Implications of 15 June Clash

With the very lethal Chinese attack of 15 June there has been a paradigm shift in India-China relations. In one fell stroke, China has trashed the Peace and Tranquility accords of 1993, 1996, 2005 and 2013. The entire concept of not using firearms within 2 kms of the LAC is now moribund. We have spent crores of rupees in constructing the Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie (DSDBO) road. We now have to defend it by tactically holding heights on either side of this vital artery. It can no longer be done by just patrolling under the benign aegis of the tranquility accords. China trashed them by killing our soldiers. Much as the foreign ministry mandarins may want it – we cannot go back to bonhomie and business as usual. The primary threat is from these two divisions offensively postured against us in Eastern Ladakh. These must go back to Xinjiang whence they came and restore status quo ante.

Roots of Rage

So why is China doing all this? Its actions stem from a deep sense of insecurity and a siege mentality. It perceives itself as being cornered from multiple directions – from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet and from the South China Sea (SCS). The US Navy has four carrier battle groups in the Pacific, two forward deployed now in the SCS to contest the Chinese amphibious exercise in the strategic Bashi strait. The USA is engaged in a trade war with China and has lined up the Quad alliance against it. The whole world rightly blames China for the Wuhan virus and pandemic. China is, therefore, lashing out in a very offensive manner designed to warn all comers not to mess with China.

Covid-19: A Preemptive Biological Warfare Strike?

So was Covid-19 Pandemic a proactive, premeditated and pre-emptive biological warfare strike by China to destabilize all its perceived tormentors? Was it a biological Pearl Harbour, which China has tried to exploit for economic and military gains? In hindsight , the scale and extent of the aggressive posturing by China’s armed forces from January along its entire periphery stretching from East China Sea, Taiwan to SCS and now Eastern Ladakh is cause for serious concern. It indicates a level of foreknowledge of the epidemic? The aggressive posturing along its entire periphery seems to be a defensive reaction.

War Zone Concept

China’s strategic culture talks of only one strategic direction at a given point in time. Currently, this is clearly towards China’s east coast, where its wealth creation and industrial centres are located. The War Zone Concept talks of China focusing all its military resources against one combat target country at a time. So why is it deliberately opting for a two front scenario? Maybe it thought that mere posturing would be enough to bring India to its knees.

India’ options

What then are India’s options? Must we go by the Chinese script? Will the game be played only by the Chinese rule book? Can China bully us year after year and refuse to settle the boundary dispute? 15 June was a significant turning point. India is trying to resolve the issue peacefully but we have a whole host of credible military options short of full scale war. The international climate could not be more favourable to us than it is now. The whole world has lined up against China. Most people do not know that right now India has the military advantage, in air power and mountain warfare ready formations deployed forward. We have the edge in combat experience and should not hesitate to safeguard our interests by limited kinetic action if push comes to shove. The problem is not safeguarding nibbles of territory here and there but the threatening posture of two Chinese mechanized divisions poised on our borders. This issue compares our military forces.

The Quad Dynamics

If push comes to shove what can the Quad do to help us? First of all, no one expects the Quad countries to put boots on the ground. India is big and strong enough to defend itself. What the Quad does is to tie down huge amounts of Chinese military resources in far away theatres and prevent their use against us. India is not a small country like the Philippines and China should be made to think twice before it tries to bully us.

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–              Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Cyber has redefined the perception of inter-state borders, global politics and threat intelligence in multi layered ways and the inherent characteristics of democracy may appear to complicate matters.

On one hand 5G and Quantum internet are etching the next generational national security concerns and, on the other, the rapid evolution in technologies have led to dramatic decrease in the cost of creating, processing, disseminating and searching for information leading to strengthening the muscles of soft power.

Today’s digital era, built on the blocks of inter-connectedness at every level, is already confronting an information revolution, a vital aspect of fifth generation warfare.

What better time to influence than a period of ambiguity and crisis. The same part of the brain that processes fear is also activated in ambiguous situations, driving people to seek information to address the discomfort of uncertainty. In the absence of quality information, any answers satisfy, including rumors and disinformation.

