In an interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, Shivshankar Menon also spoke about the future of India-US relations under President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
One of India’s most highly regarded China experts and former National Security Advisor has said the disengagement and withdrawal of Indian and Chinese forces on both banks of the Pangong Tso Lake is “potentially very significant but it’s only a first step and it must include more areas and become bigger”. Shivshankar Menon, who also served as a foreign secretary and ambassador to China, says “these are early days and there is a long, complicated process that still lies ahead”. At this point, he says, “we must not draw any big conclusions”.
In a 40-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Menon said just as we do not know why the Chinese intruded into Indian territory at several different points in Ladakh last year we also do not have a clear idea why, after months of intransigence, the Chinese have agreed to withdraw.
In the interview to The Wire, Menon also spoke about India-US relations under President Biden. He said, “There hasn’t been a US President since George Bush senior who has a better knowledge of world affairs” and then pointedly added, “there hasn’t been a US President ever who is more familiar with India”.
Speaking in detail about the withdrawal and disengagement on the two banks of Pangong Lake, Menon differentiated between the north bank and the south bank. On the north bank, he said, both India and China have made matching concessions. India has agreed to restrict itself to finger 3 and not patrol up to finger 8, the farthest limit of its LAC claim. China has agreed to restrict itself to finger 8 and not patrol up to finger 3, which is the farthest limit of its LAC claim.
Menon, therefore, agreed that defence minister Rajnath Singh’s statement in parliament that “we have not conceded anything” is not correct. In terms of territory no concession has been made, but in terms of patrolling both sides have made matching concessions.
Speaking about the south bank, Menon said that he could only judge India’s decision to militarily withdraw from the Chushul Heights and Kailash Range once he knows what – or if anything – China has agreed to do in response. Till then, however, he agreed there are question marks about this withdrawal by India on the south bank.
Speaking to The Wire about former defence minister A.K. Antony’s claim that the buffer zone at Pangong Lake is entirely on Indian territory and something similar happened last year at Galwan, Menon said most international observers, relying on satellite and other intelligence, do believe China advanced into territory India previously patrolled or controlled and, therefore, this retreat does suggest this is a classic case of two steps forward one step back, which leaves China with a net gain of one step. Menon said he too believes this to be the case.
Speaking about buffer zones, Menon told The Wire this is a sensible measure which would reduce the risk of mistakes and accidents.
In the interview to The Wire, Menon said that of the Chinese intrusions where withdrawal is yet to be agreed – Hot Springs and Gogra as well as Depsang – the one at Depsang would be more tricky to negotiate. This is because China is more interested in the Depsang area and has also tried on several earlier occasions to change the status quo. He called the Depsang area sensitive and strategic territory.
Menon said that if over the next few weeks full disengagement happens and the two armies withdraw to the positions they occupied last year there would still need to reset the relationship. He said: “There should be no going back to the old relationship. We can’t ignore what the Chinese did and now say all is normal again.”
An Indian Army convoy moves along a highway leading to Ladakh, at Gagangeer in Kashmir’s Ganderbal district June 18, 2020. Photo:Reuters/Danish Ismail/File Photo
Menon told The Wire that “it will take complicated and difficult conversations between the two sides to establish the new relationship”. He added that this new relationship would depend upon China “proving its sincerity”.
Speaking to The Wire about the impact of India’s problem with China and the way the Indian government handled it on the country’s image in South Asia, Menon pointed out that although governments are always polite, the media in Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka have published very different versions compared to the Indian version of the problem.
However, Menon said if India played its hand correctly China’s influence in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh would not exceed India’s. However, a lot depends upon India’s handling of these relationships and, he pointedly added, “don’t call them termites”.
Menon said concerns about India facing a two-front situation or the belief that China is a greater worry than Pakistan, do not call for re-engaging with Pakistan. Menon, who has also served as the high commissioner to Pakistan, disputed the belief that Pakistan is obstructing the bigger role India wants to play in Asia and internationally by drawing India back into South Asia and limiting the way India is perceived. He said India must not be obsessed with Pakistan and only India’s own behaviour can restrict it within South Asia and limit its international perception.
Joe Biden and Narendra Modi during the latter’s visit to the US in 2014. Photo: US Department of State
In the interview to The Wire, Menon also spoke about India-US relations now that Joseph Biden has become the new President of America. He said: “We don’t have to be high on his priorities but we do nonetheless fit into his priorities”. Menon identified some of these as climate change, the Indo-Pacific, the continuing concern with China and the QUAD.
Menon described Joseph Biden as the best informed president ever about India. Speaking about the new Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who was America’s deputy national security advisor when Menon was India’s NSA, he said: “We have met and worked together. He is a thorough professional. He has an open mind.”
Menon told The Wire that under Biden the unpredictability of the Trump presidency is over. He also said the lack of process and lack of structure under Trump will end.
Menon told The Wire he was not worried President Biden might raise concerns about India’s treatment of Muslims, Kashmir, NGOs and the media, all of which, both at home and abroad, are perceived as Modi’s Achilles heel. Menon also dismissed commentary in western newspapers, including, most recently, Time magazine, that President Biden might be under pressure to exclude India from the forthcoming Summit of Democracies he proposes to hold.
“There has been an argument in Indian public opinion on the boundary question, which worries me,” said Sun Wiedong.
New Delhi: Even as he called for a “correct understanding” of both India’s and China’s strategic intentions, Chinese ambassador to India Sun Weidong said on Thursday that he was concerned about a call from quarters within India for New Delhi to change its ‘One China’ policy in order to pressurise Beijing.
The senior Chinese diplomat was speaking at a webinar organised by the Institute of Chinese Studies on the topic titled, ‘India China Relations: The Way Forward.’
In his opening remarks, Ambassador Sun indicated that he was aware of the debate generated by some opinion makers that India should have a stronger position on issues that put China on the mat, in the light of the ongoing stand-off at the border.
“There has been an argument in Indian public opinion on the boundary question, which worries me, suggesting the Indian government adjust its policy towards China, and change its stance on issues related to Taiwan, Xizang, Hong Kong and the South China Sea to put pressure on China,” he said. Xizang is the Chinese name for Tibet.
Since early May, Indian and Chinese troops have been in a face-off at multiple points in eastern Ladakh. The most serious clash took place on June 15, when Indian and Chinese soldiers were involved in hand-to-hand scuffles in Galwan valley. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed, while China has not yet officially acknowledged any casualties.
India’s ‘One-China’ policy does not recognise Taiwan and refers to Tibet as part of the Chinese government. New Delhi’s stance on South China Sea has not significantly changed, except that it is now being being articulated a bit more frequently. During the last session of the UN human rights council, India had for the first time asked for China to listen to concerns of various stakeholders on Hong Kong, where Beijing has promulgated a draconian Public Security law.
“I want to point out emphatically that Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Xizang affairs are totally China’s internal affairs and bear on China’s sovereignty and security. While China doesn’t interfere in other country’s domestic affairs, it allows no external interference and never trades its core interests either,” said Ambassador Sun.
Following the Galwan valley clash, there have multiple rounds of diplomatic and military talks on implementing a plan for phase disengagement of troops. However, the process is still going on, with the Chinese ambassador making it clear that Beijing continues to assert its claim on Galwan.
“One fact is that China has never claimed any land outside its own territory. The label of “expansionist” cannot be pinned on China,” he said.
Later, he reiterated this point about the most problematic stand-off point at Pangong Tso lake, where China has intruded much deeper into Indian territory. “In the northern bank of Pangong Lake, China’s traditional customary boundary line is in accordance with the LAC.”
Earlier, ICS director Ashok Kanth had pointed out that there was “profound anxiety and even anger” in India over recent developments. The former Indian ambassador to China noted that there was “serious talk here that India-China relations are at a turning point”.
“Even experienced Indian diplomats who are deeply invested in this relationship are speaking of the need for a reset in ties,” he added.
In his remarks, Sun admitted that some scholars from Indian think tanks believe that Galwan valley clash “will be ‘turning point’ to change or even reverse China-India relations”. “Honestly speaking, I have different idea on this,” he stated.
He called on both sides to “correctly analyse and view view each other’s strategic intentions, and prevent misinterpretation and miscalculation in a positive, open and inclusive attitude”.
“When I see people wearing masks on the streets and doctors and nurses in protective suits, I really feel that the invisible virus, rather than China, is the “threat” facing India…It is undoubtedly short-sighted and harmful to deny the long history of peaceful co-existence between China and India and to portray our friendly neighbour for thousands of years as an “opponent” or a “strategic threat” due to temporary differences and difficulties”.
Sun said that the response to the challenges on the boundary should be a strengthening of dialogue and communication.
“Over the past decades, the two sides have managed differences through dialogue and negotiation, established various mechanisms such as the special representatives’ meeting on the boundary question, reached a series of agreements to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas, and kept the channels of military and diplomatic communication open. These good practices must continue,” he stated.
The Chinese ambassador stated that Chinese and Indian economies are inter-woven, reeling off numbers to show that Indian industry is dependent on Chinese components. “Globalisation has deepened the interconnection between countries into the “capillaries”. Whether you want it or not, the trend is difficult to reverse”
He claimed that a “German friend working in India” told him recently due to India’s restrictions on import of Chinese auto components “the production of German automakers in India had been greatly affected”. The Chinese ambassador observed “forced decoupling of the Chinese and Indian economies is against the trend and will only lead to a ‘lose-lose’ outcome”.
“It fully demonstrates that self-protection, non-tariff barriers and restrictive measures violate market laws and WTO rules. It will only be harmful to oneself, to others as well as to the world”.
He pointed out that Indian government had announced it will provide favourable investment environment for foreign companies, “which should include Chinese companies”.
“Both sides should recognise the mutually beneficial and win-win nature of bilateral economic and trade cooperation, jointly create an open, fair, just business environment, and maintain the momentum of China-India economic and trade cooperation to bring more tangible benefits to the two peoples”.
To a question on why China does not clarify the Line Of Actual Control with the exchange of maps, he indicated that Beijing is still not keen to restart this process, which halted in 2002.
“The purpose of clarification of LAC is to maintain peace and tranquility. When we look back into history, if one side has unilaterally put its own perception on the LAC during the negotiations, that will lead to disputes. That’s why, this process cannot be move on. I think that this is a departure of original purpose,” he stated.
Pending the final settlement, he said that main issue is for India and China to maintain peace and tranquility on the border areas in line with the 1993 and 1996 agreements and various confidence building measures.
“The important thing is that we must follow those agreement and continue our discussion and consultation along the diplomatic channels and also among corps commanders, also find out a way to de-escalate the situation and restore peace and tranquility,” he said.
If the two leaders succeed in taking a broad view of the bilateral relationship, the current border crisis can not only be transcended but turned into an opportunity.
