Looking Beyond Doklam And War: Why Our China Strategy Needs More Nuance

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s statement, that China can defeat any intruder, will be parsed by the media for its underlying message for India in the Doklam standoff between the two armies at the tri-junction between Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet. But there is a danger in reading too much into it.

Let’s be clear. India’s robust decision to physically stop Chinese road-building in a territory where Bhutan has claims is not directly related to our interests. But given the proximity of the area to India’s vulnerable Chicken’s Neck that links the country to its north-eastern states, this was where India had to make a stand with China. That China was surprised by our action is clear, and this explains why China has been belligerently raising the war rhetoric even though India has been quiet. India has changed the goalposts in the relationships, and this is good for the long term.

Since this is a situation where neither China nor India can blink first, we need to accept two realities: one, that the standoff is unlikely to be resolved soon; and, two, we cannot rule out the possibility of a short war at a time and place of China’s choosing. Any war will settle nothing, but China believes that its messages to others must be emphasised by force, and that is its sole purpose in seeking a war, if it does come to that. Since India has already sent a message by making a pre-emptive move in Doklam, China may feel the need to respond at some point. So, let us be ready for it and keep our powder dry.

No de-escalation is likely, but the more important point for India is to realise that de-escalation is not even possible or necessary. If you want to make a point, that China must respect India’s security concerns, you need to keep sending this message repeatedly and not just once before shaking hands. A de-escalation based on compromise or obfuscation of the real issues will serve neither India’s not China’s purpose.

The problem with Indian strategic thinking so far – and hopefully this has changed under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval – is that it tends to take a short-term view of power equations, when the Chinese think really long-term. Doklam is just a comma, not a full-stop to the betterment of India-China relations. As a people we are still locked in the 1962 mental make-up of defeat and humiliation, and this mindset is what is preventing us from seeing China as equally frightened and insecure. The Chinese have other plans for the world and we must see where we can be a part of it. The right way to think of Doklam should be to accept the possibility of war, and yet look at how we must rebuild the India-China equation after the war, assuming it happens. Our response to 1962 tells us what we must not do: sulk and develop a chip on our shoulder.

Let’s consider what could happen in another short war. Let’s even assume a worst-case scenario: China manages to knock off or hold on to a few more square kilometres of Indian territory in thinly populated places like Ladakh. This is not possible in the Chicken’s Neck region, where India is heavily armed and militarised, and where Chinese supply lines will be stretched to breaking point. Even if China enters the Chicken’s Neck, it will have to withdraw to protect its own lines of supply.

The only result from a short war will be a faster militarisation of India, as happened immediately after 1962. It is hardly what China may want, but India will learn even better lessons from the Chinese effort to teach us a lesson. We will learn to think strategically and not just tactically. What Army Chief Bipin Rawat probably meant when he talked of India being prepared for a two-and-a-half front war is that it can handle two short-term wars on the Pakistani and Chinese fronts simultaneously, apart from the long-term Kashmir jihad. It is impossible to imagine that we will ever face a long-term two-front war with regular states of the kind that happened during the Second World War (Hitler’s Germany versus US-Britain and the USSR, Japan versus America and rest of Asia, and vice-versa). In a world with multiple nuclear powers, that is simply not possible even in a single-front war. Barring unconventional war, all conventional wars between states will be short. The wars that may drag on interminably will be civil wars and proxy wars between non-nuclear states.

We must thus think beyond Doklam and the short war. And here is what we need to understand.

India has a real enemy in Pakistan, but China is a frenemy. For China, India is vital for trade, but India is also a geopolitical rival in south Asia, and in Africa and West Asia in future. But India is not a military threat to China, or China to India. The two states are unlikely to want to conquer one another even assuming one of them acquires asymmetric military power.

Put simply, India-China rivalry will be keen in the battle for economic supremacy, and it has a civilisational component, too. No country other than India has a civilisational quotient equal to its own. This means the battles will be cultural.

Conversely, it also means there is scope for adjustment and compromise. Trade can hardly prosper if it flows only one way; and culture cannot succeed without cohabitation and intermingling. Soft power needs peace to conquer a rival.

However, there is one big issue on which Chinese and Indian interests can converge: the rising tide of Islamism. More than America, it is the rise of Islamic power in West Asia that will ultimately challenge Chinese supremacy.

India should, if it thinks long-term, seek an opening here, though nothing will happen immediately. The key to solving Kashmir may lie not in an India-Pakistan dialogue, but in a China-India understanding. Take China out of the equation, and Pakistan will crumble to bits.

India’s diplomatic focus must thus be on prising open this inherent fault line between China and Pakistan, especially since the latter has defined itself as an Islamic country.

A start can be made by nuancing India’s opposition to the Chinese Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI) better. A key component of BRI is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. India must nuance its opposition better, and support BRI elsewhere, but not in Pakistan. Once the overall opposition is muted, China will not see India as a roadblock to its global infrastructure building ambitions. India should clearly tell China that if it wants to build a road through Gilgit-Baltistan, it may consider giving it a pass provided the deal is done with India in some form, and Pakistan in reined in from sending jihadis to Kashmir.

Over the next 10 years, when the India economy needs more efforts going into growth than militarisation, India should also play down its opposition to China’s rise – except when it impinges on direct security interests as in Doklam. China will get the message that we are not trying to throw banana-peels on their path to glory, but merely safeguarding our security interests.

It is worth realising that Pakistan and North Korea are just pawns in China’s game for global glory. Pakistan is useful to keep India off-balance, and North Korea to do the same with Japan. But unlike Japan, which is into long-term stagnation, the rise of India cannot be stopped. The Chinese cannot be in denial of this, given demographic trends. At some point, they may see more gains from a relationship with India than Pakistan, and that is the goal to strive for.

The day they seen this, one can get China to lean hard on Pakistan to stop meddling in Kashmir. In short, India needs to be seen as more valuable than Pakistan to China to solve Kashmir.

Just as India knows that no Tibetan independence is possible in the next half-century, China knows that India is not going to let go of Kashmir either.

China’s road to Tibet passes through Indian understanding; similarly, India’s Kashmir policy depends on getting China to see its point.

The real threat to China will come from jihadi Islam, of which Pakistan is a part, not India. The day China acknowledges this, our problems will come closer to a solution.