From: Sanjeev Nayyar
CHINA STIFFENS MILITARY INTRANSIGENCE ON INDIA-TIBET BORDER
By Dr. Subhash Kapila http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers34/paper3400.html
Introductory Observations
China's military intransigence along the India-Tiber Border seems to have visibly stiffened in the last few months. China's military intransigence does not arise from any military provocations from the Indian side.
Legitimate measures by India and Indian Army and India Air Force to improve their defense preparedness along the India-Tibet border cannot be termed by China as provocative, or perceived as such.
Contrarily, despite the India-China "Agreement on Peace and Tranquility Along the Border" signed in early 1990s, China has indulged in enhanced number of intrusions, transgressions and demolition of unoccupied posts in Indian territory. China has also increased air intrusions into Indian air-space especially in India's Aksaichin Sector.
The Indian media, more specifically Indian TV channels have rightly focused on China's growing provocations along the India-Tibet Border. They are doing a good job in awakening and sensitizing Indian public consciousness to Chinese trends of needling and provoking India by unwarranted border incidents.
It is patently wrong on the part of the Indian policy establishment and India's strategic analysts to advocate that by doing so, a "war hysteria" is being whipped up.
These are defeatist syndromes more reminiscent of the Nehru era which ultimately emboldened China to inflict the 1962 military debacle on India. Peace is desirable, very much desirable, but not the type of peace which the British PM Chamberlain brought from Munich which led to World War II.
India's Prime Minister has always maintained a stony silence on national security threats in the making thus robbing the country of getting the sense as to where the Government stands in meeting threats and challenges from China and Pakistan. In the case of the "Chine Threat" to India, the political leadership and India's policy establishment virtually goes underground in not highlighting China's intentions and threats and further evading making known firm stands if any contemplated.
India cannot afford a 1962 repeat Chinese attack on India's sovereignty and territorial integrity, moreso in light of arrogant threats emanating from China's strategic and military community that "India needs to be taught a military lesson again".
India's political leaders, policy establishment and strategic analysts cannot advocate that such Chinese provocative statements against India are emanating from "non-governmental' entities. Do they need to be reminded that China does not boast of "non-governmental entities" in terms of policy articulation. The non-governmental strategic entities are very much a part of China's official machinery and used as conduits to issue warnings and threats which China officially does not want to articulate.
Logically, therefore, this Paper would like to focus attention on the following aspects of China's growing military intransigence on the India-Tibet Border:
- India Was Not China's Neighbor from 1947-1950
- China's Creeping Aggression Against India 1950 Onwards
- China's Revived Upsurge in Military Intransigence: The Contextual Factors
- China's Reluctance to Reach Border Settlement with India
- Indian Public Will Not Accept any Territorial Adjustments with China by Indian Government
- Indian Government's Imperatives for Strong and Assertive Military Preparedness
- Indian Prime Minister's Forthcoming Visit to China Needs to be Postponed
India Was Not China's Neighbor from 1947-1950
India and Tibet were peaceful neighbors from 1947-1950 on emergence of India as an independent nation. China become India's instantly military adversarial neighbor by its forcible military occupation of the peaceful spiritual kingdom of Tibet.
From 1947 – 1950, India under Nehru failed to grasp the menacing trends in the making of the rise of a monolithic Communist China and its hegemonistic designs towards Tibet and Xingjian.
Nehru ignored Tibet's cries for help including refusal of support to Tibet to raise in the United Nations the issue of China's threat to Tibet of military occupation.
India's strategic diminution in Chinese military perspectives commenced thereafter. This is important to note as China's current perspectives on India continue to be colored by the same mindset.
China's Creeping Aggression Against India 1950 Onwards
China was not satisfied with its military occupation of Tibet and adhering to Tibet's traditional boundaries with India.
China's military occupation of Tibet and India's supine, submissive and strategically oblivious policies under Nehru from 1950 onwards emboldened China to make demands on India for redrawing and realignment of India's erstwhile borders with Tibet.
China forcibly incorporated a major portion of Aksai-chin, an area equal to that of Switzerland, under her control to link Tibet with Xingjian. Nehru's reaction was to keep the Parliament and the Indian nation ignorant about Chinese aggression for over 5.6 years.
The Indian military establishment starved of defense budget allocation commensurate with the needs to meet the Chinese threat, was emasculated and became the victim of Chinese military humiliation in 1962 due to the incompetence of India's political rulers.
An Indian spurt of military build-up in reaction of Chinese aggression of 1962 petered out by 1967 or so. Virtual inertness followed till about 1986-87 when Rajiv Gandhi as PM listening to the advice of Indian military hierarchy made funds available for a forward military build-up in Arunachal Pradesh stemming China's aggression in Sumdorong. China stopped in its tracks. The lesson for India was exercise of firmness of purpose when confronting China.
This military up gradation was brought to a virtual halt by 1991-1993 when India's then Finance Minister now Prime Minister effected cuts in India's defense budgets for nearly a decade. Defense preparedness and upgradation of defense infrastructure against China especially in the North East came to a virtual stop
India's spasmodic spurts to improve India's defensive postures along the India-Tibet border therefore did not impose a sustained restraint to China's creeping rhetorical and physical aggression against India.