This is the concluding instalment of a two-part article on the continuing military standoff between India and China. The first part was published on July 23, 2020.
Beijing’s repeated use of the word ‘strategic’ is the key to understanding its military posture in Ladakh. In its view, India’s recent actions in the Asia-Pacific region had invalidated the underlying premise of India’s foreign policy upon which the 1993 and subsequent agreements with China had been based. This was that India would use its ‘soft power’ to minimise conflict in Asia and the west Pacific, and create a multipolar, rule-guided, world order in opposition to the US goal of creating a unipolar world. This was also India’s stated goal then, and indeed throughout the Cold War. So this commitment was formalised by the creation of BRICS in 2009, and was made explicit in its Delhi declaration of 2012.
China’s misgivings began to grow when, within months of his coming to power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed the US-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific which obliged its signatories to maintain freedom of navigation in the South China Sea; became a ‘Major Defence Partner’ of the US; sent a flotilla of warships to join a US-Japan task force in the South China Sea; and began regularly hosting operation Malabar in the Bay of Bengal, one of whose war games is the closing of the straits of Malacca through which 40% of China’s exports and close to 90% of its oil imports have to pass.
When India also signed the Military Logistics Supply Agreements with the US and Japan and began working on one with Australia, China could no longer ignore the fact that under Modi, India did not feel duty bound to abide by the tenets of Panchsheel, which are reiterated in the first paragraph of the 1993 Border Agreement.
Why China wants a strategic partnership
For China, this was hugely disturbing because, unlike Britain in the 19th and the US in the 20th century, its prosperity and growing hegemonic power did not stem from its dominance of global manufacture but from its dominance of global trade. In some categories of consumer goods, China accounts for over 90% of US imports, and nearly 20% of the EU’s total imports – probably amounting to more than half of its consumer goods imports – come from China.
But that is only one half of what accounts for China’s pivotal place in world trade. The other half is that an increasing proportion of its exports contain components and raw materials that China imports from other ASEAN countries, Australia and South America. This complex web of connections, maintained by sea, air and digital communication, can survive only in conditions of peace. War is therefore anathema for China, because it will itself be the first casualty.
Maintaining peace has, however, become more and more difficult as the US has become aware of the speed at which China is converting its growing economic power into hegemony, through investment of its foreign exchange surpluses in developing countries. This awareness had remained dormant in the US through the ‘roaring nineties’ and the ‘dotcom’ boom of the early 2000s, but sprang to life after the financial crash of 2008 because China’s economy powered on, seemingly unaffected by the global crisis.
Within months of its onset, therefore, analysts had begun to credit China’s immense demand, especially for raw materials, for the early end of the recession that had set in after the crash, and to talk of the US and China as the G-2.
US reaction – ‘Containment’
President Obama reacted to the implied threat to US hegemony with his ‘pivot to Asia’ in November 2011. Its purpose was to ‘contain’ China by strengthening its neighbours but it soon became apparent the strengthening being referred to was mostly military. As a result, by 2016 China found itself encircled by a large number of US military installations and bases stretching from Japan through Okinawa, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Thailand, to Australia.
China was acutely aware of the destruction that that these could unleash upon it. It had seen how a single American warship, acting without any legal backing from the UN, had destroyed nearly all of Gaddafi’s air force and radar installations in Tripoli by unleashing more than 132 Tomahawk missiles in a single night. It was also aware that the version of Tomahawk missile that is standard equipment on US warships has a range of nearly 1,600 kms. So the 12-mile exclusion limit for territorial waters enshrined in the UN-drafted Law of the Sea no longer offers any protection against annihilation.
China responded by building an airport on the disputed Fiery Cross reef in the middle of the South China Sea with material dredged up from the ocean floor, and declaring the South China Sea a part of its core security area in which it wants prior notification of the passage of non-commercial craft. This has ratcheted up the tension another notch. Since then, there have been annual confrontations between US-led task forces and Chinese naval vessels in the South China sea.
If not defused, such military confrontations tip over sooner or later into war – cold or hot. To avoid this, China turned to BRICS, and particularly to India with its immense ‘soft power’ for support. In two momentous meetings, between Manmohan Singh and its new president, Xi Jinping, at Durban in 2013, and between Prime Minister Singh and Premier Li Keqiang in Delhi in 2013, China sought to consolidate a long term strategic partnership with India. To remove hurdles in the way, President Xi Jinping offered ‘an early settlement’ of the border dispute in the Himalayas.
Enter Narendra Modi
That was the point at which the UPA government fell, the BJP came to power, Modi turned two decades of patient bridge building with both China and Pakistan on its head, and made India a partner of the US in its effort to ‘contain’ China.
Despite that huge setback, China did not give up on India. Instead it turned to its Belt Road Initiative to continue binding the two nations together. The BRI had assumed supreme importance for China not only because it promised to provide a number of escape hatches through which China could carry on its international trade in the remote contingency that its sea routes out of the South China Sea and through the Malacca straits got blocked. But more immediately and urgently, the BRI became important because it offered a way to stave off the severe recession that was enveloping its machine tools and other engineering industries after the fiscal stimulus programme it had launched in 2008-9 to fight the global recession came to an end in 2013.
The problem it faced was exceptionally severe because the planned fiscal stimulus – with a budgeted investment of 4 trillion Yuan ($586 billion dollars) – ended up creating huge excess capacities in steel, power generation, roadbuilding and construction, and an even more crippling excess capacity in the heavy machine building industries that produced the equipment these projects needed.
The resulting unemployment was largely hidden, because the Communist Party ensures that there is virtually no unorganised labour force in the county outside the fringes of agriculture. So prolonged unemployment for the workforce is not an option for the government because it will cost the party its Mandate from Heaven. Xi Jinping therefore turned to the BRI, and to a massive redirection of domestic investment into the western and border regions, in its 13th Five Year Plan. Both programmes were therefore outcomes of domestic politico-economic concerns, and not of the inherent expansionism of “the Middle Kingdom” that western defence analysts keep harping upon.
How Modi cut off India’s nose to spite China’s face
India’s capacity to absorb new investment in infrastructure and make it yield quick returns is greater than that of the seven next largest countries involved in the BRI put together. While the combined GDP of these seven countries – Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Malaysia – was $2.1 trillion in 2015, India’s GDP was $2.256 trillion.
China had hoped that India, with its huge need to modernise its antiquated road, rail and ports infrastructure, would fill the order books of China’s basic and heavy engineering industries for a decade. Therefore, when Modi opted out of the BRI in 2017, it was an even bigger blow than his sudden abandonment of equidistance in foreign policy.
Unfortunately, even that is not the end of the story. The reason Modi gave for refusing to send even a representative to the inaugural conference in Beijing in 2017 was China’s refusal to formally recognise Gilgit as a part of India illegally occupied by Pakistan. This gave Beijing even greater cause for alarm because it showed that Modi would respect neither history nor the commitments of its predecessors if it suited his whim or fancy. For, in its view, not only had the people of Gilgit nothing in common with the Kashmiris of the valley, but, since 1889, the area had been ’leased’ to the British to protect against foreign (i.e Russian) invasion.
In 1947, therefore, when the British terminated their lease and ‘returned’ Gilgit to Maharaja Hari Singh, a section of the local population revolted and declared itself for Pakistan. Gilgit therefore took no part in the Kashmir war, and the question of retaking it never arose in the meetings of the defence committee of the Indian cabinet in 1947 and 1948.
What is more, the Simla agreement of 1972 and the Delhi agreement of 2005 had both explicitly accepted the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir as the de facto border between the two countries. The Modi government’s perversity therefore sowed the suspicion that it would feel few qualms about reneging from the 1993 agreement with China too, if that suited its purpose.
The effective abrogation of Article 370, the bringing of Ladakh directly under Delhi’s rule, and the near simultaneous publication of a new map of India that shows Ladakh and the whole of Aksai Chin as a Union Territory may have been the straw that tipped the scales in favour of sending a warning to India via the PLA.
Turn crisis into opportunity
The acid test of statecraft is the ability to turn crisis into opportunity. India and China can do this today in a manner that makes them both winners. The talks now going on will not serve their purpose, if they do not address the core anxieties of the two nations. Since the signal of growing disquiet has come from China, it is India that needs to take the lead in doing this.
The most important reassurance China needs is that the Modi government’s frequent claims to Gilgit and PoK are nothing more than theatre for its domestic audience – full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. This is supremely important for China because the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which runs through Gilgit, envisages an investment of $68 billion, which will not only be the largest component of the BRI by far, but also China’s most important escape hatch for continuing its trade and ensuring its supply of oil, should some future western coalition decide to blockade the seaways out of the South China sea.
A second way to reassure Beijing would be to lift the various bans on Chinese apps, the import of Chinese goods, the banning of Chinese investment, and the termination of ongoing contracts that PM Modi has decreed since June 19. Since trade with India accounts for only 2.4% of China’s exports, but 14% of India’s imports, this is hurting India more than China. But the far more dangerous message that Prime Minister Modi has unwittingly sent is that since he feels no obligation to respect minor international economic commitments, it would be folly to expect him to uphold major political ones. If that impression is allowed to sink in, then for Beijing force will remain the only alternative.
The least politically sensitive way to repair relations would be for India to join the Belt Road Initiative. Estimates of how much money China has pledged for the BRI vary. According to the US Council on Foreign Relations, China has so far committed $200 billion to projects in 60 countries. But its experience has been mixed. Since China is offering finance in the form of low interest loans and not grants, many smaller countries have over-leveraged their projects and been forced to sell off equity in them to China when demand projections have turned out to be too rosy and they have been unable to service their debt. In sensitive projects like the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, this has looked far too much like an engineered take-over of a strategic asset, and has made several countries shy away from projects in which they had initially welcomed Chinese financing.
China has been trying to persuade India to join the BRI since well before its inauguration, because India has the financial reserves and markets that can ensure a more balanced funding of projects, and the deep, unsatisfied demand that guarantees immediate returns on investment. By not doing so, Prime Minister Modi has only cut India’s nose to spite China’s face. This would be a good time to correct that error. Revisiting the BRI in the discussions being held now would therefore be the surest way of cementing peace in the Himalayas.
Victor Gaowas the English language interpreter for Chairman Deng Xiaoping, from 1984 to 1988. (In this photo he is seen interpreting for Chairman Deng and US Vice President Walter Mondale in Beijing in 1984.) He is currentlychair professor, Soochow University and vice president, Centre for China and Globalisation.The CCG is ranked 94th among the world’s top think tanks.
Victor Gao is seen interpreting for Chairman Deng and US Vice President Walter Mondale in Beijing in 1984.
Prem Shankar Jha is a columnist for The Wire, former media adviser to V.P. Singh when he was prime minister and former Editor of the Hindustan Times. He is the author of Managed Chaos: The Fragility of the Chinese Miracle (2009) and Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger: Can China and India dominate the West ( 2010).
