India-China, border clash between the world’s biggest nations, What triggered the recent China border moves?, Why We Should Worry About India-china Border Skirmishes

The unprecedented high levels of tension at multiple locations in eastern Ladakh on the disputed India-China border, where Chinese soldiers have moved into Indian territory across the Line of Actual Control (LAC), have raised questions about the Chinese motives for this action.

The most recent clashes took place earlier this month. On May 5, Indian and Chinese soldiers clashed near the Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh. It is believed that the skirmish(1) took place because the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had objected to Indian military patrols in the area. Most of these clashes apparently stem from differing assessments of the location of the so-called Line of Actual Control—the de facto international border. And then on May 9, at an altitude of 15,000 feet, in the Naku La region near Tibet, soldiers from both sides came to blows and threw stones at each other mostly in efforts to induce the Indian troops to move back from the areas they were patrolling. No arms were used but more than 100 soldiers from both sides were injured, including a senior Indian officer who was required to be airlifted to a hospital.

India-China shares a 2,167 mile-long border. Together, their populations are around 2.7 billion, more than a third of the world. Both have achieved rapid economic development in recent decades and increased their territorial ambitions. Both have nuclear weapons. India was among the first democracies to recognize the People’s Republic of China in 1950, but border disputes between the two increased as Beijing took control of Tibet. 

Aksai Chin is located in the Indian union territory of Ladakh. It is a virtually uninhabited(2) high-altitude wasteland crossed by the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway. The other disputed territory lies south of the McMahon Line. It was formerly referred to as the North-East Frontier Agency and is now called Arunachal Pradesh. The McMahon Line was part of the 1914 Simla Convention between British India and Tibet, without the agreement of China.

      The 1962 Sino-Indian War was fought in both of these areas. An agreement to resolve the dispute was concluded in 1996, including "confidence-building measures" and a mutually agreed Line of Actual Control(LAC).  The 1988 compromise between India and China, helped in part by New Delhi’s studious silence on developments within Tibet, was driven by the fact that the two countries were near equals on the world stage. According to the World Bank, India’s gross domestic product was $297 billion compared with China’s $312 billion that year, while India’s defense spending, at $10.6 billion, was also close to the Chinese allocation of $11.4 billion.

       The material balance of power between China and India has dramatically changed since then. At $13.6 trillion in 2018, China’s GDP is now more than five times India’s $2.7 trillion. Similarly, China spent $261.1 billion on defense expenditure in 2019, almost four times India’s total of $71.1 billion. While India has risen as an economy and a global power in the past three decades, its relative strength to China has in fact greatly declined.

China and India’s material capabilities remain in flux; China continues to outride India along most axes of power even as New Delhi seeks to boost its own capabilities. According to the World Bank, India recorded higher growth rates than China every year between 2014 and 2018. While the long-term economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic remains unclear, India’s smaller economy and marginally faster growth rates mean that it has the potential to narrow its power gap with China—at least in the long term. In other words, India is the only major power that is rising with respect to China—even as China grows faster than other major powers such as Japan and the United States.

In addition to accruing power domestically, India is also building strong strategic partnerships with China’s other rivals, especially the United States and Japan. Meanwhile, a rising China has stabilized its northern borders with Russia and is working to undermine the United States’ primacy in the East Asian maritime commons through the modernization of its military and its push to build islands. This basically leaves only one border issue with a rival unresolved: namely, the Sino-Indian border. It is hardly surprising that it is exerting periodic pressure on India along this front—a trend that is only likely to escalate.

Furthermore, it hands Beijing a cheap instrument to apply pressure on the Indian political leadership. Just look at the current discourse — no one knows why the Chinese are doing this now. Beijing won’t tell us, for that would defeat its purpose. China’s actions appear to be a response to India’s construction of roads and airstrips adjacent to the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which will improve connectivity and enable easier mobility for Indian troops in the area.  That Indian construction in the region had been interpreted as an aggressive challenge to Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure project.

In 2017, when Indian and Chinese troops faced off for two months in Doklam, an area claimed by both Bhutan and China, a serious military clash was a distinct possibility. While that particular crisis abated, it is perhaps instructive to see the standoff not as an aberration(3) but as part of a new phase in relations between the two countries. 

Ashok K Kantha, a former Indian ambassador to China and now director of the Institute of Chinese Studies based in Delhi said- “This escalation is serious; I don’t think this is just a localized incident. China’s behavior is more aggressive this time, backed up by a fairly large number of troops, which is not typical of this border where troop levels tend to be low on both sides. It could be a territorial claim or part of a wider message to India that they need to be more mindful of China on sensitive geopolitical issues.”

In a recent statement, India’s external affairs ministry blamed China for provoking the military escalation. “In fact, it is the Chinese side that has recently undertaken activity hindering India’s normal patrolling patterns,” the statement said. “The Indian side has always taken a very responsible approach towards border management.”

Amid the global coronavirus pandemic, assessing exactly what is happening in this dispute between the two most populated countries on Earth is difficult. Much of the border region is closed to the press, so reporters have to rely on statements and leaks. There have been diplomatic discussions as well as multiple meetings on a local level in an attempt to defuse the tensions.

    I do not think we can prevent China from using Himalayan skirmishes to throw us off balance unless we go on the offensive elsewhere. The South China Sea/Indian Ocean Region maritime domain presents us with the best options. They are far from our borders but not too far. We have the military capabilities to pursue the option; naval power is flexible, and the regional geopolitical context is favorable.

Shailendra

(1) skirmish-झड़प (2)uninhabited-निर्जन  (3)aberration-विपथन