Sleeping Tiger, creeping Dragon!

[CorporateAffairs]

Since the Indian Parliament is lucky enough to have a quizmaster among its members, it would be instructive if he posed a perplexing question to a Government Minister, preferably one whose answer is likely to be taken seriously.

The question is this: If 19km of Chinese incursion into Indian territory leaves both the Government and society completely unruffled, how much territory does Beijing have to occupy before the country feels well and truly shafted?

Maybe this question need not be confined to representatives of the UPA Government and the presiding deities of the so-called "strategic community" that are so visible in seminars and international airport lounges. This Saturday's Delhi editions of the English language dailies were conspicuous by their perfunctory treatment of this official admission by the Defence Secretary to the parliamentary standing committee on defence. Only one publication chose to place this news on its front page; the rest chose to give greater play to the newest version of a mobile phone produced by Samsung.

Whether the relegation of the border tensions have anything to do with discreet suggestions from (what are quaintly described in media-speak as) 'sources', is a matter of conjecture. But as I have long maintained, the newshounds on the South Block beat have for long adjusted to their new role as stenographers to the Ministry of External Affairs. No wonder readers are compelled to digest a lot of gobble about "perceptional mismatch", "calibrated" overtures and "nuanced" approaches to an opaque and inscrutable dispensation in Beijing. Thank God the TV channels are little less squeamish.

China, to its eternal credit, has very successfully created a mystique around itself. India's China experts-with some honourable exceptions-have, by and large, devoured the piffle that is routinely dished out by its post-Confucian mandarins and, in fact, added their own sprinkling of soya sauce. Those who were exposed to China studies in the Indian Universities in the 1970s may recall the gush-gush endorsements of crazy schemes such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The post-Mao U-turn should, ideally, have left them red-faced by the inclination to be Sinophiles, rather than Sinologists, had struck such deep roots that the shifting sands of China had little impact.

I recall attending a lecture by the notorious fellow-traveller Han Suyin at the London School of Economics sometime in the late-1970s where she held forth on the treachery of the Gang of Four, particularly Mao's widow Jiang Quin. It was all very erudite and convincing until an insolent Briton stood up to remind her that barely a year or so ago she was singing praises of those very people she was now denouncing with gusto.

Actually, for the China-watchers, it is a simple case of access. Their profession demands frequent visits to China and it just doesn't do to get on the wrong side of the present dispensation. And remember, China isn't just another country: it is the most powerful nation of Asia blessed with an unflinching determination to restore its place as the Middle Kingdom. To many of China's policy makers, India is a upstart that must periodically be shown its place. Certainly, Zhou Enlai was miffed by Jawaharlal Nehru's condescension and waited for an opportune moment to deliver a tight slap in 1962.

The irony is that the greater the rebuff, the more India seems to come crawling. Nehru was probably the intellectual originator of the silly 'Chindia' thesis that subsequent fellow travellers such as Jairam Ramesh have taken such pains to propagate. Nehru's anodyne Panchshila was located in a romantic version of post-colonial Asian resurgence. The tragedy was that lesser Nehruvians who were involved in Sino-Indian relations took exceptional care to ensure that ground realities were presented in such a way as to fit a grand theory. Sardar KM Panikkar who served as India's Ambassador to China at a critical juncture may have been an erudite scholar but his total misreading of the fledgling Maoist regime owed a great deal to dissimulation. He presented a picture of China that Nehru wanted to hear. This tradition of tailoring the message to suit the recipient appears to be continuing and, as usual, being packaged within a so-called strategic doctrine.

Some of those entrusted with safeguarding India's national security appear to be more concerned with getting their Mandarin pronunciation right when ordering Shark's Fin soup than in penetrating the political fog that is allowed to engulf the Chinese establishment.

Yes, India cannot afford a military misadventure against a country that has larger capacity and depth. Ideally, it should avoid a second front. But that is no excuse to turn a blind eye to the demographic transformation of Tibet, the cyber terrorism that is periodically unleashed and China's encouragement of Pakistan. Worse, in today's context, there is no logic to replicating Nehru's casual dismissal of the loss of Aksai Chin on the ground that "not a blade of grass" grows there.

There are a lot of little things India can do: lending a shoulder to countries such as Japan, Vietnam and even Singapore who are fearful of China's hegemonism is just one of them. Maybe India has done these things in fits and starts. But all half-hearted initiatives have been overshadowed by the fact that whenever the Chinese dragon breathes fire, we run for cover, tail between legs. In the past week, India has exposed itself well and truly as a paper tiger.

 

[longyi]

The China India Border



Two PRC territorial disputes open doors on two competing paths to Asia's future.

Door Number 1 - the sudden Sino-Indian confrontation in Ladakh - leads to the further development of the current Asian security regime as a network of bilateral relationships. Behind Door Number 2 - the festering Senkaku crisis - appears to lead to a multipolar regime with a powerful new independent player, uncertainty and danger. Asia's security future will follow one of these paths, but which one?

Events on the Indian-Chinese border have a distinctly familiar flavor. As in 1962, there is tension in Ladakh. Once again, the PRC is being blamed for an incursion. And once again, it appears that the international press is getting the story ***-backwards.

