Will there be war in the Himalayas?
It's hard to say how much is posturing and how much is a real threat of war
i wrote this a few weeks ago. it is again relevant now in view of the 2+2 meeting between india’s and america’s defense and foreign ministers on 27 Oct. this should lead to some kind of concrete expression of cooperation, although it will definitely fall short of a treaty.
shorter versions of this article were published in the kerala kaumudi in malayalam https://keralakaumudi.com/news/news.php?id=406654&u=himalayathil-udham-undakumo and India Foundation’s chintan at http://chintan.indiafoundation.in/articles/will-there-be-war-in-the-himalayas/
Will there be war in the Himalayas?
Rajeev Srinivasan
No other question is more important to India, even though the media has moved on to other, more juicy new stories.
There are good reasons to believe we will soon see war, and equally good reasons to not think so. Kinetic warfare possibilities are on a knife-edge right now.
Here are some reasons why China will impose a war on us:
India is severely affected by the Wuhan virus and attendant economic woes
India doesn’t have the money, muscle, or will to fight
‘Unrestricted warfare’ can be used to beat down Indian resolve
By defeating India, China does “kill the chicken to scare the monkey”
Other theaters of war, such as Taiwan and Japan, would invoke US anger
Losing the Gosthana (Aksai Chin) link would jeopardize their prize BRI project, CPEC
India’s rejection of BRI and of Chinese apps emboldens others in Asia
“Teach India a lesson”, as in 1962.
Let us consider these in turn from China’s point of view.
The best time to attack is when the enemy is down. India now has the largest number of coronavirus patients in the world, with no sign of plateauing or slowdown.
India’s economy has taken a hit, with the GDP growth plunging 23.9% YOY in the last quarter. This makes large military spending difficult; Ladakh deployment costs 8,000 crore a month.
Despite provocative Chinese build-ups on the Indo-Tibet border and deeper in Tibet for months, if not years, India did not even indicate diplomatically that it was upset.
Instead, India had been lulled into a false sense of security with the “Wuhan spirit” and “Chennai spirit” of countless summits and palavers.
And India continues to hang on forlorny to various foolish agreements (eg. to recognize One China, to abjure all its treaty rights in Tibet) despite no reciprocal concessions by China.
Given all this, and the shiny new hardware (short-range missiles, fighter jets, tactical nukes) and infrastructure they may have, it looks like China will get a walkover.
China has also started believing its own mythology about the superiority of Chinese tactics and recycled Sun Tzu dicta masquerading as strategy.
After all, they managed to capture the entire South China Sea without firing a shot. So why not try to replicate this magic in the Himalayas as well?
The Chinese are focused like a laser on the US. Everything they do is based on calculations about how the US would react, or not.
In Chinese/Sun Tzu lore, there is the shadow-boxing tactic of “killing the chicken to scare the monkey”. Beating up India (the chicken) should scare the US (the monkey).
There have been Global Times sound bytes to that effect (some thought they were aimed at Australia). GT is known to be quite close to official CCP thinking.
Despite all the noise about the Quad, it is a fact that the US has no military treaty with India. Thus the US is under no obligation to go to war if India is attacked, and they will not.
That’s not true regarding Japan, Taiwan and probably even Australia. If China invades Taiwan, or Japan’s Senkaku islands, the US is treaty-bound to intervene, and they will.
Therefore it is much safer for China to make a move in Ladakh. Let us remember that the 1950’s invasion of Tibet by China also did not provoke a reaction from the US.
Then the logic was that Tibet had nothing of value (the US was only looking for oil, in thrall to the George Kennan resource doctrine). Today we know water is more valuable.
China’s longest highway, G219, which parallels the LAC in Tibet, connects the core Han Chinese heartland via the Karakoram Pass to Pakistan and to the Arabian Sea via CPEC.
It is an alternative trade route for China to avoid the potential choke-point in the Straits of Malacca, should India with its new Andamans Command, and the Quad, run a blockade.
The Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie road, the Atal Tunnel in Rohtang, and other rapid Indian infrastructure-building in Ladakh all suggest India could disrupt China’s arterial highway.
India’s assertive line about Pak-occupied J&K/Gilgit-Baltistan, and its occupation of high ground suggest that India is no longer averse to changing the facts on the ground by force.
Although things have not reached the level of India revoking its absurd One-China policy, that is a real possibility now, especially since China’s FM called the Ladakh UT “illegal”.
Best to nip all this in the bud with a land-grab (similar calculations may underlie the land-grab in Nagorno-Karabakh) while everyone is distracted by the virus and US elections.
Especially now that President Trump is virus-positive, he is not going to do anything for India, and in any case China is doing its utmost to bring challenger Biden to power there.
If India digs in militarily on the Indo-Tibet border, it will be seen as cocking a snook at China while the latter keeps salami-slicing territory in Bhutan and Nepal.
The ferocious reaction by the Indian Army in Galwan to Chinese perfidy, and the killing of some 35-43 PLA soldiers by Indian soldiers with their bare hands, sent a big signal.
Others in Asia who have been cowed by alleged Chinese military prowess may now push back as well. The Philippines said it would, but their president is mercurial.
It is possible that China will use ‘unrestricted warfare’, including banned chemical warfare (and flame throwers) and biological warfare (such as coronavirus) against India.
There were hints about these in Global Times tweets. Besides, China is already using sound weapons: ultra high volume oscillating speakers to blast Indian eardrums.
China thinks India is a good testing ground for its weapons, which include the massive fifth column they have cultivated and mentored in academia, media, bureaucracy and the law.
Yet, China, for all its intelligence gathering and fifth columnists especially in Indian media and academia, still believes the Jawaharlal mindset of awe of China prevails in India.
