Daily Times

On June 24, Beijing, once again, claimed its sovereignty over the ‘Galwan Valley region’, asking India not to cross Galwan-Shyok estuary, even as talks were underway between foreign ministries of both sides to de-escalate the tension. Chinese foreign and defence ministries slammed Delhi for violating “bilateral agreements, international rules and provoking the clash” and blamed Delhi for June 15 incident. Chinese defence ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said: “But what is shocking is that on the evening of June 15, Indian front-line frontier troops openly violated the consensus reached by the two sides…”

Beijing has consistently shown its profound concern (in collusion with Islamabad) over New Delhi’s administrative restructuring of the Jammu & Kashmir region, also accompanied by international opposition. Clearly, the Indo-Sino border dispute is a clash of interests where Chinese are eager to regain the de facto control of the Galwan valley to realign their soft power ‘strategic connectivity’ based on their cultural, historical and geographical claims; while Indians are trying to reoccupy the strategic Galwan area via their ‘expansionist surge’ to dominate the region.

According to the Foreign Policy Magazine, ”the Kashmir Valley and its surrounding territory have been at the heart of nearly every conflict between India and Pakistan-including three wars in 1947, 1965, and 1999….But last year’s abolition of Article 370, the guarantee of Kashmir’s quasi-autonomy, has allowed an old player to take a stronger role: China”. The ongoing clashes– which began between the Indian and Chinese soldiers at the Galwan River valley in early May-have pushed ties between the two Asian nuclear powers to a new low as this marks the first fatality since 1975 and the most serious clash since the war in 1962. So far, Beijing has advocated its blunt differences on where the LAC lies in Galwan valley.

By dint of its unique geographic location, the Galwan valley is the pivot of human connectivity between the people of Tibet, Ladakh and Gilgit -Baldistan

The current crisis unfolding along the LAC appears (as argued by Ashleey J Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) ”on one level to be a continuation of the trends witnessed in foregoing years. But this time, there is one important difference: unlike the discrete and geographically localized confrontations of the past, the latest encounters are occurring at multiple locations along the LAC in Ladakh in the eastern section of Jammu and Kashmir, which suggests a high degree of Chinese premeditation and approval for its military’s activities from the very top”.

The seeming topography of the Ladakh region is especially complex, with particularly unique features. Importantly, there is Aksai Chin, a territory that India has long claimed but China occupies. China began building a road through the area in 1956-linking Tibet to Xinjiang-and has occupied it since 1962. The Chin constitutes nearly all the territory of the Chinese-administered sector of Kashmir that is claimed by India to be part of the Ladakh area in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK). India considers it a part of its union territory, though this Indian plea is by no means acceptable to China. China’s policy seems to be focused on its justified territorial claim over the territory having a significant strategic location for China. Historically, Ladakh remained part of the Tibetan empire. Though Ladakh came under Dogra rule in 1834, it still maintained considerable autonomy and relations with the regime in Tibet.

The intensifying gravity of this volatile situation (backfired by Indian military misadventure on June 15) can be gauged from the fact that Modi’s unilateral revocation of article 370- challenging the erstwhile status quo of the Kashmir region, has created a big regional turmoil. The truth is that China cannot compromise on its sovereignty over the Galwan region- being challenged by Modi’s offensive designs. Indian foreign policy analyst C. Raja Mohan points out, China and India have had always different strategic interests, and a globally empowering new China will seek to achieve its own self-defined goals. The sooner India comes to terms with this, the better. India close ties with Washington and its geopolitical affiliation with the QUAD, may hardly work in the current situation.

As Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution wrote in Foreign Policy, “The standoff will likely weaken the position of those within the Indian government who seek more engagement with China or argue that stronger economic ties would ease political strains.” New Delhi’s pursuit– of promoting a policy of systematic divergence (via land grabbing in eastern Ladakh) rather than fostering an objective convergence of interests between Beijing and New Delhi– needs be revisted carefully with pragmatism. In the given scenario, geopolitics and geo-economics of the region via OBR and a driver of politics and economy of South Asia play an important role. China and India have been collaborating with each other in multiple sectors but at the same time, they are unable to resolve it mainly because of New Delhi’s growing criticism of the CPEC and its unjust renewal of the erstwhile status of the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK).

”I believe China has been concerned at Indian road building along the LAC particularly one road that was completed last year that essentially allows connectivity from Leh, the capital of Ladakh, all the way to Karakoram Pass,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at The Wilson Center. The Indian construction of 255km (158-mile) Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie (DSDBO) road is virtually objected by China. China’s economic corridor to Pakistan and Central Asia passes through the Karakoram, which is close to the Galwan Valley. The disputed area is close to the Aksai Chin plateau, which is under defacto Chinese control but claimed by India. Nonetheless, the history of the Ladakh region provides the truth about how colonial-era did not always align with cartographic needs for precision–importantly, ideas of where a country’s territory begins and ends. By dint of its unique geographic location, the Galwan valley is the pivot of human connectivity between the people of Tibet, Ladakh and Gilgit -Baldistan.

Notably, to prevent the movement of Chinese Air Force fighter jets, India has deployed a quick- reaction air defence system to the Ladakh region. China has already acquired a Russian S-400 air defence missile system. Both the US and Russia are against the exacerbations of war between the two sides. Some argue that geopolitically, the border tension in the Himalayas could be the new normal replicating a traditional hostile case study — between India and Pakistan for decades. Yet, it seems a delusionary scenario that New Delhi could unilaterally resolve this dispute without addressing the real issue of Kashmir. Further, India’s attempts to build roads to improve its defensive posture appear to provide more space for border disputes. Therefore, any future pacification to lastingly resolve this border dispute between China and India involving grey-zones requires a multilateral approach towards the final settlement of the Kashmir dispute.

The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan