PANGONG RETREAT: HIMALAYAN DIFFIDENCE
After talking with Chinese supremo Xi Jinping, a rattled US president Joe Biden warned that China will “eat our lunch”. Considering the military disengagement under way now in eastern Ladakh could end up consolidating Chinese territorial gains, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ought to worry about China feasting on India’s dinner. New Delhi’s desperation has led to a peace process of impermanent but linked deescalations, which Beijing may convert into opportunity for annexing territory in small parcels. Consider the withdrawal of forces from the Pangong Lake area. Till not too long ago, all the eight mountainous features—the ‘Fingers’ abutting its northern shore—on India’s side of the Line of Actual Control were notionally under Indian control; today only Fingers 1 to 3 are. So why is People’s Liberation Army’s moving to its Sirijap staging area east of Finger 8, which is also inside Indian territory, reassuring or proof of China’s good faith?
Last August, Special Frontier Force (SFF) troops preemptively occupied various hilltops on the RezanglaRechinla ridge inside the Indian claim line. China has tried ever since to reverse this development because these posts afford a 360degree view and help the Indian army get a fix on potentially adverse Chinese military activity in the extended Pangong area. This advantage will be lost with the pullback, especially because the PLA is not thinning its forces from its Moldo garrison. In any case, the past record of Chinese chicanery—easing tensions the PLA itself creates as at Naku La—suggests that once Indians depart the commanding heights, the Chinese will fill the vacated space.
Meanwhile, the issue of the PLA’s de facto control over 1,000odd sq. kms of Indian territory in the Depsang plains in SubSector North, which is of utmost significance to India, is deferred. Here, the PLA blockade of the YJunction has rendered the area northwestwards of it inaccessible to Indian patrols, enabling China to bring this vital piece of land within its control without contesting India’s claims— a neat little trick of occupation by indirect military means! This area adjoins the Xinjiang highway whose branch—the ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor—veers south at the nearby
Karakoram Pass and, hence, is of strategic value. The Indian army could forcibly evict the blockaders, but Beijing is betting Delhi lacks the guts and the gall to order such action.
Chinese adventurism, foreign minister S. Jaishankar said, has “profoundly disturbed” India’s trust but apparently not the Indian government’s gullibility and habit of taking Beijing’s professions and commitments seriously. Thus, the China Study Group tasked with making policy seems satisfied with a “written agreement”!
The process of pennypacketing the ‘phased’ mutual withdrawal has helped China evade the eight “guiding principles” defined by Jaishankar as the basis for negotiation, including the two principal ones of respecting the sanctity of all past accords and of the LAC, which China violates on a whim. It has permitted Beijing to dictate the pace, tenor and content of interactions. For Delhi to proceed regardless, in effect, legitimises a new tabula rasa for resolving the border dispute and for SinoIndian relations generally, one in which whatever China wants goes.
At heart, the problem is the Indian government’s terminal diffidence. It has foresworn the option of discomfiting Beijing by strategic missilearming states on China’s borders as belated payback for its equipping Pakistan with nuclear missiles, and shies away from using its leverages (Taiwan, Tibet, trade, Uighurs). This attitude infects the Indian military as well. In an alternative universe, army special forces would long ago have cleared the YJunction and counterblockaded PLA on the Depsang. While there’s talk by military brass about reorienting Indian forces Chinawards, there’s little initiative on display. The Indian response in Galwan Valley, it may be recalled, was reactive and the SFF is run by the external intelligence agency, RAW (Research & Analysis Wing). Accustomed to supinity, the Indian government nevertheless believes it will not lose out to Beijing. How is anybody’s guess! ■
By agreeing to the ‘phased’ mutual withdrawal, India has helped China evade the “guiding principles” for the negotiation, including sanctity of past accords and the LAC