The ninth round of dialogue held between Indian and Chinese military commanders on Sunday, after a gap of nearly three months, was a damp squib but was the first round to be held since the newly appointed PLA Western Theatre Commander Gen. Zhang Xudong took charge last month.
Unlike his now-retired predecessor Gen. Zhao Zongqi, who was a veteran of the Sino-Vietnam war and a well-known hawk, Gen Zhang has never served in the theatre facing India. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s selection for this region is interesting and may signal a reconciliatory attitude for the summer following Xi’s speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s centenary in July. But that is six months away!
It was Oscar Wilde who said, “to lose one parent is unfortunate. To lose both, utter carelessness”. Being surprised by the Chinese PLA last year in April and May in Ladakh was unforgivable; allowing China to continue nibbling at Indian territory and establish habitation in Eastern Ladakh, Chumbi valley and now Arunachal Pradesh is scandalous.
Usurpation of land on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in areas other than in East Ladakh has happened without any let up during the ongoing stand-off along LAC. To be clear, Konchok Stanzin, councillor for Chushul, told The Hindu on January 10 that China holds military positions on the Indian side of LAC, that Chinese tents and bunkers have crept closer to Chushul village, depriving them of pasture land and Chinese have been nibbling at Indian territory since 2018.
Stanzin is not the first Ladakhi official to complain about Chinese tactics to creep inside. Another recent report in The Hindu quoted a Demchok official as saying that Chinese including PLA were using Indian roads to trespass into Indian territory and forcing nomads to vacate traditional grazing lands. In November last year China set up a village two kilometres inside Bhutan close to Doklam in Chumbi Valley breaching its sovereignty but India, bound by its treaty agreement with Bhutan, chose to ignore the intrusion instead of confronting the PLA as it did at Doklam in 2017 in the same area.
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China, a habitual offender when it comes to land grabs, had similarly seized Nepali territory last year. The latest five-kilometre deep infringement in the Upper Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh – a full-blown cluster of 120 homes with 2000 people – went completely unchallenged for nearly a year. Even if the construction has occurred in disputed territory, it is a flagrant violation of existing protocols and should have been resisted by the Kolkata-based Eastern Command. Not a word was uttered on this development by either the army or the government till it was detected by Planet Labs satellite imagery earlier this month and made public.
Despite these derelictions, the Ministry of Defence in its self-congratulatory Annual Report has stated that the PLA’s escalated standoff “attempted to alter status quo” by use of force but our “non-escalatory military response ensured sanctity of our claims in East Ladakh”. These claims and operational responses contain factual inaccuracies about ‘transgressions’ when they are ‘intrusions’ that resulted from the occupation of territory by PLA on the Indian side of LAC.
Last year, the MoD had placed on its website, specifications of PLA intrusions but removed them within 48 hours. In his new book on China, Himalayan Challenge: India, China and the Quest for Peace, BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy says, ‘The matter of acknowledging Chinese possession of Indian territory cannot be treated as bad optics”. He is referring to existing multiple intrusions in East Ladakh. Defence minister Rajnath Singh in an interview with Times Now last week parried questions about the loss of land to China during the ongoing stand-off by saying that the government under PM Modi would never allow India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity to be compromised.
During the Army Day briefing this month, Chief of Army Staff, Gen M.M. Naravane admitted that Chinese PLA had taken the Indian army by surprise last year when Chinese troops on training in border areas near Ladakh suddenly occupied swathes of land on the Indian side of LAC, armed with the first movers’ advantage. These intelligence and operational failures were made good to some extent by Operation Snow Leopard (29-30 August), the preemptive and by-stealth occupation of the strategic Kailash range overlooking the Moldo and Spanggur gaps, south of Pangong Lake.
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Planning for a non-escalatory military operation to unhinge the Chinese advantage gained by multiple intrusions started in early May in Eastern Command for which 17 Mountain Strike Force, its strategic reserve, was assigned the task. Tibetan soldiers from Special Frontier Force and Special Forces also occupied heights overlooking Chinese positions along the Finger 4 in the area north of Pangong Lake. These twin operations partially restored the balance of advantage in India’s favour though Indian troops were only occupying vital ground on its own side of the LAC. What remained intriguing though, is not occupying Galwan heights, an area never contested by Chinese but where Indian troops were forced to withdraw from their side of LAC in a buffer zone highly disadvantageous to India during the disengagement process after the Galwan clash.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh’s penchant for indulging in strategic soliloquy in which the unnamed enemy (China) is periodically warned against testing India’s patience and cautioned of a befitting reply, is at best, disingenuous. The Chinese have conspicuously ignored such abstract military threats though Global Times, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, does not forget to remind India of 1962. Interestingly, the Chinese government only responds directly to US military activities in the South China Sea or Taiwan Straits.
FILE PHOTO: Indian and Chinese soldiers jointly observe the New Year 2019 at Bumla along the Indo-China border in Arunachal Pradesh. Photo: PTI
The most telling operational transformation since 1971 war occurred late last year: for the first time, Indian military planners tacitly recognised China as the primary threat. Even while the bulk of military forces still face Pakistan, the pivot to the northern border in Ladakh was ordered by allotting the Mathura-based 1 Corps earmarked for Pakistan, as the new offensive formation against Chinese PLA. A Mountain Strike Corps for China front was first conceived in the mid-1980s principally intended for Chumbi valley between Sikkim and Bhutan. It materialised in 2010 but only as the truncated 17 Mountain Strike Corps due to paucity of funds. Though Doklam hastened its operationalisation, by the time of the standoff in Eastern Ladakh only its infantry component of two divisions had materialised.
Initial rethinking on re-balancing favoured switching 17 Mountain Strike Corps from east to west as Northern Command’s offensive strike corps while 14 Corps would continue to be responsible for defensive tasks. The accretion of 1 Strike Corp for the 1597 km long Ladakh border is a strong signal to China about a dissuasive and deterrent capability to preventing Chinese coercion along LAC, providing depth to Daulat Beg Oldie or Karakoram Pass as well as threatening Aksai Chin. This major operational rejig will facilitate theatrisation of Northern and Eastern Commands dedicated to meeting PLA challenge. Converting 1 Strike Corps meant for the plains sector in the west for high altitude role in the north will require time, training and resources.
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Another boost in forces against China is the impending release of nearly 10,000 troops deployed for counter-insurgency in the northeast in Eastern Command for employment along LAC once central paramilitary forces take over operational responsibility. Residual insurgencies linger. But with a 60% decline in violent incidents, compared to 2018, 40% more insurgents were neutralised last year. A final resolution to the longstanding Naga insurgency will draw curtains to violence and extortion in the north east freeing the Army for its primary mission of fighting the external enemy.
A war that neither side wants is not on the cards. Xi is trying to establish China’s primacy in Asia including across India’s backyard which New Delhi will resist with all force at its command fortified with help from a like-minded coalition. A high-level disengagement dialogue is likely after 100 years of Chinese Communist Party celebrations in July. Till then both sides will keep their powder dry.
Ashok K. Mehta, a major general, is a founding member of the erstwhile Defence Planning Staff now the Integrated Defence Staff.