Response to China? Verbal bravado, shift blame, divert attention

Last month, delivering an address at a government-run think-tank in Delhi, foreign minister S Jaishankar once again claimed that “peace and tranquillity in the border areas clearly remains the basis for normal relations”. Arguing that the bilateral ties are “profoundly disturbed”, he has maintained that the relationship cannot be normal till there is peace and normalcy in the border areas. This is his counter to Beijing’s contention that the Ladakh border crisis should be put in its “appropriate place” and the rest of the relationship between the two Asian countries can continue as normal.

Jaishankar’s loud protestations are not matched by facts on the ground. Economic ties with China continue robustly alongside the border crisis. While loans to India from multilateral banks based in China continue unabated, the foremost evidence comes from trade, which has hit record levels this year, with the balance tilting further in China’s favour.

As per data from China’s General Administration of Customs, bilateral trade with China – India’s largest trading partner – shot up to $103.6 billion in the first nine months and is set to exceed last year’s $125.6 billion. Imports from China have risen 31% to $89.6 billion, while exports to China have shrunk 36.4% to $13.9 billion. The actual numbers are even more distorted in Beijing’s favour as reconciliation of Chinese data with Indian records shows massive “under-invoicing” by Indian importers to avoid duties and taxes.

After PLA troops marched into Indian territory in Ladakh, the Modi government took “strong steps” to punish and deter China. It banned 270 Chinese apps, unleashed law-enforcement agencies on Chinese smartphone-makers such as Xiaomi and Vivo for money laundering and tax evasion, and made rules for greater scrutiny of Chinese investments. These may have satisfied Modi’s domestic supporters, but have had little effect on Beijing.

After the disengagement at PP15 in September, Beijing welcomed it as “a positive development” but unambiguously stressed that it would not accept India’s demand to restore the status quo prior to China’s ingress, claiming that “the status quo of April 2020…was created by India’s illegal crossing of the LAC”. China’s intransigence should lead to an interrogation of Jaishankar’s threat that “new normals of posture will inevitably lead to new normals of responses”.

Let alone unleashing new ideas, the Modi government has failed to execute even the time-tested responses available in Indian plans since the 1980s. To counter a PLA ingress, Indian security planners have always banked on a quid pro quo or QPQ operation against a lightly-held Chinese area. These areas have long been identified militarily and moving into any such place would give India a bargaining chip. Right now, China seems to hold all the cards during negotiations and refuses to even discuss the militarily important areas of Depsang and Demchok, where the PLA has blocked Indian patrols.

For fear of escalation by the Chinese, the Modi government has refused to exercise this option after a half-hearted QPQ attempt at Kailash Range in 2020. It is driven by the ghost of 1962 but this demonstration of a lack of political will has meant a loss of credibility of Indian intent and capabilities. It has further added to a breakdown of deterrence, forcing the Indian military to be deployed defensively for the third continuous winter in inhospitable terrain and weather to block any further Chinese ingress.

Jaishankar has tried to blame this diffidence on the last six decades during which a structural gap has developed with China. He said that this has two broad metrics: “one, the Cumulative Border Balance (CBB), and the other, Comprehensive National Power (CNP),” with “a linkage between them”. After nearly two terms in power of the Modi dispensation, during which the Chinese have given enough warnings -- from Chumar in 2014 to Doklam in 2017 -- this excuse holds no water. The gap with China has increased under Modi’s watch even as he has personally met Xi Jinping 17 times since 2014. Modi’s confidence that the force of his personality will keep the Chinese in check has been proven as unfounded as his midnight demonetisation or sudden lockdown.

By its timidity, Delhi has ended up hyping Xi into an embodiment of Sun Tzu, who said that “To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” The Modi government has also failed to discharge two basic functions of the State against China: ensure India’s territorial integrity and safeguard its sovereignty. Even when it lost the 1962 war, India did not cede territory to China. After that, India was even more forceful in asserting its claims in 1967 in Sikkim or in 1987 in Arunachal Pradesh or in 2013 in Depsang. The current crisis is constraining India’s ability to make geopolitical choices in a sovereign manner.

Meanwhile, the government is trying to direct citizens’ attention toward Pakistan as an adversary. That country is economically and politically in doldrums and poses no immediate threat. Delhi should instead be working to help that country, because an unstable and insecure Pakistan – with its nuclear weapons – can’t be in India’s interest while the Chinese troops remain amassed on the border.

The US sees China as a strategic challenge to its global hegemony, but India has no such anxieties. It should work to ensure that its limited goals with Beijing are met swiftly. An under-pressure, unprepared and domestically misled India cannot meet those goals. Unless the government course-corrects, the future with China could become precisely the scenario that it wants to avoid.