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.

Know about India's real-life James Bond who stared China down at Doklam

ECONOMICTIMES.COM

Ajit Kumar Doval, the National Security Advisor, is being seen as the man responsible for the favourable outcome of India's conflict with China over Doklam.

Ajit Kumar Doval, the National Security Advisor (NSA) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is being seen as the man responsible for the favourable outcome of India's conflict with China over Doklam. 

Doval has become a cult figure due to his skillful operations, hawkish ideology and a background that echoes themes from spy movies. 

He attracts sharp criticism as well as blind adulation.
He is the man PM Modi is said to trust more than anyone else not only on national security but also on foreign relations. 

His popular 'Doval Doctrine' is behind the government's hard approach to terrorism and hostile countries.

Who is Doval?
Born in Pauri Garhwal, Doval is a Kerala-cadre IPS officer of the 1968 batch. 

He has served in the operations wing of Intelligence Bureau and was also its director in 2004–05. 

He was awarded the country’s second highest peacetime gallantry award, the Kirti Chakra. 

He became the first police officer to receive it. 

After he retired from IB, he set up a think tank, Vivekanand International Foundation (VIF) in 2009. 

He has extensive experience in counter-insurgency operations in the North East, Punjab, Paksitan and J&K.

Why is he called James Bond?
His life as a spy on the ground seems right out of cinema. 

A daredevil, he has often escaped death narrowly. 

He lived under cover in Pakistan for seven years, which is very unusual for an officer. 

Disguised as a Pakistani Muslim, he used to make friends among the locals by visiting mosques.
According to a report, he was once identified as a Hindu by a local from his pierced ears. 

Doval got a surgery done on his ears so that his cover cannot be blown. 

During terrorism in Punjab, he sneaked into Golden Temple right before Operation Black Thunder in 1988. 

He presented himself to the terrorists hiding within as an ISI spy who had come to help them. 

He gleaned information from terrorists and passed it on to the security agencies.

What is Doval Doctrine?
Doval gave two lectures in 2014 and 2015 in which he delineated his thoughts on defence and foreign policy. 

These thoughts came to be known as the Doval Doctrine. 

Doval favours a tough stance with hostile countries and terrorists and thinks personal morality has no role to play in international relations. 

According to Doval, the opponent can be engaged at three levels: defensive, defensive-offensive and offensive. 

He is more in favour of defensive-offensive approach, which manifested in India's surgical strike on terror launch pads in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and on militants in Myanmar last year.
He had famously warned Pakistan it should be prepared to lose Baluchistan if it carried out another 26/11-type attack in India. 

Doval thinks values of the state are more important than personal values.

Why does China hate him?
Doval is behind India's stand on Doklam and the later efforts to defuse the situation. 

China is aware of the Doval Doctrine and is wary of his thinking. 

Right before Doval went to China to attend a BRICS meeting last month while the Doklam dispute was on, China's state-run Global Times wrote this about him: "India's National Security Adviser Ajit Doval is to visit China for the annual BRICS National Security Advisers' meeting this week. Doval is believed to be one of the main schemers behind the current border standoff. Doval will inevitably be disappointed if he attempts to bargain with Beijing over the border disputes." 

A month later, Doval was not disappointed at all. 

China had to agree with India to withdraw troops from Doklam. 

After Doklam, Doval has gained a higher stature which means India following his Doval Doctrine with much more zeal.

Who blinked in China-India military standoff?

By Simon Denyer and Annie Gowen 

This 2008 photo shows a Chinese soldier next to an Indian soldier at the Nathu La border crossing between India and China in India's northeastern Sikkim state. 

BEIJING — For weeks, China’s Foreign Ministry had been vehement in its denunciations of India and insistence that New Delhi unconditionally withdraw troops that had trespassed into Chinese territory. 

