The India-China border dispute is not only the largest territorial dispute in Asia, but is also one of longest-running conflicts in the history of post-WWII Asian politics. The two nations share a 2520 mile-long border, and have been embroiled in a contest for over 47,000 square miles of Himalayan territory. In 1962, they fought a war across the Himalayan frontier in which India was defeated.
But even after 50 years of the border war, India and China have not been able to amicably resolve the dispute. After 1962, the two countries broke off diplomatic ties. Negotiations on the border dispute did begin again until 1981 at vice-ministerial level, leading to a total of eight rounds of bilateral meetings until 1987. In 1988, a Joint Working Group (JWG) was constituted to expedite the resolution of the conflict. Today, fifteen rounds of talks have taken place. However, as David Scott points out discerningly, irrespective of such long history of bilateral negotiations “there seems to have been little substantive progress on the territorial issue”.
There is an increasing feeling in India that negotiations have dragged for too long. Adding to India’s discomfort is the fact that even after many unilateral concessions, China has shown little inclination to compromise. For example, in 2005 the two nations agreed to settle the territorial dispute in a manner that the interests of settled populations would not be bothered. Whereas the Western sector under Chinese control has no permanent populations and is absolutely barren, the Eastern sector under Indian control has a substantial population of Buddhists as well as other tribal communities. Clearly, the idea behind the 2005 declaration was to resolve the border dispute by making de jure the de facto control of existing territories. However, by 2007, the Chinese Foreign Minister had repudiated any such compromise.
China also seems to have included the border dispute within its concept of ‘core interests’, a euphemism which it reserves for Taiwan and South China Sea. Irrespective of the disputes in high seas, China has settled its border disputes with all its neighbours except India and Bhutan. Even with Vietnam, with whom China fought a bloody war in 1979, the border dispute has been negotiated peacefully.
Three reasons might explain China’s reluctance to resolve the India-China border dispute. First, China would like to settle its territorial disputes in the east and South China Sea before any resolution of the conflict with India. By postponing any ultimate resolution of the border dispute, China makes sure that India remains anxious and avoids any collective balancing with other littoral states such as Japan and Vietnam who also have territorial disputes.
Second, China's claims on Indian territory are linked to consolidating its rather shaky rule in Tibet, where an indigenous movement for greater autonomy and independence still thrives. Prevaricating on the border dispute helps China’s fix its Tibet problem by keeping the pressure on India not to support any notions of Tibetan independence and clamping down on any pro-independence activities from Tibetan leaders and refugees living in India. This is also linked to the institution of the Dalai Lama. China would very much like to control the Tibetan spiritual authority and is therefore anxiously waiting for an opportunity to appoint a puppet once the incumbent Dalai Lama passes away. However, the nightmare scenario for China would be the appointment of the next Dalai Lama from regions outside its control. In fact, the successor of the Dalai Lama can come from the Indian state of Arunanchal Pradesh as it is culturally an extension of Tibet. Keeping the conflict alive, therefore, is a strategy to coerce India into submission as far as any challenge to China’s Tibet policy is concerned.
Third, given China’s close alliance with Pakistan, the strategy of indefinitely extending boundary negotiations allows Beijing to contain India in the South Asian tinderbox, preventing the country from exerting global influence as would be expected of any rising power. Also, by keeping the conflict open on India's borders both with Pakistan and China, it helps to effectively divide India's military power by keeping alive the possibility of a two front war and hence, diluting India’s effective military capability.
However, for India, concerns are amplified because of China’s rapid military build-up in the Tibet Autonomous Region. This augmentation in military capability can be seen at multiple levels. China’s capability to project force in the region has increased dramatically with the infrastructure development in the region. Nearly 30,000 kilometers of strategic roads have been built on the Chinese side of the border, and China now has a capability to mobilise more than thirty divisions each comprising 15,000 soldiers within 48 hours. The Qinghai-Tibet railway network is being extended to Shigatse, close to China’s border with Nepal. China is also developing a number of fully operational air fields in the region.
Clearly, China’s force projection capabilities have increased dramatically in the recent past. China is also increasing its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons inventory in the region. Though one can contend that capabilities are not a sufficient cause behind alarmist conclusions on China’s ultimate intentions, it must be seen in terms of the PAC’s changing military doctrines such as the “local wars under informationised conditions”, a rather elaborate euphemism for limited action in India’s northeast. In fact, many analysts in India have surmised that China can initiate short, limited wars in contested Eastern sector capturing Indian territory before any concerted action can be mounted by the later. In other words, China may be able to successfully win a Kargil-like intrusion, which Pakistan failed to capitalise on in 1999.
