UNITED STATES NEEDS TO RECOGNISE CHINA'S MILITARY ADVENTURISM SPRINGS FROM CHINA OCCUPIED TIBET

The United States in mid-02020 having finally recognised that China is a serious military threat to the United States and is undermining US National Security interests across the entire expanse of the Indo Pacific landmass and  maritime expanses from Japan to Singapore needs also to ask itself a serious question as to what are the underlying strategic and military factors that embolden China to rewrite the established security template put into place by the United States and which is has stood stable and endured for nearly seventy tears.

 

China admittedly has emerged with a sizeable threatening military machine moreso in the first decade of the 21st Century as the United States was bogged-down in its military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. This created a security vacuum in the Western Pacific and coupled with United States 'China Appeasement' policies as an additive China with a cover so provided by US strategic inattentiveness embarked to build a powerful Blue Water Navy which is now rampaging across the Western Pacific Seas and intruding into the Indian Ocean.

 

In mid-2020, China has intensified its military confrontation and clashes across the length of the nearly 4,000 km long Indian Himalayan Border with China Occupied Tibet.

 

In my assessment China's expansionist military adventurism arises from the secure feeling that China is only vulnerable militarily to United States military intervention on its Western Pacific littoral. China perceives that its Western Flanks are secure because of its China Occupied Tibet landmass and the Pakistan collaboration on its contiguity with Pakistan territory of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir belonging to India.

 

China Occupied Tibet has converted the erstwhile Spiritual Kingdom of Tibet into a vast Military Garrison Expanse bristling with massed PLA Army Mechanised Formations. Air Force Bases and Nuclear Weapons and Missiles Complexes.

 

Chin's military adventurism against India and its strategic forays in Greater South West Asia are facilitated by the vast Military Base it has created on the vast open spaces of the Tibetan Plateau under its illegal military occupation.

 

The United States needs to recognise that if the United States wishes to strategically tame and downsize China then China needs to be divested of its illegally occupied China Occupied Tibet.

 

India as the only Major Power with a nearly 4,000 long landmass border with China Occupied Tibet is vitally affected by China Occupied Tibet from where sprouts most of China's military expansionist misadventures against India.

 

It was with the above in view that I peened my latest Paper entitled "TIBET FREEDOMNEEDS TO BE PIVOTAL THRUST OF INDIAN FOREIGN POLICY 20202" Paper No.6653 of23 July 2020 on SAAG website www.southasiaanalysis.org and further reproduced by Eurasia Review.

 

Recommended reading for United States policy and national security establishment and Indo Pacific Capitals.

UNITED STATES FINALLY ADOPTS HARDENED POLICY STANCES ON CHINA'S DEFIANCE OF GLOBAL NORMS

Heartening for Indo Pacific Security environment is that this month the United States has finally though belatedly adopted hardened policy stances on China's continued defiance of global norms of international behaviour expected from a Nation that aspires to emerge as a Superpower.

 

China in the last two months has in a repetition of its past aggressive brinkmanship visible significantly from 2013 onwards has embarked on a resurgence of its aggressive military behaviour extending across the entire Indo Pacific expanse stretching from Japan (East China Sea) through South China Sea (Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia) and intensifying its military confrontation with India more noted in Eastern Ladakh bordering China Occupied Tibet.

 

This latest Chines resurgence when viewed against the backdrop of the China-generated Wuhan Virus19 Pandemic sweeping across Major Power democracies but not touching China on the same scale raises serious questions of Chin's intentions.

 

China either is trying to divert global attention from its criminal culpability in terms of accountability for Wuhan Virus19 outbreak from China's Wuhan Virological Laboratories engaged reputedly in experiment for Biological Warfare weapons or China believes that with the United States and Major Powers  weighed down with fighting the Wuhan Virus Pandemic would be strategically distracted from taking strong counter-responses to China's wild aggressive rampage across the entire Indo Pacific region.

 

China seems to be impelled by both of the above two determinants stated above whereas the latter may now be more predominantly weighing in these last two months.

 

Tangentially, China much against global opinion has passed new Security Legislation on Hong Kong which stood plagued with widespread riots by its population against China's attempts to apply China's sedition laws on Hong Kong. China can now be expected to brutally suppress all struggles for democracy in Hong Kong by its residents who at least culturally are quite distinct from Mainland Chinese.

 

China in these two months  has visibly and starkly demonstrated that in the pursuit of Chines President Xi Jinping's 'Great China Dream' it is not ready to submit to any international conventions, agreements or be stopped by the United States or any other Major Powers aligning with the United States .

 

The United States long permissive of China's strategic delinquencies for both geopolitical and strategic reasons seems to have been pushed into a corner by China.

 

As of this month, it is clearly becoming visible that United States is now going to seriously "Push Back" on China's unrestrained relentless rampage across Indo Pacific Region. The United States seems to have weighed the costs of a 'Reset' of its China Policy and is now engaged in initiating various political, economic and military measures to impose costs on China where it hurts most.

 

The United States seems also to be encouraged by the widespread  backlash against China in all Indo Pacific and European capitals on both counts of China's irresponsible and provocative actions of firstly not putting the international community on notice of Pandemic Outbreak from Wuhan and also in its cover indulging in a resurgence of its military aggression and brinkmanship all over Indo Pacific..

 

China has by its such misdemeanours has generated a "SEVERE STRATEGIC DISTRUST" in world capitals against itself..

 

The United States taking advantage of widespread global revulsion on China's on-going military aggression has hardened its policy stances against China. United States has withdrawn Special Status accorded to Hong Kong, imposing sanctions on Chinese officials connected with Hong Kong suppression, intensified its FONOPS in South China Sea, asserted forcefully that China is in illegal control and occupation of Philippines and Vietnam Islands in South Chia Sea and severely castigated China for intensifying military confrontation with India in Eastern Ladakh.

 

In coming weeks and months we can expect the United States to further tighten the screws on China in a bid to checkmate its aggressive transgression against Indo Pacific Region nations.

 

China seems unlikely to submit to United States pressures and therein lies the inevitability of the long-predicted military showdown of the United States with an Expansionist China.

 

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India’s National Security Strategy 2020 Inescapable Imperatives-- “China Containment”

 

China presented itself as India’s ‘Implacable Enemy’ when a China Occupied Tibet obliterating Independent Tibet as a centuries old buffer state in 1950,  China imposed  its borders with India on India’s Himalayan Watershed  raising irredentist claims against India on centuries-old established geographical frontiers.

China in 2020 with its military adventurism in Eastern Ladakh sequentially and relentlessly following seven decades of similar military provocations violating multiple China-India Border Agreements, emboldened by “China Appeasement’ and ‘Risk Aversion’ policies of past Indian Governments leaves no political or strategic space for India other than adopting a firm policy of “China Containment”.

China foisted a militarily adventurist borders dispute on India which China has perpetuated for 70 years defying all reasonable solutions. Chi has deliberately impeded solution of China Occupied Tibet-India Himalayan Border Dispute as any demarcation resulting from satisfactory solution would rob China of leverages against India of political and military coercion.

Fast forwarding history of China-India conflictual relations and border turbulences inflicted by China ‘Slow Creep’ of nibbling away at Indian Line of Actual Control on pretext of ‘Perceptional Differences” on alignment of the demarcated Line of Actual Control, interspersed with the Sino-India War 1062 and the 1967, 1975 and 1986.87 major China-India militany standoffs the picture in Mid-May 2020 is “Grim”.

China –India Military Confrontation in 2020, as I have reflected in my Book ‘China-India Military Confrontation: 21st Century Perspectives’ in 2015 and my various Papers and Lectures thereafter is that China-India Military Confrontation is no longer a mere “Boundary Dispute” but has graduated into the realm of Asia’s most pronounced and defining geopolitical rivalries with long term strategic implications.

Geopolitical rivalries draw-in other Major Powers with stakes in Asian Security and more pointedly in the new geopolitical construct of Indo Pacific, and especially when Asia’s two Major Powers are militarily jostling each other on their contested borders with massed military strengths.

Contemporaneously, it needs to be highlighted that in the backdrop of the current intensifying China-India Military Confrontation in 2020 is marked by two major factors—one geopolitical, and the other military.

Geopolitically, China in 2020 is geopolitically weakly placed, both regionally and globally. This arises from global concerns of Major Powers that China is on a wild aggressive rampage across Indo Pacific reminiscent of Hitler’s unchecked rampage across Europe on eve of World War II in late 1930s.

The military factor that pervades and rattles China in 2020 is that especially in the period 2014-20 under current Indian PM Narendra Modi, India has fast-tracked its border defence infrastructure in Eastern Ladakh in terms of roads, bridges and forward airfields in close vicinity of Indian Territory of Aksai Chin militarily usurped by China in 1050s to build the Chinese Highway through it linking China Occupied Tibet with China Occupied Xingjian. China perceives that India’s developed border infrastructure makes both the Aksai Chin Highway and China’s flagship Pakistan project of CPEC Highway passing through Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

Additionally, India in the last six years India has started closing in the asymmetrical differentials in its military power with China in conventional military power. India has achieved credible nuclear deterrence with China with Beijing under India’s missiles ranges.

it is against this geopolitical and military backdrop that the current Galwan Military Clashes and Standoff needs to be viewed and analysed.

India after 70 years has finally shed its ‘Political Timidity’ in facing China’s relentless mix of political and military coercion on the Line of Control, China’s relentless offensive to downsize India and to impede India’s emergence as an Emerged Power.

In Mid-2020, India’s relations with China can be characterised as one of intense “Strategic Distrust” of China, and to use the Chinese phrase applied by China to its friendship with its ‘Iron Brother’-Pakistan’ that India’s ‘Strategic Distrust’ of China is as “High as the Himalayas and as Deep as the Indian Ocean”.

Seventy years of ‘China Appeasement’ and ‘Risk Aversion’ policies of past Indian Governments has resulted in India reaching a ‘Tipping Point’ in post Mid-May 2020 Eastern Ladakh military clashes inflicted by PLA Chinese Army resulting in PM Modi assertively declaring that “Era of Expansionism is Over”

 This assertion was made by PM Modi on his visit to HQ 14 Corps and troops of Ladakh Garrison facing China’s massed Army formations in China Occupied Tibet. The Indian Prime Minister without naming China but abundantly and unmistakeably aimed this expression at China made in context of Galwan clashes.

 The assertion ‘Era of Expansionism is Over’ and that India’s Sovereignty will be defended at every inch was putting China on notice of India’s intent that henceforth in relation to Chinese military misadventures against India on the Line of Actual Control will be militarily contested with matching Indian military force.

The ‘Expansionism’ reference was very apt and timely because China in the period 2004-14 of Congress Government had nibbled away at Indian Territory in Ladakh to expand its military presence in Eastern Ladakh contested space on Line of Control claimed by China as per their perceptions.

The Indian Prime Mistier has given full control to Indian Army Commanders along India-China Occupied Tibet Borders to deal with PLA Chinese Army military provocations, intrusions and transgressions displaying an unprecedented political trust in India’s Military Commanders facing Chinese Armed Forces might.

Where does India go from here in terms of its National Security Strategy in face of China’s intensifying military escalation along the Line of Control and its stubbornness in not agreeing to disengage and deescalate and respect the military status quo ante as it existed in Eastern Ladakh as it existed on May 05 2020 when China first clashed with Indian Army in Galwan Area and which led to two weeks later of the May 15 clashes in which Indian Army lost 20 soldiers lives and China had 43 soldiers killed by ferocity of Indian Army troops foiling the Chinese Army attempts to enlarge its presence in Galwan Valley.

At the time of this writing, it is being reported that China has reluctantly started making token withdrawals from the clash-points in Eastern Ladakh but not from the Pangong Lake area.

 China under contemporary geopolitical pressures may seemingly be giving up its stubbornness of not restoring status quo ante by token and partial disengagement and de-escalation. But that should only be deemed as a politically expedient step but not a credible change in China’s implacable hostility or cessation of its military adventurism and brinkmanship in times to come.

The Indian Republic has to guard against unnecessary hype with such developments as stated above or celebrate any forthcoming Chinese disengagement of troops in Eastern Ladakh or de-escalation.

The Indian Prime Minister with the contextual backdrop of May-July 20202 Chinese military adventurism should finally recognise and concede that China despite his political outreaches to the Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan Informal Summit 2017 and Chennai Informal Summit 2019 is lathe to give up Chinese military adventurism on India’s Borders with China Occupied Tibet.

Objective analysis by even impassioned political observers would concede that in 2020 viewing the geopolitical dimensions that now dominate China-India Military Confrontation, no political or strategic space exists for India to hope that “Expansionist China” would be amenable to any Conflict Resolution or Confidence Building Measures.

India in 2020 has now seriously deliberate and consider that contextually in terms of Indian National Security Strategy India has only one prudent policy option to undertake, and that is one of “China Containment”

India’s ‘China Containment” will obviously be frowned upon in Indian policy establishment and diplomatic circles but wisdom should dawn on them that historically “Revisionist Powers” bent on imposing an “Expansionist Template” need to be checked by “Containment Strategies” by all Powers---Major or Small-= - in unison before Indo Pacific security and stability is irretrievably fractured.

India cannot be a back-bencher and shy away from “China Containment” when China seemingly and demonstrably by its military adventurism is inviting such a reaction.

India’s “China Containment” strategy would necessarily be multi-pronged—political, economic and military and architectured with long term perspectives in view and more importantly unmindful of and independent of any politically expedient Chinese policy reach- outs to wean away India from India’s adoption of the Indo Pacific Security Template by the multilateral “QUAD” Initiative.

Detailed recommendations for “China Containment” strategy that India should put it motion would be the subject of analysis of a separate Paper.

Concluding, it needs to be asserted that with a case for “China Containment” policy by India having been established above, despite the opposition of India’s ‘China Apologists’ and ‘;Non Alignment Gladiators” of yore, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the onerous task of finally dispensing India’s decades old ‘China Appeasement’ and ‘Risk Aversion’ policies of past Congress Governments. China’s Expansionism can only be curtailed by headlong push-back with a National Security Strategy of “China Containment.

 

 

 

 

 

The Indian Republic has to put in motion the process of a devising a new National Security Strategy. Inherent in such a new Strategic Blueprint would be a realisation that the ‘China Threat’ is LIVE and unlikely to fade away. It also entails incorporating in such a new Strategy the inescapable strategic imperative of “China Containment”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

INDIA SQUARELY FACES CHINA IN MILITARY CLASHES IN EASTERN LADAKH BORDERS WITH CHINA OCCUPIED TIBET

China in mid-May 2020 indulged in military escalation at multiple points on India's borders with China Occupied Tibet in Eastern Ladakh Sector in tandem with its escalation in South  China Sea and East China Sea against Japan.

 

Unlike past border confrontations, China's aggression against India was squarely met by military force by India. This resulted in loss of 20 Indian soldiers lives but China paid the price in terms of 43 or more Chinese soldiers dead in clashes. China was initially hesitant to concede loss of Chinese soldiers lives in military clashes with India.

 

Significantly and symbolically, this is a tipping point in the nature and dimensions of India's responses to Chinese military provocations generated from massed Chinese military forces deployed in China Occupied Tibet.

 

Today, India reportedly has reinforced its military deployments in Ladakh and along the entire stretch of the 4,000 km long India-China Occupied Tibet Himalayan Borders mostly lying in high-altitudes of over 12,000 feet.

 

India seems to be signalling to China with near-matching military deployments opposite Chinese military forces  that it intends to "squarely" face any Chinese attempts to alter the status-quo of the existing Line of Actual Control (LAC) anywhere on the India-China-Occupied Borders.

 

China in the last 70 years has consistently refused to settle the territorial boundary dispute with India and has kept tensions alive to perpetuate its attempted political and military coercion of India.

 

India in 2020 in terms of its political will of its leadership and India's war-preparedness to meet the China Threat is unlike the 1962 Sino-Indian Military Conflict where a military debacle was foisted on the proud and highly professional Indian Army due to failure of war-preparedness by political leadership of India's first PM Jawaharlal Nehru with his starry-eyed illusionary attachment to Communist China's emergence and its military intentions.

 

Significantly, it has to be observed that China in keeping with its strategy employed all over the Indo Pacific once again demonstrated its propensity to resort to military aggression and conflict on territorial disputes and also renege on past Agreements signed with India---at least half a dozen since 1996--- to maintain peace and tranquillity on the borders.

 

China may have got away by bullying its way and coercing militarily its smaller ASEAN neighbours in the South China Sea territorial disputes but in case of India the picture is different.

 

India today is a Sub-Continental Emerged Power with high economic growth rates and  modern Indian Armed Forces.

 

India under PM Modi in the last six years has been seriously engaged in reducing the military differentials with China and also fast-tracking its development of defence infrastructure in its border regions with China Occupied Tibet.

 

The above has rattled China along with India's growing geopolitical stature in the world coupled with a substantive US-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

 

The India-China Occupied Border territorial dispute perpetuated  by China, going by present portents, has all the ingredients to emerge as the most combustible military flashpoints in Indo Pacific Asia and in which the Major Powers of the Indo Pacific would not have the luxury of passive spectators.

 

 

 

 

INDO PACIFIC SECURITY AND US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2020

The United States will soon be engulfed in US Presidential Elections and campaign politics and it needs to be emphasised that the US political contenders adopt a bipartisan approach to the challenge of maintaining security and stability in the Indo Pacific Region.

Peace and stability in the Indo Pacific stands threatened by China on all its peripheries. China is also engaged in an unremitting US-China Trade War which prompts China to generate added turbulence in the region,

China can be expected to target US audiences by digital means to ensure that incumbent US President Trump is not elected for a second term as US President.

China's targeting of President Trump emerges from a visceral hatred of President Trump for his hard-line policies against China extending from Trade Wars to intensifying US Navy FONOPS in South China Sea and co-opting India as a major partners of United States in Indo Pacific security and the QUAD which existentially will apply brakes to China's unbridled aggression in South China Sea.

The main challenge to disturb or disrupt Indo Pacific security contextually would therefore emanate from China which could possibly attempt to exploit any political divisiveness that at times erupts in heated electioneering campaigns. 

China perceptively has already commenced the process by creating heated turbulence in the South China Sea and the Northern Borders of India with China Occupied Tibet.

In both of the above strategic locations, the United States in 2020 has legitimate security stakes by virtue of its commitments to East Asian security or the security of the Western Pacific wherein the United States is a 'Resident Power' by virtue of its security treaties.

India matters high in 2020 United States geopolitical calculus and relevant to United States strategic template for Indo Pacific Security. This is anathema for China which views this strategic development as upsetting the balance of power against China.

Both Republican Party and Democratic Party Presidents in the past have stood committed to the larger issue of South China Sea security as security of the "Global Commons' and with varying nuances challenged China's aggressive misadventures in this critical maritime expanse.

Similarly, India has received bipartisan support of Republican and Democratic Party Presidents in terms of building up India as a Major Global Player and pivotal partner of United States in contributing towards Indo Pacific Security.

Contextually, therefore, in the coming US Presidential Elections campaigns South China Sea security and India's pivotal significance as the Free World's existential counterweight against China need to be politically be respected by both US political parties.

Concluding, it needs to be highlighted that China will attempt an intrusive digital influencing strategy in coming US Presidential Elections. China will make an all-out effort to sway election results away from President Trump's bid for a second term.

China in mid-2020 has emerged as a potent threat to United States security and the security of its Allies and Strategic Partners.  The China Threat to United States is even more than the Former Soviet Union was ever was.

The United States at all levels has to be therefore be vigilant to China's interference in US domestic policies in the run-up to Presidential Elections 2020.