Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
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Image copyright PRESS INFORMATION BUREAUImage caption The area has become a hotspot in part because of a road India has built
The armies of the world’s two most populous nations are locked in a tense face-off high in the Himalayas, which has the potential to escalate as they seek to further their strategic goals.
Officials quoted by the Indian media say thousands of Chinese troops have forced their way into the Galwan valley in Ladakh, in the disputed Kashmir region.
Indian leaders and military strategists have clearly been left stunned.
The reports say that in early May, Chinese forces put up tents, dug trenches and moved heavy equipment several kilometres inside what had been regarded by India as its territory. The move came after India built a road several hundred kilometres long connecting to a high-altitude forward air base which it reactivated in 2008.
The message from China appears clear to observers in Delhi – this is not a routine incursion.
“The situation is serious. The Chinese have come into territory which they themselves accepted as part of India. It has completely changed the status quo,” says Ajai Shukla, an Indian military expert who served as a colonel in the army.
China takes a different view, saying it’s India which has changed facts on the ground.
Reports in the Indian media said soldiers from the two sides clashed on at least two occasions in Ladakh. Stand-offs are reported in at least three locations: the Galwan valley; Hot Springs; and Pangong lake to the south.
India and China share a border more than 3,440km (2,100 miles) long and have overlapping territorial claims. Their border patrols often bump into each other, resulting in occasional scuffles but both sides insist no bullet has been fired in four decades.
Their armies – two of the world’s largest – come face to face at many points. The poorly demarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC) separates the two sides. Rivers, lakes and snowcaps mean the line separating soldiers can shift and they often come close to confrontation.
The current military tension is not limited to Ladakh. Soldiers from the two sides are also eyeball-to-eyeball in Naku La, on the border between China and the north-eastern Indian state of Sikkim. Earlier this month they reportedly came to blows.
And there’s a row over a new map put out by Nepal, too, which accuses India of encroaching on its territory by building a road connecting with China.
Why are tensions rising now?
There are several reasons – but competing strategic goals lie at the root, and both sides blame each other.
“The traditionally peaceful Galwan River has now become a hotspot because it is where the LAC is closest to the new road India has built along the Shyok River to Daulet Beg Oldi (DBO) – the most remote and vulnerable area along the LAC in Ladakh,” Mr Shukla says.
India’s decision to ramp up infrastructure seems to have infuriated Beijing.
Image copyright AFPImage caption There have been protests in Nepal against Indi’s new road link
“According to the Chinese military, India is the one which has forced its way into the Galwan valley. So, India is changing the status quo along the LAC – that has angered the Chinese,” says Dr Long Xingchun, president of the Chengdu Institute of World Affairs (CIWA), a think tank.
Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia programme at the Wilson Center, another think tank, says this face-off is not routine. He adds China’s “massive deployment of soldiers is a show of strength”.
The road could boost Delhi’s capability to move men and material rapidly in case of a conflict.
Differences have been growing in the past year over other areas of policy too.
The new federally-administered Ladakh included Aksai Chin, an area India claims but China controls.
Senior leaders of India’s Hindu-nationalist BJP government have also been talking about recapturing Pakistan-administered Kashmir. A strategic road, the Karakoram highway, passes through this area that connects China with its long-term ally Pakistan. Beijing has invested about $60bn (£48bn) in Pakistan’s infrastructure – the so-called China Pakistan Economic corridor (CPEC) – as part of its Belt and Road Initiative and the highway is key to transporting goods to and from the southern Pakistani port of Gwadar. The port gives China a foothold in the Arabian Sea.
In addition, China was unhappy when India initially banned all exports of medical and protective equipment to shore up its stocks soon after the coronavirus pandemic started earlier this year.
How dangerous could this get?
“We routinely see both armies crossing the LAC – it’s fairly common and such incidents are resolved at the local military level. But this time, the build-up is the largest we have ever seen,” says former Indian diplomat P Stobdan, an expert in Ladakh and India-China affairs.
“The stand-off is happening at some strategic areas that are important for India. If Pangong lake is taken, Ladakh can’t be defended. If the Chinese military is allowed to settle in the strategic valley of Shyok, then the Nubra valley and even Siachen can be reached.”
In what seems to be an intelligence failure, India seems to have been caught off guard again. According to Indian media accounts, the country’s soldiers were outnumbered and surrounded when China swiftly diverted men and machines from a military exercise to the border region.
This triggered alarm in Delhi – and India has limited room for manoeuvre. It can either seek to persuade Beijing to withdraw its troops through dialogue or try to remove them by force. Neither is an easy option.
“China is the world’s second-largest military power. Technologically it’s superior to India. Infrastructure on the other side is very advanced. Financially, China can divert its resources to achieve its military goals, whereas the Indian economy has been struggling in recent years, and the coronavirus crisis has worsened the situation,” says Ajai Shukla.
What next?
