By M D Nalapat
The
decision to build the road at the trijunction had been taken by PLA
officers of four-star rank. They did not understand the sensitivity of
what they were attempting to do.
Nearly
nine weeks ago in India, and about four weeks back in China, key
decisions concerning the Doklam standoff between two of the world’s four
largest armies began to be handled at the top of each government. In
other words, by consultations on the subject with Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. From that time onwards,
despite the swear-words and jostling by troops, it was a given that the
issue would get settled without recourse to force. Indeed, the very fact
that the Ladakh encounter (which went viral on the internet) between
Indian and Chinese troops saw both well-equipped armies literally
relying only on Stone Age weapons against each other, indicated the
tight control that both Xi and Modi have exercised over their men in the
field. The cause of the Doklam standoff, which was the PLA’s decision
to build the road at the India-Bhutan-China trijunction, objected to by
India, had been taken by officers of four-star rank. They did not
understand the sensitivity of what they were attempting to do, and hence
initially failed to refer the issue back to the leadership of the
Chinese Communist Party. The PLA decision-makers had assumed that the
Indian side would do little beyond verbally protest the building of a
road, the only utility of which to the Chinese side would be to serve as
a jumping-off point for an attack on the “Chicken’s Neck” linking the
Northeast with the rest of India. Building such a capacity was
significant in the background of credible reports by multiple agencies
both at home and abroad that GHQ Rawalpindi was working to secure a
NATO-style agreement with the PLA. This would oblige the latter to come
to the armed defence of the former, should the Pakistan army find itself
in a war with India caused by its own misdeeds. Reports from agencies
located in different capitals had indicated that more than a few senior
officers of the PLA were leaning in favour of such a partnership with
the Pakistan army. In other words, they were apparently willing to
transfer the decision as to when China would go to war, in the hands of
the generals at Rawalpindi. However, those tracking the Chinese
Communist Party say that such a view was clearly not acceptable to the
CCP leadership, which under President Xi has understood the importance
of India as a potential global partner in economics and geopolitics.
ROBUST INDIAN RESPONSE
The fact that the Doklam heavy duty road was fast becoming a reality
in mid-June, caused concern at Army HQ in Delhi. The robust Indian
response to the road was scripted by Chief of Army Staff Bipin Rawat,
who took care to keep National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in the loop.
Both felt confident in their refusal to follow the longstanding Indian
precedent of feeble responses to such action by the other side. The
reason was that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had conveyed by the middle
of last year itself to the armed forces that they were free to take any
action deemed vital to the protection of national security interests.
During the UPA period, all such actions had to be, in effect, cleared by
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which almost always meant that any
recommended military response to provocative acts on the border got
vetoed on the civilian side. Since last year, however, the Army has been
in a revved up mode against both internal as well as external
(Pakistani) provocations, and these had been replied to with robust
kinetic force. These received tacit support from the Prime Minister, who
communicated through the Defence Minister his willingness to
countenance determined counter-measures by the military. It was within
the parameters of the policy of robust response cleared by the Prime
Minister that the Army took unprecedented steps to ensure a stoppage to
the road construction being carried out in the vicinity of Doklam by the
other side, a program that had caused anxiety in Thimpu, which had
promptly communicated its misgivings to Delhi. It was in that context
that the decision of General Rawat to resort to force was taken. To the
disappointment of the Pakistani side, the PLA refused to adopt the
recommended GHQ tactic of using firepower to clear away the Indian
contingent, confining itself to the bulletless feints and jabs that have
characterised Line of Actual Control (LoAC) encounters between China
and India for years. The troops on the Indian side were similarly
disciplined, refusing to use weapons other than their fists (and in the
case of another incursion in a separate sector, a few stones). The
mutual forbearance of the two powerful militaries indicated the effect
on the field of the high value placed by Prime Minister Modi and
President Xi on improving relations between India and China, a sentiment
not shared by all of those at lower levels in both administrations.
