The latest India-China joint statement suggests New Delhi is misreading Beijing’s game plan, playing into its hands

Representative image. AFP

The sixth round of senior leadership meetings between India and China, the first in two months, reflects the rapidly disappearing space for diplomacy. A lot has happened between the fifth and the sixth that indicate that both parties are struggling to keep the consultative mechanism operational. But that’s where the similarity ends.

A prolonged stalemate favors China because it is the aggressor and has managed to change the status quo with its stealthy invasions. By contrast, India’s options seem slim. The joint statement issued after Monday’s marathon meeting suggests that India really has only two options: accept China’s fait accompli and territorial loss or launch a military offensive to dislodge the PLA occupying Indian territory.

Before leaving for Moscow earlier this month to attend the SCO foreign ministers meeting, where he finally had a personal meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar described the situation in the border as “grave”. one that needs “very, very deep conversations” at a “political level.”

Unless Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacts with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the highest level, there have been deep political compromises below that threshold (between the respective Ministers of Defense and Foreign Affairs) and what has been evident it is the widening gap between the two sides and the impossibility of a diplomatic resolution.

The Jaishankar-Wang meeting had achieved a five-point consensus that accomplished little beyond symbolism, required the issuance of separate statements by both parties, and has since been violated in letter and spirit by Chinese who are showing a lack of will. to even nominally abide by that.

Under these circumstances, the meeting of senior military officials was expected to accomplish little more than keep the “talks going.” In this limited context, and given the growing divergences, Monday’s 13-hour affair in Chushul-Moldo managed to break two agreements. The decision was made to “stop sending more troops to the front” and “strengthen communication on the ground, avoid misunderstandings and wrong judgments.”

Widespread mistrust, wide divergences, and the enormous deployment of forces, artillery, and weaponry on the front line mean that kinetic action is only a misunderstanding or miscalculation away. For example, South China morning post it had reported that the PLA increased its “combat readiness” to the second highest level and “mobilized more troops and weapons systems to LAC in preparation for the worst” following an exchange of fire between the two sides. That heightened alert, according to the report, was only relaxed after Jaishankar met with Wang on September 10.

If neither side wants war, strengthening communication is a small but important step. Likewise, the decision not to send more troops to the front in an already supermilitarized zone and to stop the relentless reinforcement of forces throughout LAC suggests that conflict prevention is the goal.

How Times of India He reported citing a government source, this was not a meeting to reach an agreement on the disconnection, but to create a positive atmosphere. “The understanding is to keep the situation stable until an agreement is reached on the disconnection for which more rounds of talks have been proposed.”

China has reportedly already amassed about “50,000 troops, surface-to-air missiles, a large chunk of rocket forces and about 150 fighter jets at strike distance from LAC,” and a more recent report indicates the number of PLA ground forces deployed to 10,000 on the southern shore of Pangong Tso alone.

Since India has adopted a mirror deployment policy, large numbers of armed troops have found themselves inside a firing range in a supercharged atmosphere. It would appear that the sixth round of talks has been fruitful in reaching a decision to intensify communication, halt further deployment on the front line and reduce tension. With the focus on continuing the consultation mechanism, this has been interpreted as a positive result.

But what if this is exactly what China wants? Perhaps all China wants is to continue the “talks” without any viable disconnect and ultimately wear India down, while using the time provided by the “talks” and “engagement” to further strengthen its grip on. the Indian territories it has recently occupied and create enough “facts on the ground” to make it impossible to return to the status quo from April to May?

India has said on more than one occasion that it wants a diplomatic resolution to the border problem. This indicates an unwillingness to use kinetic action to evict squatters from the PLA who are interfering with India’s ability to patrol the areas over which it exercises sovereign control. According to a report by The Hindu Quoting a senior government official, “there are at least 10 patrol points along the Royal Line of Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh that have been blocked by Chinese troops.”

Maintaining the pretense of talks gives China enough time to strengthen its control over newly acquired areas on the Indian side of LAC by creating more infrastructure, boosting logistics and building communication networks or initiating surreptitious deployments of forces in sensitive locations such as the Depsang plains posing an immense strategic threat to India.

#China in #occupied #EasternLadakh:#PLA provocations # Indian Army concentrating forces very close to #DBO #DaulatBegOldie.
Three battalions with #Air Defense #Artillery hidden in paraded position avoiding obsn by #India.
Surreptitious concentration of force captured by satellites. pic.twitter.com/uriAsUbEGs

– 卫 纳 夜 格 @Raj (@rajfortyseven) September 18, 2020

It is possible that after occupying Indian territory through stealth maneuvers, China now wants to consolidate its position throughout LAC and create a new secure status quo in the belief that India would not dare to initiate a military conflict to regain control. of those areas. . This can be measured by the fact that six rounds of meetings have not brought both parties closer to the resolution that India seeks – which is to restore the status quo before April-May – and instead, China is furiously preparing your troops for the long and long term. harsh winter in Ladakh, forcing India to do the same.

Simultaneously, China is waging a psychological war against India by evoking memories of the 1962 war and taking advantage of the Indian insecurities associated with it; the goal is to dissuade India from taking kinetic action. There have been countless articles in the Chinese media about how India will suffer a defeat worse than in 1962 if it miscalculates about the war. China wants to avoid war as much as India wants, simply because it doesn’t need to wage war when it already has the upper hand. Rather, it would suit Beijing’s purpose of creating a psychosis of fear in India’s mind and “winning” without starting a war. Here, “winning” would denote forcing India to accept the new status quo.

So far, India has openly rejected the option of applying coercive military pressure. As the geostraga Brahma Chellaney said First comment in an interview, “The imposition of substantial economic and diplomatic costs, along with the application of coercive military pressure, is the key. The costs that India has tried to impose so far seem woefully inadequate to make Beijing reconsider its aggression. ”The latest joint statement suggests that India is playing into China’s hands.