India And Japan Encircle China

By Gordon G. Chang 

Thursday, Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe met his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, in Gandhinagar, the capital of Modi’s home state of Gujarat. 

The meeting highlighted how Asia’s second-largest and third-largest economies anchor the ends of an arc encircling the continent’s first-largest.
Beijing is upset at the emerging tie-up between Tokyo and New Delhi, but there is nothing the Chinese can do. 

And, undercutting their own interests, they seem determined to give Abe and Modi every incentive to work together.
Abe’s made his two-day visit to increase Japanese investment in road and electricity infrastructure in India’s northeastern states.
Those states are under pressure from an aggressive China, which claims one of them, Arunachal Pradesh, as its own. 

Beijing calls Arunachal, in the northeast corner of India’s northeast, “South Tibet.”
Beijing also threatens the other northeastern states because they are connected to the main portion of India by the Siliguri Corridor, a narrow strip of land also known as “the chicken’s neck.” 

The corridor is 11 miles wide at its narrowest point.
China is keenly aware of India’s geographic vulnerability. 

On June 16, Indian troops stopped a Chinese construction crew, guarded by soldiers, from building a road in Doklam. 

The crew was in an area disputed by China and Bhutan, a sovereign state tucked away in the Himalayas.
The contested area, close to the strategic “tri-junction” where Bhutan, China, and India meet, is just north of the chicken’s neck.
During the standoff, the most serious in over three decades, Chinese and Indian troops took positions just 120 meters apart. 

After an August 28 agreement between Beijing and New Delhi, troops on both sides pulled back. They are now 150 meters from each other.
Significantly, Japan is the only country other than Bhutan to support India in public over the Doklam incident.
And outside support is crucial because just about nobody thinks the Chinese are going to let the Indians live in peace in their northeast. 

Modi’s strategy is to bolster New Delhi’s hold there through economic development.
Enter the Japanese. 

Modi and Abe have been close in general, and Japan’s leader was glad to help out his pal in New Delhi. 

At their Thursday meeting, the pair announced the Act East Forum.
The forum’s name reveals Modi’s strategy. 

New Delhi had announced a “Look East” policy in 1991, but the initiative was not seriously pursued. India had viewed the policy merely as outreach to the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. 

Then, it was not a tactic to oppose China.
In the interim, Beijing has provoked the Indian state, so Modi took Look East and gave it substance. “My government,” he said in November 2014 at the East Asian Summit in Naypyidaw, “has moved with a great sense of priority and speed to turn our ‘Look East Policy’ into ‘Act East Policy.’ ”
Moreover, New Delhi’s concept of “East” has broadened as Indian officials are now looking eastward beyond the ASEAN states to countries like Japan.
Japan, at the same time, has looked west with its “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy,” formulated last year. 

The Japanese and Indian prime ministers on Thursday agreed to enhance “connectivity in the wider Indo-Pacific region,” which means aligning Modi’s “Act East” with Japan’s new initiative.
Although neither Abe nor Modi would say so, they plan to counter China’s outreach to the region, perhaps best represented by Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” projects. 

There is the “Silk Road Economic Belt,” announced in September 2013, which seeks to build a trade route through Central Asia, and the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road,” unveiled the following month and designed to connect China’s coastal cities to Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.
The Belt and Road—OBOR for short—flows around, and therefor potentially constricts, India. India, as we have seen, has friends of its own. 

And as New Delhi and Tokyo have molded their initiatives together, China has become irritated, and even alarmed, although the Indian and Japanese plans are not meant to directly challenge Xi’s OBOR.
China should have nothing to fear from Japan and India, but the Chinese foreign ministry has nonetheless expressed concern about their cooperation in northeast India. 

“Now China and India are working on seeking a fair and reasonable settlement which can be accepted by both sides through negotiations,” said spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Friday at the ministry’s regular press briefing, after mentioning that China had claims on territory India now controls. 

“Under such circumstances, we believe that any third party should respect the efforts made by China and India to settle the disputes through negotiations and any third party should not meddle in the disputes between China and India over territorial sovereignty in any form.”
Hua’s words are a clear violation of the bedrock of Chinese foreign policy, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, which call for nations to stay out of the internal affairs of others. 

Chinese officials disrespect Indians in general, and so it is no surprise that Hua felt comfortable in making unwarranted pronouncements about economic development in India. 

And as she did so, she pushed India and Japan together, not, as she hoped, kept them apart.
The great rivalry in Asia at the moment is not China and the U.S., as many assume. 

The U.S., which feels a responsibility for maintaining peace and stability in the region, is acting more like a neutral party than competitor for influence.
China’s competitors, rather, are Japan and India, and Beijing’s forceful tactics against both of them are making Tokyo and New Delhi all-but-declared adversaries of Beijing.
Abe and Modi were careful not to put “China” in their joint statement last week. 

Yet they did not have to. 

By merely getting together, they made it clear they will integrate their initiatives to counter Beijing’s all-encompassing challenges to them.

Per qualche renminbi in più

Europe Is Divided Over The India-China Border Dispute
By David Hutt

An Indian soldier stands in front of a group of China soldiers as they participate in a joint training exercise in 2016. 

Indian and Chinese troops have lined up against one another for months between a literal rock and a hard place -- that being two remote Himalayan parts of a border each nation contests.
But European leaders have found themselves in a more figurative dilemma.
If Europe sides with Delhi, it will infuriate the economic powerhouse that is China, which is now the European Union's second-biggest trading partner. 

Side with Beijing, however, and Europe would denigrate the world’s largest democracy, and one that wants to build better ties with the continent.
So since both nations are important strategic partners for the EU, “it is likely reluctant to take sides in the territorial dispute,” said Bart Gaens, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. 

“The EU will condemn the violence,” if it breaks out, he added, “but it can do little more than to call for dialogue and a peaceful resolution to the dispute.”

Tensions rise
Tensions started in June when a few dozen Indian and Chinese soldiers tussled over the Doklam plateau, which lies just within the border of Bhutan, India's friendly neighbor. 

Delhi says it's defending Bhutan's sovereignty from Chinese aggression on the disputed border: China reportedly began extending a road near the border in June and Indian troops moved in to stop the construction. 

China, however, says India illegally entered its borders.
Then, in mid-August, sticks and stones were hurled as the two nations' armed forces squared off near Pangong Tso, a small desert lake that stretches between the Indian region of Ladakh and Tibet, an autonomous Chinese region. 

So far, no-one has been seriously harmed during the relatively uneventful border dispute.

Winter is coming
Tensions are partly to do with to historic disagreements over borders demarcations drawn by past colonial authorities. 

But Beijing and Delhi have typically adopted an “agree-to-disagree” policy over their 3,500 kilometer border, much of which each nation contests. 

Now, however, Indians are calling on Delhi to “contain” an expansionist China, which successive Indian governments have failed to do.

A jingoistic Chinese media, meanwhile, has sought to remind India of what happened when the two countries last went to war in 1962, another conflict over a remote Himalayan border. 

China won that month-long war and almost 3,000 Indian troops were killed. 

Still, “India in 2017 is different from India in 1962,” Indian Defense Minister Arun Jaitley retorted.
There are signs, however, that tensions are calming. 

On August 28, both nations agreed to pull back their soldiers, which the Indian government described as "expeditious disengagement." 

Just as important, winter is coming and when it does “all but a few stretches of the high-altitude border become impassable anyway,” The Economist recently stated. 

But while it now appears that any serious conflict is unlikely to come from the recent standoff, some say it is inevitable that Asia’s two newest superpowers will continue sparing in the future, perhaps someday violently. 

This ought to motivate European leaders to come up with a position on possible China-India disputes sooner rather than later.

Europe keeps quiet
There is scant evidence of coherent stance yet, however. 