Covid-19

The first death reported from novel Coronavirus infection by the Chinese state media was on 11 January 2020. The disease caused by this virus was named Covid-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 February. WHO officials were denied access to the country to gauge the ground situation until Director-General Tedros Adhanom visited President Xi Jinping in the end of January.

Yet, unwittingly they already became a part of the misinformation bandwagon, especially after their tweet on 14 January saying:

 “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in Wuhan, China.”

WHO later declared Covid-19 pandemic on March11.

The analysis so far of  global disinformation pattern suggest that  it has been majorly around pro-China or anti-China narratives inclusive of various conspiracy theories related to the origins of this global pandemic. An internal document by European Union accused Russia of “aggressively exploiting the confusion and panic in Western countries over the coronavirus pandemic and pushing fake news in English, Spanish, Italian, German and French languages.”

India, too, is facing a threat of disinformation, internally and externally. Amongst many, this article will focus on the ones which have lead to an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases.

Internal

As per the Ministry of Health, the Tablighi Jamat Nizamuddin gathering and the subsequent travel of its members all across India increased the doubling rate of COVID cases from 7.4 days to 4.1 days. There were reports of incidents in various cities across India, where people from a religious community not only refused to observe self-quarantine but also exhibited hostility against government officials enforcing the lock-down and medical staff visiting the affected localities.

Multiple videos went viral where few miscreants from a particular community were repeatedly found flouting lockdown rules and giving statements like ‘Corona is from Quran’, ‘Corona won’t affect Muslims’ etc.

On 3 April, India Today reported that an investigation by a Delhi-based digital lab, Voyager Infosec, into more than 30,000 video clips in circulation on social media suggested a set pattern of targeted disinformation campaign aimed at the Muslim community in India. Voyager’s Director Jiten Jain said: “We have found a very interesting pattern where TikTok has been used as a primary medium to spread misinformation, citing fake and dubious research, which claims that coronavirus does not affect Muslims and that there has not been a single Muslim coronavirus patient in China and Italy.”

On 30 March, The Print carried an article ‘IS tries to provoke Muslims, says countries fighting Coronavirus are easy targets’ which stated: ‘The primary missive that is being circulated on the chat groups that IS runs on various social media platforms is a clipping of a note published in the terror network’s magazine called Sawt al-Hind (Voice of Hind). “Allah has made this disease a source of chaos amongst the nations of disbelief and their militaries and police have been deployed in their streets and alleys, thus making them an easy target,” Similar incidents were noted in other parts of the world.

New York-based Muslim Brotherhood activist Bahgat Saber called on the Egyptians to intentionally infect government officials and state employees with the Coronavirus. In a live session on his Facebook page, he exhorted “If you are a soldier, you can go into the defence ministry and shake hands with all the generals of the military and the police. The same is true with the justice system.” Saber, who has 143,195 followers on Facebook, said: “If you have contracted Coronavirus, you should take revenge!”

In a sermon (broadcast by Hamas TV) at the White Mosque in Gaza, Muslim Imam Jamil al-Mutawa called Coronavirus a “Soldier of Allah,” and celebrated the deaths of non-Muslims caused by Coronavirus, specifically praising Allah for deaths in California, China, Italy and Iran. He claimed that the streets of Israel were empty, while his mosque in Gaza was full. He went on to claim that Allah was protecting Muslims from Coronavirus, and that there were no confirmed cases of the virus in Gaza. The next day, unfortunately, two cases of Coronavirus were confirmed in Gaza.

At this point we need to ponder on the nature of the threat.

What are we facing?

Is it a threat from an entire religion or a threat from disinformation strategy of weaving narratives based on misinterpretation of religion with intent to create hostilities among communities and begin pocket conflicts across the country? The intentions can always be multilayered.

A period of infodemic is the perfect harvesting ground for any channeled and strategic influence operation.

We are not only looking at word of mouth or certain influencers on social media but at a combination of medium and message, where the medium is revamped with technologies like machine learning, bots, astro-turfing techniques and echo chambers used to create viral misinformation leading to an agenda setting effect which further shapes the public opinion.

