Lets stop dreaming – Human chains will not stop China
…Even as New Delhi talks of taking up the issue of border incursions with China at the “appropriate highest level”, up in the Himalayas, the Indian soldiers are using a Gandhian method to stop the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops from intruding into the Indian territory.
With the PLA making fresh incursions into the Fingertip Area of Sikkim, Indian troops are now blocking the Chinese soldiers by forming human chains.
“We are literally forming human chains to stop the Chinese from crossing over,” says a senior Army officer. “If they come in groups of 20, we assemble 50 men and form a human chain. They can’t after all push us and cross the border.”
Under the terms of confidence-building measures started between the two countries during the days of Atal Behari Vajpayee government, troops on either side do not open fire to stop intrusions in disputed areas.
…There have been 65 transgressions into Sikkim in the last six months and on June 16, PLA men entered the region in light vehicles and later returned to their territory.
but more worrying is this…
At the Fingertips Area, in north Sikkim, Chinese patrols have been coming regularly for the past two years, the last being on Monday. [ link ]
and taking up the issue at appropriate levels is certainly not going to “sort out China incursions issue”
…Dubbing Chinese incursions into Sikkim “unfortunate”, Minister of State for Defence M.M. Pallam Raju said on Thursday that India would take up the issue with China at the appropriate level. “The issue of incursions will be raised at the next flag meeting with the Chinese and also discussed at the appropriate level. As responsible neighbours, we will sort it out,” Raju told reporters.
But I applaud the Minister of state for defence for being candid:
‘‘All this is happening because we are failing to assert ourselves as a nation on our stand on what we believe is ours,’’ Raju told meadiapersons here on the sidelines of a seminar on Indian ways of war fighting, organised by Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS).
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What realistic options does India have in the face of these constant low-intensity attempts by China to bully India?
Can India really win a war against China on the Eastern front?
I don’t know….
I will try and find answer to all these questions in the next few days. In the meantime, please contribute with your thoughts and comments.
Related Posts:
Slowly but steadily, China marches ahead…
As the Government sleeps, dark clouds gather on the horizon…
From The Pioneer article by Ashok V Mehta, China eyeing Sikkim again
…China’s military modernisation is moving at a frenetic pace. Defence spending has registered an annual increase of 17 per cent, officially amounting to $ 70 billion, though Western analysts say it is double that amount. The upgrade in military infrastructure in Tibet has trebled the operational and logistics capabilities of the PLA. Its strategic programmes are on the rise too.
The boundary dispute, which hurts India, has for all intents and purposes remained on the back burner, periodically subjected to the charade of political and cartographic mechanisms for its resolution. It is a zero sum game. Cleverly, the Chinese have raised the political cost of any settlement to unacceptably high levels even raking up boundary dispute on the settled Sikkim border.
Dealing with the two Chinas are officials in foreign office who believe relations with Beijing have never been better and military commanders who assert that there is a serious disconnect between our perception of Chinese intent and capabilities. But they are being advised to underplay, even underreport, border incidents.
…Sikkim’s geo-strategic importance is recognised beyond doubt. Its eastern shoulder descends into the Chumbi valley to the point near the trijunction with Bhutan which is disputed. North Sikkim is the only area in the East from where any meaningful ground offensive into Tibet can be mounted. During Operation Falcon, following the Sumdorong Chu standoff in Wangdung, heavy tanks, artillery and mechanised vehicles were inducted into North Sikkim in 1987. As matching infrastructure lagged behind and slowed down to zero after the 1993 and 1996 peace accords, the military deterrent capability also withered away. So twice, once after 1962 and again in 1987, infrastructure development plans were aborted.
…No Indian Prime Minister has ever visited Tawang which, the Chinese say, has an inalienable connection with Tibet.
…The PLA’s posturing on the border is risk laden. Indian Army and Air Force do not have an adequate deterrent capability in the East. A counter offensive Corps has remained on paper since 1987. Belatedly two new Mountain Divisions have been sanctioned for the East. We are 20 years behind the Chinese in operational capability and infrastructure.
Excerpts from Why a full-blooded attack on China during Olympics is in India’s favour by R Vaidyanathan
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The significant change that is taking place in China is pertaining to religion. The keynote speech by the communist party general secretary Hu Jintao to the 17th party congress in October last year devoted a paragraph to religion. He stressed that religious people including priests, monks and lay believers played a positive role in the social and economic development of China. Hence, religion is not any more the opium of the masses.
The state-controlled Xinhua stresses that there must be freedom of belief. It says religion can play an important role in realising a “harmonious society,” which is the new political role of the party [Asia times Online July 3, 2008].
That is the main issue we in India should be interested in. A study based on
more than 4,500 people conducted by two professors of China Normal University in 2007 concluded that more than 300 million people, namely 31% of the population, were religious and more than 60% of them are in the 16-40 age group
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In this context, there is a need for us to be more proactive. To recall the words of Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to the USA (1938-1942), “India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without having to send a single soldier across her borders.”
