By M D Nalapat
PLA has warned Beijing that diluting stance on Doklam would embolden other countries.
Analysts
tracking developments within the China-Pakistan alliance of the two
militaries warn that the Pakistan side is seeking to move the
relationship “from the strategic to the tactical”. GHQ Rawalpindi’s
expectation is that in future, field operations will take place in a
coordinated manner, and both sides will participate
in actions undertaken on the initiative of any of the partners. The
analysts say that the intention of GHQ Rawalpindi is to make the
China-Pakistan military alliance “acquire the core characteristic of
NATO, which is that a conflict involving one of the parties will
inevitably bring in the other”. There has been a deepening rift with the
United States—caused by the unwillingness of Washington to sign off on
GHQ-ISI plans for destabilisation of Afghanistan and India—that has
brought the Pakistan army closer to the PLA, which has adopted a “Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell” policy towards the several subversive activities of the
Pakistan army in its neighbouring states, including Iran, Afghanistan
and India. Especially during the final two years of the Barack Obama
administration, the Pentagon has repeatedly cautioned GHQ Rawalpindi not
to continue with its proxy wars against India and Afghanistan, even
while adopting a policy of
“wilful blindness” towards activities targeting Iran. Very quietly and
without any direct public acknowledgement of the fact, the generals in
Islamabad have moved Pakistan into the anti-Shia military alliance led
(and funded) by King Salman of Saudi Arabia. While the alliance speaks
of countering Iran, in actual fact, it is directed against any effort by
the Shias to acquire parity with the Sunnis (including the Wahhabi
layer). The judicial coup against Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
was caused by the former Premier’s aversion to some of the “special
operations” being conducted in Iran, Afghanistan and India by GHQ-ISI.
It is expected that his successors will once again adopt the policy
urged on the civilian leadership by the military, which is to “see,
speak and hear no evil”, i.e., the new leaders should not seek to know
about—much less block—ISI special operations cleared by GHQ.
PLA’S NEOCON WING
The neo-conservatives in the United
States, including the closet neo-conservatives clustered around Hillary
Clinton, favoured the use of force and believed in establishing the
dominance of the US across regions through use of the military. Within
the PLA, especially during the past nine years, there has developed what
may be termed a “neocon” wing that leans towards a resort to force and
considers it necessary that China should establish not just primacy as
now, but US-style dominance over South, South-East and East Asia,
through the use and demonstration of military superiority. While North
Korea has succeeded in diverting the attention of Japan in a manner
favourable to China, the Pakistan army has fallen behind in ensuring
that India gets similarly diverted away from its northern neighbour.
Hence, the persistence with which “neocon” elements in the PLA have been
encouraged by GHQ Rawalpindi to insist on completion of a “Road to
Nowhere” in the Doklam area bordering Sikkim. The only value that such a
road would have would be to serve as a jumping off point for a land
attack on India in the eastern sector, which is why the government led
by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is emphatic that it should not get
completed.
Given the efforts of GHQ Rawalpindi to
put in place a NATO-style mutual security alliance with Pakistan, it is
logical to assume that such a road may get used in future, should
India-Pakistan relations deteriorate to the point where a conflict
becomes inevitable, and China fall into the mutual alliance trap set for
it by GHQ. Placing the responsibility for the initiation of a conflict
with India in the hands of the generals in Islamabad would be to give a
flamethrower to an arsonist, and would be deadly to Chinese national
interest, but this is precisely what the Pak-oriented brass in the PLA
is pushing for.
Admittedly, the PLA has found the
Pakistan military to be a valuable storehouse of information about US
military tactics and equipment. Decades of closeness between the
Pentagon and GHQ Rawalpindi has ensured that there still remains a
residual pro-Pakistan group within the defence and security
establishment in Washington that shares Islamabad’s antipathy towards
India. Training with the Pakistan army has been helpful in giving the
PLA insights into what they may face, should there be a face-off in
future over Taiwan or Korea with the US military, especially the Navy
and the Air Force, both wings of
which have interacted extensively with their Pakistani counterparts. GHQ
Rawalpindi has allowed their Chinese counterparts to gain access to
“the entire treasure trove of secrets” that have been accumulated during
the years when it was the US and Pakistan that were partners in arms,
especially during the eight years when George W. Bush was President and
Pervez Musharraf was the supremo in Islamabad. Although he has several
times sought to find favour with Beijing, that capital has always seen
Musharraf as being too close to the US, especially in view of the fact
that practically his entire family has long been residing in that
country. The present Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan, General Q.J.
Bajwa, enjoys a warm rapport with Beijing, even more than his
predecessor Raheel Sharif, who is being urged to soon jump into the
political arena as a proxy for the military.
EAGER FOR CONFLICT
GHQ Rawalpindi has convinced many within
the PLA leadership that India is “firmly in the US camp” and should
therefore be regarded as a rival, if not yet a foe. Hence, the PLA calculation
that a strong stand against India’s actions in Doklam would signal to
the region that it is China, and not India, that holds the aces.