Don't underestimate us, China repeatedly insisted, we are prepared for military conflict if need be.
Yet on Monday, it appeared as though Beijing, not New Delhi, had blinked.
Both sides withdrew troops to end the stand-off. 

Crucially, military sources told Indian newspapers that China has also withdrawn the bulldozers that were constructing a road on the plateau. 

That road, built on land contested between Bhutan and China, had been the reason Indian troops had entered the disputed area in the first place, in defense of its ally Bhutan.
The eventual deal allowed both sides to save face — India’s Ministry of External Affairs suggested in its statement that it had stuck to its “principled position” in the discussions, which was that road-building violated ongoing terms of a current boundary dispute between Bhutan and China.
Yet some experts said it was premature to start declaring victory and China continued to be cagey in its official remarks.
China insisted its troops would continue to patrol and garrison the disputed area, as well as continue to exercise its sovereign rights there. 

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday that the country would make plans for road construction ‘in accordance with the situation on the ground.”
Then, on Wednesday, China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, appeared to chide India, saying “We of course hope that India could learn some lessons from this, and [hope] events similar to this one would not happen again.”
There is precedence for China not sticking to agreements. 

In 2012, China and the Philippines agreed to withdraw naval vessels around Scarborough Shoal in a deal brokered by the United States. 

The Chinese ships never left, and have controlled it since.
Two factors may have helped talk China down and away from conflict — according to Indian media, Bhutan had been quietly resolute in talks with Beijing that it considered the Chinese road to be an infringement of a 2012 deal between the two countries that neither would develop infrastructure in disputed areas.
The second was a summit of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) nations due to be hosted by China this weekend. 

Beijing sets great store in set-piece summits of this nature, and the embarrassing possibility that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi might not attend may have focused minds in Beijing. 

India said Tuesday that Modi would, in fact, be attending the summit in Fujian province Sept. 3-5.
In India, news outlets painted Monday’s stand-down as a win for Indian diplomacy and their behind-the-scenes efforts to defuse tension before bullets flew. 

In China, the state media has also tried to paint the resolution as a victory for Asia and diplomacy — while staying vague about whether that road would still be built.
On social media, though, some Netizens asked uncomfortable questions.
“India withdrawing troops is a fact, did we give up some legitimate rights such as building road, this is what citizens care about, our focus is whether India’s withdrawal is unconditional, hope there is a clear explanation,” one user on China’s social media platform Weibo posted after news of the standoff.

Sina Delenda Est

COUNTERING CHINESE COERCION: THE CASE OF DOKLAM
By ORIANA SKYLAR MASTRO and ARZAN TARAPORE

Two nuclear-armed powers have stepped back from the brink — for now. 

Yesterday India and China announced they had agreed to end a two-month border confrontation, in which a few hundred troops had faced off in the Doklam area claimed by both China and Bhutan, and many thousands more had been placed on heightened alert. 

The immediate crisis seems to be over, but it offers tantalizing insights into Chinese coercive strategies and how they may be thwarted. 

This has implications not only for India in its own land border disputes, but also for several Southeast Asian nations and the United States, as they all confront China’s attempts to expand its control and influence.

Background: The Standoff at Doklam
China had every reason to believe that a short stretch of new road, high in the remote Himalayas, would reinforce its claims on the “tri-junction” where the borders of China, Bhutan, and India meet. In mid-June, Chinese military road crews began to extend a road in an area known as Doklam, disputed by China and Bhutan. 

The road had been built into the disputed territory as early as 2003, and PLA troops had often conducted foot patrols in the area of the proposed road extension. 

But China knew the area was disputed, and had acknowledged as much in agreements with Bhutan in 1988 and 1998, and with India in 2012. 

Extending the road would be a relatively cheap and clear way for Beijing to advance its claims in the dispute. (The details of the competing territorial claims have been ably covered, including here at War on the Rocks.)
Almost immediately after the road crews began their work, however, they were surprised by an Indian Army intervention. 