As noted earlier, both China and India are strategic allies of Europe so taking sides would come as a detriment in some fashion. 

“The European embassies in New Delhi are still in a wait-and-watch mode, and unlike the U.S., have not spoken at all so far,” Shairee Malhotra, associate researcher at the European Institute for Asian Studies, told me last week before the two nations agreed to pull back their troops.
Still, there are indications of who Europeans might favor -- if push comes to shove. 

Ryszard Czarnecki, vice president of the European Parliament, penned an article for the parliament’s magazine in July that warned of changes in Chinese foreign policy, which included infringements on “internationally accepted norms.”

India Prime Minister Narendra Modi talks with Xi Jinping during the BRICS leaders' meeting in 2016. 

Another possible reason for European reticence so far is the fact that the three countries -- Germany, France and the UK -- that have the best relations with China and India are currently weighed down with domestic concerns, said May-Britt Stumbaum, director of the research group “Asian Perceptions of the EU” at the Freie Universität Berlin.
German federal elections will take place this month and the German electorate tends not to favor interventionist leaders. 

Emmanuel Macron, who became the French president in May, is still getting used to power and remains dogged by domestic disputes (and tumbling popularity that has hit near-historic lows). 

And Britain is waylaid by Brexit negotiations, which includes trying to improve trade relations with both India and China.

The web of geopolitics
One other explanation for Europe’s tepid response is that the dispute between India and China has little to with each’s domestic concerns. 

The border tensions in the Doklam plateau largely center on geopolitical matters, namely Delhi’s support of Bhutan’s territorial sovereignty. 

Bhutan, which has been mostly silent on the matter, still does not have direct diplomatic relations with Beijing. 

This is either out of solidarity for Tibetan independence activists, or because of “deference” to Delhi, as The Economist asserted.
Beijing, however, has long seduced India’s main geopolitical opponent, Pakistan, which it has furnished with aid and military equipment for decades. 

More recently, China has used trade and aid to try to bring India’s more amiable neighbors -- Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, for example -- into its orbit, to varying success.
China also sees India as attempting to undermine its One Belt, One Road initiative, which will bring Beijing greater hegemony within Eurasia. 

India’s ascension this year to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Beijing-backed Eurasian organization, was proposed by Russia as a way of constraining China’s influence in Eurasia.
For European leaders to wade into this geopolitical web without a bloc-wide consensus and a functional plan would mean entangling itself, perhaps also exacerbating the situation in the process instead of quietening tensions.

The Necessary War

This is how it could go down when China and India went to war

By Blake Stilwell

For more than a month, Indian and Chinese troops have been locked in a standoff on a remote but strategically important Himalayan plateau near where Tibet, India, and Bhutan meet.

A war between the world’s largest democracy and the world’s largest communist state may not seem likely to the casual observer. 

But not only is it possible, it’s happened before. Only things were very different back then.

China was facing an economic collapse in the early 1960s in the years following the Great Leap Forward. 

The country was struggling to feed its people, let alone support an all-out war.
India, on the other hand, was on an economic upturn. 

Militarily, however, India was unprepared and could only field 14,000 troops, compared to China’s exhaustive manpower.
In 1962, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong invaded India for granting asylum to the Dalai Lama and not supporting the Chinese occupation of Tibet (Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was an outspoken critic of the occupation). 

The Chinese won the harsh mountain war, fought without navies or air forces, at 14,000 feet.
Mao later told Sri Lankan and Swedish delegations the war was essentially to teach India a lesson.

Potential causes of a new Sino-Indian war

The 1962 war only lasted a month, resulting in slight border changes and a now-ongoing dispute on just where the border is — namely in two areas called Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, which could re-spark a conflict today. 

But any border disputes could turn the mountainous region hot.
The most recent standoff in August 2017 was about an obscure plateau in the Himalayan Doklam Plateau region, which borders India, China, and Bhutan. 

India supports Bhutan’s claim to the area, while both major powers have scores of troops in the region.
The spark for that standoff is an unfinished road from China.
China also supports India’s arch rival Pakistan, turning any conflict into a potential two-front war. But India doesn’t take it all laying down. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi confronted China’s assertiveness from his first day in office — when he invited the exiled Tibetan government to his swearing-in ceremony.

A map of Doklam, a disputed area between China, India, and Bhutan.

The two countries clashed along their border several times, including one incident over Tibet in 1967 and another near miss 1987 over Arunachal. 

There were also smaller incidents in 2013 and 2014 in Ladakh, where India has since loaded the area with infantry, tanks, and reserves to be prepared for any potential aggression from China.
But the very likely spark that could drive the two Asian giants to war could come from a clash over resources. 

In this case it wouldn’t be over oil, it would be over water. 

Both countries have an eye on the fresh water and hydroelectric power from the Brahmaputra River.
Water is not the only resource in question, though. 

Earlier in 2016, China prevented India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which controls the trade of nuclear material and tech.

Technology and numbers

A pilot in the cockpit of a Jian-10 fighter jet at Yangcun Air Force base on the outskirts of Tianjin municipality, April 13, 2010, during a media trip to the 24th Air Force Division of the People's Liberation Army.

China and India are now economic powerhouses, 2nd and 7th (respectively) in world GDP rankings. Militarily, India is number four on the GlobalFirepower rankings and boasts the largest standing volunteer army at 1.13 million troops with 21 million in reserve. 

Ranked number three on the same scale, China’s armed forces have 2.3 million active troops with another 2.3 million in reserve.
China’s technology is superior to India’s, but not by much. 

The Chinese air forces also vastly outnumber India’s somewhat antiquated air force. 

The Chinese also have a homegrown version of the F-35, which can outmatch India’s 50-year-old MiG-21s. 

The Chinese J-20 is currently the best for Chinese air superiority, if it’s operational in time for such a conflict.
India is working with Russia on developing a 5th-generation Sukhoi fighter with capabilities similar to the American F-22. 

But the Indian air force has been outnumbered and outclassed on many occasions and still came up with a win. 

Training and experience count for a lot. More on that in a minute.
The Indian Navy's Scorpene submarine INS Kalvari escorted by tugboats as it arrives at Mazagon Docks Ltd, a naval-vessel ship-building yard, in Mumbai, India, October 29, 2015.

India’s Navy matches China’s with two aircraft carrier groups but China still edges India in technological capability — barely. 

China also dwarfs India’s tank and submarine corps, with five times as many of each. China also has twice as many warships and military aircraft.
India’s advantage is that, despite China’s superiority in merchant marine, its sea lanes come very close to Indian waters. 

This would force the Chinese to divert ships used for a blockade to protect their shipping. 

This is why both countries invest in developing submarines and anti-sub technology.
No matter what, the air and sea war would be a slugfest. 

Even so, the primary conflict would likely be between two land armies. 

Or three if Pakistan decides to take advantage of the situation.

Joota on the ground
Chinese paramilitary policemen take an oath ahead of the 96th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Kunming, Yunnan province, China.

The problem with the major border disputes is that the border in question is high in the Himalayas, making quick thrusts and land grabs unlikely. 

A large disparity in ground troops between the opposing forces will decide who advances. 

China may have the manpower to make taking the disputed provinces possible.
A significant difference in India’s favor is that its troops are battle-hardened and have a long tradition of fighting to defend India’s borders. 

The Indian Army has been fighting Pakistan, terrorism, and a host of insurgencies for decades. 

Its last war ended in 1999, and it has employed significant paramilitary and special operations forces ever since.
The Chinese haven’t seen real fighting since the 1979 war with Vietnam. 

That war lasted just shy of four weeks, with each side claiming victory. 

The Chinese wanted to punish Vietnam for being in the Soviet sphere while proving to the world the USSR could not protect its allies. 

It didn’t work. 