This, it is expected, will lead to a falling of the dominoes such that
the other countries in South Asia will move into as close a relationship
with China as Pakistan already has. The PLA has warned the leadership
in Beijing that diluting their stance now on Doklam would have an
immediate impact on all the countries with which Beijing has territorial
claims, and embolden them to follow “the India example, rather than the
Philippines example”. That country has refrained from emphasising its
victory over China in the International Tribunal over the South China
Sea matter, and under President Rodrigo Duterte has become as close to
Beijing as Pakistan is, echoing the views of the Chinese side in
international fora, most recently during the ASEAN meeting. Success
through military or diplomatic means in getting India to reverse its
insistence (that the rights of Bhutan should be given priority) would
serve as a lesson to all other countries in South and Southeast Asia
that it would be futile to seek to challenge China. Just as the US
neocons were eager for conflict, so are those of a similar mindset in
the PLA. However, it remains to be seen if President Xi Jinping will put
at risk friendly relations with India to indulge the risk-takers in the
Central Military Commission at Beijing. The Chinese leadership is aware
that India presents a huge market for Chinese infrastructure, energy
and telecom companies. The latter, especially, require access to the
Indian market in order to take on the likes of Apple and Google in
future, as they are intending to do. Even a short war would entail the
invocation of the Enemy Property Act against Chinese assets in India,
most likely leading to their confiscation. That would be a very steep
price to pay for the privilege of building a few hundred metres more of
motorable road in the Chumbi wilderness. However, from the viewpoint of
GHQ Rawalpindi, their interest (as indeed, those of Japan, South Korea,
the EU and the US, all of which are competing with China in the Indian
market) lies in a conflict between Delhi and Beijing that could sour
commercial and other ties between the two most consequential capitals of
Asia for over a generation.
GHQ POISONING RELATIONS
Because of the adoption by the Chinese
side of several of the Pakistan army perceptions about India, a series
of Chinese actions have taken place that have had a harmful effect on
Sino-Indian relations. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a
case in point. By initiating such a road within Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir (PoK), Beijing is implicitly legitimising Pakistan as the
country to which Kashmir belongs, else how can an officially named
“China-Pakistan” corridor pass through PoK? The Chinese side, if it had
any sense of the mood in Delhi now that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is
in charge, could at the least have called the segment within PoK the
“Kashmir link road” and begun the actual CPEC at the Pakistan border,
rather than at the Kashmir border. Similarly, the Belt and Road
Initiative conference that took place in May in Beijing in effect became
a CPEC conference, with even the Pakistan army nominees in charge of
PoK attending. Had an official Indian representative attended side by
side with PoK officials, that would have given legitimacy to Pakistan’s
illegal occupation of that territory. Similarly, the repeated blocking
of India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group has convinced many
in Delhi that Beijing does not regard India as an equal, despite its
words and statements to the contrary. GHQ Rawalpindi is moving ahead in
its mission of poisoning relations between Delhi and Beijing for at
least a generation more, by ensuring that the PLA launch a war against
Indian forces. Such a war would quickly expand into the skies and the
seas. The US, Japan and Australia could then expand their naval Freedom
of Navigation patrols in the South China sea, and this time, they would
be joined by India. An attack on India would finally ensure that the
block placed by the Lutyens Zone over the Modi government signing the
three Defense Foundation Agreements with the US gets broken. The lesson
of such a war, that China is now back in the era of Mao and is ready and
willing to use force whenever a situation arises, would bring ASEAN
closer to India and the US, thereby de facto forming an Asian NATO that
would commit its members to collective action, should any of them get
attacked by a power outside the alliance. In other words, the effect
would be the reverse of what GHQ and the PLA neocons are forecasting.
IGNORE BAD ADVICE
China would
lose both security as well as a lucrative market, should the PLA accept
the advice of its Pakistani partners and launch an attack on Indian
positions at Doklam. A better path for both India and China would be for
India to participate in the Belt & Road Initiative (once the
mislabelling of the road in Kashmir as part of the China-Pakistan
corridor gets corrected) and for China to sponsor India’s entry into the
NSG. A clear undertaking can be given by both sides that neither will,
in future, cross established boundaries, and that across the Line of
Actual Control, there will be a standstill situation until the border
gets permanently demarcated. That probing patrols across the lines will
cease. The Chinese side can announce a review of the Doklam road project
pending discussions with Bhutan and India. Completing that road is
hardly worth a conflict between two countries that have much to gain
from peace and much more to lose through war. Prime Minister Modi has
shown that he is the strongest PM India has had since Jawaharlal Nehru.
The latter transformed India, and Modi is expected to do the same in the
years ahead. As for Xi Jinping, he is the most powerful Chinese leader
since Mao Zedong. It is likely that he will remain popular even after
five more years as Chinese Communist Party General Secretary and become
Chairman of the CCP in 2022, the way Mao was during his lifetime. Two
such strong leaders are very capable of performing a task much more
difficult than going to war, which is keeping the peace between the two
most populous countries on the planet. Hopefully, the September BRICS
summit at Xiamen will witness a meeting of minds between Xi and Modi
that keeps the peace and ensures that the focus be on development,
rather than war. The snares and games of GHQ Rawalpindi are as toxic to
China as to India, and must fail.
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