Consequently, India suffers from an acute insecurity vis-a-vis China. This insecurity has actually incentivised a rapid military build-up by India even though it is not at the same pace as China’s. In the last decade India’s defence expenditures have grown by close to 50 percent, and in 2012, the defence budget stands at a whopping $44 billion. India is rapidly building its defence infrastructure along the India-China frontier, and is developing strategic deterrents including inter-continental range ballistic missiles like Agni V (which can reach deep inside Chinese territory) and a robust ballistic missile defence.
However, India’s response to China’s military threat on its borders lacks any strategic sense. Though India’s military budgets have increased dramatically, the spending, as Stephen Cohen and Sunil Das Gupta discerningly argue, is devoid of strategic logic. The new strategic directive is driven by a desire to project India on the seas. India is investing a great deal of capital in acquiring sophisticated naval platforms, including aircraft carriers and nuclear powered submarines. This shift towards consolidating India’s naval prowess in partly driven by its desire to project force in distant lands as its power grows, but it is also motivated by an assumption that whereas the army will fight a defensive battle on land, the navy will take the offensive to the Chinese both in Indian Ocean and in South China Sea. What might be lost on the land will be gained on high seas, at least in terms of coercion. However, this logic is flawed: first, the navy’s force projection capabilities are still in their infancy; second, even today, the decisiveness of war is measured in terms of loss and gain of territory; third, the role of land forces becomes more important in short, limited conflicts where tactical battle strength to hold off aggression matters more than strategic capability to inflict punishment on the sea.
The larger fallacy in India’s defence doctrine against China is the non-optimal use of India’s nuclear deterrent. India is shy of challenging China by invoking a first use nuclear policy. All conventionally weaker states, in the history of nuclear strategy, have resorted to the first use of nuclear weapons to deter any conventional aggression. NATO’s first strike doctrine against the conventionally stronger Soviet Union during the Cold War is a case in point. Even Pakistan follows the same policy vis-a-vis India. The bankruptcy of a no first use doctrine is made starker by the fact that even Indian policy makers are not sure that, when push comes to shove, India will stand by its moral commitments.
Indian policy makers remain purposefully ignorant to this dilemma. This artificial disconnect between conventional and nuclear is also damaging for the Indian economy as it has to dedicate resources to both without leveraging one for the other. Matching China’s conventional military capabilities is a futile enterprise as India lags behind China in terms of overall economic wellbeing. Separation of India’s nuclear capabilities from its conventional war doctrines will therefore overstretch India’s economy if it attempts to match China’s conventional capability with only conventional assets.
Finally, India remains shy of alliances. States balance asymmetries in power via internal balancing (augmenting internal military capabilities) and external balancing (by aligning with other states). External balancing is a relatively cheaper method, however, formal alliances lead to costs in terms of decreased strategic autonomy. One of the principle reasons for India will not formally ally with countries such as the U.S. is the loss of autonomy in strategic decision making. India, however, has been extremely cagey of even informally aligning itself with like-minded states such as Japan, Vietnam, and the U.S. India’s strategic partnerships are often seen from the prism of whether they please or displease China. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, also called the arc of democracies, initially promoted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2007 is a case in point. As a part of this initiative, joint naval exercises between Japan, India, Australia, and the U.S. were conducted along India’s eastern coast. However, when China expressed its extreme displeasure at this diplomatic-military grouping, India as well as Australia silently opted out of the forum. Similarly, India is reluctant to play balance of power politics in the East and South China Sea. Whereas China actively supports Pakistan in balancing India, India has shown scant interest in allying with other countries involved in territorial disputes with China.
Regardless of the burgeoning ties between the two nations, the border dispute is the biggest irritant in the bilateral relationship. Even though India-China relations have improved dramatically over the last twenty years or so, contested territorial claims will never allow the relationship to blossom to its fullest. It will lead to serious security dilemma for India, and the results have begun to show as India expands its military budgets and power, especially to counter rising Chinese military capabilities. However, India’s overall strategy to counter the Chinese threat remains ad hoc at best and lacks any coherent application of strategic thought.
Yogesh Joshi is a doctoral student in international politics at the Center for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (CIPOD), School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi studying post-Cold War transitions in Indian foreign policy. He is a CSIS-Pacific Forum young leader and also represented India at Global Zero World Summits in Paris (2010) and London (2011). Recently, he joined the steering committee of the International Network of Emerging Nuclear Specialists (INENS) as a career and professional development liaison.
Photo: Rajan Pithva (cc).
