Doklam: An Indian Case-Study in Repudiating Chinese Aggression
Until a few days ago, on a remote Himalayan pass on the Doklam plateau, India and China — two nuclear powers — had neared the precipice of military conflict. However, on 28th August, the spokesperson of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), announced that the two countries had agreed to “expeditious disengagement” of troops at the stand-off site. Beijing, on the other hand, said that India “withdrew” and that it would continue to patrol the area, but agreed that given Monday’s developments, it would make “necessary adjustments and deployments.”
From the outset, the culmination of the standoff appears to be sudden, given the continuation of jingoistic coverage in the Chinese state-owned media in the days leading to Monday’s ‘disengagement’.
As I elaborated elsewhere, the stalemate dates to June when Indian troops entered a plateau claimed by both China and Bhutan, on the latter’s behest, to halt the Chinese from extending an undeveloped road. India, which undertakes Bhutan’s security, stressed that the road — which would overlook the tri-junction boundary where Tibet, Bhutan, and the Indian state of Sikkim converge — endangered its own security.
Elsewhere, Beijing’s stance pivoted on an ambiguously-worded 1890 border treaty between the erstwhile British India and China’s Qing dynasty. According to China’s interpretation of that treaty, the disputed Doklam plateau falls resolutely in Chinese territory; whereas according to Bhutan and India’s reading, the disputed territory falls within Bhutan. Thus, for months, China had been bullying India with dreadful reprisal for what it asserted was an illegal trespass into its den on the Doklam plateau: The country’s state-run media outlets had taken to political rapid-fire. The China Daily, in an editorial titled ‘New Delhi should come to its senses while it has time’, blamed “India’s audacity in challenging China’s sovereignty” on a “sense of inferiority and insecurity in the face of China’s rapid rise.” The Global Times’ harrowing headline screamed ‘India will suffer worse losses than 1962 if it incites border clash’, further decrying: “This time, we must teach New Delhi a bitter lesson.” There was some obvious worrying to do, for this aggressive rhetoric had previously propelled Vietnam into the embrace of arch-enemy United States and compelled Japan to scramble its fighters at levels not seen since the height of the Cold War.
India’s Assertive Response:
New Delhi’s uncharacteristically assertive response had raised a few eyebrows, for few countries had an appetite to take the Chinese dragon’s regional aspirations head-on. Sources highlight how National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, when hard-pressed by China’s state councillor Yang Jiechi on whether Doklam was Indian territory, doggedly retorted “Does every disputed territory become China’s by default?” Here, the Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, responded with distinctive nonchalance, rebuffing Chinese threats and refusing to withdraw its forces — until Monday (the MEA prefers the term ‘disengagement’ instead of ‘withdrawal’ as the latter would imply an acceptance of Doklam being Chinese territory). As Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research argued:
“The more power China has accumulated, the more it has attempted to achieve its foreign-policy objectives with bluff, bluster, and bullying. But, as its Himalayan border standoff with India’s military continues, the limits of this approach are becoming increasingly apparent.”
Bhutan, A Trusted Ally:
Since its commencement, the rhetoric surrounding the Doklam stand-off has been dictated by an Indo-Chinese narrative. Therefore, it is imperative to give Bhutan its due, for without the country’s resolute stance in support of Indian interests, India would have had to turn back red-faced.
Unbeknown to most, more than Bhutan, it was India’s security at stake in Doklam. From the Indian viewpoint, China’s move to construct a thoroughfare on disputed territory looked akin to its erection of islands in the South China Sea — an endeavor to gain militaristic primacy by constructing infrastructure.
New Delhi feared that — if left unchecked — the roadwork would make it easier for China to cut off the strategically important Siliguri Corridor or ‘Chicken’s Neck’, a narrow belt of land that linked northeastern India to the rest of the country. India has long worried that this relic of the British decolonization process could be used by China as a geopolitical choke point in a future conflict, “cutting off 45 million Indians and an area the size of the United Kingdom.” At its slimmest point, as Ankit Panda reminds us, the Siliguri “puts less than a marathon’s distance between the Bangladeshi and Nepalese borders (14 miles).” The strategic importance of this geographical curse is further heightened by the fact that, given the absence of a free trade agreement between India and Bangladesh, “All land trade between the North East and the rest of the country happens through this corridor.”
