{"id":72753,"date":"2022-05-24T10:30:36","date_gmt":"2022-05-24T00:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=72753"},"modified":"2022-05-24T10:28:02","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T00:28:02","slug":"the-clash-of-asias-titans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-clash-of-asias-titans\/","title":{"rendered":"The clash of Asia\u2019s titans"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

With global attention focused on Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, China\u2019s territorial expansionism in Asia\u2014especially its expanding border conflict<\/a> with India\u2014has largely fallen off the international community\u2019s radar. Yet, in the vast glaciated heights of the Himalayas, the world\u2019s demographic titans have been on a war footing for more than two years, and the chances of violent clashes rise almost by the day.<\/p>\n

The confrontation began in May 2020. When thawing ice reopened access routes after a brutal winter, India was shocked to discover<\/a> that the People\u2019s Liberation Army had stealthily occupied<\/a> hundreds of square miles of the borderlands in its Ladakh region. This triggered a series of military clashes, which resulted in China\u2019s first combat deaths<\/a> in over four decades and prompted the fastest-ever rival troop build-up in the Himalayan region.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s counterattacks eventually drove the PLA back from some areas, and the two sides agreed to transform two battlegrounds into buffer zones<\/a>. But, over the past 15 months, little progress has been made to defuse tensions in other areas. With tens of thousands of Chinese and Indian troops standing virtually at attention along the long-disputed border, a military stalemate<\/a> has emerged.<\/p>\n

But stalemate is not stagnation. China has continued to alter the Himalayan landscape rapidly and profoundly in its favour, including by establishing 624 militarised border villages<\/a>\u2014mirroring its strategy of creating artificial militarised islands<\/a> in the South China Sea\u2014and constructing<\/a> new warfare infrastructure near the frontier.<\/p>\n

As part of this effort, China recently completed<\/a> a bridge over Pangong Lake\u2014the site of past military clashes\u2014that promises to strengthen its position in a disputed area of Ladakh. It has also built<\/a> roads and security installations on territory that belongs to Bhutan, in order to gain access to a particularly vulnerable section of India\u2019s border overlooking a narrow corridor known as the Chicken Neck<\/a>, which connects its far northeast to the heartland.<\/p>\n

All of this, China hopes, will enable it to dictate terms to India: accept the new status quo, with China keeping the territory it has grabbed, or risk a full-scale war in which China has maximised its advantage. China\u2019s expansionism<\/a> relies on deception, stealth and surprise, and on apparent indifference to the risks of military escalation. The aim of its brinkmanship is to confound the other side\u2019s deterrence strategy and leave it with no real options.<\/p>\n

China learned from its strategic folly of invading<\/a> Vietnam in 1979 and has become adept at waging asymmetric or hybrid warfare, usually below the threshold of overt armed conflict. This enables it to advance its strategic objectives, including land grabs, incrementally. Coercive bargaining and overt intimidation also help to overcome resistance.<\/p>\n

This salami-slicing strategy<\/a> has already enabled Chinese President Xi Jinping to redraw<\/a> the geopolitical map in the South China Sea. And the terrestrial application of this approach being deployed against India, Bhutan and Nepal is proving just as difficult to counter<\/a>. As India is learning firsthand, countries have virtually no options other than the use of force.<\/p>\n

One thing is certain: simply hoping that China will stop encroaching on Indian territory will do India little good. After all, India got into this situation precisely because its political and military leadership failed to take heed of China\u2019s military activities near the frontier. On the contrary, while China was laying the groundwork for its territorial grabs, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was bending over backwards<\/a> to befriend Xi. In the five years before the first clashes flared in May 2020, Modi met with his Chinese counterpart 18 times<\/a>. Even a 2017 standoff<\/a> on a remote Himalayan plateau didn\u2019t dissuade Modi from pursuing his appeasement policy.<\/p>\n

Seeking to protect his image as a strong leader, Modi has not acknowledged<\/a> the loss of Indian territories. India\u2019s media enables this evasion by amplifying government-coined euphemisms<\/a>: China\u2019s aggression is a \u2018unilateral change of status quo\u2019, and the PLA-seized areas are \u2018friction points<\/a>\u2019. Meanwhile, Modi has allowed China\u2019s trade surplus with India to rise so rapidly\u2014it now exceeds<\/a> India\u2019s total defence budget (the world\u2019s third largest<\/a>)\u2014that his government is, in a sense, underwriting China\u2019s aggression.<\/p>\n

But none of this should be mistaken for unwillingness to fight. India is committed<\/a> to restoring the status quo ante and is at its \u2018highest level<\/a>\u2019 of military readiness. This is no empty declaration. If Xi seeks to break the stalemate by waging war, both sides will suffer heavy losses, with no victor emerging.<\/p>\n

In other words, Xi has picked a border fight that he can\u2019t win and transformed a conciliatory India into a long-term foe. This amounts to an even bigger miscalculation than Modi\u2019s policy incoherence. The price China will pay for Xi\u2019s mistake will far outweigh the perceived benefits of some stealthy land grabs.<\/p>\n

In a sense, China\u2019s territorial expansionism represents a shrewder, broader and slower version of Russia\u2019s conventional war on Ukraine\u2014and could provoke a similar international backlash against Xi\u2019s neo-imperial agenda. Already, China\u2019s aggression has prompted Indo-Pacific powers to strengthen their military capabilities and cooperation<\/a>, including with the United States. All of this will undercut Xi\u2019s effort to fashion a Sino-centric Asia and, ultimately, achieve China\u2019s goal<\/a> of global pre-eminence.<\/p>\n

Xi might recognize that he has made a strategic blunder in the Himalayas. But, at a time when he\u2019s preparing to secure a precedent-defying third term<\/a> as leader of the Chinese Communist Party, he has little room to change course, and the costs will continue to mount.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With global attention focused on Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, China\u2019s territorial expansionism in Asia\u2014especially its expanding border conflict with India\u2014has largely fallen off the international community\u2019s radar. Yet, in the vast glaciated heights of the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":482,"featured_media":72759,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[354,52,69],"class_list":["post-72753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-asia","tag-china","tag-india"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe clash of Asia\u2019s titans | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-clash-of-asias-titans\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The clash of Asia\u2019s titans | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With global attention focused on Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, China\u2019s territorial expansionism in Asia\u2014especially its expanding border conflict with India\u2014has largely fallen off the international community\u2019s radar. 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