As the reverberations of the gruesome clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Himalayas on June 15, which killed 20 Indians and an unknown number of Chinese, refuse to die down in New Delhi, it may be time to ask the larger question: what does this incident portend for the relationship between the two Asian giants?
Incidents have occurred many times over the years along the disputed 3,500km (2,200-mile) border between the two countries, the Line of Actual Control (LAC) established at the end of a short but bloody war in 1962, yet the two countries have managed an uneasy but viable modus vivendi. Whenever troops from either side build roads, construct or repair roads, bunkers and other routine fortifications, or conduct patrols close to the LAC, tensions can and repeatedly do flare up, but these have always been defused. Both governments tend to downplay troop movements of the other side as resulting from “differing perceptions” of where the LAC, which has never been officially demarcated, lies.
In addition to several hundred local face-offs, there have been major Chinese transgressions in Depsang (2013) and Doklam (2017) which required high-level diplomatic and military engagement to defuse. This time in April and May there were multiple Chinese intrusions across the LAC at the Galwan Valley, Hot Springs, Pangong Tso Lake in Eastern Ladakh and Naku La in North Sikkim, and the same outcome was expected. No shot had even been fired in anger at the LAC since 1975. The loss of life this time shatters nearly half a century of peace.
The incident has provoked fury and hostility across Indian public opinion, with the burning of effigies of President Xi Jinping, the smashing of Chinese-made TV sets by emotional owners and widespread calls to boycott Chinese goods and even Chinese restaurants. Seen from New Delhi, India-China relations are at their lowest ebb in living memory.
Indian soldiers in the Ladakh region. Photo: AP
India normally has no desire whatsoever to provoke its northern neighbour, which humiliated New Delhi in a brutal border war in 1962 that left China in possession of 23,200 square kilometres of Indian territory. At the same time, Beijing regularly reminds India that it still claims a further 92,000 square kilometres, mainly in the north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The Indian approach has been to relegate the problem to the back burner and keep things quiet on the border, enabling trade relations (now worth close to US$100 billion) to flourish.
Then why did the tragedy occur? Why did China risk destabilising a tranquil border in this way?
The consensus of Indian opinion is that the Chinese troops were engaged in a tactical move to advance their positions along the LAC. Rather than merely patrolling, they have established a fixed presence in these areas well beyond China’s own ‘Claim Line’, occupied the “Finger Heights” near Pangong Tso Lake, pitched hundreds of tents, constructed concrete structures and built a few kilometres of road along the LAC. The objective seems to be to extend Chinese troop presence to the intersection of the Galwan river and the Shyok river, which would make the Galwan Valley off bounds to India. The Chinese have constructed permanent structures in the area of their intrusion and issued statements claiming that sovereignty over the Galwan Valley has always belonged to China.
A satellite image of the Galwan Valley area in the Ladakh region near the Line of Actual Control between India and China. Photo: AP
It is unlikely that Beijing is planning anything as dramatic as a war or a major military campaign. Rather, its actions suggest an intention to undertake minor military incursions to inflict small-scale military setbacks on India, take a few square kilometres of territory for local tactical purposes, and then declare peace. Mutual disengagements will be announced, both sides will claim the crisis is over, but it will end with the Chinese in a better position on the ground than before it began.
With several such episodes a year, none of which usually get out of hand, China will consolidate the LAC where it wants it, so that an eventual border settlement that takes these new realities into account will be in its favour. That is the long-term plan: Beijing keeps saying the border should be left to future generations to settle, knowing full well that each passing year increases China’s relative economic, military and geopolitical strength vis-à-vis India. In the meantime, border incidents keep the Indians off balance and demonstrate to the world that India is not capable of challenging China, let alone offering security to other nations.
02:13
India and China attempt to de-escalate border tension after deaths
India and China attempt to de-escalate border tension after deaths
This is why India must insist upon the restoration of the status quo ante and the return to positions occupied before April 2020. New Delhi knows that this is a test of its resolve; giving in to Chinese tactics would invite more “salami-slicing” by the PLA. The deaths of unarmed soldiers in a physical brawl was a humiliation the strongman regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not easily live down. In any case, it is very much in New Delhi’s interest to prove to all watchers – including China’s ally next door, Pakistan – that it is no pushover.
It is far from clear that China will oblige. In 2020 the world has been seeing a stronger, more assertive China, keen on showing its weight in the world amid talk of post-Covid “decoupling”. It seems much less likely to end the latest crisis with a unilateral withdrawal. The two countries have sent reinforcements to the border and a prolonged stand-off seems likely.
The tragedy in the Galwan Valley and the Chinese military moves that provoked it have undoubtedly increased hostility to China among the inflamed Indian public and strengthened those in New Delhi who feel India should now make common cause with the United States and other democracies in the region. There have been objective reasons to mistrust Beijing: its “all-weather” alliance with India’s arch-enemy, Pakistan, in which it has invested tens of billions of dollars and whose side Beijing invariably takes in the two countries’ bilateral disputes; its establishment of a well-financed presence in India’s neighbourhood, particularly Nepal, as Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and now even Bangladesh, as a counterweight to New Delhi’s traditional influence there; and its opposition to India’s international aspirations to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council or membership of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group.
01:58
Indians call for boycott of Chinese goods after deadly border clash with China
Indians call for boycott of Chinese goods after deadly border clash with China
With the end of the Cold War, Beijing had two options in relation to India: to see the country as a natural partner, together with Russia, in building up an alternative pole to US dominance in the region, or to identify it as a potential adversary to its own aspirations. The emergence of a stronger US-Indian partnership in recent years appears to have convinced China to place New Delhi in the latter category, even though India has refused to be an instrument of US “containment” of Beijing and China is India’s second largest trading partner.
The negative Chinese perception may have been reinforced by India’s involvement with the US, Japan and Australia in the Quad arrangement, its cultivation of the former Soviet “stans” in Central Asia (including the establishment of an Indian military base in Tajikistan), its criticism of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and refusal to attend belt and road forums in 2017 and 2019, its withdrawal from the Asia-wide Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership because of concerns of Chinese dominance of that arrangement, and its support for the US position on the “Indo-Pacific” region in general and the South China Sea in particular.
But New Delhi does not see itself as an adversary of Beijing. India, a founder of the non-aligned movement during the US-Soviet Cold War, has historically been allergic to alliances and feels no desire to put all its strategic eggs in one basket. Donald Trump’s United States has never struck New Delhi as a particularly reliable partner. Modi, who has visited China five times as Prime Minister, has met Xi more often than any other world leader and just eight months ago hailed “a new era of cooperation between our two countries”.
That era, it would seem, has ended after eight months. Current events could yet drive a reluctant India into the US embrace. China doesn’t seem to care. Beijing has decided it can afford to put India in its place, even if that place is in the opposite camp.
Shashi Tharoor is a third-term Member of the Indian Parliament and a former Chairman of Parliament’s External Affairs Committee
