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Divest aid from dispute

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-20 08:05

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) must rethink its approval of the India Country Partnership Strategy (2009-12).

In spite of the bank's quick denial of any intention to interfere in state-to-state relations, its action has potentially serious political implications. Which is contrary to its apolitical image as a development aid provider, and its proclaimed commitment to non-involvement in member countries' political affairs.

This is not a matter of China versus development aid, or China against aid to India, or against India. But the ADB decision on Tuesday pressed China into an obvious dilemma - opposing the India Country Partnership Strategy (2009-12) may leave the, though misleading, impression that China is against aid to a neighbor it tries hard to befriend; or it accepts an international document that compromises its territorial sovereignty.

China finds the India Country Partnership Strategy (2009-12) objectionable because it includes a $60-million project in what India calls "Arunachal Pradesh," over which China and India have conflicting territorial claims.

ADB sources argued they have no stance over territorial disputes between the two countries. But approving a document based on one side's territorial claim over a disputed area per se may leave people thinking otherwise.

China and India have committed to a strategic partnership. The two share a strategic common interest in harmonious co-existence. But border disputes, legacies of past conflicts, as well as outsider instigation have combined to sow seeds of distrust between them.

That India deployed four Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter-jet, the most sophisticated in the Indian arsenal, to the disputed "Arunachal Pradesh" the same day its prime minister and the Chinese president agreed to seek a fair and equitable solution acceptable to both through negotiation illustrates the tricky ties.

Even the ADB had been unaware of our concern, so it was briefed fully and clearly in March when the document was tabled for review. And now here we are.

As a long-term beneficiary of, and new provider of international development aid, as well as a persistent advocate of aid to developing countries, this country knows too well the significance of such programs. But no aid program should be allowed, or utilized, to serve a political end. Which is also part of the ADB's own constitution.

Yet the bank is threatening to open up an old political wound in one of the region's most influential bilateral relations, and bring unnecessary uncertainty to the region.

The India Country Partnership Strategy (2009-12) is unacceptable, unless it is divested away from the disputed "Arunachal Pradesh."

(China Daily 06/20/2009 page4)