China-India relations: Ladakh stand-off need not be a prelude to war

If these nuclear states and rivals want to manage, stabilise and eventually transcend the security dilemma, they must incrementally build trust
Greater appreciation of the fears of one’s adversary paves the way for deeper dialogue and a trusting relationship, though this needs a delicate balancing act

Ameya Pratap Singh

Published: 9:00am, 25 Jul 2020

Why you can trust SCMP

In light of Sino-Indian relations reaching a nadir, the common refrain among policy analysts is that India can ill afford to trust China any longer. John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Chicago, restated during a recent interview with India Today his long-standing thesis that world politics is “tragically” bereft of trust and security can only be realised through self-help.

Such realism might seem appealing after the violent clashes on June 15 as they occurred while the disengagement plan agreed on at the major-general level on June 6 was being enacted. However, one must ask: if India or China abandons the possibility of peaceful coexistence or trust-building and adheres to Mearsheimer’s prophecy, do they not risk bringing closer the very “tragedy” they want to avoid?

Even as rivals, if India and China are to lead the resurgence of Asia, they must avoid a Pyrrhic war and learn how to trust each other. One can intuitively reasoned that trust is often in short supply among rivals – particularly in times of conflict – but the historical record is surprising.

In 1950, faced with a refugee crisis on the Bengal border and the immediate prospect of state failure, India’s then-prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his Pakistani counterpart Liaquat Ali Khan avoided war and established a trusting relationship on the subject of religious minorities. In this instance, trust was possible despite an ongoing struggle over Kashmir, the trauma of Partition and active warmongering by prominent sections of the domestic population and media on both sides.

Other instances of trust between rivals include, the 1999 Lahore Declaration between Atal Behari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif, the end of the Cold War and rapprochement between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, and the 1995 Oslo Accords between Israel and Palestine.

02:13

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While military deterrence and offensive capabilities are vital for national security, the recent clashes on the Sino-Indian border show they cannot guarantee war avoidance. The risk of inadvertence, escalation and pre-emption persists with increased militarisation. If rivals want to manage, stabilise and eventually transcend the security dilemma, they must incrementally build trust.

First, states must be open to the possibility their adversaries may be fearful rather than revisionist. In other words, before deliberating on whether China should trust India or vice versa, we must ask why one actor may be mistrustful of the other.

In particular, Beijing could be motivated by fears of India’s road, infrastructure and military capacity-building in border areas and the change in the constitutional status of Ladakh after the de facto repeal of Article 370. In China’s strategic assessment, India could be laying down the foundations to forcefully reclaim Aksai Chin.

On the other hand, India’s need to bridge the infrastructure gap with China on the border and develop offensive options is vital for deterrence purposes. The shifting of the offence-defence balance since China’s infrastructure enhancements and the modernisation of the People’s Liberation Army in the Tibetan autonomous region has made India particularly vulnerable to fait accompli strategies in the high Himalayas.

05:02

Indians burn effigies of Chinese President Xi Jinping over deadly border clash

Second, once an actor accepts the other may be acting because of mistrust, it should seek pathways to reassure its adversary of its defensive intent. In essence, both India and China should signal to each other the mutual necessity of road and infrastructure development in border areas.

For instance, India should already have communicated to China that Ladakh’s new status as a Union Territory has a domestic rationale and does not signify India’s aggressive designs on Aksai Chin. One way to provide such reassurances would be through interpersonal diplomacy at the political and military levels.

So far, diplomatic engagement has followed every inflection point, with the de-escalation plan of June 22 and subsequent disengagement in the Galwan Valley, Pangong Tso and Gogra-Hot Springs being the latest iteration.

Why Pakistan is a big factor in China’s border clashes with India

Third, to develop a relationship of reciprocity, previous agreements and confidence-building measures must be revised and updated. Clearly, the challenges of “maintaining peace and tranquillity”, to quote the border agreement of 1993, between India and China are different now. While no shots were fired during the skirmishes on June 15, the fact that the deadliest clashes on the border in the last 50 years occurred is a watershed and demands a reconsideration of existing frameworks.

Such revisions may include: a freezing of claim lines based on historical precedent to avoid revisionism; an acceptance of the rights of both parties to develop border area on their side of the Line of Actual Control while disallowing any territorial expansion or “salami slicing”; and joint or coordinated patrolling of disputed areas, which is already being done at Fish Tail-II in southeast Arunachal Pradesh, or demilitarisation. The efficacy of previous agreements may have waned, but trust can still be maintained through a renewal of commitment.

In essence, a greater appreciation of the fears of one’s adversary paves the way for a deeper dialogue and a trusting relationship. This also requires a delicate balancing act, though.

Neither India nor China want the international stigma or material costs of aggressive war, but they also want to avoid the humiliation and domestic costs of territorial expropriation. In this respect, while containment or full-spectrum rivalry may seem instinctive, only incrementally built and contingent trust can meaningfully forge a sustainable relationship between the two nuclear security competitors.

Ameya Pratap Singh is a PhD student in Area Studies (South Asia) at the University of Oxford, researching critical non-Western perspectives on trust-building between adversaries in the Global South

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