The story in the US press is that Chinese forces have barged 19 kilometers across the Line of Actual Control in the area of the Depsang Bulge to set up tents in a bleak, 17,000-foot (5,000-meter) high flat spot near the Karakorum Pass as part of the Chinese campaign to nibble away at the Indian position in Aksai Chin and demonstrate the appeasement-inclined spinelessness of the Singh government.

Understandably, it is viewed as inexplicable that the PRC is getting so chesty with India just before Premier Li Keqiang's state visit to New Delhi. As usual, when confronted with an implausible narrative, the reaction is to attribute the cognitive dissonance to Chinese irrationality, in this case to the PLA going "off the reservation" to make trouble on its own kick, demonstrating the party and state's inability to control its military.

AP provided the soundbite:

Manoj Joshi, a defense analyst at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, said the timing of the incursion raises questions about "whether there is infighting within the Chinese leadership, or whether someone is trying to upstage Li". [1]

Actually, it looks like the disarray is probably in Western noggins and not inside the CCP and PLA.

Drawing on a source who attended an Indian military briefing, Calcutta's The Telegraph posted a graphic that is well worth clicking on.

It illustrates that there is apparently no "Line of Actual Control" in the disputed region that is mutually acknowledged by India and the PRC. Instead, there are two "Lines of Perception". The Chinese claim they control a swath of land 10 km thisaway and the Indians claim they control a 10 km swath of land thataway. So there's a 10-km wide band of unpopulated and desolate wasteland whose "actual control" could be up for grabs.

In the past, both sides have patrolled this no-man's land but make a point of not setting up permanent facilities inside it so that the zone would not become focus of a competitive exercise in asserting control, and part of a wider fracas.

Until now.

It is not a matter of dispute that the PLA has moved troops into the area. But the troops are camping out in tents for now - non-permanent facilities in keeping with the traditional live-and-let-live precedent for the area. At the same time, the PRC is demanding that the Indian government dismantle bunkers and other permanent installations in the area. Permanent installations could very possibly represent an effort by the Indian military to transform "perceived control" of the disputed zone into "actual control".

On the Internet, assertions have surfaced that the Chinese incursion was in response to the Indian military's establishment of a permanent facility at Rika Nullah, inside the disputed zone. (It should be pointed out that a "permanent facility" in the bleak environs of Aksai Chin might simply be a few sheets of galvanized metal formed into a hut).

If this is true, a rather logical narrative emerges.

As the Times of India reporting indicates, the tussle over the "perceived control" of the "Depsung Bulge" looks like something of an inevitable glitch to be ironed out as both sides pour money, infrastructure, and forces into the area to institutionalize their "actual control" and jockey for the control of swaths of useful but not particularly vital "perceived control" territories before the security curtain comes down for good - and, hopefully, peace reigns on a well-defined and well-secured border.

The 15-day continuing face-off between troops at 16,300-feet, in a way, boils down to infrastructure build-up along the unresolved 4,057-km long Line of Actual Control (LAC). China has been assiduously strengthening it for well over two decades but has now objected to India's belated attempts to counter the moves.

India's re-activation of the advanced landing grounds (ALGS) at Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO), Fukche and Nyoma as well as construction of some temporary posts and bunkers at Chumar and Fukche near the LAC in eastern Ladakh over the last four to five years in particular has incensed China. The DBO airstrip, for instance, overlooks the strategic Karakoram Pass, while the Fukche ALG is barely 5 km from the LAC. [2]

As part of an overall strategy to formalize and assert its control over the border regions, perhaps the Indian government decided it is time to take a serious nibble out of the Depsung Bulge.

Or the Indian military, which (unlike the PLA) has a long and noble history of advancing its priorities and prerogatives in disregard for the civilian leadership, decides it wishes to create its own Senkaku moment, using the bulge as a territorial gambit.

Or the PRC did decide to commit an unprovoked incursion, squatting on bulge land in order to have a bargaining chip to get the Indian government to stand down on some of its more impressive and alarming military improvements in Ladakh. I consider this unlikely, not because of the essential law-abiding benevolence of the Chinese government but because it isn't going to work. The Indian army (and its inescapable cohort, Indian nationalist public opinion) is not going to let the Indian government wind down military assets in uncontested border territory.

In any case, the Chinese government, interested in gauging the intentions of the Indian government, sent in 50 soldiers to pitch five tents at Rika Nullah. The Indian army sent in its soldiers to pitch its tents "eyeball to eyeball".

The stage is now set for Li Keqiang to meet with Monmohan Singh and find a satisfactory way out of this ridiculous dispute.

Asia Times Online :: China's border rows mirror grim history

 

[HongWu]

India did creeping annexation in the Eastern sector and at Chumar so China is punishing India at Daulat Beg Oldi by building an army outpost at the furthest point of the LAC on our side to neutralize India's nearby strategic airbase. China has a huge advantage in DBO because we deploy an armored division there.

 

[Parul]

India did creeping annexation in the Eastern sector and at Chumar so China is punishing India at Daulat Beg Oldi by building an army outpost at the furthest point of the LAC on our side to neutralize India's nearby strategic airbase. China has a huge advantage in DBO because we deploy an armored division there.

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