Going forward, it is essential that each side understand its opponent.
A tragedy has been averted: Chinese troops that had enteredthe disputed areasthat lie between the Indian and Chinese definitions of the Line of Actual Control, have pulled back from three of them. Indian troops have done the same.
But the military build-up in their base areas outside the intermediate “grey” zone continues.
Galwan and Dhola – The similarity between 2020 and 1962
To appreciate how close we came to a war last month, we only need to remind ourselves of how the 1962 war began. Officially, it began when the Chinese attacked Dhola post, not far from Tawang, in the eastern Himalayas on October 20, and ended with a China-declared unilateral truce on November 21. In reality, it began 10 days earlier and, like the conflict in the Galwan valley on June 15, it too started over a cartographic dispute.
How this dispute arose is described in detail in the still proscribed Henderson-Brooks Report of 1963, but can now be downloaded from the internet. In August 1962, Eastern Command informed Delhi that one of its patrols had reported that the tri-junction of Bhutan, India and Tibet marked on the McMahon line did not fall on the Himalayan watershed, as McMahon had intended it to do, but four miles south of it .
McMahon Line, Original Map of the North-East Frontier.
The Ministry of External Affairs took this up with the Chinese government, presumably suggesting a rectification, but Beijing did not agree. So in September, Delhi decided to correct it on its own, established the Dhola post at a point between the two locations, and manned it with a platoon of soldiers. This post was immediately surrounded by 600 Chinese soldiers with the obvious intention of starving the defenders out.
A stalemate ensued during which both sides sent more troops to the area. The first skirmish took place in early October and went the way of India. On October 10, therefore, Delhi asked the army to ‘evict the Chinese from the Thagla ridge’. What followed is history and need not detain us here.
The situation that developed at Patrol Point 14 in the Galwan valley on June 15 is similar to the one that had developed at the Dhola post 58 years earlier. On June 15, it was only the stringent protocols designed to prevent armed conflict, put in place after the 1993 Agreement on Peace and Tranquility in the Border region, that prevented the savage hand-to-hand fighting that took place from tuning into a bloodbath. Had those protocols not been in place, India and China may well have been in the middle of another fratricidal war today.
Who needs another war?
Neither country wants, needs, or indeed can afford, a war in the Himalayas now. So as talks at the diplomatic level begin, it has become imperative for civil society in both countries to understand what brought us to the brink of war and how we can get back to a durable and mutually beneficial peace.
More specifically, we need to understand why the Chinese chose to occupy these particular stretches of the LAC; why the PLA stayed broadly within the limits of China’sdefinition of the LAC and, having gone so far, why it has now agreed to move back from three of them and thin down its presence in the other two.
Depsang Plains in Ladakh. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 3.0
The topography of the region answers the first question. The Depsang plains are the closest point on the Chinese LAC to Daulat Beg Oldi. DBO is situated on a finger of land west of the Karakoram range, at only 13 kilometres from the Karakoram Pass, and a little more than 200 kms from the Khunjerab pass through which the Karakoram highway, which links China to Pakistan now, passes.
Till only two years ago, for all but a few months in summer, Daulat Beg Oldi was linked to the rest of Ladakh only by air. But following the completion of a 450-metre bridge across the Shyok river, it is now linked by an all-weather road. DBO also has an airfield now that can take Antonov and C-130 Hercules cargo planes. Finally, it is barely 120 kilometres – six minutes in a modern fighter plane – from G219, China’s strategic link road between Xinxiang and Tibet.
Pangong lake, at the other end of the road, is 134 kms long and G219 skirts its eastern shore just as the road to DBO skirts its western edge. It therefore provides a swift route for moving large numbers of troops, artillery and armour from deep inside Tibet to places from which they can cut off the road to DBO within hours. Occupying the heights above finger 4, can give the PLA the capacity to interdict any Indian counter-attack on Chinese landing craft in the lake. A similar dominating position in the heights above the Galwan valley can give the PLA a second choke point from which to target the road from Ladakh to DBO.
Daulat Beg Oldi shown in the northernmost part of Ladakh (1988 CIA map). Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Public domain
These are strategic deployments of the kind usually made in anticipation of war. So why, after having made them, did China take care to remain within its broad definition of the LAC and agree to talks? The only rational explanation is that its purpose was not to annex the land but to force the Modi government into a dialogue to clear the misgivings and distrust that its abrupt change of foreign policy in 2014 had sown in Beijing’s mind.
This was underlined by China’s ambassador to India, Sun Weidong, who has stated repeatedly since the confrontation began that China’s goal is to forge a strategic partnership, not rivalry with India. It was also echoed by the foreign office’s spokesperson in Beijing: “The Indian side should not have (sic) strategic miscalculation on China. We hope it will work with China to uphold the overall picture of our bilateral relations.”
But what does China mean by ‘strategic miscalculation’ and ‘strategic partnership’? In the second part of this article, we will examine this crucial dimension of the current crisis in the bilateral relationship against the backdrop of wider region and global security dynamics.
Victor Gaowas the English language interpreter for Chairman Deng Xiaoping, from 1984 to 1988. (In this photo he is seen interpreting for Chairman Deng and US Vice President Walter Mondale in Beijing in 1984.) He is currentlychair professor, Soochow University and vice president, Centre for China and Globalisation.The CCG is ranked 94th among the world’s top think tanks.
Prem Shankar Jha is a columnist for The Wire, former media adviser to V.P. Singh when he was prime minister and former Editor of the Hindustan Times. He is the author of Managed Chaos: The Fragility of the Chinese Miracle (2009) and Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger: Can China and India dominate the West ( 2010).
Note: In an earlier version of this article, a zero was dropped while describing the distance from the Khunjerab Pass to Daulat Beg Oldi. The sentence should have read “little more than 200 km” and not “little more than 20 km”.
China has changed the rules of the game unilaterally and given a go-by to all the agreements and protocols that have existed.
The recent standoff with China should serve as a wake-up call.
Sino-Indian relations had remained frozen after the 1962 War till 1976 when diplomatic activity restarted. Though there have been a number of stand offs over the years since then, what exuded hope was the fact that the two sides had signed a number of agreements and confidence building measures (CBMs) in the military field while diplomatic activity between the two at the highest levels had continued as recently as 2019 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping met at Mamallapuram.
The question that arises is: Why has China suddenly tried to change the rules of the game and how should India deal with the changed narrative?
Though the two sides resumed designating ambassadors to each other in 1976 after a long break, the real breakthrough came with the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China in 1988.
The two sides agreed that pending resolution of the boundary dispute, they would maintain peace and tranquility along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), and make efforts to improve and develop bilateral relations. Since then, India and China have signed a number of agreements; namely:
September, 1993: Agreement on maintaining peace and tranquility along the LAC. November, 1996: Agreement on CBMs in the military field along the LAC. April, 2005: Agreement on political parameters and guiding principles for settlement of the boundary dispute. January, 2012: Agreement on the establishment of a working mechanism for consultation and co-ordination on India-China border affairs. October, 2013: Border Defence Cooperation Agreement.
In addition, during late prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to China in June 2003, the Special Representatives (SRs) mechanism for resolution of the boundary dispute was also set up. Since then, the SRs have had 22 rounds of talks (the last one in December, 2019) but without getting any closer to a resolution of the boundary dispute.
Consequent to the Doklam stand off in 2017 which lasted for 73 days, there have been two informal summits between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping at Wuhan in 2018 and at Mamallapuram in 2019.
The Wuhan Summit was organised with great preparation and fanfare, and President Xi played a perfect host. There were great expectations from the summit and what came to be called the ‘Wuhan Spirit’. However, that kind of enthusiasm was missing from the Chinese side for the Mamallapuram Summit and there was not even a joint declaration.
There was a degree of uncertainty if President Xi would actually be coming, till about three days before the summit. In fact, the body language of President Xi indicated that he was just keeping a date having promised the same.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping exchange gifts at Mamallapuram. Photo: PTI/Files
It was decided (at Mamallapuram) that the year 2020 would mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of India-China diplomatic relations and the two countries would be organising 70 activities during 2020 to emphasise the historical connection between the two civilisations.
Obviously, China has unilaterally changed the rules of the game. It is quite apparent that a new narrative is shaping up as far as Sino-Indian relations are concerned.
The genesis of the recent intrusions during April-May 2020 by the PLA can be traced back to the 1962 Sino-Indian War. China declared unilateral ceasefire on November 21, 1962 and announced that its forces would halt all further operations and commence withdrawal from occupied territories.
However, this withdrawal was confined to erstwhile NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh) only. In the Western Sector (Ladakh), there was no withdrawal. The Chinese forces had advanced up to their “1960 Claim Line” and that became their Line of Actual Control in the Western Sector.
Their aim in 1962 in the Western Sector was to remove 43 Indian posts (out of 72) which they considered were across their Claim Line. However, there was one exception and that was in the Depsang Plain (southeast of Karakoram Pass) where they seemed to have overstepped their Claim Line and straightened the eastward bulge.
In 1962, the two major attacks that took place on October 18 morning were against the Red Top Hill held by 14 J&K Militia in the Daulat Beg Oldie Sector (Sub-sector North) and the Galwan Post held by 5 JAT in the Galwan River Valley. Thereafter, the attacking troops (the 4th Infantry Division of the PLA which had been brought from Xinjiang) moved further south for operations in the Indus Valley area (Demchok-Chang La) which began on October 26 and terminated on October 28.
There was a lull in fighting from October 29 to November 17, during which they made preparations for further operations which commenced in the Chushul sub-sector on November 18, with attacks on the Gurung Hill and Rezangla (south of Spangur Lake).
A look at Chinese thinking
It will be interesting to look at the Chinese thinking at this juncture, i.e. before launching the second phase of their operations on November 18, 1962. I reproduce below an extract from the telegraphic instructions issued by the Central Military Commission (CMC) to Xinjiang Military Command on November 14, 1962.
I quote from A History of Counter Attack War in Self Defence along Sino-Indian Border:
“While eliminating the [Indian] strongholds, do not fight with the Indian forces deployed in artillery bases and strongholds set up outside our territory by the Indian troops. If we do not attack and Indian forces attack us, in that case we will definitely launch a counter attack. Retaliate with short, fierce and sudden fire power, hit their airfield at Chushul; the shells may cross the border but personnel should not cross the border. While returning fire, it must be approved by GHQ.”
This clearly shows that the Chinese considered their 1960 Claim Line as the border and had no intention to overstep that line.
However, Indian troops withdrew all along the line, even from positions which were not even attacked as most of these were meant to show the Indian flag and were not sited tactically. Even Daulat Beg Oldie which was held by 14 J&K Militia and was neither attacked, nor contacted by the attacking troops, was abandoned.
