Daily Times

Accusing China of ‘instigating’ the recent military stand-off in the high Himalayas Indian Defence Minister Arun Jaitley has bragged that India today was very different from what it was in 1962.

Next, Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat in the same context boasted that India could take on a “two-and-a-half front war”, possibly referring to China, Pakistan and Kashmiri freedom struggle.

China’s alleged instigation: Beijing is building a road in a ‘disputed’ territory claimed by Bhutan.

In October 1962 the world’s largest boundary dispute involving more than 120,000 square miles of territory led to a war in high Himalayas. Within no time Chinese troops cleared all Indian posts on what was their side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

On November 20, 1962 China declared a unilateral cease-fire and withdrawal to 20 kilometres behind what China described as LAC. During the course of the conflict two Indian divisions were completely routed.

This Sino-Indian border had remained hot until 1993 when India in order to focus more on its economy and on Pakistan conceded the Chinese designated LAC signing an agreement under which about 16 or so alignments on the boundary-line were to be settled through negotiations. In effect, the two countries promised not to seek to impose or enforce their versions of the boundary except at the negotiating table.

So, China and the world at large were taken aback when just a week before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US last month, the Indian troops violating the 1993 border agreement tried to forcibly stop the construction of a road within the Chinese territory, thus seemingly provoking Beijing to retaliate militarily.

India today, indeed, is not what it was in 1962. But China too is not what it was then. So, militarily India even today is not in a position to force China to agree to New Delhi’s version of LAC.

Moreover, India needs China’s vote to enter the Nuclear Suppliers Groups (NSG) as well as to get a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Bilaterally, China is now India’s largest trading partner in goods. India is also a member of Shanghai Cooperation Council (SCO) and sits with China in an alliance called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). It is also the second largest contributor to the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and is a member of New Development Bank (NDB) floated by BRICS.

But perhaps India continues to suffer from its self-perceived threat of a non-existent Chinese encirclement strategy. India perhaps sees an endorsement of its encirclement concerns in China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) Initiative as well as in the Chinese built Pakistani port of Gwadar, overlooking the Indian occasion which is an essential part of Pakistan-China Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. That is perhaps why it is opposed to the CPEC and the main reason why it boycotted the OBOR inaugural in Mid-May in Beijing.

Analysing the comparative hard and soft power strengths of the two — the Chinese national media has concluded that India cannot afford a showdown with Beijing on border issues

So, perhaps before leaving for the US PM Modi had wanted to send a message to President Trump reassuring him of India’s willingness to take on China as Washington’s proxy in return for the hardware and other material and moral support required to pin China down in a wasteful combat so that it does not challenge the US global hegemony and at the same time also helps save India from Chinese encirclement threat. Therefore,  the deliberate provocation.

Modi’s immediate dash to Israel following his return from the US even at the cost of losing Iran (no more in the good books of US administration) also seems like a desperate attempt by India to win over the US across the political spectrum — both the ruling Republicans and the out of power Democrats — to ensure guaranteed help in encircling China to neutralise its OBOR initiative and snuff out the CPEC project.

Iran has reacted promptly by talking about human rights’ violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir for the first time in many years. The fate of Indian funded Iranian Chabahar sea port also appears in jeopardy.

The fact of the matter is both China and India are too big to be encircled, no matter how you go about trying to do it.

China has very rightly accused India of using Bhutan as a “cover- up” for the “illegal entry” into Doklam area that belongs to China.

When Indian soldiers went in to halt road building work the PLA destroyed Indian bunkers. Talks between commanders in the area haven’t helped ease the tension.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Geng Shuang has asked India to pull back the soldiers adding “China will take all necessary measures to safeguard its territorial sovereignty,” he warned.

Beijing has accused Indian soldiers of crossing from the north eastern state of Sikkim into its Tibetan territory to stop the road building and said it controls the territory under an 1890 accord made with Britain.

The serious nature of the current crisis, if not carefully handled by both sides, could lead to a major confrontation in the Himalayas. As many as 3,000 troops are said to have been deployed by each side in a “virtually eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation”.

The tri-junction in the Sikkim sector is also of strategic significance for New Delhi. The area is not far from the narrow strip of land called the “chicken neck” which connects the Northeast to the rest of India. This narrow strip is the lifeline for the region and the Indian Army in the Northeast gets its suppliers through this region. In case of a border war, China can quickly cut off the main supply route to the Northeast and ensure that Indian Army’s supplies are stopped. So this does impinge greatly on New Delhi’s own security considerations.

Official Chinese media has demanded that this time the Indian side should be taught the rules of the game and that it should be made to realise that there is a price to pay for such provocations.

Analysing the comparative hard and soft power strengths of the two the Chinese national media has concluded that India cannot afford a showdown with China on border issues, citing data such as India’s economic output, which is one-quarter of China’s, and its annual defence budget, which is just one-third of China’s.

The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad. He served as the Executive Editor of Express Tribune until 2014

Published in Daily Times, July 7^th , 2017.