By IANS,
New Delhi : Raising the spectre of an “aggressive” China, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday asked the government to forge relations with influential international players who could help India in case of a confrontation with Beijing.
The BJP also accused the government of misleading the country over reported Chinese incursions and said India is facing a 1962-like situation when China fought a war with India.
“In the last 2-3 years, we have seen an aggressive China. In the Nuclear Suppliers Group, China opposed India tooth and nail,” senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said while opening the debate on India-China relations on behalf of the opposition in the Lok Sabha.
As examples of increasing Chinese aggressiveness, Joshi cited Chinese opposition to a loan from the Asian Development Bank on grounds that a part of it was meant for a project in Arunachal Pradesh, India’s northeastern state which is claimed by China, and Beijing’s proliferation of sensitive technologies to Islamabad.
Asking the government to formulate a long-term policy, the BJP leader contended that the US and China had been quietly developing an economic and strategic relationship all these years.
“But we ignored this, and as a result we could not make any long-term China policy,” he said. “China and the United States will eventually divide the world between themselves.”
“My apprehension is whether the US will come to India’s rescue if some parts of India is encroached by China,” Joshi said.
“People of Ladakh are saying Chinese incursions are taking place. But why do you want to mislead the country?” Joshi asked in the Lok Sabha.
“I have apprehensions that we are in the same state as in 1962,” Joshi said.
“My question is whether the country is safe or not? The entire country wants to know it,” Joshi said.
Joshi said China also protested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh and Tibetan leader Dalai Lama’s Tawang trip on grounds that Arunachal Pradesh is a disputed territory.
Shiv Sena member Anant Geete also raked the China threat and asked the government to upgrade its capabilities to deal with the challenge. “We should not appear harmless,” he said.
The BJP’s criticism of the government’s China policy comes weeks after the prime minister said that there was Chinese assertiveness for some time which India regarded as a matter of concern.
The government had downplayed reported incursions that dominated headlines a couple of months ago, and said these took place due to differences in perception about the Line of Actual Control between India and China.
India and China have held 13 rounds of negotiations to resolve their border dispute but there has been no significant progress so far.