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FEBRUARY 2021 Download this Article
The bright and long days of June 2020 will go down in India's history as one of the darkest months. Twenty unarmed Indian soldiers were brutally killed in combat with the Chinese army. It happened in a remote corner of the Himalayas, probably not even heard by many Indians.
All this happened while two nuclear-armed nations were already disengaging from previous heightened tension and face-off. LAC (line of actual control), the border between India and China, is loosely defined, thanks to the British Empire and its administrative abilities concerning boundaries.
It being so, time and again, the border has been a place of flareups. It had never seen violence for the last 45 years. But this time, seemingly, it has gone beyond the control of the army, diplomacy, and political leadership.
Let us peel the layers, to understand the complexity of the situation from India’s standpoint.
The roots of the problem are profound and widespread. The trouble has taken time to brew and is not necessarily based on the border dispute. Many other factors are getting manifested in this Indian tragedy.
Primarily it is the ambition of Chinese leadership and availability of militarily weaker (not weak) neighbours. Whether it is Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia or even Japan, China exerted bullying like pressure to pursue its regional and global dominance. In that attempt, it is offending its neighbours and ending up being an aggressor.
In pursuit of its ambitions, it has flouted rules of WTO, maritime borders, IP rights and sovereignty rights.
In the same context, we must also realize that modern Chinese history is marked by mass violence and oppression. Whether it was the Chinese civil war between 1927-37 and 1945-49 or the Chinese land reforms of 1974, the violence and deaths associated with this period of history run into millions of soldiers and civilians.
Non-violent methods of resolving discontent and dispute is not a priority for the regime or probably not in their dictionary. So, it is difficult to expect a marked difference from non-violence in their approach in 2020.
In short, looking at modern Chinese history, public opinion and sentiments are of least concern to the leadership. Maybe, it does not get recorded in their public domain. Without an opposition, being a single-party nation, for its entire modern history, this behaviour is no surprise.
On the contrary, public opinion, national narrative, discussions, and debates are a top priority in India, especially if lives are involved. By the nature of the Indian constitution, the government is required to put an official statement in the parliament and call for debate. Public scrutiny and discourse clearly define the national civic fabric.
Though geographical neighbours may be, there is a stark difference between the two nation’s approaches. Unfortunately, both sides seem to fail to understand these fundamental constructs when dealing with each other.
While Chinese aggressive behaviour was noticeable in the last decade, which was not considered grave enough, politically, the situation changed in August last year.
The Indian home minister showed his government's ambition of reclaiming back Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Aksai Chin. Then in May of 2020, India declared Gilgit-Baltistan (POK) under its Meteorological Department’s daily weather Broadcast.
All these Indian stances, along with the abrogation of Article 370, changed the degree of Chinese aggression. Given to assume that it was India’s well thought out approach, probably, it tipped an imbalance between Indian domestic politics with its foreign policies. The two stood misaligned at that moment.
India took to this step, considering its long-standing history, that said the region is an Indian territory by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession.
Also, India had been objecting to China’s road project in Pakistan, which runs through Gilgit-Baltistan under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) program. It is a strategic program, as it connects China with the Arabian Sea, drastically shortening its lengthy sea link through the Strait of Malacca.
Indian government’s move had severe consequences to on-going China’s CPEC program. With new geographical configuration, technically, China was now building a strategic road in Indian territory and that this would not be acceptable to India. Probably this is the source of new hostility and posturing.
The Galwan valley stand-off was coming and should have been seen long before. But little can India do about it now. India’s Pakistan centric policy has ruffled feathers of the wrong bird. Instead, it has woken up the sleeping dragon from the colds of the Himalayas.
It is too late now to prevent Chinese hostility. Abrogation of article 370, designating Ladakh as a union territory is there to stay forever, and so is India’s intention to recover Gilgit-Baltistan back into Kashmir.
As a result, in future, we will see many more stand-offs, if not military, certainly diplomatic. They could be more aggressive, as rules of engagement have now changed, between India and China. Precisely what they are, we don’t know yet, but certainly, they wouldn’t be as subtle as it had been for a while.
In the big picture, India is substantial when compared to its neighbours like Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. But vast asymmetry persists between India and China. The scope of asymmetry is in terms of technology advancements, military hardware, manufacturing capabilities and economy.
Also, Chinese strategic presence in Sri Lankan port, Maldives Island and Pakistan’s CPEC adds to India’s regional disadvantage. More so, China’s inroad into Nepal’s politics and, subsequently, Nepal’s hostility is not in India’s favour either.
India had opened its economic borders a long time ago. It was intended to bring investment and develop capabilities. Instead, over some time, it has drained Indian manufacturing capabilities and given deep inroads to Chinese companies.
