If an agreement on the line of Actual Control happens, transgressions by Chinese troops will become an act of war. This is something that Beijing will not want. Resolution would keep the lAC peaceful but take the sting out of China's designs
The singular important outcome of the three-day visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to India, which was clouded by a military stand-off in Chumar-Demchok (ladakh), was the mention of border resolution as a ‘strategic objective’ in the joint statement. The word ‘strategic’ suggests that other bilateral issues including trade will not gallop ahead of the border resolution.
Does this imply that India has decided to reverse its China policy initiated by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in December 1988 and followed by successive Prime MinistersIJ Or is it simply a knee-jerk reaction to unexpected Chinese incursions which compelled New Delhi to reflect the mood of the nationIJ Whatever the reason is, it is a welcome move, though it will not help to either resolve the disputed border or end Chinese transgressions.
India, instead, should have sought clarification on the line of Actual Control. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had initially demanded this, but changed his mind later. Being used to treating Pakistan as the sole adversary, there is, unfortunately, plenty about the Chinese that most Indians fail to comprehend.
Take Chinese diplomacy. Most experts in India cannot understand how Mr Xi’s maiden visit to India could have a parallel narrative of People’s liberation Army incursions in Chumar-Demchok area. The incursions started on September 10 when Mr Xi embarked on his four- nation tour of Tajikistan, the Maldives, Sri lanka and India, and peaked on September 17 coinciding with his arrival in India when 1,000 PlA soldiers supported by helicopters made three simultaneous incursions in close proximity. They did not back off even after Mr Modi spoke with Mr Xi and he assured that the PlA would be reined in.
Some experts said that the PlA, like the Pakistan Army, is a state within state and does not listen to Mr Xi; he was seen to have been embarrassed by his own troops. Others prognosticated that a humiliated Mr Xi had committed to resolve the border dispute at an early date. Nothing is further from the truth.
China, unlike the Western nations, does not view aggression or war as an end of diplomacy. As aggression for Beijing is less about military and more about psychological victory, it is an inalienable part of its negotiating style. Moreover, China does not consider a particular negotiation, whatever its level, as a make-or-break event which should either show result or be dubbed as failure. Negotiations are events meant to frustrate and stress the opponent till he, at an opportune time, accepts the Chinese viewpoint as his own. This explains why China adopts a historical, and at times deceptive, perspective in diplomacy.
When the Chinese fifth generation leadership under Mr Xi came into office in 2012, it was confident of exploiting its enormous economic might garnered by the earlier leadership to both consolidate its territories and expand its strategic frontiers. This explains Mr Xi’s elevation as head of all three high offices, namely Politburo Standing Committee, Central Military Commission and the Government, at the same time. This consolidation was done to obviate the possibility of more than one power-centre in China; Beijing had clearly decided to assume a leadership role in Asia.
There could be many reasons why China during Mr Xi’s visit chose to adopt the intriguing approach of hand-shake and aggression. Beijing was probably not happy with Mr Modi’s rhetoric from Japanese soil obliquely referring to it as an expansionist nation; India’s abrupt cancellation of Ms Sushma Swaraj’s visit for tri-lateral Foreign Ministers’ meeting between India, Russia and China in Beijing which coincided with Mr Modi’s Japan tour; Ms Swaraj’s call for China endorsing a ‘one-India policy’ in return for India’s ‘one-China policy’; invitation to Tibetan Prime Minister-in-exile lobsang Sangay for Mr Modi’s swearing-in ceremony; President Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to Vietnam ahead of Mr Xi’s visit where India accepted Hanoi’s offer of two oil-fields in disputed South China Sea (China’s core concern) and spoke about freedom of maritime navigation; a relative free run to Tibetan protestors when Mr Xi was in India; and the Dalai lama being allowed to say that the Tibetan problem (another of China’s core concern) was India’s problem also.
Given all this, Beijing decided that Mr Xi’s India visit be ceremonial than substantive where generalities rather than specifics were to be discussed; this also explains China’s turn-around from mentioning $100 billion investments to actually announcing a mere $20 billion. In Chinese parlance, the time was not ripe for building ties.
Now let’s see why a border resolution is not possible. In a masterstroke, in December 2010, on the eve of then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India, China had announced that its border with India was a mere 2,000 km and not 3,488 km as was claimed by India’s Ambassador in China, K Jaishankar. In a major foreign policy manoeuvre, which Delhi downplayed, China, without firing a shot, had devoured 1,488 km of Indian territory: Xinjiang’s border with ladakh. Unlike Arunachal Pradesh which has the McMahon line drawn by the British in 1914, Xinjiang’s border with ladakh has historically been an open frontier till 1959, when both India and China made strong territorial claims.
According to China, it now has disputed border with India in the middle (Uttarakhand) and eastern (Arunachal Pradesh) sectors. So, if China does not have a border with India in ladakh (Jammu & Kashmir), how will it be resolvedIJ How will India account for the missing 1,488 km to its peopleIJ
let’s now discuss the lAC. The first mention of this term was by Chinese Premier Chou En-lai during his Delhi press conference on April 25, 1960, when China was open to border resolution by a territorial swap. He spoke about the lAC as the limit of administrative jurisdiction. After the 1962 war, when China announced a unilateral ceasefire, it withdrew to pre-1962 positions, but maintained its claim of November 1959 earlier given by Chou. In the western sector, the distance between Chinese-claimed 1959 positions and pre-1962 positions varied from two to 20 km and came to be regarded as a no-man’s (demilitarised) land by either side. It is this area that both sides now claim as theirs and transgressions (mostly Chinese) are explained as differing lAC perceptions.
The western sector, where Indian troops gave a fight to the PlA unlike in the eastern sector where it was routed, there were two more peculiarities. One, the lAC after the war came into being here alone; the rest of the border continued to be referred to as the McMahon line where both sides had minor ‘pockets of disputes’. This situation changed on September 7,1993, with the signing of the peace and tranquillity agreement under Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao when the entire 3,488 km border was re-named as the lAC. And two, the definition of the lAC after the 1962 war changed from being an administration limit to a military-held line, which could be shifted by either side by force to tactical advantage.
Against this backdrop, India should have asked for an agreement on the lAC, which the Chinese will not accept. WhyIJ Because it helps China nibble Indian territory and also keep India under psychological pressure fearing a war where no outside country will come to its assistance. While, India misleads its people on its military preparedness against China, Beijing understands the hollowness of Delhi’s claims made regularly by its political and military officers and scientific community. For example, during the eighth meeting of Joint Working Group in August 1995, both the sides had identified two ‘pockets of dispute’ namely, Trig Heights and Demchok in the western sector; today, the PlA transgresses all along the lAC .
If an agreement on the lAC could happen, PlA transgressions would become an act of war, something that Beijing will not want. But, this would keep the lAC peaceful.