Raise costs for China

PM Modi has been to Ladakh, where he visited injured troops and addressed jawans. His style was somewhat theatrical, but he has raised the morale of the forces and the country. The tough talk was, no doubt, aimed at the domestic constituency; the Chinese go by deeds rather than words and so we are still left with the problem of a restoration of status quo ante as of May 4.

now suggest that both sides have begun pulling back 1.5 km each in Galwan and Hot Springs/Gogra area; Pangong Tso remains a problem area. This is for the good, but can only be seen as a first step to fix the problem permanently, as was the stated intention of the 1993, 1996 and 2005 agreements.

The responsibility to set the situation right rests with Beijing because it is the party that has violated the long-standing agreements to maintain peace along the LAC. But equally, it is in our own interest to terminate this crisis which is exacting a huge price in terms of resources and effort, at a time when we are fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

The choices before us are stark. It was the Galwan incursion that was the serious one because of its proximity to a key highway of ours. But there seems to be no agreement yet on two other important areas, in Depsang and Pangong Tso. And beyond disengagement there as well is the task of persuading China to permanently settle the differences over the LAC. In other words, delimit a line acceptable to both sides in detailed maps. Since this task has yet to be accomplished, we should continue to pursue a mix of policies using military, diplomatic or economic tools to push the Chinese to act on the issue.

Though we have built up a force of nearly four divisions in the area, well balanced with armour, artillery and air assets, we cannot contemplate a military riposte casually. Any action must factor in the possibility of a larger India-China conflict if we act to vacate the encroachments in the Ladakh region.

Making emergency acquisition of military material, as we have done, is not a good sign. For four successive years, the Services have received substantially lesser money than they asked for their modernisation. Some shortages have been set right through emergency acquisitions in 2017 and 2018, but there are others built into the system.

What has encouraged the Chinese is the growing gap between the capabilities of the PLA and the Indian military arising from the resource crunch we are suffering from. This is not something that has happened overnight, but has emerged over two decades.

Now, an additional burden will be imposed by the logistics of dealing with three additional divisions in Ladakh. Stocking for one division there is a trying task, but doing it for four will be very arduous and expensive. But a credible military posture will have its own payoff, provided we are clear-headed about the goal, which is not to fight a war, but by our deterrence capacity, force China to back off.

In this endeavour, economic policy is a force multiplier. The government has sent a tough signal by banning 59 Chinese apps, but they generate small profits for their parent companies. What will matter, is trade and investment. Total trade tops $90 billion, most of it in Chinese goods destined for the Indian market. Official figures put Chinese investment at $2 billion, the actual sum is likely to be several times that. We may be small-time players when it comes to trade with China, but the threat of tariffs on Chinese goods and restrictions on investment has a certain value, given the pushback China is facing on this account in the US and Europe. The steps we take must be carefully calculated and not impose greater costs on us, than on China. But even so, they should signal our serious intent to do whatever we can to influence Chinese behaviour.

The importance of a permanent fix to the LAC problem should not be underrated. We need to convince China that its policy of using the undelimited LAC as a means of pressuring India will now yield diminishing returns. For years, Modi has been trying to convince the Chinese of this point, because an unclear LAC has led to crises in 2013, 2014, 2019 and now in 2020, where it has led to a serious clash in which lives have been lost.

Disengagement by itself will not be enough, we need to ensure that the incursions are put to an end permanently, and this can happen if we clarify where the LAC runs, something both countries had signed on to do but have not done because of Chinese mendacity.

Ensuring peace and stability at the LAC has never been as important as it is today. The war against the pandemic has hit us hard, indeed, we do not even now know just how things will pan out since the infection is yet to peak in the country. Recovery will take years, and India will need more trade, more investments, lesser restrictions and a peaceful and stable periphery. In dealing with the crisis in Ladakh, we should not miss the wood for the trees.

Tribune JUly 7, 2020

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/raise-costs-for-china-109511

China and India Need a Way to Get Out of the Maze in Ladakh

Many explanations have come forward for explaining Chinese actions in eastern Ladakh in the past two months. Equally, there have been many clarifications of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s puzzling pronouncements on the issue. Since war can hardly be an option, could there be a congruence of sorts here – advertent or otherwise –  to work out a better working arrangement on the border? In our mind, there is just one solution that fits the bill – clarifying where the line of actual control (LAC) runs, in line with past India-China agreements, an action which Beijing has been baulking at so far.