The Vietnamese repelled the Chinese People’s Liberation Army using only border militias.
India's Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel pose for pictures inside their base camp in New Delhi, November 6, 2014.

The truth is, the Chinese PLA, for all its growth and advances in technology, has not truly been tested since the Korean War. 

China’s biggest equalizer is its ballistic missile force, capable of hitting well inside India.
China’s biggest advantage is its economy. 

If it suffers no sanctions as a result of an invasion, it could sustain a protracted war much longer than India. 

In this instance, India’s best hope is to strangle Chinese shipping using its sizable submarine force. India sits with its boot on the neck of the Chinese economy.
If it came to a nuclear exchange, India would not fare well. 

China has a stockpile of ballistic missiles and with major Indian cities so close to the Chinese border, it doesn’t even need longer-ranged weapons to annihilate major urban centers. 

Conversely, India has few of these and primary targets in China are much further away. 

Luckily, both countries have a “no first use” policy, making a nuclear exchange unlikely.

How it plays out
An officer from the Indian Central Reserve Police Force during preparations for Republic Day parade, near the Presidential Palace in New Delhi, India, January 12, 2016. India marks Republic Day on January 26.

India invading China is highly unlikely. 

The Indian Army would not have the ground force necessary to drive through the Himalayas and sustain such a push.
This war would be fought with light infantry, mountain troops, and light armor. 

China has the advantage in numbers, but India has experienced veteran soldiers. 

Even aircraft would have trouble fighting in these mountains, but the Indian Army has developed specialized attack helicopters just for this purpose: the HAL Druv and HAL Light Attack helicopters.
China has very few airfields in the area, which would limit its ability to provide air cover, whereas India’s Air Force maintains considerable assets in the area.
India also has multiple layers of anti-air and anti-missile defense and is developing more. 

China would have to get the bulk of its ground forces across the Himalayas as fast as possible, or the war would grind to a halt.
Any halt to the Chinese advance would be a de facto win for India. 

China would have to completely capture the disputed territories and move into India to be able to claim victory. 

China’s only real chance to progress into the subcontinent is to perform an Inchon landing-style maneuver from the sea, but that would require going through India’s submarine force unopposed.
Soldiers from a special unit of the People's Armed Police in Xinjiang at a training session in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China.

Frankly, any conflict between the two would be explosive and bloody, requiring a lot of manpower and ending with a massive loss of life. 

The geography and population density between the two countries makes both of them unconquerable.

Chinese Racism

Indians more amused than outraged by Chinese '7 Sins' video

Reuters

This video, released by Chinese state news agency Xinhua, accuses India of perpetrating "Seven Sins."

NEW DELHI -- Indians have been more amused than outraged by an agitprop video released by a Chinese state news agency that accuses India of perpetrating "Seven Sins" in a two-month-old frontier standoff and resorts to a racial stereotype to make its point.
The video, an edition of Xinhua's new "Spark" show, features anchor Dier Wang accusing India of trespassing on Chinese soil, violating international law and "hijacking" the tiny kingdom of Bhutan that has been caught up in the dispute.
An actor wearing a turban and stick-on beard gives obtuse answers, to canned laughter, in the three-minute video posted via Xinhua's English-language account on social network Twitter (http://bit.ly/2vK7HQp). 

Twitter is blocked in China.
"Have you ever negotiated with a robber who had broken into your house and refuses to leave?" asks Wang in American-accented English. 

"You just call 911 or just fight him back, right?"
The actor, apparently representing India, answers: "Why call 911 -- don't you wanna play house, bro?"
Wang gets the last word: "If you wanna play, get out of my house first."
The trouble started in June when India sent troops to stop China building a road in the Doklam area, which is remote, uninhabited territory claimed by both China and India's ally Bhutan.
China has repeatedly asked India to withdraw from the area or else face the prospect of an escalation. Chinese state media have warned India of a fate worse than its crushing defeat in a brief border war in 1962.
Although the escalation in tension is the worst in years, the clip's sketchy production values offered light relief while the stereotype played by the "Indian" actor appeared to cause only mild offence.
"This is China's official sense of humour!" tweeted Indian defence pundit Ajai Shukla. 

"Xinhua isn't quite sure whether it's producing a spoof ... or a propaganda piece."
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing that she had not seen the video, but would look into it.
India's foreign ministry could not be reached for comment. 

Xinhua asked for questions about the video to be sent by fax, to which it did not immediately respond.

Chinese Aggressions

Japan backs India on Doka La standoff, flays China's efforts to change status quo by force

Firstpost

With both India and China showing no signs of backing down or coming to a solution, the Doka La standoff in Sikkim has turned into a global talking point. 

While China is targetting Bhutan because it is the last man standing in India's immediate neighbourhood, the attempt to place its soldiers in the tri-junction is increasingly being seen by experts as a mistake that would push New Delhi closer to Washington and Tokyo.
After the United States urged India and China to work together to come up with some sort of arrangement for peace, Japan on Friday blatantly came out in support of New Delhi.
Japanese Ambassador Kenji Hiramatsu's statement, that there should be no "unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force", comes just a month ahead of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to India.
"We understand that the area is disputed between China and Bhutan and that both countries recognise the existence of a dispute," NDTV quoted him as saying.
While urging all involved parties to resolve the dispute in a peaceful manner, the ambassador said that Japan has been watching the situation very closely because it has the ability to affect the stability of the entire region.
On India's position, he said, "We also understand that India has a treaty understanding with Bhutan, that's why Indian troops got involved in the area." 

According to an India Today report, Hiramatsu said that India's involvement is understandable based on its bilateral agreements with Bhutan.
"External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has made it clear that India would continue to engage with dialogue through diplomatic channels to find a mutually acceptable solution. We consider this attitude towards peaceful resolution important," he added.
Japan's stand and unequivocal support to India is important because China has been trying to redraw the boundaries and position itself as a regional hegemony in Asia by potentially stalling all balancing efforts by countries like India and Japan, as this Firstpost article points out. 

The Indian Express quoted some sources as saying that Japan itself has been at the receiving end of Chinese expansionism and it understands New Delhi's position better than many. 

Government sources pointed out Japan's difficulties between 2012 and 2014, when ties between China and Japan were frayed by a territorial row over Japan's Senkaku islands.
Japan was also the only country who had indicated certain unwillingness to cooperate with China on its ambition One Belt One Road project. 

US and Japan also conducted the Malabar Naval Exercise with India amid the standoff, possibly indicating their continued support to New Delhi.
After a barrage of neutral arguments from countries like Nepal and the United Kingdom, government sources quoted by The Indian Express feel that Japan's support has reinforced New Delhi's arguments.

The Necessary War

China and India's Border Standoff Heats Up in Kashmir
By Aijaz Hussain

The Pangong lake high up in Ladahak region of India on June 17, 2016. 

SRINAGAR, India — Indian and Chinese soldiers yelled and hurled stones at one another high in the Himalayas in Indian-controlled Kashmir, Indian officials said Wednesday, potentially escalating tensions between two nations already engaged in a lengthy border standoff elsewhere.
The Chinese soldiers hurled stones while attempting to enter Ladakh region near Pangong Lake on Tuesday but were confronted by Indian soldiers, said a top police officer. 

The officer said Indian soldiers retaliated but neither side used guns.
China did not comment directly on the reported incident, but called on India to comply with earlier agreements and help maintain peace and stability along the border.
An Indian intelligence officer said the confrontation occurred after Indian soldiers intercepted a Chinese patrol that veered into Indian-held territory after apparently it lost its way due to bad weather.
The officer said that soon the soldiers began shouting at each other and later threw stones. 

