India-China border skirmishes and their impacts on bilateral relations GS: 2 "EMPOWER IAS"

 

In news:

• With the long-standing border standoff with China, Ladakh, a rugged, high-altitude region that is generally far removed from the lives and imagination of most Indians, has become part of our daily conversations and worries.

 

 

 

Ladakh

• Lying between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and Himalayas to the south, Ladakh was originally inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent.
• Historically the region included the valleys of Baltistan, Indus, and Nubra, besides Zanskar, Lahaul and Spiti, Aksai Chin, Ngari and Rudok.
• Located at the crossroads of important trade routes since ancient times, Ladakh has always enjoyed great geostrategic importance.
• At the beginning of the first century AD, Ladakh was part of the Kushan Empire. Till the 15th century, it was part of Tibet and was ruled by dynasties of local Lamas.
• Later it changed hands multiple times, alternating between the kingdoms of Kashmir and Zhangzhung.
• In 1834, Gen Zorawar Singh, a general of Raja Gulab Singh who ruled Jammu as part of the Sikh empire, extended the boundaries of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s kingdom to Ladakh.

 

Ladakh through the Chinese point of view

• China’s forays into the region began after the 1949 Communist Revolution, when Chairman Mao Zedong, a veteran of guerrilla warfare, began consolidating China’s periphery as part of his expansionist designs.
• The PLA occupied Tibet in 1951 and then began to eye Ladakh.
• The reason was that the road connecting Kashgar in Xinjiang to Lhasa in Tibet had to pass through Aksai Chin, which was held by Indians but was seldom patrolled by them.

 

Galwan Valley

• The Tibetan revolt of 1959 and the Dalai Lama’s flight to India saw China further strengthening its military presence in Ladakh to ensure the security of NH 219.
• India reacted with its ‘forward policy’ as part of which it began setting up Army posts in the region to prevent Chinese expansion.
• This resulted in the initial clash between the Indian and Chinese forces in the Kongka Pass area in 1959.
• Later, Galwan Valley became the scene of action when the Indian Army established a post to cut off the Chinese post in the Samjunjling area, marking the beginning of the 1962 war.

 

Pangong Tso:

• In the latest face-off, Indian troops first spied the Chinese on the banks of Pangong Tso.
• This lake, which is one-third in India and two-thirds in China, is of great tactical significance to the Chinese who have built infrastructure along both its sides to ensure the speedy build-up of troops.
• Chinese incursions in this region aim at shifting the LAC westward so that they are able to occupy important heights both on the north and the south of the lake, which will enable them to dominate the Chushul Bowl.
• The narrow Chushul valley, which lies on the road to Leh with Pangong Tso to its north, was an important target for the Chinese even during the 1962 war. It was here that the Battle of Chushul was fought.

 

Strategic Sub-Sector North (SSN)

• The area spanning Galwan, Depsang plateau, and Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO), is called Sub-Sector North (SSN).
• This enclave that lies to the east of the Siachen glacier is of immense significance given its proximity to the Karakoram Pass, close to China’s western highway or NH 219 going to Aksai Chin.
• It’s the SSN that provides land access to Central Asia through the Karakoram Pass.
• Domination of this area is also crucial for the protection of the Siachen glacier, lying between the Saltoro ridge on the Pakistani side and the Saser ridge close to the Chinese claim line.
• The Galwan heights overlook the all-weather Durbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie (DSDBO) Road, which connects Leh to DBO at the base of the Karakoram Pass that separates China’s Xinjiang Region from Ladakh.
• Domination over these heights allows China to easily interdict this road.

 

 

Past incidents over the border issue:

1914:  A border China never agreed to

• The conflict stretches back to at least 1914.
• In 2014 representatives from Britain, the Republic of China and Tibet gathered in Simla to negotiate a treaty that would determine the status of Tibet and effectively settle the borders between China and British India.
• The Chinese, unhappy at proposed terms that would have allowed Tibet to be autonomous and remain under Chinese control, refused to sign the deal.
• But Britain and Tibet signed a treaty establishing what would be called the McMahon Line, named after a British colonial official, Henry McMahon, who proposed the border.
• India maintains that the McMahon Line, a 550-mile frontier that extends through the Himalayas, is the official legal border between China and India.
• But China has never accepted it.

 

1962: India-China War and origin of LAC

• Tensions rose throughout the 1950s.
• The Chinese insisted that Tibet was never independent and could not have signed a treaty creating an international border.
• There were several failed attempts at peaceful negotiation.
• China sought to control critical roadways near its western frontier in Xinjiang.
• India and its Western allies saw any attempts at Chinese incursion as part of a wider plot to export Maoist-style Communism across the region.
• By 1962, war had broken out.
• Chinese troops crossed the McMahon Line and took up positions deep in Indian territory, capturing mountain passes and towns.
• By November China declared a cease-fire, unofficially redrawing the border near where Chinese troops had conquered territory.
• It was the so-called Line of Actual Control.