The Gurung Hill Complex in the Chushul Sub-sector was held by two companies of 1/8 Gorkha Rifles and was attacked on November 18 along with the Rezangla Hill but could not be captured by the Chinese in spite of repeated attacks during the whole of November 18 and 19.
However, instead of reinforcing the Gurung Hill, the brigade commander decided to withdraw troops from Gurung Hill and all other such positions that were holding out during the night of November 19 and 20. As a result, the control of the whole of Kailash Range passed into Chinese hands and the Chushul airfield was rendered unusable as it now lay in no man’s land and was dominated by the Chinese on the eastern hills.
Though Chinese troops gave no indication for conducting further operations towards Leh, Indian troops were withdrawn almost 250 km for the defence of Leh. Thus contact was broken with the attacking troops all along the front, from Daulat Beg Oldie in the north to Demchok in the south. Such was the operational situation when the Chinese declared unilateral ceasefire effective from midnight of November 21, having achieved their aims in the Western as well as the Eastern Sectors.
Incidentally, India never accepted the ceasefire formally and has not done so till date. It remains a unilateral declaration.
So, the question arises, what could have been the motivation for Chinese movements in massive strength towards the LAC and in some cases even across it during April-May 2020? Of these, the intrusions in the Depsang Plain in the north and on the north bank of Pangong Tso appear to be substantial and seem to have shifted the LAC by quite some distance, even beyond their 1960 Claim Line.
How should we read the Chinese actions in trying to change the LAC unilaterally in contravention of all the existing protocols?
Explanations emerge
There are two plausible explanations. One, they had undoubtedly suffered a loss of face during the Doklam stand off in 2017 and could have planned this operation over a period of two years as a quid pro. While the world, including India were busy in dealing with COVID-19, they considered it a suitable opportunity to teach India another lesson.
The second reason could be the frequent stand offs at the LAC since 2013 resulting in physical pushing, shoving, stone throwing and so on which were getting uglier by the day. They may well have decided to assert their Claim Line to which they had advanced in 1962 and establish the same as the new LAC and a de-facto border, at least in the Western Sector.
This consideration may have got further accentuated by the ongoing development of infrastructure in the border areas by India which they have been objecting to from time to time. The operationalising of the road from Darbuk to Daulat Beg Oldie along the Shyok River may have added to the urgency as they may have felt their Aksai Chin Highway threatened.
Satellite image of Ladakh, with the Chinese claim line marked in yellow and the Chinese road from Yecheng in Xinjiang to Tibet in red passing through Aksai Chin in eastern Ladakh. Image: The Wire/Google Earth
Whatever be their motivation for this deliberate and planned aggressive manoeuvre which was totally unexpected, it is in violation and contravention of all the agreements and CBMs worked out so assiduously since 1993 and points towards a new direction in the Sino-Indian relations.
The turn of events of May-June 2020 has also disproved another view that had been gaining ground since globalisation had set in that intertwined economies could tide over other geopolitical issues between nations.
This has also been demonstrated in the case of US-China relations which seem to have moved from G-20 to a new kind of cold war setting in between them. It also holds true for Sino-Indian relations which were being increasingly show cased as a strategic partnership. We have been carrying out joint military exercises over the last decade and a half which seemed a little surreal; especially so, as in 22 rounds of the SR talks the two sides were not able to even define the LAC.
Since 2014, China during various interactions at the apex level has been stressing on the need for early resolution of the boundary dispute. President Xi had mentioned this for the first time in a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit hosted by Brazil in July 2014.
This was repeated again during his visit to India in September 2014 in response to a point raised by Prime Minister Modi for early definition of the LAC. This was at variance with their earlier stand that the resolution of the boundary dispute could be left for the future generations. Obviously, there has been a change in the Chinese thinking since President Xi Jinping came to power.
So, China had been messaging repeatedly that they would like to resolve the boundary dispute at an early date, albeit on Chinese terms.
Our trade deficit with China has been rising from the beginning of this century and was around US $48.66 billion in the year 2019-20. It has not been possible to address this issue despite a number of meetings of the Joint Working Group, primarily because of the gross asymmetry in the two economies and Chinese intransigence. It has become a major sticking point in the bilateral relations.
The presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his followers in India, and the unsettled conditions in Tibet is yet another source of mistrust by the Chinese. To the above must be added the emerging nexus between China and Pakistan in the military field and the development of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through Pakistan Occupied Kashmir which by all standards is Indian territory under illegal occupation of Pakistan.
The Indus at the site of the proposed Diamer-Basha dam. Photo: Water and Power Development Authority, Pakistan
China, through CPEC projects hopes to become a third party in the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. The latest development of the commencement of construction of Diamer-Basha Dam on the river Indus in Gilgit-Baltistan under CPEC is a serious development which poses a direct challenge to India’s core interests.
Under these conditions, it seems unrealistic to think and hope that India and China can be strategic partners. It is time that India got real in its view of the rising China and evolved a pragmatic and long term perspective for this vital relationship which affects national security to the core.
The way ahead
To start with, we need not be in a hurry to resolve the ongoing stand-off at the LAC; especially so if China is not prepared to restore the status quo ante in a realistic time frame as it prevailed in April 2020. We can dig in and make sure that PLA is not allowed to change the status quo unilaterally in any other sector of the LAC.
We can let the Chinese know of our perception of the LAC and end the differing perceptions. The Central Sector (Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand) requires urgent attention as that can also become a flash point. China claims approximately 2,000 square km of the territory in the Central Sector and that is under Indian control. We need to improve our infrastructure and defensive posture in the Central Sector so that China cannot create a Ladakh like situation.
There is an urgent need to fix responsibility for the northern border with China. Who is responsible to maintain the sanctity of the LAC, is it the Indian Army or the ITBP? If it is the responsibility of the Army which rightfully should be so, then the ITBP should be under Army’s operational control.
ITBP is a police force and is neither equipped, nor trained to conduct military operations in the face of the enemy. The present arrangement is ambiguous and needs to be set right urgently.
When it comes to trade relations, we need to remember that there is life without China also. It was there in the earlier times and it can be developed again. We may step back a little as far as economic ties are concerned. We value our relationship with Taiwan and can certainly give it a boost, especially in trade and technological fields. However, we must remember that Taiwan’s stand on the border dispute is no different from that of mainland China.
From 1947-49, India has failed itself in the sense that we failed to demarcate and secure the borders with Tibet when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was nowhere in sight. We totally neglected the security of our northern borders.
The PRC emerged on October 1, 1949, and declared its intention to ‘liberate’ Tibet as early as January, 1950, soon after they had annexed Xinjiang. We failed Tibet and the Tibetans in their hour of need. Not only did we not intervene politically or militarily to preserve its independence, we did not even allow Tibet’s bid for independence to be raised in the UN Security Council due to a misplaced thinking on the part of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru that it would adversely affect his efforts to bring about a ceasefire in the Korean War between the Americans and the Chinese.
Not only that, we surrendered all the privileges in Tibet that we had inherited from the British while signing the Panchsheel Agreement in April, 1954, without even negotiating the border between India and China. The ink on this Agreement had not even dried that China made its first trans-border incursion in Barahoti in the Central Sector in June, 1954. The boundary dispute had begun.
An Indian Army convoy moves towards the Ladakh, in Kullu. Photo: PTI
It is a misperception that India is no match for China militarily.
Perhaps, it is the result of 1962 syndrome which still persists at the political and higher military levels. Keeping the 1962 happenings under wraps has further perpetuated such an impression. It can be stated unambiguously that the failure in 1962 was at the higher direction of war.
The Indian soldier was not found wanting in courage and steadfastness, and the units performed admirably, wherever led properly. However, their performance at the individual and unit level was subsumed in the bigger debacle for which we feel shy of introspection till date. Let us put that behind us. If there is a strong political resolve, a sound military strategy and professional leadership, the Indian soldiery will not be found wanting.
We misread the Chinese intentions in the events leading to 1962 and we have misread them again in 2020. Let us not do it again for the third time because that would be inexcusable. China has changed the rules of the game unilaterally and given a go by to all the agreements and protocols that have existed.
We need to wait and watch and should not be in a hurry to reach a modus vivendi which would be detrimental to our core national interests. There is a flurry of anti-Chinese feeling amongst the nations of the world for its handling of the coronavirus and its aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea. The challenge for our political and military leadership is to turn this to our advantage in Tibet and elsewhere.
Major General P.J.S. Sandhu (Retd) was the Chief of Staff of a Strike Corps and former deputy director and editor at the United Service Institution of India (USI). Between 2013-2015, he edited a USI study, 1962 – A View from the Other Side of the Hill.
It is implausible that external intelligence collection agencies like the RAW and NTRO did not provide any evidence of the massive movement by the PLA towards the LAC from end-April onwards
Although the government has been rather frugal in disseminating facts, it is clear from open source satellite imagery, statements by Indian officials and assessments by various defence experts that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has established a small presence across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Sub-Sector North (SSN), north-east Ladakh.
This occupation at Pangong Tso, Hot Springs, the Galwan Valley and the Depsang Plains – places long accepted as Indian territory for decades – did not happen overnight. Yet we were caught off-guard.
Importance of SSN
The Karakoram Range has two massive mountain spurs in this area. The western spur, Saltoro Ridge, separates Indian and Pakistani forces on the Siachen Glacier. To Saltoro’s east lies Sasser Ridge and SSN.
Access to SSN from Leh is through Chang La and the recently completed Durbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie (DSDBO) road. The DSDBO passes from Durbuk along the Shyok river past the confluence of the Shyok and Galwan rivers up to Murgo and then the Depsang Plains, and ends at the Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) airstrip, about 16 kms south of the Karakoram Pass, where the Chinese border begins. This is India’s only airstrip in this harsh, high altitude SSN.
Sub-Sector North: Map of the road from Durbuk to Daulat Beg Oldie. The place where Indian and Chinese soldiers clashed on June 15, 2020 is around 5 kilometres east of the road. Image: The Wire/Google Earth
If the PLA succeeds in entrenching itself at various locations overlooking the strategic DSDBO road, it can potentially cut off Indian access in SSN and to DBO. It could also attempt a sustained but difficult offensive through intermediate passes to threaten our access to Siachen. Such an offensive, if successful, would enable Pakistan to improve its posture there.
The ceasefire line after the 1962 war was ratified as the LAC in the Sept 1993 bilateral agreement on “Maintaining of Peace and Tranquillity along the LAC in the India-China Border Areas”. This, the agreements of Nov 1996 and June 2005 suggest there were no major differences in perception of where the LAC lies. However, in the absence of precise delineation on the ground, patrols of both India and China have continued to operate in a grey zone, with the PLA routinely coming up to China’s perception of the LAC, and Indian troops going up to India’s perception.