As of now, it is clear that the old  confidence building measures (CBM) regime, initiated by the 1993 Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement (BPTA) has broken down. That regime had envisaged the two sides identifying the points along the 4,000 km LAC where there were differences of perception, and ironing them out. Thereafter, the issue of resolving the border issue itself could be left over to be dealt with later.

Instead, over time, the LAC saw increased friction in those 14-18 places where the two sides differed on where the line lay. Sometimes, the difference was that of only half or a couple of  kilometres, but it was sufficient to create crises – as it did in Depsang in 2014, Chumur in 2014 and Pangong Tso in 2017.  In May and June this year, standoffs erupted across eastern Ladakh and on June 15, matters reached a point where 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the most serious incident on the LAC in decades.

What is so important about the Aksai Chin region for China that it is willing to risk a confrontation with India? Recall, Chinese troops entered Tibet through three routes – via Szechuan and Sikang, through Chamdo where the Tibetan main force was defeated, and from Xinjiang, through Aksai Chin, over an old road. India protested the Chinese action, but the latter declared that Tibet was a domestic problem of China.

In 1950, the boundaries of the J&K state in Ladakh, whatever they may have been, were not marked on the map, leave alone the  ground. For India, this was a far-flung, uninhabited area of little economic value policed by occasional patrols in summer. As for China,  a Chinese note of December 26, 1959 says that “this area (Aksai Chin) is the only traffic artery linking Sinkiang and western Tibet.” In the second half of 1950, “it was through this area that [the] Chinese government dispatched the first units of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to enter Tibet.” Between March 1956 to October 1957, the Chinese government built a motor road from Yecheng of Sinkinag to Gartok of Tibet, a total of 1200 kms, of which a section of 180 kms runs through this area “Looked on the map you can see that for hundreds of kilometres, it is parallel and in some cases quite proximate to the LAC. This makes the generals of the PLA nervous. And they have been pushing their troops to extend the LAC as far west as they can.

Satellite image of Ladakh, with the Chinese claim line marked in yellow and the Chinese road from Yecheng in Xinjiang to Tibet in red passing through Aksai Chin in eastern Ladakh. Image: The Wire/Google Earth

Trouble first began in October 1959 when the letter war between Prime Minister Nehru and Zhou Enlai became a real one as an Indian patrol was ambushed near Kongka Pass and nine Indian soldiers captured. In 1960, the officials of the two sides sat down for talks and both sides saw came out with a  monumental report,  detailing their respective cases. It was here that the Chinese provided the first detailed official description of their border with India which today is broadly the LAC, though it includes some areas they captured in the 1962 war.

Over the years, both sides had proposed different solutions to the immediate problem of resolving the issue of areas where the two armies had differing perceptions of where this line lay, as well as of the wider boundary question. India had suggested that the two sides press on with the clarification of the LAC, as agreed to in the 1993 BPTA and its companion 1996 agreement on “Confidence Building Measures in the Military Field along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border areas”. The Chinese stalled this process. Instead, in recent years they have come up with the idea that both sides freeze construction in the border areas. Considering that the Chinese already have a well developed road infrastructure on its side of the border, this is a too-clever-by-half suggestion to hobble the Indian side which is decades behind China here.

The two sides have, since 2003, also discussed a political bargain on the border and have appointed Special Representatives for the task. But despite 22 meetings, they have not been able to finish their task. Actually, insiders say that while they have indeed identified the basis on which the border can be settled, the key decision lies with their top leaders – Xi Jinping in China and Narendra Modi in India.

Also Read: 1960 Claim Line Contradicts Beijing’s Assertion that ‘Galwan is Chinese’

Both countries should now use  this present crisis to come up with a more durable formula for keeping the peace in their disputed frontier, if not resolving the issue permanently. Intriguingly, it is possible to interpret the developments that have occurred to suggest this. Working out an international border at this point of time may be a step too far, but they could, as per their 1993, 1996 and 2005 agreements, clarify the LAC.

As for the final settlement, the status of Tawang has become a major hurdle. Since the mid-1980s, the Chinese have insisted that India hand over the Tawang tract in Arunachal Pradesh to them in any settlement. They have been motivated by Tibetan documents claiming the area to be part of Tibet, as well as the fact that it is the birth-place of the 6th Dalai Lama. The Chinese fear Tawang could become a rallying point for Tibetan Buddhism when the present Dalai Lama passes on, given the Chinese efforts to eliminate his influence in Tibet.