Indian troops entered the disputed territory, with at least the tacit consent of Bhutan, and physically impeded the construction of the road. 

India saw the Chinese encroachment as a threat to its security and its regional influence — it historically regarded Bhutan as a pliant buffer and remains its security guarantor today, even as their alignment has loosened in the past decade. 

New Delhi denounced the Chinese road building as an attempt to unilaterally change the status quo in contravention of the 2012 agreement.
Monday’s agreement to end the standoff returns to the situation to the status quo ante, exactly as India and Bhutan demanded. 

Troops from both sides have disengaged, and China claims it will continue patrolling and asserting its sovereignty claims. 

The official statements are vague on some details, presumably to save face among their respective publics. 

Most importantly, the statements only imply — rather than saying outright — that China will abandon the road construction that triggered the crisis. 

Beijing seems to have blinked. 

What explains this setback for Chinese policy?

China’s Coercion Playbook
China used the same playbook in Doklam as it has in other territorial disputes, especially Vietnam and the Philippines. 

This playbook usually involves four elements. 

The first step is to develop a larger or more permanent physical presence in areas where China has already has a degree of de facto control — whether that means new islands in the South China Sea or roads in the Himalayas. 

Using its military to build infrastructure in the Doklam area was likely an attempt to consolidate China’s control along its southwestern border, including this disputed area where it has patrolled for some time.
This consolidation usually goes hand-in-hand with the second element, coercive diplomacy. 

Here, China couples its threats or limited military action with diplomatic efforts designed to persuade the target state to change its policies or behavior. 

The strategy is to put the onus on the other side, often in a weaker position militarily, to risk confrontation over these gradual changes to the status quo. 

The goal is to ensure the target country does not counter China’s consolidation attempts, and ideally to compel them to engage in bilateral negotiations. 

It is in such talks that China can then leverage its stronger physical position to secure a favorable settlement.
China has used this model of coercive diplomacy not only against weaker claimants in the South China Sea, but also against the United States. 

In the 2009 U.S. Naval Ship Impeccable incident, for example, it used coercive diplomacy and other elements of its playbook against U.S. maritime surveillance operations. 

The Doklam case carried the added enticing prospect of opening new channels of diplomatic communication — and influence — with Bhutan, with which China currently lacks formal diplomatic relations.
Third, China uses legal rhetoric and principles to present its position as legitimate and lawful, thereby staking a claim to a broader legitimizing principle in territorial disputes. 

In the case of Doklam, China portrayed the Indian response as a violation of Chinese sovereignty — it claimed Indian troops entered Chinese territory through the Sikkim sector of the Sino-Indian border and had been “obstructing Chinese border troop activities.” 

China declared its road construction was entirely lawful, designed to improve infrastructure for the local people and border patrols. 

China’s policy position was that the border was delimited in 1890, formally reaffirmed several times since, and reinforced by the routine presence of Chinese troops and herders. 

Its legal argument thus rested in part on the first element of the playbook: the physical presence that it sought to make permanent with the road at Doklam.
Lastly, China leverages its government-controlled media to highlight its narrative and issue threats. These tend to involve warnings about not underestimating Chinese resolve and the Chinese people’s determination to protect their sovereignty just because China has restrained itself so far. 

The Chinese media was replete with such articles, warning India, for example, not to “play with fire” lest it “get burned.” 

They cautioned the Indian government not to be driven by nationalism and arrogance, to avoid miscalculation and repeating the mistakes of the 1962 war. 

This is not just a war of words; research shows that escalating threats in the media can be a precursor to China’s use of force.
While other countries may also seek to impose a territorial fait accompli — such as Russia in Ukraine — China always follows its multi-pronged playbook. 

It consistently demonstrates a preference for ambiguity, risk manipulation and controlling the narrative to win without fighting. 

Any use of coercion — which involves threats and use of force — carries the risk of escalation to conflict, even if China has previously managed to resolve most of its disputes without war. 

