For India, China, Ladakh was a saga of plans gone wrong

The Indian and Chinese militaries may be disengaging in east Ladakh now but both Asian giants may have had different plans in mind that was based on premises that did not work out, writes senior journalist Sanjib Kr Baruah

New Delhi: After nine rounds of talks between senior military commanders and with the worst of the brutal winter over, the Indian and Chinese armies have begun the process of disengagement from Wednesday in the hotly-contested north and south banks of the Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh.

The understanding, official sources say, is that the other points of friction in the Gogra-Hot Springs region and Depsang would be taken up only after the Pangong ‘disengagement’ is complete around the lake.

Visuals of the disengagement—of tanks backing off, of tents and shelters dismantled and of troops trudging back to depth and rear areas—are doing the rounds in the media. But the developments in the Karakoram-Himalayas have taken a direction that India and China had not planned for.

US Election and Quad

The Indian and Chinese positions had factored in US interests and stakes in the faceoff. It was based on the premise that President Donald Trump would stay on. But Donald Trump lost the elections in December-January. That put a spanner into a Trump-backed US’ China-centric strategic policy.

With Trump’s exit, the fledgeling ‘Quad’ India-US-Australia-Japan grouping lost much of its focus which wavered over the question as to how far President Joe Biden would go to counter as far as China is concerned. As is pretty clear now, Biden would be more bothered about Russia and be more interested in reviving Europe-centric NATO than in pursuing an aggressive anti-China Indo-Pacific policy.

With ‘Quad’ faltering and the US commitment to act against China showing signs of weakening, China saw no reason to be as aggressive against India.

Trump’s defeat also thawed Indian aggression as there was now no guarantee that the US would come to India’s direct aid in case hostilities with China break out on a much wider scale.

Indian Resistance

Nor did China bargain for the kind of India’s obstinacy and tenacity demonstrated on her frontiers. The ferocity and zeal with which the Indian soldiers defended their territory, warded off PLA aggression, endured Nature’s hostility in impossible terrain, and most importantly, executed tactical plans successfully, especially the one on the southern bank of the Pangong Tso on August 28-30, took China by surprise.

This was a change from the earlier Indian attitude that often glossed over Chinese acts of intrusion and transgression given that there was a perceptional difference as to where the border was.

Russia

The role of Russia which was suddenly caught between two close friends that were warring was also instrumental to a certain extent in forcing India and China to sit across the table. While the crisis did impose an interlocutor role on Russia, her neutral position can be considered to be equidistant to both the Asian giants. It also made both India and China realize that Russian support could not be taken for granted.

New Features

But certain new features have also been added to the India-China border dispute. China has sprung a new position by demanding a resolution of the border row on the basis of a 1959 demarcation, which virtually claimed almost all ‘no-go’ border areas.

The south bank of the Pangong Tso has added a new dimension to the dispute. From now on, this part of the region will also figure in all future border negotiations.

The developments at the border have also added finality to the troop and equipment deployment for both nations. From the Indian perspective, the developments have necessitated a change in focus from the western front to the northern front under the shadow of a two-front war scenario.