He said some soldiers from both sides received minor injuries.
After nearly 30 minutes of facing off, the two sides retreated to their positions, he said.
An Indian military officer said the skirmish was brief but violent and for the first time stones were used.
All the officers spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Soldiers from the two countries are already locked in a bitter but non-violent standoff in Doklam, an area disputed between China and India's ally Bhutan, where New Delhi sent its soldiers in June to stop China from constructing a strategic road.
China demands that Indian troops withdraw unilaterally from the Doklam standoff before any talks can be held, while New Delhi says each side should stand down. 

China and India fought a border war in 1962 and much of their frontier remains unsettled despite several rounds of official-level talks.
In Beijing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Chinese troops sought to avoid confrontations and said India should "make tangible efforts to maintain the peace and stability of the border areas between the two countries."
The website of New Delhi-based English weekly India Today quoted a report by the Indian military intelligence, which said the use of stones was unprecedented and appeared intended to heighten tension without using lethal weapons. 

The report said the worst that has happened earlier was an isolated slap or pushing between soldiers from the two sides.
India's worries over Chinese repeated border crossings into Kashmir's Ladakh region have seen a massive Indian army buildup in the cold desert in recent years.
The disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir is divided between nuclear-armed India, Pakistan and China. 

The part held by China is contiguous to Tibet.

Squeezed by an India-China Standoff, Bhutan Holds Its Breath

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

The Indian Army’s headquarters in Haa, Bhutan, close to a disputed border with China.

HAA, Bhutan — India’s main garrison in the Kingdom of Bhutan sits only 13 miles from a disputed border with China. 

There is a training academy, a military hospital, a golf course — all testament to India’s enduring role defending this tiny Himalayan nation.
Earlier this summer, China began extending an unpaved road in the disputed territory, and India sent troops and equipment to block the work. 

The incursion has resulted in a tense standoff that has lasted more than 50 days, with Indian soldiers facing Chinese troops who have dug in just a few hundred yards away.
At a time when North Korea and the United States are trading threats of war, China and India — the world’s two most populous nations — have engaged in increasingly bellicose exchanges over this remote border dispute, evoking memories of their bloody conflict in 1962 as the world’s attention was focused on the Cuban missile crisis.
There are fears that ambition and nationalism could lead them to war again, but now with more firepower at their disposal.

Indian workers hired by the nation’s army to improve the Bhutanese road network.

Caught between these two nuclear rivals seeking regional dominance is Bhutan, a mountain nation of 800,000 with a mystical reputation and a former king who popularized the concept of “gross national happiness” as a measure of a country’s well-being.

India says it is acting on Bhutan’s behalf in the standoff. 

“In the case of war between India and China, we would be the meat in the sandwich,” said Pema Gyamtsho, a leader of the opposition party in Bhutan’s National Assembly. 

“It shouldn’t have to be a choice,” he added, referring to his nation’s ties with India and China, “but it is at the moment.”
For decades, Bhutan has chosen India. 

More than a half century ago, Bhutan watched warily as China’s Communists took power and eventually occupied neighboring Tibet, with which it has close ethnic, cultural and religious ties. India offered to defend the kingdom, and Bhutan accepted.

On the surface, the dispute turns on 34 square miles of land claimed by both Bhutan and China. 

India has accused China of extending the road to expand its control of the territory, comparing the move to Beijing’s efforts to cement its claims in the South China Sea by transforming reefs into islands.

The disputed area is strategically significant because it slopes into a narrow Indian valley that connects central India to its landlocked northeastern states. 

India calls it the Chicken’s Neck and has long feared that China could seize it in a war, splitting its territory.

An Indian Army officer looking on as Indian workers repaired a road in the Bhutanese border region.

India ordered its troops across the border on June 16.

China has been talking tough, with near-daily warnings against India. 

Commodore Liu Tang, a deputy commander of the South China Sea Fleet, warned last week in The People’s Liberation Army Daily that China’s restraint thus far was “not without a bottom line.” 

The headline declared, “China’s territory is large, but not an inch of land is redundant.”

India has put more troops on alert in recent days, suggesting that it, too, is not prepared to back down.
In Haa, a small village an arduous day’s hike from where the troops are squaring off, the dispute is like distant thunder, a warning of storms that may come but are not yet anything to worry about.
The standoff does not, so far, involve Bhutanese forces, and state television and even the independent news media have followed the government’s lead and said virtually nothing about the conflict.
One resident of Haa said that a relative had happened on Chinese soldiers digging trenches while he herded his yak along the border. 

But the authorities have since closed the foot trails to the disputed area.
That has shut down an informal shuttle trade with Tibetan towns on the Chinese side of the border. For years traders have traveled back and forth on foot or horseback, selling cordyceps — known as Himalayan Viagra — and other medicinal herbs from Bhutan. 

They return with electronic goods, carpets, silks and clothing.
In a country where per capita economic output — not the happiness index — reached a high of $2,751 last year, the trade has become a livelihood along the border.

Farmers harvesting potatoes in the Haa valley. 

Nima Dorji, a shopkeeper in Haa, said he had not received any shipments since the border routes were closed, and worried that he might have to look elsewhere to restock. 

“We do not talk much about it,” he said. 

“It is very sensitive.”
Bhutanese officials have maintained a pointed silence, preferring ambiguity to the risk of offending either India or China. 

The Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment; nor did the prime minister, Tshering Tobgay. 

The foreign minister, Damcho Dorji, said on Friday that he hoped the situation would be resolved “peacefully and amicably.”

There are four border areas in dispute: two in the north and two in the west, including the place where the standoff has unfolded. 

In 1998, China proposed ceding the northern areas to Bhutan in exchange for the western ones. 

And while Bhutan agreed in principle, a final agreement has not been reached.

A training ground for a Bhutanese military school in Haa, an arduous day’s hike from where Indian and Chinese troops are squaring off. 

After the latest round of talks in Beijing last year, the two sides seemed to be nearing a consensus, though prospects for a new round now seem uncertain.
Since signing a friendship treaty with India in 1949, Bhutan has relied almost exclusively on India for its defense. 

To this day India trains and pays the salaries of the Royal Bhutan Army, while its engineering corps builds and maintains Bhutan’s hairpin mountain roads. 

The exact number is not public, but India usually keeps 300 to 400 troops in Bhutan.
The relationship has evolved along with the country itself, and as fears that Bhutan could be subsumed by China have faded.
In 2006, Bhutan’s revered fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, abdicated after overseeing a democratic transition that culminated in elections for a national assembly in 2008 and 2013. 

The advent of parliamentary politics has generated increased debate about further opening a country that did not allow television until 1999.
And after decades of tilting almost exclusively south, Bhutan has begun looking north to China.
In 2012, the prime minister at the time met with his Chinese counterpart at a Group of 20 summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro. 

Not long afterward, India cut subsidies to Bhutan for cooking oil and kerosene. 

The move was widely seen as retaliation, and the ruling party in Bhutan lost the next election.
The lure of better relations with China is money. 

In addition to the shuttle trade, there is tourism, one of Bhutan’s biggest industries. 

Indians do not need visas to travel to Bhutan, but Chinese must pay $250 a day in advance for vacation packages. 

Still, for the first time last year, more visitors came from China than from any other country besides India.
Chinese fascination with Bhutan bloomed after one of Hong Kong’s biggest movie stars, Tony Leung, married the actress Carina Lau here in 2008. 

The wedding three years later of the current king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, also stoked interest after footage of it went viral in China.

