A year ago, during the summer of 2020 when the world in general and India specifically was reeling under the full brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic, the soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) came up to the Line of Actual Control to occupy strategic areas across the perceived LAC (Line of Actual Control) just as the snow was melting during the summer months.

Indian government over the decades had bragged that the Line of Actual Control (LAC) was silent ever since the late 1960s. But what transpired was a medieval one-upmanship between the soldiers of the PLA and the Indian Army in Eastern Ladakh along the LAC. We had covered this in great detail in Episodes 26, 27 and 28 of the India Rising podcast series. Sadly 20 of our brave soldiers lost their lives while attempting to stop the PLA soldiers from entering the Galwan river valley. What followed was a massive buildup of soldiers from both sides across multiple spots along the entire LAC leading to a very volatile situation. Round after round of talks at Corps commander level have been carried out but we have very little to show in terms of bringing the temperature down in the icy cold heights.

It’s been a year now and instead of the situation easing off, we have heard of soldiers from both sides digging their heels. The fact that the issue isn’t grabbing the headlines doesn’t mean that the issue has gone away.

How does the situation on the ground look like now?

There have been 11 rounds of Corps’ Commanders meetings followed by an agreement in February (which we had covered in Episode 32) in which both sides disengaged and de-escalated at one of the friction points on the northern and southern banks of the Pangong Tso (i.e. Finger areas to the north of Pangong Tso and on the heights of the Kailash Range near the Spanggur gap).

Even after more than a year of standoff which included eleven rounds of Corps Commander-level meetings, seven Work Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) meetings and at least two known interactions between India’s External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, standoff remains in other areas along the LAC in Depsang, Gogra and Hot Springs.

EAM S. Jaishankar, has said on record that “[India is] yet to receive credible explanation for change in China’s stance [towards India] and massing of troops in border areas … [and its] willingness to breach peace.” “Chinese have to date given us five differing explanations” behind their policy change and noted that India is still trying to figure out not only China’s motivations, but also what the Chinese “posture signals, [its evolution], and its possible implications for the future of ties.”

Chief of Defense Staff Gen Bipin Rawat said “Chinese deployments on the border with India have undergone a change, especially after incidents that happened in Galwan and other areas last year. Thereafter, they realized that they need to be better trained and better prepared. Their soldiers mainly come from the civilian street. They are enlisted for a short duration. They don't have much experience of fighting in these kinds of areas and operating in this kind of terrain.”

He was referring to “Mimong Cheton” (MC), a unit entirely consisting of local Tibetan youth, who were trained by the PLA and deployed at various locations in Chumbi Valley, which is situated across the Sikkim border with China.

Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said “we are very clear that until these issues (existing friction points) are addressed, and our border areas are peaceful and tranquil, we will not be able to go into what is known as a normal relationship as we go forward. I think the entire basis of that relationship has been predicated on having peace and tranquility on our borders, “The onus is on China to ensure that the issues that remain are addressed.”

How have the Chinese and Indian armed forces strengthened their positions along the LAC?

Mathura based I Strike Corps (which earlier was oriented to face Pakistan) will now be an offensive formation for eastern Ladakh to support the Leh-based XIV Corps. Dehradun-based 14 Division will now oversee the Central sector in Uttarakhand.  Palampur-based 39 Division, currently pushed into in Eastern Ladakh post events of summer 2020, will go back to being a reserve force under the Northern Army Command (whenever the current standoff ends). The XVII Mountain Strike Corps, which was raised to face the Chinese all along the LAC is now exclusively dedicated to Eastern Command (i.e., North East). India has also deployed M777 ultra-light howitzer, AH-64 Apache multi-role attack helicopters, heavy lift C-17/C-130J transport aircraft, Chinooks heavy lift helicopters and the recently inducted Rafale fighter aircraft into Ladakh to strengthen India's capabilities in the region. Bloomberg has reported that India has deployed an additional 50,000 troops along the LAC (~40% increase) bringing the total number of troops along the LAC to almost 200,000 troops.

