I. The Big Story: China-India Ties
Both India’s Ambassador to China and China’s Ambassador to India spoke at the 7th Indian Council of World Affairs - Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs Dialogue about the ongoing Sino-Indian border dispute and the future of Sino-Indian ties. Their comments indicate how New Delhi and Beijing view the way forward to restore normalcy in the bilateral relationship. China’s Ambassador to India, Sun Weidong, said, “What happened over the past few decades has proven once and again that highlighting differences will not help resolve problems. Rather, it will erode the foundation of mutual trust. The boundary dispute is a reality and should be given sufficient attention and taken seriously. However, the boundary question is not the whole story of China-India relations and should be put at a proper place in the overall bilateral relations. The two sides should engage in dialogue on an equal footing, manage differences and find solutions through consultation. We should not allow differences to become disputes.” While India’s Ambassador to China, Vikram Mesri, said, “Senior leaders on both sides have committed and agreed that we must achieve complete disengagement in all friction areas. That would be an important first step towards considering de-escalation; it would also help to restore peace and tranquillity. Together, these would provide conditions for gradual and step-by-step progress in the bilateral relationship. This is also what would begin to restore trust and confidence in the relationship and help us rebuild the foundation of the relationship that was damaged through last year’s actions in Eastern Ladakh.”
Put simply, China claims that the border dispute should not impact bilateral relations. In contrast, India claims that it will not compromise on its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and ties cannot go back to normal unless peace and tranquillity are restored along the common border.
Moving on, the Indian Express reports that China has refused to vacate patrol points 15 and 17A at the Gogra and Hot Springs area. The current presence of the Chinese troops at these two points is of platoon strength down from company strength. Furthermore, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) spokesperson said that India should cherish the hard-won de-escalation of the situation in the border areas. “I hope the Indian side will work with China to meet each other halfway, bear in mind the overall interests of the long-term development of China-India relations, cherish the hard-won de-escalation of the situation in the border areas, uphold peace and tranquillity in the border areas with concrete actions and bring China-India relations back to the track of sound and steady development.”
The Hindustan Times reports that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) intends to create a special Tibetan army unit for the Tibet Autonomous Region. For this, the PLA officials have started recruiting Tibetans and have visited Rutog and Zanda counties in Ngari Prefecture, Tibet. In addition, SCMP reports that China has also deployed long-range rocket launchers as a deterrent to India on the borders. This was especially reported on the PLA Daily’s front page after the latest round of the Corps Commander-level meeting, which yielded no results. However, I don’t see this deployment as a new development, but just another trick from Chinese psychological warfare. But more importantly, the Hindu reports that one of the two locations on the South bank of Pangong Tso, where Indians and Chinese disengaged in February, has become no man’s land for the cattle grazers in Chushul in Eastern Ladakh. “There are around 180 households here, and of them, around 60 depend on livestock rearing for a living. The animals need to be taken to these locations for winter grazing, as this is also the breeding season. If they do not get good quality fodder, the livestock could die,” claims the reports.
Meanwhile, multiple reports, journal articles, issue briefs and op-ed submissions on the Sino-Indian ties are published this week. I will try to highlight major arguments from some of them.
Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs, India-China Relations: Special Issue.
1) Stephen P. Westcott’s article titled Seizing the Window of Opportunity argues that the crisis was largely precipitated by China’s calculation that India’s recent border infrastructure building activities and assertive domestic and foreign policies in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir could have threatened the PLA’s tactical advantage along the border, and eventually undermined China’s hold over the disputed Aksai Chin region. He uses Prof M Taylor Fravel’s theory on ‘window of opportunity in the border dispute and argues that the Chinese government authorised the PLA to initiate actions to consolidate its advantageous position on the LAC since the window of opportunity was closing. He claims that India’s border activities since 2010 - improving infrastructure, rebuilding advanced landing grounds along with the current government’s abandoning of “strategic restraint,” as witnessed with its approach to Pakistan and Myanmar, India’s actions on Behalf of Bhutan during the 2017 Doklam stand-off, India’s increasing closeness with the US and actions related to the dilution of Article 370 in the former state of Jammu and Kashmir – compelled China to believe that it’s losing the advantageous position and India is undermining China’s control over the Aksai Chin, thereby changing the status quo.
2) Christopher K. Colley and Prashant H. Suhas’ article titled India-China and their War-making Capacity argues that while there is significant asymmetry between India and China, the asymmetry is not as overwhelming when one considers certain facets of war-making capacity such as capital intensiveness of the military, military mobilisation, the extractive capacity of the state and the institutional capacities to mobilise forces on a large scale, should the occasion demand. Additionally, they argue that India’s defensive posture against China mitigates the effects of power disparity. They use two important factors for establishing this argument: a) A combination of geographical and strategic factors, ranging from altitude to pre-positioned equipment b) Strategic and tactical advantage in the open oceans.
