On April 10, 2024, amid the high-pitch and polarising campaign for the upcoming national elections, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi gave a crucial interview with Newsweek. Generally, BJP election campaigns put a high premium on hyper-nationalistic rhetoric on security issues. However, this time, Modi took an unexpected stance and softened his previously tough posture on India-China ties. In his Newsweek interview, he said, “Through positive and constructive bilateral engagement at diplomatic and military levels, the two countries will be able to restore and sustain peace and tranquillity at the borders.” While emphasizing that the relationship with China is “important” and “significant,” he stated, “It is my belief that we need to urgently address the prolonged situation on our borders so that the abnormality in our bilateral interactions can be put behind us. Stable and peaceful relations between India and China are important for not just our two countries but the entire region and world.” Reacting positively to Modi’s statements, China also assured that “sound and stable” relations are in both nations’ interests.

In the diplomatic quarters, Modi’s statements have signaled a breakthrough toward achieving a thaw in the stiff and estranged bilateral ties between India and China. However, the question arises whether it is possible to achieve a lasting peace in the Himalayan borders, given the fact that twenty-one rounds of core commander-level meetings and twenty-nine meetings of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on India-China border affairs have failed to achieve any breakthrough. 

After the Galwan crisis in June 2020, which resulted in causalities on both sides, the bilateral ties worsened. Following the Galwan standoff, both sides amassed 50,000 troops in a mirror deployment pattern in the Ladakh sector. After four rounds of disengagement in Galwan Valley, Pangong Tso, Gogra (PP-17 A), and Hot Springs (PP-15), and continuing tensions in Depsang and Demchok, the deployments remain in a standoff on both sides of the border. Today, bilateral relations are at a nadir not seen since the 1962 war.

Nevertheless, focused as it is on the goal of a $5 trillion economy, India cannot afford to bait China into a major conflict and has no intention of doing so. On the other hand, amid rumors of China occupying further Indian territory and India forfeiting patrolling rights in some parts of Ladakh, the Chinese threat to Indian territorial integrity cannot be ignored. Further, the specter of a united China-Pakistan front will be a strategic nightmare for New Delhi. Bearing all of this in mind, how should India address the China question?

Understanding India’s Mind and its Dilemmas 

The greatest puzzle torturing Indian security czars is how to decode China’s intentions. In my interaction with several eminent Indian geostrategic experts, both practitioner diplomats and academic scholars, I found that there is hardly any agreement on what China wants. Does Beijing want to amicably settle the boundary issues and make further progress in trade and cultural ties, or simply grab India’s territory? 

Notably, in the perceptions of the Indian strategic community, the boundary issue constitutes a bottleneck preventing the improvement of bilateral relations. As many told me, India-China ties will take an upward trajectory once there is a breakthrough on the boundary front. However, regarding China’s intent, many Indian scholars and diplomats believe India can do business with China and resolve the boundary issues through bilateral diplomatic initiatives. They argue that from 1988 to 2020, both countries signed bilateral agreements in 1993, 1996, and 2005, ratifying the 1962 ceasefire line as the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to maintain peace and tranquillity on the border and focus more on building robust trade relationships. As a result, no significant differences existed on the LAC, even if the exact demarcation remained unsettled. Further, they argue that over the last three decades before 2020, India and China had discovered a successful modus vivendi to live together peacefully as neighbors, enhance commercial ties, and de-hyphenate the long-standing boundary issues from the commercial and business arena. 

The opponents of the abovementioned line of thought ask if China wanted peace, why did it unleash the Galwan conflict without provocation, spoiling the trust-building measures of the last three decades? Even before Galwan, China’s intent was never transparent and fair. In 2009, China constructed a road from Sumdo to Patrol Point 13 in the Depsang plains. The PLA’s 2011 and 2013 incursions into the Depsang plains led to a face-off with the Indian army. In 2014, PLA made incursions in Chumar (Eastern Ladakh), followed by a long-drawn standoff between the two armies in Doklam on the India-Bhutan-China trijunction in 2017. Except for the 2011 incursion, which the military leadership resolved, the remaining ones required negotiations with the civilian leadership. 

