China-India relations are back to sizzling again after a recent thaw. China recently created two new counties in Hotan Prefecture – an area in Aksai Chin that India claims as part of its Union Territory of Ladakh. The administrative move is expected to consolidate China’s de facto control of the region. The Indian government responded by vehemently protesting, with the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, decrying “China’s illegal and forcible occupation” of the Indian territory.
The recent spat was at odds with the China-India thaw taking place at the border after four years of a standoff. Chinese and Indian troops had faced off along the disputed border since the June 2020 Galwan Valley clash that claimed the lives of 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers. In a December 18 meeting between India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, the two sides showed signs of rapprochement, discussing military disengagement and the willingness to adopt a “new framework for peace and tranquility” to manage boundary disputes – and the larger bilateral relationship.
The Chinese cartographic updates are bewildering in this context. Yet it fits within a cycle that Indian policymakers have faced since the Cold War: a Sino-Indian thaw, followed by a concoction or recycling of the boundary dispute that undermines troubleshooting of the already-tense bilateral ties. China’s latest move in declaring new counties in disputed territory exactly rhymes with its Cold War strategy, which continues to circumscribe progress in relations.
This thaw-and-provoke cycle appears to be a concerted strategy on the part of China, which aims to establish regional hegemony in Asia. But India’s strategy to constantly engage in order to influence Beijing’s tack has also stuttered and misfired.
Revisionist Intentions: China’s Strategy in the China-India Dispute
In April 1954, India and China signed the Agreement on Trade and Intercourse on Tibet, famously elaborating on the “five principles of peaceful coexistence” to redefine existing ties. India renounced its privileges in Tibet, and China assumed sovereign control over the region.
This bilateral move came against important geopolitical context. March 1954 saw the fall of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam to Viet Minh forces, supported by China’s new Communist Party government. In response, the United States intended to form the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization based on the presumption that outcomes of the Geneva negotiations would not stall China’s creeping expansionism in Southeast Asia.
To forestall U.S. efforts, Zhou Enlai, then China’s premier as well as minister of foreign affairs, leveraged Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s distrust for military coalitions to adopt the “five principles of peaceful coexistence” as a regional template for inter-state relations in Southeast Asia. Zhou pushed for signing “non-aggression” pacts with India, Burma, and Indonesia to allay regional concerns about China’s expansionist ambitions.
Interrogating China’s intentions, Nehru, in his talks with Mao Zedong, China’s paramount leader, and Zhou in November 1954, was concerned about the presence of ethnic Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, especially Burma and Indonesia, that might do the Chinese Communist Party’s bidding, therefore destabilizing regional governments.
Beijing was partly able to assuage the fears of subversion by communists. U Nu, Burma’s prime minister, was also reassured by Beijing that it preferred converting Southeast Asia into an “area of peace.” Both governments pledged to resolve outstanding boundary disputes and the status of overseas Chinese citizens through “diplomatic channels.” Similarly, Zhou was able to sate Indonesian concern at the Bandung Conference in April 1955 by signing a “dual nationality” agreement that resolved the political status of the ethnic Chinese community in Indonesia, lowering the chances of political subversion and destabilization in Jakarta.
China instrumentalized the “five principles” to signal its benign political image and shatter the perception of Chinese expansionism. The shift was a tactical move to counter Washington’s containment strategy and to hide its communist revolutionary traits. Yet the narrative of benign intentions was revealed as a myth when China violently crushed the Tibetan uprising in 1959 and then initiated a brutal, offensive war against India in 1962.
It was India’s first experience with the new Chinese state’s favored strategy: defuse conflict when necessary, only to resurrect it at a more convenient time.
China-India Ties Under Modi
Similar hiccups in relations continue to this day. In 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed office, he invited China’s President Xi Jinping to visit India. The engagement was driven by Modi’s multi-alignment foreign policy to engage all major powers. However, Xi’s visit was marred by considerable disturbances caused by the People’s Liberation Army in the Demchok and Chumar region in September 2014.
Still, Xi’s visit to India was reciprocated by Modi’s trip to China in 2015, resulting in mutual proclamations that emphasized building “strategic trust,” “high-level exchanges” between bureaucracies, “enhanced military ties,” and reiterating “agreements and protocols” to maintain stability in the borders.
Again, such positive engagements derailed as the two clashed in Doklam, the disputed trijunction where India, Bhutan, and China meet. China’s Doklam intrusion in 2017 – it was constructing an extension of a road on territory claimed by Bhutan – was unacceptable to India, and New Delhi precluded China’s incursions by entering Doklam. Such a unilateral push from China also impinged on India’s “neighborhood policy.”
Relations plunged after the Doklam stand-off, but diplomacy was rechristened in an attempt not to let boundary disputes hamper the progress in bilateral ties. Xi welcomed Modi to Wuhan in 2018, culminating in a ten-hour meeting that reassessed relations, deepened communication, and reinstated confidence-building measures to avert any possibility of clash. The two also consulted in BRICS annual meetings, followed by the RIC (Russia-India-China) engagement in April 2019 in China. The cycle had come back to a period of thawing.
Another milestone was reached when Modi and Xi held an informal meeting at Mamallapuram, an ancient city in South India. The “Chennai Connect” initiative of October 2019 was born to rectify India’s trade deficit with China, urging the Chinese to invest in India. However, relations drastically fell off just months later, as China’s military began a concerted push to alter the Line of Actual Control along the disputed border in the spring of 2020.
In May 2020, the Indian External Affairs Ministry criticized China’s unilateral assertiveness in altering the status quo by impinging on Indian-held territory. This resulted in sporadic standoffs, culminating in a deadly clash in Galwan on June 15, 2020.
India’s Skepticism and Reappraisal In Strategy
Since the 1950s, then, China has shown a preference for “tactical expediency,” where it will forge agreements and protocols, proceed to violate these pacts, and then seek to cover for its incursions and defiance with reassurances via high-level engagements. Looking closely, China’s offers during periods of thaw are mostly hollow and imprecise. In the latest instance, Beijing’s relative warmth toward India may have been emboldened by Donald Trump’s comeback in the United States and the confrontational prognosis that bounds his foreign policy approach – a feature he demonstrated in his previous presidency. Yet the creation of new counties in Hotan Prefecture shows that China has little interest in changing its behavior to address India’s concerns.
In this scenario, India must not expect too much from the latest agreements or engagements as they are unlikely to restrain China. New Delhi cannot compensate for its material weakness by seeking agreements that Beijing periodically violates or flouts. There is no alternative but to focus on strengthening defenses, modernizing the military, and implementing infrastructural upgrades to shift the balance of power in India’s favor in the Himalayan region. India’s multi-alignment strategy needs recalibration – New Delhi’s emphasis on engagement cannot continue unless actionable outcomes follow Beijing’s reassurances.
India’s engagement strategy also invokes a sense of New Delhi’s unreliability – reinforced by its past non-aligned stance – and erodes the government’s credibility. India’s strategic template for managing China is incongruent with the West’s containment of Beijing. India’s ties with the West, particularly the United States, are more promising for bolstering India’s strength than engaging China.
