The Doklam dimension

Reports of a Chinese buildup in the Doklam area should be occasion for worry. This was an area where the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had a prolonged standoff between June and August 2017, which was resolved only on August 28, 2017. At the time India had issued a statement that both sides had agreed to an “expeditious disengagement” at Doklam. The face-off had started after Bhutanese and Indian troops had stopped a Chinese road construction team at Doklam, which India considers Bhutan’s territory.

However, Google Earth imagery as of December 10, 2017 revealed that the Chinese withdrawal was literally of tens of metres from the point where Indian and Chinese troops had faced off and since then they have built up significant strength adjacent to  the site. In some ways it is in response to the fact that India, too, has had significant forces at around 150 metres away up the ridge at Doka La. These were the forces that blocked the Chinese efforts to build a road to the Jampheri ridge.

In response to a question on developments in Doklam at the annual Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, Indian Army Chief Bipin Rawat said  on Wednesday,  “They [the Chinese] have carried out some infrastructure development, most of it is temporary in nature. But while their troops may have returned and the infrastructure remains, it is anybody’s guess whether they would come back there, or it is because of the winter they could not take their equipment away that.”

Earlier in his annual Army Day press conference, the General Rawat had said that the August 28 agreement had been aimed at separating the two forces. “We have come back from where we had stepped in, (back) to our own territory. We are now back on the watershed. And the Chinese too have gone back that much distance. But behind that, they have continued to maintain themselves.”

Given that Indian forces had entered around 100-150 metres into the territory disputed by Bhutan and China, the presumption is that the Chinese pull back also amounted to that distance. And that is what the December 10 imagery reveals.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar strongly reiterated the government’s position that there has been no change in stance since the disengagement in August. He said that “there was no basis for such imputations” to repeated questions about the presence of Chinese troops at Doklam. “The government would once again reiterate that the status quo at the face-off site has not been altered.” He went on to add, “ Any suggestion to the contrary is inaccurate and mischievous” .

In August, at the time of the disengagement, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying had said that India had withdrawn their troops, but remained silent on the status of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers. “China will continue to exercise its sovereign rights and maintain territorial sovereignty in accordance with the provisions of the historical conventions.”

This time around, another Chinese spokesman Lu Kang rejected implications of the Indian reports that China may be preparing for another standoff with India. Lu, declared that: “China’s position on the Donglong (Doklam) area is quite clear. Donglong always belonged to China and (was) always under China’s effective jurisdiction.”

He said China’s construction there was “ legitimate and justified. Just as China will not make comments on India’s construction of infrastructure in India’s territory, we hope other countries will not make comments on China’s construction of infrastructure in its own territory,” he said. He said China is building infrastructure for its troops and the people living in the area. “In order to patrol the border and improve the production and lives of border troops and residents, China has constructed infrastructure including roads in the Donglong (Doklam) area,” Lu said. He said China was exercising sovereignty in its own territory.

Referring to Army Chief General Bipin Rawat’s comment that Doklam is a disputed territory between China and Bhutan, Lu said: “The Indian senior military officer has recognised that it was the Indian border troops who crossed the border… This incident has put bilateral relations to… severe test. We hope the Indian side can learn lessons from this and avoid the incident from happening again.”

Clearly, the Chinese are not backing off and neither is India. This, then, has the potential for a more serious clash between the two sides unless the issue is diplomatically resolved. That resolution is, of course, complicated by the fact that India has no claim on Doklam; the claimants are China and Bhutan. Given the latter’s lack of state capacity, China began nibbling on Doklam since 2005. Last June they sought to occupy their entire claim area and Bhutan would have been unable to resist but for the Indian intervention.

For the Indians, the issue relates to its friend Bhutan and its own security. There is no treaty that automatically commits India to Bhutan’s defence. But given the country’s location it is clear that the security of India’s north-east is inextricably tied to that of the little Himalayan Kingdom.

India’s security is also affected directly in the Doklam region. If China occupies the entire area up to the Jampheri ridge it will get  an overview of the Siliguri corridor, a narrow neck of land that joins the north-east to the rest of the country. Just as China does not countenance countries that are seeking access to islands close to its mainland, India cannot accept the Chinese presence in this area.

Greater Kashmir January 22, 2018

Doklam ‘Dis-Engagement’ May Have Been Mutual, but It Is India That Has Come out on Top

Short of a military showdown, the only outcome to the Doklam crisis was the restoration of the status quo as of June 16. And that is what appears to have happened. The best outcome of diplomacy – to resolve a crisis that could have led to an armed clash – is one where both sides can declare victory. That is exactly what we are seeing in this case, with spin and selective briefings in both countries targeting domestic audiences.
 

Even so, by all measure, it is India that has come out on top in the current situation. It wanted a halt on the construction of the Chinese road from the Doka La area to the Jampheri ridge, and it has succeeded. For how long is another matter.
Just what has been the impact of its action on China and Bhutan is difficult to assess from public statements. Suffice it to say, there will be longer term consequences, which could either be benign or malign.
Though the contest at Doklam at 16,000 ft over a few square kilometres of land – the Chinese had complained of an encroachment of just about 180 metres – had strategic implications, its outcome may have owed itself to the enormous tactical advantage India had in the region.
The Chinese had a single road coming to the Doklam bowl zig-zagging from their major base in Yatung. It was dominated for a significant part by Indian positions on the watershed between the Amo Chu and the Teesta rivers. The point from where the Chinese wanted to build the road was actually overlooked by the strong Indian positions in Doka La. For them to start a confrontation there did not make sense anyway.
But perhaps the most important reason may have been the fact that for the Indian side, the Jampheri ridge is considered a vital operational requirement for the defence of Sikkim and the Siliguri Corridor, while China has no important stakes there. It would certainly have an advantage in surveilling the Siliguri Corridor by occupying the ridge, but its forces in the Doklam bowl are vulnerable at all times to Indian interdiction. In essence, India’s security concerns outweighed the Chinese concerns over its sovereignty, which, in any case, was legally contested by Bhutan.