How China advances its claims in South and East Asia will determine whether those regions remain peaceful and stable.

Thwarting Coercion With Denial
China’s playbook, however, did not go according to plan this time, because it did not account for India’s unexpectedly swift and assertive response to its road-building. 

India did not simply voice displeasure or threaten to punish China if it continued to pursue its territorial claims as the United States and Southeast Asian countries have done in the South China Sea. 

In those cases, China used its coercive playbook effectively, forcing its adversaries to either back down or raise the ante. 

And as China’s uncontested gains have shown, its adversaries have generally lacked the capabilities, and especially the political resolve, to escalate crises.
But in this situation, India thwarted China’s coercion through denial — blocking China’s attempt to seize physical control of the disputed territory. 

By physically denying China’s bid to change the status quo, India created a stalemate, which suited its strategic policy. 

It did not acquiesce to a Chinese fait accompli, and it did not have to summon the capabilities or resolve to reverse China’s position, which would have risked a general war. 

India was able to do this because of a local military advantage and its broader policy of standing up to China. 

As a result, China did not have the option of proceeding under the guise of peaceful legitimate development, per its playbook; pressing its claims on Doklam would have required it to ratchet up military pressure. 

The stalemate thwarted Chinese coercion — but as long as it lasted, it was pregnant with risks of escalation and conflict.

Disengagement, But Dangers Persist
The immediate risks of conflict have receded, but the border dispute remains unresolved, and the broader Sino-Indian relationship remains fraught. 

First, on Doklam, while China has backed down for now, its statement that “China will continue fulfilling its sovereign rights to safeguard territorial sovereignty in compliance with the stipulations of the border-related historical treaty” suggests it has not changed its position on the border tri-junction. 

Indeed, during the standoff, China reportedly offered financial inducements to cleave Bhutan away from its traditional relationship with India — it has other ways, and continued ambitions, to press its claims.
Second, the India-China relationship remains tense, and prone to military risk, especially if China seeks to reassert itself after a perceived slight at Doklam. 

This could include an incursion somewhere along the India-China Line of Actual Control — indeed, such actions have already been reported. 

Or China might pursue a “cross-domain” response, for example with punitive cyber attacks or threatening activity in the Indian Ocean.
Third, over the longer term, India should be wary of learning the wrong lessons from the crisis. 

As one of us has recently written, India has long been preoccupied with the threat of Chinese (and Pakistani) aggression on their common land border. 

The Doklam standoff may be remembered as even more reason for India to pour more resources into defending its land borders, at the expense of building capabilities and influence in the wider Indian Ocean region. 

That would only play into China’s hands. 

Renewed Indian concerns about its land borders will only retard its emergence as an assertive and influential regional power.

The Lessons of Doklam
With the crisis only just being de-escalated, it is too early to derive definitive lessons from Doklam. However, a few policy implications are already apparent. 

First, Chinese behavior in territorial disputes is more likely to be deterred by denial than by threats of punishment. 

China will continue the combination of consolidating its physical presence and engaging in coercive diplomacy, lawfare, and media campaigns unless it is stopped directly. 

This is what India did at Doklam — it directly blocked Chinese efforts to change the status quo. Denial in other areas would require different military tasks — for example, in the Indian Ocean, it may involve anti-submarine warfare and maritime domain awareness.
Second, denial strategies may be effective, but they have their limitations. 

Denial is inherently risky. 

Countering China’s playbook involves risks of escalation — which most smaller adversaries, and at times even the United States, are unwilling to accept. 

Moreover, denial strategies can only serve to halt adversary action, not to reverse what the adversary has already done. 

As Doklam shows, India could convince China not to proceed with its road-building — but China did not relinquish its claims or its established pattern of presence in the area. 

Denial by itself offers no pathway to politically resolving the crisis.
Third, the agreement to disengage suggests that Beijing’s position in crises can be flexible, and perhaps responsive to assertive counter-coercion. 

