Need a reality check on China's designs

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Need a reality check on China's designs

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Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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• Aksai Chin: The Chinese are here to stay in Aksai Chin, a fact Indian governments know since the 1950s and are relunctant to admit. The ramping up of their military strength in Tibet is common news. India's external affairs minister in 2021 said he found Chinese actions in breach of peace and tranquility.
• Reason for 2020-21 buildup: India and China signed agreements related to border dispute in 1993, 1996, 2005 and 2013. But there's no hint of any solution, despite a direction being provided by these.

1. It's like Kashmir - neither India nor Pakistan can be seen as giving any concessions, for it'd be bad for political leadership
2.  For China, it's the Mao Tse-tung vision that saw Tibet as the palm of right hand with its five fingers waiting to be liberated (Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Arunachal Pradesh).
3. Nehru didn't accept the Chinese proposal brought by Zhou Enlai in 1959-60, over territories in Arunachal or in Aksai Chin (he said they were all Indian areas)

• Modi and Xi Jinping: That Nehruvian stand was sacrosanct for Indian establishment for many years. Since 2014, PM Modi and President Jinping had personal meetings, and it was hoped that relations will warm up. Then came the Doklam crisis in 2017, and two summits followed: Wuhan in 2018 and Mamallapuram in 2019. 
• Chinese mischief: Incursions at the LAC continued in 2014, and then a major one in 2020. Why? Perhaps because the directions to the militaries to build CBMs were vague. (CBM - Confidence Building Measures) The Special Representatives (SRs) really couldn't find a fair, reasonable and acceptable way out.
• Confusion and misinterpretation: Since nothing was truly resolved, there always was room for misinterpretation at the LAC, and patrols would cross over at the LAC or the McMahon Line. But in eastern Ladakh, no entrenched incursions happened, except in 2013, or in 2020.
• Change in Chinese strategy: Slowly it emerged that 75% of Chinese incursions were across the LAC, the remaining being in Sikking and Arunachal Pradesh. So Aksai Chin was the prized territory where the Chinese were making their claims.
• Scared of India: As the border infrastructure was ramped up by India (roads, bridges, tunnels, communication arteries), China was alarmed. India had avoided doing all this since 1962 for fear of making it easy for the Chinese to enter from the Himalayas into the plains of North India. Then in 2013, a decision was taken to raise a strike corps for Indian Army in eastern sector. But finally, when the Article 370 was abrogated in 2019, and the UT of Ladakh was made with the claim to "liberate 38000 sqkm of Aksai Chin one day", China truly panicked.
• Summary: Hence, China dramatically increased its presence in early 2020, in the Aksai Chin region. A long stalemate ensued. China has made its intentions clear that its 1959 position is where a solution can be found.

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