Territorial Claims – and Counterclaims – over Ladakh

Dr Basharet Shah

After the 2017 Doklam crisis, June 15 this year marked another standoff between China and India owing to prior tense border clashes. The decades-old border conflict between the two countries on their territorial claims and counterclaims turned into an acute crisis which left 20 Indian soldiers dead. Forces of both countries were engaged in intense physical altercations involving scuffles and stone-pelting. However, things calmed down after flag meetings between Chinese and Indian senior military officials. Both countries’ troops have patrolled this region for decades, as the contested 2,200-mile border is a long-standing subject of competing claims and tensions, including a brief war in 1962.

The clashes broke out after both sides quibbled over new infrastructure building on Indian sides of the disputed border. One of the key Indian projects there is the construction of the Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi road in Ladakh, cutting through treacherous mountain ridges as high as 16,000 feet. The road serves as a strategic asset to India as it runs almost parallel to the disputed border with China-claimed Aksai Chin and reaches Daulat Beg Oldi, an Indian military base and landing ground for the Indian Air Force, about 12 miles from Karakoram Pass, which separates Ladakh from Xinjiang. The current tensions have jeopardized the ‘Border Peace and Tranquillity Agreement’ which both the parties had signed in 1993.

Basically, the border, or Line of Actual Control (LAC), is not demarcated, and China and India have differing ideas of where it is, leading to intermittent border skirmishes that often usually don’t escalate – serious border standoffs like the current one are less frequent, though this is the fourth since 2013. In the last decade alone, three such episodes – at Depsang in northern Ladakh in 2013, at Chumar in eastern Ladakh in 2014, and at Doklam on the Sino-Indian-Bhutanese border in 2017 – produced local crises severe enough to require higher political intervention for their defusing. There are plenty of other motivations guiding Beijing’s befitting response to Indian violation and aggression along the LAC.

The fundamental reason behind the recent tensions was a change in the status quo at the disputed border on the part of India by either entrenching a new physical presence or creating new physical infrastructure in the disputed areas, which is, obviously, unacceptable to mighty China.

Secondly, the US-China relationship is at its lowest ebb right now while that between the United States and India is flourishing on strategic levels. Beijing knows that Washington considers New Delhi a strategic partner in its effort to contain China through the Trump administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy. In this regard, the befitting response to Indian provocation at the border serves as a deterrent to Indo-US collusion.

Thirdly, China was aware diplomatically of India’s August 2019 actions to end Jammu and Kashmir’s traditional autonomy, one result of which was the creation of the Union Territory of Ladakh; China saw India’s recent road construction work as an endeavour to change the status quo and a challenge to its strategic position. Above all, the border violations by Indian forces finally compelled China to respond with physical force as both countries had agreed to not use explosives within two kilometers of the LAC.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative is yet another powerful accelerant of its rivalry with India, and it has really taken off in the Modi years. A strongly worded statement issued by the Indian External Affairs ministry against the BRI back in 2017 that India rejects the project because of its intention to expand into disputed territory that New Delhi claims as its own. These prior circumstances jaundiced China’s view about India.

Moreover, China has started to pursue a muscular foreign policy under President Xi Jinping to show the people of China that the CPC, which is going to complete a century of its establishment next year, is indispensable to China’s bright future. Xi is having a strong stringent move against Indian provocations at disputed borders because he is the chairman of the CPC, commander in chief of their PLA and the president of China.Xi Jinping wants to make a mark on the Chinese people that how strong China as a nation is (under him).

If the current situation is analyzed, India’s refusal to back down in the face of Doklam crisis made Beijing realise that India is willing to stand up to its powerful neighbor. However, this standoff did not prompt China to back off in the face of Indian provocations in the future.

Instead, this arguably compelled China to dig in deeper and deter India in any aggressive endeavors like the one it did with Pakistan in the case of Jammu and Kashmir in year 2019. The display of Chinese cautious prudence against India is what we’ve seen in Ladakh in recent weeks.

At diplomatic level, Ladakh crisis required both countries to mutually tackle the problem at hand without any foreign interference. India has sanely rejected any direct involvement offered by the US immediately after the altercation . As a matter of fact, India has adopted a moderate diplomatic response since China is asserting its muscular strength based conventional and nuclear edge over India . Besides, India has huge Chinese investments at home at the moment, therefore the economic interests of India are also at stake.Therefore, Modi government’s diplomatic handling of China has generally been consistent with past practice, and similar to Beijing’s own strategy: Pursue workable diplomatic ties, and maintain an important economic partnership.

China views India as an inferior power, but treats it carefully and when possible cordially since the strategic Indo-US partnership makes China cautious of their combined rivalry against its peaceful rise. This helps explain why China over the last few years has continued to pursue economic cooperation with India, and why it has sought to promote a relatively cordial diplomatic relationship with New Delhi.The Doklam crisis is the milestone event that has shifted Chinese thinking about India . Lately, both countries are at loggerheads at borders refusing to give up on their territorial claims.

Reviewing the current circumstances, it is observed that the India-China relationship has entered into a more tense and confrontational phase, and that is likely to remain the new normal for quite some time.How Modi, and future Indian leaders, navigate that new reality as they pursue diplomatic relations with Beijing will be something that India foreign policy specialists will be mulling over well into the future.An important question that emerges from the events of June 15 is how India’s diplomatic handling of China will change in the long term, including post-Modi. The future of India-China relations depends on what future strategy both India and China adopt post standoff. If India gives up its claims from China controlled territory and vice versa , the two sides could negotiate new border agreements and operating procedures. But if both nations hold on to what they have gained, China would be even more assertive towards India while

 

India would most certainly shift more overtly toward Washington.

Now If the Indo-US partnership gains strength against China, the triangular strategic hostility would serve against Pakistan as there would definitely be multiple implications on Pakistan out of this extended rivalry . Given China’s deep footprint in that country through China Pakistan Economic Corridor, there’s certainly a possibility that India could covertly engage in retaliatory actions against Beijing there — such as by sponsoring attacks on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor targets, or on other Chinese interests in Pakistan. Similarly, India having disputed relations with China would also serve damage to Pakistan — strategic ally of China-the recent brutal terrorist attack on Pakistan’s Stock Exchange is a testimony to the fact which is in fact sponsored by India.

 

The author can be contacted at: basharatshah8268@gmail.com