New Delhi shows positive attitude but China is Adamant
By
Colonel Awadhesh Kumar, Veteran
The Defense Ministers of China who has no control over the PLA was desperately trying to have a talk with the Raksha Mantri of India, just to show the World that they care so much for peace. Knowing this background Rajnath Singh still agreed to have a talk with his counterpart Wei Fenghe at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Moscow.
However instead of any reconciliation, the aggressive Defense Minister Wei Fenghe kept expressing China’s firm determination to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, thus exposing China totally. Imagine a country saying this after forcibly capturing Tibet by 1960 and then occupying parts of Indian territory in Ladhak in 1962. The Russian too know the Chinese duplicity, as China has been claiming vast tracts of Russia too. In fact China has borders disputes with nearly all its neighbours.
The PLA has been smarting ever since its self created Doklam fiasco. Next it got rattled by India’s infrastructure building in Ladhak and therefore made one last bid to grab some more Indian territory. Thus it tried out massive aggression at Galwan which to its horror boomeranged very badly. Though the PLA achieved initial surprise and killed 20 Indian soldiers and an officer, in the rebound it lost well over 40. The shameless PLA and the CPC even refused to acknowledge the sacrifice of its own casualties from the people of China.
By the time PLA ‘s Western Theatre Command emerged from its shock of defeat and rushed in additional forces to the area, to their shock they realized that Indian Army was better poised and well balanced. So they asked for military level talks but kept fobbing the talks both at Corp Commander and later at brigade commander levels, in order to deploy more forces. Next when Chinese tried to advance again, they once again got outmaneuvered by Indian troops occupying various heights overlooking their Moldo garrison.
To their horror, the Chinese have found out that India has also deployed troops from the Special Frontier Force comprising well trained Tibetan soldiers, very very eager to take the fight into Tibet for liberation of their homeland.
Now Leading Chinese experts have started saying that the unshakable Will and military advantages of China might force India to return to reason and avoid a direct confrontation in the border region. What a day dream.
China must bear full responsibility for the current China-India border tensions. They have found out that India’s ‘s military is fully determined, capable and confident to not only safeguard India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity but also take the battle into Tibet for its liberation.
The Moscow meeting though meaningless was the first high-level, face-to-face meeting between Indian and Chinese senior officials since border tensions erupted along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh in early May.
Singh said India hopes that the two sides will adopt a responsible attitude, fully disengage front-line forces as soon as possible, avoid taking measures that may escalate or complicate the situation. One thing is very clear that now things cannot be as usual. The first condition for ties to resume is to negotiate the Indo Tibetan boundary and then demarcate it both on map and on ground.
China can still choose to step back and peacefully deescalate the tensions, or venturesomely challenge India and risk unravelling its occupation of not only Tibet but may be even Xinjiang region.
By mid October winter will have arrived in the Ladakh region where temperatures fall to even minus 25 degrees in upper reaches, and both sides have deployed above 40,000 troops in the region. This will certainly strain the Chinese logistics capability as their logistic chain is at least four times longer than India. The Indian Army starts its Winter stocking as soon as Zozi La route opens up in June. So with Galwan crisis happening well before, our stocking has been processed accordingly.
The Chinese aggressive moves this year have forced the Indian Amy to comprehensively strengthen its logistic capability in the face of a potential long-term stand-off.
India has deployed heavier tanks, helicopters and other required resources to decimate the PLA forces, in case they try out any misadventure this time.
