Great questions of history are not decided by diplomacy and dialogue. These things are useful in furthering your cause only when you have sufficient political will and military strength to support them. Right now, we have military might as well as political will to take on China. The current dialogue and standoff is presenting an uneasy peace between the two nations. This standoff is a question of survival both for India and China. India would shrug off the tag of a soft state once we are able to hold on our own during this faceoff. So far we have stood our ground successfully and have let the Chinese taste their own bitter medicine of aggression while talk is on. China on the other hand, views India as the last stumbling block in it’s rise as a global hegemon as America and Russia have been silent over the emergence of China as a global power.
The main cause of dispute is the creation of infrastructure in border areas by India. Our negligence for a long time has allowed China to make Pakistan a protectorate of China Which has ceded strategic areas in POK to them. The creation of the Union Territory of Laddakh and abrogation of Article 370 has put a spanner in the silent nibbling of territories in border areas. Therefore, this standoff or possibly a full-fledged war with China is the destiny of history. What is holding China back is the fact that it knows that it cannot match the valour of battle-hardened Indian Army. India is in two minds because it still has to realise its potential fully. America’s stated policy is America first. Moreover, America has almost come to terms with China as a global hegemon as it never seriously protested Chinese misadventures in her neighborhood and South China Sea. Thomas L Friedman and Michael Mendelbaum hinted it almost ten years ago in their bestseller book That Used To Be US. Russia is weak and is not powerful enough to solve her own boundary disputes with China on her own terms.
Therefore, India will have to take China on her own. We will defeat them in an open war. Now is the time to recognize the Tibetan govt. in exile, demand a seat for Taiwan in UN , poke our nose in Hong Kong and inflict a serious blow to Chinese economy by banning China in every possible economic way. Come on India, your time has come. The Chinese bubble is waiting to be punctured by an adventurous Indian lad.
The Indian leadership and military strategists have realised it and they have decided to take on the dragon. In Moscow, India and China decided to revisit the border issues between the two countries The change in terminology from Line of Actual Control ( LAC ) to border is noticeable and significant and it soon became evident with China coming out with a statement that it wanted to solve the boundary dispute taking it back to the status of 1959. India, too, is not satisfied with the LAC as it is the boundary line declared by China suo motto after her victory in 1962 war. Thousands of kilometers of Indian territory are still under Chinese occupation. No doubt, India wants it back. But China is no Pakistan. We can not thunder in the parliament that we would take it back as we did in the case of POK. Legally, however, our locus standi is the same in both areas.
So, it is going to be a battle of nerves along with military strength and hard diplomacy between India and China. It is in the larger interest of the West to stand by India and weaken and demoralise China through India. At the same time, they would not like India to run away with all the credits of denting Chinese invincibility. After all, the West would like to tame it’s enemy (China) without making their friend (India) too formidable. Herein lies the test of the depth of our diplomatic skill as to how to maximize the benefit of a possible and likely success in the present standoff.
