By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

China Has India Trapped on Their Disputed Border Beijing’s military and infrastructure advantage has transformed the crisis and left New Delhi on the defensive.

The widening power gap between India and China—military, technological, economic, and diplomatic—now constrains New Delhi’s options on the border. It also raises tough questions for India’s geopolitical partnerships, such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (known as the Quad), and its aggressive approach toward Pakistan. The border crisis will hang over India’s decision-making for the foreseeable future.

In October, the Chinese Communist Party held its 20th National Congress, and Xi assumed an unprecedented third term as leader. Among the images broadcasted at the Great Hall of the People minutes before Xi ascended the stage was a video from the Galwan Valley in Ladakh, where at least 20 Indian soldiers and 4 PLA soldiers died in a clash in June 2020. The videos showed PLA regiment commander Qi Fabao standing with his arms outstretched to stop Indian soldiers from advancing. Qi was selected to be a delegate to the Party Congress, underlining the importance of the border crisis to the Chinese Communist Party’s narrative. Harnessing nationalism, the party wants to convey that it will protect what it considers Chinese territory at all costs.

India’s military and political leaders now confront a reality at the border that should have jolted them into serious action: China has a distinct advantage over India, which it has consolidated since 2020. By investing in a long-term military presence in one of the most remote places on Earth, the PLA has considerably reduced the time it would need to launch a military operation against India. New military garrisons, roads, and bridges would allow for rapid deployment and make clear that Beijing is not considering a broader retreat. The Indian military has responded by diverting certain forces intended for the border with Pakistan toward its disputed border with China. It has deployed additional ground forces to prevent further PLA ingress in Ladakh and constructed supporting infrastructure. Meanwhile, New Delhi’s political leadership is conspicuous in its silence, projecting a sense of normalcy.

Beijing refuses to discuss two areas in Ladakh, where its forces have blocked Indian patrols since 2020. Chinese troops have stepped back by a few miles in five other areas but asked India to do the same and create a no-patrolling zone. This move denies India its right to patrol areas as planned before the border crisis began. The PLA has flatly refused to discuss de-escalation, in which both armies would pull back substantially. The question of each side withdrawing its additional troops from Ladakh is not even on the agenda. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson rejected any demand to restore the situation along the LAC as it existed before May 2020. The PLA continues to downplay the severity of the situation, instead emphasizing stability in its ties with India.

If the situation in Ladakh is “stable but unpredictable,” Indian military leaders have told Foreign Policy that significant stretches of the LAC’s eastern sector—2,500 kilometers (or 1,553 miles) away—are an even more significant cause of concern. In 1962, this area was the site of a humiliating defeat of the Indian Army at the hands of the PLA. Today, massive Chinese infrastructure development and troop buildup closer to the LAC have placed India at a military disadvantage. In September, Pande said when it comes to infrastructure in the area, “there is lots to be desired to be done.” Recent reports suggest at least three additional PLA brigades remain deployed in the area even after the Party Congress, further worrying Indian military planners.

China officially claims the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh, which includes the Tawang Monastery, where the sixth Dalai Lama was born in 1683. Tawang was historically a part of Tibet; Chinese officials, such as Dai Bingguo, who served as China’s boundary negotiator with India from 2003 to 2013, have publicly stated that it would be non-negotiable in a permanent settlement of the disputed border. As questions arise over the succession of the current Dalai Lama, who is 87 years old, Chinese sensitivities about Tawang will intensify—even more so when linked to its internal security, problems in Tibet. It will likely become a higher priority for China in the coming years.

Still, in Ladakh, the Chinese have built up infrastructure at a frenetic pace, with only military operations in mind: roads, bridges, airfields, heliports, accommodations for troops, and storage and communication infrastructure. Pande noted that one of the biggest developments is the G695 highway, which runs parallel to the LAC and allows the PLA to move from one valley to another quickly. Flatter terrain on the Chinese side already gives Beijing an advantage, further bolstered by infrastructure—an extensive network of new roads, bridges, and heliports.

In the 1960s, the PLA needed one summer season to mobilize and launch military operations in Ladakh for the following summer. It would require a couple of weeks to undertake the same operation. Indian military planners must live with this scenario, even if the current border crisis is resolved.

Modi approaching Xi in Bali recalled a short exchange between the two leaders on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, in 2017. Then, their conversation sparked diplomatic communications between New Delhi and Beijing that aimed to resolve a standoff between Indian and Chinese troops at Doklam in Bhutan, China's territory. The talks led to disengagement, but the Chinese only stepped back a few hundred yards. They have since consolidated their military deployment and undertaken massive infrastructure development in Doklam, such as roads, helipads, and a military garrison. Even if an immediate crisis was averted, the status quo was permanently altered in China’s favor in Doklam.

A similar resolution to the Ladakh border crisis would carry bigger risks for India. Unlike in Doklam, China has entered areas in Ladakh that Indian troops regularly patrolled until 2020. Reinforcing the LAC over the vast span of Ladakh would require the enhanced deployment of Indian ground forces. This permanent instability would put the Indian military under further pressure. With an already limited defense budget—China’s is more than four times as large—shifting more troops to the border would also divert resources from the Indian Navy, where multilateral cooperation with Quad partners to contest China’s influence in the Indian Ocean region is an absolute imperative.

