Salman Khurshid on the Ladakh standoff: Can the elephant and the dragon dance together?

Our relationship with China remains ambivalent at best. Since 1975 no hostile shot has been fired by either side; although periodic incidents continue to take place with varying degrees of seriousness and intensity.

There are incidents that pass quickly within hours and incidents that build up gradually and the standoff lasts several days. Inevitably restraint is shown by both sides and when peace and tranquility returns, there are no obvious gains or losses.

When I visited China as External Affairs Minister the meeting with Prime Minister Le Keqiang was conspicuously cordial, prompting me to ask him why incidents like the one we had put to rest barely days before my departure for Beijing, happened. My host smiled and turned to his staff with an inquisitive look. They exchanged a few words and he turned to me and said they would find out.

Since Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi thawed the frozen relationship by his path breaking visit to China, the two countries have steadily and tirelessly worked to deal with differences of perception regarding the LAC.

Essentially a large number of maps are exchanged and views are examined to find common ground. We all know that the back drop of this is inevitably our respective perceived strategic vulnerabilities and advantages. To the uninitiated it might well look like an idle game with much imagination and an element of individual and collective egos. But to the trained mind, military or diplomatic, there are innumerable imponderables and strategic formulations that have to be addressed. The progress is slow and is seldom affected by whatever else might be happening.

In the past weeks, particularly since May 5 this year and then again May 9, Indian and Chinese troops have remained engaged in what is described as eyeball-to-eyeball situation in several traditionally disputed areas along the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh, as indeed in areas which were never before a bone of contention, suggesting that the latest confrontation could become the biggest military face-off after the Doklam episode in 2017 that lasted for 73 days.

India is reported to have further increased its strength in Pangong Tso and Galwan Valley—the two contentious areas where the Chinese army is learnt to have deployed around 2,000 to 2,500 troops besides gradually enhancing temporary infrastructure.

India and China have different perceptions about the exact location of the LAC in the Pangong Tso area, which results in high number of transgressions. The site at Galwan river, where tensions have escalated between the two armies, saw only six Chinese transgressions in recent years.

While there was no transgression in 2019, four were recorded in 2017, and one each in 2018 and 2016. Galwan river area, a prominent site of action during the 1962 war, is a “settled portion” of the LAC, where both sides agree on its location. So, the current situation in the area is a significant departure from the pattern of previous disputes on the LAC.

The question is ‘why now and why this?’ And should we sit it out, and like in the past, the tension will ultimately dissipate and it will be business as usual?

The fact is that whatever the hypothesis, we need to respond. It is not about who blinks first. Each inch that is forcibly encroached or occupied by the Chinese PLA is a critical loss of negotiating strength, not to mention the psychological balancing of our respective stature in the world.

The COVID-19 worldwide pandemic and an increasingly unpredictable US President focused entirely on the November Presidential election have thrown our finely calibrated relationship with China into a tumble. We cannot and must not empty out our China basket and put all our eggs in Uncle Sam’s larder.

There are several reasons for that but China being our next door neighbour and able to put its weight behind Pakistan’s aspirations is not the least significant of them. The talk of a post COVID-19 world order is still early and very speculative and it would be woefully premature to assume that the Wuhan angst or scepticism in the world will irretrievably isolate China.

Even the US experts who are merrily playing games about India-Pacific and squeezing China through the Quad machinations might well be underestimating India’s potential interdependence on China or for that matter the huge debt the US owes to Chinese entities. Understandably, the sudden spurt of Chinese activity on the LAC might have something to do with persuading India not to be swayed by the US.

India in any case has its hands full, with the need to persuade the Arab world that there is no cause to worry about our deep rooted secularism, the effort to keep Bangladesh from becoming alarmed about our citizenship preoccupations, ensure that Sri Lanka does not give in to China kneeling on it for more space and not losing Afghanistan’s goodwill with the growing influence of the Taliban for whom we have little time or patience.

As the Indian economy continues to feel the stress of a man-made crisis and the act of God in getting the coronavirus to derail it, our dreams of a five-trillion dollar economy have begun to recede. In the circumstances, to forego Chinese investment (our only alternative to the bludgeoning trade deficit) by merely mouthing ‘Atmanirbharta’ will get us nowhere.

To be honest, it makes no sense to engage in either a military or a trade war with China, and hopefully China believes the same. Joining the US in a trade war with China makes even less sense because we will fall between two stools.

It is too soon and wishful to think that US industry will shift to India from China or mainland US. We are also yet to demonstrate how quickly and effectively we will bounce back from the disruption and dislocation caused by the onset of the pandemic and our somewhat uncoordinated response.