The PLAAF (PLA Air Force) has upgraded Hotan air base in Xinjiang and Nyingchi air base in Tibet. Both bases are just across the LAC in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh respectively with the PLA deploying S-400 squadrons to protect them from Indian aerial threat. Recently pictures have appeared where Chinese are building HAS (hardened aircraft shelter) i.e., reinforced hangars to protect military aircraft from enemy attack in Tibet. China has deployed its lightweight Type 15, T-99, T-96 tanks, PCL-181 vehicle-mounted howitzers, ZBL-09 infantry fighting vehicles in Aksai Chin. PLAAF has moved various surface to air missile systems and the J-20, J-10B and J-11 fighter aircraft along with its Z-9 and Z-20 helicopters.

What is the stand of the Chinese about the entire LAC skirmish?

Many in China see India as a challenger to its supremacy in Asia. The belief in Chinese strategic circles is that India is acting on behest of hegemonic powers like the US. Ashok Kantha former ambassador to China says that in Track 2 meets with Chinese scholars, they say that “India is making a strategic misjudgment by aligning with the USA”. Hemant Adlakha, Associate Professor at the Centre for Chinese & South East Asian Studies, School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University says that he finds a recurring theme in writings by Chinese scholars “Where is India getting the audacity to stand up to China?”.

In India regarding the Chinese challenge, we are inundated with hours upon hours of airtime on television and meters upon meters of newspaper columns and op-eds, some of which frankly sound pessimistic. Every confrontation with China brings about bewilderment and a lot of head scratching on how to deal with the Dragon. Similarly in China in spite of being a superior power in multiple realms vis a vis India they are also dealing with a unique challenge from India. China has gotten its way by intimidation and bullying with many of its smaller neighbors in Asia especially in terms of territorial disputes. One can simply look at the territorial gains made by them in the South China Sea without much of a physical confrontation from their neighbors.  When it comes to India which it considers as inferior (always quick to remind India as being 5x smaller whenever tensions are high) it has not been able to get its way fully as seen in Doklam in 2017 and in Eastern Ladakh in 2020 (granted they blocked India from patrolling its perception of LAC in certain locations). Due to the opaque nature of China plus the language barrier a vastly under-appreciated fact by many in India is that even in China there is an amount of frustration of not being able to fully push India around as per its liking.

Antara Ghosal Singh, Research Associate, Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) recently said “An influential section within the Chinese strategic community believes that China’s ‘cooperative approach’ towards India in the past years has failed to deliver desired benefits, particularly reduction in strategic pressure on China in the southwest direction, so that it can concentrate on facing its main strategic opponent, the United States. And therefore, China’s India policy from hereon should focus on an occasional show of strength or an assertion of China’s strength advantage vis-a-vis India from time to time so as to effectively check and balance a rising and more confident India and undercut what is considered as its strategic opportunity period induced by the geopolitics of Indo-Pacific”.

Chinese scholars and strategists do agree that it is not in Chinese interests to have active military confrontation with India. China’s main theater of focus is to the east in the South China Sea and Western Pacific. Chinese hardliners and moderates both seem to agree that there is no point in going to war with India which will permanently rupture the relationship (assuming that has not happened already on the Indian side for some post Galwan).

But as per the comments above from Antara Ghosal Singh they will keep needling India from time to time while trying to remain below the threshold of an active war from breaking out (i.e., classic grey zone warfare tactics).

How standing their ground by both is seen as a threat by the other?

Chinese Foreign Minister was quoted in Global Times as saying “The root cause of tensions along the China-India border is that India has been increasing military deployment along the border area, and encroaching on China's territory. China does not agree to link the boundary issue with the bilateral relations”

One of the major takeaways from the statement is that there is diametrically opposite point of view (POV) on both sides regarding the border issue and overall relationship.

EAM S. Jaishankar has said “the bottom line for the relationship is clear: peace and tranquility must prevail on the border if the progress made in the last three decades is not to be jeopardized.” Cooperation between India and China, he stressed, has advanced steadily in the last three decades on grounds that peace and tranquility was maintained and that the LAC was both observed and respected by both sides. But now that there is a crisis at the LAC, it cannot be business as usual. “One cannot have friction, bloodshed, and intimidation on the borders and then say let’s have a good relationship in other domains,” Jaishankar has stated, while also emphasizing that “the border and the future of [China-India] ties cannot be separated.”

While Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Weidong said that “clarifying the LAC could ‘create new disputes’” and further hamper the process of “maintain[ing] peace and tranquility in the border areas.”

Antara Ghosal Singh, Research Associate, Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) wrote some time ago that Lou Chunhao, Deputy Director and Associate Researcher, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations said that “bilateral relations could be normalized and improved in 1988, when India finally agreed to decouple the border issue from the rest of the relationship. Since then, successive leaderships in both countries have tried to downplay the boundary issue for the sake of overall advancement of China-India ties. However, the present Indian government is trying to re-link the border dispute with the progress in bilateral relations, which not only violates the bilateral consensus to not allow differences to rise into disputes but can also create insurmountable obstacles to the long-term development of bilateral ties.”

So, while China wants India to shelve the border dispute to work on other areas of cooperation while downplaying the border issue India is saying that border dispute is a massive issue which is not a trivial matter and can’t be put aside in context of the overall relationship.

As we have mentioned in our earlier podcasts since the standoff began a year ago, that China sees no value in settling the border issue. There is no appetite or willingness even among Chinese scholars for clarification of the LAC and don't like India’s stressing on working towards resolving the border issue to facilitate improving ties with New Delhi and Beijing. An unsettled border works to China’s interests as it would keep India on edge and off balance. Any settlement of the border issue would rob the Chinese of one more card to keep an ascendant India in check. As we mentioned earlier in this podcast, India reoriented one of its Strike Corps from the western to the northern front. Now let’s say in the event of a settlement between India and China (putting aside how unlikely that it may be) the reduced tensions would now allow India to move forces back to the Pakistan border. This would in turn put more pressure on China’s so-called “Iron brother”: Pakistan which would not be in Chinese interests.

The other major point from the Chinese FM Statement in the Global Times was him saying that “The root cause of tensions along #China-#India border is that India has been increasing military deployment along the border area”.

Many have speculated on the actual reason for Chinese incursion into Eastern Ladakh in 2020 and it would be near impossible to be 100% certain on the actual root causes given the opaque nature of Chinese state.

But the statement from the Chinese Foreign Minister makes it clear that development of border infrastructure on the India side had some (if not full) contribution to the Chinese reaction in summer of 2020.

As we had mentioned in Episode 26 of the India Rising podcast series last year that China has had the “early mover’s advantage” as far as border infrastructure is concerned. The asymmetry in border infrastructure gave the Chinese an upper hand all these years and they were okay with it as long as India was lacking in this regard. India for a very long time (even after the defeat in the 1962 war) neglected robust infrastructure development near to the LAC. The Chinese having enjoyed a dominance in the infrastructure domain in the past, are now waking up to the fact that the gap with India is slowly decreasing. With the rapid development of the border infrastructure in the past decade which has recently amped up in the past few years the Chinese seem to be unhappy to see this historical advantage being eroded gradually.

On a positive note, the standoff has put the infrastructure work into an even more accelerated phase where projects are being swiftly completed with even more urgency. As per a report in TOI, BRO has completed 1,200-km of “road formation works” and 2,850 km of “surfacing works” over the last one year.” “Of the 61 roads with BRO 45 have been fully completed while “connectivity” has been achieved on 59. “Seven of the last nine roads left this year will be completed by March 2022 and the other two by March 2023” “BRO has completed 74 permanent bridges and 33 bailey bridges over the last one year”

“There is a four-to-five-year roadmap for border deployments and logistics. Whatever was planned for Ladakh for this period has been achieved in the last one year ensuring our troops can sustain for long”, said an army official as per a report in India Today.