The Necessary War

In a War Over Doklam, China Will Be the Eventual Loser
BY ONKAR MARWAH

A signboard is seen from the Indian side of the India-China border at Bumla. Credit: Reuters

On June 16, it became public information that Indian troops had entered the Doklam region near the Chumbi Valley tri-junction area wedged between Bhutan, India and Tibet/China, and stopped a Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) construction crew from completing the hard-surfacing of an earlier dirt track.
The Doklam plateau is one of the disputed territories between Bhutan and China.
It is closely opposite Sikkim and slightly north of the narrow Siliguri corridor connecting the mainland territory of India to its seven northeastern states and region.
Bhutan and China do not have formal diplomatic relations.
Despite that, the two states have held a number of meetings to resolve their boundary differences inclusive of the Doklam area, without any resolution so far.
Separately, framework agreements between India and China lay down that no unilateral changes to the territorial status quo in their disputed boundary areas will be undertaken by any party – in this instance, inclusive of Bhutan – pending a final, mutually-acceptable delineation.
Independently, there is a longstanding agreement between Bhutan and India allocating to and allowing India to provide security to Bhutan.

Genesis of the stand-off
The attempted hard-surfacing of the earlier dirt track in Doklam by China was in the disputed area between Bhutan and China.
India intervened and stopped the Chinese effort to unilaterally change the status quo under terms of its own agreements with China, and in support of its security obligations to Bhutan.
China, on the other hand, has from the very beginning asserted that the territory in dispute with Bhutan is ‘Chinese sovereign land,’ which India forcefully disagrees with.
It needs to be recalled that despite a series of meetings over the years between Indian and Chinese representatives concerning their own bilateral borders, the latter has never seen fit to present actual delineations of their idea of the boundary line between India and China in visual form for the northern (Ladakh), central (Uttarakhand) and eastern (Arunachal Pradesh) sectors; that is, of the entire Himalayan borderlands in dispute.

Indian sketch map of the Doklam region. Credit: By special arrangement

India has been ready, able and willing to do so for as many years.
The suspicion on the Indian side is that the Chinese, for reasons unexplained but not entirely unfathomable, want to deliberately keep the entire intra-Himalayan borderlands in tension-play between their two countries.
This is an issue that is seldom brought up by analysts.
The fact is that neither pre-British India nor (earlier) Tibet had any problem about precise delineation of the borderlands in the Himalayan shatter-belt region.
The British tried to mark it employing the (sensible) accepted international legal principle of the ‘highest watershed’ range forming the boundary.
The Chinese now artfully use these delineations as it suits them – rejecting them (McMahon Line in Arunachal Pradesh) or using them (the same McMahon Line extension in settling the border with Burma/Myanmar).
Currently, they are willing to cite the British-China 1890 convention, which excluded Tibet, in support of their claims in the Doklam area.
Such a negotiating stance leaves them supple enough to change track as and when required.
The Chinese also frequently publicise claims to having amicably settled border issues with all its 14 neighbours except India and Bhutan.
The implication is that the latter are being unnecessarily intransigent.
This rings hollow to the Indians and only raises further doubt about China’s ultimate intentions.
In 2013 and again in 2014 there were extended border stand-offs between India and China in the Ladakh area (Depsang and Chumar, respectively).
On both occasions, it was Chinese troops that had intruded into Indian territory.
Both intrusions were sorted out by local commanders and through diplomatic parleys in a relatively short time, with the Chinese troops vacating their ingress.
In the Dokolam instance, the disagreement has remained frozen for almost two months, with both countries standing their ground.
China immediately ratcheted up the rhetoric in high decibel and demanded from the very beginning that India withdraw its small contingent of troops from the ‘Chinese territory’ before any talks could be held.
China’s state-owned media has been inspired or let loose to express Chinese ire, fire and brimstone on India almost daily.
Both countries’ state agencies have also published their formal positions, the Chinese in a 15-page note and the Indians in a shorter one.
India (including its media) has been quieter in its responses to China’s harangue, but has refused to budge from its position that China attempted to unilaterally alter the status quo in disputed territory while rough-riding over both intra-bilateral and inter-trilateral agreements between themselves and those impinging on Bhutan respectively.
Given the present impasse and China’s continued threats of violent action, a military conflict is possible, even if, hopefully, not probable.
What would a repeat conflict in the high mountains between India and China be like, and entail in its aftermath?

What could happen next?
The major assumption is that China initiates the military assault.
It may proclaim beforehand some provocation by Indian forces that led to the onset of hostilities.
Or, in hubris and openly, use the time-tested phrase: ‘teaching a lesson’ to its adversary.
Hereafter, the assumptions encompass both countries:
It would be a localised and sharp, short war.
Neither side would wish to prolong or enlarge it.
It would be a largely ‘long-distance-ordnance and short-distance-projectile’ war by land or air. Troops would be used sparingly, only where skirmishing is unavoidable, and mainly to hold ground. Special Operations Forces could be used by both sides for disruption or quick gains.
Armour could be employed by both in the Ladakh area and the Tawang area of Arunachal Pradesh.
It could be initiated in Doklam and simultaneously in other disputed areas, e.g. Ladakh, Uttarakhand or Arunachal Pradesh.
Cyber or electronic measures and countermeasures as well as drones (armed and for surveillance) could be used to befuddle the opponent.
Satellite imagery for monitoring the opponent’s movements and capability would be available to both sides.
Airpower could be employed to damage rearward supply lines – but used to interdict forward formations only to blunt an unacceptable ground advance of the adversary.
The navies would be on alert and ready to intervene, but not deployed for warfare unless the hostilities spread in time and space.
This is unlikely.
Pakistan will not intervene on China’s side.
No state will intervene on India’s side.

Objectives
This is the real mystery.
What calculation propelled China to immediately inflate and inflame the disputed Doklam strip of a hitherto hidden, uninhabited but disputed Himalayan land to the level of a major confrontation with India; and convert it swiftly into an issue of war and ‘face’ for both sides?
Did it think India would meekly and publicly back down?
Was it to frighten the Bhutanese away from their connect with India?
Or, that after their imperious and unimpeded takeover of the South China Sea everything seemed possible?
Perhaps an ‘unequal’ India was becoming too obstreperous and needed to be cut down to size?
There are a host of other surmises, but let them rest.
As the Jedi Master would say: the reason, we will never know.
As for the Indian side, it is apparent that the current NDA governmental dispensation is more rigid than the previous one.
The earlier UPA government had adopted a low-keyed response to Chinese incursions in the Himalayan border areas.
Whatever the consequences of the changed Indian stance, the confrontation-die is now cast for both sides.

File photo of Xi Jinping with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Military action
Despite their aggressive stance, there has been very little movement of major manpower and military equipment to the border areas on the Chinese side.
Indian leaders have publicly reassured citizens that there is adequate military capability and means deployed in the northern border areas for any eventuality.
China, however, possesses 35,000 airborne troops who can be airlifted and para-dropped at selected points quickly.
The Tibet region also has a substantial network of road and rail communications reasonably close to India’s borders.
As the initiator of hostilities, China could choose to make a feint in one place but mount a serious attack elsewhere.
The Barahoti area in Uttarakhand appears to be the most vulnerable, but Ladakh would have greater strategic value for them.
It gives access to Hunza/Baltistan, and a link up with northern Pakistan in the future.
Nothing can be predicted.
India would need to be prepared in all these places.
It would need to have an ‘offensive defence’ strategy whereby it could mount a riposte with seizure of adjoining territory in Tibet to later exchange with whatever the Chinese seize.
Overall, India would basically need to resist enough – either frontally disallowing any significant Chinese gain or by adverse riposte control of limited Tibetan territory to stalemate the situation.
The ‘perception’ gain or loss would be important to both states since the whole world would be watching.
A stalemate with minor ‘gains’ for a later trade-off would be the ideal outcome for both states. Leaders on both sides could present the results fuzzily as having ‘won’.
 Neither would lose ‘face’ before their peoples, or elsewhere – nor be weakened against rivals vying to replace them in internal power structures.
Ultimately, it would a matter of perception who ‘wins’ or ‘loses’.
Since the dispute originates in a remote strip of mountainous ground and is limited in scope, one side could trumpet a pyrrhic ‘victory’ following minor gains.
The other could also do the same, while simultaneously adumbrating that it had not buckled under the threats or hauteur of an overweening neighbour.
It would just be a matter of manipulating perceptions, and slickly influencing the world’s media.

