The Indian Defense Ministry has contradicted reports of Chinese troop mobilization on the border. In a statement on Wednesday, the ministry said there had only been a general state of alert on the Chinese side and a routine annual military exercise was held near Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, in June.
This is despite a report by People’s Daily on Wednesday citing “expert” opinions that China’s “recent military moves along the Sino-Indian border … have sent a strong message to India amid the two nations’ standoff”.
The daily assessed that “Chinese experts believe that the actions showcased China’s strength and sent a strong signal to India. Though India has more troops scattered along the disputed area, China’s rapid deployment of troops, its powerful weaponry, and its advanced logistics support give China the edge over India.”
However, New Delhi is studiously playing down the border tensions. The government has taken exception to Indian media hyping the standoff with China.
Unnamed army sources in Delhi disclosed on Wednesday that no flag meetings as such had taken place between local commanders and that the standoff was being discussed at the “highest level” of the government.
Indeed, Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told a parliamentary committee on foreign affairs in Delhi on Tuesday that diplomatic efforts were under way to end the standoff.
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval is due to travel to Beijing next week to attend a BRICS event on security issues. Doval, who reports directly to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is also concurrently India’s special representative on border talks with China.
It is entirely conceivable that Doval will sound out the Chinese side on some face-saving formula that ends the standoff, devolving upon pullback of Indian troops from Chinese territory.
On the Chinese side, too, a lowering of rhetoric has been discernible for the past several days after a Xinhua commentary took note of the “positive remarks” by the Indian foreign secretary from a podium in Singapore last week to the effect that “India and China should not let differences become disputes”.
The Xinhua commentary, however, revisited the Chinese refrain that a condominium of Hindu nationalists and the hawkish Indian military is fueling tensions.
In an unsparing commentary on Wednesday, the Global Times newspaper drew a fairly accurate picture of the ascendancy of Hindu nationalists since Modi came to power and the latent groundswell of zero-sum opinion in India vis-à-vis China, laced with a sense of pain over the defeat in the 1962 war, disquiet over China’s rise and an “ingrained suspicion of Chinese strategy”.
The commentary warned that Indian “strategists and politicians have shown no wisdom in preventing India’s China policy from being kidnapped by rising nationalism…. India should be careful not to let religious nationalism push the two countries into war.”
But the salience lies, perhaps, in the Chinese commentary differentiating Prime Minister Modi himself from his “core constituency” of Hindu extremists.
What lies ahead?
The Modi government is doubtless keen to end the standoff, but a face-saving formula needs to be found. It takes two to tango.
However, looking further ahead, it is difficult to anticipate any significant shift in the trajectory of India-China relations. The relationship has become adversarial and, arguably, the Modi government’s foreign-policy compass of “muscular diplomacy” toward China (and Pakistan) is not happenstance.
There is an entrenched opinion within India’s strategic community that shares Defense Minister Arun Jaitley’s recent barb aimed at Beijing that today’s India is not “the India of 1962”.
A thoughtful Indian military analyst, Ajai Shukla, wrote this week that “border incidents are increasingly triggered by India’s increasing military strength and an increasingly assertive posture on the border”.
Shukla explained the paradigm shift this way: “The little-known upshot is that India’s military posture has become significantly stronger than China’s on the 3,500-kilometer Line of Actual Control. This is enhancing confrontation between the two sides.
“For decades, India maintained an insignificant military presence in Daulet Beg Oldi, in Ladakh…. But when India’s thickening troop presence blocked Chinese patrols into the area, a prolonged confrontation ensued in 2013. One general involved in that standoff says: ‘The Chinese demanded to know why we were blocking them now, when they had been patrolling that area for years.’
“A similar confrontation took place in Chumar, in Ladakh, in 2014. Now, in Doklam, Chinese anger stems from being blocked in 2017, after facing no resistance between 2003 [and] 2007, when they tested the waters by building the existing track.”
Of course, it takes gumption for an ex-army officer to acknowledge with such brutal candor the ground realities. But Shukla’s opinion is shared silently by many within the Indian defense-policy community.
However, Modi’s dilemma lies elsewhere. Indian strategists have a habit of spouting opinions from the ivory tower, whereas Modi is ruling an increasingly unmanageable country through choppy waters with eyes set on the 2019 elections. And the plain truth is that the Indian economy will crumble if a war is thrust upon the country.
Because of a clever change in the methodology of calculating gross domestic product, the Indian economy’s growth rate looks impressive, but in actuality, under the combined pressure of the recent policy moves on demonetization and goods and services tax (GST, a unified tax structure for the entire country), an economy that had already been slowing is now virtually crawling.
The disruption has huge consequences for short-term growth. On top of it, if a war is thrust upon the country, the political economy will enter crisis zone.
Modi understands this, which explains why the standoff with China is handled at the “highest level”. As the European statesman Georges Clemenceau, who served as France’s prime minister during World War I, said famously, war is too important to be left to the generals.
Don’t worry, by your logic Pakistan, Nepal, Sir Lanka Bangladesh willl also declear war on India, all of those country hates India so much more than CHina.
War is not at all an option for any nation be it india or china. Both sides must understand that war will only bring destruction thereby adding more vowes in the lives of poor people. In India, more than 250mn poeple live below the poverty line this warrents restraint from war like situtation or war euphoria. More focus should be on bringing people out of the peoverty stricken life and provide them atleast good food to eat and reasonable educaiton and health facilities.
I wish sanity prevails on both sides.
Vijay Raghavan nope, Mao never needed any help from India, all western and chinese history books indicate Mao got help from USSR and none from India.
