So why the tight relations between China and the NSCN-IM? One factor is said to be the revelation that China had agreed to host a permanent NSCN-IM representative based out of Kunming, Yunnan Province, in 2008. According to Shimray, Muivah had written a letter to senior Chinese intelligence officials to formally appoint Kholose Swu Sumi, a 60-year-old member of the Sema tribe of Nagaland, as the permanent representative of the NSCN-IM in China, which the Chinese accepted. Kholose is said then to have become the key point man for the NSCN-IM in China, meeting regularly with Chinese officials to keep them apprised of peace talk developments in India and relaying information from NSCN-IM operatives about the Indian army along the Sino-Indian border.
Kholose, who was reportedly the owner of a precious stones business, received Shimray and his wife at Kunming airport on a visit and introduced him to several Chinese intelligence officials, including a man by the name of Mr. Chang, the head of intelligence of the region in Dehong Prefecture in Western Yunnan. Shimray also apparently met with Lee Wuen, head of intelligence of Yunnan Province, to relay the message that the NSCN-IM wanted their assistance and cooperation.
There are several possible motivations for China supporting the NSCN-IM beyond just arms sales. For one, Nagaland straddles Arunachal Pradesh, an area over which both China and India claim sovereignty. For decades, the two militaries have been involved in a cat-and-mouse game along this sensitive border area, each trying to stake a claim along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). By infiltrating an area of strategic sensitivity for India, China could be aiming to secure a bargaining chip in border negotiation talks. Moreover, China is increasingly wary of India’s rise and larger geostrategic intentions as a peer competitor. Thus, Naga rebels offer China a convenient counterweight to India’s efforts at consolidating power and governance in northeast India, giving Beijing the ability to frustrate and distract New Delhi as it struggles to rein in the various insurgent groups that have proliferated inside its borders.
This is of particular importance now as the two countries continue to try to resolve their border dispute. Since the early 1990s, Beijing and New Delhi have been locked in seemingly intractable border negotiations that have become something of a litmus test for whether the two aspiring powers can cooperate. If the claims of arms sales to the NSCN-IM in return for intelligence gathering of Indian troops turn out to be true, New Delhi can justifiably argue that Beijing isn’t conducting border negotiations in good faith.
The scope and scale of Chinese ties with the NSCN-IM should give New Delhi pause as it pursues closer relations with Beijing, because they could imply a willingness on the part of Chinese intelligence to covertly undermine peace negotiations between the NSCN-IM and the Indian government while simultaneously acquiring potentially useful information about Indian troop movements along the Sino-Indian border.
Until recently, it appears that China was able to surreptitiously sell arms to insurgents, exchange funds through neutral countries and plead plausible deniability when Indian authorities investigated such dealings. Beijing would simply say the weapons were procured from unscrupulous Chinese weapons manufacturers on the black market with links to rebel groups in Pakistan, Burma, or Bangladesh, thereby disavowing any direct knowledge or involvement. Shimray’s revelations, if proven true, would certainly make any such subterfuge far more difficult.
Lyle Morris is an independent China analyst. His work has appeared in publications including China Brief, YaleGlobal Online and China Economist.
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U Li-ar
Stop your bl**dy diversions. We are talking about the rights and justice for the Nagas. Stop turning the issue on its head from one about the Nagas to the Chinese. Bl**dy racialist! Beijing should by right send in its troops like Moscow did when it stopped the Georgians in its track, in Ossetia and Akhazia. Like the Ossetians and Abkhazians, the nagas does not want to be part of India! Einstein my foot!
sabitha
1. Nagaland was never part of India
2. Nagas are not “Indians”, anyone who can see them clearly know their origins are from China (Yunan) regions
3. The concept of “India” itself which is a conglomerate of many different ethnic groups rather than a “national identity or a race” is to be emphasized.
4. Nagas already declared independence 1 day before republic of India did
5. Indians have done mass atrocities on the Nagas.
6. No where in any part of India, Nagas are even given basic treatment as human beings, as they physically appear to be more similar to Chinese than to indo-aryans or dravidians
From an Indian who is fed up with the way Nagas are treated , brutalized, and discarded by the Indian state and the holocaust perpetrated on these Christian tribal people.
arun sahgal
It is a known fact that China has been meddling in North East India in particular states of Nagaland, Manipur and adjoining Tirap region. Few years back a major arms consignment was caught in Chitaggong Hill Tract it was so big that it could provide weapons to a whole infantry division.
Reasons are simple undermine India’s Look East policy, usurp India’s growing strategic space in SE Asia and use these leverage’s to gain intelligence in Arunachal Pradesh, territory China claims. No doubt Indian state has to be on guard and extend its influence and cooperation along its strategic periphery to thwart Chinese attempts.
Mitch Eisenstein
Is there a single horrible thing that China doesnt do? Let me count the ways! Toothpaste contaminated intentionally with ethelyne glycol rather than use more expensive food grade propylene glycol. Whats the difference? ethelyne glycol is poisonous antifreeze used in car radiators. Ingesting it will kill you. And yet, somehow, factories in China, knowingly substitute poison for health ingredients, and the government does nothing to stop it. Why? Because the structure of Chinese society is one of DICTATORSHIP. And so innovation and freedom dont percolate into social development. The communist dictatorship has through its pure EVIL intentions, seperated freedom of economics from freedom of thought which leads to emancipation of spirit. The goal is to destroy Capitalism AND Freedom at any cost. So lets see what else the lovely communist despots do in their military owned factories. Oh yes! Intellectual property rights are ignored. The Chinese by definition STEAL every industrial secret they can get their hands on. CD’s, DVD,s all are stolen and reproduced. Airplane parts are counterfeited knowing that the mil specs are ignored and weaker. Cat food was spiked with melamine, a plastic, and a poison that emulates protein so that its easier and cheaper to make cat food to look like it meets western standards. And they put it in formula as well. To give to human infants. A country that is athiest and a dictatorship cannot promote morality, and the result it a lawless, heartless country that will stoop to the lowest level. Gotta make you wonder what you are eating in your neighborhood chinese restaurant. I mean, alot of the ingredients are comming from …..China!!!!! Eat at your own risk! Oh and I forgot the war against UNIONS in china. Funny how a country that exalts the WORKER, hates UNIONS that want to fight for workers rights. And we are just getting started. Chinese Hacker Armies are constantly probing to find out how to penetrate and weaken other countries, technologically and economically. But I cant do all the work for you guys. And american business is also at fault for selling america to chinese communist athiests for a buck. The communism that our Korean War Veterans and Vietnam War Veterans died to protect us from, have been betrayed by the businesses that made us fight those wars to begin with. Why the switch? Because they realized they could make more money by betraying american ideals, than by defending them. We ought to round up the heads of American Companies that have knowingly weakened and subverted these United States, put them on trial for treason, convict them of capitol offenses of undermining the constitution, and in accordance with law and only in accordance with applicable law, punnish them to the maximum allowable extent.