The Indian side has been equally insistent that this major  town of Arunachal is part of India and that Tibetan authority there was merely ecclesiastical. Indian officials have repeatedly told their Chinese counterparts that whenever they bring Tawang into the discussion in the border talks, they are almost certainly ensuring the talks don’t succeed.

In these circumstances, the best option is for the two countries to work out a mutually recognised LAC. This means sorting out their differences in the points along the LAC where their perceptions differ.  The Chinese actions in the past two months suggest that by permanently occupying certain areas which were earlier just patrolled, they may be trying to present India with a fait accompli, preliminary to making an offer to clarify the LAC.

What is most intriguing, however, is Prime Minister Modi’s response to the events in eastern Ladakh. He has studiously refused to comment on the  problem in Pangong Tso. But following the Galwan incident he gave an overall response: “No one has intruded and nor is anyone intruding, nor has any post been captured by someone”.  So, by conceding that the Chinese remained on their side of the LAC, despite the “battle” of June 15 that took the lives of 20 Indians and an unknown number of Chinese personnel, is Modi signalling the need for some new kind of a modus vivendi on the border ?

Incidentally, during Xi’s visit to India in 2014, and during his own visit to China in 2015, Modi had persistently sought in his conversations with Xi, as well as in official talks, to persuade China to undertake the process of clarifying the LAC.  In  his public speech at Tsinghua University on May 15, 2015 he said  “Our agreements, protocols and border mechanisms have been helpful. But a shadow of uncertainty always hangs over our the sensitive areas of the border region. It is because neither side knows where the Line of Actual Control is in these areas.”

The Chinese refused to have anything to do with it. But now, as they see tensions, as well as Indian capabilities building up along the LAC, they may change their minds.  They have successfully used the uncertainties of the border and their patronage of Pakistan to keep India in check in South Asia. But they may now come to the realisation that such a policy will is increasingly yielding diminishing returns.

The Wire July 3, 2020 

https://thewire.in/diplomacy/china-and-india-need-a-way-to-get-out-of-the-maze-in-ladakh

Explained: 1960 Claim Line Contradicts Beijing's Assertion that 'Galwan is Chinese'

New Delhi: Map coordinates shared by China in 1960 to demarcate its official claim line in eastern Ladakh disprove the statements Beijing has made since the onset of the current standoff – that the Galwan Valley and estuary are “Chinese territory”.

India has rejected this claim but what officials in both countries seem to have forgotten is that the present Chinese stand is contradicted by what the Chinese themselves recorded in extended meetings with the Indian side in Peking, Delhi and Rangoon between July and November 1960.

Translating its own latitude-longitude coordinates on to the map of eastern Ladakh via Google Maps, China’s official claim line can be seen running 4.7 kilometres to the east of the Galwan estuary and confluence with the Shyok.

Satellite image of the Galwan Valley from its point of confluence with the Shyok up to the 1960 Chinese claim line. Source: The Wire/Google Earth

For the Chinese side, the amnesia is understandable: Its official coordinates refute the claims it is making in Galwan today.

But one reason India has not referred to this crucial document is because the de facto boundary which emerges would place the areas where Indian and Chinese soldiers faced each other in a bloody standoff on June 15 – and where satellite imagery suggests the Chinese are still present – squarely within what should be undisputed Indian territory. And this would contradict Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assurance to the country that China has “not intruded, is not intruding and is not in occupation of any Indian posts”, or territory.

The Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh is essentially a creation of war. India claims all of Aksai Chin but was slowly pushed out of it in the 1950s. In the 1962 war, the PLA advanced all along eastern Ladakh and took control of the areas China had been claiming since 1960, barring a small area near Demchok.

We have quite a precise idea of what their claims were because of the special official level talks that took place through 1960. In the process of those discussions, the Chinese side provided detailed map coordinates to their Indian counterparts.

After the war, the Chinese claimed that they withdrew 20 kms behind even their claimed line, a posture they said they maintained till 1987. The Indian side had no choice but to live with the situation and accepted this Chinese claim line as the LAC. As the Indian official spokesman Anurag Srivastava asserted on June 25  “Indian troops are fully familiar with the alignment of the LAC in all sectors of the India-China border areas and abide scrupulously by it.”  In recent years, on one pretext or the other, however, the Chinese side has been seeking to expand their claim further into the Indian side of the LAC.