What has come about as a result of de-escalation Four things have happened, all signaling that the can has been kicked down the road.
First, there has been no solution to the underlying issue, which remains as tangled as ever. The Chinese have vigorously asserted their claim, and the Bhutanese, by calling for a restoration of the status quo, have obliquely affirmed theirs.
The second is that India and China have probably agreed that the status of Doklam will be akin to that of the disputed parts of the Sino-Indian border, which is marked by a Line of Actual Control and is not delimited in any map. Both sides have their own notion as to where it runs and therefore patrol to the extent of their claims. They are also bound by agreements to not undertake any civil construction – bunkers or roads – in these contentious areas. However, in this case, the weak link is the Royal Bhutan Army (RBA), which does not have the capacity to match the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which has, after all, been patrolling the area for some years now.
Third, the issue may have ensured that the Sino-Bhutan border negotiation must now be embedded in the Sino-Indian process.
Fourth, India has subtly side-stepped from accepting the validity of the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890. All it says it accepts is that there is an agreement on the “basis of alignment” of the Sikkim-Tibet border, something that needs more work to be finalised into an accepted international border.
The loss of the Doklam area to China would not be a catastrophic loss for the Indian side, which occupies strongly grounded positions around the area. As it is, contrary to the impression that is often made, the Chinese deployment in Tibet is quite minimal and nowhere near the numbers India has on hand – ten Mountain divisions and a Strike Corps being raised. Many of the forces are located at high altitude and are acclimatised, whereas the bulk of the Chinese forces committed for Tibet are in lower lying regions east of Tibet. China is supposed to have designated some airborne forces for rapid deployment in the Tibet region, but anyone with experience with those altitude knows that most of the forces would come down with mountain sickness if they were not systematically acclimatised.
Even though India has signaled just how important the Jampheri ridge is to its operational posture in the region, a lot hinges on the Sino-Bhutan border negotiations, should Bhutan concede the area to China, there is little that India can do. There is the matter of the tri-junction that needs to be determined, which India, citing the minutes of the 2012 Special Representatives understanding, says must be done with the concurrence of all three parties.
Here too Bhutan’s outlook is crucial. If it concedes the Doklam area, by definition, the tri-junction, as accepted by India and Bhutan till now, will move southwards from its present position near Batang La, possibly conceding the Jampheri ridge to China.

Bhutan itself also presents a vulnerability to Indian defences because, were the Chinese to move through Bhutan, there is little that India could do since the RBA is a token force and is not geared to dealing with military threats of the kind the PLA presents.
For the present, China will not find it easy to wind back the rhetoric that threatened war repeatedly in the last couple of months. It will certainly be smarting at the surprise Indian action that compelled it to compromise. The Doklam stand-off and its resolution could be an inflection point where China decides that it needs to focus on economic restructuring and quickly settle the border issues with India and Bhutan, which are born more out of prestige than any strategic consideration. Or, it could bide its time to follow through in its project of cutting India to size, as a pre-condition for emerging as the undisputed hegemony in the South Asian-Indian Ocean Region (SA-IOR).

Impact on Bhutan
Bhutan’s predicament is more palpable. Doklam does not really affect Bhutanese security. But it does have implications to that of a country that is vital for its well being. There have always been voices in Bhutan calling for a quick settlement of the border issue so as not to lose more territory through China’s incremental nibbling strategy. These could be strengthened by the recent events.
So, in the coming period, it means that India needs to adopt a strategy of holding its friend Bhutan close. Certainly South Block needs to learn some lessons from its poor handling of its neighbours. Having witnessed the emergence of significant Chinese equities in Nepal, India cannot afford to allow a repetition of the process in Bhutan. As for the Indian military, it needs to urgently follow through on structural reforms to be able to effectively deter the PLA’s increasingly assertive posture in the SA-IOR. The PLA, which enjoys considerable autonomy in the Chinese system, cannot possibly be pleased with the current outcome and there will be some hard thinking on ways to get back at India.
The Wire August 31, 2017

After Doklam, military postures continue to escalate in India, China

In  January, we had occasion to refer to an article in the South China Morning Post by Senior Colonel Zhou Bo, an influential officer of the PLA Academy of Military Science, who often comments on international issues.

He warned that the Doklam incident in 2017 in the India-China-Bhutan tri-junction area could be a turning point on the issue of peace and stability along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China.

He added that it had already “provided China with a lesson on reconsidering its security concerns.” And as a result, “China will most probably enhance its infrastructure construction along the border.” India would respond, but given its robust economy, it would not be able to match the “speed and scale” of the Chinese actions, the Senior Colonel noted.

That future seems to have already arrived. Reports from Doklam suggest that not only is the People’s Liberation Army firmly entrenched in the area where the standoff occurred, within territory that India and Bhutan believe belongs to the latter, but it is now building a road to bypass the point of last year’s blockade, which was just 100 meters or so from the Indian post at Doka La.

The new road, 5-6 kilometers to the east and deeper in the Doklam region, would not be amenable to the type of blockade India placed last year. It would require a full-fledged Indian military operation to disrupt the road construction, something that is obviously a fraught prospect, not only because Indian forces can only legitimately intervene there at the invitation of Bhutan. There is nothing to indicate that such an invitation would be forthcoming.

A Chinese road, and the possible occupation of all of the Doklam Plateau including the Jampheri ridge, will give the PLA an overview of India’s strategic Siliguri Corridor. The Indian Army, which is strongly entrenched in the corridor and in Sikkim, views such an occupation as a dangerous development.

But Doklam is not the only region where the Chinese have stepped up their activity. India is now detecting an enhanced interest by the Chinese in developing their Tibetan infrastructure.

Readiness in Himalaya region

In the past two decades, Beijing had strengthened its communication network, focusing on rail lines and roads and barracks and settlements along them. The Chinese deployment in Tibet has been quite light, and its emphasis has been on the ability to pump forces in rapidly, in the event of conflict. Now, however, they seem to have concluded, in common with India, that the kind of politico-military crises that occur in the Himalayas may require the presence of significant forces on hand. So now there is a distinct uptick in the construction of residential and other infrastructure along the length of the LAC as well.

The most recent developments seem to be the improvement in the infrastructure to support the PLA Air Force for both fighter and helicopter operations, as well as an emphasis on training the forces to operate at high altitudes. The PLAAF has routinely rotated fighters through Tibet and Xinjiang in the past and has actually based some of its J-11 and J-10 fighters in the area. It also routinely uses its airlift capability based on its Il-76, Yun-20 and Y-9 aircraft. In addition, it deploys helicopters such as the Mi-17 and Mi-171 Hip for transportation and for combatThe Doklam standoff has seen the numbers and quality of aircraft increase. In January, there were reports that the Chinese had sent their advanced fifth-generation stealth fighter, the J-20, for a training exercise in Tibet. We may soon see other signs of a stronger military presence such as air defense systems and a further upgrading of the airfields across Tibet.

Indian buildup

But Doklam is only part of the reason for the current developments. The Chinese actions preceded that event and were actually a response to an Indian buildup.

An analysis of satellite imagery of the Lhasa Gonggar, the PLAAF’s main base in Tibet, has shown that here there were four or five J-10s or J-11s since 2010, they had gone up to eight by the end of 2014, and during the Doklam standoff there were 16 J-11s on the airfield.

Another major airbase is at Hotan in Xinjiang, proximate to the disputed Aksai Chin area. Here too the PLAAF rotates anywhere between eight to 16 aircraft every year, and the base here has seen surges involving the J-11 and the Q-5 ground attack fighters.

