China's ongoing 'geopolitical and geoeconomic compulsions' impelled China in October 2024 to agree to a tactical compromise with India for disengagement of troops at two contentious points of Depsang and Demchok in Eastern Ladakh.
Indian media and strategic community labelling it as a "Thaw" in intensified China-India Military Confrontation on the China Occupied Tibet Border is an overhype and a premature conclusion.
"Strategic Distrust" of China is deeply embedded in India's National Psyche ever since unprovoked 1962 War 'imposed' by China.
"Sustainable Thaw" in China-India relations can therefore be ruled out even in long-term perspective for factors analyzed below.
China is in for a long haul of decades before it can generate "Strategic Trust" in India's National Mindsets.
The major contentious issues which can intensify China-India Military Confrontation are both China-India specific, and also unfolding global geopolitical pressures which could force India's policy moves in directions contradictory to China.
China-India contentious issues likely to unfold anytime and which could intensify and embitter China-India Military Confrontation are as follows: (1) China's unwillingness for Tibet boundary dispute settlement (2) China imposing Dalai Lama's successor on Tibetan Nation (3) China's economic downslide prompting China to resort to divert Chinese domestic public unrest by military escalation on India-China Occupied Tibet Borders.
Detailed analysis will follow in later posts but suffice it to say at present is that the common thread above that runs through all three contentious issues stated above is Tibet and its continued existence as 'China Occupied Tibet,
The Opening Chapter in my Book 'China-India Military Confrontation: 21st Century Perspectives'(22015) titled 'TIBET IS THE CORE ISSUE IN CHINA-INDIA MILITARY CONFRONTATION" can be referred for details on the above issues.
Tibet as a 'Buffer State,' will figure more and more as India's 'Core Security Imperative' in years to come.
Global geopolitical pressures on China having a bearing on China-India Military Confrontation and likely to force China into military escalation on its peripheries are as follows: (1) China losing global geopolitical weightage and co-related India's geopolitical rise (2) US President Trump's advent in Washington leading to greater activation of QUAD's military role and demands on India to shed its aversion to China-Containment (3) China's invasion of Taiwan resulting in US-China Armed Conflict (4) United States intensifying its pressures on China to 'Resolve China-Tibet Dispute' respecting wishes of Tibetan peoples.
The common thread that runs through the above geopolitical pressures are United States China-policy centering on China's 'Core Interests' of Tibet and Taiwan, which China has sworn to defend with military might.
India's policy moves on all of the issues outlined above will run in "Contradiction" to perceived China's national priorities and will result in a darker overhang of "Strategic Distrust" in China-India relations.
In Conclusion, the major observations that emerge are (1) "Sustainable Thaw" in China-India Military Confrontation is an unrealistic proposition (2) India resultantly cannot afford to dilute its military postures on its Northern Borders with China Occupied Tibet (3) India will be necessitated to build-up further its "Credible Conventional and Nuclear Deterrence" against China.
Therefore 'China-Hedging'. 'Risk Aversion', and policy obsession to 'Multipolarity' should not figure in India's policy armory.
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