Engagement at this scale between the armies of India and China has taken place after more than five decades. The last time the two sides engaged in a violent clash was in 1967 in east Sikkim. The Chinese had objected to the erection of barbed wire fencing along the Indo-Tibetan border and attacked the Indian company commander, seriously injuring him. In a strong retaliation by the Indian side, over 400 Chinese soldiers had been neutralized. The Indian side, too, had suffered 88 casualties. A smaller skirmish broke out between the patrol parties of the two countries in 1975 near Tulung La in Arunachal Pradesh in which four jawans of the Assam Rifles were martyred.

In the clashes in Galwan Valley this week, both sides have suffered casualties. The Chinese side does not disclose the numbers of their casualties anymore. The Indian tradition is to respect the valor and martyrdom of every single soldier. The entire nation mourns the sacrifice of those valiant soldiers who have lost their lives challenging the Chinese aggression in Galwan Valley.

Between 1967 and 2020, China changed its tactics, not its goals. It had ended up with a bloody nose in its border conflict with the Soviet Union in 1969. Waving Mao’s Red Book, PLA soldiers had tried to illegally cross the Ussuri river and enter the Soviet-controlled Zhenbao island. In the Soviet retaliation, the Chinese had suffered over 250 casualties, after which China had promptly entered into a ceasefire with the Soviets. The last war that China fought was in 1979 in Vietnam.

In the last four decades, China adopted the Sun Tzu formula of “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”. It has resorted to area expansion and domination tactics using numerical superiority and military aggression. It continued to nibble away at our territories through aggressive patrolling and continuous border violations. In the last decade, more than a thousand such border violations have been recorded.

That there have been no violent clashes between India and China in the last five decades can be partly attributed to India’s insistence on diplomatic engagement and physical disengagement. The result was that the contentious portions of the LAC, like the Galwan Valley and Pangong Tso lake formations, were patrolled by both sides without engaging with each other. During this period, the Chinese side had nibbled away at Indian territory in several places. Traditional grazing areas of the people of the upper reaches in Ladakh have encroached. The latest flashpoint at the confluence of the Galwan and Shyok rivers is one such location where the Chinese had built motorable rough tracks to claim Indian territory.

In a 72-day stand-off at the Doklam trijunction between Tibet, Bhutan and India, the Indian forces together with their Bhutanese counterparts stalled the construction of a road by the Chinese that would have shifted the trijunction southwards, affecting India’s strategic interests. India refused to lower the army presence there, leading finally to the withdrawal of the Chinese forces from the area. Considered a diplomatic victory for India, Doklam highlighted India’s new border security doctrine of “proactive diplomacy together with firm ground positioning”.

In the Arthashastra, Kautilya highlighted the need for deterrent military might to demonstrate strong national power. India is committed to peace with China, but not one of the graveyards. We need Kautilya’s doctrine to defeat the Sun Tzuvian tactics of “war as an art in deception”.

News Source: TheIndianExpress

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