SPEAKING
FREELY Ashes of Sino-Indian war stay
warm By Namrata Goswami
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
Half a century has
gone by since a border war between China and India
broke out in the eastern Himalayas on October 20,
1962. Memories of that war linger not only at the
Indian national policymaking level but also in
local discourses in northeast India, given the
Indian defeat at the hands of China in 1962. The
border issue remains disputed.
Indian
policy makers remain deeply concerned about the
1,080-kilometer disputed China-India border in the
eastern Himalayas. Indian concern has grown in
recent years as China has become
more aggressive on its
territorial claim on the Indian border state of
Arunachal Pradesh. To be noted in this regard is
the fact that China claims 90,000 square
kilometers of territory in India's eastern sector
from the disputed McMahon boundary onwards, which
includes the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh.
The Chinese base their territorial claim
on the argument that these areas had been
historically administered by Tibet. Hence the
Chinese logic is that since Tibet is now a part of
China, so is Arunachal Pradesh. In February this
year, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hong
Lei objected strongly to the Indian defense
minister's visit to Arunachal Pradesh by stating
that India should refrain from activities that
could disrupt the peace in the border areas.
Similar Chinese objections to visits by
Indian policymakers to Arunachal Pradesh have been
routine. In 2009, China objected to the Indian
prime minister's visit to Arunachal Pradesh. That
same year, for the first time ever in a
multilateral body, China sought to block Asian
Development Bank loans to India earmarked for
projects in Arunachal Pradesh.
The
aggressive Chinese posture in India's eastern
sector has led to increasing militarization of the
region. In 2010, China replaced its old
liquid-fueled, nuclear-capable CSS-3 intermediate
range ballistic missile with more-advanced CSS-5
MRBMs and has vastly improved its border roads in
the eastern sector bordering India, which will
considerably enhance movement by the People's
Liberation Army (PLA).
Intercontinental
missiles such as the DF-31 and DF-31A have also
been deployed by China at Delingha, north of
Tibet. On the border with India, China has
deployed 13 Border Defense Regiments totaling
around 300,000 troops. Airfields have been
established at Hoping, Pangta and Kong Ka, which
are in addition to the existing six airfields in
the Tibetan Autonomous Region, for supporting
fighter aircraft and enhance the PLA's airlift
capability.
China plans to deploy its
fifth-generation fighter aircraft, the J-20 in
this region, once the radar-evading stealth
fighter jet gets operational by 2018. Six
divisions of China's Rapid Reaction Forces (RRF)
are stationed at Chengdu with 24-hour operational
readiness and supported by an airlift capability
to transport the troops to the India-China border
within 48 hours.
This is a comparative
Chinese advantage vis-a-vis India given that
air-lifting of troops to the Indian side of the
border has proved hazardous due to the high lifts
across the Himalayas and the lack of all-weather
airlift capabilities on the Indian side. While
120, 000 Indian troops of the IV Corps guard the
entry in Tezpur to the plains of Assam from the
high mountains across Arunachal Pradesh, their
movement to the eastern border in military convoys
is slowed down due to bad roads conditions.
Ironically, the strategies of both India
and China in this long-standing border dispute are
a mirror image of the other. Both countries are
building up their defense infrastructure and
modernizing their armed forces as a response to
the other's threat to their territory. While India
is actively responding to the Chinese threat to
Arunachal Pradesh, China is responding to the
perceived Indian threat to Tibet given the
presence of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan
government-in-exile in India.
Significantly, the two countries signed a
framework agreement to hold talks on the border
issue in 2005. The "Special Representatives" on
the boundary question continue to consult and
dialogue on a final resolution mechanism.
Despite this, China's aggressive posture
on Arunachal Pradesh continues; and India "mirror
images" China in its response by militarizing its
side of the border as well. For instance, India
has upgraded its military presence in the eastern
sector by its decision in 2011 to deploy the
290-km-range Brahmos supersonic cruise missile in
order to strengthen its defense posture vis-a-vis
China there. A five-year expansion plan to induct
90,000 more troops and deploy four more divisions
in the eastern sector is also underway.
