25 July 2020, NIICE Commentary 5641
Bhavna Singh
The faceoff at Galwan and Naku La in early 2020 has brought back the fear that bilateral relations between India-China may spiral down again. There have been repeated altercations at several points across the LAC including Galwan, Demchok, hotsprings, Gogra, Lipulekh, and Naku La. Even earlier in 2013, Chinese intrusion had blocked access of Indian soldiers to several patrolling points at PPs -10, 11, 11A, 12 & 13. Recently, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) pulled back almost 2 kilometres from patrolling point 14, 15 & 17 retreating from their original position. Yet the trust deficit remains to be bridged, far more distressing, possibilities of war remain. The question that now confronts both the sides is how to disengage while keeping face for both sides.
Impact of the Reorganisation of Ladakh as a Union Territory
The Ladakh boundaries were not defined historically until 1683 when under the treaty of Ting-gang, for the first time the Chinese and British attempted to define sovereignty. In 1842 the Ladakh-Tibet war led to realisation for the need of a treaty on boundaries which fructified as a peace treaty through exchange of documents in Tibetan and Persian. In 1914, with the Simla Agreement, the McMohan Line was promulgated by tripartite agreement but China never ratified it even when the text of the Simla Convention was initialled by Chinese plenipotentiary Chen-I fan. Initiatives continued and in 1979, Deng proposed the ‘package solution’ to Vajpayee to settle boundary issue in all three sectors but just as before neither side wanted to give up control over any parts of territory or atleast didn’t want to be seen by their domestic audience as relenting control over the territory.
In August 2019, the Parliament of India passed an act by which Ladakh became a union territory on 31 October 2019. This unnerved the Chinese completely since this would lead to complete control of the centre from New Delhi over Ladakh. This off-course is not unprecedented as even historically many instances of Ladakh being controlled by the centre or Punjab have been noticed. In 1834, Gulab Singh had sent an army of 4000 men under his ablest general Zorawar Singh to conquer Ladakh and arranged the payment of Ladakhi tribute to Ranjit Singh and not the Governor in Kashmir which shows that the region was closely monitored by the people in the plains. The L adakh reorganisation brought the Chinese face-to-face-with the reality that they could not take India’s claims in the region lightly.
Status Quo
To the discomfort of Indians, the Chinese have effectively shifted their actual control of the territory 18 km to the west inside of the Depsang Plains. This would deny India access to a significant part of territory close to the Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) airfield and bring the Chinese much closer to the strategic Darbuk-Shyok-DBO (DSDBO) road. By stalling Indian patrols at Bottleneck, Chinese troops are denying India access to five of its patrolling points (PPs): PP-10, PP-11, PP-11A, PP-12 and PP-13. These PPs lie on an arc of around 20 km from Raki Nala to Jiwan Nala, on a line marked as the LoP or Limit of Patrolling, which lies a few kilometres to the west of the LAC. However, not all is bad news.
In a rare gesture by the Chinese side, the leadership had accepted the number of casualties on the Chinese side though the figure remains dubious (20 soldiers died on the Indian side and 100 soldiers were injured on the Chinese side). Both India and China began a 72-hour verification process to make sure each side has fulfilled the commitment before disengagement is initiated in continuation of the agreement between the special representatives of India and China, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, respectively. The two sides agreed on the “earliest complete disengagement of the troops along the LAC and de-escalation from India-China border areas for full restoration of peace and tranquillity.” Four rounds of talks have taken place since then, the latest being at Chushul. The Indian side has chosen to stay quite on the Depsang plain while discussing all other areas of conflict, by this it hopes to incentivise China to maintain the status quo ante on Pangong Tso as of April 2020.
Disengagement: What it means for India and China?
Disengagement from insurgents in armed conflicts has been a part of the agenda for international actors for years, through so-called disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programmes as explained by Stig Jarle Hanasen (2020). Traditionally, DDR was seen as an attempt to integrate former combatants in civil wars into society in a post-conflict situation which in this case remains a recurrent process. Until and unless there is a permanent boundary solution, the troops at the border are likely to clash several times in the coming years and thus, disengagement at the Sino-Indian border remains a temporary solution rather than a long-term strategy that it should have been. Palpably, escalation and disengagement recur in accustomed pattern along all the three sectors involved in the territorial issue.
The Way Forward
Undeniably, China’s actions continue to be expansionist in the border regions leaving lesser space for manoeuvrability for the Indian diplomats. China has practically wiped away the ‘No Man’s Land’ over the last few years with settlements cropping up in previously uninhabitable areas which can be detected by satellite imagery. The Chinese continue to pressurise India on the acceptance of the Karakoram Range of the MacMohan Line even as there is a lack of consensus in the Indian establishment. Currently, with no all out war, there seems to be an element of Controlled war at play. India’s boycott of Chinese made goods then forms a part of this strategy to hurt the Chinese economic interests by denying them access to the Indian market. This however, does not look like an astute measure from the point of a China analyst as it would in the long term go against the theory of comparative advantage. Silence on the Depsang Plains is also not a good option for India as at this stage, India should vocalise its reservations against China’s encroachment or else it would be too late in the future.
Though Ram Madhav’s statement that “India must show the same assertiveness on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China as it has shown on the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan, simply to protect its “self-respect” and defend its land “till the last inch”” (25 June 2020 in The Statesman) well encapsulates the government stand. The government should be a little more assertive in its actions and strengthen its military force and brace for war as most of the criticisms in the media have been about how Indian does not have the required military reinforcement to act against China. A good start towards the solution could also be to propose or moot an Inner Tibet and Outer Tibet Solution as in the case of Mongolia reflecting from the May 1914 objections of the Chinese to ratify the Simla Convention, in which case, the Chinese will be forced to think again and give some concessions to India.
