Days after China’s attempts to push India to accept the 'new normal'—Beijing’s takeover of vital bits of territory in Ladakh—New Delhi has reinforced its red line. The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Bipin Rawat told the Hindustan Times on Monday that if the on-going military and diplomatic dialogue with China did not restore the status quo ante, India’s armed forces were ready to use force. “Transgressions along the LAC occur due to differing perceptions about its alignment.
Defence services are tasked to monitor and carry out surveillance and prevent such transgressions turning into intrusions. Whole of government approach is adopted to peacefully resolve any such activity and prevent intrusions. Defence services always remain prepared for military actions should all efforts to restore status quo along the LAC do not succeed,” General Rawat said. Gen. Rawat’s assertion has made it plain that India’s will to restore the pre-standoff situation on the border remains implacable.
The timing of his statement is also significant. By stating that India was willing to exercise the full spectrum of options, including military force, Gen. Rawat has powerfully rejected the China’s campaign that India should lump the Chinese takeover of strategic heights along crucial border points in Ladakh, and move on. If the Chinese establishment believes that after making suitable noises for some time, the Modi-administration would finally accept the 'new normal' in Ladakh, the mandarins in Beijing are living in denial.
The June 15, Galwan Valley incident when 20 Indian soldiers died, and an unknown number of Chinese troops lost their lives, was a turning point in the recent history of India-China relations. Some retired establishment figures, sections of the academia and media have opined that the Galwan incident has taken the India-China ties back to an era prior to 1993 when the Peace and Tranquillity Accord was signed, which laid the foundation for serial confidence building measures along the border.
But it is more likely that after the Galwan encounter, India-China ties have reversed to the pre-1988 situation, before former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi undertook the so-called landmark visit to Beijing. With the relationship now broken and distrust of China in India complete, the Communist Party of China (CPC) would, instead of words, need to take clear, concrete and irreversible steps, before New Delhi could consider reviving ties, which are now in free-fall.
What specific actions should China take before New Delhi can seriously consider rebuilding bridges of trust washed away by the Galwan incident?
For starters, China must do what Gen. Rawat has spelt out with complete clarity—restore status quo ante. But these steps on the border, need to immediately followed up with border talks, with a clear intent, political will and urgency to rapidly resolve the boundary issue once and for all. In the past India had agreed to de-couple the border issue with the India-China economic engagement. In the backdrop of the June 15 incident, it is to be expected, that New Delhi no longer considers this formulation valid.
Further deterioration of economic ties can only be expected in the days to come. Second, China has to demonstrate that it is not opposed to India’s rise as a great power. That would mean that Beijing has to drop its objections, and unambiguously support India’s entry into the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), as has been done by the other four permanent members of the Security Council. Downstream, instead of behaving like an outlier, China needs to swiftly remove its objections to India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and, in future, other elite forums of global relevance and influence, including those falling under the UN umbrella.
Third, Beijing needs to accept and welcome India as a fellow “civilizational state,” and recognise that its cultural influence in China, going beyond the introduction and spread of Buddhism, has been profound. For too long China’s “exceptionalist” self-perception has been guided by its Middle Kingdom hubris. China now needs to breakout of its historically ingrained Middle Kingdom mindset that it is the centre of the “universe,” connected to less equal “tributary” states.
Sooner or later, such an anachronistic self-imagination is bound to trigger a collective blowback against China on a regional, if not on an international scale. The protests in Hong Kong and the formation of the Milk Tea alliance, currently resonating in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Thailand are symptoms that a bigger storm, at a popular level, against the Party-State is brewing in the region.
Finally, China needs to unambiguously respect India’s geo-cultural space, which, for historical reasons has extended into Central, South and Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean territories as well as along India’s extended neighborhood to the west. China’s deliberate attempts, to curtail Indian influence in its neighborhood, running against the grain of history, is a strategic misstep, which, sooner or later, is bound to backfire. In far history, the Indian and the Confucian civilizations have exemplified peaceful co-existence.
If that mindset of shared geo-cultural space, peaceful intent, and a vibrant economic relationship built on trust and mutual respect can once again become the touchstone, it may lay afresh, a real foundation to re-build India-China ties in the 21st century.
