Rewriting the Rules of Engagement
Center, argued that the Chinese saw Indian infrastructure development ‘as a consistent and repeated effort by Delhi that “needs to be corrected every few years”’. ‘For the Chinese,’ it goes on to say, ‘the infrastructure arms race in the border region has enabled the repeated incursions and changes to the status quo and therefore needs to be stopped. Otherwise, all the things China fought for in the 1962 war would have been in vain.’
The Infrastructure Race
The India-China border dispute began when the PLA’s takeover of Tibet in 1950 turned the two countries into neighbours for the first time in
“The BRO lost its unique character, it had dual controls— the administration was under MoD but MoRTH was releasing its funds”
COL. D.P.K. PILLAY (RETD) Military analyst, IDSA
history. In 1951, Chinese road crews started hacking their way through the desolate Aksai Chin, completing the gravel-topped Xinjian-Tibet highway to link the People’s Republic of China’s two newest acquisitions in 1957. The discovery of the road running through territory claimed by India was one of the triggers for the 1962 border war. India’s ‘Forward Policy’ riposte— sending soldiers to man small pickets on its territorial claims—was doomed among several other things by the utter lack of border infrastructure in the Himalayas. Mules, transport aircraft and helicopters could not substitute non-existent roads. The military post in the now infamous Galwan Valley, for instance, one of dozens set up before the war, had to be supplied by transport aircraft before it was overrun by the PLA in October 1962. After the war, the borders lay largely undisturbed and lightly patrolled for nearly three decades. Infrastructure was
given a miss, deliberately, as it would emerge in a 2013 statement made by then defence minister A.K. Antony in the Lok Sabha. “Independent India (for) many years had a policy—the best defence is not to develop the border.”
The more recent awareness on the need for connectivity along the disputed boundaries came, not from the China border, but from the opposite side. A key part of General Pervez Musharraf’s Operation ‘Koh-Paima (Call of the Mountains)’ in 1999 saw the Pakistan army dragging howitzers atop mountaintops near Kargil to shell and cut off the Srinagar-Leh highway that supplied the Indian army’s garrison in Siachen. The Indian army forced the Pakistan army to roll back in the Kargil War. Shortly after the conflict, the cabinet committee on security in 1999 approved the speedy construction of 13 border roads.
This was around the time that a rising China’s economic muscle began manifesting along India’s LAC. By 2006, a latticework of 36,000 miles of blacktopped roads swathed the Tibetan plateau. The crown jewel was the 1,956-km-long Tibet-Qinghai railway line with foundation pillars sunk into permafrost and coaches pressurised to acclimatise passengers when they arrived. The implication to Indian military planners was clear—the PLA could now bring in 30 divisions, tanks and artillery into the Tibetan theatre in days as opposed to months. The railway marked the start of a policy of transgressions by the PLA along the border which began in 2006 and continued for several years, culminating in May 2020 as a larger military game plan to alter the LAC.
In her 2018 MIT doctoral thesis, ‘Calculating Bully: Explaining Chinese Coercion’, the scholar Ketian Zhang holds the 2006 completion of the railway as ‘the most important factor contributing to increased Chinese transgressions’. China’s infrastructure in the border regions had dramatically improved to the extent that many roads could reach areas merely five or 10 kilometres from the LAC which makes it easier for border forces to patrol along the area, Lin Minwang, a former diplomat at the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, was quoted as saying in the thesis.
The UPA government signed off on the border infrastructure boost in 2006 with its ‘China Study Group’ headed by the NSA, setting ambitious targets to complete 61 Indo-China Border Roads (ICBRs) across the various Indian states facing the LAC by 2012 (see graphic). The BRO, however, was unable to deliver.
A CAG report tabled in Parliament in 2017 noted that only 15 of the planned 61 roads had been completed. The projects had incurred massive cost overruns—98 per cent of the Rs 4,644 crore estimate had been swallowed in
“We worked on transformative change, to institutionalise monthly consultative meetings among all the stakeholders and iron out differences”
Lt Gen. Suresh Sharma Former DG, BRO
building just 22 roads. Only seven of 46 roads were complete by March 2016, with the deadline for the remaining ones extended to 2021.
There were various reasons for this, chief among them being the peculiar structure and diffused accountability of the BRO. Created in 1960, it built roads for the military but was under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). Its inhouse General Reserve Engineer Force cadre sparred with army engineers who manned the BRO. “An agency created with a unique character lost its uniqueness and envisaged efficiency—it had dual controls—it was under the administrative control of the MoD but the MoRTH released its funds,” says Colonel D.P.K. Pillay (retired), a military analyst with the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).
Add to that were the natural obstacles of building roads along the world’s highest mountain range. “Building roads in the Himalayas is like building on a heap of loose, sedimentary rock that has faultlines, is earthquake prone and bears the brunt of the monsoons,” says Lt General S. Ravi Shankar, former D-G, BRO.
