Beijing has refused to define the line of Actual Control. Instead, it used a mix of symmetric, asymmetric, psychological and military force to alter the lAC during the Depsang incident and has since successfully bullied India into accepting the changed line as the new normal
The picture of a grim National Security Advisor Ajit Doval shaking hands with a beaming interlocutor from Beijing, China’s State Councillor Yang Jiechi, before the start of the 18th round of border talks between the two countries foretold the outcome. Next day, an unusual headline after the talks read: “Chinese media upbeat about talks, India mum”. The report said the two sides agreed to have more negotiations for safeguarding border peace before the dispute is resolved.
China clearly had not accepted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal for defining the line of Actual Control; instead, it has pressed for a new border patrolling framework. With no border resolution in sight, the lAC in the western sector (ladakh) will continue to shrink with disastrous consequences.
Why ladakhIJ In December 2010, China had announced that its border with India was a mere 2,000km, and not 3,488km as claimed by India. Beijing gobbled a 1,488km border, from the junction of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Xinjiang, running south and covering all of ladakh, without even a protest from India. Without a border, the lAC in ladakh — a military line which can be shifted by force — has become untenable.
For example, the Joint Working Group on the boundary question had, in 1995, identified two disputed areas — Trig Heights and Demchok — in the western sector. Between 1995 and April 2013, there were five identified areas of dispute in the western sector, namely, Daulat Beg Oldie, Pangong Tso, Chumar, Trig Heights and Demchok. Today, there are 12 areas of dispute in the western sector; an increase of seven areas between April 2013 and now. The People’s liberation Army has put the Indian Army under enormous stress on the entire 320km lAC — from DBO to Demchok — in the western sector. India did not understand the significance of the three-week long April 2013 PlA intrusion in Depsang plain near DBO in ladakh.
On April 26, 2013, 11 days into the border crisis in ladakh between India and China, in response to my tweet, American author Gordon G Chang tweeted: “All New Delhi needs to do is to show China it cannot be bullied. The worst thing is to continue to signal weakness.” Mr Chang’s retort came after then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called the occupation of Indian land by PlA forces a ‘localised affair.’ India had succumbed to China’s military coercion or coercive diplomacy, which is an important component of its irregular warfare.
To recall, on April 15, 2013, about 20 Chinese troops entered 19km inside Indian land in Depsang plains, close to DBO, at heights of 22,500 feet; they pitched four tents for themselves; were provided uninterrupted warm food and other logistics by road and air by their rear comrades; and left on their own after the Chinese demands were met.
While they were there, Chinese spokesperson Hua Chunying maintained that PlA troops had pitched tents on their own territory. India, on the other hand, downplayed the incident, saying it was because of differing perceptions of how the lAC ran on the ground. The two demands of the Chinese for going back were that India urgently finalise the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement sent by China, and a few Indian defence structures in Chumar (ladakh) be dismantled. Both demands were met, with India’s then National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon getting credit for ending the crisis peacefully. While reflecting on the event after retirement at a Harvard lecture, Mr Menon dismissed the 2013 Depsang incursion by China as one of “four men and a dog pitching a tent in a remote Himalayan valley.”
However, 23 months since the event, the following has happened: The two nations signed the BDCA (which was a PlA requirement that intruding patrols will not be followed, as it may lead to an escalation); India voluntarily reduced its patrolling limit in the Depsang plains resulting in the new lAC; PlA issued fresh tactical maps to its forces showing the new lAC in the area; China, in recognition of good work, promoted nine officers of the lanzhou Military Region, responsible for the border in ladakh, from senior colonel to the rank of major general on January 12; and India’s Modi Government, which succeeded the Manmohan Singh dispensation, quietly accepted the altered lAC near DBO. It was lost on Indian policy makers and analysts that the PlA intrusion in April 2013 was a successful military coercion — the future of military power in this century.
Writing on the future of military power, US political scientist Joseph S Nye says: “The second modality of military power — coercive diplomacy — depends upon the same underlying resources as those that produce competence in kinetic fighting and destruction (war-fighting, the first modality of military power), but it also depends upon the credibility and cost of the threat. A threat of force can be used to compel or to deter, but the latter is often more credible. If a threat is not credible, it may fail, not only in encouraging resistance in the target, but also in negatively influencing third parties observing the outcome.” In the case of ladakh, the third party observing the outcome, which will certainly take advantage of India’s failed (political and conventional war) deterrence, is Pakistan.
If things played out differently during the PlA’s attempted intrusion in Chumar in September 2014, it was because the Indian Army is tactically better placed in terms of infrastructure and manpower in the area. It does not mean that India, its’ analysts or its Army understands or can match China’s military power.
For instance, rather than grasp the significance of the PlA’s military coercion, Indian analysts have underplayed the seriousness of the border dispute and its adverse impact on India’s rise. Mr Menon believes that given two strong leaders in India and China, the border resolution is possible. According to former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, “One cannot see a solution that diverges significantly from the existing alignment of the lAC, and the longer the status quo continues, the more likely is the lAC to eventually morph into a settled boundary.” Another analyst, Mr C Raja Mohan writes, “Despite anxieties on frequent incursions across the disputed portions of the Sino-Indian border, there is no violence on the un-demarcated lAC that separates Indian and Chinese forces in the Himalayas.”
The lAC is a unique military line which is being guarded round the clock by forces of one side against intrusions. The other side is absent, even at places like Tawang, which is politically and militarily sensitive, having left the policing to border sensors and sparse paramilitary forces. Such a situation for Indian soldiers is eviler than violence as it leaves them psychologically defeated. Worse, when the PlA manages to intrude through the gaps, Indian soldiers are disallowed to follow them and push them back. This is what the credibility of China’s military power, a mix of symmetrical, asymmetrical, psychological and military diplomacy capabilities, is all about. China is altering the lAC without a fight, something that Pakistan with a violent line of Control has not been able to do.
(The writer, who is editor FORCE newsmagazine, can be reached at pravin@forceindia.net)