Foreign Policy In Focus
Feb. 15, 2010
Of all the world’s potential hotspots, one of the most unlikely is tucked into the folds of the Himalayas. It is a slice of ground that is little more than
Foreign Policy In Focus
Feb. 15, 2010
Of all the world’s potential hotspots, one of the most unlikely is tucked into the folds of the Himalayas. It is a slice of ground that is little more than frozen rock fields and soaring peaks that is decidedly short on people, resources and oxygen. But for the past year it has been a worrisome source of friction between India and China, including incursions by Chinese troops, the wounding of several Indian border police, and a buildup of military forces on both sides.
Some Indian analysts go so far as to say that China has how replaced Pakistan as India’s greatest threat, while Beijing has been uncharacteristically assertive in pushing its claims for a sizable chunk of India’s Arunachai Pradesh state.
Sorting out why the two huge Asian nations are facing off over ground that all but the hardiest of goats avoid, involves a combination of the past: colonialism’s bitter legacy—and the present: current U.S. efforts to maintain its pre-eminent role in the region.
The area in question, which borders Tibet and covers an area about the size of Austria, is delineated by a boundary that has shifted over the millennia. The British drew the current line in 1914, but the Chinese have never recognized the agreement that established it—the so-called “Simja Convention”—because they saw it as just another treaty forced on China by Western colonial powers. (1)
Because the area in dispute was once connected to Tibet, Beijing says the region is part of China.
So far the tension on the border has resulted in little more than Chinese soldiers painting rocks red on the Indian side, and the one shooting incident that wounded two members of the Indo-Tibetan Police Force. The Indians have responded by moving 30,000 troops and its latest warplanes into the area. (2)
The region has long been a volatile one, and similar tensions in 1962 sparked a 32-day war that killed 3100 Indian and 700 Chinese soldiers, and resulted in a humiliating defeat for New Delhi.
India’s Right, led by the Bharatija Janata Party (BJP), has raised the specter of the 1962 war and is demanding that India respond to Chinese “aggression.” “India must take adequate precautions,” says BJP President Rajnath Singh. (3) Retired Indian Air Force Marshall Fali Homi says that China now poses a bigger threat than India’s traditional adversary, Pakistan, (4) and former Indian National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra predicts a China-India war within five years.(5)
Some Indians even charge—without evidence— that China is supporting India’s homegrown Maoists, or “Naxilites,” who are waging a low-key insurgency against the Indian government. (6)
The rhetoric on the Chinese side is less bombastic, but Beijing’s statements have been unusually sharp, especially after the Dalai Lama visited the region this past November.
China’s prickliness over its borders is hardly new, but with the exception of its attack on Vietnam in 1979, Beijing has threaded a careful path between asserting its power, and reassuring its neighbors that it isn’t about to become the bully on the block. Why then the pugnaciousness over what can hardly be considered strategic ground?
Enter the United States.
In 2005, the Bush Administration executed a full court press to bring India into an alliance with Washington and its allies in the Pacific region—specifically Australia, South Korea, and Japan—to counter the rise of China. Washington warned that the Chinese military, in particular its naval arm, was expanding rapidly and would soon pose a threat to other nations in Asia. The U.S. and India held joint military operations, and the U.S. urged New Delhi to actively patrol the Indian Oc