In the period after 2008, with its economy doing well, India began an extensive strengthening of its defenses on the border with China. This included an acceleration of the road-building program, reactivating seven advanced landing grounds in Arunachal Pradesh state, and deploying the advanced Sukhoi Su-30MKI to bases in Assam. In addition, two new divisions, two armored brigades and a Mountain Strike Corps were raised or authorized.

In Ladakh, authorization was given to establish a full-fledged fighter base at Nyoma in its southeastern corner and road construction began to link to Daulat Beg Oldi. Beijing’s response was to propose a freeze in construction on both sides of the LAC, something that New Delhi rejected outright considering the disadvantaged position that Indian forces were in the region in comparison with the PLA.

No doubt the Indian military is closely monitoring the developments in Tibet, and we are likely to see a further strengthening of the Indian posture facing the Himalaya. Recently there were reports that India had also moved some Su-30MKI aircraft to Hashimara air base, which is close to the Doklam area.

On the other hand, both sides are moving politically to defuse the situation. In February, Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale, who was earlier ambassador to China, carried out a low-key visit to Beijing and held talks with his Chinese counterparts. Subsequently, India has pointedly avoided using the Dalai Lama card and it canceled a major conference relating to China being hosted by the Ministry of Defense’s think-tank.

The new Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi noted at a recent interaction that the two sides must manage their differences and called for removing mistrust between the two sides. He added colorfully, ”The Chinese dragon and the Indian elephant must not fight each other but dance with each other.”

Asia Times March 23, 2018

'China's decision to disturb status quo at Doklam was done with an end goal'

In past visits to China going back to the early 1990s, India was mostly a peripheral issue, unless, the stay was part of a prime ministerial or presidential visit. 

But this time around, things are different. For four consecutive days last week, China Daily, the country's only English-speaking broadsheet, carried articles on the Doklam issue, with two lead editorials, one of which carried the title 'New Delhi should come to its senses while it has time'.

As for the Global Times, its commentaries are too well known in India.

On Friday, the state-owned tabloid headlined 'Bhutan under India pressure'. The border dispute, the strap said, was 'proof of New Delhi's hegemony in South Asia.' 

The ongoing stand-off between India and China at the Doklam plateau was triggered by a Chinese manoeuvre on the night of June 8 

Nervousness showing 

The journalistic tour, organised after the crisis had erupted was expected to have subtle messaging aimed at pushing China's point of view. But there was nothing subtle about the briefings from top foreign ministry and Ministry of Defence officials.

The briefings were harsh, and uncompromising, as the new chief spokesman Senior Colonel Ren Guoqing declared, that China had legal proof of its territory and to resolve the crisis, India needed 'to withdraw immediately and unconditionally'. 

Perhaps there was a message hidden in the visit organised to the 3rd Garrison Force in the Huairou district of Beiing, where the crack division displayed its tactical skills with small arms in a range which was clearly aimed at impressing foreign audience. 

It has been decades since China last fought a war and the country insists it has no hostile intent, and simply needs to defend itself

The message from a visit to the CNS Yulin, a 054 frigate at the headquarters of the South Sea Fleet at Zhangjiang, 2,500 miles to the south Beijing was vintage Chinese as Capt Liang Tiajun, an officer at the fleet headquarters blandly remarked that India and China could cooperate in Indian Ocean security. 

It is no secret that the PLA (People's Liberation Army) Navy lacks the ability to take on the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean Region.

More dramatic was a 'seminar' in which two top officers known to represent the PLA's point of view in international gatherings participated. 

India has turned down China's demand that the Indian Army should immediately withdraw soldiers from Doklam near the Sikkim-China-Bhutan trijunction

The meeting was moderated by Senior Colonel Zhou Bo. The British-educated officer is well known to those who attend the Shangrila Dialogue. 

The director of the Centre for Security Cooperation professed to be 'pained' by the developments since he had served in the border regions with India. He set the tone of the meeting by waxing indignant about India's allegedly changing stance, and attacked this writer for changing his positions 'perhaps under pressure'. 

It was difficult to assure the Senior Colonel that positions evolve more and more as privileged information is divulged. For example, it was only on June 30, when the Indian press release came out that it was known that there was, to use a word often used by the Chinese, 'consensus' that the trijunctions be worked out in conjunction with all three countries. 

No clear border 

Another Senior Colonel, Zhao Xiaozhuo, also a well-known face of the PLA, said he had served in the area and had no doubt that India had 'invaded' Chinese territory. 

Zhao, who is at the Research Centre for China-US Defence Relations said the border was set by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890 and claimed there was no dispute between China and Bhutan over Doklam. 

There was little answer from the Chinese side that there had been no map attached to the 1890 Convention and hence the border was not even properly delimited, let alone demarcated. 

The Chinese official position is that the border has been delimited, whereas India has maintained that as of now, there is only agreement on the 'basis of alignment' of the border, viz the watershed, and that further work is needed to translate it into a full fledged border. 

Impressing the media 

It was clear, however, that the discussion was aimed at the Chinese media, which was also present. Indeed, it is difficult to escape the feeling that the high-pitched campaign and the torrent of words are aimed at the Chinese audience primarily. 

So, there is no hesitation in blandly asserting palpably false things, as China's top border official Wang Wenli did, that India was twice notified about the road construction, or that Bhutan had agreed that the Doklam region belongs to China. 

Or, for that matter, the insistent claim that India had 'invaded' Chinese territory. 

There are too many variables in play to predict how the Doklam issue will turn out. Clearly, it not about some piece of land 7x5 sq km. For years the Chinese have patrolled the area, after parking their trucks in plain sight of the Indian positions in Doka La. 

The decision to disturb the status quo, in violation of their solemn commitments to Bhutan, was done with particular end in view which has probably come unstuck by the Indian action. 

Mail Today August 15, 2017

Chink In The Checker’s Board

The Doklam plateau is an area of vulnerability for China and India. The Chinese action is the usual creeping barrage of aggression and presenting faits accomplis. 





India has had a long history of standoffs with China, given their long and unsettled border. On one occasion it has led to war, on others, skirmishes and artillery duels. But in the past 40 years, the confrontations have been carefully choreographed through a series of Confidence Building Measures to ensure that the two countries do not end up shooting at each other.
What makes the current clash in Doklam plateau serious is its location, and the fact that it is entangled with the issues of a third country, Bhutan. The location is near the Siliguri Corridor, a narrow neck of land, just about 25 km at places, bound by Nepal and Bangladesh and proximate to Bhutan and China.
 
As distances go, Siliguri, the principal rail, air and road hub that connects Northeast India to the rest of India, is just 8 km from Bangladesh, 40 km from Nepal, 60 km from Bhutan and 150 km from China. With China seeking to expand control over the Dok­­lam plateau, it shortens the distance by 20 kms or so.
Chinese proximity comes through the Chumbi Valley, a sliver of land between Bhutan and India (Sikkim)—the main route of ingress and egress from Tibet to India. What the present face-off is all about is the Chinese effort to add an area of some 40 sq kms or so to the south of the existing trijunction, which India and Bhutan place near Batang La.
From the point of view of treaty, the Chinese have a point.

The Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890 exp­licitly lays down the start point of the border, and the trijunction, at a place called Mount Gipmochi. But, while India has to accept this as part of the agr­­eement that defines the Sikkim-Tibet border, the Bhutanese don’t, as they were not party to it. So, they have been contesting this and have extended their claim, belatedly though, to the Doklam plateau, a rough area between Gipmochi, a place called Gye­mochen which is south of Doka La, and northwards on the ridge to Doka La itself and Batang La.

 The issue emerged when the Royal Bhutan Army spotted the Chinese building a road towards their post in the Doklam area. They probably approached the Indians for help and the Indian Army moved across the border at Doka La to block the construction. According to an MEA statement, India and Bhutan had been in close contact on the issue, and in coordination with the Bhutanese, “Indian personnel who were present at the general area Doklam approached the Chinese construction party and urged them to desist from changing the status quo.”

Bhutan has been taking up the issue for years and had been reminding China of the 1998 agreement not to alter the status quo of the China-Bhutan boundary, pending its final resolution. But as is their wont, the Chinese are relentless and follow the tactic which they practice elsewhere—of creating facts on the ground and leaving you with a fait acompli.
The Chinese are hopping mad, because they say that India has violated an accepted border, which is true. But the Indians have done so to prevent the Chinese from bullying the Bhutanese, who lack the capacity to deal with the Chinese. But the Indians have also done it because a deepening of the Chumbi Valley can aid in undermining their otherwise strong defences in Sikkim and the Siliguri corridor.

 International treaties are pieces of paper whose value is only set if both the parties have an interest in upholding them. The Chinese have not hesitated to blatantly violate the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas in reclaiming and fortifying rocks and reefs in the South China Sea. So if India perceives that its security is being dangerously undermined, it will act, treaty or no treaty. Even so, New Delhi needs to carefully think if it wants to question the 1890 treaty and reopen the Sikkim-Tibet boundary for negotiation. Beyond that, it must remain prepared to confront the always active PLA.
Given its location, the Siliguri Corridor has long been the focus of military planners and arm-chair str­ategists. When Bangladesh was East Pakistan, there were concerns about possible consequences of Sino-Pak collusion. To pressure India to ease off on Pakistan in the 1965 war, China built up its forces in the Chumbi Valley and tried to coerce Indian troops deployed on the Sikkim border. In 1967, there were more serious clashes at Nathu La and Cho La, both in Sikkim. With the creation of Bangladesh, the wor­ries have lessened, but not entirely gone.

The job of military men is to construct scenarios and plan to deal with them. Many alternatives can be constructed for military operations in the region. Writing in 2013, Lt Gen (retd) Prakash Katoch said that the Doklam plateau, if occupied by the Chinese, will turn the flanks of Indian defences in Sikkim and endanger the Siliguri corridor. The late Capt. Bharat Verma hypothesised a  Chinese special forces attack to seize the Corridor. John Garver cites Ind­­­­ian planners worrying about the Siliguri Corr­i­dor being the ‘anvil’ for a PLA hammer coming once again through Bomdi La in Arunachal Pradesh. There are concerns, too, that in the event of hostilities, Chinese forces may just bypass Indian defen­ces overlooking the Chumbi Valley and come through Bhutan.
But Indian vulnerability is much larger. The Siliguri Corridor does not have to worry about just the putative Chinese attack. It is in itself a cauldron of tension, with agitating Gorkhas, Kamtapuri and Bodo separatists, smugglers and transiting militants using it.

For their part, the PLA, too, must be looking at alt­­ernate scenarios, especially after their experience with Gen Sundarji and Operation Falcon/Cheq­ue­rboard. India can use its flanking positions in Sikkim to “pinch out” the Chumbi Valley and emerge astride a Chinese highway going to Lhasa. The Chinese know the Chumbi Valley was the route that Sir Fra­ncis Younghusband took in his expedition to Tibet. This attack could well come from northern Sikkim, which is a relatively flat plateau, where Sundarji had once emplaced tanks and Infantry Combat Vehicles in the 1986-87 stand-off with China.
The Chinese worry about the history of the region too. Kalimpong and the erstwhile East Pakistan are where the CIA and Tibetan exiles once planned operations against their forces in Tibet.
Indian and Chinese perceptions of vulnerability are common—the Chinese worry about the Chumbi Valley and Indians are concerned about the Siliguri Corridor. But both have larger calculations and concerns. The Chinese are neurotic about Tibetan separatism and see India as the principal villain, so they adopt a forward policy wherever they can to keep us off balance on this issue.
The Northeast is, of course, intrinsically important to us. But it also has a practical and important military role beyond just the defence of the area. It is where we locate our strategic deterrent viz. long-range nuclear armed missiles, which otherwise lack the range as of now to hit principal Chinese cities.

This is one area with dense military deployments on both sides, the only  part of the 4,000 km Sino-Indian border where the armies are close to each other—some 40-50 ft apart in Nathu La and Cho La. In the past decade, India has steadily enhanced its defence capabilities in the East, raising new formations, acquiring heavy-lift helicopters, mountain artillery, as well as forward basing fighter jets. With a new Mountain Strike Corps, headquartered in North Bengal, India has also enhanced the ability of its Army to intervene along the border. But in many ways, it has been playing catch up with the Chinese.
We need to enter a caveat about the chances of all-out war. Of course, it benefits none. The nuclear factor is not something you can ignore. So, the likelihood is that the Chinese will continue their strategy of hybrid warfare, using “Tibetan grazers” to encro­ach on  territory, or building roads without a by-your-leave, creating facts on the ground that become dif­­­­ficult to question. Moreover, Bhutan is vulnerable, because it lacks the ability to challenge the PLA. The main lesson of the present confrontation is the need for a new strategy of dealing with the challenge.
Outlook July 17, 2017
 

India’s standoff with China is not about helping Bhutan – but in its own national interest

China has insisted that the Doklam stand-off is unlike any other India-China border dispute. Responding to Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar’s remark that the two countries had peacefully resolved such border issues in the past, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated, on July 12, that this problem was different.

Does this mean Beijing’s response to the current stand-off will also be different than in the past?