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India Fails to Strategically Balance Chinese Military
November 23, 2012
The India-China border dispute is not only the largest territorial dispute in Asia, but is also one of longest-running conflicts in the history of post-WWII Asian politics. The two nations share a 2520 mile-long border, and have been embroiled in a contest for over 47,000 square miles of Himalayan territory. In 1962, they fought a war across the Himalayan frontier in which India was defeated.
But even after 50 years of the border war, India and China have not been able to amicably resolve the dispute. After 1962, the two countries broke off diplomatic ties. Negotiations on the border dispute did begin again until 1981 at vice-ministerial level, leading to a total of eight rounds of bilateral meetings until 1987. In 1988, a Joint Working Group (JWG) was constituted to expedite the resolution of the conflict. Today, fifteen rounds of talks have taken place. However, as David Scott points out discerningly, irrespective of such long history of bilateral negotiations “there seems to have been little substantive progress on the territorial issue”.
There is an increasing feeling in India that negotiations have dragged for too long. Adding to India’s discomfort is the fact that even after many unilateral concessions, China has shown little inclination to compromise. For example, in 2005 the two nations agreed to settle the territorial dispute in a manner that the interests of settled populations would not be bothered. Whereas the Western sector under Chinese control has no permanent populations and is absolutely barren, the Eastern sector under Indian control has a substantial population of Buddhists as well as other tribal communities. Clearly, the idea behind the 2005 declaration was to resolve the border dispute by making de jure the de facto control of existing territories. However, by 2007, the Chinese Foreign Minister had repudiated any such compromise.
China also seems to have included the border dispute within its concept of ‘core interests’, a euphemism which it reserves for Taiwan and South China Sea. Irrespective of the disputes in high seas, China has settled its border disputes with all its neighbours except India and Bhutan. Even with Vietnam, with whom China fought a bloody war in 1979, the border dispute has been negotiated peacefully.
Three reasons might explain China’s reluctance to resolve the India-China border dispute. First, China would like to settle its territorial disputes in the east and South China Sea before any resolution of the conflict with India. By postponing any ultimate resolution of the border dispute, China makes sure that India remains anxious and avoids any collective balancing with other littoral states such as Japan and Vietnam who also have territorial disputes.
Second, China's claims on Indian territory are linked to consolidating its rather shaky rule in Tibet, where an indigenous movement for greater autonomy and independence still thrives. Prevaricating on the border dispute helps China’s fix its Tibet problem by keeping the pressure on India not to support any notions of Tibetan independence and clamping down on any pro-independence activities from Tibetan leaders and refugees living in India. This is also linked to the institution of the Dalai Lama. China would very much like to control the Tibetan spiritual authority and is therefore anxiously waiting for an opportunity to appoint a puppet once the incumbent Dalai Lama passes away. However, the nightmare scenario for China would be the appointment of the next Dalai Lama from regions outside its control. In fact, the successor of the Dalai Lama can come from the Indian state of Arunanchal Pradesh as it is culturally an extension of Tibet. Keeping the conflict alive, therefore, is a strategy to coerce India into submission as far as any challenge to China’s Tibet policy is concerned.
Third, given China’s close alliance with Pakistan, the strategy of indefinitely extending boundary negotiations allows Beijing to contain India in the South Asian tinderbox, preventing the country from exerting global influence as would be expected of any rising power. Also, by keeping the conflict open on India's borders both with Pakistan and China, it helps to effectively divide India's military power by keeping alive the possibility of a two front war and hence, diluting India’s effective military capability.
However, for India, concerns are amplified because of China’s rapid military build-up in the Tibet Autonomous Region. This augmentation in military capability can be seen at multiple levels. China’s capability to project force in the region has increased dramatically with the infrastructure development in the region. Nearly 30,000 kilometers of strategic roads have been built on the Chinese side of the border, and China now has a capability to mobilise more than thirty divisions each comprising 15,000 soldiers within 48 hours. The Qinghai-Tibet railway network is being extended to Shigatse, close to China’s border with Nepal. China is also developing a number of fully operational air fields in the region.
Clearly, China’s force projection capabilities have increased dramatically in the recent past. China is also increasing its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons inventory in the region. Though one can contend that capabilities are not a sufficient cause behind alarmist conclusions on China’s ultimate intentions, it must be seen in terms of the PAC’s changing military doctrines such as the “local wars under informationised conditions”, a rather elaborate euphemism for limited action in India’s northeast. In fact, many analysts in India have surmised that China can initiate short, limited wars in contested Eastern sector capturing Indian territory before any concerted action can be mounted by the later. In other words, China may be able to successfully win a Kargil-like intrusion, which Pakistan failed to capitalise on in 1999.
