It is doubtful that anyone in the concerned ministries of information and external affairs has paid the slightest attention to the implications of sending a “delegation” of Indian journalists to China in response to an invitation by Hsinhua, the official Chinese news agency. Alternatively if someone has doubted the wisdom of the decision, he has either kept his misgivings to himself or he has been overruled. For a five-member “delegation” will be leaving on a 10-day visit to that country on May 22. Since this is a fait accompli in that the decision cannot possibly be reversed, it is in a sense pointless to spell out the possible pitfalls in it. But while in New Delhi’s case this way be one more illustration of the casual manner in which foreign policy continues to be made, for Peking the proposed visit is part of a carefully worked out programme of manipulating public opinion in this country so that in course of time the Prime Minister may find it difficult to adhere to his present approach which rules out friendship with China so long as the border dispute is not resolved. Mr. Nehru found himself in such a situation in the early fifties when he allowed himself to be persuaded to turn down Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai’s sane advice to tie the proposed agreement with Peking on Tibet with a settlement of the border issue which had been hanging fire since the famous Simla conference in 1914. Once again we are beginning to hear similar siren voices.
China, as the naivest student of international affairs knows, is the most tightly controlled country in the world with the result that a visitor does not have one chance in a million to step out of the itinerary that is laid down for him and to talk to one Chinese who has not been authorized to meet him. It, too, is well known that more or less every visitor is taken along the same route to the same factories and communes. Some specially favoured guests are once a while taken to places like Tibet and Sinkiang, which are out of bounds for others, but only when the Chinese authorities are fully convinced that the individual or individuals concerned will praise their “great achievements” in those regions.
Even so there is a case for an Indian journalist or journalists to be posted in Peking or to visit China. He or they might once a while be able to report something other than official propaganda. But a “delegation” invited by one government and picked up by the other is a different proposition. Implicit in the sending and accepting of the invitation is the hope – on the part of the first government – that the members of the “delegation” will “promote” friendship, that is, write nothing on their return which is inconvenient to the Chinese government, and an assurance – on the part of the latter government – that its nominees will play the game according to the rules. This is, of course, not spelt out in so many words. But when someone refuses to abide by the unstated “understanding” as happened in the case of the journalist-member of the first Indian goodwill mission to China in the early fifties there is disappointment in both New Delhi and Peking.