Part 2 – The Galwan Clash and India’s Encirclement
READ ALSO: Can There Be Rapprochment Between India and China—Part 1)
The Galwan Clash
A border standoff in eastern Ladakh erupted on 5 May 2020. The face-off escalated after the Galwan Valley clashes.
On 15 June 2020, Chinese troops, estimated to be more than 250, attacked a group of 50 Indian soldiers who were inspecting the progress of the Chinese withdrawal from the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Galwan Valley. The encounter ended in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers and an undeclared number of Chinese troops, and led to a prolonged standoff between the two sides.
There had not been a single death from hostilities at the LAC in over 45 years — since 1967 – despite several hundred Chinese LAC violations annually.
The Current Situation is not promising.
The 16th Border Meeting was held on 17 July 2022, a step-by-step de-escalation was agreed but very little progress has been made.
The stated Indian position has been that until and unless there is peace and tranquility on the border, overall China-India relations cannot much progress. So far, India has remained reluctant to engage China normally in the bilateral context.
Beijing has repeatedly said that border standoff does not represent the entirety of China-India relations, while New Delhi has maintained that peace along the frontier is essential for the two countries to work together.
Chinese violations the LAC in all sectors are growing in frequency – up to 660 LAC violations by the PLA in 2019. There is an uncommon level of hostility, including fist-fighting and rock throwing that were rare prior to 2017.
The trends suggest LAC standoffs are growing more hostile, more frequent, longer in duration, and are receiving more media coverage and international attention, potentially restricting both sides’ room for manoeuvre.
There is a substantial massing of military forces in Ladakh to positions near the LAC.
Why Did China Resort to Aggression?
Some of the likely reasons are discussed below
Infrastructure Development. There has been an acceleration of Indian infrastructure development near the LAC in an attempt to close a substantial deficit with China there. In April 2019, India completed work on the critical Darbuk-Shyok-DBO road running parallel to the LAC in Ladakh, stretching all the way to its northernmost outpost at Daulet Beg Oldi. More recently, India began building east-west feeder roads from DSDBO to its forward outposts near the LAC. This year, India was also reportedly engaged in efforts to improve road infrastructure at Pangong Lake.
China has attempted to pressure India to halt infrastructure activities. India refused to heed China’s calls; the PLA applied military pressure. Only this time with more troops, more equipment, more locations, more pressure, and one potentially bold attempt to change the status quo at Pangong Lake.
India continues to construct and modernize over 60 “strategic roads” along the LAC, with an expected completion date of 2022.
Galwan River area has now become a hotspot because it is where the LAC is closest to the new road India has built along the Shyok River to DBO – the most remote and vulnerable area along the LAC in Ladakh.
Major Power Diplomacy. China tried to woo India to hedge against the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy and making it a key partner in the Belt and Road Initiative. India declined.
China’s Neighborhood Strategy. China wants to effectively check a rising New Delhi by asserting its strength and psychological advantage in bilateral ties. It wants to have a China-centered regional order with Beijing as the sole leader or rule-maker in the region.
Blame for Pandemic. China believed that India was catalyzing resentment against Beijing over poor handling of the pandemic that originated in Wuhan. India took over as the chair of the WHO executive Board on 22 May 2020 and it had a say in the probe into the origins of the pandemic and Taiwan’s participation in the 72nd session of the World Health Assembly.
Internal Dissent. Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) faced one of the biggest crises since the party came to power in 1949 because of dissatisfaction in handling the pandemic and the consequent surge in economic distress. At the NPC plenary, President Xi’s expected message was conciliatory to the domestic audience, while the international assertion was to be robust and defiant.
Restrictions on Chinese investments. The Chinese government took offence to India’s new rule notified in early April 2020 that blocked Chinese companies from acquiring Indian firms without government approval. The Indian government decided that all procurement orders of Rs 200 crore or less could not go to foreign companies. It could discourage cheap exports from China. Since the clash, India has also banned 224 Chinese Apps and a few dozen Chinese companies are facing tax evasion scrutiny including ZTE, Huawei, One Plus, Xiaomi and Vivo.
Change of J&K Status. India abrogated Articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution on Jammu & Kashmir, which provided the province special status and autonomy on 5 Aug 2019. J&K was made a Union Territory directly administered from Delhi. China described India’s move as “unacceptable”, undermining its “sovereignty” — even raised the issue at the UN Security Council. Frequent calls have been made by Indians to integrate Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) and Gilgit- Baltistan as these territories rightfully belong to India. China is concerned about these demands since the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is part of the ‘China Dream’ and the Karakoram Highway passes through these Indian territories to Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea.