Consequently, India suffers from an acute insecurity vis-a-vis China. This insecurity has actually incentivised a rapid military build-up by India even though it is not at the same pace as China’s. In the last decade India’s defence expenditures have grown by close to 50 percent, and in 2012, the defence budget stands at a whopping $44 billion. India is rapidly building its defence infrastructure along the India-China frontier, and is developing strategic deterrents including inter-continental range ballistic missiles like Agni V (which can reach deep inside Chinese territory) and a robust ballistic missile defence.
However, India’s response to China’s military threat on its borders lacks any strategic sense. Though India’s military budgets have increased dramatically, the spending, as Stephen Cohen and Sunil Das Gupta discerningly argue, is devoid of strategic logic. The new strategic directive is driven by a desire to project India on the seas. India is investing a great deal of capital in acquiring sophisticated naval platforms, including aircraft carriers and nuclear powered submarines. This shift towards consolidating India’s naval prowess in partly driven by its desire to project force in distant lands as its power grows, but it is also motivated by an assumption that whereas the army will fight a defensive battle on land, the navy will take the offensive to the Chinese both in Indian Ocean and in South China Sea. What might be lost on the land will be gained on high seas, at least in terms of coercion. However, this logic is flawed: first, the navy’s force projection capabilities are still in their infancy; second, even today, the decisiveness of war is measured in terms of loss and gain of territory; third, the role of land forces becomes more important in short, limited conflicts where tactical battle strength to hold off aggression matters more than strategic capability to inflict punishment on the sea.
The larger fallacy in India’s defence doctrine against China is the non-optimal use of India’s nuclear deterrent. India is shy of challenging China by invoking a first use nuclear policy. All conventionally weaker states, in the history of nuclear strategy, have resorted to the first use of nuclear weapons to deter any conventional aggression. NATO’s first strike doctrine against the conventionally stronger Soviet Union during the Cold War is a case in point. Even Pakistan follows the same policy vis-a-vis India. The bankruptcy of a no first use doctrine is made starker by the fact that even Indian policy makers are not sure that, when push comes to shove, India will stand by its moral commitments.
Indian policy makers remain purposefully ignorant to this dilemma. This artificial disconnect between conventional and nuclear is also damaging for the Indian economy as it has to dedicate resources to both without leveraging one for the other. Matching China’s conventional military capabilities is a futile enterprise as India lags behind China in terms of overall economic wellbeing. Separation of India’s nuclear capabilities from its conventional war doctrines will therefore overstretch India’s economy if it attempts to match China’s conventional capability with only conventional assets.
Finally, India remains shy of alliances. States balance asymmetries in power via internal balancing (augmenting internal military capabilities) and external balancing (by aligning with other states). External balancing is a relatively cheaper method, however, formal alliances lead to costs in terms of decreased strategic autonomy. One of the principle reasons for India will not formally ally with countries such as the U.S. is the loss of autonomy in strategic decision making. India, however, has been extremely cagey of even informally aligning itself with like-minded states such as Japan, Vietnam, and the U.S. India’s strategic partnerships are often seen from the prism of whether they please or displease China. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, also called the arc of democracies, initially promoted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2007 is a case in point. As a part of this initiative, joint naval exercises between Japan, India, Australia, and the U.S. were conducted along India’s eastern coast. However, when China expressed its extreme displeasure at this diplomatic-military grouping, India as well as Australia silently opted out of the forum. Similarly, India is reluctant to play balance of power politics in the East and South China Sea. Whereas China actively supports Pakistan in balancing India, India has shown scant interest in allying with other countries involved in territorial disputes with China.
Regardless of the burgeoning ties between the two nations, the border dispute is the biggest irritant in the bilateral relationship. Even though India-China relations have improved dramatically over the last twenty years or so, contested territorial claims will never allow the relationship to blossom to its fullest. It will lead to serious security dilemma for India, and the results have begun to show as India expands its military budgets and power, especially to counter rising Chinese military capabilities. However, India’s overall strategy to counter the Chinese threat remains ad hoc at best and lacks any coherent application of strategic thought.
Yogesh Joshi is a doctoral student in international politics at the Center for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (CIPOD), School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi studying post-Cold War transitions in Indian foreign policy. He is a CSIS-Pacific Forum young leader and also represented India at Global Zero World Summits in Paris (2010) and London (2011). Recently, he joined the steering committee of the International Network of Emerging Nuclear Specialists (INENS) as a career and professional development liaison.
Photo: Rajan Pithva (cc).