This becomes evident when you plot China’s claim line using the coordinates they provided at the official talks on Google Earth. And this is underscored by the recent claims of the Chinese official spokesperson that the confluence of the Galwan and Shyok rivers is the where the LAC lies.

However, the 1960 map coordinates contained in the 1960 Report of the Officials of the Governments of India and the Peoples’ Republic of China on the Boundary Question tell a different story.

In the west, according to the Chinese officials, from Karakoram Pass, the boundary runs eastward to a point east of 78°05’E , the line turned southwest to a point 78°1’E and 35° 21’N where it crossed the Chip Chap river. After this, it turned southeast along the mountain ridge and passed through two peaks 6845 metres  (78°12 ‘ E and 34° 57’N) and Peak 6598 metres (78° 13’E 34° 54’N.  Thereafter it crossed the Galwan River at 78°13’E 34° 46N. Thereafter it passes through peak 6,556 (approximately 78° 26′ E, 34° 32′ N), and runs along the watershed between the Kugrang Tsangpo River and its tributary the Changlung River to approximately 78° 53′ E, 34° 22′ N. where it crosses the Changlung River and reaches the Kongka Pass. It reached the Pangong Lake at 78° 49’E, 33° 44’N and crossed the southern bank of the Lake at 78° 43’E, 33° 40’N.

The Chinese claim line as presented to the Indian government in 1960, from the Karakoram Pass to Pangong Tso. Image: The Wire/Google Earth

When the Chinese coordinates are plotted on Google Earth and one zooms in for greater detail in Galwan and Pangong Tso, it becomes clear that the Chinese are today trying to claim territory outside their official 1960 claim line, both at Galwan and Pangong Tso. Here, the LAC The line also makes it clear Modi was  being economical with truth when he claimed that no Chinese were or are on the Indian side of the LAC.

Close up satellite image of the Y-bend in the Galwan River, site of the recent clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers on June 15, 2020. The Line of Actual Control, shown in red, runs a little west of the Chinese claim line of 1960, shown in orange. But both lines show the area where the clash occurred, and the Galwan Valley as unambiguously on the Indian side. Image: The Wire/Google Earth

In essence, China is occupying Indian territory between the yellow line and the areas where the June 15 clash took place. This is despite the prime minister’s claim that the Army had actually prevented Chinese troops from capturing Indian territory.

Current satellite imagery shows that the Chinese are almost 0.5 kms into the Indian side of the LAC and are digging down for a long stay.

Close up satellite image of the Chinese claim line of 1960 at Pangong Tso. Image: The Wire/Google Earth

In the Pangong Tso, plotting the coordinates given in 1960 on Google Earth reveals that the LAC should run through Finger 7 and Finger 8, as the Indian side says it does, not Finger 2 which the Chinese claim or Finger 4 where the Chinese have created a blockade to prevent India from patrolling up to where the LAC should run by China’s own reckoning. Again, the Chinese are clearly occupying Indian territory here, as they are in Galwan and Hot Springs, as satellite imagery in the public domain suggests:

It is easy  to understand why the Chinese side have forgotten that they had provided India with the detailed longitude and latitude of the points they claimed constituted China’s boundary in Eastern Ladakh.

Just why India has ignored these coordinates is not clear. All said and done, they make for an iron-clad case for India in both Pangong Tso and Galwan, and, indeed, in the Depsang area as well.

The reason could well be the Prime Minister’s somewhat ill-considered and enigmatic statement to the all party meeting on June 19, that “neither is anyone inside our territory nor is any of our post captured.” Modi has doubled down on his claim by repeating bravely again on June 28 in his Mann Ki Baat broadcast that “those who cast an evil eye on Indian soil in Ladakh have got a befitting response.“

The record, unfortunately shows, that that is simply not true. The Chinese are very much in occupation of Indian territory and show no signs of wanting to leave.

The Wire June 29, 2020  https://thewire.in/security/china-redrawing-lac-ladakh-1960-claim-line

Spinning out of hand

THE Modi government’s penchant for ‘headline management’ has got it into trouble this time. In an effort to finesse the lapse on the part of the government’s border management duties, official spokespersons have resorted to using tense as a means of information control. Speaking to the all-party meeting on June 19, the PM ‘clarified that neither is anyone inside our territory nor is any of our post captured’. After a storm of protest from people wondering what then were the issues with China in Ladakh, the PMO clarified on June 20 that the PM was speaking of the ‘here and now’, not what had transpired earlier.

