Commentaries Sino-Indian Tensions in Ladakh and Their Impact on Pakistan Umer Karim Associate Fellow, Asia Studies Unit July 6, 2020 As the world has struggled to grapple with the political and economic effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic, trouble has been brewing within the heights of the Himalayas. In May, reports started trickling in of scuffles and fistfights between Indian and Chinese troops at several locations along the so-called line of actual control (LAC), the de facto border between India and China in the Ladakh region. These clashes developed into a major security escalation between the two sides as Chinese troops managed to cross the LAC at a half-dozen points and started fortifying their positions. This meant that at least six sectors at the easternmost end of Ladakh, an area claimed by India but traditionally not manned by security personnel or border posts, were taken over by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces. The Indian defense minister tried to downplay the severity of the crisis by only alluding to the presence of Chinese troops in significant numbers but not mentioning their incursion, and the first round of engagement between the military commanders of the two sides ended with a resolve to deescalate and disengage. Yet on June 15, the situation became critical as Indian and Chinese troops clashed in a medieval-style brawl, resulting in the death of twenty Indian soldiers as well as an undisclosed number of Chinese PLA casualties. This confrontation took place when an Indian patrol attempted to dislodge a Chinese camp allegedly within Indian territory. The Chinese have maintained that it was the Indian side’s incursion into their territory that initiated the violence. This incident considerably raised the chances of a border conflict, if not all-out war, between the two nuclear powers. The reaction of the Indian and Chinese governments on this episode is a good measure to assess the political rationale at play on both sides. The reaction of the Indian prime minister (PM), Narinder Modi, was perhaps most interesting as he categorically denied any intrusion or capture of Indian territory by the Chinese troops, thus negating the stance of his own external affairs minister who, with his Chinese counterpart, had protested the movement of Chinese troops across the Indian side of the LAC. Perhaps 1 Sino-Indian Tensions in Ladakh and Their Impact on Pakistan Commentaries this showed that the Indian PM understands that his options remain limited and militarily responding to China would not be as easy as it was in case of Pakistan. Immediately the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson claimed that the entire Galwan valley was situated on the Chinese side of the LAC and that the clash happened only after Indian troops crossed the line. With nearly two weeks gone, no violence has been reported from the clash point but the negotiations happening between the military commanders and diplomats of both countries remain deadlocked as the Chinese side insists that the territory they moved into is theirs. The new status quo vis-à-vis the LAC not only seems to be prevailing as the buildup of Chinese troops increases, but new reports suggest that PLA troops have also moved forward in the Depsang plains. This series of developments on the Chinese-Indian frontier has consequences for the border security environment at both the tactical and strategic levels. At the tactical level, China has managed to block off traditional patrol routes of the Indian army to the edge of their claim line and has seized strategically significant Indian territory. On the strategic level, the PLA troops are now in a position to choke off Indian supply lines in eastern Ladakh and a joint military offensive from the Pakistani-held Gilgit Baltistan region in the northwest and Chinese positions in the northeast of Ladakh may well lead to the collapse of all of northern Ladakh. This Chinese assertiveness will also have political implications for the broader South Asian subcontinent, emboldening India’s weaker neighbors to take a tougher stance toward its hegemonic posturing. Already Pakistan has been contesting Indian hegemonic actions, particularly with regard to Kashmir, and has responded in kind to last year’s Indian air strikes within Pakistan by sending its jets and dropping precision-guided munitions on an Indian Army Brigade headquarters. These developments may also reorient the global security picture, resulting in a restructuring of the prevailing strategic calculus within the Asiatic landmass by strengthening the alignment between India and United States, which restricts India’s strategic autonomy. This will further integrate India both politically and militarily into the US-led Quad alliance alongside Japan and Australia, an alliance whose goal is essentially to contain the rise of China. The Tactical Picture within Ladakh In order to understand the tactical picture, one needs to comprehend that the LAC is a line that exists on the ground and largely follows the area patrolled by both sides, without any mutually agreed demarcation on maps. On the other hand, both sides claim territory that goes well beyond the LAC. It now seems that the Chinese side is effectively trying to move the LAC westward, and since this is just a military line on the ground, any side can shift it by military means. A leading security analyst who is considered close to the Indian government has conceded that a PLA intrusion into the Indian territory occurred alongside the northern bank of the Pangong Tso Lake, but since it remains a region subject to differing perceptions, the development is not of particular concern. However, independent analysts have claimed that PLA troops have made incursions into at least six points alongside the northern, central, and southern sectors of the LAC, resulting in the capture of 60 square kilometers of Indian land. The most critical incursion of Chinese troops has been across the previously undisputed Galwan valley, which was also the site of the June 15 clash. The Chinese movement provides them with a vantage point 2 Sino-Indian Tensions in Ladakh and Their Impact on Pakistan Commentaries to dominate the crucial, recently built Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi (DSDBO) road, which connects the Subsector North (SSN) with the rest of the Ladakh. This means that Chinese troops have not only been able to capture Indian-claimed territory but have also anchored themselves at points with strategic significance vis-à-vis Ladakh’s northern sector. With the Chinese PLA units present at a critical choke point on the Galwan valley, India needs to take contingency measures to ensure the stability of the northern Ladakh front against a dual threat from China in the east and Pakistan in the northwest. This would warrant the development of new infrastructure to keep the northern sector well supplied and connected. On the other hand, India has learned the hard way that leaving its claimed points unmanned and without continuous patrolling provides Chinese troops with an incentive to ingress even further. It seems as if the border-management agreement of 1993 that resulted in creation of the LAC has now been scrapped by the Chinese government, and in order to block any new movement of Chinese troops westward, India will need to man the entire length of the LAC. This heavy militarization will essentially mean transforming the LAC into a replica of the Line of Control (LOC) separating the Pakistani- and Indian-administered parts of Kashmir, where troops on both sides remain in a virtually eyeball-to-eyeball situation. In order to achieve this, a much larger troop presence amounting to nearly five military divisions specialized in this particular habitat will be required, alongside supplementary artillery, armored, and aviation units. This itself will be quite burdensome from the both financial and military points of view, something that Indian analysts have stressed needs to be avoided. The Strategic Implications: Where Does Pakistan Stand? In order to understand the strategic implications of these events unfolding in Ladakh, one should first try to analyze the motives and possible triggers behind the Chinese move. There are four possible reasons that compelled the Chinese leadership to adopt an aggressive posture toward India, and they are interconnected. The first one most likely lies outside the zone of current hostilities. This is theinclusion of India into the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy and India’s embrace of the “Quad alliance” political grouping, mechanisms that are geared to manage, if not check, Chinese power ambitions. This has led to a developing scenario whereby China wants to assert itself rather aggressively toward India. On the other hand, there were regional issues that gave Chinese a pretext for these moves. India has been critical of the passage of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which runs from the Pakistan- administered region of Gilgit Baltistan to link the country with China. Any activity within this area has been considered a breach of sovereignty by New Delhi. Second, the August 5 move last year by India to revoke the special status of the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir and forming Ladakh as a separate Union territory has not been well received by Beijing. China has been particularly perturbed by the emphatic reemergence of the Indian claim over Aksai Chin and its status as part of the newly created Union territory of Ladakh. It is pertinent to note that before this move, Ladakh had been part of the Jammu and Kashmir State, which was a disputed territory. With this change in status, Ladakh became part of the Indian mainland. This principal change in the status of Ladakh on the part of India was not perceived by Beijing as a conciliatory measure.