The fangs of the Chinese economic network are so widespread that they have reached the Indian rail network, ports, coal supply, mobile phones, mobile apps and even core telecommunication infrastructure.
About 90 start-ups in India are funded by the Chinese, and so are 18 of the 30 unicorns. This list does not include the smaller household white goods, crockery, kites, deity idols and toys. Clearly, security and strategic concerns continue to be ignored to upgrade its ranking in ease of doing business.
As an example, countries like the US, Australia, New Zealand, and others have banned Chinese 5G hardware provider Huawei, while India had allowed it without restrictions.
Militarily, India is dependent on imports of its new generation hardware. It has its constraints and must follow a lengthy procedure of defence procurements.
China has defence production, mostly inhouse and hence enjoys the flexibility of ramping up to its needs. Most of the Indian defence purchases had been Pakistan centric. This makes Indian capabilities for Chinese border terrain spread thin and wide.
The threat becomes even grave if there is a collusion between China and their compulsive friends, Pakistan. Indian forces might have to deal with two fronts simultaneously then. If India is to face two-front conventional war, it is highly probable that defending borders might be challenging, and a war could turn into an ugly nuclear one. Though realistic, it is just speculation with low probability.
In terms of the defence budget, India is five times less than Chinese investment. That may be a slightly skewed comparison, though, as the Chinese scope of defence is much larger than that of India. But the asymmetry does persist.
Economics is going to play a significant role in future. Before the COVID19 situation, the Indian economy was not doing well. It was slowing down, and manufacturing was shrinking. Job losses were creeping into the system.
With pandemic getting out of control, the economy is shattered, and worker displacement is restricting economic restart. Currently, India is going through a new low in money and morale. This could be the weak spot that the Chinese government is looking to strike.
Currently, necessarily India must boost its defence imports. This will be at the cost of raising future taxes and debt burden. It is not a healthy path to take and soon might find itself in a debt spiral.
We also need to understand that China is a trade surplus partner with India by a factor of 4.
In future, if India decides to take the route of indigenization and import substitution, it will be only by 2030 that some concrete results can be seen.
All those years, which India has deviated from indigenization, that slip is going to hurt the most. The lost capabilities, which could have illuminated the brand ‘Made in India’, will take time to rebuild.
It is a marathon commitment, a long-running focused effort and will only take the highest level of a political mandate.
One assumption that India took while opening Indian economic borders to China was to balance China’s threat with its stake in India. Probably, the calculation was to bring so much Chinese skin into the Indian economic game that border issues would become frail.
But with the current form of Chinese leadership, which is perched there for life, that calculation and assumption have gone seriously wrong.
It is just not possible to continue trading with China and let Indian soldiers die on the borders. Those 20 soldiers belonged to all corners of India, and it’s a national upheaval that is going to stay for decades.
If at all, the Indian government decides to continue trading with China, it would be the India-Pakistan trade story all over again. No political establishment would risk venturing into that option.
There are profound lessons to be learnt on the diplomatic front too. Last few years, the Indian government had been mixing foreign policy with event management.
India welcomed US president Trump with a grandiose celebration of Indo-US friendship. One month later, Trump took no effort in threatening India with retaliation if it imposes export restrictions on Hydroxy Chloro-Quinn (HCQ).
Indian PM had met Chinese premiere 18 times in the last six years. Some of them in informal settings. The last one was at Mamallapuram in October 2019. In less than a year, China engages India in Galwan Valley tragic clash.
If two opposing superpowers behave the same way, then the cue is for Indian foreign policy experts. All the Indian investment in pomp and show to gain the goodwill of these leaders has not worked. Instead, it has proved contrary.
With Galwan valley violent face-off, the Indo-Chinese relationship has gone back to the hostility of 1962. The trust, though walking on thin ice, has drowned itself with hypothermia.
The Chinese leadership of 1988, who wanted to see the 21st century as the Asian century together with India, in 2020 is seeing India as a fearsome adversary.
The consequences of June 2020 is long-lasting. There are just a few narrow windows of options available for India.
No longer India can now rely upon China for peace in the region. So, goes for India’s dependence on Chinese imports of goods, services and finances.
In the short term, the hysteria and political temperature need to be cooled using diplomatic channels and goodwill of leadership (if).
Military options to retaliate will not be the best,
preferably should be taken as a last resort.
It is a learning which the USA had taken a few years ago and India too should. China has been able to flex its muscles across the globe, both economically, politically and militarily, because it has developed a self-reliant economy.
Moreover, friends and foes of china depend on Chinese products and services. So, India needs to reverse its trading gears by developing import substitutions and indigenization of its economy.
This is the only way forward if India is to feel secured and stronger.
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