On many occasions, both sides objected to the other’s patrol(s) and there were minor affrays too. What happened in May and June is unprecedented, yet there were many indicators that should have kept us vigilant.
Strategic indicators
After President Xi Jinping assumed power, China began pursuing an assertive foreign policy. From 2015, he thrust down a series of deep, comprehensive, doctrinal, structural and force modernisation reforms on the PLA. These reforms included converting the erstwhile seven military regions into five theatre commands. Opposite India, the former Chengdu and Lanzhou military regions were merged into the Western Command with substantial military resources at its disposal. China’s 2019 White Paper, a significant departure from the defence-oriented one published in 2015, emphasized that the country will “pursue national defence goals which include safeguarding national sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity…”.
In addition is Xi’s stress on combat readiness, particularly in high-altitude areas, and the increasing number of exercises by the PLA Army (PLAA), PLA Air Force (PLAAF) and the PLA Rocket Forces (PLARF) in the areas opposite India.
A January 2018 article in China’s Global Times on the PLA’s “hard training for potential conflict” quoted a retired PLA officer, “…potential military conflicts in plateau regions … on the rise since the border friction with India last year, increasing military training in the plateau region is highly necessary”.
Tactical indicators
In 2009, China built a road from Sumdo up to Patrol Point 13 in the Depsang Plains. This was followed by the 2011 and 2013 trans-LAC incursions by the PLA into Depsang, and subsequent face-offs with Indian forces. 2014 saw incursions into Chumar (eastern Ladakh) and 2017, a tense, protracted stand-off at Doklam (on the Indo-China-Bhutan border). Troops from both sides continued to jostle and brawl but without incurring serious casualties. Although the 2011 intrusion was resolved by the military leadership, all others – 2013, 2014 and 2017 – required higher political intervention.
Last autumn perhaps held enough hints of what was to come. India-China tensions had risen after India scrapped Article 370 (August 2019) – and September 2019 saw a serious brawl at Pangong Tso after the PLA began blocking Indian patrols; on both sides, soldiers were injured and boats damaged.
Recent events
The PLA conducts an exercise every year in Aksai Chin and its immediate forward areas along the LAC. In January 2020, China’s state-run Global Times reported that the PLA had begun major military exercises in the Tibet Plateau bordering India with “latest weapons”. The exercise, which was not a surreptitious affair, continued – and after amassing troops astride the Galwan river, the PLA simply moved into SSN at four points around May 5. Importantly, it had, from 2015-2016, commenced building mud roads along the Galwan River – it flows west from Chinese’s side into Shyok River. The DSDBO road runs alongside this river for a considerable length.
In the June 6 military commanders meeting, the PLA reportedly declined to discuss its shallow ingress into the Galwan valley, stating that it belongs to China, a claim repeated by its foreign ministry. This was followed by the brutal brawl of June 15 in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed and about 76 injured; 50 of these injured and 10 others were briefly detained by the Chinese side.
Although the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force are matching the PLA deployment, the latter having pre-empted the Indian side is now entrenched at its new positions. Unlike the past incursions, the present stand-off, at multiple locations, seems pre-planned with political approval.
Given this background, India essentially has three options.
First, negotiate a voluntary Chinese withdrawal from these new occupations. With both China and India adopting extreme positions, a breakthrough can only be thrust down by the top political leadership, an eventuality which currently appears doubtful.
If that fails, the second option is to try and push back the PLA by force. This carries risks as China will contest Indian actions, which may lead to a wider confrontation. Given the ongoing pandemic and the state of our economy, even a short, sectorally-limited conflict would be disastrous. Besides, the international community is unlikely to support any escalation beyond a point. Significantly, PLA veterans are asking the Chinese leadership to be ready for ‘mid-sized war’ with India.
Third, India may allow China to retain, partly or wholly, the territory it has encroached into. Public statements by Indian leaders that the alignment of the LAC in unclear suggest this possibility.
What went wrong?
While there are a number of issues that may have spurred China to this transgression, the underlying fact is that just as Pakistan surprised us at Kargil in 1999, China surprised India’s political and military establishments by occupying areas across the LAC in May.
Prior to the Kargil conflict, individual agencies had adequate intelligence inputs about the intrusion. However, these individual inputs were either ignored, or were not subjected to proper assembling, analysis and averment. The Kargil Review Committee (KRC) had correctly attributed this to “intelligence failure” and systemic flaws, and the associated Group of Ministers rendered ‘Recommendations’ across four domains to “Reform the National Security System”, i.e. the intelligence apparatus, internal security, border management and management of defence. But it does seem we were surprised again.
The Chinese media had been periodically commenting on the PLA’s exercises. So, it is implausible that external intelligence collection agencies like the RAW and NTRO did not provide any evidence of the massive movement by the PLA towards the LAC from end-April onwards.
Even sparse inputs should have prompted users to generate urgent intelligence requirements seeking further information. Hence, once again, it seems that inputs, plenty or scant, were not subjected to proper assembling, analysis and averment by various assessment agencies and users. Or perhaps, after decades of counter-terrorism operations, we have simply forgotten the principles of war – what we are labelling as ‘treachery’ is actually ‘surprise’ by the PLA, their “coming in large numbers” is ‘concentration of force’ – even as we didn’t exploit ‘intelligence’. Given that Pakistan and China are long standing adversaries and we have unsettled borders with them, we should have been on our best guard.
What needs to be done
In response to the PLA’s annual exercises, the Indian Army too has been deploying troops to the LAC each year to thwart any misadventure. However, this year the Army didn’t move troops forward because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the primary focus of the Indian Army has continued to be counter-terror operations and Pakistan. Both factors perhaps limited our ability to respond rapidly and forcefully as the crisis developed in the SSN.
Intelligence is a nation’s first line of defence and the intelligence structure is a critical constituent of its safety and security, as also of its statecraft and grand strategy. Thus, if India is to sit at the highest table in the comity of nations, then it must introspect on failures and put in place a robust, responsive intelligence structure to thwart external threats.
The high-altitude topography, extreme weather conditions and comparative paucity of infrastructure makes guarding SSN a difficult task. Given the defence budget squeeze, the end of which isn’t apparent, there is a dire need to rebalance India’s military power away from the weak adversary in the west and towards the LAC.
Kuldip Singh is a retired Brigadier from the Indian Army.
In an interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, the former foreign secretary said recent developments amounted to a “massive escalation” by China and an attempt to change the status quo.
How serious is the India-China situation and how effectively is the government handling it?
These are two key issues that India’s former ambassador to China, former foreign secretary and former national security advisor Shivshankar Menon addresses in his special interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire.
Below is the transcript of a video interview that was first published on June 12.
Hello and welcome to a special interview for The Wire. How serious is the India-China situation and how effectively is the government handling it? Those are the two key issues I shall raise today with India’s former ambassador to China, former foreign secretary and former national security advisor – and believe me there is no one who knows China better in this country than my guest – Shivshankar Menon.
Mr Menon, let’s start with the limited disengagement between Indian and Chinese soldiers over the weekend. Is that reassuring or are you disturbed by the reports in several papers today, Friday, that, in fact, both countries have moved substantial troops closer to the line of control right across its 3,500 kilometre length from Ladakh in the west to Arunachal in the East?
Well frankly Karan, thank you for having me by the way and for that very flattering introduction. Frankly, I think we should start by admitting how much we don’t know—that the unknowns in this situation is much more because neither government has actually spoken about what the situation is – has spoken authoritatively. All we have is unattributed leaks or leaked stories attributed to anonymous sources in the government, in the army and so on—top level army sources, army sources on the ground, and these are contradictory. Three days ago we heard stories that were attributed to the army, that there had been a disengagement to pull back – thinning out of troops, which in any case is not the answer to the situation. It could be the first step.
And then yesterday, we saw other stories saying no, in fact, both sides have strengthened their presence all along the line. So I think we need to be very careful about jumping to conclusions either about the actual situation on the ground or in terms of where people are deployed and where exactly people are. Fundamental questions have not been answered—whether the Chinese have actually crossed the line of actual control in some sectors, what they’re claiming is the line of control and how this differs from what they did in the past. Having said that and therefore putting aside the tactical and the operational aspects, it seems to me that the Chinese behaviour this time has been very different from anything we’ve seen in the past.
This is not comparable to 2013 or to 1986 to Sumdorong Chu or to Depsang and so on. What we’ve seen is multiple incidents, multiple moves forwards and China actually occupying spaces which she’s never occupied before along the LAC, and we, for me at least, this is a worrying sign because this is very different from Chinese behaviour in the past. We can only speculate on why they have done so and where they want to go because we don’t know what their demands are in the talks which have been held so far at both the diplomatic levels and between the armies. So we don’t know where they want to go.
But it seems to me that we are in a situation, and at least the presumption must be, that we are seeing China trying to change the situation on the ground. For one thing clearly, the construction of the road through Shyok along the Galwan valley all the way up to the DBO which runs parallel to the LAC, changes the logistics on our side and improves our infrastructure considerably. We’ve been building this road for many years. In fact, the efforts started in 2004, but now that it’s completed, I think maybe the Chinese want to neutralise the effects of the road to try and dominate it and possibly to create a situation where they can intercept it.
Can I come in at that point? I take the caution that you began with that we are entirely dependent on unattributed newspaper reports, we don’t know their veracity, we don’t have any signs from the government that the reports are correct. However, there are two specific areas of concern where even after the weekend’s limited disengagement, there seems to be a sense of deep anxiety and I want to put those to you one by one.
The first is whatever is said to be happening in the Galwan river valley area. Apparently, according to news reports something like two or three thousand Chinese troops are said to be in occupation of Indian territory, satellite images suggest that they’ve reached about a hundred tents, there are reports that they’re backed up by heavy vehicles and possibly artillery, and this is all happening in area where India had assumed the LAC was not disputed. Now according to The Wire, apparently the Chinese on Saturday at that meeting actually said, “Galwan is entirely ours and has always been”. How do you read the situation?
This exactly the problem, we do not know whether all these stories are true. If they are true, they certainly represent a massive escalation by the Chinese of their demands and a fundamental change in the status quo in the Galwan Valley, where for many many years, the actual situation in terms of actual control has not changed – not since the 1962 war. So if these stories are true – and they have not been denied surprisingly – so one assumes that there is at least some grain of truth in these stories.
If that is so, this is a much more worrying development than we would be led to believe by other stories which say disengagement is underway, we’re in talks and so on. Now the government cannot negotiate in the public through the media or through press statements. But what the government can do by making public statements and by signalling to its own public is actually strengthen its negotiating hand – by making clear what is negotiable and what is not. Because by not making its position clear after, and now its been quite some time, this has been going on since early April. In fact, for all, we know the Chinese probably came in even before that. Since this silence actually suggests to the other side that everything is negotiable, that everything is possible. That’s not a very good tactic—if there are fundamental changes being made by the Chinese in their depiction of the LAC and in their military posture on the line.
