LONG VERSION: The Trijunction Stand-Off: Raking In Gains For India

Long Version
The Trijunction Stand-Off: Raking in Gains For India

The real and diplomatic gains are pouring in for India, almost in proportion to the internationally felt relief. India has shown the world that China is not as daunting as it would have everyone believe.

The fresh developments have resulted in a quick flurry of reciprocal diplomatic moves from the US, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Australia, and some favourable media commentary from the US too.

These broadly favour long held Indian positions vis a vis Pakistan's designs on the Kashmir Valley. And by proxy,  they undermine China and its other belligerent dependent, North Korea.

Weakening Pakistan or North Korea by way of economic sanctions, even with some imposed on China, North Korea's main trading partner, weakens China too.

Very significantly, there have been absolutely no calls for India to stand down unilaterally at the China, Bhutan, India trijunction near Sikkim.

America has instead pointedly begun to get a move on its military  relationship and support of India.
This is taking place legislatively in the backdrop of the  recently concluded Malabar Naval exercises with India,the US, and Japan participating.

This time the Malabar, that had Australia and Singapore in it earlier, emphasised anti-submarine warfare. The ships involved, including an US aircraft carrier, are still marking time in the neighborhood of Myanmar.

This is in counterpoint to China, which has deployed its large fleet of submarines, and its naval ships including an aircraft carrier of its own, in the Asia-Pacific region, the South/East China Seas, and the Indian/Pacific Oceans.

Australia, the farthest afield in the region, with large trade connections with China, is nevertheless most concerned about restrictions on the use of the South China Sea, as more than sixty percent of its trade passes through it.

It has therefore recently overcome its reservations on supplying Uranium  to India, joining Canada in doing so.

Australia, and Singapore, the latter with enormous commercial shipping using its ports, have allowed themselves to back away from the Malabar Naval exercises  this time.

Other countries affected by Chinese highhandedness to a lesser or greater extent, over rapacious trade deals, over-priced infrastructure, claims to international waterways in violation of laws, include, Vietnam, the Philippines, Borneo, Japan, Indonesia, Myanmar, Laos, Sri Lanka, Thailand and a number of African nations. The latest addition is Mongolia, China's neighbour, with a newly elected leader opposed to Chinese domination and receiving support from India.

Russia, though not yet affected by Chinese imperialism, and working with both Pakistan and China, is clear it wants to  continue to partner India's military modernisation, and currently continues to account for 66% or so of its military equipment purchases.

But none affected adversely have chosen to block Chinese ambition in quite so direct and military a way, as India has chosen to do.

The US, seeing the  writing on the wall, apart from expediting the sale and joint-venturing of high technology military equipment, has sanctioned, in the US House of Representatives, a hefty budget running into over $ 600 billion.

This is to be spent on military cooperation with India, and the US is drawing up plans on how to best to go about it.

The enabling Bill will have to be also passed by the US Senate and signed into law by President Trump, but is unprecended in terms of its scale and intent.

India, on its part, is rapidly overcoming its reservations on military participation alongside the US in Afghanistan, and the mutual access to each other's military bases and ports.

Calls for direct military help to India are growing louder in the US from former Senators such as Larry Pressler and current Congressman Ted Poe.

As America reviews its Afghanistan-Pakistan-India South Asia policy, there is a compelling case for encouraging the restive independence movements of peoples along the Durand Line.

This, particularly in Balochistan, which has  a 1100 km border with Afghanistan, and Pakhtunistan, where the native Pathans have relatives in Afghanistan, and account for the remainder of the porous 2,430 km Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

By encouraging this, America would not only help Afghanistan while weakening Pakistan but also seriously affect China's warm water port ambitions on the Arabian Sea at Gwadur.

America has, in addressing the problems of terrorism emanating from Pakistan, stopped $350 million in reimbursement of military aid to  it, citing that the latter has not done very much to reign in terrorist organisations operating from its soil.