Fearing an escalation, India is forsaking even limited offensive options, such as launching a quid pro quo military operation to capture some territory in Tibet to arrive at the negotiating table with a strong hand. New Delhi’s defensive position instead seems to acknowledge its widening gap with Beijing; due to this power differential, it cannot even use economic or diplomatic instruments to target China. After all, India’s bilateral trade with China—its biggest trading partner—reached record levels this year, with an all-time high trade deficit in Beijing’s favor. The U.S. Defense Department report on China reveals that Beijing has warned U.S. officials not to interfere with its relationship with New Delhi; Kenneth Juster, a former U.S. ambassador to India, said New Delhi doesn’t want Washington to mention Beijing’s border aggression.

India’s defensive posture plays out in its diplomatic engagement and security cooperation approach. Unlike its Quad partners, India abstained from voting against China on the Xinjiang issue at the October United Nations Human Rights Council meeting. Its comments on China’s crackdown in Hong Kong or aggression toward Taiwan have been guarded. Modi participated in both the BRICS summit and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit this year, along with Xi; Chinese delegations are still regularly invited to New Delhi for multilateral events. And an Indian military contingent participated with a PLA contingent in a military exercise in Russia this year.

The current situation along the LAC, both in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, and China’s refusal to discuss issues on India’s agenda for resolving the crisis have added to the structural instability in their relationship. Chinese infrastructure development and the widening gap in power means that this instability will become permanent, even with a solution to the immediate crisis. India’s military will remain under pressure and on guard. Pande made this implicit when discussing future Indian plans on the border in November. “We need to very carefully calibrate our actions on the LAC [so as] to be able to safeguard both our interests and sensitivities … and be prepared to deal with all types of contingencies,” he said.

The risk of an accidental military escalation between Asia’s most populous countries—both nuclear powers—has increased significantly since 2020. This will continue unless Modi and Xi find a new modus vivendi. Establishing guardrails in the relationship will require political imagination and an honest appraisal of relative strengths; however, New Delhi faces tough geopolitical choices. It has so far eschewed any security-centric step with the Quad that could provoke Beijing, but murmurs from its partners about reticent Indian policy are bound to get louder. Meanwhile, India’s reliance.on Russia for military equipment and ammunition now falls under a cloud of suspicion. And an unstable border with China prevents India from targeting Pakistan, a tactic that has proved politically rewarding for Modi.

The fundamentals of Indian foreign policy that have held steady since the years of former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru—namely, strategic autonomy and ensuring territorial integrity and sovereignty—will come under more significant stress as the border crisis looms over New Delhi. Modi boasts of grand ambitions for India as a “Vishwa Guru,” or master to the world—a euphemism for a global superpower. But questions raised by the situation at the border with China continue to limit him.

In the early hours of Dec. 9, a few hundred Chinese soldiers armed with batons, spikes, and other primitive weapons tried to dislodge an Indian Army outpost on a ridge on the disputed border between India’s easternmost state, Arunachal Pradesh, and Tibet, which China governs. The Indian Army warded off the attackers, but the clash was fierce, injuring 34 Indian soldiers.

New Delhi blamed Beijing for trying to “unilaterally change the status quo.” At the same time, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said it was conducting a regular patrol when its troops were “blocked by the Indian Army illegally crossing” the border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Two days later, local military commanders from both sides agreed to a disengagement that would prevent an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation at the ridge near the edge of the Yangtse plateau. Still, Chinese and Indian soldiers remain separated by just 500 feet.

This month’s clash is not a one-off. Arunachal Pradesh has been the site of regular skirmishes in recent months, even as tensions remain high in the Ladakh region on the western section of the China-India border. Chinese provocations in the east reflect a breakdown of Indian deterrence. New Delhi’s trade with Beijing has increased, diplomatic ties have remained normal, and India has not undertaken local military operations. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reputation for toughness and resolve—essential for deterrence—has been tested and found wanting.

Modi is trapped by his nationalist rhetoric: Since deadly border clashes in Ladakh in 2020, India’s government has downplayed the border crisis to shield the prime minister’s macho image. China has been quick to exploit this weakness, likely emboldening it to put even more pressure on India. This shift has far-reaching consequences for New Delhi’s foreign policy, chief among them how it approaches its partnership with Washington. India fears being boxed into an alliance, but it can no longer wish away the Chinese threat.

The Yangtse plateau lies in India’s Tawang district, which China claims. The sixth Dalai Lama was born in Tawang in the 17th century, and the district is home to the second-largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the world. Dai Bingguo, a Chinese diplomat who led border negotiations with India for a decade, argued in a 2017 interview that the territory that includes Tawang is “inalienable from China’s Tibet.” “Even the British colonialists who drew the illegal ‘McMahon Line’ respected China’s jurisdiction over Tawang,” he said.

