‘Success’ Of India-China Agreement On LAC Is Being Overblown

By Anjan Roy

Although ice has apparently been broken between India and China over conflicts and confrontations in Demchok and Depsang areas in eastern Ladakh, tensions have not been eliminated fully.

The hurriedly announced agreement, in the hours before BRICS summit in Russia’s Kazan on October 22-24, was directed more at the international audiences than for the two countries. This agreement should be seen more in the context of international strategic contests than a bilateral easing of tensions.

The agreement between India and China, announced with some fanfare, is more for the optics than really defusing the border imbroglio. It was in the context of the BRICS summit at Kazan in Russia, to build the base for an understanding to be arrived during the meeting of prime minister Narendra Modi and Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

China’s track record in the past has been one of ignoring past commitments. China had followed the strategy of cheese slicing, that is, usurp and take control of small areas and then move ahead again. In many areas, China has taken away claimed Indian areas and even built full scale villages.

None of those conflicts have been resolved or even addressed. The current agreement addressed only a small stretch of the international border where the countries had clashed resulting in the death of 20 Indian soldiers. In many other sectors, Chinese incursions have not been addressed.

Apart from amassing huge number of soldiers and vehicles, and other military gadgets and guns by both sides, the immediate threat of another conflict has receded. India will have to take a series of steps to deal with China.

When China’s economy is sliding seriously and its industries in some segments are shrinking, Indian moves against Chinese businesses and investments in India had started biting its interests. The context of the entire moves and countermoves has to be kept in mind to assess the overall compulsions.

China’s exports were being stalled by major western countries, including USA and EU. Chinese electric vehicles were sought to be kept out with high tariff barriers in the EU markets. America was making fresh moves against Chinese EV makers. China has huge stakes in pushing their EVs across the globe.

Additionally, America has imposed a complete blockade against transfer of critical technology and items to China which in many ways have crippled Chinese industries. America has excluded China from supplies of high end industrial chips and this is hurting Chinese industries at least for the time being.

China is the largest producer of steel and it is dumping its steel across the world. The fact is that China does not have the capacity to absorb the humongous amount of steel it produces every year. Many of the developed countries are seeking to shut out China from their domestic steel markets.

China has stopped releasing many vital information to hide the real state of their economy. For example, China’s statistical bureau has stopped giving figures of youth unemployment, for example, to hide the large youth joblessness..

This was the ideal moment for pursuing a policy which could hurt China really hard for any process for normalisation of relations. India should have worked for larger concessions from China. This was our time as economically India was in a far sound footing than China as of now.

Additionally, China is facing a western coalition of forces on its moves in the South China Sea and over Taiwan. No littoral state around the South China Sea is on board with China. It has conflicts with Philippines to Malaysia. In some ways, China is being viewed suspiciously by a host of countries in south-east Asia.

But both China and India had compulsions for the show. India was being corralled by the west, spearheaded by Canada and partially USA, over alleged involvement in killing a Sikh militant. China is facing a huge push from the US on multiple fronts.

Above all, the host for the Kazan meet, Russian president Vladimir Putin, tried to put up a show of strength against the combined front of the western nations for its war in Ukraine. The BIRCS meeting, attended by the world’s two most populous countries, alongside Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran, is a demonstration of the failure of the combined western bloc to isolate Russia.

There are internal tensions among these countries and their priorities are different. However, all these countries played into the hand of Russia showing its ambit of operations inspite of western sanctions.. This was the best manipulation of Vladimir Putin against the combined strength of the western coalition led by the USA.

India has to monitor closely the follow up moves of China on the disputed areas. China has a policy of two steps forward and one step backward as regards to India in border areas. China’s part withdrawal from the disputes areas is being shown as India’s victory hiding the fact that some new areas are remaining in China’s control. India should be firm in getting back the land which rightly belongs to the country. (IPA Service)