These include the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Jamaat-e-Mujahideen (JeM), the Taliban, the Hizbul Mujahideen, the Haqqani Network, all named by it.

Elsewhere, the US is asserting the international right to freely use the South China Sea by way of overflights and ships passing through it, despite Chinese protests and buzzing by its ships and aircraft.

China has ignored the adverse ruling against it by the arbitrators at the International Court of Justice and continues to maintain an aggressive posture.

Canada has, at last, stopped the funding of Pakistani terrorist outfits from its soil, and South Korea has  cancelled its plans to work on hydropower projects in Pakistan occupied  Kashmir (PoK).

Vietnam has invited India afresh to explore for oil and gas in the South China Sea, despite Chinese threats.

Of course, some of this may well be coincidental to constant calls for acting against international terror, put out by Prime Minister Modi in the capitals of the world.

However, the timing of actual responses to his call, may not be coiincidental at all.

The Chinese formula of crude military sabre-rattling, combined with neo-imperialist, predatory, and unilateral attempts to alter boundaries and conventions of free use, on land and sea alike, is alarming more than 20 countries affected.

But, in the tradition of the great Sun Tzu's The Art of War, China has won quite a few matches on the table, without having to  actually play.

This has naturally further emboldened it to ramp up its psychological warfare apparatus.

China's huge debt burden, amounting to 250% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and massive  industrial and infrastructure-building over-capacity, has also prompted it to embark on a grandoise, if frantic course.

It seeks to dominate countries and whole continents, with offers of projects  in road, rail, and industry, in the name of a seemingly visionary, but in truth spurious, "connectivity".

And this, invoking the promotion of trade-links reminiscent of the legendary "Silk Road".

Spurious, because China under President Xi Jinping actually seeks to kick the can of imminent collapse of the Chinese economy, already slowed to half of its peak, down the road.

It is attempting to cleverly embroil the account books of scores of other countries  in the process. An assessment made by various impartial analysts from around the world, cautioning against the possibility of an infrastructure led "sub-prime crisis", this time, involving entire nations.

China has also developed a strange way of refusing to adhere to negotiated agreements, going back on them, introducing new elements by referring back in time to obscure premises, or flouting them altogether.

This has made it clear, at least to India, that the only way to persuade it to behave in international discourse, is to make clear to it, the limitations of its power.

In the initial period of the Modi Government, every effort was indeed made to develop a better relationship with China. This was highlighted by President Xi  Jinping's early bilateral visit to India.
But, it too was marred by a simultaneous Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army  (PLA) intrusion in the Ladakh theatre, even though Xi Jinping is the Chairman of the PLA too.

Despite Indian overtures at  fora like BRICS and the G20 recently, China chose, almost every time, to react with arrogance.

It seeks at present to expand BRICS, to take in several more countries, including Pakistan, to do away with any possibility of much Indian influence within it.

China routinely refuses to settle its borders with India,  disapproves of it building infrastructure along it, even though China has done so, and extensively, on its side.

China also protests  India's Army raising new mountain corps. It objects to India placing missile batteries and tanks for self-defence along the China border. It even objects to India calling Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh as an integral  part of it.

On the international front, China blatantly acts to thwart Indian initiatives wherever it can.
This is perhaps influenced by the adversarial attitude of ally Pakistan, but undoubtedly also by its own overweening, if quixotic ambition, to overtake America as the Number One global power.

But now, India has taken the other tack, and stood up to China.

It has done so, much to China's amazement, unilaterally, confidently, and very visibly - three times in quick succession.

The first time was in April this year, then again in mid-May, and yet again at end-June.

The last China has found particularly astounding, because it is an eyeball to eyeball confrontation, at the China, Bhutan, India trijunction near Sikkim.

Meanwhile, during the stand-off there have been highly successful Indian bilateral visits to the US and Israel, also unsettling for China.

It is this stand-off at the trijunction however that has made the strategic establishment around the world sit up.

Not only is India demonstrating considerable confidence in the face of a steady barrage of daily Chinese threats and insults, but, as the stand-off crosses 45 days, it has dramatically altered their own geopolitical calculations.

