{"id":2011,"date":"2020-07-17T14:17:04","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T14:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2021-06-26T14:21:03","modified_gmt":"2021-06-26T14:21:03","slug":"scenarios-for-the-india-china-himalayan-border-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=2011","title":{"rendered":"Scenarios for the India-China Himalayan border conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"key-facts\">\n<li class=\"item\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2009\" src=\"http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70-300x185.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"185\" srcset=\"http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70-300x185.jpg 300w, http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70-1024x633.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70-768x475.jpg 768w, http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70.jpg 1340w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Relations between China and India reached a new low<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"item\"><strong>The Asian giants\u2019 conflict in Kashmir is unlikely to trigger war<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"item\"><strong>It may, however, accelerate India\u2019s move closer to the West<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The bloody brawl of June 15, 2020, between Indian and Chinese troops along their disputed border marked\u00a0a new low\u00a0in the complicated, trouble-ridden relationship of Asia\u2019s two largest nations.<\/p>\n<p>Weeks of escalating tensions followed Indian charges that Chinese troops had intruded at three points along the non-demarcated border in the mountainous Ladakh region, one of the two countries\u2019\u00a0bones of contention. It culminated in hours of direct fighting in Galwan Valley, which left 20 Indian and an unknown number of Chinese troops dead.<\/p>\n<p>At the two hotspots, the army units have returned to their respective sides of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), as the de facto border is called. But in a third location, Pangong Lake, the Chinese have moved their soldiers eight kilometers forward into a no-man\u2019s-land claimed by both sides. Large military units have since been mobilized on either side of the border, presumably to increase their negotiating leverage as talks are expected to drag on.<\/p>\n<p>The last time troops died violently on that border was 45 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>New Delhi demands the status quo ante be restored along the LAC. It may take months, if not years before the border becomes stable again. The violence has ended six years of diplomatic engagement in which the two countries tried to rework bilateral relations to reflect their changed economic and military circumstances. Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met 18 times with the express purpose of defining red lines and clarifying gray zones. Mr. Xi spoke of this as a \u201chistoric mission.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Indian diplomats say the engagement was less about resolving problems, such as the border or trade issues, than about managing the ballooning number of difficulties and safeguarding a new economic relationship. The leaders even held two\u00a0informal summits\u00a0to strengthen their rapport.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>India now suspects China is more willing to tolerate a degree of friction along its southern border<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There is, of course, no love lost between the two countries. But New Delhi and Beijing previously accepted there was little to gain from a confrontation. Border clashes have been fought with sticks and stones, not rifles and bombs. Disputes have been settled with stringent but nonviolent measures. Some have been games of patience: the 1987 Sumdorong Chu Valley border dispute took eight years to resolve. India now suspects China is more willing to tolerate a degree of friction along its southern border.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"toc_1\">China\u2019s motives<\/h2>\n<p>Several theories circulate in New Delhi as to what could have motivated Beijing to disrupt what had been a relatively stable border.<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s military analysts believe China wants to maintain its border infrastructure advantage. Over the past two decades, India invested heavily in fortifying its northern border by building roads and air bases, deploying cruise missiles and mountain artillery. Beijing repeatedly triggered incidents to try to block or at least slow down this development. Two of the latest confrontation hotspots are near new highways and bridges built by India parallel to the LAC. However, this hardly explains the ferocity of violence or the Pangong Lake incursion.<\/p>\n<p>Other Indian strategists are inclined to think that Beijing wants to send a message of strategic dominance. Several developments could have prompted this. One was the\u00a0Doklam border standoff\u00a0(near Bhutan) in 2017, in which India forced China to stop a road-building project. Another was\u00a0India\u2019s change of Kashmir\u2019s constitutional status\u00a0last year, which\u00a0humiliated China\u2019s ally Pakistan\u00a0and affected the legal status of the LAC.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>India\u2019s previous skirmishes with China have led New Delhi to move closer to the United States<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>However, Beijing\u2019s primary concern must have been the slow but steady drift of India toward an\u00a0alliance with the United States. New Delhi has increased its purchases of U.S. weapons, strengthened military relations and joined in the revival of the Quad \u2013 an informal coalition between India, the U.S., Japan, and Australia designed to create\u00a0a regional buffer\u00a0against China. The souring U.S.