The Ladakh Clash: China’s India Dilemma
By Sun Yun
More than 100 days have passed since China and India began engaging in a military standoff and sustained tensions along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Himalayan region of Ladakh. Violent physical clashes broke out on the evening of June 15, leading to 20 Indian fatalities, the first deaths over the disputed border since 1975, and an unconfirmed number of Chinese casualties. The two governments and militaries have been engaged in prolonged negotiations over a mutually acceptable resolution, and most observers do not expect a military conflict out of this round. However, given rapidly shifting global power dynamics, the new “Cold War” emerging between the United States and China, as well as the growing challenges Beijing faces in its external environment, China’s dilemma on India has only become exacerbated.
Strategic Factors Behind the Border Standoff
The border disputes between China and India have gone on for seven decades and can be traced back even long before the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Both sides have garnered significant historical and legal evidence to support their sovereignty claims. The most important concept in regards to conflict prevention is the LAC. In the absence of a formally demarcated boundary, the LAC is supposed to act as a de facto border and keep troops from the two sides from direct engagement. However, in reality, the essential problem is that there is no consensus between China and India over a mutually accepted LAC.
Historically, the Chinese have consistently stuck to the LAC of Nov. 7, 1959, while the Indians stick to the LAC of Sept. 8, 1962. China argues that the territory between these two lines was “unjustly occupied by India” during those three years and was precisely the cause of the 1962 Sino-Indian War.1 The Chinese were victorious then, and they believe that the result restored the LAC of Nov. 7, 1959 — a verdict with which India never agreed. To date, both sides insist that they have been operating within their side of the LAC in accordance with these competing definitions.
Especially on the western section of the disputed border between India-controlled Ladakh and China-controlled Aksai Chin, the LAC is subject to changes. The mountainous terrain and uninhabitable environment during the winter months make it impossible for either side to station troops permanently in certain areas, leaving ample room for minor changes in force posture and control of territories in the disputed regions. This is why tensions have tended to flare up in the western sector much more frequently than in the eastern sector — there is more room for imagination, advancement and alterations.
In 1993 and 1996, China and India signed two agreements to maintain peace and tranquility in the border region. The specific stipulations on confidence-building measures (CBMs) prohibit the use of firearms during face-offs. Therefore, other than patrols and camps to show sovereignty, both sides have resorted to infrastructure development to position themselves. Roads, bridges and other transportation networks not only boost sovereignty claims but also strengthen strategic positions and tactical advantages vis-à-vis the other side. Both sides feel the other side’s infrastructure development is threatening territories that are under their control and/or undermining their sovereignty claims. The infrastructure arms race has been the most important reason for the border confrontations, standoffs and incidents in recent years, including the Daulat Beg Oldi incident in 2013, the Doklam standoff in 2017 and the Ladakh clash this year.
China’s India Dilemma
Both China and India have habitually attributed the border tension and disputes to the aggressive behavior, territorial expansion and hegemonic intentions of the other side. The Ladakh clash is no exception. However, within the rapidly changing regional and global dynamics, the strategic implications of the clash go far beyond the small piece of mountainous territory in the Himalayas. The growing number and frequency of border clashes with India, in fact, reveal a fundamental dilemma in China’s relations with its most populous neighbor.
For China, India is not China’s primary security threat but still represents a significant challenge to China’s national interests in terms of the longstanding Tibet issue, the disputed territory, the competition for influence in the South Asian region, the Pakistan factor and their vastly different visions of the regional order. Because China sees the United States as its primary security threat and the Western Pacific as its primary theater, India is only a secondary concern in China’s foreign policy playbook. This perception dictates that China would prefer to prioritize its military preparedness and security struggle against the US in the east and would prefer to avoid a “two-front war” with a military conflict or strategic hostility facing India in the west.
This aversion to a conflict with India should naturally lead to some level of accommodation of India’s demands. But China has found such accommodation exceedingly difficult. For China, key concessions such as the border settlement are irreversible hard commitments, while all that India can deliver in return, such as its neutrality between China and the US, is ephemeral and can be easily reversed. While Delhi sees addressing these issues as the prerequisite for India to trust China, Beijing doesn’t believe relinquishing its points of leverage will in any way stop India from hostile actions down the road, especially given their clashing regional visions.
As such, China’s India policy is pulled in two opposite directions, between a perhaps genuine desire for friendly ties with India in order to minimize strategic distraction from its primary theater and an equally genuine hostility due to the conflicting agendas in its secondary theater. The former points to a positive trajectory to reduce distrust and enhance ties. The latter anchors the regression that deviates away from such efforts periodically, especially on the territorial disputes that neither side see as negotiable.