Impact
Irrespective of the conflict and its results, China is likely to be the eventual loser.
It is already resented, if silently, in East and Southeast Asia for its overbearing ways, and additionally elsewhere for its predatory economic behaviour even if laden with ostensible largesse.
A war for paltry purpose of a disputed but unknown Himalayan ridge and plateau claimed by tiny, peaceful Bhutan – especially if the war is indecisive – will hugely puncture China’s unbending and all-accomplishing image so assiduously built up.
It will also probably push India towards states East or West that are as or more powerful than China economically and militarily – or will remain or become as powerful as China.
It is only a matter of time, perhaps a decade or so, before India also acquires sufficient economic and military power to manifestly ‘equalise’ Chinese capacities in all realms.
The effort to acquire such sufficiency would be redoubled in the aftermath of a conflict.
There is no magic involved in the process of economic and military advance when all the under pinners for it have already been created.
They become a mundane and certain-to-be reality.
Indeed, the real magic in the eyes of the world would lie in the contrasting reality that India goes on to achieve those capacities by open democratic means for a younger population soon greater than in an ageing, authoritarian China.

Co-existing without collision
In an age of mass-destruction weapons, and a host of new, esoteric technology weapons soon at hand for major and even minor powers, wars perforce have to be ‘limited’ for all those who are able to possess such weapons.
Limited wars will usually lead to limited outcomes.
That is especially true for large states with large destructive capabilities and inhering newer technologies churning out new and precise means of destruction.
The Chinese saying is that there cannot be two tigers on the mountain.
The Indians know, however, that in Asia at least, with sensitivities based on questions of ‘face’ and the roll-calls of long histories, there have always been two suns in the sky.
Both these civilisation-states need an honest compact to co-exist without periodic collisions.
Perhaps a short, non-conclusive war will encourage such thinking.

Chinese Aggressions

India Steps Up Alert Amid Heightened Tensions With China
By SCOTT NEUMAN

Exiled Tibetans shout slogans during a protest to show support for India on the Doklam standoff in New Delhi, India, on Friday. Tsering Topgyal/AP

India has increased a military alert along its eastern border with China, moving troops and weapons into the region amid a weeks-long standoff between the two countries that shows no signs of resolution.
As NPR's Julie McCarthy reported last month, New Delhi and Beijing have been at odds over a strategic region called the Doklam Plateau, which is claimed both by China and by India's tiny ally, Bhutan.
In June, China began construction to extend a road there in an apparent effort to press its claim. 

In response, India sent troops as a show of force, sparking anger from China which says the affair is none of its business.
Beijing demanded that Indian forces withdrawal, but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has refused.
India's Defense Minister Arun Jaitley told parliament this week that the country's armed forces are "fully prepared" in the event of conflict with China.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Indian troops in Sikkim, south of Doklam, have been put on heightened alert, although the news agency quoted an unnamed source as saying it was "out of caution."
In 1962, India and China fought a bloody month-long border war. 

The neighbors also have a continuing dispute over the sovereignty Aksai Chin, a Himalayan region on their extreme western border.
Doklam is strategically close to a sliver of land called the "Chicken's Neck" that is India's only land corridor to its frequently restive northeast.
The two countries have also long been at odds over India's hosting of Tibet's government-in-exile and their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, considered by China to be subversive.

India's military steps up operational readiness on China border

By Sanjeev Miglani

NEW DELHI -- India's military has increased operational readiness along the eastern Indian border with China, sources said, as neither side shows any sign of backing off from a face-off in a remote Himalayan region near their disputed frontier.
Indian and Chinese troops have been embroiled in the seven-week confrontation on the Doklam plateau, claimed by both China and India's tiny ally, Bhutan.
The sources, who were briefed on the deployment, said they did not expect the tensions, involving about 300 soldiers on each side standing a few hundred feet apart, to escalate into a conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors, who fought a brief but bloody border war in 1962.
But the military alert level had been raised as a matter of caution, two sources in New Delhi and in the eastern state of Sikkim told Reuters on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The crisis began in June when a Chinese construction crew was found to be trying to extend a road in the Doklam region that both China and the mountainous nation of Bhutan claim as theirs.
India, which has special ties with Bhutan, sent its troops to stop the construction, igniting anger in Beijing which said New Delhi had no business to intervene, and demanded a unilateral troop withdrawal.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration, though, has dug in its heels and said that the Chinese road activity in the region near the borders of India, Bhutan and China was a threat to the security of its own northeast region.
"The army has moved to a state that is called 'no war, no peace'," one of the sources said. 

Under the order issued to all troop formations in the eastern command a week ago, soldiers are supposed take up positions that are earmarked for them in the event of a war, the source said.
Each year, Indian troop formations deployed on the border go on such an "operational alert" usually in September and October. 

But this year the activity has been advanced in the eastern sector, the source in Sikkim, above which lies the area of the current standoff, said.
"Its out of caution. It has been done because of the situation," the source said. 

But the source stressed there was no additional force deployment and that the area was well defended.
The move comes as diplomatic efforts to break the stalemate failed to make headway, other sources with close ties to the Modi government told Reuters earlier in the week.
China has repeatedly warned of an escalation if India did not order its troops back. 

The state-controlled Global Times which has kept a barrage of hostile commentary said this week that if Modi continued the present course in the border, Beijing would have to take "counter-measures".
Ties between the neighbors have been souring over China's military assistance to India's arch rival Pakistan and its expanding presence in smaller nations in South Asia which New Delhi long regarded as its area of influence.
China has criticized the Modi government's public embrace of the Dalai Lama and its decision to let the Tibetan spiritual leader, whom it regards as a "dangerous splittist", to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh which China claims as its own.
China has also frowned at India's expanding military ties with the United States as well as Japan.

The Necessary War

Indian army asks villagers to move from Sikkim border
Express News Service

NEW DELHI -- As the tension at the border with China continues in Sikkim, Indian army has asked district administration to evacuate local villagers close to the faceoff site. 

Though sources in the army calling the move as ‘precautionary’ but it is also seen as army’s preparation to take on any eventuality.
Sources said over 100 local residents of Nathang village, which is close to the Doklam, the tri-junction between India-Bhutan-China, have been asked to vacate and to move to safer locations, in order to avoid any civilian casualties if situation escalates to a short war or may be a skirmish. 

The Nathang village is located 35 km away from Doklam in Sikkim sector.
Moreover, Army has also issued an Operational Alert for its formations guarding the area. 

Sukma based 33 Corps, which looks after Sikkim has advanced its annual training exercise, which including stocking of ration for winter, familiarising troops to the new area by acclimatization at higher altitude. 

However, the Indian Army has called the troop movement in the area a regular maintenance move.
China has been sending warning signals to India along with consolidating its presence close to the faceoff site. 

In fact on Wednesday, China Daily warned that ‘the countdown to a clash between the two forces has begun’.
China has been insisting that India withdraws its troops from Doklam where both sides have been locked in a nearly two-month stand-off. 

On the other hand, the New Delhi is for a simultaneous withdrawal from Doklam, which, it says, belongs to its other neighbour Bhutan.
State run Global Times, by quoting the Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said that at nearly ’53 people and a bulldozer from the Indian side remain in Chinese territory as of Monday’. 

The ministry said: “India should withdraw its troops and equipment. Regardless of how many Indian troops have trespassed into and stayed in Chinese territory, they have gravely infringed on China’s sovereignty.”
India has been maintaining to solve the issue diplomatically. 

