DH Deciphers | Why is India worried about China's new border law?

China has adopted a new land border law with the professed objective of standardising and strengthening land borders, ensuring security and stability of land borders, promoting good-neighbourly friendship, exchanges and cooperation, and safeguarding national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity. The new law will come into force on January 1, 2022.

Why is India worried about China's new land border law?

China’s new Land Border Law was adopted by the Standing Committee of its 13th National People's Congress on October 23 last, with the professed objective of standardizing and strengthening land borders, ensuring security and stability of land borders, promoting good-neighbourly friendship and exchanges and cooperation with neighbouring countries and safeguarding national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity.

The new law will come into force on January 1 next. It follows the Maritime Police Law and Maritime Traffic Safety Law, which came into force on February 1 and September 1 this year. Here is why India is worried about it?

What does China’s new Land Border Law say?

China’s new Land Border Law says “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of the nation are “sacred and inviolable”. The law emphasizes on the role of the citizens, particularly people living in the border areas, and the civilian institutions in supporting the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police Force, which have been assigned the responsibility of “guarding land borders, resisting armed aggression and deal with major emergencies and terrorist activities on land borders”.

It says that the state shall take effective measures to strengthen border defence construction, support economic and social development of the border and open to the outside world, promote the action of strengthening the border and enriching the border, improve the level of border public services and infrastructure construction, improve the production and living conditions of the border, and encourage and support border residents in frontier production and life, and promote the coordinated development of border defence construction and border economy and society.

Also read: China launches compulsory recruitment drive for locals in Chumbi Valley

Which are the countries China has apparently targeted with its new Land Border Law?

China shares land borders with 14 nations and it claims to have demarcated boundaries with 12 of them. It only has undemarcated boundaries with India and Bhutan. So, although China’s new Land Border Law does not explicitly target any country, it indicates that President Xi Jinping’s Government in Beijing will take a hard-line stand on its boundary disputes with India and Bhutan.

India claims that China is illegally occupying about 38,000 sq km of its territory in Aksai Chin, which borders eastern Ladakh. Pakistan also ceded to China about 5,180 sq km of Indian territory in 1963. China also claims approximately 90,000 sq km of Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh and about 2,000 sq km in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. China claims 764 sq kms of areas of Bhutan – 269 sq kms in the western region and 495 sq kms in the north-central region of the country.

China last year upped the ante and also claimed the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in eastern Bhutan as part of its own territory. The 72-day-long stand-off between Indian Army and Chinese People’s Liberation Army at Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan and the continuing stand-off between the two in eastern Ladakh since April-May 2020 renewed focus on the communist country’s boundary disputes with its two neighbouring nations.

India-China negotiations to resolve the boundary dispute remained stalled since the beginning of the stand-off in eastern Ladakh. The talks between the military commanders to end the stand-off also hit an impasse last month. China’s boundary talks with Bhutan also remained stalled after the 2017 Doklam stand-off, but the two nations of late agreed on a roadmap to resolve the territorial disputes.

Also read: Explainer: How power and ideology define Xi's rise in China

Why has China’s new Land Border Law triggered concerns in India?

Just as its Maritime Police Law and Maritime Traffic Safety Law signalled its intent to aggressively assert its expansive claims on South China Sea and East China Sea, its new Land Border Law too indicates China’s resolve to manage its demarcated boundaries with other nations and seek settlement of the boundary disputes with India and Bhutan on its own terms.

Its emphasis on development of villages and towns in the border areas and role of civilians in protecting sovereignty and territorial integrity clearly indicates that China would expand settlements all along its disputed boundaries with India and Bhutan. There have been reports about China building villages in areas it illegally occupied in Bhutan as well as in Arunachal Pradesh in India.

The new law apparently seeks to legitimize China’s use of the civilian settlement to buttress its territorial claims along its disputed boundaries with India and Bhutan. The Article VII of the 2005 India-China agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for Settlement of the Boundary Question says that the two sides shall safeguard interests of settled populations in the border areas while clinching a deal to resolve the boundary row. So, China is clearly preparing to cite its border villages and infrastructures to counter territorial claims of India.

As the two countries also have differences in perception about the alignment of the line serving as de facto boundary, China may also oppose construction of border infrastructure by India, citing its new law, which also prohibits building permanent structures in the border areas without permission of the Central Government in Beijing.

Also read: China not transgressing on Indian perception of LAC, building villages within its side: Bipin Rawat

How did India react to the new Land Border Law of China?

India asserted that the new “Land Boundary Law” unilaterally adopted by China would not have any bearing on bilateral arrangements put in place to resolve territorial row between the two neighbouring nations as well as to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

It reminded that the two sides had agreed to seek a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution to the Boundary Question through consultations and concluded several bilateral agreements, protocols and arrangements to maintain peace and tranquillity along the LAC in India-China border areas in the interim.

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