The nature of the threat faced gets further convoluted as it is coupled with the foundational tenets of a religion.

One Sheikh Assim Al-Hakeem with 278,999 followers on Facebook explains to his followers that nothing can be contagious by itself unless by the permission of Allah.

Hadith

“Sahih Muslim, hadith 5513: “There is no adwa, no tiyarah (Evil Omens), No Hamah, No Safar, No Nawa, and no Ghoul, and no sick camel should be brought to a healthy Camel.”

Selectively interpreted as: There is no transitive disease and no sick person should be taken to one who is healthy.

Other Hadiths which were widely circulated during the pandemic were:

“It is a punishment that Allah sends to whom He wills. Allah has made it a mercy for the believers. There is not a servant who finds himself amidst a plague but he stays in that land in patience hoping (for Allah’s reward) and knowing that nothing can harm him except what Allah has written then this servant will be given a reward like that of a martyr.” [Bukhari]

‘If you hear about it (an outbreak of plague) in a land, do not go to it; but if plague breaks out in a country where you are staying, do not run away from it. [Bukhari]. This incidentally was also shared by Pakistani President in the context of stranded Pakistani students in Wuhan, China.

External

While social media and digital news are a new phenomenon, we always had traditional media organizations which are prone to manipulation and indulge in biased reporting. This falls more under the section of propaganda than disinformation. It has both official and unofficial channels like films, photographs, speeches, newspaper, books, pamphlets and periodicals, etc.

Media organizations like the BBC, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and The New York Times, with a history of gate-keeping bias against India, further worsen the scenario by sensationalizing biased stories and pushing the narrative of ‘Islamophobia’.

This is the juncture where the initiative born out of meager investments starts getting huge returns on investment by generalizing an entire community and planting seeds of communalism. Religion, faith and culture are the deepest emotions and, thus, attract disproportionate reactions, something the global propagandists bank upon. Needless to say that if this goes unchecked, we will be fighting a bigger pandemic for years to come.

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Weaponisation of Investments

Using Huawei Beijing had hoped to expand a 5G network across Europe and the world for intelligence. Along with the Xiaomi’s investment in London’s radio cabs, these examples serve as a case study of China’s weaponisation of financial investment as a tool of geopolitical influence-gathering purposes. Due to Covid-19, this has come under increased scrutiny from Britain and France, in particular, who accuse China of having covered up details regarding the coronavirus. Suspicions regarding Huawei’s 5G infrastructure predate the pandemic – MI6 director Alex Younger had expressed his reservations in December 2018 itself. Similarly, France has denied Huawei permission “to erect 5G antennae close to the Paris headquarters of the Ministry of Defence.” French intelligence agencies suspect that Huawei’s activities would allow China “to freeze 5G networks in the case of conflict.” The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated such criticism. The British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee chairman Tom Tugendhat – a Tory MP and ex-intelligence officer – has accused China of “deliberately falsifying data” about the virus from the outset amid speculation that Whitehall aims to turn China into “a pariah state” due to such apparent misrepresen-tations. The pandemic and the subsequent anti-China hostility generated in Whitehall may force prime minister Boris Johnson to overturn his January 2020 decision allowing Huawei permission to help build Britain’s 5G network and operate unsupervised on 35 per cent of it. MI5 and MI6’s call to “ensure diversity of supply in 6G and 7G” while protecting Britain’s “‘crown jewels’ of technology, research and innovation”, coupled with news regarding a rapidly-growing hardline anti-China faction within the Conservative Party may compel Johnson to take measures against Huawei. French president Macron has also posited the possibility of a Chinese cover-up, remarking in an interview that “there are clearly things that we don’t know about.” France’s growing belligerence was visible in March 2020, when despite the pandemic, the French and Indian navies conducted joint patrols in the greater Indian Ocean Region (IOR) from Réunion Island. It was Paris’ signal that it was willing to intrude into China’s sphere of influence in response to Beijing’s smokescreen politics.

