China may escalate tensions on borders with neighbours, including India; counter-measures must begin
Chinese President Xi Jinping's announcement of vision for his upcoming tenure threatens democratic countries. His ambitious plan of troop training and combat preparedness to “fight and win” apart from creating a “strategic deterrence” strongly indicates how the situation would be on China's borders. China has already started funding for expanding its military capabilities and greater synergy between its civil-military fusion.
At the end of 2020, Beijing launched a three-year plan to improvise its state-owned enterprise system, which is an essential part of its defence-industrial sector. Initiatives of mixed private-public ownership and defence research institutes via the methodology of stock market listings of principal state-owned defence contractors have been aggressively adopted.
As per the Military Balance Report (2022), a total of $370 billion was raised between 2012 and 2020, out of which $20.7 billion was done in 2020 alone. Consequently, for the fiscal year 2022, Beijing announced a defence budget of $229 billion, which was a sharp 7.1 per cent increase from 2021. The reforms, due for completion in 2023, will lead to active civil-military fusion in different domains such as maritime, space, cyber, biotechnology, new energy, A.I. and quantum technologies.
Further, showcasing the Galwan clip at the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress may be an official recognition of India as an enemy. Prior to this, Zhou Bo, a senior fellow at Tsinghua University's Centre for International Security and Strategy, commented on India-China relations in a very intimidating manner. He warned that “friction and even conflict between the two sides is possible if (New Delhi) regards the Indian Ocean as the ‘Great Ocean for Hindus’ or India as a ‘net security provider’ for the Indian Ocean”. Thus, there are indications that Xi's new tenure could snowball into turmoil and conflict in the region.
On the other front, Japan has genuine concerns about the increased Chinese aggressiveness. It fears that China might simulate the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the region. In case of a military conflict on the Taiwan issue, it may have a spillover effect in the region. After the incidents of the launch of missiles into Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), besides the hostility displayed during Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, Japan is eager to increase its strategic outreach and reformulate its military policies.
In terms of regional military expenditures in 2021, China’s share of entire Asia's defence spending accounted for 43 per cent at $207 billion. On the contrary, in 2022, India's military spending was merely $70 billion. Japanese PM Fumio Kishida asked for a budget of $40.4 billion for the fiscal year 2023. Thus, China essentially surpasses the efforts of India and Japan, even if taken cumulatively. As geopolitical and tactical convergences exist between the US, Japan and India, the future regional security landscape in the Indo Pacific region would be governed most prominently by the primary objective of containing the Chinese threat.
Each triangular dynamic between the US, China and India, apart from China, India and Japan, would have its challenges and opportunities for India. A high level of military cooperation is already in place with the US and its primary ally Israel, which has helped India with technical cooperation in intelligence and counter-terrorism. Much can be achieved in the tactical cooperation between India and Japan.
Kishida has aimed to “drastically” increase Japan's defence spending to two per cent of its GDP within the next five years and develop “counter-strike capabilities”. In 2017, Japan spent 13 per cent of its defence budget on R&D. Given Japan's technological edge, joint R&D apart from the production in defence innovation can help India as the china factor is common to them. For instance, Japanese private players like Mitsubishi Electric Corporation can play an essential role in the Indian defence company. Mitsubishi's J/FPS-3 active electronically scanned array radar and J/TPS-P14 mobile air surveillance radars have been recently exported to the Philippines to help counter the Chinese threat, including the South China Sea. India can also seek such technologies which have not been exported to any other country.
In a hostile situation, the Quad can become a military counterweight to China's aggressiveness. Until now, the Quad has been an informal arrangement that has not been institutionalised with an anti-China purpose. Focusing on the freedom of navigation, the interplay of bilateral and multilateral agreements revolves around Malabar naval exercises, information sharing, interoperability and coordinated military activities. As India and Japan have a shared perception of the growing military challenge, on the lines of various treaties amongst the Quad members, both countries can go in for multiple agreements in the future, such as Mutual Logistic Support Arrangement, Preventing and Combating Serious Crime, Reciprocal Access Agreement, and, Geo-Spatial Cooperation. Thus, the two groupings could broadly cooperate depending on China's hegemonic tendencies.
Indo-Japan cooperation needs to be strengthened. The two countries have taken new initiatives for defence Projects such as UAVs, anti-drone systems, robotics and underwater communication. In particular, using robotics in the defence sector to produce military robots with artificial intelligence to decrease casualties in counter-terrorism operations and natural disasters can be a pathbreaking development. Although there is active robotic cooperation between India and Japan, with many Japanese companies like ABB Robotics, Kawasaki Robotics, and Yaskawa having heavy investments in India, these are for civilian uses, mainly commercial in nature. India and Japan must evolve their tactical partnership and civil-military fusion at a greater pace.
Further, trilateral cooperation between Taiwan, India and Japan can help us as a possible synergy between the three can help maintain the freedom of the Indo Pacific region. Taiwan is a leading country in the manufacture of semiconductors, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) occupying 80 per cent of the microcontrollers used in cars. Trilateral cooperation involving Taiwan for microcontrollers, Japan for robotics and India for its software technology and the final end manufacturing of robot soldiers can add new dimensions to the expanding domain of the Indo Pacific.
Nevertheless, there can be active cooperation between the Japan Meteorological Agency and the Indian Meteorological Department. In the last few years, the number of cloud bursts in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh Ladakh, especially at critical locations such as the Jawahar tunnel, Line of Actual Control (LAC), etc., has increased. In the near future, the Bilaspur-Leh rail line should be protected from all sudden weather changes. Such incidents are related to global warming, but our adversaries’ capabilities to use artificially induced calamities such as avalanches, artificial rains and cloud bursts as a tool to achieve their political interests is no less. Using such technologies drastically reduces the cost of military operations, avoiding detection, retaliation and nuclear escalation. The emerging domain of ‘weather warfare’ and hybrid warfare, where the weather can be artificially modified and used as a weapon of war to accelerate food shortages and military casualties, should not be overlooked by the Indian defence agencies and their research institutes. Thus, a strong Indo-Japan military cooperation is the need of the hour and would serve the strategic interests of both.
(The author is an Assistant Professor, Punjab University)