It is difficult to predict just what the Chinese might do. Geng did give an indication, though, remarking, in the context of Kashmir, that China “stands to play a constructive role to improve the relations between Pakistan and India”.
On July 13, India politely declined the offer.
A few days ago, a Chinese scholar suggested that Beijing could respond to India’s intervention in Doklam plateau by stepping into Jammu and Kashmir on behalf of Pakistan. Many in India may be surprised to know this but the official Chinese position on Kashmir is that it’s a dispute that needs to be resolved by India and Pakistan. As recently as May this year, the Chinese foreign ministry declared, “China’s position on the issue of Kashmir is clear and consistent. It is an issue left over from history between India and Pakistan, and shall be properly addressed by India and Pakistan through consultation and negotiation.”
China shares this stand with most countries, including the United States. Abandoning it could be a serious setback for India since China is a veto-wielding member of the United Nations Security Council. Any possible escalation, however, may not be so much military as political.
Another casualty could be the Sikkim-Tibet border agreement. China maintains that the border has been settled by the Convention of 1890. India has not said much – and that is significant. Referring to the Indian foreign ministry’s June 30 statement on the Doklam stand-off, a Chinese spokesman complained that it “completely left out the Convention Between Great Britain and China Relating to Sikkim and Tibet of 1890 which clearly defined the China-India boundary alignment in areas where the incident happened”.
Indeed, the June 30 statement does not mention the convention. It merely refers to an “agreement that the trijunction boundary points between India, China and third countries will be finalised in consultation with third countries”.
In an interview to The Wire earlier this month, former National Security Adviser and Special Representative for talks with China Shivshankar Menon said, “In 2012 the SRs [Special Representatives] had a broad understanding that trijunctions will be finalised in consultation with the third country concerned. This latest incident and statements saying this is Chinese territory are contrary to that understanding.” He was referring to the Special Representatives appointed by both countries to help resolve the border disputes.
In other words, India does not accept China’s contention that the Sikkim-Tibet border is settled. Perhaps, Indian strategists reckon that since much of the 4,000-km China-India border is disputed anyway, why not add this 220-km stretch to it, especially since this encompasses the strategically important trijunction.
Actually, there is a great deal of difference in the place names and understandings of the border. The location of the trijunction itself is disputed. India believes it is at Batangla, while China and the 1890 Convention put it at Mount Gipmochi, 8 km to the south-east as the crow flies. Compounding the problem is that even the location of Gipmochi is under question, with the confusion about a place called Gymochen: some databases identify them as the same place and others as different places about five kilometres apart.

Getting back

And when it comes to the question of borders, there’s a clear possibility that the war of words will not stop at the Sikkim and Kashmir issues, and may go all the way to the mother of them all – India’s recognition of Tibet as a part of China.
Tibet, the Sino-Indian border negotiations, the defeat of 1962, are all linked with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s sworn enemy – Jawaharlal Nehru. There is nothing that the party would like more than to upend Nehru’s legacy to the country, be it good or bad. The recognition of China’s sovereignty over Tibet, the border negotiations that yielded nothing, are all in the minds of the party faithful, linked to the malign influence of Nehru on India.
Is it a coincidence that ever since it came to power, the Modi government has encouraged the Tibetan government-in-exile? The Sikyong (Prime Minister) of the government-in-exile Lobsang Sangay was invited to attend Modi’s swearing in as prime minister. More recently and, indeed, in the middle of the Doklam crisis, a photograph surfaced of Sangay hoisting a Tibetan flag on the shores of the Pangong Lake which is on the border between Ladakh and Tibet.
So if Beijing can abandon its old position on Jammu and Kashmir, New Delhi may well riposte by “de-recognising” its acceptance, most recently in 2003 by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, that the Tibet Autonomous Region is a part of China.
Such an eventuality could well lock India and China in an unending cycle of conflict. Thus, it is imperative that the two countries pause and think through every step they take to deal with the current stand-off.

Historical grievances

It is difficult to apportion blame for this turn of events for they are layered upon a sense of historical grievances.
In Beijing’s case, there is the exaggerated narrative of the so-called century of humiliation, when it was overcome by western powers. However, even as China was reeling from western aggression in late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was imposing its will on states such as Tibet and Xinjiang. Today, China speaks of its “ancient” claim to the Doklam region. The claim is fictitious because there were no Chinese in the Indo-Tibetan frontier region until recently.
The Indian grievances relate to the manner in which they were played on the Sino-Indian border. The Chinese have kept shifting the goalposts at will, sometimes making one set of claims, sometimes another. And overlaying this is the Sino-Indian war of 1962 which, the noted scholar John Garver said was about teaching India to respect the power of “new China.” But, he observed, as a commentary and warning on Chinese policy, that had war not occurred, “‘China’s Tibet’ would today face less threat from India”. As it is, Britain forced India’s hand on Tibet by acknowledging Chinese “suzerainty” over it through their agreement of 1906, then undid this by signing the 1914 convention that gave rise to the McMahon Line. Finally in 2008, Britain junked its fictitious “suzerainty” formulation and accepting that Tibet was, indeed, a part of China.
And while we ponder over these imponderables, let’s get one thing clear. The Indian action in the Doklam plateau is not about helping little Bhutan, but in protecting its own national interest. The contentious ridge, which lies roughly at a right angle to the Sikkim-Bhutan border, is also called Zomperi or Jampheri. In the past, Chinese patrols have visited it regularly, on foot after parking their vehicles near Doka La. What triggered the current stand-off was China’s attempt to lay a road towards a Bhutanese outpost on the ridge, which overlooks a sliver of Bhutanese territory, and beyond to the Siliguri Corridor. Bhutan’s security will not be affected if it gives away Doklam in an exchange of territory with China. India, however, will find it difficult to live with the Chinese overlooking a sensitive part of its territory.
Scroll.in July 14, 2017

India and China in rapprochement mode after Doklam crisis

Indian Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s visit to China this month will take place amid a climate of improved relations between the two countries. It will come in the wake of an important interview to the South China Morning Post last month by India’s ambassador to China, Gautam Bambawale.

The ambassador put forward a defense of India’s June 2016 intervention in the Doklam region at the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction. The area is disputed between Bhutan and China and is the subject of long-running negotiations between them.

In intervening to block the Chinese from building a small road to a ridge that overlooks the narrow Siliguri Corridor connecting  India’s northeast to the rest of the country, New Delhi had said in a press note dated June 30 that it had acted in coordination with the Royal Government of Bhutan, but that the issue was not just about Bhutanese interests but the fact that the Chinese action “would represent a significant change of status quo with security implications for India.”

In his interview, Bambawale repeatedly said India had acted in reaction to “the change of status quo by the Chinese military.” He sidestepped the uncomfortable reality that India itself has no legal claims on that area. But he repeated that in order to maintain peace and tranquility, “there are certain areas, certain sectors which are very sensitive, where we must not change the status quo.”

But his observation – and this is what makes the upcoming Sitharaman visit important – that the two sides had a deficit of strategic communication at a higher military level is significant. Sitharaman will, no doubt, meet her counterpart, the newly appointed minister of defense, General Wei Fenghe, who has been a long-standing member of the top decision-making body of the military in China, the Central Military Commission.