Franco-British hostility towards China in the coronavirus’ context therefore translates into strategies targeting Huawei. Evidence also suggests that given the prevailing sentiment, British authorities in particular are looking for alternatives to Chinese 5G technology, which remains a necessity as British cyber security experts warn of “economic and social risks” of deliberately ignoring 5G.

Opportunities for India

Labour Party leader Keir Starmer’s comments that Kashmir “is a bilateral issue” between India and Pakistan and that any constitutional changes regarding the state’s status are “a matter for the Indian Parliament” are as much an attempt at winning back political patronage from the influential British-Indian community as they are a veiled jab at Beijing, given his noticeable omission of any reference to China – which also claims the Aksai Chin region of the former state and had criticised Article 370’s revocation as “unlawful”. India’s sale of paracetamol tablets to Britain may, therefore, be read as an attempt to capitalise on such sentiment. Regarding 5G, while India may not yet have any reliable suppliers of such technology, the government is attempting to facilitate joint ventures between Indian and non-Indian firms to exert greater geopolitical influence worldwide. This policy may later enable Indian companies’ entry into Europe’s 5G technology market, publicising themselves as viable alternatives to Huawei. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari’s exhortation of Indian firms to “encash the golden opportunity” provided by the pandemic to enter into such joint ventures with firms currently exiting China, as well as his promise to provide required permissions “on a war footing” appears to signal that the government is working towards pursuing this line of action. The government’s support for such joint ventures would bring approximately Rs 20-25 lakh crores into India’s manufacturing sector while diminishing China’s power as a global manufacturing hub. At the same time, it is worth keeping in mind that Indian wireless and telecom companies are also building up a base in the UK and can use the lull in investment triggered by the coronavirus to formulate new policies to expand their – and India’s – geopolitical reach.

Dealing with Protests

The pandemic provides China with a convenient distraction to crack down harder against Hong Kong’s anti-Beijing protestors. The arrests of prominent anti-China figures in mid-April 2020 suggests that Beijing is taking advantage of the lull in protesting caused by the coronavirus lockdown to enforce its will in the city-state. However, signs of the curve flattening in Hong Kong in late April have encouraged further protests such as the occupation of Landmark Atrium Mall, reflecting rising hostility against China amidst Covid-19. China’s heavy-handed response in a city that was considered during the 2018 US-China trade war to be her interface with the global economy signals to Washington that following the pandemic, it will no longer need to rely on third-parties like Hong Kong, flooded with Western financial investment, to wield economic clout. Actions in Hong Kong are also aimed at warning Taiwan, whose airspace was encroached upon twice by Chinese fighter jets in 2020. Writing in 2016, British journalist Tim Marshall noted that Beijing was “playing the long game” by wooing Taiwan. He argued that one of the reasons why authorities “did not batter protestors off the streets” during the 2014 Hong Kong protests was because “the world’s cameras were there and would have captured the violence”– footage of which would have been viewed by Taiwanese audiences possibly “asking themselves how close a relationship they wanted with such a power.” The CCP’s current response to the coronavirus-fuelled hostility it faces today in Hong Kong indicates that it has dispelled with such notions.

South China Sea

China’s actions in the South China Sea/East Asia seemingly predict such an aggressive Chinese foreign policy. In late April 2020, Australian and American frigates moved into a part of the South China Sea within a part of Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone – where a Chinese vessel was conspicuously deployed. Washington and Canberra’s actions reflect their growing anti-China hostility, especially following Australia’s call for an international enquiry into the origins of the coronavirus in China. China has also used the distraction of Covid-19 to provoke countries such as Vietnam as a premonition to her increasingly aggressive post-Covid geostrategic policy. In early April 2020, a Chinese vessel sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat in a Vietnamese-claimed area of the Paracel islands, and in May 2020 published new maps with renamed underwater landforms lying close to Vietnam. Hanoi responded with a Vietnam-affiliated hacking group called APT32 which attempted to “compromise the personal and professional email accounts of staff at China’s Ministry of Emergency Management”. In South Korea, the pandemic has re-ignited dormant anti-Chinese sentiment among the public that may find expression in domestic politics.