War is not a solution and India would resolve the standoff with China through dialogue, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj said in Parliament last week. 

But China has not budged from its stand that India must unilaterally withdraw its troops from Doklam.

Words of Wisdom

Talks are only way for India, China to end standoff, Dalai Lama says
By Malini Menon

Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama

NEW DELHI -- India and China will have to resolve their prolonged military standoff in a remote Himalayan region through talks, the Dalai Lama said on Wednesday, ruling out the chance of war because it would be destructive to both parties.
Indian and Chinese troops have been embroiled in a seven-week confrontation on the Doklam plateau, claimed by both China and India's tiny ally, Bhutan.
The Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India after fleeing a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet, said there would be no victors in a war and talks were the only option.
"This century should be a century of dialogue," the Nobel peace laureate said in the Indian capital. "One-side victory, one-side defeat is old thinking. Destruction of your neighbor is destruction of yourself. The only way is through talks."
Indian troops went into Doklam in mid-June to stop a Chinese construction crew from extending a road India's military says will bring China's army too close for comfort in the northeast.
Beijing has demanded India leave the area, and low-key talks between the neighbors have produced no breakthrough, raising fears the two could stumble into a conflict.
India and China have a 3,500-km (2,175-mile) -long mountain border over which they fought a 1962 war that ended in India's defeat. 

They have since failed to settle the border, leading to frequent claims of intrusions into each other's territories.
The chance of a conflict was low, however, despite exchanges of harsh words, the Dalai Lama said.
"Two big nations don't have the ability to eliminate the other or defeat the other. So you have to live side by side."
Tension between India and China has been rising over several issues. 

India is concerned over Beijing's military collaboration with arch rival Pakistan as well as its expanding involvement in infrastructure development across South Asia.
China has railed against the Indian government's public embrace of the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, whom it regards as a "dangerous splittist."
The Dalai Lama said there was a chance dialogue could resume with Xi Jinping's representatives after a Communist Party congress set for Oct-Nov that is expected to confirm Xi for a second term as party general secretary and could reshuffle other top posts.
"Some of my friends say, after the 19th party meeting, some old politburo member may change because of age. So my friends say, after the 19th party meeting, there could be some possibility, some change."
There have been no formal talks between Beijing and the Dalai Lama's representatives since 2010.

Calling the Chinese Bully’s Bluff

By Brahma Chellaney

NEW DELHI – The more power China has accumulated, the more it has attempted to achieve its foreign-policy objectives with bluff, bluster, and bullying. 

But, as its Himalayan border standoff with India’s military continues, the limits of this approach are becoming increasingly apparent.
The current standoff began in mid-June, when Bhutan, a close ally of India, discovered the People’s Liberation Army trying to extend a road through Doklam, a high-altitude plateau in the Himalayas that belongs to Bhutan, but is claimed by China. 

India, which guarantees tiny Bhutan’s security, quickly sent troops and equipment to halt the construction, asserting that the road – which would overlook the point where Tibet, Bhutan, and the Indian state of Sikkim meet – threatened its own security.
Since then, China’s leaders have been warning India almost daily to back down or face military reprisals. 

China’s defense ministry has threatened to teach India a “bitter lesson,” vowing that any conflict would inflict “greater losses” than the Sino-Indian War of 1962, when China invaded India during a Himalayan border dispute and inflicted major damage within a few weeks. 

Likewise, China’s foreign ministry has unleashed a torrent of vitriol intended to intimidate India into submission.
Despite all of this, India’s government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has kept its cool, refusing to respond to any Chinese threat, much less withdraw its forces. 

As China’s warmongering has continued, its true colors have become increasingly vivid. 

It is now clear that China is attempting to use psychological warfare (“psywar”) to advance its strategic objectives – to “win without fighting,” as the ancient Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu recommended.
China has waged its psywar against India largely through disinformation campaigns and media manipulation, aimed at presenting India – a raucous democracy with poor public diplomacy – as the aggressor and China as the aggrieved party. 

Chinese state media have been engaged in eager India-bashing for weeks. 

China has also employed “lawfare,” selectively invoking a colonial-era accord, while ignoring its own violations – cited by Bhutan and India – of more recent bilateral agreements.
For the first few days of the standoff, China’s psywar blitz helped it dominate the narrative. 

But, as China’s claims and tactics have come under growing scrutiny, its approach has faced diminishing returns. 

In fact, from a domestic perspective, China’s attempts to portray itself as the victim – claiming that Indian troops had illegally entered Chinese territory, where they remain – has been distinctly damaging, provoking a nationalist backlash over the failure to evict the intruders.
As a result, Xi Jinping’s image as a commanding leader, along with the presumption of China’s regional dominance, is coming under strain, just months before the critical 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

And it is difficult to see how Xi could turn the situation around.
Despite China’s overall military superiority, it is scarcely in a position to defeat India decisively in a Himalayan war, given India’s fortified defenses along the border. 

Even localized hostilities at the tri-border area would be beyond China’s capacity to dominate, because the Indian army controls higher terrain and has greater troop density. 

If such military clashes left China with so much as a bloodied nose, as happened in the same area in 1967, it could spell serious trouble for Xi at the upcoming National Congress.
But, even without actual conflict, China stands to lose. 

Its confrontational approach could drive India, Asia’s most important geopolitical “swing state,” firmly into the camp of the United States, China’s main global rival. 

It could also undermine its own commercial interests in the world’s fastest-growing major economy, which sits astride China’s energy-import lifeline.
Already, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has tacitly warned of economic sanctions if China, which is running an annual trade surplus of nearly $60 billion with India, continues to disturb border peace. 

More broadly, as China has declared unconditional Indian troop withdrawal to be a “prerequisite” for ending the standoff, India, facing recurrent Chinese incursions over the last decade, has insisted that border peace is a “prerequisite” for developing bilateral ties.
Against this background, the smartest move for Xi would be to attempt to secure India’s help in finding a face-saving compromise to end the crisis. 

The longer the standoff lasts, the more likely it is to sully Xi’s carefully cultivated image as a powerful leader, and that of China as Asia’s hegemon, which would undermine popular support for the regime at home and severely weaken China’s influence over its neighbors.
Already, the standoff is offering important lessons to other Asian countries seeking to cope with China’s bullying. 

For example, China recently threatened to launch military action against Vietnam’s outposts in the disputed Spratly Islands, forcing the Vietnamese government to stop drilling for gas at the edge of China’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.
China does not yet appear ready to change its approach. 

Some experts even predict that it will soon move forward with a “small-scale military operation” to expel the Indian troops currently in its claimed territory. 

But such an attack is unlikely to do China any good, much less change the territorial status quo in the tri-border area. 

It certainly won’t make it possible for China to resume work on the road it wanted to build. 

That dream most likely died when India called the Chinese bully’s bluff.

Sina Delenda Est

China and India may be on a path to war
By Allison Fedirka

In mid-June, a remote area called the Dolam plateau in the Himalayas where the boundaries of China, India and Bhutan meet made headlines when Indian and Chinese troops began a standoff over a road construction project. 

China conducted a live-fire exercise in the area, and there have been false reports of deaths. Diplomatic efforts are underway to de-escalate the situation, but still the risk of war has been on everyone’s mind.
The terrain and weather in the area, located in a region called Doklam, are anathema to war. 

And yet, almost exactly 55 years ago, China and India fought briefly over this and other contested border areas. 

So what is the strategic value of this seemingly obscure plateau? 

And would India and China really go to war again over it?

Worth Fighting For
Put two major powers next to each other, even on the world’s largest continent with buffer states between them, and they’re bound to bump heads from time to time. 