We should now be sending Sri Sri Ravishankar, Mata Amirtanandamayi, Swami Ramdev and Pramukh Swami Shankaracharyas Vaishnavite seers and other spiritual leaders, besides Bharatnatyam experts, musicians and other artistes in dozens to China to ” conquer and dominate” by our soft power.
We need to print millions of copies of Ramayana and Mahabharata and our Puranas and Gita in modern Chinese languages and make them widely available. The CDs of Mahabharata and Ramayana, etc can also be given free.
We should create a fund of at least Rs 1,000 crore for this effort. This is the only way to destabilise our younger brother by de-legitimising Communism. Olympics is the best time to start it and, there is a need to continue the efforts relentlessly.
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There is a statue of Kalidasa in the Shanghai theatreway, unveiled by the theatre academy. I can’t think of any metro in India, including the so-called “culture capital” Kolkata, having a statue of Kalidasa. At Kolkata, the theatre road became Shakespeare Sarani and not Kalidasa Marg. China has a thriving underground church, which is also of concern to the government. We should strategically recognise the weak point of China and also the need of its masses in the absence of Communism.
…There are other issues. Officially, China recognises or permits only five religions —- Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Protestantism and Catholicism (1997 government white paper quoted by The Economist, February 1, 2007]. Hence, we should take steps to include Hinduism as one of the permitted religions.
The Indian government should take steps since four other religions of India are permitted.
The point is that our soft power in culture is interwoven in a tapestry form with the religion. Howsoever hard one might try, there is no separating the two. Carnatic music without bhakti is neither music nor art.
…Even when invitations come to Indian spiritual leaders, the Government of India is unenthusiastic
and indicates its disinterest in the false assumptions regarding China’s political orientation. The policy formulators are still living in the sixties and seventies at a time when China is undergoing a gigantic social crisis due to material prosperity and spiritual vacuum.
…The strategy should be to encircle China with music, dance, art, yoga, ayurveda, spiritual texts, etc and capture the hearts of the middle classes as we have done for centuries. In the process, we should de-stabilise the current dispensation and de-legitimise the remnants of Communism.
Are we ready to undertake such an invasion?
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NOTE: Sadly, Prof. Vaidyanathan appears to have missed the point that India is a *secular* country.
As for sending CDs of Ramayana, let us first get the Rama Setu recognised!
From Chinese threat looms large by G Parthasarathy
Excerpts from: India’s unwise military moves:
Hat Tip: Do read Nitin’s take on this
Courtesy Sanjay The China-India Border Brawl from which some brief excerpts:
Is anyone in New Delhi worried…or even listening? You can bet not.
Excerpts from INTRUDE, VIOLATE, AND THEN OFFER TO DISCUSS by Claude Arpi, 25 April 2013:
..What can India do in the face of Beijing’s brazenness? One way out would be to postpone Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to India. But New Delhi will probably prefer to ‘engage’ China. We have been doing this for decades
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Let us look at the facts: For centuries, the Great Himalayas were an incident-free customary natural border between Tibet and India. Then in 1950, the Chinese invaded the Roof of the World. Progressively, the People’s Liberation Army spread over the Tibetan plateau, building roads, airstrips and setting up garrisons. The border became the Line of Actual Control. Now, the LAC has become ‘perceptional’.
This is a convenient appellation for the Chinese as they can enter at will places they perceive as ‘theirs’, plant their tents or send their yaks to graze.
The Times of India reported that New Delhi “has recorded well over 600 ‘transgressions’ — the Government’s euphemism for cross-border intrusions — all along the unresolved 4,057 km Line of Actual Control by the People’s Liberation Armyâ€. And this, over the last three years alone.
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A question should be asked: Why is the LAC still not defined? What was the point of successive National Security Advisers meeting their Chinese counterparts 15 times since 2003 if they are unable to define an ‘actual’ line? The blame is usually put on the ‘insincerity’ of the Chinese side which is not ready for the slightest compromise, but it is also a fact that instinctively the Indian leadership prefers to hide behind a ‘mechanism’, to not ‘hurt’ our Chinese neighbours’ feelings or ‘makes things worse’, especially when the Chinese Premier is expected in New Delhi.
A telling incident is worth recalling. In September 1956, 20 Chinese crossed over the Shipki-la pass into Himachal Pradesh. A 27-member Border Security Force party met the Chinese the same day. They were told by a Chinese officer that he had been instructed to patrol right up to Hupsang Khad (four miles south of Shipki La, the acknowledged border pass). The BSF were advised “to avoid an armed clash but not yield to the Chinese troops.â€
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What can India do? One solution would be to postpone Premier Li Keqiang’s visit. However New Delhi will probably prefer to ‘engage’ China, in which case, one possibility would be to ‘fix’ the borders by re-opening several border passes. The reopening of the Demchok route in Ladakh would not only ‘pin’ the border in this area, but also allow Indian pilgrims to reach the Kailash-Mansarovar area in relatively comfortable conditions. Another border post which would make a difference, if re-opened, is the old trade route via the Karakoram pass. By building a border infrastructure, both sides would have to agree on a LAC, if not a proper border in the area; some gaps between the border posts may remain, but they could be tackled at a later stage. It’s true, though, that the ‘perceptional’ intrusions occurred mainly in the gaps. To fix a few border posts would, however, go a long way in solving the dispute.
