Reassuring and Unnerving India } 747
to the old notion of transforming the existing Line of Actual Control into
the international boundary. Another Chinese concession involved recogni-
tion of Indian sovereignty over Sikkim. That entity, situated on the west side
of the strategic Chumbi Pass—the best pass between the subcontinent and
the Tibetan plateau—had been annexed by India in 1974 after a long process
of constitutional reform and democratization.^22 From Beijing’s perspective,
Sikkim was a sovereign, independent state that had historically engaged in
friendly relations with “China’s Tibet” tracing back to the eighth century.
Beijing deemed the PRC to be the legal successor state to the traditional
“local government of Tibet.” Indian annexation of Sikkim was thus, from the
Chinese point of view, a blatant act of aggression and hegemony. Through
2002, the diplomatic almanac published annually by China’s MFA carried
under the heading “Sikkim” the one sentence declaration: “The government
of China does not recognize India’s illegal annexation of Sikkim.”^23 Starting
in 2003, that statement disappeared from the MFA almanac. The joint decla-
ration issued during Wen Jiabao’s April 2005 visit to India referred to “Sikkim
state of the Republic of India.” China’s ambassador to India told the media
that the matter of sovereignty over Sikkim “has been completely settled.”^24
The Failure of Beijing’s Friendship Offensive and Return to a
Punitive Approach
Beijing hoped that its reassurance of India via friendship diplomacy would
dissuade New Delhi from joining an anti-China combination with the United
States—just as Russia had promised to do with the December 1992 joint com-
muniqué and again with the 2001 treaty of friendship. Nonalignment with
powers hostile to China was the sine qua non of China’s friendship with its
neighbors, in Beijing’s view. Unfortunately for Beijing’s anti-encirclement
friendship diplomacy, India ignored China’s professions of friendship and
moved into deeper and deeper military partnership with the United States.
India also began forging military and security links with Japan, hinting at a
US-Japan-India “anti-China” linkup.
A new, more cooperative India-US relation began to form during the last
two years of the Clinton presidency (1999–2000). It was given a great boost by
the George W. Bush administration, which took office in January 2001. Over
the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency, India-US cooperation, espe-
cially in the military and security areas, expanded rapidly. Exchanges of high-
and working-level military personnel reached unprecedented intensity. A wide
array of defense and security dialogues was set in motion. India was one of
only a few countries to enthusiastically welcome the Bush administration’s
ambitious plans for ballistic missile defense (BMD); joint development efforts
were followed by deployment, with US assistance, of an integrated Indian