New Delhi: Military and strategic experts believe that the recent India-China border tension is a carefully calculated move by the Chinese government to take advantage of a global war against the novel coronavirus, and domestic issues in the USA to change status quo at the border in its favour. It is a stark reminder of the Chinese strategy nearly six decades ago when it attacked India during the winter of 1962 by taking advantage of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the two superpowers to the brink of a nuclear exchange.
The Cuban crisis, which was building up for quite some time in 1962, exploded into a full-fledged standoff between the two superpowers on October 16.
Four days later on October 20, 1962, China attacked India when the superpowers – the US and the erstwhile USSR – were engaged in an unprecedented crisis over the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba and were not in a position to intervene in India-China war of 1962.
The then US President John F. Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba on October 22, 1962, and which was eventually lifted on November 21, 1962, following intense negotiation between the two powers.
China started its war against India at about the same time, on October 20, 1962, and unilaterally declared a ceasefire in November 1962 after achieving its military objectives.
Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai announced the unilateral ceasefire on October 19, 1962, that came into effect from November 21, 1962, when the US also formally ended its naval blockade of Cuba.
“The timing is very important. This incursion and the stand-off, and the casualties that have been inflicted, these are not accidental nor is it a local thing,” said ambassador Vishnu Prakash, a New Delhi based former diplomat who was India’s Consul General in Shanghai.
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“It is clearly a well-coordinated move because of its scale, its timing and several other factors. It certainly cannot happen without the nod from the very top,” Ambassador Vishnu Prakash told ETV Bharat.
The former diplomat, who was India’s ambassador to South Korea and High Commissioner to Canada, points out China’s transgressions with almost all of its neighbours since the outbreak of the Covid-19 global pandemic early this year.
Lt General (retd) Deependra Singh Hooda, who was responsible for safeguarding the country's border with China in Ladakh region as the GOC of the Indian army's Northern Command, says every country looks at the timing when it plans something and Chinese saw the Covid-19 crisis as an opportune time.
“Everybody looks at the timing whenever they plan something and this is a large significant action, so they will certainly look at what are the regional and international conditions that they can exploit,” DS Hooda told ETV Bharat.
“They saw India was engaged in fighting the Coronavirus and its economic issues, so they would have thought that it was an opportune moment,” General Hooda added.
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Dr. Rajeswari Rajagopalan, a Distinguished Fellow and Head of the Nuclear and Space Policy Initiative at India’s leading think tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF), says China has been building its military and strategic capabilities in the last 5-6 years, and it was looking at an opportunity to change the status quo with its neighbours.
“Clearly, they have been planning this, it has not come about as an overnight development,” Rajeswari Rajagopalan told ETV Bharat.
She said China was trying to address the lack of operational experience in its military by conducting joint exercises involving both its army and air force, particularly in the high altitude areas.
“We have been looking at the PLA exercises in the Tibet Autonomous Region and Sino-India border areas in the last 5-7 years. We have found that they have increased their joint military exercises involving both the PLA and the PLA Air Force to address any gap in their operational capabilities and to increase jointness, especially in the high altitude areas,” Dr Rajeswari noted.
She said China has been upping the ante with all of its neighbours since January this year and India has also not been spared.
“Clearly, they have been planning it for quite some time, and they see it as an opportune time when the whole world is engaged in fighting the Coronavirus which actually originated in China,” added Dr Rajeswari.
The problem started early last month when the videos of a brawl between the Chinese and Indian Army soldiers in Eastern Ladakh region surfaced.
Both the countries later moved in heavy weapons and sent reinforcements but tried to defuse the situation through diplomatic channels and talks between the top military commanders.
In a symbolic move, both the countries pulled back their troops by about 2.5 kilometres in some contested areas following the talks between their top commanders at Lt General level on June 6, which were followed by talks at local military commander level.
However, the violent face off between Indian Army and Chinese soldiers on Monday night has come as a rude shock for these confidence-building measures. While the Indian Army confirmed that it lost 20 men including a Colonel, China has not officially confirmed its casualties.
In a statement issued late Tuesday night, India’s ministry of external affairs accused China of changing the status quo in the Galwan valley area in violation of the consensus reached between the senior military commanders on June 6.
“People have spoken about the Chinese strategy of nibbling away Indian territory. It is China’s well-known strategy to take two steps forward and one step backwards,” Vishnu Prakash said in response to a question about the Chinese strategy.
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Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, who was Army Chief during 2017 Doklam stand-off with China, had also dubbed the Chinese strategy of salami-slicing as the biggest threat to India’s territorial integrity.
“Creeping expansionism is something in which Chinese are past masters,” noted Ambassador Vishnu Prakash.
He says China has certainly switched to a kind of diplomacy where it has been very abusive and very aggressive.
“Look at the way they have behaved with other countries in the South China Sea region, even with Australia and other countries,” he told ETV Bharat.
Strategic experts say India is not the only neighbouring country that has suffered due to the Chinese expansionist policies in recent times.
“They (Chinese leadership) believe that they have risen and the US is on a weak wicket, this is what Xi Jinping believes in, so there is a certain amount of overconfidence and arrogance,” noted Dr Rajeswari Rajagopalan of the ORF.
She, however, warns that there will be a backlash against Chinese policies as it has targeted several other countries, including Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, since the start of the year.
“I think everybody has woken up to the Chinese bullying so there is a push back to the Chinese adventurism,” she told ETV Bharat.