Already, as stated earlier, there are
120,000 Indian troops stationed in the eastern
sector, supported by two Sukhoi 30 MKI squadrons
from Tezpur in Assam. Two more MKI Sukhoi 30
squadrons are in the process of being inducted
into the airforce structure in the eastern sector.
Two bases for the Medium Multi Role Fighter
Aircraft (MMRCA), otherwise known as the French
Rafale, will be established in the Eastern Air
Command at Panagarh. This will be buttressed by
advanced Radars and air defense systems.
In the later part of this year, the Indian
Air Force will get its first indigenously built
"network centric all weather air defense weapon
system", called Akash, with the capability to
shoot down fighter aircraft, cruise missiles, and
unmanned aerial vehicles up to a distance of 30
km. Based on mobile radar guidance, the Akash
system can detect and identify an aircraft or a
missile 120 km away from target. The Akash will be
based in the Eastern Air Command, when inducted.
India plans to develop its version of
fifth-generation stealth fighter aircraft in
collaboration with Russia. Known as the
Perspective Multirole Fighter in Russia, the
Indian version of the plane will be developed by
Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd in collaboration with
Russia's United Aircraft Corporation.
Given this overt militarization of the
China-India border conflict, any escalation in the
conflict dynamics there will have a direct bearing
on the regional strategic stability of Asia. This
is even more plausible in the present context as
China and India emerge as two of the largest
military hardware-importing countries in the
world.
India, historically averse to
militarizing its foreign policy, is rapidly
modernizing its armed forces with plans of owning
aircraft carriers, thousands of fighter aircraft,
and a super-specialized armed force within the
time span of 2012-2025. There is also an
increasing domestic focus on developing India's
own indigenous arms industry. Ostensibly, this
Indian military modernization is based on a threat
perception from a superior force in the region.
With that kind of air and naval military
modernization, India could plausibly work on a
worst-case scenario where in order to dissuade
Chinese aggression on its eastern border its navy
escalates its military posture in the Indian
Ocean.
There is already policy talk within
India's strategic community to establish an
"Indian Ocean Naval Command" in the Andaman and
Nicobar islands in order to strengthen India's
naval presence in the Indian Ocean region. To
boost its anti-ship missile system, India has
test-fired the nuclear-capable Dhanush, which is
the naval version of the Prithvi short-range
ballistic missile with a strike range of 350 km.
the Indian Navy has also test-fired the 290-km
Brahmos supersonic cruise missile, capable of
carrying a 300 kg conventional warhead from the
guided missile frigate INS Teg, the Indian
Navy's latest stealth warship.
With this
kind of overt militarization by the two most
significant powers of Asia, the border dispute in
the eastern Indian sector will emerge as a
flashpoint impacting relations in other regional
theaters where both countries enjoy increasing
influence, namely South and Southeast Asia, the
Indian Ocean Region and East Asia.
Therefore, there is an urgent need to
create institutional conflict management
frameworks that can deal with misperceptions on
the China-India border. Both countries need to
seriously consider the other's vulnerability in
the region: China to consider that its aggressive
rhetoric in the eastern sector is creating an
enormous threat for India in that region; India to
consider that China suffers from deep-seated
vulnerabilities in Tibet given the continuous
questioning of its legitimacy there.
This
"Tibetan vulnerability" makes China wary of
perceived Indian designs on Tibet from the Indian
side of the border, where there is a strong
Tibetan Buddhist culture and has seen trips by the
Dalai Lama to the Tawang monastery in Arunachal
Pradesh.
These difficult issues need to be
addressed in China-India border dialogue
mechanisms. Otherwise, the issue and the related
Chinese territorial claim will continue to remain
conflict prone and will be a flashpoint between
two of Asia's nuclear-armed states.
Dr Namrata Goswami is a Senior
Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace
(USIP), Washington, D.C. She can be reached at
ngoswami@usip.org. The views expressed in this
article are solely that of the author and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the USIP, which
does not advocate specific policy positions.
(Copyright 2012 Namrata Goswami)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their
say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
of Asia Times Online's regular
contributors.
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