Iqbal Khan
INDIA has learnt its latest lesson the hard way:
“China is here and the US is there— far away; and
for the US India is just another tissue paper. Credible analysts have been consistently conveying it to the US, to not to bet on India in its [anti-]China drive. India is not a stallion, it is an ailing mule. India has disappointed President Donald Trump twice during his presidency, let’s hope it’s the final one! China strongly thinks that India has violated the “Wuhan Spirit”—Cooperation— by participating in a number of US-led anti-China ventures like: subscription to Indo-Pacific concept; pushing ahead quadrilateral dialogue; signing of deal with Australia to get access to each other’s military bases to pave the way for more military exchanges and exercises in the Indo-Pacific; signing of “The Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA)” with the US; in the wake of Covid-19, encouraging relocation of American and European-led multinational industrial units from China to India etc.
COVID-19 has added another dimension to the global body politic. All countries are left to fend for themselves; none has spare quality time to peep around and see what is happening, especially in distant parts of the world. Everyone is trying to avoid additional crises, what to talk of fighting someone else’s war. India has missed the bus to have a face saving exit from its Ladakh standoff with China—President Trump could have done it for India. However, out of arrogance Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose to rejects Trump’s mediation offer. Moreover, Trump has gotten consumed in America’s domestic racial quagmire. Now there is only one thing on his mind: 2020 election. Even containing China is a distant second on his agenda, at least till 8 November.
A report authored by a senior figure at an influential Chinese think-tank has linked the current tension along the Line of Control (LAC) to India’s move last year to abrogate Article 370 and change the status of Jammu and Kashmir, a decision that China had voiced opposition to. Report, for the first time, described the move as a joint challenge to China and Pakistan, saying the move had “posed a challenge to the sovereignty of Pakistan and China”. The article was authored by Wang Shida, who is Deputy Director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR).
Ananth Krishnan for his piece for The Hindu (June 12), captioned: “Beijing think-tank links scrapping of Article 370 to LAC tension”, reported: “Mr Wang noted that the Chinese Foreign Minister had conveyed China’s strong opposition to the move to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar during his visit to Beijing last year, following the abrogation of Article 370 and the establishment of Ladakh as a Union territory. The week before the August visit, Home Minister Amit Shah had spoken in Parliament about taking back Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Aksai Chin. Mr Jaishankar conveyed to Beijing that the move was an entirely internal matter that did not impact India’s external boundaries or the LAC with China. China had opposed the Ladakh map for including Aksai Chin”. The article said the move had “posed a challenge to the sovereignty of Pakistan and China” and “made India-Pakistan relations and China-India relations more complex.”
According to renowned Indian strategist Pravin Sawheny, “On 5 Aug 2019 I said China will not accept it. China has changed facts on ground, so has Nepal. And, so, will peace loving tiny Bhutan. PLA’s Nakula intrusion has bypassed Indian defences from West & East in Sikkim leaving Bhutan to itself. Expect Bhutan to join BRI in a year.” China and Pakistan bashing has never solved any of India’s problems, nor is it likely to mitigate India’s difficulties in future. Elections are contested in India by creating an anti-China and anti-Pakistan frenzy. Both mainstream parties suffer from this malice; it’s only a difference of shade. This has raised the Indian public’s expectation about their government’s ability to deliver severe blows to China and or Pakistan.
Indian media is in an over drive to further raise public expectations that Indian military could quickly drive the Chinese out of recently “occupied territories.” And Indian military does not have the wherewithal to prove equal to Indian leadership’s tall talk. The negative fallout of this strategic folly has been that India is now stuck up with two nuclear fronts’ nightmare. It is purely India’s own doing. Senior PLA Colonel Zhu Bo, a familiar figure in the Chinese information war circuit and an honorary fellow in the PLA Academy of Military Sciences wrote an article for South China Morning Post in 2017, in the wake of Doklam crisis. According to Zhu, India would be the net loser of the crisis because “the disputed border was not on China’s strategic radar” till the Doklam standoff. The PLA had since reconsidered its assessment of the strategic importance of the Sino-Indian border.
According to Manosh Joshi, “Betting on a quick return to status quo ante would be hazardous security.” The dispute is more likely to herald a new and nervous era, “a geopolitical side-effect of the Coronavirus pandemic which is racking the world”. To pacify the domestic audience, a new line is being evolved by India that “Nowhere have the Chinese crossed the Chinese Claim Line (CCL). PLA is expected to give some face saving concessions in Pangong Tso only, having no tactical importance. India seems to have accepted Chinese viewpoint. So, LAC would become meaningless that could be changed by PLA at Will. India has ceded significant strategic concessions during diplomatic level talks, to buy face saving peace — for the time being.
—The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
