PLA may step up activity in Ladakh

With the Indian army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) frozen in their positions in East Ladakh through the winter, national security planners are expecting ramped up Chinese military activity at the friction points when the snows melt in late March.

According to some government officials familiar with the matter, the dates of the ninth round of military talks should be decided soon to cap the progress made by the two sides on the terms for disengagement and de-escalation.

But other government officials say that PLA is in no mood to move out of contested points at least till the meeting marking 100 years of Chinese Communist Party rule is addressed by paramount leader Xi Jinping on July 1 2021.

“This is the unfortunate record,” said a senior official.

While the Indian army is prepared to stay put in East Ladakh for time to come, China’s moves may be decided by the tone and tenor of the incoming Joe Biden administration towards Beijing. One school of thought is that the incoming US administration may de facto recognise China as the other superpower.

India, on its part, believes that it is a multi-polar world and its position is that it is not dependent on Washington to deal with China to protect its frontiers.

The Atmanirbhar Bharat plan of developing indigenous technologies in equipment such as drones, fighter aircraft and stand-off weapons with the involvement of both public and private sector is derived from this, analysts say. The onus, they add, is on DRDO and HAL to roll-out the Tejas Mark I A on April 1, 2024 along with a prototype of the twin engine indigenous fighter or AMCA .

According to senior officials directly involved in national security issues, while India hopes that the incoming Biden administration stands up it its commitments on China, the South China Sea, Taiwan and the Indo-pacific at large, New Delhi is not dependent on the US for handling PLA. But China, these officials add, sees India through the prism of US and as an adversary.

With PLA ramping up border infrastructure all along the 3,488 kilometre Line of Actual Control (LAC), India logically expects China to open up fronts in Arunachal Pradesh and in the Sikkim-bhutan-india tri-junction area.

However, after the Galwan flare-up on June 15 and significant casualties on the PLA side, China will engage India with stand-off weapons and not repeat the mistake of engaging the Indian army in hand to hand combat should this worstcase scenario come to pass, the officials cited above said. But there is a downside to this engagement and China is acutely aware of it. Much as it would like to teach a lesson to Indian army like it did in 1962, it is aware that New Delhi has the capacity to retaliate like it did on August 29-30, 2020 on the south bank of Pangong Tso.

For a country that sees itself as a contender to super power slot now occupied by US, any military loss of face to India will take the wind out of that claim.