Galwan Valley today, Shyok tomorrow

It is a mystery as to why China has suddenly heightened the tension on its border with India and diverted 5,000 PLA troops from an interior site to the Ladakh border.

Since early May, the PLA has been intruding into some pockets in Eastern Ladakh and has disrupted normal patrolling in Galwan Nala, and the Hot Springs and Sirijap areas in Pangong Lake. The PLA has also disrupted Indian construction activities taking place inside the LAC.

Analysts have cited several reasons for the Chinese provocation this time. But it comes against the backdrop of multiple developments taking place at the global level. To cite a few, there is an intense conflict unfolding between the US and China, which started with the tariff war. Covid-19 has further sharpened their differences. China is also isolated over its handling of Hong Kong. Beijing has stepped up its belligerency over its South China Sea claims. Tensions with Taiwan have heightened.

China’s image has been badly hit and there is a growing demand to isolate and punish it. Cornered, Beijing seems to have decided to push back by becoming belligerent in Ladakh, where the stakes are low compared to opening a conflict with Taiwan, where its stakes are high, and by opening some other fronts in the South China Sea.

The provocation could be that India has fast-tracked building roads and infrastructure in Ladakh after going slow for many years.

In the absence of an international border, and given a disputed LAC, both sides have agreements and confidence-building measures that if there is conflict, they would resolve it at the border at a local level.

Eastern Ladakh area is huge and has an 830-km border with China. Most of it is disputed.

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This time, the Chinese seem to have come 2-3 km into the Galwan Valley. If we lose Galwan Valley, the Chinese will come into the Shyok Valley and can then cut off the northern flank, including the Karakoram Pass, Nubra Valley and Aksai Chin. This will make Ladakh vulnerable security-wise.

Some 200-300 incursions take place every year, mostly in Ladakh, but it is the sensitivity of the area this time which is threatening. Galwan is a pivotal, strategic vantage point.

There has been some analysis about China being irked over India’s decision to reorganise J&K and make Ladakh a separate Union Territory last year. It is possible that not only has China used the bifurcation issue as a Trojan horse to factor itself into the Kashmir dispute but also to forward its stakes in Ladakh. Some kind of strategic move or joint thinking between China and Pakistan cannot be ruled out. The issue featured in the

-China joint statement last August.

On the ground, the Chinese are trying to push India into the Galwan Valley towards the Shyok Valley. Possibly, China is apprehensive that its flagship regional connectivity projects in South Asia, like the CPEC through Pakistan and BRI through Nepal, may get affected as India has stepped up construction of roads in Ladakh and in the Uttarakhand region bordering China.

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Aksai Chin, illegally held by China, is an extension of the dry plateau and is not part of the Himalayas. Now, the Chinese are coming into a water-rich area with three rivers -- the Shyok, Galwan and Chang-Chenmo. This is a hugely strategic move. On the map, it looks very complicated but they have a strategy, design and focus on the big picture.

Right now, all their connectivity is north of the Karakoram Valley, through which CPEC passes. They are, for instance, building a new airport in Tashkurgan, north of the Siachen glacier.

Having declared Ladakh a UT and having decided to build infrastructure and connectivity in Ladakh, India should also have a matching forward objective to push for trade and its strategic interests beyond the Karakoram pass into the Mazar Valley of Xinjiang province and revive the old Leh-Kashgar Silk Road. Through Lipulekh, we should be demanding the reopening of our traditional pilgrimage and border trade routes with Tibet.

The mantra of the LAC has been chanted for so many years that we
react only to Gilgit-Baltistan and not to Aksai Chin. Why has the narrative of Aksai China not been kept alive? Right now, the Chinese show it as part of Xinjiang. It is time to change the narrative with China and not just with Pakistan on PoK. It is important that we should also respond strategically to reach out to the world beyond the Ladakh borders that have remained so far frozen in time.

(The writer is a former Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan and an expert in trans-Himalayan affairs)