3) Admiral (Retd) Arun Prakash's article titled the India-China Confrontation: A View from Seawards underlines the rationale for China's maritime rise and highlights the implications of China's military presence in the Indian Ocean. He deliberates on India's options in the form of maritime partnerships and naval deterrence.
Sushant Singh, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (formerly with the Indian Express), has also published a paper with the Stimson Centre on the Challenges of a Two-front War for India. He argues that India does not have the economic wherewithal to resource its military to fight a two-front war. The alternative—seeking partnerships with other powers to externally rebalance—will also prove difficult, given that the Quad initiative is still in its early stages. The smartest choice for New Delhi, therefore, is to neither fight nor prepare to fight a two-front war. Instead, India should seek durable and enduring peace with one of its adversaries. Since China remains a long-term strategic competitor and permanent peace with Pakistan is at odds with the dominant political ideology in New Delhi, however, the Indian military is likely to remain in an unviable position: resource-constrained, overstretched, and vulnerable.
Prof Daniel S. Markey argues for CFR that instead of potentially drawing the US into a China-India confrontation, the US should enable India as a counterweight to China, thus forwarding the broader US goal of countering China’s regional influence in the region. The US support should aim to reduce India’s vulnerability to Chinese coercion and aggression. But it should also avoid emboldening India to extend its strategic aims and act during any future crisis in ways that threaten US interests.
Finally, Chietigj Bajpaee argues for War on the Rocks that China’s behaviour in other territorial disputes offers a lesson for India. Its behaviour in the South China Sea demonstrates that any agreement is only as robust as its verification and enforcement mechanism. China’s incremental advances and grey zone tactics will require strengthened intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities along the border and calibrated and targeted actions by India to match China’s below-the-military-threshold activities.
Read More
- Amb Sujan Chinoy: The Quad will endure, Issue Brief, IDSA
- Prof Harsh Pant and Premesha Shah: India’s vaccine diplomacy reaches China, Foreign Policy
- Amb Shivshankar Menon talks to Shekhar Gupta about his latest book India and Asian Geopolitics
- India priorities SSNs over aircraft carrier: National Interest
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II. Developing Stories
Taiwan and China
Reuters reports that Taiwan is seeking to acquire long-range, air-launched cruise missiles from the US. It’s looking to buy the AGM-158 JASSM - standing for Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile - can have a range of almost 1,000 km (621 miles) depending on the model, and be fixed to aircraft including F-16s, which Taiwan operates.
Furthermore, the Taiwanese military is scheduled to form a new reserve mobilisation agency while expanding its existing scope in mobilising civilian forces as part of its ongoing reforms to beef up the nation’s reserve forces amid the increasing China threat. The Ministry of National Defense is scheduled to integrate two existing military units - the All-out Defense Mobilisation Office and the Armed Forces Reserve Command, into a single Defense Reserve Mobilisation Agency by January 2022. This structural change is part of a military reform to make Taiwan’s reserve force a more reliable backup for the regular forces in protecting the country.
Meanwhile, President Xi Jinping broke his silence at the Bao Forum for Annual Asia Conference 2021 by railing against what he sees as foreign meddling on domestic issues. This is after Japan and the US issued a joint leaders’ statement mentioning Taiwan for the first time in 52 years. However, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga later downplayed the possibility of getting militarily involved in the Taiwan issue. In response to a question from an opposition politician in the National Diet about the details of Japan’s commitment to Taiwan, Suga replied that the statement “does not presuppose military involvement at all.”
Meanwhile, the PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command conducted a large-scale aerial bombardment exercise after the joint statement. The ETC deployed dozens of H-6K strategic bombers in a nine-hour live-fire drill. During their flights, the H-6Ks also practised electronic countermeasures with air-defence missile units, claims the SCMP report.
Read Global Taiwan Institute’s latest brief, which claims that Beijing is actively publicising its military operations as a component of a broader psychological pressure campaign directed against Taiwan. The article claims that while PLA aviation activity near Taiwan has continued to increase, Beijing appears to be hyping some routine naval activity in order to promote a narrative of its readiness to employ force against Taiwan.
The South China Sea
The Philippines is expanding its presence in the South China Sea and deploying more ships and aircraft to protect its maritime territory and resources, the government task force said this week. “We are exhausting all means possible to protect our territory and EEZ,” the Philippines’ South China Sea task force said in a statement. The deployment is the latest move in an ongoing feud with China over what Manila called “swarming” by hundreds of fishing vessels it said were manned by Chinese state-backed militias. China has denied militias were aboard.