India’s Accelerating Partnership with the US. China is concerned with India’s increasing and growing proximity to the US which it belives is aimed at countering China. Some of the developments which have taken place are
• Major Non-NATO Defense Partner with all basic enabling agreements in place.
• Over $20 billion in defense sales to India MQ-9B unmanned aerial systems; P-8I maritime patrol aircraft, C-130J transport aircraft, C-17 planes, MH-60R multi mission maritime helicopters, AH-64 Apache helicopters, CH-47 Chinook helicopters)
• U.S.-India Defense Technology and Trade Initiative
• Institutionalised 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue (2018)
• Quad Initiative (March 2021).
• Exemption from buying the S-400 Triumf AD systems from Russia
• Malabar joint exercises
• Close collaboration in Covid-19 response
• Counterterrorism Joint Working Group
• Homeland Security Dialogue
• Counter Narcotics Working Group
The Ukraine War
With the attention of the US-led West diverted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine instead of countering China in the Indo-Pacific, an emboldened Beijing is likely to indulge in muscle-flexing along the LAC, especially in the Arunachal sector.
India will have to grapple with a more belligerent China along its northern borders as a fallout of the Ukraine crisis.
The PLA has shown no signs of de-escalating the 21-month-long troop confrontation in eastern Ladakh, even as it has systematically strengthened its military positions and infrastructure all along the LAC.
Apart from conventional military capabilities, China’s focus on space, cyberspace and “informatized” and “intelligentized” warfare has been a major concern for India.
India’s Encirclement By China
New Delhi has numerous other concerns regarding China’s activities in almost all of India’s neighbouring countries.
Today, China with its unmistakable clout in South and Southeast Asia has used its economic-political-military influence, in intensifying its ties with Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Maldives causing Indo-China political and security discord.
According to the US annual report “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) 2020” the Pentagon says that in addition to the Chinese military base in Djibouti, China is seeking to set up military logistics facilities in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. In addition, China is considering to base its military logistics and infrastructure in Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Seychelles, Tanzania, Angola, and Tajikistan.
China is using the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative first announced in 2013, to support its strategy of national rejuvenation by seeking to expand global transportation and trade linkages to support its development and deepen its economic integration with nations along its periphery and beyond.
While China finances the developmental projects in target countries, information about its loaning operations are kept secretive and vague. Consequently, governments of BRI countries end up being completely unaware of the amount of money that they owe to China when contracts expire since loans extended to Chinese state-owned companies, banks, special purpose vehicles, joint ventures, and private sector institutions. The terms and conditions of the loans give China the right to use the finished projects and land as collateral if the latter were to default on loan repayments.
Potentially, these projects, when taken over could provide a global PLA military logistics network to interfere with military operations against China and support its own offensive operations as the Chinese global military objectives evolve.
Let us look at Chinese inroads into India’s neighbouring countries.
Myanmar
Myanmar is also part of BRI and likely to face the Chinese Debt Trap. There is also a lack of trust on the Myanmar side, due to China’s historical role in supporting rebel groups in Myanmar.
China and Myanmar share a 2,227-kilometer-long border. They have a boundary protocol signed in 1961, to conduct joint inspections every five years. But this has only occurred twice—in 1984-86 and 1992-95. A dispute over the border between Myanmar’s northern Shan State and China has simmered since 2008. Parts of the 200 km fence built by China have been pulled down by locals. The Chinese government is pushing Myanmar to implement the long-delayed Belt and Road Initiative projects and the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) Chinese townships are coming up inside Myanmar border areas administered by Wa authorities. The expansion of Chinese influence is obvious.
The CMEC will terminate at a new deep-water port at Kyaukpyu in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Some analysts have raised fears that the port could someday be used as a base or access point by the PLA.
China has a maritime reconnaissance and electronic intelligence station on Great Coco Island in Myanmar. The Chinese Army is also building a base on Small Coco Island in the Alexandra Channel between the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea north of India’s Andaman Islands. These two islands, which have been leased to China since 1994.
Bangladesh
China is considered as an ‘all-weather friend’ of Bangladesh – Their ties cover geopolitical, economic spheres and defence ties form a key area of their relationship.
Bangladesh forms part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative-BRI. But all is not well between their ties. China tends to interfere with Bangladesh’s foreign relations matters.
Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jimming, on May 10, 2021, warned Dhaka against joining the QUAD and said that if Bangladesh did so, it will “substantially damage” bilateral relations between Bangladesh and China.
China accounted for around 74 percent of Bangladesh’s arms imports between 2010– 2019 including submarines.
Bhutan
Bhutan shares an over 400-km-long border with China and the two countries have held over 24 rounds of boundary talks in a bid to resolve the dispute.
Bhutan and China issued a 1988 Joint Communique on the Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the Boundary and signed agreement on the maintenance of peace, tranquillity and status quo in the Bhutan-China Border areas in Kunming in April 2021.
China is using all tactics available to it for twisting Bhutan’s arms. China has established new villages roads and military or police outposts in disputed Bhutanese territory.
The Chinese game plan is probably to exchange it for another disputed pocket around Doklam, in western Bhutan at the cost of India’s security.
China seems to have managed to effectively lower India’s influence in Bhutan.
Nepal
China is trying to succeed in replacing India as the key economic as well as security partner for Nepal.
China’s main interest in Nepal has always been led by its concerns over Tibet. 25,000 Tibetans live in Nepal.
The Chinese have always considered Nepal the soft underbelly of Southern Tibet and are now determined to keep it under their influence.
Under a Marxist government, Nepal is trying to reshape its ties with China as a possible counterweight to India by proposing extension of their railway network from Tibet to Nepal, infratsructure projects and providing land link to Chinese ports.
Nepal as a buffer is important for India but India is losing its clout in Nepal to China.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka joined China’s BRI with several projects but now Colombo has fallen into the premeditated scheme of a Chinese debt trap, paying off its loans through debt-equity swaps to creating extra-jurisdictional Special Economic Zones.
An often-cited example of the ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ is the case of Hambantota in Sri Lanka, where the local government was forced to sign the port away on a 99-year lease after failing to repay Chinese loans.
For India, Lanka is an island that can be transformed into a veritable enemy aircraft carrier anchored on her doorstep, within strike range. Sri Lanka is also a potential kick-off point for an Antarctica mission at some future point.
Maldives
Maldives is barely 70 nautical miles away from Minicoy island in India’s Lakshadweep archipelago and 300 nautical miles away from India’s west coast.
Until 2017, Maldives was part of the Indian security grid receiving defence and economic assistance from India.
In 2013, after Abdulla Yameen came to power, Xi visited Maldives. Maldives joined the Maritime Silk Road and the two nations inked a free trade agreement. Chinese infrastructure projects flourished. Maldives accumulated a debt of nearly $3.1 billion (GDP $4 billion). There have been speculations about a possible Chinese naval base in Maldives. However, since Ibrahim Mohamed Solih came to power as president in 2018 after defeating Yameen, India has been prioritized over China.
Pakistan
China’s “irreplaceable, all-weather friend” Pakistan is China’s biggest arms buyer, counting for nearly 47% of Chinese arms exports.
China has established ammunition factories, provided technological assistance and modernised existing facilities.
The Chinese Chengdu J-10B fighter and Low to Medium Altitude Air Defence System (LOMADS) LY-80 has been supplied to the Pakistan Air Force. The Chinese have provided technology to manufacture JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft, K-8 Karakorum advance training aircraft, AWACS systems and Al-Khalid tanks.
China is the largest investor in Pakistan’s Gwadar Deep Sea Port, which is located at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.
China played a major role in the development of Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure, such as in building the Khushab reactor (for production of plutonium) and the completion of the Chashma Nuclear Power Complex and plutonium reprocessing facility.
China inroads in Pakistan/Sindh/Baluchistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, under the garb of BRI and strategic importance attached by it to China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) are an open secret.
India’s Opposition to CPEC. India has not endorsed the CPEC because it passes through the contested Gilgit-Baltistan region that remains, according to India, under the illegal occupation of Pakistan.
It is crucial for China to gain control over the Gilgit-Baltistan region (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir PoK), as the region borders the Xinjiang province of China.
CPEC would link Pakistan’s southern Gwadar port in Balochistan on the Arabian Sea to China’s western Xinjiang region. It also includes plans to create road, rail and oil pipeline links to improve connectivity between China and the Middle East.
Gwadar port, located on the Arabian Sea, will allow China to have a say in global energy economics as the country can use a naval base to hold control over the maritime traffic passing between West Asia.
READ ALSO: Can There Be Rapprochement Between India and China? (Part 3)
