Choose to negotiate

Dialogue with China more useful than raising the temperature

Recent skirmishes on the India-China border in the Sikkim region, leading to the cancellation of the Mansarovar Yatra pilgrimage through the Nathu La route, have underlined the need for a rethink on India’s current approach to dealing with its north-eastern neighbour. The foreign policy and defence establishments, therefore, need to guard against the possibility of the country becoming a pawn in the larger contest between two superpowers, China and the United States. Muscular responses from the army chief about India’s readiness to “fight a two-and-a-half front war” may play well to the domestic audience, but it ignores the urgent need