India–Taiwan relations

Despite China proper and the Indian subcontinent, where two of the four ancient civilizations of the world emerged, having shared thousands of years of extensive trade and cultural exchanges, primarily through Buddhism, direct contact between Formosa and South Asia has historically been considerably more limited due to geographic constraints and distances. Tianzhu (天竺), situated in Buddhist cosmology at the "Western Heaven", has traditionally been regarded by Buddhists as an idealized holy land where their faith originated from, and subsequently served as a pilgrimage site for many who sought to receive Buddhist scriptures, as romanticized in the classical Chinese tale of Journey to the West. Hu Shih, the ROC Ambassador to the United States from 1938 to 1942, commented, albeit critically, on India's Buddhism almost completely subsuming Chinese society upon its introduction.[8]

ASIA is one. The Himalayas divide, only to accentuate, two mighty civilizations, the Chinese with its communism of Confucius, and the Indian with its individualism of the Vedas. But not even the snowy barriers can interrupt for one moment that broad expanse of love for the Ultimate and Universal, which is the common thought-inheritance of every Asiatic race, enabling them to produce all the great religions of the world and distinguishing them from those maritime peoples of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, who love to dwell on the Particular, and to search out the means, not the end, of life.[9]

While never having actually visited India in his lifetime, Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Republic of China, occasionally spoke and wrote of India as a fellow Asian nation that was likewise subject to harsh Western exploitation, and frequently called for a Pan-Asian united front against all unjust imperialism; in a 1921 speech, Sun stated: "The Indians have long been oppressed by the British. They have now reacted with a change in their revolutionary thinking...There is progress in their revolutionary spirit, they will not be cowed down by Britain."[10][11] To this day, there is a prominent street named Sun Yat-sen street in an old Chinatown in Calcutta, now known as Kolkata.

Chiang Kai-shek and his wife with Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru

Believing that then-Republican China and India were "sister nations from the dawn of history" who needed to transform their "ancient friendship into a new camaraderie of two freedom loving nations", Jawaharlal Nehru visited China in 1939 as an honored guest of the ROC government. Highly praising both Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Song Meiling, Nehru referred to Chiang as "not only a great Chinese but a great Asiatic and world figure...one of the top most leaders of the world", and Song as "full of vitality and charm...a star hope for the Chinese people...a symbol of China's invincibility". During his visit, Chiang and Nehru shared a bunker one night when Japanese bombers attacked Chongqing in late August, with Chiang recording a favorable impression of Nehru in his diary; the Chiangs also regularly wrote Nehru during his time in prison and even after their 1942 visit to India.[12][13]

Partially to enlist India's aid against both Japanese and Western imperialism in exchange for the ROC's support for Indian independence, the Chiangs visited India under British rule in 1942 and met with Nehru, along with Mahatma Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Despite pledges of mutual friendship and future cooperation between the two peoples, Chiang argued that while Gandhi's non-violent resistance was not necessarily invalid for the Indian people, it was an unrealistic worldview on a global context; Gandhi, who had at the time insisted on India refraining from participating in any war in any circumstances, in turn later noted that, "I would not say that I had learnt anything, and there was nothing that we could teach him."[14] In their meeting in Calcutta, Jinnah tried to persuade Chiang, who had pressed Britain to relinquish India as soon as possible, of the necessity of establishing a separate nation for Muslims in the subcontinent, to which Chiang, who apparently recognized Congress as the sole nationalist force in the Raj, replied that if ten crores of Muslims could live peacefully with other communities in China, then there was no true necessity as he saw it of a separate state for a smaller population of nine crores of Muslims living in India.[15]

Although their meetings had ended cordially enough, with Gandhi offering to adopt Song as a "daughter" in his ashram if Chiang left her there as his ambassador to India after she asked to be taught about his non-violent principles, and giving her his spinning wheel as a farewell gift, not very much was immediately achieved in the aftermath.[16] For his part, Chiang apparently believed none of the major Indian leaders could help his government meaningfully. As an ardent nationalist who lived through China's internally turbulent years, he felt Jinnah was "dishonest", and used by the British to divide the peoples of British India and by extension Asia, he and his wife Song believing that cooperation between its religious communities was difficult but possible. At the same time, he also felt genuinely disappointed by Gandhi, whom he initially had high expectations, and noted afterwards that "he knows and loves only India, not other places and peoples". Having been unable to make Gandhi change his views about satyagraha, even after arguing that some of their enemies such as the Japanese would make the preaching of non-violence impossible, Chiang, himself raised a Buddhist, blamed "traditional Indian philosophy" for his sole focus on endurance of suffering rather than revolutionary zeal necessary to rally and unite the Asian peoples.[17]

