China -v- India in the Himalayas: flashpoint?
Moderator's Note
This is a new thread after the recent Chinese military incursion into territory held by India. Not a 'small war', but tensions can lead to conflict.
There are separate threads on the India -v- Pakistan conflict in the Himalayas, entitled 'Siachin Confict', 'The Kargil War' and a wider thread on China's view of India 'China’s View of South Asia and the Indian Ocean'.(Ends).
A border incursion by China into India, in the Himalayas near Ladakh:
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A Platoon-strength contingent of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) came 10 kilometres inside the Indian territory in Burthe in DBO sector, which is at an altitude of about 17,000 feet, on the night of April 15 and established a tented post there...
Link:http://m.ndtv.com/article/india/chin...-ladakh-356542
I assume such incidents regularly occur, especially as Spring starts and movement is possible. Others think the PLA is not entirely under political / party control.
Peaceful Rise? How about Peaceful Sneaking?
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So it was last night, when the sahib held forth on the PLA (China's army) and their doctrine of unrestricted warfare, which was codified in a book that came out about a decade ago. Gorka is clearly under the impression that this kind of warfare is a recent invention of China's defense establishment.
For the sahib's benefit, the whole of India's post-Independence defense experience can be summed in one sentence: "The Indians caught them sneaking."
(BREAK)
A favorite Chinese ploy was -- and still is -- for the PLA to get 'nomads' to drive their herds across a part of the Indian border. When the Indian military catches them at it and tells them to move back onto China's side of the border, the nomads draw themselves up to their full height and snap that they are standing on their sacred ancestral grazing lands inside China.
Then comes the call to China's military. A few Chinese officers show up, fiddle with the measuring tape then say, 'The nomads are right. They're in Chinese territory.'
The Indians tell them no, the nomads have set up camp two feet inside the Indian border. After much squabbling and more playing with measuring tape, the Indians open a map to show exactly where the border is.
The Chinese look at the map and say, 'That's a map the white man drew when he ruled you. Why do you put faith in anything the white man drew?'
I am not making any of this up.
After days or even months of argument, during which the nomads drive their herds a few more feet inside the Indian border, the Indian army finally gets the Chinese to pull the nomads back. But when they move back, they are still an inch inside the Indian border. Then the Chinese redraw their map to show the one inch to be inside Chinese territory and save the map for the next round of border disputes, which is actually never-ending because the Chinese are always testing the limits of their land's boundaries.
The nomads are just one ploy; there is the old road-building ploy ('You want us to rip up this entire road just because you think it's six inches inside your border? Now who's being petty?')
- Pundita blog, Peaceful Sneaking Part 1
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Some two-dozen Chinese soldiers converged earlier this year on a family of nomads who wouldn't budge from a winter grazing ground that locals say Indian herders had used for generations. China claims the pasture is part of Tibet, not northern India. The soldiers tore up the family's tent and tried to push them back toward the Indian border town of Demchok, Indian authorities say.
Chering Dorjay, the chairman of India's Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, says he arrived on the scene with a new tent and Indian intelligence officers and urged the herders to stay put. "The Chinese, it seems, are gradually taking our territory," he says. "We will feel very insecure unless India strengthens its defenses."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125625173429702481.html
If you keep testing and you keep testing and you keep testing and you keep testing and you keep testing and you keep testing and you keep testing and you keep testing well....
....on the exact the borders, you keep pushing back the line. Inch by inch, it's done, inch by inch. Look at the maps over the years from Indian independence. I'm serious. Just look at the maps. It's taken sixty years and it seems just a bit of land to the Americans but we are talking about two ancient entities here, not babies. They have the time, if you look at it in a certain way.
Which is not an American concern except to realize when this is done to us via our international institutions or via cyber or whatever. The sneaking part of it, I mean.
Also, it keeps the Indians 'down on the farm' while the regional resource and economic competition heats up. This is a long standing thing. There are no errors here. A careful look at the history shows a constant testing of borders. Consistently. And for decades.
Curiously, all sorts of strange weapons and money end up in various border regions, some with domestic insurgencies. Funny how that happens.
So, no, not serious as a single incident. The thing is to recognize the pattern and see how it fits into the larger scheme of relations between the two. It also explains quite a bit of the Indian military buildup because much of Indian security doctrine is aimed at the Chinese, although some in the American defense community seem infatuated with the Foggy Bottom nonsense about India and other neighbors. Never did understand the weak South Asia scholarship stateside. Weird.
