On Sino-Indian Border, Status-Quo Unacceptable

[mota bhai 2,675]

When Beijing initially floated the idea of a BDCA [border Defense and Cooperation Agreement] late last year, it was designed to institute a freeze on military and infrastructure projects along the LAC ... a freeze would enshrine a substantial Chinese advantage at the LAC [Line of Actual Control] in terms of civilian and military infrastructure.

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For decades a perverse logic prevailed among Indian strategists, counseling against developing its border areas lest the improved infrastructure facilitate another Chinese invasion.

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In 2006 Delhi abruptly reversed this longstanding doctrine with the introduction of a major road-building program for the border areas.

Three years later, Delhi announced that it would raise two new mountain divisions for the border, deploy its most advanced cruise missiles and fourth-generation fighters, and upgrade several airstrips and advanced landing grounds. Finally, this year Delhi green-lit the addition of a new strike corps for the eastern sector of the border dispute, the first offensive military formation India has deployed to the LAC in 50 years (India’s existing three strike corps are all at the Pakistan border).

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[China] hosts 400,000 PLA soldiers in the two military regions opposite India. In recent years it has upgraded its arsenal of ballistic missiles, added several new airfields in Tibet, conducted increasingly robust military exercises with neighboring Pakistan, and boosted its long-range transport capability. And the advanced Chinese fighter aircraft now arriving in Tibet are far more capable of operating at extremely high altitudes than their predecessors.

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A progressively militarized border is an increasingly dangerous border, particularly when paired with the second problem with the status quo – incursions across the LAC by border patrols. The Indian government records several hundred such incidents by Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) patrols each year .... China, by contrast, keeps no record of incursions by Indian patrols, but officials suggest the number of Indian incursions matches or exceeds the number attributed to the PLA.

By and large these are petty, harmless exercises deriving from the fact that there are a dozen volatile sections along the border where there is no mutual agreement on where the LAC belongs.

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However, the incursions are not without risks, and occasionally escalate into genuine crises. In 2008, reports of prolonged Chinese incursions one kilometer into the Finger Area of Sikkim prompted India to move battle tanks to the region. The aforementioned Chinese incursion in Ladakh in April sparked a mini-crisis in bilateral relations ... Each of these episodes perpetuate the atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust that shadows Sino-Indian relations.

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The principal reason a resolution to the dispute has eluded the two sides for so long is that it would require at least minor territorial concessions from both Beijing and Delhi. And yet, the appetite for such concessions in both countries appears to be shrinking in the 21st century, not growing.

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In India, where anti-Chinese sentiment is politically and financially profitable, territorial concessions would have to be sold to an opportunistic political opposition and a highly skeptical public, and would likely require an amendment to the Indian Constitution. In China, a new brand of PLA-inspired nationalism is pushing Beijing toward a harder line on its territorial disputes. And while India is generally dismissed in Beijing as a second-tier regional power, among Chinese nationalists it is increasingly viewed as a troublemaking antagonist in league with the U.S. and Japan to try and “contain” China.

Jeff M. Smith is the Director of South Asia Programs and Kraemer Strategy Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, a Washington DC-based think tank.

http://thediplomat.com/2013/11/on-sino-indian-border-status-quo-unacceptable/