In their assessment, the China-India matrix has changed, and is unlikely to ever be the same again.
The first of the recent unilateral Indian actions was when it allowed  the Dalai Lama's visit to Arunachal Pradesh and the Tawang Buddhist Monastery there, in April, ignoring vehement Chinese objections.

A subset of this development took place in early July, when the Tibetan Government in exile in India was allowed to perform religious ceremonies and unfurl the Tibetan flag on the Indian side of the Pangong Lake in Ladakh, in full view of the TV cameras.

If China keeps changing the goalposts, does this mean that India will reopen the matter of Tibetan independence for the world to evaluate afresh?

In May, India ignored China's mega summit over the One-Best-One-Road (OBOR) initiative, citing violations of its sovereignty in PoK and general opacity and lack of wider consultations with regard to the initiative.

Towards end-June, this time not proactively, but in reaction, to China's attempt to change the status quo, yet again, came the stand-off at the trijunction.

China reacted petulantly at first, preventing Indian pilgrims from accessing Kailash Mansarovar via the Nathu La Pass.

India moved swiftly, pushing back Chinese soldiers from Bhutan's territory, and made clear that any alteration in the ground reality of the area would be resisted.

This last provocative Chinese surge at the trijunction, was reportedly  imagined as a "lesson to teach India".

India's National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval is in China as I write this, meeting with his counterparts from BRICS on the 27th and 28th July.

There is intense speculation, and therefore an outside chance, that Doval would  confidentially discuss the trijunction  with the Chinese.

But equally, because a climb-down is not on the cards for India, he may choose to delink the BRICS visit from the stand-off altogether.

That Prime Minister Modi  is also expected in Beijing in early September for the BRICS Summit, is adding grist to the mill.

There is a compelling case for maintaining a status quo and treating the trijunction stand-off  in the minor key from the Chinese view point, because the Chinese Communist Party will have its Summit in November, when several members of the Politburo may be changed.

Besides, Chinese trade with India tops $70 billion, and it does not make much sense to jeopardise it.
However, from the domestic point of view, will Chinese pride in its military prowess, allow it to let India go unpunished?

India is confident on its part, that, at least at the trijunction, that it has the military advantage.

Meanwhile America, drawing closer to India, has for long been unsure of how best to counter the Chinese challenge, particularly given the deep economic linkages built up for a half century since the Nixon-Kissinger tilt, and despite a gross imbalance in the trade figures   with China.

However, it feels provoked by the aggression of North Korea, China's other troublesome ally, bent on developing foolproof Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) technology, so that it can not only menace its own neighborhood at will, but mount a nuclear attack on any part of the US.

India, located as it is geopolitically, has been long seen by America and the Western powers, as the ideal bulwark and counterpoint to China and its two rogue state allies.

But little could be expected of it, unless it volunteered to play its part militarily and diplomatically. This then is the missing piece of the jigsaw that has now fallen into place.

 China has for long been following a policy of changing the ground reality in territorial or maritime boundaries first, and coming  up with fanciful justifications later with multiple countries, including Bhutan.

Picking on small, non-nuclear weaponised countries for most of its depredations so far, its intimidatory tactics have worked.

But India seems to have had enough. China has also obdurately been blocking India's bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG), along with a very small number of others.

Until lately, till America started naming Pakistani terrorists unilaterally, it mattered that China was blocking any naming at the United Nations too.

China has  not only ignored the Indian position on PoK, but has also issued a threat of military intervention in the Kashmir Valley, on the back of unsolicited offers to mediate.

The face-off at the trijunction, apart from its strategic military objectives, is a struggle for credibility for both sides.

China wants to be taken seriously as the rising dominant. And India, that has invited the leadership of 10 ASEAN countries, to its next Republic Day celebrations in January 2018, is determined to call its bluff.

For: Shorter Version For The Sunday Guardian
July 27th, 2017
Gautam Mukherjee