How India-China ties became so tense and strained

A unilateral revision in the terms of engagement by India with regard to the broad principles governing its strategic interactions with neighbour China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in June this year is now beginning to bear its full import.

After the bloody skirmishes in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh between Indian and Chinese troops on the night of June 15, in which 20 Indian soldiers, along with a commanding officer, were killed and with unofficial reports of an even bigger casualty figure on the Chinese side, New Delhi’s decision to let its Army resort to the use of firearms in case of exigencies at the LAC marked a quantum shift in policy that hitherto determined the contours of engagement along the highly contested and sensitive 3,448km-long stretch of the LAC.

The ‘Rules of Engagement’ followed by China and India until mid-June, 2020, were in keeping with a bilateral agreement made in 1996, whereby, the two sides had mutually decided to desist from the use of firearms at each other along the entire stretch of the 3,448-km LAC.

However, in view of the loss of lives at Galwan Valley, the Indian administration accorded a “free hand” to its armed forces to take tactical decisions in accordance with the situation on the ground.

Approximately two-and-a-half months since redrawing the ‘Rules of Engagement’, the first signs of a new order at the LAC could be felt on the night of September 7 when Indian soldiers resorted to firing in the air in a bid to nip in the bud a reported Chinese aggression and an attempt to cross over and occupy territory on the Indian side of the LAC.

This was the first time that firing was resorted to along the LAC in 45 years. In 1975, at Tulung La in Arunachal Pradesh, four Indian soldiers belonging to Assam Rifles were killed when Chinese troops opened fire.

Even on the night of June 15, this year, when Indian soldiers and members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) came to blows at Patrol Point 14 (PP14) in Galwan Valley, though armed, the soldiers on either side did not resort to the use of firearms.

The brute and crude weapons they unleashed on each other in the form of clubs, iron rods and sticks with barb-wired heads were no less lethal is a different issue.

Since the night of June 15, New Delhi, though a bit cautious in its public stance and stated policy parameters on Sino-India border tensions, has made certain significant recalibrations to its side of the LAC — both in terms of logistics and engagement.

If ramping up men and war machinery along the LAC, particularly in Ladakh, constituted a major show of strength and a heightened level of preparedness for a military response to any exigency, then Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement in June that the Indian Army had been granted a “free hand” to deal with any eventuality based on its understanding of the situation at ground zero, marked a paradigm shift from the way New Delhi had hitherto dealt with the dynamics of Sino-India border disputes.

By allowing the army a free hand to deal with the situation on the ground, without no need to seek any in-principle go-ahead from the central command in New Delhi or the Defence Ministry, the decks had effectively been cleared for a more muscular and need-based response to any arising situation along the LAC.

In light of that, what happened on the night of September 7 was indeed significant.

In the bloody skirmish that took place at PP14 on June 15, the Indian side was clearly taken aback by the kind of build-up that PLA had managed on its side of the LAC and in terms of the number of personnel and brute force, the Chinese side successfully incorporated an element of surprise in their aggression, which, apart from the casualty count that it inflicted, also resulted in several Indian soldiers being taken hostage by the PLA, who were later released.

However, on August 29, Indian Army extended its reach and presence on a vast swath of land just south of Pangong Lake. As a result of this deployment and active patrolling, Indian soldiers were able to cement their presence on the hilltops of Reging La, Reching La and Black Top.

This gave the Indian side a strategic advantage, the benefits of which were felt on the night of September 7-8, when India’s pre-emptive and to some extent even retaliatory action to reported Chinese attempts at incursion into the Indian side of the LAC at Finger-4 was to a large extent unheard of in recent years.

According to reports, a large PLA contingent was on its way towards the Shenpao mountain on the southern edge of Pangong Tso Lake.

After verbal warnings from the Indian side were not heeded to, Indian soldiers fired in the air and were all set for a confrontation, which finally forced the Chinese soldiers to retreat.

A statement in Global Times, the official Chinese mouthpiece, claimed that the Indian soldiers had violated the LAC and crossed over to the Chinese side and resorted to firing, completely unprovoked. There were stern warnings issued to India, that verged on a threat to an open confrontation.

Though immediately thereafter, the Chinese Foreign Ministry stepped in with a more diluted reaction in an obvious bid to defuse the tension.

This was the first time that the soldiers of two nuclear-armed neighbours confronted each other under the revised ‘Rules of Engagement’ and from whatever one could assess from the emerging scenario, the portends were all too alarming.

It remains to be seen to what extent both sides manage to keep these flare-ups under control, which have become all too frequent right through this summer.

The turf wars just don’t seem to be over and there is a whole new contour to it now that may well determine the trajectory of Sino-India relations in the days and months ahead.

Twitter: @moumiayush.