The Bihar elections are due in October, and headline managers are working out ways of exploiting what was a needless tragedy born out of the failure to grasp China’s strategic messaging.

Its statement explained that Indian soldiers had ‘foiled the attempt of the Chinese side to erect structures and also cleared the attempted transgression at this point of the LAC on that day’. There is no ingress into Indian territory. There was nothing said about whether there had been any.

There was no acknowledgement that the Chinese had, indeed, established positions across the Indian LAC and had removed their tents only after the June 6 agreement, and that the brawl, that took the life of Colonel Babu and 19 other soldiers on June 15, had occurred when they refused to remove one such structure.

Besides not telling us about possible Chinese ingress into the Galwan valley, it also had nothing to say about the fact that the PLA had dug into the area of Finger 4 in Pangong Tso, denying India the ability to patrol to the Finger 8 area which it considers to be within its portion of the LAC. Needless to say, the PM’s statement ignored this entirely.

Expectations that Modi would announce a tough response at the meeting were aroused by the headline news of June 17, when the PM said India ‘would give a befitting reply’ to those who had taken the lives of our soldiers, and ‘nobody should have any iota of doubt about this’.

Having positioned himself as a nationalist and, indeed, belligerent, defender of India, the PM suddenly took a restrained tone, which was all for the good but baffled his ultra-nationalistic fan base. But there must have been good reasons for his stance. Perhaps this was part of a deal that led to the release of 10 soldiers — a Lt Colonel, three Majors and six other personnel — that they had in their custody since the incident. Neither the Chinese nor the Indian side has acknowledged what was clearly a humiliating fact.

From the outset, headline management was a feature of this image-conscious government’s response to the fracas of Monday. Through Tuesday, even though it knew that 20 soldiers had died and 10 were captive, it acknowledged only three personnel killed. For good measure, it was anonymously put out that five Chinese soldiers had also died. It was only later, through a news agency, that another 17 dead were acknowledged. Simultaneously, anonymous ‘headline managers’ hiked up the number of Chinese dead to 43. All through, there was an attempt to use fake news to mitigate what had clearly been a setback to India.

But even then, the fact that 10 soldiers had been captured by the Chinese was not revealed. On June 17, the New York Times cited two Indian military officials, who spoke to them anonymously and presumably with authority, to note that ‘a number of Indian soldiers’ had been captured in the fracas that began ‘after Indian troops on Monday set fire to tents erected by Chinese soldiers’.

But this was not officially acknowledged. All that the government did was to wait for the negotiated release of the captives, and then announce on June 18 that ‘no Indian troops are missing in action’.

Headline management can clearly carry you only that far. In pursuit of a headline, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar claimed that the soldiers were armed, but did not fire because of the 1993 and 1996 agreements. This was a cynical misreading of the agreements which are about strategic issues, not tactical situations where your life is in danger. It strains credulity to believe that soldiers in that brutal melee did not use weapons because of some bilateral agreement. The simpler and more obvious answer is that for some reason, which the government should tell us about, the Indian group under Colonel Babu did not carry weapons, or did not have their ammunition with them.

All through, the government’s concern is not the events themselves, but their domestic political fallout. References now to the role of the ‘Bihar Regiment’ in the events are too obvious not to miss. The Bihar Assembly elections are due in October, and no doubt, the headline managers are working out ways and means of exploiting what was a needless tragedy born of the failure to adequately assess the intelligence and understand the strategic messaging being done by Beijing.

The English language has many words for the government’s handling of information on the Ladakh developments: ‘prevarication’, ‘obfuscation’, ‘equivocation’, ‘economy of truth’, and eventually, plain old-fashioned ‘lying’. The erosion of credibility that has occurred is not easy to measure. But it’s like Humpty Dumpty, once broken, it’s difficult to put together again.

The Tribune, June 23, 2020

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/spinning-out-of-hand-102781

Be Like Arjun: India shouldn’t be rattled by China but work on an effective counter strategy

Whatever the followers in social media and elsewhere may be doing, our leaders at least are avoiding any chest thumping and belligerence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement in response to the clash in the Galwan valley that took the lives of 20 Indian soldiers has been tough, but sober. It is difficult to avoid some schadenfreude over his predicament. In similar circumstances in Uri in 2016 or in Pulwama in 2019 he did not hold back his rhetoric, or hand. Retribution visited Pakistan swiftly and was wildly acclaimed.