This diminishing “first mover” advantage (of border infrastructure) as we had mentioned in Episode 27 of India Rising podcast  would now compel the Chinese in creating a standoff now vs doing this later when their advantage would have further eroded more. Chinese in spite of being a significant power has shown from time to time to have some baffling insecurities and paranoia about its adversaries. So, a rising Indian threat in the anxious minds of the Chinese could prompt her to take steps to “put India in her place” like they feel they did during the 1962 war. This all combined with what Beijing considers a “muscular foreign policy” from the incumbent administration in New Delhi would have forced them (in their minds) to act now before it was too late in the future. It just might be that India building up border infrastructure possibly triggers a Thucydides trap conflict between India and China. I will reiterate what I said back then on Episode 27 of the podcast post Galwan that the events of June 15 2020 can possibly be viewed as a Kongka incident of the modern times. On 21 October 1959 nine CRPF personnel were killed in a clash with the PLA. This event hardened Indian opinion against China and led to a chain of events which led to the 1962 India-China war. We could be looking at an unavoidable path to a bigger military clash between India and China down the road in the 5-10 years if not earlier.

What should India do, going forward?

India’s aim is what EAM Jaishankar has said over the past few months and also reiterated recently by Lt Gen. S. L. Narasimhan (Ret.) Member of the National Security Advisory Board, India and Director General, Centre for Contemporary China Studies in an interview was that India wanted disengagement (i.e. troops on both sides move away from being close to each other so that it reduces the chance of any untoward incident from happening), de-escalation (removal of additional forces that have come near/close to the LAC post summer of 2020) and then as a final step there can be improvement of bilateral relations.

 

Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar has gone on record in saying that the relationship, “is going through a very difficult phase because in violation of agreements and understandings of many years, the Chinese have deployed a very large part of the military on/close to Line of Actual Control (LAC) without explanation.”

He has also opined that, “We have been very clear with the Chinese that peace and tranquility on the border and border areas is absolutely essential to the development of our relationship. One cannot have friction, bloodshed, intimidation on the borders and then say let’s have a good relationship in other domains.”

That drawing of parallel by the minister explains why the Indian government went ahead to ban those 59 apps which were of Chinese origin. Although some people might have felt that this was a knee jerk reaction, it is obvious that India wants to express its displeasure about the border conflagrations by saying that things cannot be rosy in other domains. In fact, the latest salvo from the Indian government is to completely ban Huawei from participating in the 5G trials conducted in India.

From an India perspective one sees that the old existing Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) have clearly failed. Chinese while withdrawing from Pangong Tso have now refused to vacate the other areas of contention. India will have to maintain an elevated military presence on the ground to make sure that there are no more Chinese incursions all along the LAC. As we had mentioned in Episode 27 of India Rising podcast that this standoff was likely to be a protracted affair like the Sumdorung Chu standoff between India and China in 1986. The elongated standoff is bound to increase the revenue expenditure eating into the overall defence budget. This will hit the capex purchases which are urgently needed to upgrade the rapidly ageing hardware of the Indian armed forces. China would be content to have its forces (if need be) at the border for an extended period but a longer deployment from the Indian perspective would eat into its defence budget more compared to China. With the pandemic having hit economic growth, coming up with a larger percentage of resources for the armed forces in the upcoming years will be a massive challenge given the diminished revenues collected by the government.

Can India come up with a new modus vivendi with the Chinese which involves a fresh set of CBMs is the million-dollar question. India like China has no incentive in more confrontation at the border. India’s long-term aim of growing its economy (at a minimum 7-8%) and increasing the prosperity of its citizens remains the top priority. The challenge is how does India maintain the status quo at the border without losing more ground preferably without an active military confrontation.

This is similar to the Chinese playbook first proposed by Deng Xiaoping, “bide your time, hide your strength”, also called the 24-character strategy. India also must be fully prepared for a larger military conflict along the LAC in the next few years. There cannot be a repeat of the 1962 situation where India is caught unprepared for a military confrontation with China.

 

This was originally discussed on Episode 34 of the India Rising podcast (@indiarisingmk) hosted by Mohal Joshi (@MohalJoshi) & Kishor Narayan (@veggiediplomat).

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1DJTsKlJnw

Sound Cloud: https://soundcloud.com/indiarisingmk/episode-34-1-year-since-lac-skirmish

 

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Image Source: The Financial Express