The heavy winter snowfall constricted road building into a single sixmonth window between May and October. The Chinese, in sharp contrast, have the natural advantage of building their roads on the plateau that is flat and hence more amenable to construction. Huge shifts had already started taking place within the MoD, army and BRO even as the CAG’s alarming report was tabled in Parliament. The biggest change summed up by an unnamed army officer in a 2016 deposition before the Lok Sabha’s standing committee on defence was “the philosophy of not making roads as near to the border as possible had been changed to ‘we must go as far forward as possible”.
A prescient MoD briefing note to the standing committee that year warned of a long-term infrastructure development plan by both China and Pakistan in the northern areas. ‘These plans will enable these countries to concentrate and move sizeable forces all along the Indian border and will pose a significant threat in the event of any conflict,’ it said.
The changes began in November 2014 with the induction of the technocrat defence minister Manohar Parrikar, who was laser-focused on transforming border infrastructure. The BRO was placed under the MoD in January 2015 and closely integrated
with the army and defence ministry.
“The biggest changes in the BRO were the induction of tunnel boring machines, constant review meetings and the delegation of financial powers to speed up decision-making,” says G. Mohan Kumar, then defence secretary.
The BRO began working in mission mode, the D-G reporting to then army chief General D.S. Suhag and defence secretary Kumar. “We worked on transformative change, to institutionalise monthly consultative meetings among all the stakeholders and iron out differences,” says Lt General Suresh Sharma, then D-G, BRO.
Anew category of ‘Priority 1’ roads was created on the advice of the Director General Military Operations, the key army Lt General officer responsible for military plans. The DSDBO road was one of them. The road had defied attempts at construction given the tricky terrain, especially the crossing over the Shyok river which overflowed with snowmelt during summers. The BRO, for the first time, used micro-piles—high performance, high capacity foundations around 12 inches in diameter—to build a 430-metre-long bridge across the river. It was completed last year.
The organisation also began tunneling in a major way. A tunnel under construction will reduce travel time from the Indian Army’s 4 Corps headquartered in Tezpur, Assam, to Tawang—a town claimed by China—by at least 10 km and, more importantly, convert a normally snowbound highway into an all-weather road when it is completed next year. The strategic 8.8-km-long Atal tunnel being built for Rs 4,000 crore will shorten the Leh-Manali route by 46 km and will be open to traffic this September.
The 72-day Doklam stand-off between the two armies in 2017 was another major factor which speeded up road construction by the BRO. The stand-off began over a road that the
PLA began constructing towards a vital ridge overlooking Indian territory and which the Indian army successfully blocked. By 2018, the BRO had constructed a second road to the disputed valley, converting a mule track into a motorable road and is building a third one to be completed by 2021. New techniques like building a road at five ‘attack points’ were used to hasten completion of the strategic 80-km Ghatiabagarh-Lipulekh road near the Indo-Nepal border, inaugurated by Rajnath Singh on May 10.
More importantly, the ICBRs were brought under a five-year works plan—where the BRO would prepare estimates without waiting for specific approvals from the government. The present works plan approved in 2018 is for 282 roads of 22,803 km (including the ICBRs) at a cost of Rs 22,000 crore, and is set to be complete by 2023 which would see India finally catching up with China. The Himalayan race seems poised for an exciting finish.
If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.” This famous line by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore reminds us of the need to stay sober and focus on the positives as tensions rise between India and China.
Tagore first visited China in 1924 at the invitation of renowned Chinese intellectuals Liang Qichao and Cai Yuanpei. He charmed his Chinese friends and audiences as he travelled and lectured from Shanghai all the way to Beijing. He developed close ties with Chinese scholars such as the poet Xu Zhimo and painter Xu Beihong. Tagore met Chinese scholar Tan YunShan in Malaya in 1927 and invited him to Santiniketan in West Bengal to teach. He helped Tan establish Cheen Bhavan (the China Institute) at VisvaBharati University in 1937. The TagoreTan friendship was a microcosm of India-China mutual admiration and cooperation. As bilateral relations plummet after a recent bloody border clash, one wonders whether the India-China friendship can be revived and sustained.
What happened on June 15, 2020 was truly tragic, with 20 Indians losing their lives and an undisclosed number of Chinese casualties in a scuffle at the Galwan Valley. India and China have blamed each other for being aggressive and violating previous agreements. The fact is that over the past few years, both militaries have boosted their front positions and improved roads and other infrastructure along the border.
It is useless to point fingers, and the border disputes are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon due to complicated history, lack of demarcation and strategic rivalry. Both sides need to deescalate the tensions, curb nationalism at home, reflect upon what led to the tragedy and move forward. It is encouraging that even in great adversity, the two sides remain committed to solving the disputes through dialogue.