But he is right to treat China differently, because it is different. For one, it is much stronger than we are. Getting into a scrap over a place where no blade of grass grows was foolish in the 1950s, and would be so now. There are many in the mustachioed fraternity dying to give Beijing a bloody nose as we did in 1967. But they are confusing response to a localised incident with the larger undertaking of dealing with an assertive China.

Given the balance of forces on the LAC, we can, indeed, deliver a telling blow to the Chinese in western Tibet, but what then? China’s heartland is 2,500 km away and once it brings its superior numbers there will be a backflow. We are not even talking about nuclear weapons, which should ensure that the conflict remains limited, but it just may not.

There are many other proposals in the air – boycott Chinese goods, join the US in a formal military alliance, spend huge monies in modernising the armed forces. But none of them can address the situation we confront today.

With established global supply chains fraying, we must first decide whether we’ll be “atmanirbhar” or an alternative workshop of the world. Either way, industrial ecosystems cannot be created by magic. Pimpri-Chinchwad, Madurai-Coimbatore, Faridabad-Gurgaon regions did not come up overnight, but over several decades.

As for spending more on defence modernisation, understand that it can’t be done along with the above-mentioned tasks. With no defence industry to speak of, we’ll have to import our needs. Opportunity costs in developmental and social welfare sectors will have to be paid.

The US alliance appears to be the most seductive option. Without putting down serious money we can get a free ride on Uncle Sam’s back. But that’s provided you are willing to trust his current avatar – Donald J Trump. Remember, though, that when you sign up with the greatest power on earth, orbited by economic giants like the UK, Germany and Japan, you do not have the vanity of deciding your role. Ask the South Koreans or the Afghans.

There are two new suggestions doing the rounds – forming a coalition of middle powers or a concert of democracies. The former would be a geopolitical equivalent of a platypus, the animal designed by committee. Democracies are not looking too good these days either. Witness the travails of the leader, the US, wracked by an uprising of people saying that they have not been treated fairly for a long, long time. As for India, we will reserve our comment except to say that we alone can safeguard our national interest. The democracies don’t even recognise that Ladakh is an indisputable part of India.

The important thing right now is not to get rattled by immediate events. Covid-19 has jangled nerves globally, and we shouldn’t allow a border clash to rattle ours in the region. Before Covid things were not too good. The pandemic has created further damage and is yet to peak. This is neither the time to boycott a major economic power or get into a shooting war with anyone. Anger against China is understandable, but there are times in one’s life, when you must swallow back bile and get on with life. Only sustained high economic growth will have the means of offsetting China. Our aim, like Arjun, must be on the eye of the fish. And as the Americans say, don’t get mad, get even.

Times of India June 20, 2020

China's Galwan Valley Gambit is Attempt to Extend Official Claim Line

At no point in the past has China laid claim to the entire Galwan Valley, a sliver of flat land abutted by steep gorges through which the Galwan river flows and enters the Shyok river, and the maps Beijing has itself published in the past show its claim line stopping short of the confluence.

Earlier this week, however, in the wake of bloody clashes between the Indian and Chinese armies in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed and China too suffered an unknown number of casualties, both the Peoples Liberation Army and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing have described the Galwan Valley as part of China’s territory.

China’s claim line stops short of the confluence of the Galwan and Shyok rivers, encompassing most but not all of the Galwan valley. Lines of Actual Control have varied over the years and in many ways have been notional. When there were no roads, the LAC was merely a line connecting the scattered posts. On the right, a Chinese map issued in the midst of the 1962 war indicating what they claim were Indian incursions (blue dots) Source: Dorothy Woodman, Himalayan Frontiers (1969) for map on left and the Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1974 publication of Premier Zhou’s letter to Afro-Asian leaders on the Sino-Indian boundary issue on November 15, 1962, for map on the right.

The Galwan river is named after Ghulam Rassul Galwan, a Ladakhi adventurer who accompanied many European explorers in the region at the turn of the 19th century. According to Ladakhi history the Galwan Nullah was named so by British geologists after he discovered a passage through what seemed like an impenetrable set of gorges.

Over the years, the status of the Galwan Valley has changed and, if the recent developments are to be taken into account, it is still changing.

