S.K.Sarda on Hawai Public Radio

Wednesday, January 16, 2008


NEW DELHI, India: The Indian state of Sikkim, a victim of a history of conflict between India and China, looks set to gain immensely from closer ties between the two Asia powers. The leaders of India and China met this week in the Chinese capital, Beijing, to continue their long process of developing economic and trade ties, and defusing outstanding border issues. One of the initial outcomes from their three day meeting is a revised two-way trade target of US$60 billion by 2010, after their previous target of US$40 billion seems to have already been achieved. Radio Australia's Adam Connors reports that the shared border region between the two most populous and new economic superpowers is seeing a resurgence in trade, and trust. But there remains a lingering distrust of its recent history. In 1962, India and China came to blows over their claims of more than 90,000 square kilometers of their shared border - shutting down trade between China's newly annexed Tibet and the Indian side. S.K. Sarda is the President of the Chamber of Commerce of the north Indian state of Sikkim - once part of the ancient Silk Route through India. He told Radio Australia relations between China and India weakened with the 1962 closure. "After that business was zero until 6 July, 2006 when again it was opened," S.K. Sarda said. Trade through Sikkim, from China, is less than two years old after 44 years of stagnation. Its success is almost like a parable for the success that India and China relations could enjoy in the future. Sikkim is India's second-smallest state, a small thumb-shaped Indian channel between China, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal and its' trade route is a prized possession - especially the Natha La Pass. "This is the shortest land route between India and China. Now [if] they. . . bring the goods by sea from mainland China to Indian ports it takes 30 to 40 days but if the same item is transported through the land route it takes only 10 days," S.K. Sarda told Radio Australia. China redrew the map in 2003 to formally recognize Sikkim as part of India - largely to defuse tensions between the booming nations. Former Navy Commodore Uday Bhaskar is now the Deputy Director of New Delhi's Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis. He told Radio Australia the Chinese decision in 2003 allowed for a greater robustness in the Sino-Indian relationship. He says while a mutual distrust is still there, trade is now foremost in the mind of India and China. "There is a recognition on both sides that there is too little trade that goes along this very long border," Uday Bhaskar said. "What India and China need to do is work on the complimentarities as far as border trade is concerned. And my sense is that Dr. Manmohan Singh's visit to China at this point is something that would facilitate greater border trade even while the military deployment would remain much the same."