Two factors have exacerbated this dilemma for China in recent years. The first is the US’s Indo-Pacific strategy, which sends a strong signal of strategic alignment with India based on shared democratic values and regional visions. While China’s most instinctive reaction is to enhance co-operation with India in order to pre-empt a US-India alignment against China, Beijing is worried about India being enticed and potentially enmeshed by the offers Washington has made. For Beijing, even if India is trying to maintain its strategic autonomy, the US offer of security co-operation and political alignment has inevitably inflated India’s sense of empowerment vis-à-vis China. As such, China interprets India’s “assertiveness” in the disputed border region as a direct result of it being emboldened by the Americans.
Another factor is Chinese domestic public sentiment. Beijing consistently stokes domestic public support in order to strengthen its legitimacy and popularity by playing up foreign threats. This has made it exceedingly difficult for it to back away from any standoff or confrontation along the border, especially when the media profile of the conflict becomes heightened. Especially this time around, Covid-19, China’s tarnished reputation internationally and the ensuing mentality of “wolf warrior” have also made Beijing believe that backing down is not an option.
Did China Win?
As military and diplomatic negotiations continue, a definitive judgment of the ultimate winner and loser of the Ladakh clash is unlikely to emerge soon. As of the end of August, the two countries are as far from a consensus on the resolution of the crisis as they are on a consensus about the origin of the clash. While China clearly blames India for the bloodshed in the Galwan Valley on June 15, India sees it as “China’s usual tactic of blaming India for actions that PLA troops are responsible for.”2 As for the resolution, India wants nothing short of a
status quo ante, and China is holding onto the new status quo as a
fait accompli. If the Doklam Standoff in 2017 offers any precedent, a mutual agreement to settle could be expected in the fall, especially when the weather turns uninhabitably cold in the disputed area.
The question is whether the settlement will be based on the
status quo ante as desired by India or the new
fait accompli as claimed by China. China has claimed that its assertiveness in this case is “reactive,” meaning it felt compelled to respond to a perceived act of Indian aggression. However, this narrative does not justify a rejection of the
status quo ante unless China deems it necessary for its “reaction” to be punitive in nature and the punishment must exceed the original offense to prevent future offense. There is a pattern of such behaviors in China’s recent record, prominently showcased in its changing of the status quo regarding the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands to a co-administration with Japan.3
But even if China is able to change and maintain the claimed
fait accompl, does that make China the winner? Some Chinese would argue yes: Tactically, China might have improved its position on the ground. Psychologically, many Chinese have found it gratifying to punish India for its “petty maneuver and encroachment on Chinese territory” and scorn Indian reactions, including the anti-China sentiment and the boycott of Chinese products and apps.4 For the Chinese propaganda apparatus, the Ladakh clash has even been portrayed as a success of Xi Jinping’s great power diplomacy.
But it should at least be debated whether China might have just won the battle and lost the war. The Ladakh clash directly confirms China’s image of being an aggressor and a bully in the international arena, exacerbating its worsening reputation as an aggressive, hostile authoritarian state. More importantly, the Ladakh clash, as many Indian analysts have argued, might be the last straw that finally changes India’s attitude toward China — from skepticism and suspicion to outright distrust and hostility. This will have long-lasting impact over India’s alignment choice and eliminate any possibility, however thin, for India to accept China’s regional ambitions.
The Chinese might make the counterargument that New Delhi is untrustworthy to begin with. And there is also a legitimate argument that good relations with India cannot be based on Chinese territorial concessions or appeasement of India, which in their view will only boost the Indian appetite for more Chinese concessions. Those might be true and it is debatable as to whether India’s policy on the disputed border has been adequately pragmatic. However, China’s sheer loss is strategic, and tactical advances in an uninhabitable mountain region cannot offset that fact.
The fear of that strategic loss probably explains China’s persistent efforts to reassure India that China is “not India’s strategic threat” and still pursues friendly relations. The series of outreach moves by the Chinese Ambassador to India, Sun Weidong, since the clash attests to that direction.5 Given what has happened in the Ladakh crisis, it will be a difficult sell for India. Between tactical gains on the disputed border and the strategic loss of alienating India, China’s choice on Ladakh comes with significant baggage.
Border clashes are not rare, but the Ladakh episode reveals a fundamental dilemma for China: a desire for friendly ties with india but a genuine hostility due to conflicting foreign-policy agendas.
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