From Counter the ‘String of Pearls’ with a ‘String of Rapiers’ by Brahma Chellaney, these excerpts:
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Instead of regular Indian army troops patrolling the line of control, border police have been deployed. The Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel, with their defensive training and mindset, are no match to the aggressive designs of the People’s Liberation Army and thus continue to be outwitted by them. Even in response to the incursion, the government has sent largely ITBP troops to pitch tents at a safe distance from the intruders’ camp.
Worse yet, India remains focused on the process than on the substance of diplomacy, even as China steps up its belligerence. Process is important but only if it buys you time to build countervailing leverage. Unfortunately, a rudderless India has made little effort to craft such leverage. Rather, New Delhi is playing right into Chinese hands by merely flaunting the process of engagement and thereby aiding Beijing’s strategy to use this process as cover to further change the status quo on the ground.
India’s defensive and diffident mindset has been on full display in the latest episode. Not only has it publicly downplayed an act of naked aggression — the worst Chinese intrusion since the 1986 Sumdurong Chu incursion brought the two countries to the brink of war — but India also insists on going with an outstretched hand to an adversary still engaged in hostile actions, unconcerned that it could get the short end of the stick yet again.
India should be under no illusion that diplomacy alone will persuade China to withdraw its camped soldiers. One way to force China’s hand would be for the Indian army to intrude and occupy a highly strategic area elsewhere across the line of control and use that gain as a trade-off.
More fundamentally, India can maintain border peace only by leaving China in no doubt that it has the capability and political will to defend peace. If the Chinese see an opportunity to nibble at Indian land, they will seize it. It is for India to ensure that such opportunities do not arise. In other words, the Himalayan peace ball is very much in India’s court.
India thus must have a clear counter-strategy to tame Chinese aggressiveness. Significantly, Tibet remains at the core of the Sino-Indian divide, with India’s growing strategic ties with the U.S. increasingly rankling China. Even as old rifts persist, new issues are roiling the relationship.
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To build countervailing leverage, India has little choice but to slowly reopen the central issue of Tibet — a card New Delhi wholly surrendered at the altar of diplomacy during the time Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister. Of course, the process of surrendering the card began under Jawaharlal Nehru when India in 1954 recognized the “Tibet region of China†without any quid pro quo — not even Beijing’s acceptance of the then prevailing Indo-Tibetan border.
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More broadly, China’s “string of pearls†strategy can be countered by forming a “string of rapiers†with likeminded Asian-Pacific countries. At the root of the growing tensions and insecurity in Asia is China’s ongoing strategy to subvert the status quo. Only mutually beneficial cooperation can shield Asian peace and economic renaissance, not muscle-flexing and furtive moves.
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From Being unreasonable with China by Nitin Pai:
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So how should India respond?
The PLA’s tactic of creating outrage to check the Indian Army works because the Chinese side expects the Indian political leadership to act rationally. If, instead, New Delhi were to allow the situation “to accentuate”, to use the prime minister’s phrase, then it would be for Beijing to choose whether it wants to escalate matters, especially at this time when China finds itself poised on the verge of conflict with almost all of its neighbours.
This is, of course, a risky thing to do. However, this is also a good time to take a calculated risk. After this month’s incursion, PLA commanders have proposed that the Indian Army back away from its positions in return for the PLA vacating its campsite in the Depsang valley in Ladakh. New Delhi should reject such a compromise; instead, it should visibly reinforce the Indian military presence around the vicinity. New Delhi should signal to Beijing – and, lest we forget, to our television studios – that this would be our default response to anything that we consider an incursion.
While New Delhi has sought to respond to China’s use of roads, railways and demographic change along the frontier with its own effort to improve infrastructure, these measures suffer from a combination of political blinkers, bureaucratic ineffectiveness and rampant corruption. As P Stobdan wrote in The Indian Express last week, we must “build infrastructure, populate the area, reactivate nomadic herding, and provide them [the frontier population] with the wherewithal to fight the vagaries of nature”.
Beyond the Himalayan boundary theatre, New Delhi should calibrate its attention to the numerous maritime disputes involving China and its East Asian neighbours to the temperature of the overall India-China relationship. China cannot expect New Delhi to be insensitive to Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian states if Beijing is insensitive to India’s interests.
With a new leadership assuming office in China and a flurry of bilateral diplomatic exchanges in the offing, it is timely for the pragmatic men in Beijing to consider the merits of an approach that antagonises a giant civilisational neighbour to their south. Do they really want the PLA to score tactical points at the cost of strengthening the relationship between the US and India?