History holds difficult lessons for India. It suffered a humiliating defeat during the 1962 border conflict with China. India says China occupies 38,000km of its territory. Several rounds of talks in the last three decades have failed to resolve the boundary issues.
China already controls the Aksai Chin area further east of Ladakh and this region, claimed by India, is strategically important for Beijing as it connect its Xinjiang province with western Tibet.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption India and China have a long history of border disputes
In 2017 India and China were engaged in a similar stand-off lasting more than two months in Doklam plateau, a tri-junction between India, China and Bhutan.
This time, too, talks are seen as the only way forward – both countries have so much to lose in a military conflict.
“China has no intention to escalate tensions and I think India also doesn’t want a conflict. But the situation depends on both sides. The Indian government should not be guided by the nationalistic media comments,” says Dr Long Xingchun of the CIWA in Chengdu. “Both countries have the ability to solve the dispute through high-level talks.”
Chinese media have given hardly any coverage to the border issue, which is being interpreted as a possible signal that a route to talks will be sought.
Pratyush Rao, associate director for South Asia at Control Risks consultancy, says both sides have “a clear interest in prioritising their economic recovery” and avoiding military escalation.
“It is important to recognise that both sides have a creditable record of maintaining relative peace and stability along their disputed border.”
Fears are growing in the city that the military could be called in to quell unrest
But the costs and complexities of doing so mean Beijing is highly unlikely to give the orders, observers say
PLA soldiers show their skills during a naval base open day in Hong Kong. The PLA has had a presence in Hong Kong since the city’s return to Chinese sovereignty. Photo: K.Y. Cheng
It is a prospect dreaded by many in Hong Kong, but debate is growing in mainland China about whether the central government should end weeks of upheaval in the city by sending in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
The PLA has had a presence in Hong Kong since the city’s return to Chinese sovereignty but – unlike in mainland China – memories of the military’s bloody suppression of pro-democracy students and activists in Beijing in 1989 are still strong in the city three decades on.
Still, images of protesters vandalising Beijing’s liaison office in downtown Hong Kong on Sunday have fanned nationalist anger across the mainland, prompting calls for PLA intervention.
Concerns only deepened on Wednesday when defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian commented on the recent clashes and protests in Hong Kong. Without suggesting any action or plans by the PLA, Wu made clear that the Garrison Law, which governs the operations of PLA troops in Hong Kong, already stipulates that the PLA is legally allowed to help the city maintain law and order at the request of Hong Kong’s government.
“We are closely following the developments in Hong Kong, especially the violent attack against the central government’s liaison office by radicals on July 21,” Wu said.
“Some behaviour of the radical protesters is challenging the authority of the central government and the bottom line of ‘one country, two systems’,” he warned, referring to the formula that grants Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy for 50 years. “This is intolerable.”
Both Article 14 and Article 18 of the Basic Law – the city’s mini-constitution – spell out how and under what circumstances the PLA troops in Hong Kong can be used.
While the legality is clear, analysts still believe that given the exorbitant political cost and complexities involved, using the military would remain an unlikely last resort.
Even Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of China’s nationalist tabloid Global Times, has spoken out against the idea, citing its “huge political cost” and the “severe uncertainty” it might bring to the situation.
Crowds hold candles at a vigil in Victoria Park in Hong Kong in June to mark the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Photo: James Wendlinger
“Once the PLA has taken charge of the situation in Hong Kong and quelled the riots, what’s next?” Hu said in a social media post on Monday.
Hu said there were no governance procedures in place that would allow the PLA to operate in Hong Kong and return things to normal. He also warned that any such action would be followed by international condemnation and a severe backlash among the Hong Kong public.
“The [PLA’s] Hong Kong garrison is the symbol of national sovereignty. It is not a fire brigade for law and order in Hong Kong,” he said.
Any move to use the Chinese troops will create a furore in the US Congress … They will re-examine the Hong Kong Policy Act very carefully Larry Wortzel, senior fellow at American Foreign Policy Council
The South China Morning Post reported last week that military force was not an option for mainland leaders working on a strategy to resolve the city’s biggest political crisis in decades.
And in June Major General Chen Daoxiang, commander of the Hong Kong garrison, assured David Helvey, US principal deputy assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security affairs, that Chinese troops would not interfere in the city’s affairs, according to Reuters.
The comments support analysts’ assessments that deploying the PLA is not a viable solution to Hong Kong’s crisis.
“Will the mobilisation of PLA troops further inflame the situation? There might be people who will resist or even revolt against the PLA, and that may lead to bloodshed,” said Lau Siu-kai, vice-chairman of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, a semi-official think tank.
The last time Beijing sent in troops to quell pro-democracy protests was during the Tiananmen Square crackdown on June 4, 1989 – bloodshed that has stained the PLA and the Communist Party to this day, despite decades of efforts to wipe it from public memory.