For India, the Chumbi valley — a strategic Himalayan passageway in China — is akin to a geographic dagger aimed towards the vulnerable ‘Chicken’s Neck’. However, India’s topographical endowment has its own merits. Sikkim, for one, presents India a strategic advantage, affording it the opportunity — in the event of war — to attack Chinese troops stationed in the Chumbi valley from two fronts: Sikkim itself and the Indian presence stationed in Ha, Bhutan.
Tenzing Lamsang, Editor-in-Chief and Founder of The Bhutanese, extrapolated the geopolitical significance of the crisis for Chinese and Indian regional hegemony: China has already constructed a major highway till the Yadong town in the Chumbi valley. China’s attempt in Doklam is a move to control as much infrastructure as it can from there to the Indian and Bhutanese borders in the vicinity. Beijing worries that, despite having territory in the Chumbi valley, “it lacks the ‘strategic shoulders’ due to the narrowness of the entire area with India and Bhutan one both sides.”
This is precisely why, Lamsang explains, “China is claiming 269 sq km of Bhutanese territory in the area as it would get the necessary strategic shoulders and space to operate more freely.” The strategic importance of this region to China is underscored by the fact that, China, “in a package deal in 1996 ‘offered’ to ‘give up’ its claims to 495 sq km of land in the Pasamlung and Jakarlung valleys in Bhutan’s north-central sector of Bumthang in return for giving up the 269 sq km in Doklam to China.”
Elsewhere, Lamsang elaborated that “Bhutan in 1996 turned down the comparatively generous package deal offer mainly on the basis of Indian security concerns over Doklam.”
India: An Asian Role-Model
After the Doklam disengagement, Rory Medcalf, Head of the National Security College at Australian National University tweeted the following:
In similar vein, India’s act of defiance seems to have gained it support amongst China’s other neighbours; nations themselves wary of the Chinese dragon’s rise. Even during the crisis, the Japanese Ambassador to India, Kenji Hiramatsu, commented his disdain at China’s unilateral attempts to change the status quo at Doklam by force. Another report in The Indian Express stated that Tokyo had conveyed, through diplomatic channels, its unequivocal support to New Delhi and Thimphu. Elsewhere, Vietnam had reportedly struck a deal with India for the supply of BrahMos supersonic anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles. Here, one can see an overall realignment of regional forces against China, for the latter’s “provocative rise is increasingly turning away bandwagoners and making them work together to balance China.”
If China had acted on its current rhetoric and engaged in an outright military conflict, it would have been destructive for its own strategic goals in Asia and the wider international arena. It would have discredited the notion of its self-proclaimed peaceful rise, intensified India’s strategic convergence with China’s global and regional rivals such as the United States and Japan, and augmented the hitherto increasing distrust in Chinese intentions (especially amongst its smaller neighbours in and around the South China Sea). As Alyssa Ayres, Senior Fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations stated, the Doklam standoff was a “conflict that China ha[d] created.” Besides, the “Chinese military has more to lose” and, should the clash move against its favour, would result in “a very embarrassing loss of face.”
As was clear, both nations had vital interests at stake: territorial sovereignty and the ability to construct a strategic bulwark for China; whereas, national security and alliance credibility for India. That said, India’s diplomatic machinery refrained from any measures that would convert escalation into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
India’s primary goal was to revert to status quo ante — that is, their prime concern was that China halt its road-building. Even before the stand-off, the Chinese were patrolling Doklam, hence their high-handed stress on mentioning they would continue patrolling is little but face-saving public diplomacy. Recent reports say that since Monday, Chinese bulldozers have been moving out of the region and that the Chinese have stopped construction.
In all, it can be said — to borrow from Steve Inskeep — that in South and Southeast Asia, there are two types of countries: “There’s China, and there are all of China’s neighbors.” Let’s hope that India’s poise of steadfastness and diplomacy emboldens its other neighbors who, until now, have been silenced by Chinese intimidations.
This piece borrows from — and builds on — my previous article on this topic by further elaborating on the aftermath of the Doklam stand-off.