GHQ WANTED NATO-STYLE AGREEMENT
Since mid-2015, GHQ Rawalpindi had put onto the fast track a plan of
converting the existing loosely structured understanding with the
Chinese military into a formal alliance that would include the condition
that either side immediately get involved in any attack by a third
country against the other. Simultaneously, GHQ Rawalpindi had spread
scare stories to the PLA of illusory Indian plans to open a “Himalayan
Front” against China, should that country find itself in battle with the
US-led alliance in the Korea, China Sea or the Taiwan sector. GHQ had
concocted reports that road building and other logistical works that
were being undertaken in some parts of the LoAC were “in preparation for
Operation Himalayan Front”, when in fact these were entirely defensive
in intent. The relative lack of contact between the Chinese and Indian
militaries made it easy for GHQ Rawalpindi to plant seeds of suspicion
and distrust within some officers of the PLA about the intentions of the
Indian Army, thereby ensuring the sanctioning by the PLA brass of moves
that would be provocative to the Indian side, such as the road sought
to be built in the vicinity of Doklam. A road that was the cause of the
73-day standoff that got resolved only because of the involvement of the
highest levels of the Chinese and Indian states.
Once a NATO-style agreement got put into operation between China and
Pakistan, the latter was intending to substantially ramp up its
provocative actions, thereby triggering an inevitable response by
India’s armed forces. Under the proposed NATO-style treaty with China,
this would almost immediately involve the PLA on the eastern front. GHQ
Rawalpindi would simultaneously activate sleeper and active cells
throughout India to conduct acts of sabotage against rail and road
traffic, besides instigating a rash of suicide attacks in key cities.
The Modi government would therefore have to fight what Chief of Army
Staff Rawat termed a “two-and-a-half front war”.
The generals in Islamabad calculated that the India-US alliance had
yet not reached the “NATO stage” of immediate involvement of the US in
any attack on India. This meant that, in their reckoning, the US would
not get directly involved in the India-Pakistan-China war in which they
were planning for India to find itself. They, however, calculated that
by a second Modi term, such an alliance between Washington and Delhi
would become a reality, hence (in their calculus) the need to ensure
that a conflict erupt before such an elevated defence understanding
between the US and India took place. In the meantime, they would goad
their proxies and hangers-on in both the US and India to join with
others in opposing moves for closer security cooperation with the US, by
constantly bringing up the refrain that doing so “would abandon
non-alignment” and “dilute sovereignty”, rather than assist in the
defence of India against potent threats.
MILITARY RESPONSE STRICTLYCONTROLLED
Sino-Indian tensions over the Doklam road caused champagne corks to
pop across the ranks of the senior officers at GHQ Rawalpindi, as they
anticipated a Pakistan army-style reaction from both sides, of shooting
first and asking questions later. Unfortunately for them, the control
exercised by Xi and Modi over their respective militaries ensured that
not a single shot was actually fired during any of the more than two
months that the standoff commenced, although some harsh words were
exchanged, much of which in the form of media commentary screaming for
war by “studio and print warriors” in Beijing and Delhi, who would run
away in fear at the mere sight of even a revolver actually getting
fired.
Only those in China completely in the grip of the false logic
purveyed by GHQ Rawalpindi would consider (in exchange for the
completion of the Doklam road) as justifiable the sacrifice of a
potential $100 billion dollar trade between India and China. Or the two
former victims of colonialism bickering with each other in international
fora, to the delight of those wishing either or both ill. Now that the
“Pause” button has been activated, the Chinese side is expected to
conduct an exhaustive review of the trade-offs of the proposed road,
before mulling over when and if to resume construction. This hiatus has
removed India’s cause of action for sending troops into the Doklam area.
Hence, both sides have achieved a win through the decision taken by the
leaders of both countries that Sino-Indian cooperation had a much
greater priority than succumbing to the siren calls of third countries
eager to witness another military conflict between India and China. In
matters such as China’s decision to oppose India at the NSG, and India’s
decision to oppose the entire $2 trillion Belt and Road Initiative
(BRI), rather than just that segment passing through Pakistan-Occupied
Kashmir, which has been misnamed as a “China-Pakistan” corridor, the two
leaders had signed off on the recommendations of their subordinates.
However, once the ice once again melts between Xi and Modi at Xiamen, as
expected during the 3-5 September BRICS Summit, it is expected that the
two leaders will continue the Doklam precedent of direct supervision of
the details of the all-important geopolitical relationship between
China and India, and will propel it forward in the manner desired by
Modi and Xi, when they had so cordially met each other in 2014 in
Gandhinagar and Xian.
Rather than champagne bottles, the generals at GHQ may need to reach
for a stiff single malt in order to dull the pain they must feel on
seeing Xi’s China and Modi’s India escape from the trap of conflict that
had been so carefully laid for them by the generals in Rawalpindi.
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