-China relations may be why Beijing has picked fights with Australia and ratcheted up tensions with Japan and India. Chinese leaders may calculate that the Trump administration, preoccupied as it has been with the Covid-19 crisis and the presidential elections, would be slow to respond and appear not dependable to its allies in the region.<\/p>\n<p>In any case, India\u2019s previous skirmishes with China have led New Delhi to move closer to the U.S.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"toc_2\">Economic response<\/h2>\n<p>India has already erected informal barriers to Chinese investment in its critical infrastructure. And there are internal debates in government whether to expand these to cover more trade and technology. The economic sanctions have become part of India\u2019s broader strategy to pressure China. That strategy is presently unfolding and includes military and diplomatic efforts as well.<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s government contracts are mainly off-limits to Chinese firms and trade barriers have been imposed on 1,200 low-value Chinese goods, a policy that helps\u00a0\u00a0Prime Minister Modi\u2019s attempts to promote domestic manufacturing. Trickier to implement will be the plans to block Chinese-made solar cells and modules, and lure pharmaceutical base ingredients manufacturing into India. New Delhi also counts on wooing the firms leaving China to build a domestic electronics industry, but the scheme has met much skepticism.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Beijing suppressed news about the incidents in China\u2019s local press so it could retract without inflaming public opinion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While India banned 59 Chinese internet applications at the end of June, it tried to reassure the numerous Chinese venture capital funds. The latter are the biggest foreign investors in the country \u2013 they have stakes in 18 of India\u2019s 30 unicorns (privately held start-up companies with evaluation above $1 billion). However, what matters most is that New Delhi will now openly work to oppose Sino-centric digital technology standards in the region. No one is betting on Chinese telecom giant Huawei receiving the clearance to deploy its 5G technology in India.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"toc_3\">Three scenarios<\/h2>\n<p>The most likely scenario is for India and China to agree on a border pullback, more or less similar to their original positions, but only after several months of confrontation.<\/p>\n<p>While India will reverse some of its economic measures, the tariffs are likely to remain. There will also be a departure from the hedging strategy that India adopted in response to the U.S.-China friction. New Delhi would align more openly with Washington on such issues as technology standards and engage in informal U.S.-led coalitions, like the Quad. There is a\u00a0limit to the policy shift\u00a0under this scenario, however. India is not going to consider a more formal relationship with the Americans, given the uncertainty regarding their commitment to Asia.<\/p>\n<p>A second script would flow from renewed violence along the border. In that case, India\u2019s responses could become more decisive. Even large Chinese technology investors, like Alibaba, could be evicted. Strategically, India would move much closer to the U.S. and become more aggressive in seeking ways to undermine China. Longtime policy taboos could be broken: New Delhi could sign a free trade agreement with Taiwan and support Tibet\u2019s independence.<\/p>\n<p>China is aware of the risks. Indian officials have noted that Beijing suppressed news about the Himalayan incidents in China\u2019s local press \u2013 a sign that the government is making sure it has an exit path and could retract without inflaming public opinion.<\/p>\n<p>The least likely trajectory would be for India and China to return simply to the status quo ante. By the end of the year, they could pick up their relations where they had been before June 15. India could roll back its economic measures and Messrs. Modi and Xi might consider another informal summit. In this script, border violence would spark a political push to delineate the LAC\u2019s actual location, something that has evaded the two governments for nearly 60 years.<\/p>\n<p><em>Source: Wikipedia, GIS and the author<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relations between China and India reached a new low The Asian giants\u2019 conflict in Kashmir&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[35,41,4,42],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70.jpg",1340,828,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70-300x185.jpg",300,185,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70-768x475.jpg",640,396,true],"large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70-1024x633.jpg",640,396,true],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70.jpg",1340,828,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70.jpg",1340,828,false],"enternews-featured":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70-1024x633.jpg",1024,633,true],"enternews-medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70-720x475.jpg",720,475,true],"enternews-thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Pramit_main_lGhpd78-crop-c0-5__0-5-1340x828-70.jpg",480,297,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?author=1"},"category_info":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?cat=35\" rel=\"category\">Articles<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?cat=41\" rel=\"category\">Politics<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?cat=4\" rel=\"category\">Stories<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?cat=42\" rel=\"category\">World<\/a>","tag_info":"World","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2011"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2013,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions\/2013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}