Watch it on NIICE Nepal YouTube Channel

Event Report

Nepal Institute of International Cooperation and Engagement (NIICE), Nepal organised a webinar on 7 June, 2020, over the existing conflict between India and China at border. The theme of the webinar was “The Sources of Current Sino-Indian Tensions” and Prof. Sumit Ganguly, Professor, Political Science, Indiana University, US, addressed the highly effective session as the resource person.

Prof. Sumit Ganguly is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science and holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, Bloomington. Professor Ganguly has has previously taught at James Madison College of Michigan State University, Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the University of Texas at Austin. He has been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, a Visiting Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, a Guest Scholar at the Center for Cooperative Monitoring in Albuquerque and a Visiting Scholar at the German Institute for International and Area Studies in Hamburg. He has also held the Asia Chair at Sciences Po in Paris, and the Ngee Ann Chair in International Politics at the Rajaratnam School for International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis in New Delhi and the Buffet Professor at Northwestern University for 2013-2014.  In the 2017-2018, he was a Visiting Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College. He will spend the summer of 2018 as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Heidelberg.

Professor Ganguly is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is an Associate Editor of International Security and serves on the editorial boards of the Asian Security, Current History, the Journal of Democracy, Foreign Policy Analysis, The India Review, The Nonproliferation Review, Pacific Affairs and Security Studies.  In the spring of 2018 he launched a new, bi-annual, refereed, open-access journal, Indian Politics and Policy, for the Policy Studies Organization. He is also an Associate Editor of Security Studies. A specialist on the contemporary politics of South Asia is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 20 books on the region. His most recent books are the Oxford Short Introduction to Indian Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press, 2015), Deadly Impasse: Indo-Pakistani Relations at the Dawn of a New Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016), (with William R. Thompson), Ascending India and Its State Capacity (Yale University Press, 2017) and the co-editor (with Nicolas Blarel and Manjeet Pardesi) of The Oxford Handbook of India’s National Security (Oxford University Press, 2018) He is currently at work on a book that focuses on the origins and evolution of India’s defense policy for Columbia University Press.

Professor Ganguly, while speaking on the theme, divided his lecture into four separate sections. Under the first section, he talked about armed border conflict between India and China while in the second section, he explained how India, in the recent times, has sought different ways to build relationships with external forces to balance People's Republic of China. Under the third section, he talked about the Indian efforts to cope up with border disputes while in the 4th and last section, he described how Beijing perceives India as the only bulwark which could thwart China of its ambitions of hegemony in Asia.

In first section, Professor Ganguly explained while establishing that how in 1962, India was defeated terribly and lost 90 thousand square kilometres territory to China, now called Aksai Chin, which later led to the new plans to build up the million-man Army, 45 Air Force Squadrons and other modernizations of Indian Armed Forces. He also mentioned that how Chinese approached Brijesh Mishra, who was the then charge d'affaires of India in China, during 1970 when China was facing tensions with Russia. However, many rounds of talks between India and China to resolve northern border disputes failed which only got recharged by Rajiv Gandhi in 1988.

In the second section, while mentioning how India has been establishing its relations with external forces, Prof. Ganguly mentioned that India is looking for partners and not ally because Indian political discourse does not accept the theory of alliances. India has been heavily drifting towards United States under Modi Government and US has been well reciprocating. The reason behind it is that the US has failed to tame the Chinese assertiveness even after inviting the latter in various multilateral forums. To balance PRC, India is working together with likeminded nations viz. Japan, Vietnam, Australia among others.

Describing how India has bolstered its self defence capacity at borders, in the third section, Prof. Ganguly repented the fact that most of the Indian infrastructure activities at border have been slow and reactionary to the Chinese infrastructure. Chinese are at militarily advantageous at border; however, things have changed a lot since 1962. As per him, the basic reason behind the repeated Chinese incursions since 2014 is that Chinese have been adopting the policy of 'Limited-Probes' and checking the Indian preparedness and counter-reactions.

In the fourth and final section, Prof Ganguly explained why China sees India as the only barrier to its ambitions in dominating Asia. Since due to its assertiveness in South China Sea, the Malaysia, Vietnam among others is terrified. India has the only standing power to China because India has some strategic cards to play though India has not played it. Be it Tibet card or improving relations with Taiwan or selling BrahMos to Vietnam, India can do a lot in countering China. However, lack towards Nepalese concerns have led Nepal to drift towards PRC and it was huge strategic failure from Indian policy makers.

Prepared by Ambrish Tripathi, Intern at NIICE, Nepal