Let me raise the second area of concern, and once again, I’ll admit that we are entirely dependent on unverified press reports, this time it’s the Pangong lake area, where there has been no disengagement but apparently newspaper reports say that the Chinese have erected defence structures which are stopping India from patrolling in a 15 square kilometre area where previously Indian patrols were possible. Now I know that Pangong is an area we’ve had problems in the past. That is an area where both sides have a different perception of the LAC but do you get the feeling that this particular problem is perhaps more serious than any we’ve encountered earlier?
Well, you know it’s very hard to say which problem is more serious when you don’t know what’s actually happening. But from what these reports say, if the Chinese have actually built permanent structures and occupied parts of the area which both sides think is on their side of the LAC, then certainly this is a serious problem. Whether it’s more serious or less serious than what they’ve done in the Galwan is very difficult to say because we don’t know what they’ve done in either place. But if they have occupied these areas and frankly, the presumption must be that they have, because I think most of the stories that we’ve heard of, most of the leaks—motivated as they may be, suggest this. In that case, they are preventing us from patrolling where we had been patrolling in the past.
We’ve always known there’s a difference in perceptions of the LAC in Pangong Tso, not in Galwan, but even so, we have both patrolled these areas before and the Chinese are changing the status quo and I think the right thing to do under the various agreements and the commitments that China has made in the past, under the 1993 Agreement on the maintenance of peace and tranquility, is for China to first restore the status quo.
My worry with the silence that we’re hearing on both sides is that we may be seeing the same Chinese playbook that we’ve seen before when they have attempted two steps forward and one step back. We’re leaving them with a net gain of one step and leaving the other side with the ability to claim victory and say “you see we got them to step back”. And this concern and the reason I am concerned is because I think that is what they did in Doklam for instance. I think they drew a very different lesson from Doklam in 2017 from the one that perhaps our commentators have drawn.
Because if you think of the Doklam plateau, it was an area which the Chinese used to visit once or twice a year. They then came and sat there, we went in and had a faceoff with them for 72 days, negotiated their withdrawal. They did withdraw from the point where we faced off against each other and so did we, we also withdrew. But after that the Chinese, while leaving the precise faceoff point vacant, have now actually occupied the rest of the plateau—they have something like 36 structures there, they have metal tarred roads into it, they have three helipads, and they’re in permanent occupation of the rest of the plateau.
So the net outcome from that point of view, and I think the lesson that they may have drawn may be the wrong one— that we can negotiate a local small withdrawal in return for much bigger gains as long as we let the Indians claim a propaganda victory and I think that’s the real risk here. So this is why I think it’s important that we make it clear, that it is really the restoration of the status quo before all these moves started, including therefore the endpoints to which China needs to withdraw, and I think that needs to be made absolutely clear rather than fudging the issue. So, while I understand the government’s need to stay silent about the operational details, the tactical details and even to leave itself some room to negotiate, there should be no confusion about where the government is ultimately going with this.
What you’re saying is that it is absolutely fundamentally important that the government make clear but we want a restoration of the status quo ante back to the position both armies occupied prior to this in early April. That has to be made fundamentally clear to the Chinese. You don’t want a situation where you have two steps forward one step back and as you put it leaving the Chinese with a gain of one step which you believe fundamentally is what happened in Doklam in 2017.
You know at least that’s what the satellite picture seemed to suggest, that’s what most of the all the reports that I hear suggest happened in Doklam. So it’s not enough therefore to just cover it all up saying that “Oh there are different perceptions”. We need to restore the status quo as it was before, and frankly that is a test of Chinese sincerity. If they are not willing to do so we then need to draw other conclusions about the future, about how we behave, how we expect them to behave as well.
In the context of this discussion and remembering the fact that you pointed out that the press reports, which if true are deeply worrying, have not been denied by the government in any shape or form. In that context, I want to put you one more writing in Rediff News Ajai Shukla, who usually is extremely well informed, said that all together China has occupied something like sixty, sixty-five square kilometres of Indian territory. If that is true, this is not just then a normal skirmish, it’s beginning to feel to a layman like me, like a little small invasion of Indian territory.
Well let’s face it, China’s already in occupation of about thirty-eight thousand square kilometres of Indian territory – all of Aksai Chin is Indian territory. So I mean I’m not sure. You are now saying sixty square kilometres perhaps more of Indian territory has been occupied in the last three months that’s what he is saying. As I said at the beginning, I have no way of judging whether this is true or not and I would like the government to authoritatively tell us where exactly we are, but I can understand the limits on what they can say.
But certainly, we need to make it quite clear that we will not accept any extension, any expansion of the Chinese LAC, any redefinition of the lines, or a change in the fundamental status quo all along that LAC. I think that that needs to be made clear. There is so much speculation here – I have complete faith that the army can handle the military aspects of this, that’s not the issue. In fact, we have relatively, over the years, several governments of work to make sure that the effective balance on the border has been improved in our favour—there may still be asymmetry but effectively we have improved our position over the years. But that’s not enough because what we are dealing with here is not just a purely military problem, it’s equally a political problem.
It’s a question of our country’s territorial integrity, it’s also a diplomatic issue. It’s a question of a relationship between two very large neighbours, both of whom are changing very rapidly at a time when the situation itself is very uncertain. So this goes well beyond just a question of which points they may have occupied, and what this is about our future relationship with China and I think the Chinese need to understand also that this is going to have various repercussions.
Let me broaden the discussion at this point. Given that there is a problem occurring in so many different parts of Sikkim and Ladakh, and now newspaper reports as of Friday suggest that in fact the troops have been moved by both sides closer to the LAC, right the way across the three thousand five hundred kilometre LAC from Ladakh to Arunachal, do you get the feeling that this is not just the work of individual Chinese brigades and divisions. This is centrally coordinated and it very likely Xi Jinping is in the loop? It’s not happening without his knowledge or at least without his concurrence.
It’s never the work of individual brigades or local commanders or road troops in the PLA. Political control of the PLA has always been absolute, even in the worst of times. So when China internally was in complete chaos during the cultural revolution, there was still even at that time, the central political leadership meaning Mao Zedong – he didn’t allow other civilian leaders on the military affairs commission. And it’s the same thing now. Xi Jinping is the only civilian leader who’s on the military affairs commission and he has reorganised the PLA. So I have never accepted the theory that any of the instances whether it was Chumar happened without central approval. PLA is a political instrument of the party, it is used for that. Otherwise, you have to believe that some rogue PLA commander can fire nuclear missiles tomorrow which I don’t believe. I think they’re very careful in the controls that they impose. So yes certainly, this is part of a clear act at the high levels in the Centre. Now how much of the detail was approved I don’t know but the fact of these intrusions, the fact of sitting on territory that until then China had not sat upon, I’m sure those were cleared very high up in the PLA. But to take it one step further, I think you need to then question, why is this being done, apart from whatever local, practical-
Can I stop you there? I want to come to why it’s happening but one more question about Xi Jinping. If it is almost certain that this has been cleared at the top and very likely this is something that Xi Jinping has full knowledge of, then where does this leave the so-called Wuhan spirit or the meeting in Mamallapuram and the belief that we in India have that there’s a rapport between the two heads of governments. Where does all of that now stand today?
As I said this has really serious implications for the relationship as a whole. This is not the relationship between two individuals, these two individuals represent their countries – the Prime Minister of India and the president of China. They are meeting not as individuals, as Xi Jinping or Narendra Modi, they are meeting as the prime minister of India and the president of China and they will act accordingly. So for me, therefore, that’s why I think this has very serious repercussions in how we solve this problem. We’ll have indications going forward for the way we deal with each other.
I’m going to take a break at that point Mr Menon because your picture has frozen on the screen though your voice is audible. We’ll reconnect to come back and in part two I want to talk to you both about why this is happening as well is about how effectively it’s being handled – although some of that second you have already answered for us. See you in a moment after this break.
Welcome back to a special interview for The Wire. My guest is India’s former ambassador to China, former foreign secretary and former national security adviser, and as I said earlier no one in India knows China better than him, Shivshankar Menon. Mr Menon let’s now come to that critical question: why have the Chinese chosen to do this now in the middle of an international COVID crisis and an increasingly depressing economic crisis? Why now?
Well it seems to me that this is not just signalling because if it’s signalling, it’s the most inefficient way of signalling, where we’re all guessing what the signal is. Some people say it’s because of the change in the status in Ladakh and J&K, some people say it’s because of our relationship with the US, other people have other explanations, so it’s not signalling. I think it seems to me that it’s part of a general pattern and a general shift in Chinese behaviour in the way they deal with the world. What I supposed the Chinese themselves have called wolf warrior diplomacy.
All governments, I think, feel under pressure in the present situation because none of them has covered itself in glory in dealing with the pandemic. Secondly, it seems to me that all the powers are actually being diminished by the crisis and this is, as you said. it’s a health crisis, it’s an economic crash and politically their prospects, everybody’s prospects are much harder. And I think there is both internal and external stress certainly on China and China’s reaction to that has been to rely on ultra-nationalism.
In a sense you can see that in Chinese behaviour in the Yellow Sea, you can see it in their behaviour towards Taiwan, you can see it in their behaviour towards Hong Kong where they are now passing laws without consulting Hong Kong about introducing their own security laws in Hong Kong, you can see it on our border as well. You see much more assertive Chinese behaviour. They’re in the midst of a tariff war with Australia. You can see the kinds of comments that the US and China make about each other. So all told it’s a much more factual situation for China.
China’s reaction to this partly, I think, because of the domestic stress and the economic stress at home is to rely on nationalism to unite the population. Every government in the world, it’s not only the Chinese, it’s the Americans and others are busy blaming somebody else for the crisis – the Americans are blaming China, the Chinese are blaming America, a lot of countries are blaming the WHO. They are finding internal people to blame and this problem I think therefore exacerbates all these tensions and hotspots and flashpoints that we have. So in a sense, the COVID crisis has actually added to the load on governments and they are retreating. I think somebody once said that the last refuge of all scoundrels is patriotism covering themselves in the flag and demanding that their citizens rally around the flag.
So your explanation for why China is behaving in this way at this time is that this is a general almost across the board assertiveness that China is showing. You mentioned their relationship with Australia, with America, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the South China Sea—this fits into that pattern of an assertive wolf warrior that China is pushing itself forward, as you said, both for external reasons but also internal. Is that a correct interpretation of your answer?
