Diplomacy, military preparedness will solve Chinese puzzle

As 2018 dawned, one of the first news that hit the front pages of newspapers was an attempt by Chinese construction workers to broaden a dirt track in a remote border area of Arunachal Pradesh. Some accounts tried to liken the incident in the Upper Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh to the 73-day standoff that took place between Indian Army troops and soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at Dolam, near the point where borders of Bhutan, India and China meet in Sikkim. The comparison was, of course, misleading for the simple reason that the Dolam crisis involved three different countries and took place along a well-settled international border between India and China. The incident in Arunachal Pradesh, on the other hand, was across the disputed McMahon line and can be treated as one of the many intrusions and incursions attempted by PLA in different sectors along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and the McMahon line. The timing of the incident — in the middle of severe winter — was however unusual and indicates that the PLA will now not be deterred by the elements. The tiny, tactical incident should however not distract Indian decision-makers from the larger challenge of recalibrating relations with China. Dolam may have been resolved in India’s favour but New Delhi cannot afford to take its eyes off the ball simply because the Chinese neither forget nor forgive a slight, and slighted they were at Dolam, at least in their own eyes.

The attempted intrusion and subsequent effort to widen a dirt track could be a Chinese method to test a) India’s preparedness and b) The speed of its response on the ground. On both counts, Indian forces on the ground were not found wanting. The quick steps taken by the local commanders — in seizing Chinese equipment and sending back the construction workers — while expected, should not make Indian authorities complacent. The Chinese will continue to nibble at Indian territory across the entire border, particularly at places where Indian presence is negligible.

For India, the China challenge is however far bigger than just the unresolved border. New Delhi’s biggest headache is the China-Pakistan nexus. The Islamabad-Beijing friendship is not new but Pakistan’s total dependence on China of late for support in international forums, for military hardware and for financial assistance has meant that India’s problems with Pakistan are increasingly becoming a subset of its disputes with China. US President Donald Trump’s decision to cut off military assistance to Rawalpindi, has given Beijing a new reason to ‘protect’ Pakistan. China lost no time in defending Pakistan as a frontline state in the war against terror in response to Trump’s decision to turn the financial tap off.

Beijing has much at stake in supporting Pakistan and disregarding India’s concerns too. It brazenly goes ahead with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), ignoring India’s objections over its passage through Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK); China refuses to play ball with India on its demand to declare Masood Azhar, the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammad, UN-designated terrorist. Beijing also continues to oppose India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Last month’s trilateral meeting between China, Pakistan and Afghanistan is another sub-set of the overall China challenge that New Delhi is faced with apart from Beijing’s consistent effort to undercut India’s clout in the immediate neighbourhood, be it in Maldives, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or Nepal.

If events in 2017 were any indication, the Indian leadership will have to keep two factors in mind while dealing with China this year. One, internationally, China’s relative power and standing is higher than ever before and is only likely to increase with time. Two, Beijing sees New Delhi’s rising strategic and military compact with the United States as one aimed at China’s containment. That Japan — another Asian rival to China — is teaming with India, US and Australia to revive the ‘quad,’ a grouping of four Asia-Pacific powers, is seen by Beijing as the clearest attempt to challenge its rise. Conversely, Beijing sees India’s outreach to ASEAN and more robust Indian Ocean and South China Sea policy as New Delhi reasserting its primacy in the region. The fact is: India and China —despite the power differential — are increasingly rubbing up against each other in Asia-Pacific or Indo-Pacific. This is bound to bring more friction in the coming years between the two neighbours.

The Prime Minister must make sure that India’s defence preparedness does not suffer from indecisiveness, lethargy and timidity; he must crack the whip in streamlining and speeding up processes and procedures to ensure modernisation of the armed forces in a reasonable timeframe. At the same time, Indian diplomacy will have to be nimble-footed to remain relevant in the changing strategic environment since globally great power equations are in a state of flux and China is central to the change.

The writer is a strategic affairs analyst, author and founder of BhartShakti.in, a specialised defence website