Okay, Ray, if I've got it wrong, let me know!
China -v- India in the Himalayas: flashpoint?
This is a new thread after the recent Chinese military incursion into territory held by India. Not a 'small war', but tensions can lead to conflict.
There are separate threads on the India -v- Pakistan conflict in the Himalayas, entitled 'Siachin Confict', 'The Kargil War' and a wider thread on China's view of India 'China’s View of South Asia and the Indian Ocean'.
OTOH, from a Chinese perspective?
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In March 1954, the Union Cabinet met and decided to unilaterally define the border of India with China. The colour wash was replaced by a hard line, and the Survey of India issued a new map, which depicts the borders as we know them today. All the old maps were withdrawn and the depiction of Indian boundaries in the old way became illegal. Indeed, if you seek out the White Paper on Indian States of 1948 and 1950 in the Parliament library, you will find that the maps have been removed because they too showed the border as being “undefined” in the Central and Western sectors.
What was the government up to? Did it seriously think it could get away with such a sleight of hand? Or was there a design that will become apparent when the papers of the period are declassified? Not surprisingly, the other party, the People’s Republic of China, was not amused and, in any case, there are enough copies of the old documents and maps across the world today to bring out the uncomfortable truth that the boundaries of India in these regions were unilaterally defined by the Government of India, rather than through negotiation and discussions with China.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead...cle4657978.ece
Lots of tricky behavior, at one time or another.
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The CIA's Secret War in Tibet takes readers from training camps in the Colorado Rockies to the scene of clandestine operations in the Himalayas, chronicling the agency's help in securing the Dalai Lama's safe passage to India and subsequent initiation of one of the most remote covert campaigns of the Cold War. Conboy and Morrison provide previously unreported details about secret missions undertaken in extraordinarily harsh conditions. Their book greatly expands on previous memoirs by CIA officials by putting virtually every major agency participant on record with details of clandestine operations. It also calls as witnesses the people who managed and fought in the program—including Tibetan and Nepalese agents, Indian intelligence officers, and even mission aircrews.
http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/concia.html
Historic reasons for distrust all around, it seems. Still, dealing with it by so many testing micro-incursions seems unwise.
Himalayan Sino-Indian Diplomatic Drama
Separate thread while this is hot.
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NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's diplomatic efforts to end a seven-week military standoff with China have hit a roadblock, people briefed on the talks said, prompting Chinese state-run media to trumpet rhetoric of "unavoidable countermeasures" on the unmarked border.
China has insisted that India unilaterally withdraw its troops from the remote Doklam plateau claimed by both Beijing and Indian ally Bhutan.
But China did not respond to India's suggestion in the talks that it move its troops back 250 meters (820 ft) in return, said one source with close ties to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
In the low-key diplomatic maneuvers that took place outside the public eye, the Chinese countered with an offer to move back 100 meters (328 ft), so long as they received clearance from top government officials.
But there has been no comeback since, except for China's mounting warnings of an escalation in the region, which it calls Donglang.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-i...-idUSKBN1AO1D4
A near 'small war' in the Himalayas
The last "hot war" along the Sino-Indian border was long ago in 1962, when China successfully invaded. For reference:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War
Not exactly an ideal place for combat, there is the climate and the terrain. It takes time to acclimatize before you can cope.
The West, even more so the USA was preoccupied with the Cuban Crisis.
I have relied upon Shashank Joshi's tweets to alert me, in particular a NYT report:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/world/asia/dolam-plateau-china-india-bhutan.html?
On July 21st Shashank wrote this:https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-in...ndia-and-china
Two nuclear-armed powers have stepped back from the brink — for now
A short BBC report on the diplomatic solution, just whether either side has won is a moot point:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41070767
A more detailed examination of what can be learned from this crisis, thanks to WoTR. It opens with:
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The immediate crisis seems to be over, but it offers tantalizing insights into Chinese coercive strategies and how they may be thwarted. This has implications not only for India in its own land border disputes, but also for several Southeast Asian nations and the United States, as they all confront China’s attempts to expand its control and influence.
Link:https://warontherocks.com/2017/08/co...ase-of-doklam/