According to international media , India do not have enough amunition to have war with Chind more than 15 days. what you were going to do when they come for you Hindu satans after 15 days.
pakistan spared India during 1962 war on American assurance, this time hope not. Pakistan wish India should make same mistake of 1962. sooner the batter
Ram Kumar When you call Chinese “Chinky monkey”, you mind me …
At my last project, I sat next to a girl from Hyderabad, and a boy from Punjab. The Sikhs boy told me she looked like a lizard. He meant all Hindus look like lizards (due to their skin color). I thought that’s very racist.
You need to refrain from calling others monkeys, boy. If you look into the mirror, you could easily see a reptile looking back at you.
Dear readers or rather the debaters,
Whatever you want to express as an opinion you have the freedom of expression but here in this tiny peaceful piece of hermitage land we the people of Bhutan have been existing peacefully and perfectly with the most altruistic living principle of Buddhism and so the world knows us as the only surviving Buddhist nation among over 200 hundred counteries on this planet.Therefore whatever the causes or reasons for that Doklam trijunction stand off in between two giant neighbors of our we the citizens of Bhutan see it nothing more than the two giants’ego clash jeopardizing the happiness and the very peaceful existence of this harmless tiny innocent nation who does not think nothing much than how to move ahead along with the time seeking more and working hard only to promote human happiness at home and globally by ways of examplary roles of protecting its small natural environment with the unique development policy called GNH.The Gross National Happiness.
Hence,all Bhutanese as Buddhists not only hope but sure that our two giant brothers will certainly find an amicable solutions to end such long standing disputes over that slice of land at doklam by prevailing the universal wisdoms of Buddha and Confucius inlieu of repeating inhuman historical human dissasters and devastations in this part of the continent just because one cant initiate the willingness to shake hands and say its okey brother.
More and more, action and inaction of Indian government show that they have grave coordination problem as a coherent society. Failed monetary policy, chaos in managing simple resources like sand, unable to organize society to upgrade its dilapidated infrastructure, transportation facilities, not able to bring peace and security to the non Hindu minority and it’s poor farmers. Indian are destined for a more chaotic future, just pity its smaller neighbors who have to tolerate all these nonsense because of those forced so called friendship treaty.
INDIA and MODI have been acting the white country in asia.the truth is MODI is playing the western card on china..this incident has allready isolted india with all of asia..the hindu extremist are calling on a suicidal policy in india..the WEST BE IT THE USA NATO OR JAPAN.HAVE NO FRIENDS HISTORY HAS SHOWN THAT..INDIAS ECONOMIC MIRACLE WAS BEGAN BY THE CONGRESS PARTY AND NOT THE BJP..india is doomed under hindu extremisim..even bollywood with the exception of AAMIR khan..is turning out movies that copy
hollywood…INDIA NO LONGER FEELS IT IS PART OF ASIA..
In last 10 years the way the Chinese were behaving this was always coming. Lets look at the recent past 1 year. China blocked India’s entry into NSG, blocked Mazhar asod’s labelling as international terrorist, openly supporting Pakistan. This incident was inevitable. Unlike other countries in East Asia, there is one major difference for China in this conflict and that is the nukes India posses. India has invested heavily in the delivery systems and this is not a showpiece for its republic day parade. India will have to use it in the full scale war scenario and its is a open known fact that China has more wealth and better industry that what India posses at the moment. So in a nuclear Armageddon China has more to lose. It just takes one leader with the same thinking for the general public’s nightmare to be real. This is how serious and worried China should be too for a resolution, not just India, Mr well paid author of this article.
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http://www.universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1612330975
It is high time the #Bhutan should basso be brought into the picture. After all, both India as well as China must be aware of the situations in Bhutan. See more materials at:
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Every possible solution has to b sought to prevent confrontation btn bricks,d hypocrital USA wants to c d demise of bricsh BT PSE don’t fight
Empire watch theorom 1 says
‘India is guilty until proven innocent’
It’s been verified times and again since 1949 and once again its vindicated
by this latest Indo/Sino flare up.
I knew the Indians were lying thru their tooth from day one, its the nature of the
beast.
By now its clear .
Indians went into Chinese territory to confront and stopped a road crew exactly like what the Chinese claimed.
That Indian accusation of ‘very aggressive Chinese troops intruded into Indian land and destroyed two bunkers ‘ were pure undulterated Indian cow dung.
India is at the wrong side of border and wrong side of history ,
exactly like 1962.
This simple fact doest seem to register with the hordes of jingoistic, dumbed down, hypocritical and hysterical Indians here, some are even baying for the head of the author. !
Richard Nixon was right when he obvserved….
‘Indians are the most aggressive !@#$%^! around. ‘ !
Pity China,
So far from god, so near to India.
Oh Gawd,
What’ve the Chinese done to deserve such a neighbor ??
p.s.
with due respect to the author !
China is irresponsible in its approach. It is slowly slipping in the category of North Korea and Pakistan. China is always looking for something to prick it’s neighbors. If it thinks by fighting with neighbors it will earn respect in the world then it’s foolish. Back home what they have done till date with its peace loving citizens especially Muslim’s we all know. Communist criminals will fall one day.
It is China who want somehow to get out of mess. They have paid media worldwide to create news regarding the same. Indian army wont move, China must back off and stop the crooked games. The Chinese leadership is a group of nasty and poisonous people. Mr.XI JINGPING is the worst president of China,by making enemies he will destroy China and trade. Stupid morons think that they can bully rest of the world like bullying Tibertan and Chinese people.
Krishna S Santosh Stay and find out.
Vijay Raghavan as a matter of fact Mao did previous nothing except sabotage the Nationalists and kill approx 20 million Chinese over his time in power. That is why they made the great Democrat their national icon.
US will no & really cannot help India in war in the Himalaya…pipe dreams. It will be 1962 again. India may have more troops at border, but Chinese rapid deployment & advanced weaponry means mass graves for Indian troops.