When China smiles...

The Chinese are the queer people. The Spaniards are almost what they appear externally. You can half-read their mind after ten minutes of first acquaintance. Perhaps it is almost the same with all the common people of the world. But you have to dig deep to discover the real person in a Chinese. They talk little and their smile means many things including the diametrically opposites. They are secretive and pose just the opposite of what they actually think or plan. One can understand Stalin or Hitler but it was difficult to understand Mao Zedong. Nehru was a victim of this specious political face of Mao. There was a popular slogan in India –hindi chini bhai bhai( Indians and Chinese are like brothers) mainly at the behest of Nehru after Zhou Enlai’s visit to India. So Nehru did not ever dream of making a strong and secure border with China. That was exactly what the Chinese wanted Nehru to believe before making a sudden aggression of their force deep into the northern territory of India. India is still licking her wound having lost a considerable land to China. Vietnam has lost some land to the Chinese. The crookedness of China is best exemplified in the old stories about China’s business with Vietnam. Once China offered a lucrative offer that she would pay handsomely for the tails of cats. Enamored by such offer the Vietnamese people cut thousands of tails of their cats and sold them to China. This led to alarming increase of rodent population in Vietnam as the maimed cats were not able enough to catch them. These vermin ravaged crops all over the country. Now China came to their help by selling them cheap pesticides. The pesticide worked well and within a very short time the villages were filled the dead rodents and also with the dead chickens that fed on the carcasses of the rodents. But still the number of rodents was alarming and threat to the crops continued. But the villagers were now cautious and refused to buy any pesticide from China. But China was an indomitable friend. So now they sold plastic sheets for fencing the crop fields. These sheets were too high and slippery for the rodents to climb over. In another occasion China tempted the Vietnamese people by offering to buy cinnamon roots at abnormally high prices. The poor Vietnamese in order to make fortune sold the roots to them. Soon the cinnamon trees withered. So one should be very thoughtful on occasions when China comes forward to help with a smiling face. Has India learnt a lesson from her friendship?