That is correct. There is an alternative explanation which I don’t hold to but where people say that China thinks that now is her moment – that the rest of the world has been so weakened by the COVID crisis that this is the time for her to assert primacy and in the world order. I am not sure that is the case. In fact, I think all powers have suffered in this crisis and I think they’re all emerging out of it much diminished – both in terms of economic power, in terms of political, military power, but also in terms of reputation and soft power.
Let me put you a view expressed by Jayadeva Ranade in an article that he wrote forStrat News Global. He is writing as president of the Center for Chinese Studies and Analysis. He says that there is a certain amount of domestic pressure growing against Xi Jinping and he mentioned things like dissatisfaction with his one-man rule, dissatisfaction with intrusive party surveillance, the initial mishandling of COVID-19, and the fact that apparently in March, unemployment in China touched levels of 70-80 million. And he says that these domestic pressures might make it difficult for Xi Jinping to agree to any concessions to India without actually having some substantive gains to show. In other words, he might not be able to back off. He may want that one extra step for China to be recognised and accepted by India. Do you think that this could also be a factor?
It seems to me this is what I meant when I said there’s domestic stress there was obvious political public anger at the way that the COVID-19 pandemic was handled in China at the beginning. And certainly, external tensions have proved a useful distraction for the regime in China. Now, how much is personal to one leader or another, I don’t know. But all the signs of domestic stress are there – including the Communist Party calling on officials to report honestly, and not to just report what leaders want to hear in a general circular which they published in the People’s Daily. So I think the signs are all there of domestic stress, and therefore all external distractions are welcome for the regime. But this is equally true for other regimes today in the world, and this is why I think the crisis has made the world a much more dangerous place. Now how far this reflects on individual leaders this I find very difficult. Jayadeva knows China very well, in fact, we’ve served there together. So if anybody knows how it works in India it’s probably Jayadeva.
And what he’s suggesting is that it might be difficult for Xi Jinping to make any concessions that would be acceptable to India, because this would look bad for him in China. In our words, this is a more intractable problem then perhaps we realised.
This is why I said this is a serious problem, because you have a mirror image in India as well. It’s equally hard for the government of India to be seen as having given ground as it would be for Xi Jinping or the Chinese regime to be seen as having given ground. We’ve seen all these armchair warriors on social media in both countries.
We’ve also seen the extreme bits of the media of the especially the visual media and the sort of pitbull media like Global Times in China threatening each other. Now that kind of sentiment, if it spreads, it certainly makes it harder for the leaders to be reasonable. But that’s not a new problem, that’s a problem that we’ve had now for several years with the rise of the new authoritarians in China, in India, in Japan, in the US and so on, where because their performance legitimacy is low, they rely on ultra-nationalism and once they rely on ultra-nationalism, the give-and-take of diplomacy, the bargaining, the compromise that agreements require that becomes much more difficult.
Against this background, let’s now talk about the manner in which this is being handled by the Indian government. In April 2013, you were National Security Advisor at the time when the Chinese intruded into Depsang but as you pointed out you had one advantage – the Chinese were keen to send their premier to India and you deliberately delayed fixing the date and that made the Chinese realise that it wouldn’t happen unless they withdrew from Depsang. There was a certain leverage that you had at the time. Do you think India today lacks similar leverage which is why this is going to be much more difficult for the Modi Government?
I there is always other leverage – I mean no two situations are identical but there is always leverage in a complex relationship like the one that India and China have – either in the same issue after all tit-for-tat is always in an available option on the border and both sides know this. Or there is leverage available elsewhere in the relationship. After all, we interact across a whole range of issues. But that is not the question here. I think the problem here is that fundamentally what the Chinese have done this time is very different from what they did in 2013.
2013 was one localised problem which we managed to solve by negotiation within two and a half weeks. This has lasted much longer, it’s across many more places and if the LAC itself has been redefined in the negotiations by the Chinese, then that’s a whole different ball game completely. If the Chinese are determined to maintain a permanent presence and they’re not willing to discuss it in places where they were not before that also is a whole new ballgame. So, and as you just pointed out, the context within which this is happening is very different. India-China relations for the last three years or so have actually been increasingly adversarial and the elements of contention now increasingly outweigh the elements of cooperation and that is a real problem. So the context in which this is happening is different from 2013.
In which case let me ask you, what is your assessment of the manner in which the Modi government has handled this over the last five-six weeks?
Well, I don’t know what they’ve done frankly. If I start believing all these stories in the newspapers, most of which are motivated to show the government in a good light and to reassure us that all is well, then I’d have to say well done but I don’t think that’s the entire truth. I would rather wait a while before coming to your judgement on how they behaved.
What I would have liked is a bit more strategic communication both to us and to the world, and therefore also to the Chinese indicating at least the red lines beyond which they should not go. That I think would have been useful at any stage. But I don’t expect them to negotiate in public through the media and I think what they are doing, trying to talk, while at the same time do taking the other necessary steps, I assume that they’re doing all the right things but I can’t comment on it today.
Let me put something else to you – there have been several reports and several papers that the Indian Army dropped its guard. Either because soldiers caught COVID-19 and were unable to participate in the annual exercises held in March or because the PLA – the Chinese army – simply took the Indian Army by surprise. How do you respond as a former national security adviser to this sort of report, that we, our army dropped its guard?
Right now we have a crisis to deal with, and I think we as India should deal with the crisis. And as I said earlier restore the status quo ante. Afterwards, I think we need to, as in every such case, sit down and do an analysis of what happened, what we did right, what we did wrong, who did what, when. And, once we have got past the crisis, is the time to do it and to do it well. To do it the way we did after Kargil, where you didn’t look only at the military and the operational aspects but you looked at the broader picture of what you needed in order to prevent any such thing happening to you again. And I think that is really the way to go. I hope that we have the capacity to learn from this experience and to improve as we go along. We have shown that capacity in the past, I see no reason why we can’t do it again.
Now these skirmishes or clashes or confrontations, call them what you want, with Chinese soldiers are happening roughly at the same time as a disputant Nepal over the border at Kalapana. Given the role that China played in supporting K.P. Sharma Oli, when he had domestic problems not so long ago, do you think that could be a link between what’s happening with China and what is happening with Nepal?
Look I can’t speculate on Mr Oli’s motives or Chinese motives. But its certainly is not our interest to tie these two together or to link them. We should actually deal with it. Nepal is a friendly neighbour with whom we have intimate ties of various kinds and we should deal with it accordingly rather than mixing it up into a much more complicated and difficult and larger geopolitical problem.
Let me end by putting this because I think it’s a thought that would have occurred to the audience right through this interview. On several occasions you said that if the reports in the press are true this is a very serious situation, it’s fundamentally different to what’s happened in the past, it could be a sign of China not only asserting itself but attempting to change the LAC, attempting to change the relationship. Given all of that, are you worried that this could lead to conflict?
Not yet. I don’t know enough to worry about that yet but certainly, this is not a good sign for the relationship. I don’t see payoffs from the conflict for either side, which would lead me to believe that somebody has an interest in actually allowing this to become a conflict. When I look at the Chinese methodology in other cases – South China Sea, for instance, it’s a question of changing the facts on the ground incrementally, bit by bit, but staying below the level of actual conflict and that seems to be the general Chinese playbook in such cases. Let’s see, that doesn’t guarantee that they’ll follow the same playbook in this case at all. So we need to be prepared for everything but I wouldn’t be an alarmist and say ‘oh conflict is around the corner’, no not at all.
It’s a very interesting answer you’re not as yet worried that the situation could lead to conflict but if it is not adequately handled, and I presume over a reasonably short period of time by both sides, then the potential for the situation accidentally slipping out of control remains.
Karan, you said it not me.
All right, but you didn’t disagree and you’re smiling as well, you are ever the diplomat. Mr Menon, thank you very much for a candid and thoughtful interview and I should indicate to the audience that the reason why the background in part two is so dramatically different than background in part 1 is that technology, it has massively during the commercial break and we had to change rooms to be able to reconnect that explains why at the background behind me changed. Stay safe, take care and thank you very much.
Twenty Indian soldiers have died in the violent face-off between India and China.
New Delhi: Late on Tuesday night, the Indian Army confirmed that the number of Indian soldiers killed in the “violent face-off” with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley on Monday night had risen to 20.
For most of Tuesday, the number was thought to be three, following an Army statement in the afternoon, although suspected to be indeed higher. While the identities of all armymen who were killed in action has not been made public yet, the three who are believed to have passed away first were later identified as Colonel Santosh Babu, Commanding Officer 16 Bihar regiment, Havildar Pazhani and Sepoy Ojha.
By Wednesday, Bengal’s Rajesh Orang and Himachal Pradesh’s Sepoy Ankush Thakur were also identified.
Eventually the full list of names was released by the Indian Army. Other than the five, the slain soldiers are: Naib Subedar Nuduram Soren, Naib Subedar Mandeep Singjh, Naib Subedar Satnam Singh, Havildar Sunil Kuma, Havildar Bipul Roy, Naik Deepak Kumar, Sepoy Ganesh Ram, Sepoy Chandrakanta Pradhan, Sepoy Gurbinder, Sepoy Gurtej Singh, Sepoy Chandan Kumar, Sepoy Kundan Kumar, Sepoy Aman Kumar, Sepoy Jai Kishore Singh, and Sepoy Ganesh Hansda.
The news agency PTI and other news outlets have reported on the backgrounds of seven of the slain 20. Some of this information is as follows.
Colonel Santosh Babu
The Indian Army officer killed in the violent clash with Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh on Monday night, Colonel Santosh Babu, had joined the forces to fulfil his father’s personal dreams of serving the country and had been expecting a posting to Hyderabad soon.
Colonel Santosh Babu. Photo: PTI
This is the first such incident between the two countries involving fatalities after a gap of 45 years, signalling a massive escalation in the five-week border standoff in the sensitive region.
The slain officer’s father said while he could not live his dreams of serving the armed forces, his son did.
“I could not join the Army and serve my country. So I wanted my son to join the defence forces and serve our country. My relatives discouraged the idea,” B. Upender, father of the slain Colonel and a retired banker, said.
Babu, who was from Suryapet district in Telangana, served in the 16 Bihar regiment as Commanding Officer, his father said.
He is survived by his wife, daughter and son, who live in Delhi.
The slain officer had spoken to his mother on Sunday where the conversation centred around the ongoing tensions. Though ‘crestfallen,’ she is “proud” that her son sacrificed his life for the nation, she said.
The soldier from Tamil Nadu who was among the three men killed in Ladakh in the violent face off with Chinese troops, had served in the Army for 22 years and was due to retire in a year, his family and state parties said in Chennai on Tuesday.
Tamil Nadu chief minister K Palaniswami has announced a solatium of Rs 20 lakh to the family of the slain soldier, K. Pazhani of Kadukkalur village in Ramanathapuram district. He also said that one of the family members would be given a government job.
