Is Beijing Preparing For Another Confrontation With India At The Border Soon?

By Tanmay Kadam – August 1, 2024

The second reason Hu gives is India’s revocation of Article 370 of its Constitution in August 2019 which allotted a special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). In addition to that, the Indian government also withdrew the statehood of J&K and divided it into two centrally governed Union territories of Ladakh and J&K. This according to Hu, amounted to a unilateral change in the political status of what is a disputed land between India, Pakistan and China.

The third reason Hu gives is that of new aggression exhibited by the Indian military patrols since early 2020 as well as the increase in infrastructure and overall connectivity through bridges and roads on the Indian side of the LAC.

The final reason given by Hu was that the Indian government under Prime Minister Modi had shifted its attitude toward relationship with China by making the border issue a central aspect of bilateral relations, thereby violating the 1988 agreement reached between Rajiv Gandhi and Deng Xiaoping, to put the border dispute on the back burner while developing other aspects of the relationship.

The above reasons offered by Hu give a localized impression of reasons behind China’s aggression in Galwan Valley in June 2020 and at Yangtse in December 2022, limited to measures taken by the Indian government to improve its border infrastructure and connectivity as well as to assert its sovereignty in J&K and Arunachal Pradesh. However, this is not the case.

In reality, China’s aggression in the above two instances was driven by larger geostrategic reasons, as enumerated by Hu himself way back in 2020, mere months after the Galwan Valley incident.

Hu Shisheng co-authored a 33-page article titled ‘The Behavioural Logic behind India’s Tough Foreign Policy toward China’, in the Sept-Oct 2020 issue of Contemporary International Relations (CIR), the official publication of the CICIR.

After that he alleged that it was India that provoked the conflict in the Galwan valley by carrying a surprise attack on the Chinese-controlled area in the middle of the night and further said that “the Modi administration has become increasingly tougher in its policy toward China hence building up antagonism between the two countries and putting China-India relations on a downward trend”.

Most noteworthy is Hu’s description of the Galwan Valley incident as “anything but the end” and the grim assessment of the future of the border issue which foresees more standoffs and skirmishes between Indian and Chinese border troops, with the likelihood of escalation to use of firearms.

Shortly after this article, Hu authored another piece that was published in mid-December in the state-owned Global Times, in which he accused India of trying to compete with China for the position of the representative of developing countries’ interests by disrupting China’s agenda in multilateral mechanisms as well as internally sabotaging multilateral organisations like BRICS and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) where China does have a prominent role.

Hu then highlights India’s assumption of the role of the net security provider of the Indian Ocean region (IOR) as a bone of contention for China by saying that India regards “the Indian Ocean as its pond” and with the advent of China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative in South Asia and the IOR, New Delhi is finding it difficult to maintain a dominant position in the region, which has led India to align itself with the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy.

Hu then goes on to say that “in India’s view, China is its top geopolitical competitor,” which is most telling of how Beijing views India. Basically, China is worried by the rise in India’s status at the global stage since 2014 as well as the increasingly assertive security posture adopted by India to uphold its sovereignty.

According to Jayadeva Ranada, President of the Centre for China Analysis and Strategy (CCAS), both the articles by Hu Shisheng certainly had high-level official approval and their publication in English was obviously intended to ensure wider publicity for China’s views of its relations with India.

India definitely has the potential to surpass China as a contender for the position of global superpower by virtue of its growing economy, high population, and large labour force. Therefore, Beijing seems to consider maintaining a contentious front with India as a way to arrest its rise as a ‘geopolitical competitor’ and for that, occasional flare ups along the border are necessary.

That said, it should not be so difficult to discern why China would want to continue to flare up trouble at the LAC and not want the current border standoff to be resolved anytime soon.

Therefore, in author’s view, the resolution of the current border standoff seems highly unlikely and the next major confrontation at the LAC is a matter of when and not if.

When Will The Next Flare Up On LAC Come?

While China is worried by India’s rise as a potential geopolitical competitor, its real competition for global supremacy is with the United States (US) and therefore in recent years, much of the thinking in Beijing about India is being driven by the latter’s growing degree of closeness with the US.

The latest evidence of this can be found in a recent article authored by another prominent expert of CICIR’s Institute of South Asian Studies, Lou Chunhao – institute’s Executive Director – published in August 2023 by China Daily, which is one of the major propaganda and cultural units of the Chinese government.

In that article, Lou’s basic argument is that India believes the ‘American order’ is more in line with its interests than the ‘Chinese order’ due to the US’ greater “comprehensive national strength” vis-à-vis China and India’s structural problems with China, such as border disputes and the Tibet issue.

Therefore, in Lou’s view, India is increasingly trying to take advantage of the ongoing Sino-US strategic competition to “rely on the United States to resist China” and “ally with the United States to contain China”, which is making “the sensitive issues between China and India more complicated.”

He then gives the border issue between India and China as an example of a ‘sensitive issue’ between the two countries, and alleges that “India has accepted US support either explicitly or implicitly,” citing revelations from several unnamed senior US administration officials during former US President Donald Trump’s tenure that the US government decided to “provide as much support as possible based on India’s needs.”

After that Lou cites the 18th edition of the annual India-U.S. joint military exercise Yudh Abhyas held in November 2022 as another such example of complication in this sensitive border issue between India and China.

The exercise in question was held less than 100 kilometers from the LAC in Auli in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, however what makes Lou’s mention of this exercise noteworthy is the clash between Indian and Chinese troops that ensued only a month later at Yangtse in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Considering the above, Lou’s remarks just before the concluding paragraph of his article are possibly most revealing of how China decides when to cause trouble at the border with India. He says that “the United States is the main driving force of Sino-Indian relations” and warns New Delhi that “excessive binding with the United States will…. worsen Sino-Indian relations.”   

Also important to consider is Beijing’s perception of threat level to Chinese interests from the US which seems to have reached at an all-time high if the recent remarks made by retired PLA Colonel Liu Mingfu, known as one of the most trusted advisors to President Xi Jinping, are anything to go by.

Liu said in an interview in March that the Sino-US competition has entered its final phase which could last 2-3 decades, making China “the most unsafe country in the world under the increasingly serious threat from the United States” and recommended strengthening country’s national defense and military construction.

This means that instances of growing US-India cooperation such as joint military exercises, sale of arms and other military equipment, publicized intelligence sharing agreements etc., could be an indicator of upcoming Chinese trouble at the border.

Now to those who would say that rhetoric alone cannot be considered an effective basis to arrive at such an assessment, let us also take a brief look at the empirical evidence that substantiates the above assertion.

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