Wow thanks, your knowledge on stuff like continues to astonish and indeed is a sad story.
As a follow up can you elaborate on "China's medium-term reasons to delay a settlement, as it causes tension and anxiety within Indian decision-making circles. "?
The assumption here is that the more aggressive, the military faction within the PrC leadership, is motivated to reduce the Indian leadership to a humiliated, bewildered and indecisive state, incapable of taking any actions that challenge China's complete freedom of action within Asia.
It is clear that if such a faction exists, and its existence is as yet a matter of conjecture, it will have a wide range of options at its disposal to achieve its ends. While a brief armed conflict, of short duration, begun and ended by the PLA according to its own timetable, is at one end of the spectrum of action, the violent end, there are other options. Threatening moves at the borders, for instance, by Chinese border guards threatening Indian contractors working on local infrastructural projects (road-works, for instance), would be one option. Other possibilities are
- Replacement of border markers, or their displacement to indicate a greater extent of territory held than actually the case;
- Military manoeuvres near the borders;
- Construction of infrastructural works in combination with neighbouring countries, with a clear dual-use option;
- Printing and publishing maps that uphold major territorial claims, and encouraging adoption of these maps by all international map-makers who can be influenced by the PRC;
- Statements in publications, learned papers and the publication of expert analyses proclaiming the existing border disputes to be serious in nature and violently expressed sentiments at international seminars;
It is possible that while Chinese supremacy in Asia is still in doubt, that is, for a period of another ten to fifteen years, while the economic, international and military gaps widen increasingly, this kind of pressure tactic will be used to unsettle the Indian decision-making apparatus.
It is likely to be combined with warm and fraternal exchanges of a cultural, sporting and people-to-people kind, which will thoroughly confuse the opposing leadership, and which will create a 'peace' constituency within India to oppose any hard stand or overt resistance to China.
The general effect will be to enhance and strengthen the divided nature of a democratic polity, and to keep the services and administration completely bewildered over the intentions of the Chinese leadership. Such a situation will inevitably lead to lack of long-term planning, lack of short-term responses and a generally ad-hoc incoherent foreign policy which fails to build any confidence in India's capability to offer leadership to Asia.
It will be of interest to see if any of these factors are perceived to exist today by various members of the forum, and if they are so perceived, is it the opinion of those members that these events are concerted centrally?
