China-India Deadlock: Indian Army Advised To Withdraw from Doklam

For weeks, the Chinese and Indian armies have been locked in a standoff in the mountains of Doklam, in the Sikkim region. Tensions have been mounting, and both countries have sent reinforcements to the area in an attempt to dissuade each other from making further advances.

Last Monday, Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, spoke about the subject for the first time since the standoff began.

According to the Times of India, Minister Yi said that the “rights and wrongs were very clear” and that the Indians should withdraw, given that in his view they’ve conceded to have invaded Chinese lands. Such remarks pertain to the admission by Indian authorities that Chinese troops did not enter Indian territory during the impasse.

Officially, the crisis began because of the construction of a road in the region by the Chinese military that was perceived by the Indians as a hostile action. Although sparsely populated, Doklam has great geostrategic importance, as it is a confluence point between India, Bhutan, and Tibet.

Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj declared that the presence of the road was “unacceptable,” but she repeated previous remarks about the need to maintain dialogue in order to avoid further escalation, NDTV reports.

Although this crisis is new, the quarrel itself is not. Moreover, how does this correlate to the strategic posing of these two important nations, and what can they do against each other if the situation indeed escalates?

Disputes along the borders of modern India and China have happened ever since the decolonization of the Indian subcontinent. The Kashmir region remains a sour part of the relationship between New Delhi and Beijing, with sections of it being occupied by Indian, Pakistani, and Chinese troops.

The region was also one of the theaters of the Sino-Indian War of 1962. The other was Namka Chu, in Sikkim. At the time, both clashes resulted in decisive Indian defeats, a fact that Chinese military spokespeople were keen to remind their Indian counterparts during the last few weeks.

Doklam, the region at the center of the current dispute, is nestled in the strip of land that separates Bhutan and Nepal, north of Bangladesh. Because that general area forms a choke point between the main body of the Indian territory and its remote eastern regions, it has great strategical importance for New Delhi.

Bhutan, a tiny country that is also an ally of India, declared that the road being built by the Chinese would lead directly to one of its army camps, thus being a threat and a direct violation of accords between the two countries made two decades ago. This is why Thimphu asked for New Delhi’s help in the matter, which only bolstered the latter’s claims.

The construction of roads for military purposes is not a new thing for China. Furthermore, it is known that Beijing has been building infrastructures connecting its main cities to Pakistan and its shorelines. Islamabad is a traditional Indian rival and has been tightening ties with Beijing during the last decades, leading inclusively to the co-development of advanced military equipment like the JF-17 Thunder jet fighter.

This is where the heart of the issue resides. The crisis in Sikkim is not the affliction but only a symptom of the geopolitical struggle between Beijing and New Delhi.

These are the two most populous nations in the world, with a combined population of around 2.6 billion people. They also boast important industrial and economic activities, with true worldwide reach. Their geopolitical ambitions, though, are not quite the same.

China is becoming a true global power. Just recently, it unveiled a new military base in Africa to further its interests in the continent. The country is also creating a line of bases around the edge of the Pacific and has signed deals with countries like the Philippines. The objective is the establishment of what was described as a pearl chain of interconnected military bases and allied nations aimed at strengthening Beijing’s influence.

On the other hand, India currently aims to gain control of the Indian Ocean, including its resources and trade routes. Knowing that New Delhi would oppose any claims over what it sees as its backyard, Beijing opted to circumvent India entirely, consolidation ties with Pakistan and using Islamabad’s coast.

History shows that great political and mercantile powers also possess important military might. Beijing has spent a great amount of money and resources to modernize its armed forces. The most visible facets of this modernization effort are the newly unveiled naval vessels like the Type 55 frigate or the Type 001A carrier, and the air force assets, most notably the J-20 stealth fighter or the new heap of locally-built drones.

These developments make Beijing a fearsome foe indeed, although some claim that the country still lacks proper doctrine in some regards. The war with Vietnam in 1979 ended in a humiliating retreat for the Chinese troops, although clashes would continue for a decade. Beyond that, most of the recent Chinese military experience comes from policing actions, and one could hypothesize that the overseas deployments have the additional purpose of providing Beijing’s troops more experience in order to improve their doctrine.

India has not modernized in the same fashion. Its Navy is not as powerful or numerous, and the Air Force, although numerically important, employs mostly older aircraft designs and has been marred by many reliability issues. While China is already developing stealth fighters, India struggles to make an F-16-class combat aircraft, the Tejas, fully operational.

To make up for the lack of locally-developed weapons systems, India has spent great amounts of money buying advanced weapons systems from Russia and the U.S. The approach to Washington, D.C., is a relatively recent development, made to diversify the sources of equipment, but also to strengthen ties with China’s main opponent.

Moscow, though, is an old Indian ally. Both countries have been co-developing some military hardware, like the BrahMos missile. This is an important detail, as Russia has diplomatic ties with China, although tense.

India and China are also nuclear powers, with warhead deployment capabilities made to counter each other. Pakistan also has nuclear weapons, but its arsenal is meant to dissuade India, being strategically more limited compared to its neighbors. However, an exchange of such weapons is unlikely, especially at the initial stages of any possible conflict.

Nevertheless, Indian officials stated that they would be more than able to fight against China if the current standoff turns into a shooting war, as discussed in the Hindu. If localized, the fighting could actually be more even that one may think when looking at the relative potential of both armies on paper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7FUFLacmFA

The Doklam region consists of high mountains where the deployment of armored vehicles would be difficult. Even aircraft would be limited in their applicability, meaning that any localized conflict would consist mostly of small infantry actions across the region, supported by artillery.

This course of events could have one of two possible outcomes. For one, the fighting could whither and force both nations to accept any UN resolution for the conflict. On the other hand, if the fronts stagnate or one side gains the upper hand, then such developments would force the warring parties to expand the front to other theaters along the 3,500km frontier they both share. The first possibility could see limited local damage and maybe a few hundreds of casualties at most. The second possibility could be far more destructive.

Currently, around 300 men from both sides stand on a deadlock, distancing 150 meters from each other, in fortified positions in the mountains. Officials from both nations have called for contention and for a diplomatic solution to the standoff. Beijing has also stated that any negotiation could only happen if the Indian Army troops retreat back into Indian territory.

Meanwhile, Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval should meet his Chinese counterpart this week during a security forum of the BRICS nations in Beijing, Al-Jazeera reports. There is hope that some progress can be made regarding the Sikkim impasse.

[Featured Image by Aijaz Rahie/AP Images]