ceremony citing that the function was a multilateral one and there were no bilateral issues with China related to the Indian ambassador’s presence during the meeting at Oslo, Norway. China vehemently protested belittling India as a ‘former colonial country which is incapable of taking decisions independently’. Some comment! That too, coming from a nation which doesn’t even know what democracy is and in which the people are simply mocked at by Communist party bosses!

Tiananmen Square Massacre

But why China was so upset over a simple ceremony? The Nobel committee decided to award 2010 peace prize to Liu Xiabao, who is a Chinese dissident, serving a 11-year prison term in an undisclosed prison in China. His crime? Advocating for democracy, no less! He campaigned to allow multiple parties to compete in the elections, which the dictatorial communists are not willing to concede! In China, the Communist party is the sole political group allowed to contest elections, and the people are allowed to vote only for them. With 100% of the votes garnered by the Communists, this party and the Chinese electoral system itself is a blotch on human civilization. Xiabao’s crimes are compounded by his participation in the Tiananmen square student protests in 1989 in which about 5,000 of the unarmed students who were demanding democratic rights which the people in India take for granted, were brutally massacred by the Communist-led People’s Army. The blood-curdling moment involved trampling of students under the slow moving battle tanks which transformed the protest into pulp (literally!).

And what right China has, in demanding friendly terms from India? It is a known fact that China resorted to nuclear proliferation when it transferred the technology to Pakistan to prop it up against India. All of Pakistan’s missiles were given or developed with China’s technology. Recently, it started a practise of stapling visas to Kashmiri people, without stamping it on the Indian passports held by them, in an effort to demarcate Kashmir as a disputed territory and questioning India’s suzerainty on the state. With such big-brotherly attitude, the Indian ambassador’s presence at the Nobel award ceremony came as a sweet reprisal. China may try to learn something about diplomacy for the time being!