China’s Double Standards: From Aksai Chin to Water Bombs

By Mr M R Sivaraman IAS (Retd), Former Revenue Secretary

For six decades, New Delhi has sought peace with Beijing. What it received instead is a doctrine of deception. As a retired civil servant who has seen India’s China policy up close, I write with anguish, not anger. The pattern is unmistakable.

The betrayal began in 1962. Panchsheel was still warm on paper when China invaded, occupied Aksai Chin, and scarred our northern frontier. That wound never healed. Beijing still claims Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh, renaming Indian villages as if cartographic aggression could rewrite sovereignty. When Union Minister Kiren Rijiju recently stated the obvious — that Arunachal is integral to India — China’s shrill reaction only proved his point. A nation insecure about its own claims lectures us on ours.

This hostility is outsourced too. China armed Pakistan’s nuclear program, shields UN-designated terrorists with its veto, and drives the China-PoK Economic Corridor through Indian territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, in brazen disregard of our sovereignty. To call it “CPEC” is to legitimize Pakistan’s illegal occupation. It is not a “Pakistan-China” corridor. It is a Chinese project on Indian land, enabled by an occupier. “All-weather friendship” is really an all-weather front against India.

In the UN, China preaches multilateralism but uses its veto to block India’s NSG entry and protect terrorists. Panchsheel is quoted in banquets and buried at the border.

The 2020 Galwan ambush shattered the last illusions. Since then, China has built dual-use villages along the LAC and in Bhutanese territory. Salami-slicing continues. Yet when India builds a road in its own backyard, Beijing cries “unilateral change.”

Now comes the latest hypocrisy: environment. China suddenly discovers ecological concerns about India’s Great Nicobar infrastructure project — a project cleared after rigorous environmental assessment, crucial for maritime security and regional connectivity. This from a nation that dredged 3,200 acres of coral reefs in the South China Sea to build militarized artificial islands, causing irreparable marine damage. This from a nation building mega-dams on the Yarlung Tsangpo-Brahmaputra without transparency or consultation.

These are not dams. They are water bombs. Beijing can hold back or release torrents at will, weaponizing water against millions in India’s Northeast and Bangladesh. Yet it claims the high moral ground on Nicobar. The world should see this double standard for what it is: environmental blackmail as foreign policy.

Beijing’s interference doesn’t stop at land and water. Its recent warnings against Indian leaders commenting on the Dalai Lama’s succession are telling. When Kiren Rijiju affirmed that the choice of the next Dalai Lama rests with Tibetan tradition and His Holiness alone — not with the Chinese Communist Party — Beijing reacted with fury. An atheist state that destroyed monasteries now wants to appoint reincarnations. This is not respect for religion; it is control by coercion. India, home to the Dalai Lama for 65 years, will not be told what to say about a faith and a people we have sheltered.

Trade cannot mask this reality. Dumping, market denial, and opaque projects continue. Cooperation is demanded; reciprocity is denied.

India does not seek conflict. Our ethos is Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. But goodwill is not weakness. Strategic patience is not endless patience.

China must choose. A 21st century of Asian solidarity, or a hegemony that breeds resistance? India will not be lectured on sovereignty by an occupier. We will not take environmental sermons from the world’s largest dredger of reefs. And we will not outsource our conscience on Tibet to a Party that fears monks more than missiles.

Restraint must now be matched with resolve. Peace demands truth. And the truth is: from Aksai Chin to water bombs, from veto misuse to reincarnation vetoes, from Aksai Chin to the China-PoK Economic Corridor, China’s India policy has been one of hostility behind the mask of harmony. It is time we called it out — firmly, factually, and without fear.