Among these the most baffling is the Chinese nod to which Manmohan Singh was treated liberally during his recent mission to Beijing. It could indicate agreement with qualifications, a polite understanding of the visitor’s position, that note has been taken of the proposal to be considered, at a later date, that a response to the problem has not taken shape, that no offense has been taken but the issue too complicated for a simple yes or no. The possible nuances of the Chinese nod can be extended indefinitely. Collectively, the nods can be interpreted as exemplifying Beijing’s basic policy of hurrying slowly.

Public display of optimism, hollow

New Delhi’s gesture on the Great Wall affair has not yet been reciprocated. Beijing will support India at the NSG “consistent with its international commitments”. On the issue of excluding populated areas from any settlement of the borders Beijing has begun to talk of “small, medium and dense” pockets of population with no clue to which of these will be excluded; and the claims to Arunachal Pradesh have not been entirely explained away.
True, China agrees that India has a role to play in the United Nations and the Security Council (SC) but there is in this no endorsement of New Delhi’s case for a permanent seat in the SC. On some of these matters a “yes” may eventually come through, but meanwhile claims of a successful trip give off a hollow sound. Public displays of optimism in New Delhi contrast unfavourably with the quietly qualified Chinese response that hasn’t closed the door to upping bilateral relations.

The Asian Way is no rhetoric

Yet it would be wrong to assume that the PM returned with only a collection of ambiguous Chinese node. The Vision Statement and references to the Asian Way, liable to be dismissed in the West as so much rhetoric, do reflect a larger confluence of interests between the two countries.

It is in bringing this out to the forefront that Manmohan’s mission has yielded some dividends, though qualified again by the implied message that bilateral relations will carry us so far but no farther. The distance yet to be covered which will transform bilateral successes into a real strategic relationship is the challenge that remains. And among other things it is a challenge that confronts both countries with the problem of the border issue.

Renegotiate new borders

The assumption on the Indian side that, given the development of bilateral relations the border issue can be indefinitely kept on the back burner is dangerously misplaced. And whereas Beijing, some decades ago, defined the principle on which it bases its case, New Delhi, mainly for reasons of domestic politics, has failed to evolve an equivalent definition of its own. Chon Enlai has said and his successors have repeated that the borders, hurriedly and arbitrarily drawn by the British, are an unwelcome inheritance from the colonial period. Maps and legalistic arguments are not the answer. It is for the two largest and independent Asian nations to look afresh at these borders and negotiate new ones with mutual “trust and confidence”.

Spadework not done

A footnote is perhaps helpful here to say that overall the impression is that before the PM took off for Beijing the External Affairs Ministry didn’t do the homework that needed to be done. Didn’t anyone anticipate the nods that were doled out in Beijing?

Officially, not binding

Gavaskar has asked a question which many thousands in the cricketing world are asking and which the ICC itself should be asking but hasn’t. Why did Mike Procter accept the version of the Aussies on Harbhajan affair without an iota of evidence to support it? That question is at the core of the eruption of controversies at the SCG and everything else is a diversion from it.

The ICC speaks of a “confict of interests” because Gavaskar is the chief of the ICC cricket committee. But does this tie him down to associating himself, however unwillingly, to a “decision” which on the face of it is outrageous and is related to a matter that is in the public domain? “Conflict of interests” is in effect a directive that anything officially said by a top ICC official is binding on everyone in the governing body. Rather authoritarian from any point of view. The ICC itself is at centre stage, in many senses of the phrase, in the controversies that now dominate the game and will remain unresolved until the ICC does some introspecting.

Too much of judgement

As for the Ganguly affair both the BCCI and the media could help by substituting the word “select” for the tainted words “dropped” and “rested”. A player is selected or not selected on the basis of a number of factors. To be selected does not permanently confirm a player’s status or abilities. Nor does non-selection amount to reflection on his abilities. Ganguly’s omission from the one dayers is arguable and many will agree with Pataudi that it is a gamble. Too much is being made of the difference between seniors with experience and juniors with energy and an uneven talent. Both can at times succeed or fail and if they are sometimes in the team or out of it protests are unseemly. Bengalees backing everything Bengalee have become a bit of a bore.