The last time Beijing sent in troops to quell pro-democracy protests was during the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. Photo: Reuters
“Although they don’t like to admit it, they know they made a mistake in the way they used the PLA [in 1989],” said Larry Wortzel, a long-time PLA watcher, who witnessed the crackdown as an assistant military attache at the US embassy in Beijing 30 years ago.
“In subsequent years, when there were major demonstrations, they managed to handle them with either the People’s Armed Police [PAP] or the Public Security Bureau [PSB], or in some cases a combination of both,” said Wortzel, now a senior fellow in Asian security at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington.
If the military was deployed [in Hong Kong], it would mean China was ready to shut its doors completely Chen Daoyin, a Shanghai-based political analyst
The PAP is a 1.5 million-strong paramilitary police force tasked with maintaining domestic security and order, while the PSB is the country’s police force.
The June 4 crackdown is still widely remembered in Hong Kong, where tens of thousands gather every year on its anniversary for a candlelight vigil in the heart of the city.
“The activities in Hong Kong and the Chinese Communist Party’s conduct there have really had a profound impact on thinking in Taiwan. It has killed any chance with any political party of [supporting] the one country, two systems,” Wortzel said.
Chinese military can be deployed at Hong Kong’s request to contain protests, Beijing says
“The last thing President Xi Jinping and the Politburo Standing Committee would want to do, if they can avoid it, is to use the PLA [in Hong Kong].”
The situation in Hong Kong is also being closely watched in the West, with many international firms basing regional headquarters in the Asian financial hub, thanks to its capitalist system and rule of law.
Deploying the PLA to Hong Kong would certainly spark an international outcry and draw huge pressure from Western countries, said Liang Yunxiang, an international affairs expert at Peking University.
“Britain, of course, would have the harshest criticism since it governed Hong Kong for a long time and signed treaties with China to ensure Beijing would keep its commitment to one country, two systems,” Liang said.
In the United States, the repercussions could go beyond verbal condemnation to a shift in policy that might fundamentally change Hong Kong’s status as an international financial centre and prompt an exodus of businesses, according to Wortzel.
“Any move to use the Chinese troops will create a furore in the US Congress … They will re-examine the Hong Kong Policy Act very carefully,” he said, referring to the bill passed in 1992 that allows Hong Kong to be treated as a non-sovereign entity distinct from mainland China on trade and economic matters.
Hong Kong head blasts violence, amid further extradition bill unrest
“They will simply treat Hong Kong like another Chinese city, which affects export controls and how the financial industry operates.”
Just last month, members of Congress reintroduced the bipartisan Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. If the legislation is passed, the US could revoke Hong Kong’s special status under American law if Beijing fails to ensure the city has “sufficient autonomy”.
The crisis comes as Beijing’s ties with Washington are already strained by a year-long trade war that has spilled into other areas of bilateral relations.
PLA troops go through their paces for the public at their Hong Kong barracks during an open day. Photo: Edward Wong
There is also mounting international pressure on China over issues such as its mass internment and political indoctrination of an estimated million or more members of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, despite the Chinese government’s repeated denials of ill-treatment of the inmates and attempts to defend its policies.
Chen Daoyin, a Shanghai-based political analyst, said the increasing scrutiny China faced from Western countries – whether in the form of punitive tariffs or restrictions on technology – made it all the more important for China to keep Hong Kong as an open channel to connect with the world.
“If the military was deployed [in Hong Kong], it would mean China was ready to shut its doors completely,” Chen said.
Lau, from the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said the PLA should only be deployed as a last resort.
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“It would be a huge blow to the principle of ‘letting Hong Kong people govern Hong Kong with a high degree of autonomy’, since it will prove that Hong Kong people are not up to the task of governing themselves,” he said.
Hu, from Global Times, said the PLA troops could be used only if the authorities lost control of the city or an armed rebellion broke out.
Short of that, he said, the central government should let the chaos in Hong Kong run its course and wait for the public mood to flip.
This strategy of sitting it out hinges on the city’s police force holding the line and stopping Hong Kong’s slide into total anarchy.
Wortzel also warned that there were lines protesters should not cross – or risk provoking the use of military force.
“For instance, to this point, demonstrators have not gone up against the PLA garrison or any of its outposts. If they did that, I think it’s possible – actually it is very likely – that there will be a limited mobilised response [to defend the facilities],” he said.
While most analysts said the chance of Beijing resorting to military force was slim, the very idea – ludicrous to even discuss three months ago – has become a popular topic on social media on the mainland, where the discussion is not censored and many commenters support it.
The official media have been careful not to touch the subject but they too have stepped up rhetoric against the protests in Hong Kong.
In a rare move, state-run China Central Television has run commentaries and reports about protests in Hong Kong during its main evening news for five days in a row.
Only the most politically important issues receive such unusual treatment.
Image copyright PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU
Image copyright AFP
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CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 