GREGORY CLARK
In yet another of his denunciations of alleged Chinese territorial greed, Brahma Chellaney, in his July 26 article, Chinas salami-slice strategy, includes Chinese incursions across the claimed Line of Actual Control in the Ladakh portion of the Sino-Indian frontier.
Rahul Singh, writing in the Hindustan Times of July 30, quotes a top Indian military source noting that Indian incursions across the Ladakh LAC have been far more frequent than Chinese. The much-publicized recent Chinese incursion in that area was clearly in response to an Indian outpost being established alongside Chinas sensitive Tibet-Sinkiang highway well to the north of the LAC.
I would also point out that Chinas current acceptance of the Sino-Indian LAC, in Ladakh and elsewhere (Assam mainly), is already a major concession to India, considering its dubious legality as the result of a 19th-century British imperialistic land grab and subsequent arbitrary Indian expansions.
Chellaney also slams Chinas moves in the South China Sea, toward the Spratley and Paracel island groups especially. He, like so many others, seems unaware of the fact that Japan, in its 1952 peace treaty with the Republic of China, gave up its sovereignty not just to Taiwan but also to these two island groups, with the ROC as the presumed recipient of all.
Gregory Clark is professor of economics at the University of California, Davis, and author of the forthcoming book A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton University Press, 2007). Clarks research interests include world economic history, the economic history of India, economic growth since the Middle Ages, the Agricultural Revolution, and industrialization in underdeveloped economies. In addition to serving at U.C. Davis, Clark has helds posts in economics at Stanford University, the University of Michigan, and Brown University. Originally from Scotland, Clark is a graduate of Cambridge and Harvard Universities.
Another view of China's strategy | The Japan Times
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