Commenting on the incident of July 15,  the official spokesman of the Western Theatre Command of the PLA, Zhang Shuili, accused the Indian side of “deliberately launching a provocative attack” and he went on to add that “the sovereignty of the Galwan Valley has always belonged to China.”India, of course, disagrees with this claim, and the Special Representatives process was designed to help the two countries resolve their differences over the boundary question. Linked to this process is the line of actual control, or LAC, which is not a line on the ground or even an agreed line on a map – which is why it is susceptible to changes by one side or the other. Over the years, a familiar pattern has built up around specific problem areas along the LAC but the Galwan Valley has not been one of them.

While the earliest map issued by India after independence showed the countries borders in Aksai Chin as undefined, the present boundaries of what is now the Union Territory of Ladakh were drawn unilaterally in 1954.

As for the Chinese, different maps showed  Aksai Chin sometimes in their territory, sometimes outside. But they needed the area to build an all-weather road from Xinjiang to facilitate their assimilation of Tibet. And they did this over several years in the early 1950s.

In the 1950s, Indian patrols rarely ventured into the inhospitable region where there is no human habitation. The history of India’s inability to prevent the construction of China’s highway from Xinjiang to Tibet through the region is well known, as is the fact that New Delhi only learnt of the development years after it had occurred.

Today, we talk about the LAC, but at the time there was virtually no Chinese presence in the area around Galwan. When we talk of the “line of actual control” we are talking of a line that connects the dots on the maps indicating isolated posts of both sides, some being held by 20-30 persons in that vast area.

The Chinese established a post at Samzungling at the head of the Galwan river  before India could some time in 1959. As part of its misguided ‘forward policy’, India tried to cut off the Chinese post by planting one of its own. Army HQ overruled the Western Command headquarters and insisted that the post be set up. In the winter of 1961, an effort to go up the river valley failed, so a platoon of Gorkhas was sent up from the Hot Springs area in the south. After a month’s march, the group reached the upper reaches of the Galwan Valley and established themselves on July 5, 1962, cutting off the Chinese post down river and even blocking a Chinese supply party to the post.

There was an exchange of diplomatic notes with a stiff Chinese protest on July 8. India’s response was that it had always been patrolling the area and accused the Chinese of “incessant intrusions” into Indian territory. On July 10, some 70 Chinese soldiers surrounded the Indian post and later increased their strength to a  battalion. The post was now cut off and  columns sent overland to  supply it in mid-July were intercepted. Eventually, it had to be supplied by air. On the morning of October 20, 1962, it was wiped out, along with other posts set up in Chip Chap river valley up north.

Map showing ‘Historical development of Western Sector Boundary’. Source: Neville Maxwell, India’s China War (Pelican, 1972)

Incidentally, the Henderson-Brooks report notes that in the discussions before sending the forces to evict the Chinese from the Thag La pass north of Tawang, the government was willing to accept a loss of certain territory in Ladakh. Indeed, the report notes that even while the operation at Thag La – the event that triggered the Sino-Indian war of 1962 – was being planned, there was little or no attention paid to shoring up the isolated posts in Ladakh. They were simply asked to be prepared for some Chinese reactions on the forward posts and their orders were to “fight it out and inflict maximum casualties on the Chinese.”

Following the war, the Chinese said they were carrying out a 20 km withdrawal behind their frontlines. There were no Indian forces in that region anywhere so it didn’t really matter. It is only in the 1980s that India began to re-establish itself along the LAC, but in areas like the Galwan Valley it was constrained by the terrain.

Chinese claims in the Aksai Chin were confusing and sometimes contradictory. But, at the end of the day, they had physical control of the territory and easier access to it than India. Maps in the 1950s often showed the Chang Chenmo Valley within India. In 1959, Zhou Enlai confirmed that a map published in 1956 was the correct alignment. This map showed the Galwan and Chip Chap river valleys to be parts of India. It was only in their sixth meeting with Indian officials in June 1960 that the Chinese put out what they said was their official map which included the two valleys as part of Chinese territory.

Since 1993, both India and China have maintained the fiction of a “Line of Actual Control” in the area, which was all right till the other day. Suddenly the Chinese have decided that the entire Galwan Valley is part of their territory.

The Chinese goal now seems to be to establish their boundary along the Shyok river, as it seems to be to push forward and control all of the north bank of Pangong Lake  constraining Indian defences relating to the Leh region. As for the LAC, to paraphrase  Humpty Dumpty, it is where you choose it to be.

The Wire JUne 18, 2020