Additionally, on various occasions, China irked India by handing stapled visas to the citizens of Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh and blocking the designation of Pakistan-sponsored and based terrorist commanders as global terrorists in the UN. Further, China’s rigid and intransigent attitude on the boundary issues after twenty-one rounds of core commander-level talks following the Galwan deadlock, coupled with its heavy investment in the dual-use infrastructure in the border regions, raises serious suspicions about China’s long-term intent.

Another line of thought argues that the boundary issue in itself is irrelevant to China. A few remote tracks of land pale in significance to Beijing’s larger bid for regional and global power. As such, Beijing seeks to use the issue to subordinate India into acceptance of its status as an inferior power vis-à-vis the mighty “middle kingdom.” The 1962 war was, in part, intended to downsize India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, under whose leadership India was emerging as a leader of the non-aligned countries. In China’s grand strategy, a strong, confident India cannot exist as an equal civilizational state in its own backyard and challenge its status as a world power.

Furthermore, the border issue serves to counter India’s naval presence in the Indian Ocean, which could threaten China’s shipping routes in the Malacca Strait. Beijing aims to keep India boxed in on land either by propping up the Kashmir issue with its all-weather friend Pakistan and its array of proxy terrorist groups or by salami-slicing incursions on the India-China border. Also, China may want to keep the borders vague at this stage, create confusion and ambivalence through occasional incursions, and finally settle the border under more favorable geopolitical conditions. These scenarios could include China’s attainment of decisive military and technological superiority over India, Indian isolation in global politics, or the erosion and weakening of Western capabilities and intent to support India against China.

This uncertainty and unease hovering around China’s long-term designs in the Himalayas is helped by the scarcity of information. Chinese political and military institutions are famously opaque, unlike those of democratic countries. Additionally, Indian intelligence agencies have devoted most of their attention and resources to Pakistan and its proxy terrorist networks in the last several decades. Consequently, they do not have robust intelligence capabilities and reliable assets within Chinese decision-making institutions. In fact, India relies on U.S. satellite imagery for intelligence about China’s troops’ deployment, infrastructure build-up, and other developments in the border areas. Academic scholars mostly rely on official documents from the Chinese government that are available in the public domain and articles published in prominent Chinese newspapers and media portals.

Mapping Escalation Scenarios

In 1962, when the Indian and Chinese armies were locked in a standoff in Himalayan borders over the boundary question, Chairman Mao, drawing his lessons from the classical Chinese tradition, told his commanders that China and India had fought “one and a half wars” throughout history, furnishing Beijing with valuable lessons. He narrated two instances of Chinese military intervention in India to his generals. The first war happened 1300 years earlier during the rule of the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD), when China sent its military to support a legitimate Indian king fighting against an usurper. After the first war, India and China enjoyed a long period of peace and vibrant cultural, economic, and religious exchange. The “half-war,” according to Mao, occurred when Timur the Lame, a Mongol king, plundered and raided Delhi in 1398, killing at least 100,000 people.

In Mao’s understanding, the critical lesson from the two abovementioned historical incidents was that India and China were, in Kissinger’s words, “not doomed to perpetual enmity,” and they could enjoy sustained periods of peace and prosperity again. However, for this to take place, Beijing had to “knock” India forcefully to bring it to the diplomatic negotiations.

Weeks later, China invaded India and inflicted a devasting defeat, almost occupying the entire state of modern-day Arunachal Pradesh before retreating to the previous line of control and even returning the captured heavy weaponry. The defeat of 1962 is still a major humiliation for the Indian collective psyche.

The incident mentioned above reveals the deep historical roots in China’s strategic subconscious. Hence, if history is the best way to understand China’s underlying philosophy and forecast its future actions, then there is a strong likelihood of a 1962-style swift invasion in some sectors and major skirmishes in the other sectors. One recent report from the Royal United Services Institute predicts a Second India-China war between 2025 and 2030. In such a scenario, India cannot rule out the possibility of a quick surge of Chinese troops seven to eight kilometers inside the Indian territory. 