However, a Foreign Policy report by Prof Andrew Erickson and Ryan D. Martinson highlights that at least seven enormous trawlers, among the massed “fishing vessels” at Union Banks, are owned by an obscure fishing company: Taishan Fancheng Fisheries Development. The trawlers’ operations are the most striking illustration of their People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia role. Their tracks reveal striking patterns which no normal fishing vessel would ever exhibit.
Furthermore, AMTI’s report claims that at least two dozen of these anchored ships are militia boats. It uses the photos of the vessels released by the Philippine task force, collected during patrols by the Philippine Coast Guard to claim this. Based on these photos, AMTI identifies these ships, cross-references them with the AIS Marine Traffic database and claims that these are militia vessels. It also claims that the behaviour of these vessels defies commercial explanation. “Most have remained in the area for weeks or even months, riding at anchor in clusters without engaging in any fishing activity. Many are trawlers which, by definition, must move to fish. And blue skies have debunked the initial excuse from the Chinese Embassy in Manila that they were riding out a storm.”
Finally, Agency France-Presse and Reuters report that Japan plans to hold joint military drills with the US and France in the South and East China Seas. The exercise, running from May 11-17, will be the first large-scale exercise involving ground troops from all three countries, the Japanese Ground Self-Defence Force (JGSDF) said in a statement.
PLA’s History Education
On April 19, The People’s Daily and the PLA Daily both carried long pieces on their first pages on the history education campaign in the military. These articles discussed the party’s focus for the campaign on “leading cadres at the regiment level and above.” The campaign began on March 2 with a meeting in Beijing. Eventually, the Military Party History Study and Education Leading Group met on March 19, with people travelling to different areas to execute the campaign. The report highlights multiple experiences for different services and theatre commands during these meetings. For example, in the case of China's Western Theatre Command, the meeting studies the Party history, battle examples, practised commands, and strengthening capabilities with the emphasis on war resources from history – which could include the 1962 Sino-India war. The article has many more such examples related to the PLA Rocket Force, Strategic Support Force, Eastern Theatre Command, etc.
This was followed up by an op-ed in the PLA Daily on the importance of history education and ideology. I think it’s from someone at the National University of Defence Technology.
Put simply, a lot of effort to increase party control and discipline over the armed forces.
Also, read experts from the experts participating in China’s National Cyber Security and Informatisation Working Conference.
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III. News Update
Expansion of Djibouti Naval Base
Referring to the Chinese naval base in Djibouti, US Africa Commander Army Gen. Stephen Townsend told the House Armed Services Committee that the PLA was expanding its existing naval installation adjacent to a Chinese-owned commercial deep-water port and also seeking other military basing options elsewhere on the continent. “Their first overseas military base, their only one, is in Africa, and they have just expanded that by adding a significant pier that can even support their aircraft carriers in the future. Around the continent, they are looking for other basing opportunities,” Townsend told the HASC. The base, formally opened in 2017, was developed to support the Chinese anti-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden. As recently as October 2020, commercial satellite imagery showed construction on a pier system at the military base at Djibouti.
You can check the US Naval War College CSMI China maritime report on Djibouti.
Type 003 in the Same League as US Ford Class
Naval News reports that the Type 003 is similar in size to the US’s Ford-class supercarrier. It estimates that Type 003’s waterline length could be about 300 meters (985 feet) using satellite images. This is slightly less than the Ford Class’ 317 meters (1,040 feet) but longer than China’s Type-001 Liaoning and Type-002 Shandong carriers. However, one significant difference compared to the Ford Class is that the Type-003 is not expected to use nuclear propulsion. But it should still have a more modern propulsion system than the Soviet-era steam turbines on the Liaoning and Shandong. Whether it uses an advanced electric drive, known as integrated electric propulsion, remains to be seen. While the lack of nuclear propulsion may limit its operational range, at-sea replenishment ships will travel with it to keep it topped up, claims the report.
PLA Allegedly behind Cyberattacks on JAXA
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and defence-related companies have allegedly suffered large cyberattacks. The Japanese police suspect the PLA’s role in them. Their investigation reveals that an organisation called ‘TICK’ carried out these attacks at the behest of the PLA.
Finally, read this tweet by the US STRATCOM on Posture statement preview and a Global Times’ opinion piece on it.
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| The Takshashila PLA Insight is written by Suyash Desai, a research analyst at The Takshashila Institution. He has completed his M Phil from CIPOD, SIS, JNU. |
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