A division of the KMT's forces entered India around this time as the Chinese Army in India in their struggle against Japanese expansion in Southeast Asia. Dwarkanath Kotnis and four other Indian physicians traveled to a war-torn China to provide medical assistance against Japanese forces.[18]

Representatives of the Indian independence movement later invited Tibetan delegates to the 1947 Asian Relations Conference hosted in New Delhi at which the Tibetans were allowed to display their flag. According to Tibetologist A. Tom Grunfeld, the conference was not government-sponsored, and so Tibet's and the Tibetan flag's presence had "no diplomatic significance".[19] Nonetheless, the ROC, also present at the conference, protested Tibet's showing, and in response, the Tibetan flag was removed and conference organizers issued a statement that Nehru invited the Tibetan delegates "in a personal capacity".[20]

Although his government also viewed Tibet as part of China, after the 1959 Tibetan Rebellion, Chiang Kai-shek announced in his Letter to Tibetan Friends (Chinese: 告西藏同胞書; pinyin: Gào Xīzàng Tóngbāo Shū) that the ROC's policy would be to help the Tibetan diaspora overthrow the People's Republic of China's rule in Tibet. The ROC's Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission sent secret agents to India to disseminate pro-Kuomintang (KMT) and anti-Communist propaganda among Tibetan exiles. From 1971 to 1978, the MTAC also recruited ethnic Tibetan children from India and Nepal to study in Taiwan, with the expectation that they would work for a ROC government that returned to the mainland. In 1994, the veterans' association for the Tibetan guerrilla group Chushi Gangdruk met with the MTAC and agreed to the KMT's One China Principle. In response, the Dalai Lama's Central Tibetan Administration forbade all exiled Tibetans from contact with the MTAC.[21]

After he became Prime Minister of an independent India, Nehru's personal friendship with Chiang gradually eroded, as their correspondence weakened after Communist China's takeover of the mainland and Chiang having fled to Taiwan. Nehru instructed his sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, India's Ambassador to the United States, to inform Madame Chiang Kai-shek that despite their cordial past, Nehru could offer no support to the ROC government, given the reality of the situation and the possibility of domestic Communist unrest. Over time, Nehru and other Indian government officials also grew increasingly disillusioned by American-allied leaders Chiang and Syngman Rhee's "strong-arm tactics" under their largely authoritarian but pro-Western governments; Nehru especially found it difficult to understand why and how America justified supporting some of their controversial policies whilst simultaneously advocating world democracy.[22]

India officially recognised the PRC on 1 April 1950, and was supportive of its stand that it was the only state that could be recognised as "China" and that the island of Taiwan was a part of Chinese territory, thus voting in favour of the PRC's bid to join the United Nations and replacing the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China in the UN Security Council; the Republic of India recognized the ROC from 1947 to 1950, while Pakistan recognized the ROC until 1951.[2] Despite its somewhat strained relations with the PRC after the border war of 1962, India has continued to recognise the PRC's "One China" policy.[23]

Even as India's own relations with the PRC have developed substantially in recent years, India has sought to gradually develop better commercial, cultural and scientific co-operation with Taiwan, albeit whilst ruling out the possibility of establishing formal diplomatic relations[32] Taiwan has also viewed India's rising geopolitical standing as a counterbalance to the PRC's dominance in the region.[33]

As a part of its "Look East" foreign policy, India has sought to cultivate extensive ties with Taiwan in trade and investment as well as developing co-operation in science & technology, environment issues and people-to-people exchanges. Both sides have aimed to develop ties, partly to counteract Chinese rivalry with both nations.[33]

The India-Taipei Association[34] was established in Taipei in 1995 to promote non-governmental interactions between India and Taiwan, and to facilitate business, tourism, scientific, cultural and people-to-people exchanges.[32] The India-Taipei Association has also been authorised to provide all consular and passport services. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre in New Delhi is ITA's counterpart organisation in India. A Taipei Economic and Cultural in Chennai was established in 2012.[35] It represents Taiwan government's interests in the southern states of India, as well as Sri Lanka and the Maldives.[36]

In 2002, the two sides signed the Bilateral Investment Promotion & Protection Agreement and are discussing the possibility of entering into agreements related to Double Taxation Avoidance and ATA Carnet to facilitate participation in each other's trade fairs.[2][32] In 2007, Ma Ying-jeou, the leader of the Kuomintang, Taiwan's largest political party, and a major candidate in the 2008 presidential elections made an unofficial visit to India. Effective 15 August 2015, Republic of China passport holders can avail of India's e-Tourist Visa facility.[37]

• Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in Chennai
• Indians in Taiwan
• Buddhism in Taiwan