That 1962 debacle was caused by political naivete and military incompetence, including the non-use of air power. It’s important to strike while defeatism still reigns in the Indian psyche.
An India that is willing to mobilize 100,000 troops, acclimatize, feed and supply them, and invoke hardy Tibetan special forces, needs to be deterred through superior force and “taught a lesson”.
On the other hand, there are reasons that war will not happen:
PLA setbacks in Vietnam (1979) and Nathu La (1967) and Sumdorong Chu (1987)
Hardware does not win wars, as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Korea etc demonstrated
The volunteer Indian army is more likely to fight than the conscript PLA forces, and the body-bag count may cause less heartburn in India than in one-child China
An attacking force in these mountains will need a 4x advantage to defeat defenders
Balakot, at one stroke, destroyed Pakistani nuclear blackmail. Anything less than a crushing victory would bring loss of face and credibility to the PLA and Xi Jinping
Modi’s invocation of the Sisupala story in Ladakh indicates he’s finally fed up with Chinese bad faith, after tolerating 99 incidents of perfidy, and he will take no more
It may be much more cost-effective to use sleeper cells to create chaos in India
Lucrative trade with India will suffer, and China views trade as a weapon
Food shortages loom in China after swine flu and flooding, leading to rationing.
In a nutshell, chances are that the PLA will not achieve its aim of dominating India, as it did with surprising ease in 1962, when tactics and strategy both favored China.
In the intervening years, the PLA has been humiliated by battle-hardened Vietnam, and India has held them off in Nathu La, S Cho, and in Doklam in 2019.
It is a truism that military hardware and on-paper superiority alone does not win wars. Vietnam defeated the US. In Korea and Afghanistan the US has been fought to a standstill.
The same syndrome may afflict the PLA as well. In Vietnam, a reluctant conscript US army, and the specter of rising casualties, forced the Americans to flee in disgrace.
Given the one-child policy, the ‘little prince’ conscripts in the PLA, the apple of the eye of two parents and four grandparents, and frequently obese, are unlikely to want to fight at all.
Using conventional weapons, it is hard for attackers to overwhelm entrenched defenders in mountains. Of course, drone swarms and chemical/biological weapons could change that.
But the Indian media, and quite possibly western media outlets, will magnify and gloat over Chinese casualties; the resultant loss of face may even jeopardize Xi’s position.
India demonstrated resolve against Pakistan: in one fell swoop, the Balakot strike put paid to years of Pakistani nuclear blackmail targeting a shrinking-violet Indian political class.
If India stands up and fights, there’s the risk it will destroy the mythology of the PLA as a mean, lean fighting machine; that would energize Tibetans and Uighurs, as well as ASEAN.
Modi has signaled that he has given Xi a lot of leeway; but that he has now run out of patience: metaphorically, Lord Krishna slew Sisupala after forgiving 99 transgressions.
India has, in fact, been quietly pushing back against China. It junked RCEP membership, was the only clear voice against BRI, and has made a stir by banning some 125 Chinese apps.
Chinese companies are being systematically excluded from public procurement in India, and that probably means Huawei can kiss goodbye to the second largest mobile market.
The signal is that, yes, you can decouple from China, and its supply chain stranglehold in pharma APIs, electronics etc. is not insurmountable. India’s trade deficit has shrunk, too.
India has been in effect subsidizing China to the tune of $50 billion a year (the trade deficit). There is no reason for this to continue, and losing the Indian market will hurt China.
China tends to use trade as a weapon, forcing trading partners to act in ways it approves of, or withholding strategic materials (eg the unannounced rare earths embargo on Japan).
India, by consensus the likeliest market to grow in the near future, would be a bitter pill for Chinese firms to lose.
Just as US MNCs are lobbying their government to stay in China, Chinese companies would be loath to be shut out of India; and going to war is a good way of ensuring this happens.
In addition, China is a little food insecure after swine flu and disastrous floods: it has just announced partial rationing. India is a big food exporter. This trade China needs.
Finally, why go to the trouble and expense and uncertainties of war? It would be much more efficient, elegant, and effective to just activate sleeper cells. Plausible deniability, too.
And it is very clear there is a substantial body of ‘friends of China’ in positions of influence in India. They have been assiduously cultivated over decades, eg. a famous newspaper.
A diplomat I know is another; there are hordes of politicians, academics, bureaucrats and judges who can act against India: Arnold Toynbee’s “barbarians within”.
That would appeal to the Sun Tzu-quoting crowd in the Chinese strategic community that would prefer to merely saber rattle, but not go to actual war, which is so… messy.
They are unaware that Chanakya suggests an alliance with the Far Emperor to contain the Near Enemy. And that Far Emperor would be the Quad.
It would be even better if China were to not be a neighbor to India any more, as it wasn’t for millennia. What if Chinese-occupied Tibet (CoT) and Xinjiang (CoX) became ungovernable?
Push too hard? The Soviet empire collapsed overnight after looking impregnable. The Chinese empire: CoT, CoX, Inner Mongolia, Hong Kong might implode as well.
What if India, and the Quad, were to pursue a ‘Seven-China policy’: the above, plus Taiwan and Chinese-occupied Manchuria plus the real Han heartland?
Will the empire hold? Does Xi want to find out? Unlike in the 1950s, nobody thinks Tibet is useless any more. Xinjiang is being brutalized. I doubt if Xi wants these to go up in flames.
So there are risks and rewards to both India and China for pursuing war in Ladakh and Tibet. Not having a crystal ball, it’s hard to predict which way they will go.
2030 words, 5 Oct 2020