736 { China’s Quest
of the developing countries, worsening terms of trade, inadequacy of
financial flows and obstacles to technology transfers.^1
Beijing’s Third World narrative had considerable appeal in India in the
1990s. This worldview corresponded roughly to the views of Jawaharlal
Nehru, India’s visionary leader from 1947 to 1964. It was also the view of
Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, who dominated India’s political scene
from 1966 to her assassination in 1984. This Third Worldist narrative had also
underpinned India’s strategic partnership with the USSR during the 1970s
and 1980s, transforming the Soviet Union into the “natural partner” of the
Third World in its struggle against the rich capitalist countries of the West—
or so many Nehruvians maintained. Beijing’s post–Cold War appeal to these
traditional Nehruvian/Third Worldist themes was, thus, not unreasonable.
Unfortunately for Beijing, there was a contrary tradition in India’s polit-
ical culture, a tradition which may accurately be called realist.^2 From this
perspective, founding Indian foreign policy on romantic notions of Third
World solidarity led Indian leaders to ignore India’s hard interests, including
security interests. Wooly-headed Third Worldism had in fact blinded India to
moves by China that diminished India’s security, Indian realists argued—for
example, in 1954, when Nehru recognized China’s sovereignty over Tibet,
thereby granting China’s major objective and legitimizing China’s military
occupation of Tibet, all in hopes of Sino-Indian solidarity and all without a
Chinese quid pro quo such as acceptance of the McMahon line as the bound-
ary. Third Worldism was, in fact, realist critics said, an illusion shrewdly
manipulated by Beijing to strengthen China’s position and undermine India’s
security. According to Indian realists, India needed to abandon illusions of
Third World solidarity and predicate India’s policies squarely on the pragmatic
pursuit of India’s national interests.^3 Realism was a nearly constant critique
of India’s dominant Third Worldist approach throughout India’s post-1947
history. But through the end of the Cold War, idealistic Third Worldism con-
tinued to dominate Indian politics and diplomacy. Only in the mid-1990s did
the realist critique begin to gain real traction in India. One of the most radical
proposals of Indian realists was that India strengthen its position vis-à-vis
China by reaching a strategic understanding with the United States.
China’s entente cordiale with Pakistan was a major concern of Indians
pretty much across the political spectrum. As noted earlier, China’s entente
with Pakistan was one of the most stable elements of China’s foreign rela-
tions, remaining constant across regime changes in both China and Pakistan,
reorientation of China’s relations with the United States and the USSR, and in
good times and bad in China-India relations. Yet as part of its post-6-4 out-
reach to New Delhi, Beijing made a significant shift in policy on the litmus-
test Kashmir issue. In 1947, Nehru had agreed to refer the Kashmir issue to
the United Nations (against the advice of his realist-minded Interior Minister