Bambawale’s remarks indicate that what India is seeking is a modus vivendi over the Doklam issue. Given the way Chinese policy on the border is made, it is seeking to target the decision-making authorities in the People’s Liberation Army, rather than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Not surprisingly, for example, the Border Defense Cooperation Agreement, the last major pact signed by the two sides on building border confidence, was made between PLA Lieutenant-General Sun Jianguo and India’s defense secretary at the time, R K Mathur.

What India is looking for is some understanding on the part of the PLA not to press on with its Doklam project, which in essence seems to involve developing a permanent position on the Jampheri ridge that overlooks the strategic Siliguri Corridor.

The Chinese had built a road in the early 2000s to a point 100 meters or so below the Doka La Pass, where there is a strong Indian military post. They would park their vehicles and walk up and chat with Indian soldiers in Doka La and then  patrol the last 4-5 kilometers to the ridge on foot. The Indian side would like the PLA to revert to this pattern because it does not essentially question the Chinese claim on Doklam, but at the same time does not immediately pose a danger to Indian security.

The Sitharaman visit could provide a larger opening for a greater thaw in the Sino-Indian relationship that could see confirmation through a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to China. He is scheduled to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Qingdao in June, but there could be an official visit either earlier or linked to the summit where issues that have been clouding the relationship between the two countries could be thrashed out.

Economic ties between the two countries are already doing well. Trade was at a historic high of US$84.4 billion in 2017, despite the Doklam standoff. Chinese foreign direct investment into India is growing by leaps and bounds, though it is still small compared with Chinese investments elsewhere. India welcomes  this because it also helps address the problem of the $52 billion trade deficit that India has with China.

With the return of the diplomatic discourse, the two sides could quietly work out their other issues, such as India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) or the proscription of Masood Azhar. India has already taken steps to address Beijing’s sensitivities with regard to the Dalai Lama, but it could go further and soften its stand on the Belt and Road Initiative. Perhaps the first move could be to press on with the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Corridor that India has already signed up to.

If India had the gumption, it could actually join the CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) initiative and demand road access from the Indian side to Pakistan-administered Kashmir or, for that matter, to Pakistan proper, Afghanistan and Iran. Beyond that, there is a larger agenda of cross-border trade, in itself not important, but something that could  signal  a changed relationship.

With a trade war looming between the US and China, Beijing would be interested in ensuring that New Delhi does not throw all its weight behind Washington at this juncture. The Donald Trump administration’s National Security Strategy has designated China as a rival of sorts and embraced the categorization of the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean as a single “Indo-Pacific” strategic region. The first meeting of a naval quadrilateral that includes India has also taken place, in 2017, a prospect that would be discomfiting for China.

Asia Times April 2, 2018

On India-China Himalayan face-off, China may just have a case

All the bluster and threats between India and China these days should not conceal the fact that on the Doklam stand-off China has a case. Yet, the opacity in the position of all three players—India, China and Bhutan— confuses the issue. Certainly, the face-off speaks for the need for an urgent need for all parties to address the issue through negotiations, rather than military means.
To start with, India’s position on the tri-junction at the borders of the three countries being near Batang La (N 27°19′48″ & E 88°55′04”) is not tenable. The reason is that Sikkim’s border with Tibet, the only settled border between India and China, is determined by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890 which says that “it commences at Mount Gipmochi on the Bhutan frontier.” In other words, Mount Gipmochi is the tri-junction, although its coordinates (27°16’00.0″N & 88°57’00.0″E) places it around 7.5 km south-west as the crow flies from where India and Bhutan claim the tri-junction is.
To go by the reading of the treaty, which talks of the boundary following the watershed, the border should go from Gipmochi to Gyemochen (27° 16′ 26″ N, 088° 54′ 08″ E ) and then north to Batang La.
India has accepted the validity of the Convention. On March 22, 1959, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to his Chinese counterparts, that “The boundary of Sikkim, a protectorate of India, with the Tibet Region of China was defined in the Anglo Chinese Convention of 1890 and jointly demarcated on the ground.”
In a note later that December, the Chinese foreign ministry, too, accepted that the Sikkim boundary “has long been formally delimited and there is neither any discrepancy between the maps nor any disputes in practice.”
So, the Chinese are right to complain that India is violating the treaty in sending its troops across at Doka La (N 27°17′22″ E 88°54′57″) which is between Batang La and Gyemochen, to block a Chinese road construction team.
But the issue is not that simple. While the British and the Chinese decided that the border would begin at Mount Gipmochi, they did not consult the Bhutanese. It is only after 1910 that Bhutan became a formal British protectorate. Bhutan is not bound by the Anglo-Chinese convention, nor the boundary it has created. In fact, while the Bhutan-India border has been formally delimited and demarcated as of 2006, the 470 km border with China is in the process of being settled through negotiations.
In their note of December 26,1959, the Chinese had noted that in the case of Bhutan “there is only a certain discrepancy between the delineation on the maps of the two sides in the sector south of the so-called McMahon Line.” But typical of the Chinese, they have expanded their claim over the years to include not just chunks of northern and western Bhutan, but also a significant area of eastern Bhutan.
So far the two sides have had 24 rounds of talks. In the process, Bhutan has conceded a great deal of Chinese claims, and by their reckoning, there are now only some 269 sq kms yet to be settled—two chunks in western Bhutan and an 89 sq km area of Doklam where the present problem is focused.
While China claims that the Doklam plateau is “indisputably” part of China, Bhutan’s ambassador to India V Namgyel publicly complained at the end of June that a Chinese road being constructed was headed for a camp of the Royal Bhutan Army at Zom Pelri. He added that “Bhutan has conveyed that the road construction by the PLA is not in keeping with the agreements between China and Bhutan. We have asked them to stop and refrain from changing the status quo.”
Here Bhutan is correct. In December 1998 the two sides signed an agreement whose Article 3 noted that “prior to the ultimate solution of the boundary issues, peace and tranquillity along the border should be maintained and the status quo of the boundary prior to March 1959 should be upheld and not to resort to unilateral action to alter the status quo of the border.”
Clearly, China is violating this agreement and its December 1959 acknowledgement that there was only some “discrepancy” in the Sino-Bhutan border’s delineation and that, too, in the east, is proof that it knows as well. Further, from the start China has maintained systematic pressure on the Bhutanese border by its road-building activities, which have often been undertaken in Bhutanese territory and in plain sight of Royal Bhutan Army posts.
But Bhutan’s own conduct is not above reproach. It was only in the 14th round of talks held in Beijing in November 2000 that it actually extended the claim line of the border to the Doklam area. A translation of the proceedings and resolutions of the 79th session of the National Assembly of Bhutan says, “during the 14th round of border talks held in China the Bhutanese delegation had further extended the claim line in three areas in Doklam, Sinchulumba and Dramana.”
Bhutan’s Council of Ministers had decided that “the claim line in these areas should be extended as much as possible.”
The Bhutanese sprang these last-minute changes on the Chinese and asked them to take into account the discrepancy of the size of the two countries. But Beijing’s officials told their Bhutanese counterparts that they could not offer any concessions, because this would impact on their negotiations with other countries.
No doubt China believed that Bhutan had been put up to it by the Indians.
The principal issue concerns China and Bhutan. Under the India-Bhutan friendship treaty of 2007 that guides our relations, the two sides are committed to “cooperate closely with each other on issues relating to their national interests.” But this is not tantamount to a military alliance that commits us to come to the aid of the other party automatically. This is especially so in an issue which is so tangled and complicated as the Bhutan’s claim of Doklam plateau and India’s own commitment to the Anglo-Chinese convention of 1890 that seems to negate it.
Instead of talking up war, the government of India needs to feel its way carefully here. The area is sensitive for India’s security, but it is not as if India confronts an existential threat on the ground.
Indian Express Online July 5, 2017

