By Maj Gen Neeraj Bali (Retd)

Most military analysts believe that the genesis of the clashes between Indian and Chinese soldiers that erupted in May 2020 lay in the Chinese disquiet over the road building activity by India. Specifically, the Chinese were unhappy over the development of the Darbuk–Shyok–DBO road in Ladakh.

Those objections were strange because the Chinese had been incrementally developing extensive infrastructure on their side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). And since 15/16 June, when the fateful escalation of melees and skirmishes between the two armies turned bloody, the Chinese have feverishly undertaken projects to widen and strengthen their border infrastructure.

Thankfully, barring a couple of exceptions, no shots were fired in genuine anger in the latest standoff. Both sides agreed to disengage partially and consented to join Corps commander-level talks for the rest of the issues. The back peddling in Galwan, Hot Springs, and Gogra by July 2020 and complete disengagement from Pangong Tso north and south banks happened by February 2021. But the disengagement did not restore the status quo ante. After both sides had pulled back from Gogra in August 2021, Indians quickly pointed out that the LAC had shifted westwards, for example, at patrol point 17A. Since the confrontations, there have been more than a dozen meetings between military commanders, but no further progress in restoring the original alignment of the LAC is evident.

Why are the Chinese refusing to go back to the starting point? Indeed, why have they been undertaking a string of incursions into areas that India regards as its sovereign territory? How should we read the current play two years after the initial confrontations?

Writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, American scholar Ashley Tellis called it ‘salami slicing.’The implication was that the Chinese go on nibbling and capturing territory without going to war. And subsequent negotiations rarely yield a result.

The Chinese obduracy of not vacating ‘disputed areas could be part of a larger punitive plan. The road-building activity might have been the trigger, but the reasons are likely far more profound and strategic. Tellis contended that even if the military consequences of the usurpations were debatable, the political significance of the intrusions was not. Could the increasing closeness between India and the West (read the US) be the actual cause for the Chinese anger? Lin Minwang, of the Center for South Asian Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai opined in a written piece that Indian moves to establish proximity with the US were ‘a stab in the back against China’ at a time when the latter was on a rough patch with the US.

Or was it just a piece of the developing Chinese strategic proclivity to display aggression everywhere – in Hong Kong, against Taiwan, in interactions with Australia and in the trade war with the mighty US?

Or was it simply a pre-meditated standoff generated to distract domestic opinion about the abysmal handling of the COVID-19 eruption? This hypothesis is somewhat untenable. In the Chinese media, the government had played down the clashes – the opposite of what a country that wishes to stoke nationalism would do.

Did the altered status of J&K irk the Chinese after August 2019 because it militated against the Chinese desire to consolidate its hold over Aksai Chin and other disputed areas? Two months after the abrogation of Article 370, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang had criticised the decision to establish the “so called Jammu Kashmir territory and Ladakh Union territory, which included some of China’s territory into its administrative jurisdiction.”He went on to “deplore” the move and said that the change of law challenged China’s sovereignty and interests. “This is awful and void, and this is not effective in any way and will not change the fact that the area is under China’s actual control.”

Understanding the Chinese motive is as important as reading the tea leaves of its subsequent and previous actions because, for any prognosis, the question should be – has anything changed on any of these probable causes? Are the Chinese likely to miraculously become accommodative and drop their silent objections? A vote for the latter would hardly be prudent.

What are India’s options?

An overwhelming majority of political, security and military experts are likely to agree that wresting any area from the Chinese would be a possibility whose time will not come in the foreseeable future. A broad swath of daylight separates the two countries’ military and economic capabilities. India has come a long way since 1962, and never again such an ignominious outcome would befall it. But let us be clear that since 1962 Chinahas climbed an even taller trajectory. A war between the two will not be pretty.

The other option is to go on negotiating and try to extract concessions. And the several rounds of parleys indicate something substantial over which the negotiators are labouring. In one of his first media interactions Gen Manoj Pande, the current Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian Army had laid out his aim to restore the status quo on LAC and bring the situation to what it was before April 2020.

The option of endless negotiations, too, is somewhat problematic.

The Chinese have never shown any urgency to settle matters relating to the borders between the two countries. They treat the lingering problem as leverage against India and keep the South Asian neighbour unsettled. They want the pot simmering forever, without boiling over. Writing in War on the Rocks, the Stimson Centre American scholar Yun Sun had succinctly summed up the Chinese approach: no Indian Posts, no Clarification of the Line of Actual Control, and no Hurry.

India does not yet have the leverage to persuade the Chinese to adopt a more reconciliatory stance. Our modest efforts to ban a few Chinese apps and calls for boycotting goods made in China have made no dent. Indeed, trade between the countries has only increased, partly because India needs imports from China more than the other way round. One year after the Galwan clash, exports and imports between India and China surged by over 65 per cent in January-June. The fact is that China remains India’s largest import and second-largest export market after the US.

Negotiation or not, in the past, the Chinese have repeatedly made incursions and penetrations. It is almost as if they had drawn up a timetable for it. In 1986–87, the Chinese moved a company to Wangdung, which India regarded as a part of the Tawang area. It led to a frantic rush of Indian troops to occupy the Hathung La and Longro La ridges to prevent further incursions. Another case in point is the 2013 Daulat Beg Oldi incident. China had intruded deep inside Indian territory, resulting in a 20-day standoff.

We are thus facing something of a fait accompli. We must go on negotiating while building diplomatic and other leverages and vastly improving our military capability along the Eastern frontier.

And during this process, we must never take our eye off the ball, lest another salami-slicing provocation leaves us with no choice but to take the costly military option.

(The author is an Indian Army Veteran and is the founder-CEO of Leadscape Advisors. The views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of Financial Express Online. Reproducing this content without permission is prohibited).