The gloves appear to have come off in the confrontation between India and China in eastern Ladakh. In response to a query from an Indian newspaper, on September 25, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement that “the border between China and India LAC (Line of Royal Control) is very clear, that is, LAC the November 7, 1959. China announced it in the 1950s, and the international community, including India, is also clear on this ”.
Four days later, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said: “China does not recognize the so-called Ladakh Union Territory illegally established by India and opposes the construction of infrastructure in disputed border areas for military control purposes.” .
Both statements are a clear indication of the hardening of the Chinese position and are like a red flag for the Indian government. The numerous rounds of talks at the military, diplomatic and political levels appear to have had minimal impact on finding common ground to resolve the Ladakh crisis.
The Chinese reference to the 1959 LAC is very regressive. The 1959 LAC was first mentioned by Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai in his November 7, 1959 letter to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Zhou proposed that “the armed forces of China and India each withdraw 20 kilometers at a time from the so-called McMahon Line in the east, and from the line up to which each side exercised actual control in the west.”
In his reply on November 16, Nehru wrote: “We still do not know precisely where the border line is located according to the claims of the Chinese government … An agreement on the observance of the status quo, therefore, would not make sense since the facts related to the status quo are themselves controversial. “
Another specific reference to the 1959 LAC came in the Chinese declaration of a unilateral ceasefire on November 21, 1962, which marked the end of the 1962 India-China war. Beijing radio announced that “as of On December 1, 1962, the Chinese border guards will withdraw to positions 20 km behind the actual line of control that existed between China and India on November 7, 1959. “
Despite the heavy defeat of the Indian army, Nehru refused to accept the Chinese version of the 1959 LAC. He wrote to Zhou on December 1, stating that it was an “attempt to retain, under the protection of preliminary arrangements ceasefire, physical possession over the area that China claims and to ensure that the massive attack since October 20, 1962 was mounted by its forces. We cannot accept this. “
The rapprochement that followed Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing in 1988 led to a series of border agreements that were preceded by discussions on LAC alignment. As described in Shivshankar Menon’s book Elections: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign PolicyBefore the 1993 Agreement, the Chinese insisted that they would only respect the 1959 LAC, but after arduous negotiations, it was decided to create a group of experts to “advise on the resolution of differences between the two parties on the alignment of the line of actual control. “
Unfortunately, the exercise to resolve the differences in LAC could never be completed. This has led to some assumptions that LAC is an ever-changing line that the Chinese routinely ‘slice salami’ in their favor. These assumptions are not correct.
In the last 60 years after the 1962 war, and particularly after the 1986 Wangdung incident, both countries have consolidated areas under their control. There are some hotbeds in dispute, mostly small, where both sides have a different perception of where LAC is. Yet even in these disputed areas, there is clarity on the ground about the perception of others due to patrol patterns. An easy-to-understand example is Pangong Tso’s North Bank, where the Indian Army patrolled up to finger 8 and the Chinese army to finger 4. These two points defined their respective LAC claims.
This mutual understanding of LAC, reinforced by various agreements and protocols, ensured decades of calm along the border. By tracing back an indefinite line that apparently existed 61 years earlier, the Chinese leadership has challenged the very concept of exiting LAC. Obviously, this would be unacceptable to India.
The second red flag for India is the Chinese declaration that they do not recognize the Ladakh Union Territory, which is illegally constituted. The BJP leadership considers the decision to dilute Article 370 and bifurcate the former state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories as one of its unique achievements. By questioning this, China is meddling in a very sensitive political space where the Indian government cannot make concessions.
It is sometimes argued that China’s adoption of a maximalist position is only part of a coercive process to gain the greatest advantage in negotiations. However, as Thomas C. Schelling, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, reminds us, “Coercion … requires that our interests and those of our opponent not be in absolute conflict … Coercion requires finding a deal.” By raising demands that are totally unacceptable to India, China has made resolving the current crisis extremely difficult.
Despite the ongoing dialogue and periodic statements that follow, it is increasingly evident that both sides have hardened their political positions. Perhaps the only saving grace in this situation is that neither country wants a full-scale war. However, if our only hope now is the thousands of cold, tense and heavily armed soldiers fighting across LAC to keep the peace, we could still run into conflict.
The author is the former North Commander of the Indian Army, under whose leadership India carried out surgical strikes against Pakistan in 2016. The views expressed are personal.
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