Domestic audiences, even those in autocracies, often prefer sound judgment to recklessly staying the course. 

If the Doklam standoff had escalated to a shooting war, anything short of a decisive victory might have put Xi Jinping in an unfavorable position at the 19th Party Congress and hurt the PLA’s image with the Chinese people. 

But short of that, the Chinese government was always in the position to sell Doklam as a non-event, something the decreasing domestic media coverage suggests it was preparing to do. 

Beijing will frame the disengagement agreement as further proof of Chinese strength, especially relative to India. 

As the stronger power, China could magnanimously agree to a mutual disengagement for now while reserving the right to move forward when it sees fit.
Finally, the Doklam agreement tells us that when China confronts a significantly weaker target, such as Bhutan, it will only be deterred by the actions of a stronger third party — in this case, India. 

Had India not acted, China would likely have been successful in consolidating its control and extracting territorial concessions from Bhutan. 

Third-party involvement may not be as easy in other cases — India had a privileged position in Bhutan. 

Such a strategy may also have significant second-order effects. 

In the near term, it is potentially escalatory — China argued that India has no basis for interfering in this bilateral dispute, and had many options for escalating the crisis at a time and place of its choosing. 

More broadly, such third-party involvement could intensify geopolitical competition between China and other powers such as the U.S. or India, if they intercede in other countries’ disputes with China. 

The lesson of Doklam for the United States is that arming small states and imposing incremental costs may not be enough. 

Washington has to accept the greater risks associated with intervening more directly if it hopes to counter Chinese expansion in East Asia.

The Necessary War

A border dispute high in the Himalayas puts the decades long cold peace between India and China under severe strain.

By Richard Javad Heydarian

"It is true that we have a border dispute with China. But in the last 40 years, not a single bullet has been fired because of it", exclaimed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Russia in June.

He hailed the 21st century as "the century of Asia", with India and China poised to "influence the situation of the world in the coming decades."
The situation on the ground, however, suggests otherwise.
The decades-long "cold peace" between India and China is actually under severe strain. 

For the last two months, hundreds of Indian and Chinese soldiers have been squaring off over a "tri-juncture", which tenuously separates India, Bhutan and China thousands of kilometres above sea level.
There have reportedly been clashes between the two sides, with Chinese and Indian soldiers throwing stones at each other, but so far stopping just short of firing their guns. 

But tensions are rising every day, with diplomatic patience wearing thin. 

The two Asian giants, collectively home to a third of humanity, are once again on the verge of direct military conflict with frightening implications for the region and beyond.

Troubled Borders
The so-called Line of Actual Control (LAC), which separates India from China, is a potentially explosive oxymoron. 

It is neither a clear line nor is anyone fully in control.
The murky territorial boundaries are the legacy of 19th-century colonialism, when the British Raj and Qing Dynasty sought to negotiate their overlapping imperial boundaries under fluid geopolitical circumstances.
With their economies and military capabilities expanding, both modern India and post-Qing China have been pushing the envelope to maximise and mark their territory in the area.
At the heart of the new round of tensions is the Doklam plateau, which lies at a junction between China, the northeastern Indian state of Sikkim and Bhutan, is currently disputed between Beijing and Thimphu. 

India supports Bhutan's claim. 

India and China already fought a war over the border in 1962, and disputes remain unresolved in several areas.
In mid-June, Indian soldiers crossed into the plateau to prevent Chinese border guards from bringing in road-building equipment into the contested area.
New Delhi claimed that its latest action was in defence of its ally, the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, which has no direct diplomatic relations with China and is a de facto protectorate on India. 