China and India have most often fought over Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh state, which borders China in an isolated patch of Indian territory east of what’s known as the Siliguri Corridor. 

The corridor is a narrow strip of land – just 17 miles (27 kilometers) wide at its narrowest point – that connects the rest of India to its northeastern states wedged between Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and China.

After the 1962 war between India and China – a war also over border disputes, specifically Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir – a border known as the McMahon Line was drawn between China and Arunachal Pradesh. 

China withdrew its troops from the area, but it didn’t recognize India’s sovereignty over the territory. India eventually annexed the Kingdom of Sikkim, which expanded the buffer it had to defend the Siliguri Corridor, and assumed the role of protecting Bhutan.
On the surface, the origins of this latest standoff seem innocuous. 

It began with China’s construction of a road on the outskirts of China’s western territory. 

The road leads toward the Chumbi Valley, which lies in the tri-border area between China, India and Bhutan. 

This small area dips between the other two countries.

As construction progressed, China tried to extend work into the Dolam plateau, which is claimed by Bhutan. 

India recognizes Bhutan’s claim; China does not. 

India and China each have over a billion people; Bhutan is smaller than the Dominican Republic and has a population of less than a million. 

Since it can’t stand up to its massive neighbors, Bhutan depends on India for defense. 

Rather than allow the road construction to continue, India sent troops to barricade the project. 

China sent a small number of its own troops in response, and the standoff commenced.
What makes this obscure plateau so important is its relationship to the surrounding landscape. 

The Dolam plateau overlooks the Chumbi Valley and would be arguably the most strategic staging area from which to defend – or attack – the Siliguri Corridor. 

To maintain its territorial integrity, India must control the corridor and meet any challenge to that control. 

For this reason, the government in New Delhi cannot tolerate the slightest Chinese presence, nor can it allow China access to Dolam – not even in the form of a road.
If China were to gain control of the Siliguri Corridor, it could cut India off from its northeastern states and stake its own claim to the territory. 

And this isn’t just some trivial collection of states: They host the upper half of the Brahmaputra River, which flows through Bangladesh and drains into the Indian Ocean. 

Whoever controls this river controls the freshwater supply and flow to Bangladesh. 

Assuming dominance over the Brahmaputra River would put China just a few steps from accessing the Indian Ocean via Bangladesh – by coercion, if necessary. 

Access to the Indian Ocean is a Chinese imperative because it would enable Beijing to bypass the many maritime chokepoints in the South China Sea and would make it much harder for the U.S. Navy to hem China in.
This is all hypothetical, of course, and won’t happen anytime soon. 

But conceptually it follows China’s strategy for Myanmar, where Beijing is attempting to secure access to the Indian Ocean through a series of soft power maneuvers. 

Like Myanmar, Bangladesh is much smaller than China. 

The situations aren’t perfectly analogous, however, because to influence Bangladesh, China must first conquer territory under the control of a near peer – India.
Nevertheless, this explains how China’s interest and actions in Doklam fit into its larger geopolitical imperative of reaching the Indian Ocean. 

Imperatives, by their nature, are always present. 

They don’t disappear just because a country can’t fulfill them in the present. 

Gaining geopolitical power requires understanding both the short and the long game.

Potential for War
The decision to wage war is never taken lightly. 

Aside from the moral components, a great deal of thought must go into analyzing the strategic value of the war, the logistics, and the cost and benefit. 

In other words, saying there is a potential for war because a few hundred troops are in a standoff is an oversimplification of what war would actually entail.

Military Situation
The first step is to understand the tactical dimensions of the situation. 

Reports on this standoff are imprecise – information about Indian troops has been circulated more freely than about Chinese troops in the area. 

At the construction site on the plateau there are believed to be about 300-400 soldiers from each side. Under normal circumstances, India maintains about 120-150 troops in the area. 

Estimates from early July of troop numbers in the general vicinity of Doklam were 3,000 for both sides, putting real troop levels at a little over 6,000.
Nearby in Sikkim state (the Indian state bordering Bhutan and China), India has a few thousand more troops. 

The 63rd Brigade in eastern Sikkim and the 112th Brigade in the north consist of about 3,000 men each. 

Reports also say that two battalions from the 164th Brigade have been activated and moved closer to the Chinese border. 

Whether these troops are counted in the estimates of Indian troop numbers stationed in the Doklam area is unclear. 

India also boasts three infantry mountain warfare divisions consisting of about 10,000 troops each that are on high operational readiness. 

Information on what types of weaponry the Indian soldiers around Doklam have is minimal.
Troop numbers on the Chinese side are much more ambiguous. 

The only publicized figure has been the 3,000-troop estimate. 

In late July, the Chinese defense minister said there were plans to strengthen the People’s Liberation Army’s deployment and increase exercises along the border, but he offered no specifics on troop numbers or timelines. 

What little we do know concerns the weaponry that China has in the area and comes as a result of a one-day live-fire exercise the PLA held in Tibet in mid-July. 

These drills included anti-tank grenades, missiles, small artillery (howitzers) and, according to rumors, a new Chinese-designed light tank. 

There have been no reports of aircraft or heavy artillery or vehicles in Doklam on either side.

Environment
Warfare in an area such as Doklam would ultimately require ground troops in order to capture and hold territory. 

Supply chain logistics and the ability to sustain troop levels then become critical not only for sustaining the fighting but also to maintain control over territory once the fighting ends. 

Whether this can be done depends heavily on terrain, logistics and weather. 

In a place like Doklam, the environmental factors make it extremely difficult and costly to wage any type of war.

Reaching altitudes as high as 14,000 feet, the region is surrounded by mountains. 

Even the lowest points of the valley are at an altitude of nearly 10,000 feet. 

This puts tremendous physical stress on soldiers. 

Any troops deploying would need 8-9 days to make their way up to the full elevation and get acclimated. 

Fatigue and other ailments related to the altitude would be much more likely than they would on a low-level plain.
The climate is generally inhospitable. 

During the summer, the temperatures peak in the 50s and 60s Fahrenheit (10-15 Celsius). 

Now is also the rainy season. 

During the winter, temperatures can easily drop below zero. 

There are few fixed facilities and accommodations for either military. 

On the Indian side, established facilities can hold only 150-200 people. 

Additional troops would need to use makeshift facilities and tents for shelter from the elements. Maintaining the health of troops in such intense conditions is challenging, and the risk is high of health problems that could reduce a soldier’s ability to fight.

Finally, there is the question of logistics. 

There are few roads in the area that lead to Doklam. 

Most of the roads are unpaved, and those that are paved are small or have few lanes. 

Anecdotes from people who have worked in the area suggest that in many cases it is easier to move through the region on foot – especially in the areas with small dirt roads – rather than deal with the complications of vehicular travel. 

During the rainy season, the integrity of the dirt roads cannot be guaranteed. 

Massive mud deposits or flooding can severely impede travel. 

Under these conditions, it would be a logistical nightmare to run supplies and maintain troops fighting in Doklam.

Bigger Problems
This standoff is not about to lead China and India to war in Doklam. 

Though both sides have strategic interests in the region, the costs of warfare would outweigh the potential gains. 

Regardless of which side won, the simple participation in such a war would be very costly in terms of finances, supplies, logistics and troops.
Any territory gained would be strategically valuable, but neither country is in a position to capitalize on it. 

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still trying to centralize government control and sustain the economy. 

A military conflict could compromise the progress he has made so far.
China has its own list of challenges that need to be resolved. 

Its impressive growth numbers paper over the gaping holes in its economy. 

Moreover, relations with the U.S. are tense, and there’s still the potential for military conflict on the Korean Peninsula. 

These issues are far more immediate and important than Doklam.
The area matters greatly to both countries, but not enough to outweigh the other issues they’re facing, and not enough to justify the costs of war.