In dealing with the equally complex territorial dispute between Japan and China, China’s former leader Deng Xiaoping suggested that the smarter future generations might be able to resolve such difficult issues, and what the current generation could do is to shelve differences and seek cooperation. Whether or not one buys Deng’s reasoning, perhaps both India and China can learn from Deng’s pragmatism.
Lest they forget, the policy priorities for both India and China remain promoting domestic growth and eliminating poverty. Border disputes distract from what is more important for both countries.
Speculation abounds on Chinese motivations to initiate a border clash with India. Such assumptions may sound logical since China is facing daunting internal and external challenges and its leaders may be tempted to divert attention from their problems. However, upon further examination, one finds that the opposite might be true. China is already busy extinguishing fires on several fronts. The last thing its leaders want is to start a border conflict with India that can easily run out of control.
Domestically, Chinese leaders are working cautiously to revive the economy while preventing the possible second wave of COVID-19 from hitting the nation. Externally, China faces the most hostile environment in decades, particularly from Washington. Regardless of whether China has the capability or willingness to challenge the United States and overtake it as the dominant global power, hawks in Washington seem bent on provoking Chinese leaders and threatening Chinese interests at every opportunity. A new Cold War may well be already under way, with proxy rivalry in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South China Sea. Resisting a combative Trump administration and an antagonistic US Congress has been the biggest external challenge for the Chinese leadership in recent years.
There is every reason to believe that Xi Jinping wants to maintain his close working relationship with Narendra Modi. It’s notable that many Indians have lashed out against China recently, from generals to parliamentarians, from cabinet ministers to opposition leaders
Speculation abounds on Chinese motivations to initiate a border clash with India. But that is the last thing its leaders want
and from media to scholars. In contrast, no Chinese officials above the level of foreign ministry spokesperson have publicly attacked India, and the Chinese media and public have only paid scant attention to the border brawl.
It’s also notable that Modi’s July 3 visit to the border area of Ladakh to underscore India’s resolve might be viewed as provocative by the Chinese military, yet China’s official reaction was moderate, with the foreign ministry spokesperson urging “relevant parties” not to further stoke tensions. China also stayed quiet after India purchased a new batch of MiG-29 and 12 Su-30 fighter jets worth $2.4 billion from Russia, potentially further raising conflict in the region.
Unlike its tit-for-tat approach towards the US, retaliating against each sanction Washington imposes, Beijing has not responded in kind when New Delhi banned 59 Chinese smartphone apps such as Weibo, WeChat and TikTok and prohibited Chinese companies from working on highway projects. Obviously, China does not want to escalate tensions with India.
A big challenge in India-China relations is the cognitive gap: India considers China of paramount importance in its foreign policy, while China does not take India seriously. India’s ambition is to catch up and even surpass China as a regional and global power, but in China’s eyes the United States is the sole global competitor. The Chinese are not impressed by India’s seemingly messy democracy. In fact, many Chinese resist western pressure for China to democratise by pointing out that China has done a better job than a democratic India in the past few decades in lifting people out of poverty.
Many Chinese tourists deplore India’s backwardness, lack of order and inefficiency based on their superficial observations. They fail to appreciate India’s deep-rooted culture, dynamic civil society and entrepreneurial spirit. There is a dire need for more people-topeople exchanges to help the two sides have a more objective view of each other.
India and China should be vigilant about intervention by third parties that can contribute to the animosity between them. For example, some people in India-controlled Kashmir are encouraging China’s aggressive moves, and some Cold Warriors in the West are nudging India to take a more belligerent approach.
A June 18 CNN report asserted that ‘in the event of a large-scale Himalayan conflict, US intelligence and surveillance could help India get a clearer picture of the battlefield’. The report claimed that ‘conventional wisdom has it that China holds a significant military advantage over India, but recent studies… suggest India maintains an edge in high-altitude mountainous environments, such as the one where the 2020 face-off is taking place’. It’s puzzling why such a report was published just three days after the border clash.
While Modi asserted that “nobody has intruded into our border, neither is anybody there now, nor have our posts been captured”, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced China as a “rogue actor” that escalated tensions with India, and Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell called the border clash a Chinese invasion and part of a pattern of Chinese aggression. Pompeo also announced that the US would provide India with intelligence on Chinese activity along the border.
Hawks in Washington are not interested in peace and have flirted with the idea of forming a US-led coalition against China, with India being part of it. However, India has long followed a policy of non-alignment. India-China relations are deep-rooted and should be independent of third parties. It is prudent for India not to join the Trump administration in a new Cold War with China.
The so-called ‘Asian Century’ will not be realised if India and China do not work together. The two countries had planned a series of events to mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations in 2020. With COVID-19 and the border clash, celebration is out of the question. Hopefully, when temperatures cool down on both sides, China and India will learn from Tagore’s wisdom and focus on the positives in the relationship to build a peaceful and prosperous Asia together. ■