There is a lot that is still not publicly known about what transpired along the disputed India-China border in eastern Ladakh over the past 18 months. What is clear is that the crisis led to the worst violence between forces of the world’s two most populous countries since 1967. The future implications are also far from certain. Perceptions about recent developments vary, not just between India and China, but also within both countries. Unfortunately, this suggests that differences between India and China are likely to remain, contributing further to what had already become a more competitive relationship.
The boundary between India and China has been unsettled since 1950, when the People’s Republic of China annexed Tibet. The western sector in Ladakh was always the least-clearly demarcated portion due to the complex geography and insufficient cartography inherited from the time of the British Raj and the Qing Empire. Even after their 1962 border war, India and China held different perceptions of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), with significant areas over which their competing claims overlapped. Following a series of agreements beginning in the early 1990s, the countries effectively allowed for overlapping patrols in some of these areas while normalizing their relationship along other facets. But the prerequisite for these arrangements was that certain protocols would be adhered to by both sides that limited the use of deadly force and did not alter the territorial status quo.
Despite these series of agreements between 1993 and 2013, both China and India engaged in the building of road infrastructure in the border areas to improve their own mobilization and access. China gained a first-mover advantage, which forced India to play catch-up. These developments resulted in more frequent confrontations between patrols from both sides. Indian attempts at reinforcing a road to its northern-most base at Daulat Beg Oldi in the Depsang Plains was of particular strategic significance, as it consolidated Indian positions between Chinese forces to the east and areas disputed with Pakistan to the west.
In late 2019, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) inducted new armaments – including Type 15 lightweight tanks and the 155-millimeter vehicle-mounted howitzers – in their units in western Tibet. Then, in early 2020, the global coronavirus pandemic hit. As the PLA’s routine military exercises took place in the spring, Chinese forces rapidly mobilized along at least four points on the LAC – the Galwan River Valley, Hot Springs, Gogra, and Pangong Tso (lake) – and unilaterally attempted to define the Line of Actual Control on preferred Chinese terms. By April 2020, the size of their build-up was without recent precedent and these actions changed the status quo on the ground, most significantly on the north bank of Pangong Tso. The friction points added to earlier points of contestation to the north in Depsang and to the south in Demchok.
In early May 2020, Indian troops challenged the Chinese incursion at Pangong Tso; the resulting clash led to the hospitalization of several Indian soldiers and a continued Chinese forward presence. Negotiations followed and a disengagement plan was agreed to on June 6. But disagreements about the implementation of that plan in the Galwan Valley led to violence and on June 15 the deaths of 20 Indian and at least four (and possibly more) Chinese soldiers. An impasse followed in negotiations until late August, when Indian forces in a surprise operation seized heights on the southern bank of Pangong Tso, granting India a better negotiating position. At the same time, throughout 2020, India took steps to tighten scrutiny of incoming Chinese investment, ban specific Chinese-owned apps for mobile devices (such as TikTok and PUBG), and create additional screening for Chinese companies in Indian public procurement.
As both sides continued their stand-off over the winter – with about 50,000 troops on each side – a breakthrough was finally reached at the 9th round of military discussions in January 2021. A verifiable disengagement plan was agreed, and initiated at Pangong Tso, with phased disengagement to follow at other points. This is to be followed by de-escalation – the thinning out of troops on both sides – although that process is expected to take much longer.
Despite the beginnings of disengagement, the situation on the ground has not yet reverted to pre-April 2020 normalcy. Both militaries remain present, armed, and reinforced in the vicinity of Ladakh. Furthermore, there are still differing Chinese and Indian views about the road forward. Chinese officials have indicated a link between disengagement on the border and a return to normal economic and political relations. India has essentially signaled a different view in its official statements: that a return to normal economic relations is predicated upon disengagement, de-escalation, and peace and tranquility on the border, which was both the objective and basis for the agreements between 1993 and 2013. Given that a return to even a modicum of trust on the border will take time, the lifting of Indian restrictions on Chinese investment, technology, and suppliers is unlikely to be swift or sweeping.
Meanwhile, Chinese analyses of the disengagement process continue to suffer from some shortcomings. Because it is impossible for Chinese commentators to publicly accept the role of China as aggressor, they have suggested that Indian concerns about a Biden administration or its domestic challenges forced it to withdraw from its points of advantage. There is no evidence to suggest such a cause and effect. This inability– at least publicly – to examine the reasons for the deterioration in China-India ties suggest that many lessons from this episode may go unlearned.
While the fact that China and India have agreed to, and have begun to implement, a disengagement plan, is obviously welcome news, the 2020-21 border crisis will have long-term effects for relations between the two countries. In India, it has negatively affected public opinion, which already expressed a critical view of China. Trust built up over two decades on the management of the border has evaporated. India has made it clear that there will be implications for the larger relationship, including economic ties. Meanwhile, Chinese analysts and commentators appear not to have appreciated the effects of Beijing’s build-up, and continue to lay the blame at New Delhi’s doorstep. Despite superficial attempts at reverting to normalcy, these consequences suggest a longer-term chill in relations between the world’s two most populous countries.
Dhruva Jaishankar is Executive Director of Observer Research Foundation (ORF) America in Washington, D.C.
The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy or the National University of Singapore.
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