At the same time, Pakistan may activate the Line of Control and incite terror incidents in Kashmir and communal violence in India as a diversion tactic and facilitate the execution of Beijing’s game plan as swiftly as possible. In another scenario, China may continue embarrassing and pressuring India with its periodic salami-slicing incursions. Coupled with such military adventures, India may have to face cyber-attacks on its critical infrastructure, military and civil installations, financial institutions, and stock markets. 

An invasion may happen where India least expects it. Though most recent incursions and encroachment have taken place in the Ladakh region, New Delhi cannot assume that an attack can only occur in the western sector. Minor and periodic Chinese incursions could act as diversion tactics to hide the real game plan of a mid-sized invasion in the eastern sector of the India-China border, Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing claims as “South Tibet.” To add more to the prevailing confusion, China may initiate incursions in the middle sector, encourage Nepal to be more aggressive on the Indian border and claim Kalapani, and create intense pressure in Bhutan either by deployment, increased patrols in disputed areas, or by infrastructure build-up. 

Reportedly, the Chinese may believe this middle path of swift and mid-sized invasion is feasible in terms of a cost-benefit analysis. First, the invasion will likely be very swift, giving minimum response time to the Indian side. Against the backdrop of existing uncertainty and ambiguity, by the time New Delhi realizes Beijing’s intent, the PLA would have secured most of its intended outcomes. Second, Indian communications and road infrastructure in the Himalayan region are developing fast; however, there is a long way to go before they catch up with China. 

I have discussed in a previous article that China has constructed a sophisticated network of axial roads in the border areas, which makes troop and equipment movement much easier and rapid vis-à-vis movement on the Indian side. In such a scenario, Americans can help only by providing intelligence, minor communications equipment, and technological support, enabling smooth logistics. They are unlikely to put their boots on the ground. Political will aside, the Himalayan terrain is harsh, and the American soldiers are not accustomed to it.

The battles in the Himalayan region are likely to be infantry and artillery-centric, in which the road infrastructure will play a critical role, and China has a clear short-term advantage on that front. Additionally, China can utilize its drones and rocket force. Lastly, in such a scenario, India’s relationship with Russia would be of little value once a conflict erupts. Due to Moscow’s increased dependence on Beijing after the Ukraine war, its capabilities are limited. By the time they can influence Chinese policymakers, Beijing will have secured its gains, after which the world powers will intervene, urging restraint and diplomacy.

The chances of such a swift, embarrassing, and destabilizing attack and the periodic accidental or deliberate skirmishes escalating into a full-fledged conventional war are minimal at this stage. If the conflict escalates beyond a point and gets longer, China will be embroiled in a long-drawn and protracted conflict in rugged Himalayan terrain. India has also come a long way from where it was in 1962. Today, India is a nuclear power and a leader in advanced space programs. In addition to its robust scientific, technological, and industrial base with the fourth largest military and fifth largest GDP, it has a much stronger and credible standing in global geopolitics. Hence, if it can neutralize the initial brunt of a Chinese attack, Indians could give a robust defense and counterattack, bringing massive embarrassment to China. 

Such a scenario will be a major setback to China’s long-term ambitions to become a world power and contend with the United States. Also, following such a scenario, India would likely abandon its neutrality and switch to the American side, get closer to Quad countries and the Western camp, and cause hurdles for China’s supply lines in the Malacca straits with its strong naval presence in the Indian Ocean. It can reject the “One China” theory in principle, take a strong anti-China stand by joining forces with Vietnam, Japan, Philippines, and Indonesia, and in theatres like the Middle East, Afghanistan, and the South Caucasus, where it has emerged with a robust strategic footprint. Also, it can be more active with the Quad countries in the South China Sea and East China Sea.

Dr. Abhinav Pandya is a founder and CEO of Usanas Foundation, an India-based geopolitical and security affairs think-tank, and the author of Radicalization in India: An Exploration and  Terror Financing in Kashmir. He has a Ph.D. from OP Jindal University and an MPA from Cornell University.

Image: Natalia Davidovich / Shutterstock.com.