How China is eyeing influence over the region with Bhutan

China likes to boast of the number of neighbours with whom it has peacefully settled its disputes. But it doesn’t quite talk about those with whom it has border disputes. At present, China’s expansive claims, based on imperial boundaries, vex its relations with South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, India and lately, Bhutan. Last month, the dispute between the Asian giant and the tiny kingdom of Bhutan came to the fore.
Chinese borders with Bhutan have arisen through their establishing control over Tibet, though to hear the official spokesman, Doklam, the area on the Sikkim-Bhutan border where the recent events occurred, “had been a part of China since ancient times.”

Mapping issues
The problem arises from the nature of the Bhutanese state which did not even have an official map of the country till 1961. Indeed, the other day, the Chinese spokesman said that the Chinese boundary in the region was laid out by Article 1 of the Anglo-Chinese convention on the Sikkim and Tibet boundary.
However, Bhutan was not party to this treaty and it was only after 1910 that its foreign relations were “guided” by the British. With Indian help, a map was prepared and between 1963 and 1971, Bhutan began the process of finalising its boundary with India.
In fact, the two sides formally demarcated their 699km border only in 2006. Bhutan shares borders with India in the east in Arunachal Pradesh; in Sikkim, as well as Assam and West Bengal. In 1989, after conducting its own surveys and checking tax records, Bhutan brought out a map that was subsequently approved by the 68th National Assembly. Bhutan, shares a 470km border with China which had never been delimited or demarcated.
The first round of talks on the boundary issue was held in Beijing in April 1984 and starting from the 6th round, these have been held at the ministerial level. Since the 1990s, there have been complaints from Bhutan about Chinese road construction activities in areas it considers part of Bhutan.
In view of these complaints, the two sides signed an “Agreement on Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility in Bhutan-China Border Areas” in 1998 commiting to maintain the status quo on the border pending its final settlement. But the fault has not only been on the Chinese side.
The Bhutanese, too, have expanded their claims, especially in the Doklam area as evidenced by the proceedings of the 79th session of its National Assembly in 2001.



The conflict
A report of the 84th session of Bhutan’s National Assembly in 2005 noted that there were as many as six different roads being constructed by the Chinese in the northern boundaries in 2004.
However, after protests, four of these were stopped. Last month’s incidents near the China-Bhutan-India trijunction is, at one level, a continuation of Chinese policy to create “facts on the ground” and present its interlocutors with a fait accompli. China and Bhutan have held 24 rounds of border talks so far.
In 2002, the Bhutanese pointed out that the disputes were in four significant areas, the first, and most important involving 89sqkm from the Indian point of view was in the Doklam area, which is adjacent to Sikkim.
As a result of talks, the extent of the disputed area was reduced from 1128sqkm to 269sqkm, this included the Doklam area, as well as two other points in north-western Bhutan.
The northern claims were voluntarily given up by Bhutan, but it has made no difference to the Chinese, since what they want most is the Doklam area adjacent to Sikkim because of its strategic significance. Beyond borders, Chinese aims in Bhutan are to establish formal relations and expand bilateral relations.
To this end, they emphasise the historical and cultural ties between Bhutan and Tibet. Chinese ambassadors and high officials regularly visit Bhutan on working visits and Bhutanese officials reciprocate.
Yet as of now, Bhutan is not willing to permit a Chinese embassy in Thimpu. It goes without saying that ties with Bhutan are vital for India. For one, Bhutan is a key buffer between China and the Siliguri Corridor. It's not surprising that Prime Minister Modi’s first overseas visit abroad was to Thimpu.

India’s role
Bhutan is a well-managed and placid area of India’s otherwise tumultuous neighbourhood relationships. New Delhi has been careful to calibrate its policy with Bhutanese aspirations, for example, by modifying the India-Bhutan treaty in 2007 to adjust to the transformation of Bhutan into a constitutional monarchy.
Instead of guiding Bhutan’s foreign policy, as it did under the older treaty, India and Bhutan now “cooperate closely with each other on issues relating to their national interests.” And right now, there is an enormous congruence of interests in dealing with China’s effort to push the India-China-Bhutan southwards.
Were Bhutan to privilege its own national interests and strike a deal with China, it would have serious consequences for India.
Mail Today July 3, 2017

China wary of India’s strategic potential

China appears to be coming around to the view that India, despite having a much smaller economy and military, is emerging as a strategic competitor of sorts by aligning itself with Japan and the United States.

Ironically, the US has come to the same conclusion about China. Its recent National Security Strategy noted that China and Russia challenge American power, influence and interests, and are attempting to erode American security and prosperity. In other words, like the erstwhile Soviet Union (Russia), China, too, must now be seen as a strategic competitor rather than a country that would, over time, liberalize.

So far in South Asia, China has followed a convenient model of offsetting India’s advantages by backing Pakistan to the hilt. Given their enhanced clout in South Asia, and the fact that their economy is five times that of India and their military considerably stronger, they seek a situation where India quietly accepts Chinese primacy, or is subdued through the Chinese politico-military policy in the South Asia and Indian Ocean region (SA-IOR).

However, India has a sense of its own self-worth and place in the global scheme of things and accepting Chinese primacy in its own neighborhood is not part of it. And so it is seeking to offset Chinese power through growing proximity to the US and Japan, who have their own reasons for wanting to keep China in check. Ever since Modi has come to power, India has accelerated these efforts.

The signs of a Chinese shift are visible in many different ways.

Within days of his re-election as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in October 2017, the Chinese media published a letter by Xi to a Tibetan herder family praising them for their effort “to protect the Chinese territory” by living for decades in an isolated region on the border with Arunachal Pradesh. This is as clear a signal you can get that the very top echelons of the Chinese leadership are concerned about issues relating to their border with India.

