India clearly doesn’t want to be drawn into a united front with countries having serious problems with China

by Seema Sirohi

Incursions in Ladakh and Sikkim within a span of a month are alarming even considering the usual explanations — differing perception of the LoAC, summertime grabs by China as the snow melts, Chinese overreaction to any infrastructure improvement by India, etc.

Should the current Chinese intrusions into undisputed Indian territory be seen as a local and bilateral problem? Or as part of Beijing’s opportunism and exertions all around to show it’s not COVID-damaged but, in fact, COVID-enabled?

Describing what’s going on, or what triggered the multiple incursions, or how to read them, is hotly disputed territory. It’s where an incursion goes by every other name and the delicacy of description is an art. The important question: is it better for India to have vocal support from other countries? Or does it complicate matters for New Delhi as it tries to restore ‘peace and tranquillity’ — itself a very ‘win-win’ formulation from the lexicon deployed for Sino Indian matters.

So far, five meetings have reportedly been held between local commanders, with little progress on restoring status quo. Hundreds of Chinese soldiers are 3-4 km into India’s side of the line of actual control (LoAC) in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley with heavy vehicles. They are said to be building bunkers. It’s more than patrolling mischief. Incursions in Ladakh and Sikkim within a span of a month are alarming even considering the usual explanations — differing perception of the LoAC, summertime grabs by China as the snow melts, Chinese overreaction to any infrastructure improvement by India, etc.

Good news is that both sides are keeping their statements relatively mellow, and Chinese State organs are not doing the ‘needful’ by creating patently racist memes as they did during the Doklam crisis. Not yet. No surprise then that comments from US State Department’s top South Asia official Alice Wells created a bit of a stir. When asked about the tense border situation during her farewell press conference on May 20, she connected the Chinese incursions to Beijing’s ‘provocations and disturbing behaviour’ in South China Sea and elsewhere.

The intrusions show that Chinese aggression is not always ‘just rhetorical’. At a later interaction the same day with the Atlantic Council, Wells reiterated that the US recognised the McMahon Line, and Arunachal Pradesh as an Indian state, while urging the two sides to engage diplomatically.

Thanks, but no thanks, New Delhi clapped back, and let it be known that it prefers to find its own solution despite close relations with Washington. India clearly doesn’t want to be drawn into a united front with other countries currently having serious problems with China. But as Indrani Bagchi in ToI wrote, ‘this time India will not be unhappy if the US openly takes up cudgels on its behalf’, although it could complicate things. Perhaps New Delhi is multi-messaging.

Here’s the thing. What Wells said was careful and necessary. But as US expert on South Asia Ashley J Tellis told me, ‘What she did was correct — she laid down the baseline for how the US judges these events, not just in India’s case.’ The reason: ‘China’s standard operating procedure is to claim every single issue in which it’s implicated is unique and there are specific provocations to which it’s responding. She deflated that argument.’

The Donald Trump administration is unlikely to say more, unless the situation spirals. During the Doklam crisis, the US largely kept quiet at India’s urging save two routine expressions of concern by the State and Defence Department spokespersons. India doesn’t want the boundary issue to become, in the words of Brookings Institute senior fellow Tanvi Madan, a ‘geo-political football’ and get caught up in US-China competition. A public US intervention can be seen as US mischief by China.

Professor of international politics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, Rajesh Rajagopalan had a different view. ‘Beijing cannot constantly dictate who India’s friends should be, nor should New Delhi be walking on eggshells, considering China’s actions on the LoAC are a lot more harmful to [India-China] relations than ambassador Wells’ words,’ he told me.

Besides, the Chinese react strongly to anything the US says, especially in their ‘wolf warrior’ avatar. True to form, a Chinese spokesman called Wells’ comments ‘nonsense’. The US-China ideological divide has sharpened, and almost anything a third country does with either will be seen as adversarial by the other, according to fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi, Jabin T Jacob. But countries like India cannot be ‘too sensitive to this, else we will get nothing done’, he added. But Jacob firmly believes the events in Ladakh should be seen ‘as an entirely localised issue and will be resolved eventually on local give-and-take’.

The question is, who will give, where, and how much?