New Delhi: The coming year may prove to be worse than 2022 for India-China relations with a live Line of Actual Control (LAC), even as the bilateral ties between New Delhi and Beijing continue to remain fraught with no boundary resolution in sight, at a time when Xi Jinping has been voted as the President for life, according to multiple sources.
While it had seemed there has been some thawing of ice between President Xi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Bali, Indonesia, when they met on the sidelines of the G20 Summit as both leaders shook hands, the reality soon kicked in with the reports of fresh clashes in the Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, earlier this month that left 34 Indian soldiers injured.
The year 2023 will be especially paradoxical for India, which is now the current President of G20 and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and will be expected to take a “firm stance on Beijing’s growing assertiveness” and call it out on international forums, official sources told ABP Live, requesting not to be named.
The pressure on India will be double because the US in 2023 will sharpen its knives more against China and that will also impact New Delhi’s ties with Beijing, which will continue to create more troubles for strategic constructs like the Indo-Pacific or the ‘Quadrilateral Security Dialogue’ or the Quad, according to the sources.
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The LAC standoff that began between India and China in the Ladakh sector in April-May 2020 has compelled New Delhi to say that the bilateral relationship between both countries cannot be “business as usual” unless there is peace and tranquility in the border areas.
In the past year, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar repeatedly said India will not let China change the status quo at the LAC unilaterally.
Last month, Jaishankar reiterated this in Parliament and said: “Diplomatically, we have been clear with the Chinese that we won’t tolerate attempts to unilaterally change the LAC. If China continues to build up forces, which in our minds constitute serious concerns in border areas, our relationship won’t be normal; abnormality is evident in the past few years.” He was replying to clarifications in the Rajya Sabha to his statement on ‘Latest Developments in India’s Foreign Policy’.
Jabin T. Jacob, associate professor in the Department of International Relations and Governance Studies at Shiv Nadar University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences, told ABP Live: “India-China relations have remained stuck at the LAC since the 2020 clashes. The only forward movement if it can be called that was Modi and Xi crossing paths at Samarkand during the SCO summit in September and finally speaking briefly at the G20 summit in Bali in November.”
He added: “Year 2022 saw a further slowing of the disengagement process along the LAC while de-escalation looks next to impossible. With the Yangtse clash, it is clear that the whole of the LAC is now live, not just the Western Sector. This is probably the biggest takeaway from this year.”
Need For A ‘National Defence Strategy’
While India continues to reiterate its commitment towards theatre commands, the calls for a ‘National Security Strategy’ or ‘National Defence Strategy’ have gone louder in the wake of continued incursions by China.
“Jointness and better integration is the future … We are also looking at how best you can integrate it, aggregate the capabilities of the three services both in terms of jointness, integration and finally in terms of achieving the integrated theatre command model,” Army Chief Manoj Pande said Thursday while delivering the keynote address at 4th General KV Krishna Rao Memorial Lecture.
According to former Army Chief MM Naravane, a ‘National Security Strategy’ is imperative in order to make theatre commands a reality.
“Unless there is an NSS in place, just to keep talking of theaterisation is to actually put the cart before the horse … Theaterisation is not an end. It is only a means to an end. And that end must be specified first in the form of a National Defense Strategy, which will flow out of the NSS,” Naravane said at a recent event.
According to experts, while resolution to the boundary question will continue to remain a pipedream in the coming year, China will leave no stone unturned to achieve its goal to expand its presence in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh.
“They clearly have designs over the populated Tawang tract in Arunachal Pradesh, and have plainly indicated their interests in Eastern Ladakh, which go beyond the Macartney-MacDonald Line to an inexplicable and rationale-less 1959 Line. Its failure to achieve the end-state in Yangtse, will be painful and rankle the PLA hierarchy, though fictional story-telling will be attempted to mislead its own public. Planning for an alternative can always be on the cards,” Lt Gen (Retd) Rakesh Sharma, Distinguished Fellow at Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), wrote in a paper published on vifindia.org.
Global Security Initiative - Xi's New Project
The year 2022 also witnessed President Xi giving a decisive shape to his ‘Global Security Initiative’(GSI), which is yet to take off in a significant way and for India it remains crucial to see how this policy comes to fruition.
President Xi batted for GSI at the last SCO Summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and said the GSI aims to “address the peace deficit and global security challenges”.
“It calls on all countries to stay true to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security and build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture. We welcome all stakeholders to get involved in implementing this initiative,” Xi had said in Samarkand.
“Without New Delhi being able to formulate a clear policy towards China, it will be constrained to simply reacting to events. It will also be unable to move forward on major reforms such as the theaterisation of military commands as well as on a major restructuring and expansion of India's diplomatic corps - something that is often left unstated, even ignored but as necessary as any reforms within the military,” Jacob told ABP Live.
He added: “Mutual suspicions will remain strong and the coming year is unlikely to see a change in current patterns — more Chinese transgressions and clashes along the LAC, greater Chinese competition with India in South Asia and the wider neighbourhood and more Chinese narratives about India functioning not of its own accord but simply as a lackey of the United States. China will try to drive wedges between India and its partners in the Quad even as it keeps up pressure on the LAC and draws away resources India ought to be devoting its Navy.”
Dealing With A New China
In the new year, India will be dealing with a new China of sorts. While President Xi will continue to get empowered by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), changes within his cabinet might pose a challenge for India, which is keen on keeping the communication channels open.
In October, after the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi’s entire cabinet underwent a rejig essentially surrounding himself with loyalists even as he appointed seven of his close to the party’s Politburo Standing Committee.
“The relations between India and China have never been more stressed than currently is the case. You will see a lot more pin-pricks by the Chinese. The government has tied itself in knots after the Prime Minister's statement that nobody came into our territory and no discussion in parliament makes it more convenient for the Chinese to carry on with what they have been doing. Government not acknowledging Chinese intrusions is also a problem,” Maj Gen Ashok K Mehta (retd) told ABP Live.
He added that the latest incursion in Yangtze region shows the level of connectivity China has achieved in those treacherous terrains.