Although not formally accepted by the Chinese, the McMahon Line serves as the de facto border between Arunachal Pradesh and Tibet. Henry McMahon, the British foreign secretary of colonial India, drew the line on a map with a thick red pen in 1914 during negotiations over the status of Tibet. In some places, the line violates its principle of following the highest watershed, creating discrepancies on the ground. Yangtse is one such area of dispute, as established during border talks in the 1990s.

India first occupied the area in 1986, during the seven-year Sumdorung Chu crisis with China—a major standoff over the Yangtse plateau. It’s understandable why the PLA wants to control the 17,000-foot ridge, as military commanders agree on its tactical importance. It offers an unrestricted view of the entire Tawang Valley and Bum La pass, providing a tactical advantage. India pushed a Chinese military patrol back as recently as October 2021; this year, the PLA sealed a road and constructed a camp around 500 feet short of the ridge.

Other reports suggest that clashes such as the one on Dec. 9 have recently occurred in Arunachal Pradesh two or three times a month and that the Indian government has succeeded at keeping the incidents largely under wraps until now. Indian media reports that since the start of summer, the PLA has been “overtly aggressive” at the border with Arunachal Pradesh. Likewise, in the Doklam plateau in Bhutan, the site of a 73-day standoff over a Chinese construction project in 2017, the PLA has built a new bridge.

These Chinese grey zone operations—falling below the threshold of war—have gone on while tensions between the two armies in Ladakh remain high. Each side still deploys more than 50,000 additional soldiers, Indian soldiers can’t access areas they patrolled in 2020, and border talks have failed to provide a breakthrough. If the PLA can try to dislodge India from a place like Yangtse, where New Delhi has deployed for decades, then it surely can target any place on the LAC at its will. Effective deterrence is a function of visible capacity to inflict unacceptable damage—whether military, economic, or diplomatic. The situation reflects India’s increasing inability to deter China from the disputed border.

Since the Ladakh crisis began, trade between India and China has reached record highs. India is the biggest recipient of grants from the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. This economic entanglement has further diminished India’s deterrence. Meanwhile, New Delhi has taken few diplomatic steps to dissuade Beijing from incursions. In addition to attending multilateral summits hosted by China and inviting Chinese delegations to India, the Indian military has participated with the PLA in joint exercises. New Delhi has not undertaken any quid pro quo military operations to take control of Chinese territory on the border, which it could use as a bargaining chip to reverse Beijing’s ingresses in Ladakh.

Despite these realities, around 70 percent of Indians now believe the country could defeat China militarily. Modi has avoided any public conversation about China’s border threat. After the Galwan Valley clashes killed 20 Indian soldiers, the prime minister said on national television that “no one has intruded into our territory.” In Beijing’s view, New Delhi is reluctant to acknowledge any aggressive Chinese actions to prevent embarrassment to Modi and hesitant to follow through with threats out of fear of further escalation.

Modi’s brief exchange with Chinese President Xi Jinping at this year’s G-20 summit also failed to yield any result in the border dispute. Vijay Gokhale, who previously served as India’s foreign secretary and ambassador to Beijing, recently recommended that India “convey signals more credibly and transparently.” In Gokhale’s words, the Modi government’s current actions corroborate Beijing’s long-held vision of New Delhi as “unequal as well as untrustworthy.”

The ongoing tensions at the India-China border inevitably shape Modi’s foreign policy. India has continued to pursue relationships with regimes shunned by the West, despite U.S. President Joe Biden calling ties with India the “most important relationship for the United States, into the 21st century.” Before the war in Ukraine, India imported less than 1 percent of its crude oil from Russia; now, more than 20 percent of its crude supplies come from Russia. India is collaborating with Iran on an infrastructure project to shorten the supply lines from Russia and engaging with the military junta in Myanmar.

Aiming for a multipolar world, New Delhi has rarely backed the West at multilateral forums, but it hasn’t voted with Russia either. India wants to be part of the global south and sit at the global north’s table. But New Delhi can only pursue this independent course if it has the freedom to maneuver. Instead, its immediate and proximate challenge has become its most significant concern, forcing it to view all its foreign-policy choices through that prism. China has compelled India to reconsider options it has sidestepped, including a closer security and intelligence partnership with the United States and its allies.

India's most important decision is to join forces with the United States to counter China officially. Most observers see the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad (comprising Australia, India, Japan, and the United States), as a potential showcase for that cooperation. Kurt Campbell, the White House Indo-Pacific czar, recently revealed that New Delhi was reluctant to have the Quad hold a leaders’ summit. When the United States explored whether the Quad could develop military teeth, the Indian side restated its discomfort.

More than three years after the United States agreed to have Indian liaison officers at the Indo-Pacific Command and Special Operations Command, the Indian government has not yet nominated one. New Delhi has not responded enthusiastically to the Australian Navy’s request to send an Indian submarine to dock in Perth, Australia; Japan also speaks in whispered tones about the depth or lack thereof of India’s commitment regional security, including over Taiwan.

 

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