Another sign came from an opinion piece in the South China Morning Post by Senior Colonel Zhou Bo, an honorary fellow with the PLA Academy of Military Science. Zhou, who speaks fluent English, is a familiar figure in the international circuit, attending seminars, forums and workshops, mounting a strong defense of Chinese positions on a range of issues. Zhou says he has served on the Indian border and was one of the people who articulated a tough line on Doklam to a group of visiting Indian media personnel in Beijing even as the crisis was unfolding.

In his op-ed, Zhou said that the Doklam incident may have been the outcome of India’s “strong sense of hopelessness” with regard to being outstripped by China in terms of economic and military power and “its hallucination of being encircled by China.”

He maintained that the Doklam outcome “was not even a tactical victory for India” because the Chinese have continued to remain there and have resumed road construction activity, albeit in another area.

Sharp rise in China’s border defense activity

But perhaps the most important part of Zhou’s article was his declaration that India is going to be the net loser now because “the disputed border was not on China’s strategic radar” but now, the Doklam standoff has “provided China with a lesson on reconsidering its security concerns.” As a result, China would enhance its infrastructure construction.

Zhou is right. Indian military sources confirm a sharp uptick in China’s border defense construction. Till now, comfortable with their economic and military lead over India, China did not really categorize India as a competitor of any kind. In any case, support to Pakistan was sufficient to keep India off-balance. On the border, taking advantage of the relatively easier terrain and India’s lackadaisical pace, the Chinese were able to build high-quality roads to every part of the border.

On the Indian side, road construction has plodded along. Contrary to claims, China’s deployments in Tibet were modest simply because it would require enormous resources. But China maintained a significant surge capacity amounting to some 30 divisions that could be deployed, if necessary.

Indian mountain corps, ballistic missile Agni V

But over the years, India’s infrastructure has improved and its border posture has become stiffer and ready to counter China’s incursions in places like Depsang and Chumur. Some years ago, India reached a point where it began to think of raising a mountain strike corps. Traditionally, given the terrain, India has maintained a defensive posture in the Himalayas, but the raising of a strike corps, of a type that would carry the battle into Tibet has rung alarm bells in China.

What we are now seeing is that China is enhancing the permanent presence of the People’s Liberation Army at various points on the border and constructing permanent cantonments or residential areas.

Another interesting signal as to just how this is working is available from the report, following testing of the Agni V missile on January 18. The test of the medium-range ballistic missile was hailed by the Indian media because it could cover most of China.

A CCTV programme reported for the first time the existence of a base in northwest China with a huge X-band phased array radar which is usually part of a ballistic missile defense system. According to the report, the radar, which is on the Qinghai plateau, would cover any possible launch from the Indian subcontinent and pass it on to a surface-to-air missile (SAM) system which would be the equivalent of the American Patriots or Russian S300s.

Whether these SAMs can actually knock out a missile like Agni V is a big question. And in our nuclear age, would a country risk everything on the reported efficacy of its ballistic missile defense system?

Asia Times, January 24, 2018

Why India should engage in development work with China in neighbouring regions

A year after Doklam, India and China are doubling down on their old Confidence Building Measures and, according to Sushant Singh of the Indian Express, they are planning to sign a new bilateral Memorandum of Understanding on defence exchanges and cooperation. These decisions have been taken during the visit of China’s defence minister Wei Fenghe to India last week.

According to the report, the two sides also agreed to handle Doklam-like incidents with sensitivity and resolve them through greater interaction at lower levels in the military.

This immediately begs two questions.

First, how does one just create a general rule about the Doklam incident where India was able to intervene in what it considers Bhutanese territory, because of the proximity of the Chinese road building effort which was just about 100 metres from the Indian position in Doka La?

Bigger questions

The second is to speculate whether consultation and talks at lower levels could have persuaded the Chinese to turn back at the site of road construction last June.

The Chinese must have known that India is sensitive about Jampheri ridge and had earlier tolerated Chinese patrols going there on foot via the road-head below Doka La.

But road construction was another matter and would have presaged the occupation of a ridge line that would have given the Chinese observation over the entire Siliguri Corridor.

One of the bigger questions, raised about the Doklam incident last year, was whether the Sino-Indian CBM process had run out of steam.

Over the years the two countries had signed a number of measures, beginning with the Peace and Tranquility Agreement (BPTA) of 1993 and ending with the Border Defence and Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) of 2013.

Sushma Swaraj with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in Beijing in April. (Photo: Reuters)

Yet, there had been incidents, such as the Chinese incursions in Depsang in 2013 and Chumur in 2014. There was talk after the BDCA, that the Chinese would now like to draft a Code of Conduct, but little came out of it and in the run-up to the Wuhan summit.

Officials on both sides emphasised that there would be no more such agreements. However, that still left room for the effective implementation of the older measures, which is what is now being attempted.

Recall, that after the Wuhan summit, the Indian side gave clear instructions to its personnel to observe the older CBMs strictly. The Chinese did not give any public instructions on this, but no doubt the PLA, too, was told to strictly abide by the rules.

Wuhan summit

Though the idea of a hotline between Chinese and Indian commanders is currently stuck up on issues of protocol, it will be untangled one way or the other and will definitely play a role in reducing tensions.

The Wuhan summit has helped unfreeze the ties between the two countries. That, indeed, was the goal of the summit. This has led to a number of meetings between India’s defence and external affairs ministers with their Chinese counterparts, as well as those between the NSA and his Chinese counterpart.

China will continue its steady penetration of the region, but India’s security interests won't be undermined if engagement increases. (Photo: Reuters)

The two countries were able to hold their second maritime affairs dialogue in Beijing in July 2018. The first had been held two years before, in February 2016.

Visits of military delegations have also resumed.

Recently, Lt Gen Liu Xiaowu, Deputy Commander of the Western Theater Command visited New Delhi and India’s Eastern Command headquartered in Kolkata.

This was followed by the visit of India’s Eastern Army commander Lt Gen Abhay Krishna to China heading a four-member delegation in August.

Maintaining balance

The challenge for India is to maintain a balance in the competitive and cooperative elements of our relationship with China. Unfortunately, India’s own performance in the economic and military fields has led to a widening gap between them, requiring New Delhi to reach out to external players like the US to maintain a balance of power.

In recent months, India has also tamped down its criticism of the Belt and Road Initiative. In Wuhan, the two sides took the decision to work on a joint project in Afghanistan, which appears to ignore Islamabad’s concerns about Indian activities in Afghanistan.

It could also form the model of three-country cooperation in the region.

One example can be Nepal where both countries are committed to railway projects and could end up creating a system that links the Tibet Railway to the Indian system.

Engaging China enables New Delhi to prevent or deflect zero-sum outcomes relating to Beijing in its immediate neighbourhood in South Asia and the IOR. China will, no doubt, continue its steady penetration of the region, but engagement can ensure that this process is not used to undermine India’s security interests.

Mail Today August 27, 2018