India-China Border War

Three decades ago, the two countries agreed not to fight. However, Beijing is now a very strong country.

Ganguly, a professor of politics at Indiana University, and Manjit S. Pardesi, director of the Center for Strategic Studies at Victoria University in Wellington, presented their analysis of the possibility of war on the Indo-China border. "Tensions between India and China are not new," he said, referring to foreign policy. The two countries, which have the longest marked borders in the world, fought a full-scale war in 1962, which continued until 1975.

There is a consensus that a broader confrontation between China and India is unlikely. Recent events, however, suggest that this is likely to increase. There are numerous military deployments on both sides and it continues to grow along disputed borders. For more than a decade, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been examining the strategic points as well as the readiness of the Indian Army. Reconciliation does not count neatly.

The latest clash took place earlier this month. On May 5, Indian and Chinese troops fought near Pyongyang Tsu Lake in Ladakh. The fighting is believed to have taken place because the PLA objected to Indian military patrols in the area. Most skirmishes begin with various surveys of the LoC. Then on May 9, at an altitude of 15,000 feet, in the Nikola area near Tibet, soldiers on both sides fought and pelted each other with stones. No weapons were used but dozens of soldiers were injured, including a senior Indian officer who was told to be sent to the hospital.

After a relatively quiet period along the Sino-Indian border, military incidents have resurfaced. According to the Indian government, the Chinese army crossed the Indian border 1,025 times between 2016 and 2018. The possibility of demarcating the borders of China and India, the root of such violations is rooted in the fact that Beijing and New Delhi have different views on the boundaries of their territory.

In 2017, when Indian and Chinese troops clashed for two months in the Doklam region of Bhutan and China, fierce military clashes are a different possibility. Although some crises are coming to an end, the stalemate between the two borders is part of a new phase in relations between the two countries.

The old phase began in 1988, a year after the military battles between India and China in the Cho Samdorung Valley of Arunachal Pradesh. 

At a time when Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was in Beijing with his colleague Deng Xiaoping to improve relations. The two leaders agreed to establish future relations, even border disputes, which they temporarily ended. The reason for this pragmatism lies in economic and strategic factors: both China and India need a stable external environment to boost the country's economic growth. China has been moving towards dramatic economic reforms initiated by Deng for a decade, while India is following the same path as Gandhi, though it is doubtful.

The agreement reached between India and China in 1988 partly aided the silence of New Delhi, which was keen to monitor developments in Tibet. It is also driven by the fact that the two countries are almost equal on the world stage. According to the World Bank, India's gross domestic product was worth 297 billion, compared to China's  312billion this year. Meanwhile, India's defense spending is close to US 10.6 billion and China's11.4 billion.

Since then, the material balance between China and India has changed dramatically. With 13.6 trillion in 2018, China's GDP is now five times that of India's 2.7 trillion fund. Similarly, China spent 261.1 billion on defense spending in 2019, nearly four times India's total of 71.1 billion. While India has risen as an economy and a world power in the last three decades, its relative power from China has actually dwindled drastically.

The new economic dynamics meant that the foundations of Gandhi Deng's bargaining power were weakening. Although it is not yet clear when the agreement between New Delhi and Beijing began to expire - probably. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, China has recently become stronger in its foreign affairs. This is called artificial diplomacy between artificial island development activities in the China Sea or corona epidemics. In fact, some scholars say, the transition between China and the United States, which is now two world powers, is underway. While New Delhi has also become a strong player in world politics, its rise has not bothered the United States much. 

Border clashes between China and India have been a concern recently. Are Recently, high-level meetings between the top leaders of the two countries - Wuhan and Mamaliapuram - have been instrumental in shaping the overall relationship. However, when the 1988 agreement allowed for relative calm on the border and boosted trade relations between the two countries, no unusual problems arose, including border disputes. 

Will China pay India to end the stalemate?

According to Indian Foreign Minister Subramanian Jaishankar, China, and India have "extraordinarily complex relations". In addition to border disputes, Tibet (the presence of the Dalai Lama in exile, the Tibetan government in exile, and tens of thousands of Tibetans in exile in India), China-Pakistan partnership, and the two leading countries in Asia Includes the sphere of influence. . At the same time but disproportionately increasing the power of both countries, these issues become more prominent. 

The material capabilities of China and India are still changing. China is lagging behind India with most of its axes of power, even as New Delhi expands its capabilities. According to the World Bank, India recorded a higher growth rate than China each year between 2014 and 2018. While the long-term economic impact of the Corona epidemic is still unclear, given India's small economy and slightly faster growth rate, it has the potential to reduce its power gap with China, at least in the long run. ۔ In other words, India is the only major power that has surpassed China - even China is growing faster than other major powers, such as Japan and the United States. 

In addition to increasing its power at home, India has forged strong strategic partnerships with other Chinese rivals, especially the United States and Japan. Emerging China, meanwhile, has strengthened its northern border with Russia and is seeking to undermine US supremacy in the East Asian maritime region through military modernization and island development. This leaves only one border issue with a fundamentally unresolved rival: the border between China and India. Not surprisingly, it has periodically put pressure on India along this front - a trend that is on the rise.

As China and India continue to rise, Beijing will increasingly see India as a fierce rival that does not want to settle border disputes under favorable Chinese conditions. China-India relations need to be further examined along with the global trading system (through tariffs and investment restrictions) as well as the growing trend of nationalism around the world. The reason is that trade negotiations are more complete and controversial. 

In fact, one impression is that Beijing sees New Delhi as a major obstacle to understanding its ambitions to dominate Asia. As a result, fierce clashes on the unstable Sino-Indian border are highly likely. As long as China emerges as a dominant power in South Asia (and the Indian Ocean), it is possible that China will remain a regional power in East Asia. In other words, China's desire for Pan-Asian domination will further intensify the competition that is now taking place between China and India. 

To avoid further conflict, India needs to adopt a number of strategies, prioritizing high-level diplomacy and joint work with international institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. While these collaborative efforts could prevent further border violence, they will not focus on the extraordinary fundamentals of Sino-Indian relations. In short, it will be a significant regional concession. India can do a lot to reduce the primary source of competition.