The village in southern Tamil Nadu was engulfed in gloom as news of Pazhani’s death reached. Family sources told PTI that Pazhani served the Army as a Havildar and had joined the armed forces at the young age of 18.
His brother is also in the Army and is posted in Rajasthan.
Pazhani’s wife Vanathi Devi said her husband had not even participated in the recent house warming ceremony of their house as he was on duty.
Sepoy Rajesh Orang
The oldest of three siblings, Rajesh Orang joined the Army in 2015. On Monday night, he died of injuries in combat with the Chinese army at Galwan Valley in Ladakh region, his father Subhas was informed.
Subhas, a marginal farmer in Belgoria village in Mohammedbazar police station area in Birbhum district, of West Bengal, had raised his children amid poverty.
“My son served the country and gave his life for it,” was all Subhas could say on Wednesday morning.
He was in his twenties. Rajesh’s mother Mamata had been hoping to get him married when he came back on a holiday next.
Subhas said Rajesh, elder to two sisters, had joined the Army in 2015 after passing the higher secondary examination and belonged to the Bihar Regiment.
“From his childhood, my brother wanted to serve the country and was happy to be in the Army,” his youngest sister Shakuntala said.
“He came home on leave a few months back and talks were on for his wedding,” she said.
Sepoy Ankush Thakur
A pall of gloom descended on Karohta village in Himachal Pradesh when news reached of the demise of 21-year-old Sepoy Ankush Thakur.
He was posted to the Punjab Regiment in 2018. His father and grandfather had also served in the Indian Army. Thakur has a younger brother who is studying in Class 6.
Villagers soon trooped to his house, raising anti-China slogans. Thakur’s body would be given a state funeral, an official spokesman at Shimla on Wednesday.
Sepoy Kundan Kumar Ojha
Not much is known yet about Sepoy Kundan Kumar Ojha, who was originally from Dihari village of Sahebganj district in Jharkhand. While social media has it that he became a father just 17 days ago and is 26 years old, this information has not been confirmed yet.
जब जब देश की सीमा, संप्रभुता पर हमला हुआ है, झारखंडी सपूतों ने अपने प्राणों की आहुति दे उसकी रक्षा की है।
चीनी अतिक्रमण को मूंहतोड़ जवाब देते हुए झारखंड के वीर सपूत कुंदन कुमार ओझा शहीद हुए।साहिबगंज जिले के डिहारी गांव के एक कृषक परिवार से आने वाले कुंदन जी के शहादत को शत शत नमन pic.twitter.com/nMQRlzey0Y
— Hemant Soren (घर में रहें – सुरक्षित रहें) (@HemantSorenJMM) June 16, 2020
Sepoy Chandrakanta Pradhan
Chandrakanta Pradhan (28) hailed from Biarpanga village in Kandhamal district’s Raikia block in Odisha.
“My son was highly sincere towards his duty. He was courageous, simple and hard working. We got the information about his martyrdom on Tuesday night,” said Karunakar Pradhan, the slain jawan’s father. Pradhan belongs to a tribal family.
A marginal farmer, Pradhan said his unmarried son was the principal earner in the family. He has left behind two younger brothers and an elder sister, besides his mother.
Chandrakanta joined the Army in 2014, he said, adding that he had last visited home around two months ago.
“We feel proud that he has laid down his life for the motherland,” Pradhan said in a chocked voice.
Naib Subedar Nanduram Soren
Similar was the scene at 43-year-old Naib Subedar Nanduram Soren’s village in Odisha’s Bijatola block’s Champauda in the tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj district.
After completing Class 12 from Rairangpur College, Soren joined the Army to fulfil his lifelong dream, in 1997, his elder brother Doman Majhi said.
Soren is survived by his wife and three school-going daughters.
“We all feel shattered. Nanduram was an asset for the family as well as the village. He was loved by all for his friendly nature,” Majhi said.
The MEA spokesperson’s statement marked the first time that India has admitted that a decision to begin a “process of de-escalation” had been reached at the June 6 meeting.
New Delhi: India blamed China for attempting to change the status quo at Galwan Valley and violating the consensus reached by ground commanders, and said that this led to the ‘violent face-off’ that caused casualties on the LAC for the first time in over 45 years.
The incident took place at one of the three points where Indian and Chinese armies have been in stand-off since early May. It was at Galwan that a build-up of Chinese troops had led to the first face-off on May 5.
The Indian Army had issued a three-line statement on Tuesday morning that a violent face-off took place on Monday night “during the de-escalation process” at Galwan valley. The Army had stated that the loss of lives on the Indian side included an officer and two soldiers.
They were later identified as Colonel Santosh Babu, Commanding Officer 16 Bihar regiment, Havildar Palani and Sepoy Ojha.
Clockwise fom left, Colonel Santosh Babu, Sepoy Ojha and Havildar Palani, who were martyred during a clash with Chinese troops in Ladkah on Monday night, June 15, 2020. Photo: PTI
By late night, the Indian Army confirmed that the total casualties suffered by the Indian side was 20.
On Tuesday evening, the Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement that asserted that china had violated the “consensus” reached by senior commanders. Earlier on June 6, India and China held the highest-level military level talks to discuss the continuing stand-off, followed by other meetings to implement the agreement reached by India and China.
“Senior Commanders had a productive meeting on 6th June 2020 and agreed on a process for such de-escalation. Subsequently, ground commanders had a series of meetings to implement the consensus reached at a higher level,” said the MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava.
Incidentally, after the June 6 talks, India’s readout had not said that there was any agreement on gradual dis-engagement, but only stated that two sides had reiterated the need to resolve the situation peacefully in line with various bilateral agreements and the guidance of the leadership to maintain peace and tranquillity on the India-China border regions.
The Chinese foreign ministry on June 11 said that the two sides had reached an “agreement” which they were “acting” upon to resolve the situation. This statement had been issued a day after both sides started to “thin” out their troops from the stand-off points at Galwan and Hot Springs.
Till now, Indian public remarks had not publicly acknowledged that an agreement was reached to ‘de-escalate’ at the June 6 meeting. The MEA spokesperson’s statement marked the first time that India has admitted that a decision to begin a “process of de-escalation” had been reached at the June 6 meeting.
Further, Srivastava said that it was the Indian expectation that this “would unfold smoothly”, but the “Chinese side departed from the consensus to respect the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Galwan Valley”.
Blaming the Chinese military for provoking the clash, he stated, “On the late-evening and night of 15th June, 2020 a violent face-off happened as a result of an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo there”.
The ‘status quo’ here refers to India’s position that there had been never any differing perception of the Line of Actual Control at Galwan – and that it is within Indian territory.
Without citing any numbers, the MEA spokesperson said that “both sides suffered casualties that could have been avoided had the agreement at the higher level been scrupulously followed by the Chinese side.”.
Due to “its responsible approach to border management,” India, Srivastava underlined, “is very clear that all its activities always within the Indian side of the LAC”. “We expect the same of the Chinese side,” he stated.
The MEA spokesperson concluded that India remains “firmly convinced” of the need to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border and resolution of differences through dialogue.
“At the same time, we are also strongly committed to ensuring India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
At the daily briefing of the Chinese foreign ministry, spokesperson Zhao Lijian stated that India had crossed the border twice to conduct illegal activities and launched provocative attacks against Chinese personnel, leading to a serious physical conflict between troops from both sides, as per a Global Times report.
The statement was also tweeted [https://twitter.com/CGTNOfficial/status/1272827674625335298] by the official account of the state-run TV network, CGTN. However, the tweet was subsequently deleted. The transcript of the daily briefing uploaded on the Chinese foreign ministry’s website, both in Mandarin and English, does not mention the spokesperson’s remarks on the clash.
China on Tuesday lodged a protest with India over the violent clash, which it alleged took place after Indian soldiers crossed the border “for illegal activities and attacked Chinese personnel”.
According to a PTI report from Beijing, the protest was mentioned during a meeting of the Indian ambassador Vikram Misri with the Chinese vice foreign minister Luo Zhaohui. “There was a meeting at the (Chinese) foreign ministry during which what happened at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on Monday was discussed,” Misri said.
Earlier, PLA western theatre command spokesperson Colonel Zhang Shiuli had issued the detailed statement, where he accused India of violating the “consensus reached at the Sino-Indian military-level talks”.
Asserting that India had “once again crossed the line of illegal activities”, the Chinese military spokesperson stated that “the sovereignty over the Galvan Valley area has always belonged to China”.
The opposition party slammed the silence of those in charge and sought to highlight how in the last 50 years, “not a single casualty has occurred on Indo-China Border.”
New Delhi: Soon after the Indian Army on Tuesday afternoon said that three soldiers were killed by the Chinese troops at the Galwan river valley, the Congress demanded that the prime minister Narendra Modi and defence minister Rajnath Singh offer more information on crucial questions pertaining to the development.
Saying that there could not be any compromise with India’s “security and territorial integrity”, the party said that reports of Chinese transgressions in Galwan river valley, the hot springs, and Pangong Tso lake area in Ladakh have “shocked the entire nation as an audacious attempt on our ‘territorial integrity’.”
“In the last five decades, not a single casualty or martyrdom of our soldiers has occurred or happened on Indo-China Border i.e. ‘Line of Actual Control’,” the party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said in a statement. He also asked whether reports claiming that there could be more casualties are true.
He attacked the prime minister and defence minister’s silence on the issue, and said they were refusing to answer questions. Surjewala also said that the Indian public had been led to believe by the Union government that a “de-escalation process” was underway in the Galwan valley, but the killing of three soldiers indicated the opposite.
“Will the prime minister and Raksha Mantri take the nation into confidence as to how could our officer and soldiers can be killed as the Chinese were reportedly withdrawing from our territory in the Galwan Valley? How and under what circumstances were our officer and soldiers martyred?” the Congress asked.
The party also demanded that the Union government come clear on how it proposes to “meet the challenging situation which has serious ramifications for India’s ‘national security and territorial integrity”.
It said that the entire country stands as one to protect India’s security interests but the Modi government should remember that in a parliamentary democracy, “secrecy or silence” is unacceptable.
Earlier, senior Congress leader and former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid told The Wirethat he felt that China was adopting provocative tactics against India as it probably fears that India may side with the efforts of western powers like the United States of America to sideline China in the times of the coronavirus pandemic. He said this was a result of the Union government ignoring the diplomatic principles of non-alignment that India has historically maintained.
He suggested that to tackle this a further escalation of the situation, India should open independent channels of bilateral talks with China and attempt to convince it that both China and India are crucial to Asia’s power in the global economy.
He proposed that the prime minister directly call up the Chinese premier with whom he is supposed to have a good relationship, and not let the military commanders do the talking. He said that the prime minister should remember that the military commanders know the ground situation but to beat such aggression by the Chinese, only the prime minister’s own intervention will help.