Implications for India

While the expected post-Covid global recession will most likely dent China’s economic clout/its geopolitical standing, the rising hostility towards Beijing in East Asia and the Indo-Pacific is likely to result in China growing even more belligerent. China’s actions in this part of the world should hold great significance to India, given that the developments lie directly in India’s vicinity. Additionally, the developments also provide a taste of what a aggressive China may look like foreign-policy wise following the pandemic, allowing our policymakers to better prepare for such an eventuality.

All this has major security implications for India. India has already attempted to market herself as the antithesis to China in Southeast Asia by agreeing to sell hydroxy-chloroquine (HCQ) to Malaysia, where her exertion of soft power is presumably an attempt to gain strategic influence in the Straits of Malacca region- a choke-point which China depends on for the free passage of its trading ships. That India has started ordering cheaper Covid-19 testing kits from SD Biosensor, a South Korean company also signifies India’s eagerness to capitalise on the rising Covid-fuelled anti-China sentiment in South Korea to possibly expand her influence in the Korean peninsula. India’s rejection of faulty Chinese testing kits soon after appears to partly indicate this. Vietnam, which has called for India to step up “efforts to strengthen peace and stability in the region” by taking a harder anti-China line, has been included in a proposed US-backed coalition that also includes, among others, India, Japan and Australia and is aimed at “restructuring supply chains” – implying a broader American policy to counter China’s expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative amid anti-China hostility fuelled by Covid-19.

While such developments might allow India to expand her geopolitical clout at China’s expense, they are also fraught with complications. The mass trial of an app-based digital currency, the “e-RMB” is possibly Beijing’s attempt to prepare for a potential scenario where it becomes completely economically self-sufficient amid possible international sanctions following Covid-19. This raises questions regarding the practicality of Washington’s abovementioned proposal. In a speech in April 2020, Australian envoy to India’s predicted that he “sees a US far more cautious about exercising global leadership than in the past” as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Ambassador Farrell’s comments indicated that the pandemic had caused countries like Australia to have lost their earlier confidence Washington’s ability to act as a sufficient anti-China bulwark in Southeast Asia. Interestingly however, in the same speech he acknowledged India to be “the natural major power in the region” – one that “Australia looks to as a strategic partner”. Such comments indicate that Canberra has more faith in bilateral relations with a nearby power – in this case, India – than in a broad-based US-centric coalition. India should play upon both such anti-China hostility as well as the quietly growing mistrust of US policies in countries like Australia to focus on building up an India-led bloc in Southeast Asia based on bilateralism rather than American-style multilateralism.

If India commits itself to Mike Pompeo’s proposal of an alliance, it risks losing the advantage that she appears to have gained through the subtle shift in allegiance towards it from countries like Australia. While one may point towards the aforementioned Indo-French naval exercises in the Indian Ocean in March 2020 to indicate India’s willingness to position herself as Beijing’s antithesis in the IOR, one may also argue that they were simply a face-saving gesture following the multilateral Milan 2020 naval exercises’ postponement (the exercise was to be held in March 2020 in the Bay of Bengal). It is in this context that geostrategy’s importance in India’s fight against China’s new “Health Silk Road” initiative is underlined. Conducting fly-bys of Indian Air Force jets over Burmese-administered Grande Cocos Island, where China has a SIGINT facility targeting India, or possible maritime exercises – unilateral or otherwise – in the South China Sea would serve as India’s diplomatic force multiplier, especially now, thus, facilitating her exploitation of the predicted post-Covid hostility of countries towards China.

As the pandemic subsides, there will clearly be a backlash against China’s global influence. Despite India’s currently weaker position vis-a-vis China, it is currently in a strong position to exploit Covid-fuelled hostility to rise as a power capable of pushing back China’s geopolitical influence, or at least using this window of opportunity to cultivate that image. The effects of the Coronavirus are indeed tragic. Yet it is imperative that South Block’s policymakers seize the opportunity it provides to grow as a global power while combating the rise of India’s rival, China.

