Could China be trying to cut India to size, unhappy with the attention and importance showered on India, especially on Prime Minister Narendra Modi?
China’s unprovoked incursion at Yangtse in Arunachal Pradesh on 9 December 2022, ostensibly to change the exiting status quo on the ground, seems a replication of its incursion in Galwan valley in June 2020, with the difference being that both sides have suffered injuries this time, but not fatalities. Understandably, we are outraged and seething with anger. As always, the incident has caused an avalanche of commentaries conjecturing about the reasons on why China did what it did, and offering a plethora of advice on how to deal with China.
How exasperating, at times, such unsolicited advice from those who aren’t aware of ground realities could be was referred to by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar during his recent conversation with Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment.
The widely aired views of the self-proclaimed strategic thinkers—civilian and military—both in the print and the electronic media is that the Chinese leadership resorted to the incursion at Yangtse to divert attention from People’s Republic of China’s increasing internal turmoil. The PRC has been rattled by widespread angry protests against Xi Jinping’s Zero Covid policy, leading to some daringly asking Xi Jinping to step down. Ironically, while the world is beginning to see the tail of the infection, Covid is surging in China, which was, until recently, touting its handling of the pandemic as better than the rest of the world. China’s economy having witnessed double digit growth for nearly two decades, was shaken by Donald Trump’s tariff war and was further devastated by Covid. Worryingly, this year, it is tipped to plummet to 2.5% or worse.
There is a broad agreement: the incursion at Yangtse shouldn’t be seen in isolation; it’s a continuation of China’s numerous adventures in Depsang, Pangong and Doklam and other flashpoints; its long term objective seems to keep the entire Line of Actual Control (LAC) active; to keep India off balance and bogged down in securing its borders. This is Xi Jinping’s coercive diplomacy. Hence, we must remain vigilant and not lower our guard. We mustn’t trust China nor be taken in by occasional sweet homilies of its leaders about peaceful relations and cooperation. Simply put: China is opposed to India’s rise.
It’s an open secret that our growing closeness to the United States is a cause of concern for China; the warmth in India-US relations is directly proportionate to the tension in Sino-American relations. Irrespective of repeated explanations offered by the US, India and others, China perceives the Indo-Pacific, the Quad and the AUKUS essentially as anti-China initiatives aimed at stalling her rise. In this backdrop, the US-India joint military exercises in Uttarakhand last month, not too far from the border, might have acted as a red rag to the bull. China had protested claiming that the exercises constituted a violation of the existing peace and tranquility agreement between the two countries. The incursion at Yangtse could be China’s warning shot to India that her closeness to the US wouldn’t deter her from staking territorial claims and precipitating crises on the disputed border.
Tawang has both political and religious significance, which China wishes to use to stress its claim on this place. It maintains that India had annexed Tawang in1951 and even the then Dalai Lama had laid claim on it. Besides, the fact that the fifth Dalai Lama was born in Tawang underlines its Tibetan lineage, hence the Chinese claim. At a time when speculation about the next Dalai Lama has started circulating, this religio-politico context assumes significance.
Our infrastructure build-up, especially the link road which could lead us to the Karakoram Highway, was alluded to have triggered off the Chinese aggression in Galwan valley. Who knows? Yes, India has developed more infrastructure in the border areas in the last ten years than in the last 30 years. This has vastly improved our connectivity, mobility and logistics ability to move men and materiel in much shorter time. However, satellite images beamed by TV channels indicate that China has built far superior infrastructure all along the LAC, established many villages and parked drones and combat jet fighters on their side of the LAC and even in Lhasa. So, they have no legitimate ground to complain.
Most China watchers believe, in 1962, even if Jawaharlal Nehru hadn’t accepted Gen B.M. Kaul’s forward policy to throw out the Chinese troops, China would have still attacked India, as Mao Zedong had decided to cut Nehru—who was looming large as a global leader—to size. Could China—which is the world’s second largest economy and projected to overtake the US; and whose economy and defence expenditure are nearly four times that of India—have been unhappy by the attention and importance showered on India, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi? If opinion polls in various democratic countries are taken into account, the Indian Prime Minister is, today, more popular than any G-7 leader in his country, be it Joe Biden or Emmanuel Macron, Rishi Sunak or Justin Trudeau.
Surprisingly, since February 2020, in the Covid disrupted and devastated world, Prime Minister Modi’s stature has gone up sharply. In spite of Covid’s horrid second wave, the Indian Prime Minister has led the world’s largest Covid control campaign, organising over 2 billion doses of Covid vaccinations for Indians and offering vaccines to more than 160 countries. This is a mammoth exercise deservedly applauded internationally. Melinda Gates feels the world could learn from India’s model. India’s economy has regained its position as the fasted growing economy. He has been at the forefront of virtual summitry, digital transformation, and the climate change discourse and has openly reminded Vladimir Putin that this was not the era of war and advised against the use of nuclear weapons and advocated the return to dialogue and diplomacy. Thus PM Modi is emerging as the Voice of the Global South. With the Presidency of the G-20 and the SCO on his platter he will remain a dominant leader in the world in coming months and years. Are the Yangtse incursion and similar incursions which might follow be Xi’s sinister design to cut India to size or at least spoil this country’s party?
We too must put our house in order. We banned nearly 3,000 Chinese applications including Huawei’s 5G but since the Galwan valley clashes, India’s imports from China have gone up. Over 2,000 Chinese companies operate in India and over 3,000 Chinese sit on boards as company directors (Rao Indrajit Singh, Lok Sabha,12 December 2022). Lt Gen D.S. Hooda rightly says: “Constant public attacks on the government and accusing it of weakness serves no purpose (HT, 20 December 2022). To build national unity and consensus, the government too should reach out to the Opposition parties and share as much information about the border clashes as possible without jeopardising national security. We need two hands to clap.
Surendra Kumar is a former Indian Ambassador.