Today, China is now terming Arunachal Pradesh as Southern Tibet and therefore a legitimate target for a future Chinese military action, intruding across in the international border in Sikkim, and upping the ante in the Aksai-chin Sector in Ladakh.
China's Revived Upsurge in Military Intransigence: The Contextual Factors
The major contextual factors prompting China's revived military intransigence along the India-Tibet border can be listed as follows:
- Tibet uprisings and insurgency in Xingjian prompting China's strategic nervousness over its hold on its peripheries.
- India's growing strategic proximity to the United States upsetting the power-balance.
- Upgradation of India's military postures in Aksai-chin sector and Arunachal Pradesh which could be a deterrence to Chinese military adventurisms
- Opening of the Golmud-Lhasa railway facilitating speedy Chinese military buildup in Tibet.
China probably perceives that now maybe the opportune time for China to "teach India a military lesson" before India enhances her global political profile and before India narrows her military differential with China along the India-Tibet border.
Current border provocations by China along the India-Tibet Border need to be viewed in this light.
China's Reluctance to Reach Border Settlement with India
China's reluctance to reach border settlement with India on the India-Tibet border arises from:
- Chin's intention to keep alive this issue as a constant strategic pressure- point against India
- Border settlement of the India-Tibet Border would involve physical demarcation by boundary markers, identified and authenticated by both sides.
- Above would rob China the strategic propensity to keep coming up with revised claims on the alignment of the border/LAC.
It is high time India recognizes the futility of continued boundary settlement talks with China. It lulls the Indian establishment into complacency.
Indian Public Will Not Accept any Territorial Adjustments with China by Indian Government
The biggest problem which India faces in facing China squarely is the multiplicity of voices within India pleading that India could swap Aksai-chin with Tawang or carry out adjustments in Tawang to accommodate China.
Such voices and views remind one of Munich and Chamberlain. India needs a Winston Churchill to meet the China threat.
India's political leaders, policy establishment and strategic analysis should desist from such advocacy as it not only belittles them but more importantly belittles India.
The Indian public will never accept any territorial adjustments with China by any Indian Government. The Indian public will oppose tooth and nail any such misadventure by any Indian Government.
Nehru as India's tallest political leader was never forgiven by the Indian public for his misplaced trust in China's peace rhetoric and China then stabbing India in the back. It led to his untimely demise. Other Indian Prime Ministers too should desist from stepping over the similar crevice.
Indian Government's Imperatives for Strong and Assertive Military Preparedness
It is encouraging to note that plans do exist now for an augmented Indian military profile along the India-Tibet border to meat China's large-scale military build-up in Occupied Tibet. The Prime Minister needs a personal over-watch on defense preparedness along the India-Tibet Border.
However such an augmentation needs to be done on a fast track basis and not left to the vagaries of India lethargic civil bureaucracy.
India does not have to be apologetic about its legitimate defense preparations along the India-Tibet border. Strong defense preparedness along India's borders is the sovereign right and an inescapable duty of the Indian Government.
India's Prime Minister made a bold attempt to visit Arunachal Pradesh some time back . but why did be back-out of visiting Tawang which would been symbolically more assertive. India's Prime Minister failed to send the appropriate message to China.
When is the Indian Prime Minister going to visit Leh and Indian territory at Chushul and Pangong Lake? Nehru belatedly did so in 1959 or so to raise the morale of Indian troops guarding India's borders.
IndianPrime Minister's Forthcoming Visit to China Needs to be Postponed
The prevailing political and military environment is not an opportune time for the Indian Prime Minister's forthcoming visit to China.
Nehru's visit to China in a similar environment in the 1950's was counter-productive and did not yield any beneficial results for India. Supposedly, if some prominent border incident takes place coinciding with the Indian PM's visit to China, what would he do?
India's Prime Minister would be well-advised to postpone his visit.
Concluding Observations
China's military intransigence along the India-Tibet border arises from strategic and military Chinese arrogance fortified by India's appeasement and supine polices more resembling those of vassal states of China in the past.
It is unwarranted on the part of India's political leaders, policy establishment and strategic analysts to term increased media focus on China's military misdemeanors along the India-Tibet border as amounting to generation of "war hysteria" India's strategic image as emerging global power is seriously damaged when responsible Indians start advocating swaps of Indian territory or adjustments in Tawang to accommodate China.
China is "India's Enemy Number One" in Indian strategic perceptions. This is based on China's demonstrated policies of strategic encirclement of India intended to keep India strategically off-balance. China has used India's other arch-enemy Pakistan as a proxy for her designs and strategy against India.
China, if serious in altering this Indian perception has to re-cast her South Asian strategy, desist from redefining the boundary alignments along the India -Tibet Border and maintain peace and tranquility on India's borders.
Till such time a visible change is demonstrated by China, there is no excuse for any Indian Government to ignore or soft-pedal the imperatives of strong defensive preparations along the India-Tibet Border to deter China from military adventurism.
(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com)
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