But the South Asian powerhouse was likely more worried by the prospect of China extending its strategic reach (via construction of new road systems across Bhutan-claimed territories) close to so-called "chicken's neck", a strategic corridor that connects India's heartland to its eight northeastern states.
New Delhi is worried about losing strategic high ground to its rival-neighbour, which has a military budget that is four times larger and is bent on buying friends and allies throughout the region with major infrastructure investment deals.
The situation reflects the perils of Beijing's rising assertiveness, which is rattling both its continental neighbours such as India as well as maritime neighbours in the East and South China Sea, namely Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.
Throughout the decades, continental-size China, with 14 land neighbours and six sea neighbours, has been embroiled in 23 border disputes. 

Many have been resolved, particularly with Russia and central Asian republics, but those with the likes of India, Vietnam and Japan have festered in recent years.

All Fall Down
Following India's decision to send its soldiers to the Doklam plateau, an incensed China has warned of direct military confrontation and a repeat of India's humiliating defeat during the 1962 border conflict.
Amid deteriorating diplomatic relations, Indian and Chinese leaders have been refusing to meet each other on the sidelines of major summits in recent months. 

Meanwhile, hawks on both sides have been sabre-rattling and engaging in bitter and acrimonious exchanges in recent weeks.
All this marks a dramatic turnabout in the direction of bilateral ties.
Since coming to power in 2014, Mr Modi has tirelessly sought to upgrade bilateral relations with Beijing. 

After all, he was a former minister of Gujarat, a booming Indian state that has benefited from large-scale Chinese investments.
Few months into office, he cordially welcomed Xi Jinping to the luxurious Hyderabad House, where the two leaders indulged in personal diplomacy with bonhomie amid much media fanfare.
The following year, Modi visited China, where he signed multibillion-dollar business deals, visited key cultural sites of China and, along the way, took an intimate selfie with Li Keqiang, which flooded the social media landscape with thousands of shares.

It's selfie time! Thanks Premier Li. pic.twitter.com/DSCTszSnq3

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 15, 2015

He also shared on Chinese social media platform Weibo portraits of his gifts to Xi, including a Buddhist relic and a millennium-old statue of Buddha excavated from his home state of Gujarat.
Quick to underscore the shared Buddhist legacy of both neighbours, the Indian leader visited the ancient city of Xi'an, the cradle of ancient Silk Road, where he received a gift from a Buddhist monk.
Modi's cultural diplomacy efforts and personal investment in bilateral relations, however, have been torpedoed by age-old territorial disputes. 

The standoff in the Himalayas underpins the fragile nature of bilateral relations between the world's two most populous nations.
It also reveals growing territorial nationalism and strongman brinkmanship on both sides, as Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi tap into ethnocentric sentiments for domestic political purposes. 

At this point, both men, who have promised to make their countries "great again", are in no position to back down.

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.

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.

Race War

Racist video from China's official press agency mocks Indians and insulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi

By Nyshka Chandran 

A major state-run Chinese media outlet uploaded a video containing derogatory depictions of Indians in what could be the latest flashpoint amid escalating tensions between Beijing and New Delhi.

A Xinhua video released on August 16, 2017 about the India-China border standoff in the Himalayas.
Late on Wednesday, Xinhua — widely seen as a mouthpiece for the ruling Communist Party — released an English-language video about ongoing border clashes between Indian and Chinese troops near a tri-junction area that borders Bhutan, India and Tibet, which is claimed and occupied by China.
The video, called "Seven Sins of India," showed a Chinese male speaking in an Indian accent, sporting a turban and fake facial hair in an apparent representation of a Sikh man.
In portraying seven examples of alleged mistakes made by New Delhi in the border standoff, the video mocked India's concern about Chinese road construction in the disputed zone, which it likened to a man "building a path in his garden."
The video called Prime Minister Narendra Modi "asleep," "thick-skinned" and compared New Delhi's actions in the border area to "a robber who had just broken into your house and refused to leave."
It also referred to India's defense of Bhutan as a "hijack" of its smaller neighbor.
Aside from land skirmishes, bilateral ties between the two Asian giants are also weighed down by maritime tensions in the Indian Ocean.

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.

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.