The coronavirus must not diminish but intensify India’s will to grow stronger, as hostilities against China strengthen its ability to fight for dominance against a similarly ancient, Asian civilisation in our unpredictable times. Following the end of World War 2, the US had established its economic supremacy and geopolitical dominance by establishing the US dollar as the global currency. Today, we see the increasing possibility of a post-Covid China challenging that hegemony. It is, therefore, high time that India uses its various geopolitical levers to seize the opportunity provided by the coronavirus pandemic to position itself as a third power in today’s multipolar world order.

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But that will not be adequate. Pakistan had been clearly warned not to escalate the terror graph. India had retaliated with a surgical strike after an attack at Uri. For a few months Pakistan was relatively subdued. Then it got over the shock and resumed terror violence. After Pulwama, in February 2019, India retaliated with an air strike across the international border. This seriously rattled Pakistan and for almost a year there was relative dormancy in the terror offensive. The abrogation of Article 370 in J&K also passed off without major incidents in this interlude. Now Pakistan seems determined to break the status quo in J&K.

Somehow, the Deep State in Pakistan thought that India and the rest of the world were too preoccupied with the Covid pandemic. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) sensed a crass opportunity and stepped up the violence rather steeply. The Line of Control (LC) was activated in a major way. India retaliated with fire assaults in the Neelam Valley and Poonch. These destroyed an ammunition dump, an artillery battery and a terror camp. 50 Pakistani soldiers and terrorists were killed. Pakistan retaliated by upping the ante in the Valley with a series of attacks on security forces.

Afghan Connection. The ceasefire in Afghanistan is in tatters. The ISI is planning a big push to overthrow the government in Kabul. Recently, the Afghan security forces busted a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) camp being run under the aegis of the Taliban. The captured terrorists revealed that the JeM was running seven terror camps inside Afghanistan. The plan was to gain operational experience and then push some 400+ battle-hardened Jaish and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) cadres into Kashmir to escalate the level of violence.

Way Ahead. India had clearly indicated to Pakistan that it should now expect strong retaliation across the LC for any mass casualty terror attacks. India would exercise the right to hot pursuit and raise costs and consequences for the Deep State in Pakistan. It would not be a one-way street any longer. So frankly, India will now have to respond unless it wants the new deterrence regime to break down completely.

Quite obviously deterrence has not worked and we have to go at least two-three levels up the escalation ladder. And should that result in a limited war a la Kargil, so be it.

Covid-19 Pandemic

Covid-19 pandemic has seriously affected the global economy. The Pakistani economy was close to collapse even before the pandemic. The collapse of oil prices will seriously impact the capacity of its Middle East patrons to bail it out. China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) is fast turning into a serious liability with the pandemic. If India is able to kick-start its economy quickly, it could well effect a sharp V-shaped recovery next year. The Pakistani economy can ill afford a conflict right now. One nudge now cold push it over the edge in the post-pandemic period this nuisance of a nation will collapse without a shot being fired.

Recovery Plan. India enforced a relatively early and very strict lockdown in March 2020 itself when we had just 500 casualties. It has now been on for some 45 days plus. The aim was to control the spread of infections and gain time to build up the requisite medical infrastructure to deal with large scale spread of infection. That has largely been done. The simple but unfortunate calculus is that each day of the lockdown now enhances the economic costs and consequences. It has derailed our hospitality and aviation sectors completely and seriously dislocated the industry. Demand is virtually zero. If we do not resume economic activity immediately, our micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector could suffer irreparable damage.

Massive layoffs and unemployment can generate serious social unrest. The migrant labour problem seems to have taken us by surprise, by its sheer scale. Though the government and NGOs did step in to feed the migrants – it has not been as successful as it was thought to be.

We have to restore the supply chain and logistics. Our morbidity and mortality rate is relatively low. Countries that have suffered over 50,000 casualties are opening up their economies. India has some 300 districts with no cases and an almost equal number with a mere 5-10 cases. We need to open up urgently and kick start our economy on an emergent basis and remove the choke-holds on both supply and demand. Paradoxically, while Covid-19 presents a huge challenge, it is also a major opportunity. Many countries are planning to move their basic industries out of China and rework the global supply chains. It is time for bold and decisive actions to attract them.

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