 

 1967: In Sikkim, India pushes China back

• Tensions came to a head again in 1967 along two mountain passes, Nathu La and Cho La, that connected Sikkim — then a kingdom and a protectorate of India — and China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.
• A scuffle broke out when Indian troops began laying barbed wire along what they recognized as the border.
• The scuffles soon escalated when a Chinese military unit began firing artillery shells at the Indians.
• In the ensuing conflict, more than 150 Indians and 340 Chinese were killed.
• The clashes in September and October 1967 in those passes would later be considered the second all-out war between China and India.
• But India prevailed, destroying Chinese fortifications in Nathu La and pushing them farther back into their territory near Cho La.
• The change in positions, however, meant that China and India each had different and conflicting ideas about the location of the Line of Actual Control.
• The fighting was the last time that troops on either side would be killed. — until the skirmishes in the Galwan Valley on Tuesday.

 

1987: A crisis averted:

• In 1987, the Indian military was conducting a training operation to see how fast it could move troops to the border.
• The large number of troops and material arriving next to Chinese outposts surprised Chinese commanders — who responded by advancing toward what they considered the Line of Actual Control.
• Realizing the potential to inadvertently start a war, both India and China de-escalated, and a crisis was averted.

 2013: Stand-off at Daulat Beg Oldi

• After decades of patrolling the border, a Chinese platoon pitched a camp near Daulat Beg Oldi in April 2013.
• The Indians soon followed, setting up their own base fewer than 1,000 feet away.
• The camps were later fortified by troops and heavy equipment.
• By May, the sides had agreed to dismantle both encampments, but disputes about the location of the Line of Actual Control persisted.

 

 

 South China Sea Dispute

• New islands were constructed by dredging sand onto reefs, an effort by China to boost its claim to all of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
• It has also built ports, Runaways and radar facilities on the manmade islands.
• Satellite images of the islands, show that China now appears to have installed large antiaircraft guns and weapons systems as well – Paracel and Spratly islands.

 

 

• China rejected an international ruling on the South China Sea as “null and void” and devoid of any “binding force”.
• China’s development in the region is seen as threatening to other nations Taiwan, Brunei, Philippines and Malaysia.
• About half of the world’s annual merchant fleet tonnage—passed through the South China Sea in 2010. Any tension in the region may immensely affect the international trade and economy.
• China has demonstrated a desire to control all of the passage through what it considers its sphere of naval power. This predilection is in direct opposition to the U.S.-backed global standard of free passage through the high seas.

 

 2017: Dokhlam Stand-Off

• In June 2017, the Chinese set to work building a road in the Doklam Plateau, an area of the Himalayas controlled not by India, but by its ally Bhutan.
• Indian troops carrying weapons and operating bulldozers confronted the Chinese with the intention of destroying the road.
• A standoff ensued, soldiers threw rocks at each other, and troops from both sides suffered injuries.
• In August, the countries agreed to withdraw from the area, and China stopped construction on the road.

 

 2020: Ladakh Stand -off

• In May, melees broke out several times.
• In one clash at the glacial lake Pangong Tso, Indian troops were badly injured and had to be evacuated by helicopter.
• China bolstered its forces with dump trucks, excavators, troop carriers, artillery and armored vehicles, Indian experts said.
• What was clear was that it was the most serious series of clashes between the two sides since 2017 — and a harbinger of the deadly confrontation to come.

 

India- China Border:

•  
• India and China share a 3,488 km long boundary. Unfortunately, the entire boundary is disputed. The line, which delineates the boundary between the two countries, is popularly called the McMahon line, after its author Sir Henry McMahon.
• In 1913, the British-India government had called a tripartite conference, in which the boundary between India and Tibet was formalized after a discussion between the Indian and the Tibetans. A Convention was adopted, which resulted in the delimitation of the Indo-Tibetan boundary. This boundary is, however, disputed by China which terms it as illegal.
• In 1957, China occupied Aksai Chin and built a road through it. This episode was followed by intermittent clashes along the border, which finally culminated in the border war of 1962. The boundary, which came into existence after the war, came to be known as Line of Actual Control (LAC). It is a military held line.

 

Why is China flexing its muscle?

The tensions on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between Indian security forces and China’s PLA have renewed the question of how New Delhi should deal with a rising, assertive Beijing.

• Using Article 370: The Chinese establishment, and others, are using the changed constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir to justify the PLA’s aggression and make Beijing a party to the Kashmir dispute.
  • But this argument holds little water because the changes in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir have no impact on the current territorial disposition with China and Pakistan.
• Growing military might: The reasons behind China’s muscle-flexing in fact, are the PLA’s growing military capabilities and the political will to use them. 

 

Why is China stubborn on Galwan?

• Occupation of Galwan will neutralize the tactical advantage India gained by building the all-weather Durbuk-DBO road over the last two decades.
• Last year, the Border Road Organisation (BRO) made this rugged terrain even more accessible by completing the 430-metre-long bridge across the Shyok River.
• With this, the Darbuk route to DBO became available round the year, and the travel time of troops to the SSN was halved.
• It was this bridge, coupled with the ongoing work on a link road to LAC in this area, prompted the PLA to enter Galwan.