The stable security environment that guaranteed peace and tranquillity along the India-China border is in tatters.
On 22 February 2023, India and China held the 26th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) in Beijing, the first in-person meeting since the 14th meeting in 2019. Eleven such meetings have been held since the bloody clashes of Galwan in 2020, but all online. The official statement released by the two sides varied in content. The Ministry of External Affairs noted that “the two sides reviewed the situation along the LAC in the Western Sector of the India-China border areas and discussed proposals for disengagement in the remaining areas…” The four-point Chinese statement emphasised that “both sides agreed to actively implement the important consensus (重要共识) reached by the leaders of the two countries to further stabilize the border situation…consolidate the results of the negotiations (巩固谈判成果)…move forward on the basis of the consensus previously reached, accelerate the resolution of issues related to the Western Sector of the Sino-Indian border and reach a mutually acceptable solution at an early date…discussed other measures to ease the situation and to return the border to normalised control phase (常态化管控阶段)… maintain close communication through diplomatic and military channels and hold the 18th round of military commander-level talks as soon as possible.”
It is obvious from the two statements that the border in the Western Sector is far from in a “normalised control phase”. Does it include disengagement in the remaining areas such as Depsang and Chardingnala or just the disengagement of the troops who remained deployed in a prolonged standoff since 2020? Whatever may be the interpretation, the in-person meeting is a welcome step, especially in the present global and bilateral context. When the entire world is fixated at ending the war in Ukraine, a Modi-Xi solution, as argued by Raja Mohan, could offer a silver lining. More importantly, later this year, India would be hosting the G20 and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summits. As a leading global economy, and as one of the founders of the SCO, can Xi Jinping afford to miss the summits? Will India be comfortable in hosting him, if the prolonged standoff is not resolved? According to Liu Zongyi, China’s support for concluding the successful summits in Delhi is crucial. The very thinking that one is indispensable for the success of the summit is problematic. According to Xunzi (BC 316-235) “the law of nature has its own way, it doesn’t exist because Yao is a benevolent ruler or perish because Jie is a tyrant.” The fact of the matter is, can India and China reset their relations?
One may argue that the kind of equilibrium and understanding between India and China that was built on the premise that both were at the same level of development during the cold war, and hence need to give full play to their complementarities and potentialities has visibly been lost; the Galwan battle was the last nail in the coffin. Qian Feng, a researcher at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, Tsinghua University is quick to remind observers that “China’s comprehensive national strength has far surpassed that of India for at least 15 years.” This may be the case, nonetheless, there is a need to seek a new equilibrium and understanding, and both need to rebalance their relations, the faster the better for both the sides and regional peace. To rebalance the frayed ties, both India and China need to look at the factors that stabilised the relationship. There are many. However, the following could be regarded as the most important.
One, the stable security environment that guaranteed peace and tranquillity along the India-China border is in tatters. Currently, the security issues, especially the border standoff has taken precedence over other issues, and has impacted negatively on the bilateral ties. This could be gauged from the fact that as of now 16 corps commander level meetings and 26 WMCC meetings have taken place between India and China to ameliorate the security environment. According to a story filed by The Hindu based on a research paper tabled at the annual Director Generals of Police Conference organised by the Intelligence Bureau, India may have lost access to 26 out of the 65 patrolling points that mark the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh.
The fact demonstrates that the status quo ante India is seeking is impossible. Will India and China move beyond the border and reset their ties before the G20 summit later this year? Will both sides withdraw their forces from the frontline? Will China agree to the status quo ante and India the new status quo on the ground? At this point in time, it appears that both sides are not ready; Lan Jianxue, Director and Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, China Institute of International Studies argues that “in the foreseeable future, the relationship between the two countries will continue to be disrupted by negative factors such as the border dispute, Tibet issue, and provocations by third countries.” These issues will continue to persist in all possible scenarios, but it is not impossible to find a middle ground.
Two, trade was a stabilizing force between the two countries during the equilibrium phase. However, today it is ironic that when bilateral trade has broken all records of the previous years, each other’s markets have been perceived as risky and unfriendly. According to Qian Feng, India has echoed calls for decoupling from China and wishes to surpass China by following a three-stage strategy. In the first stage, replace “Made in China” by “Make in India”, in the second stage replace “Chinese capital” with “Indian capital”, and finally replace “US-West + China” industrial cooperation model with that of “US-West + India” model. While speaking on the $100 billion plus trade deficit with China, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said it was a “big concern” and posited that India Inc must share responsibility for the same. The trade volume of $135 billion demonstrates that there are massive complementarities between the two countries and both must create an amicable trade and investment environment that is sustainable and mutually beneficial so as a long-term partnership is established.
Three, the high-level visits and people to people ties that once stood witness to the brisk exchanges between India and China are at their lowest ebb presently. The first ever India-China High Level Mechanism on Cultural and People-to-People Exchanges inaugurated on 21 December 2018 is dead and need to be revived. After all, it was through the circulatory movement of ideas, people, and technologies that India’s cultural capital was disseminated to China and rest of the world. Unfortunately, in the backdrop of the frayed relations, an important bilateral project—translation of 25 Chinese classic, modern and contemporary works into Hindi, an undertaking of the Ministry of External Affairs—has been put on the back burner. The two sides need to come out of the self-isolation shadow of the pandemic and give full play to people-to-people exchanges.
Finally, there is already too much negativity about India and China in their respective media; the high-level visits will certainly add some positivity to the tattered ties and put them back on track. In this connection, the visit of Qin Gang, China’s Foreign Minister to India is important, and perhaps lays the ground for Jaishankar’s China visit and ultimately Xi Jinping’s India visit later this year.
B.R. Deepak is Professor and Chair, Center of Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.