The India-China relationship appears poised to achieve a more stable reset. The 25 August meeting of the Special Representatives on the boundary question was followed by the 12 September talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Both sides have spoken of maintaining peace and tranquillity along the border while improving the broader relationship and negotiating an “early and substantial harvest” on boundary delimitation and border management. New military communication mechanisms are also being established, including two additional hotlines and meeting points.
But negotiations on the boundary dispute must not create the illusion that it is close to settlement. The fundamental problem is that India and China continue to hold maximalist territorial positions. India regards the boundary inherited at Independence, including the McMahon Line in the east, as the basis for its territorial claim. China disputes this and refers to Arunachal Pradesh as Zangnan (South Tibet), while its claims in Ladakh are based on the 1959 Claim Line, broadly along the present Line of Actual Control. There is little reason to believe that negotiations can reconcile such fundamentally different positions in the foreseeable future.
Both countries are nuclear powers and possess large conventional forces. The probability of either side seeking major territorial gains through a large-scale war is consequently low. The more realistic threat is continuing contest below the threshold of war along the LAC, which is not even delimited, let alone delineated. China has exploited this ambiguity to embarrass India and assert its hegemony by intruding into areas not physically held, but patrolled, to alter the status of the LAC. Sumdrong Chu in 1986-87, Depsang in 2013, Chumar in 2014, five areas in Eastern Ladakh in 2020-24, Yangtze Ridge in 2022 and Taksing in 2026 are cases in point.
This is where India needs a new approach: improve relations, negotiate the boundary, but manage the LAC through a strategy of denial.
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Boundary settlement and LAC management
Boundary settlement and LAC management are entwined problems. More so since, for reasons highlighted above, the eventual boundary settlement may follow the broad alignment of the present-day LAC. The boundary dispute may take decades to settle. The LAC, however, has to be managed every day. This distinction is critical.
For LAC management, the most immediate issue is what actually happens on the ground: who patrols an area, who has physical presence, who can reinforce it and who can prevent the other side from creating a new status quo.
China has repeatedly demonstrated the advantages of operating in this grey zone. Its strategy does not necessarily require a conventional attack on an established Indian defensive position. The more effective method is to exploit areas where Indian physical presence, surveillance or infrastructure is absent or weak or where the precise alignment of the LAC is disputed. India is left with the unenviable choice of accepting the change or confronting it militarily. The risk of escalation against a superior power which has immense terrain advantage is omnipresent.
This is the essence of salami slicing. The objective need not be a dramatic territorial conquest. It is the gradual accumulation of small advantages while keeping each individual move below the threshold that would justify a major Indian military response. But the perceived acquiescence to a hegemon comes with loss of prestige for India.
Taksing is a warning
The recent developments around Taksing in Arunachal Pradesh provide another reason to review the existing system of border management.
In late July, Indian and Chinese patrols reportedly came face-to-face in the Taksing area of Upper Subansiri. The confrontation allegedly led to blocking of Indian patrols. The first-ever Corps Commander-level flag meetings in Arunachal Pradesh took place at Wacha and Damai on 6 and 7 September respectively.
That the alleged intrusion and confrontation continued while the Special Representatives — Ajit Doval and Wang Yi — and the countries’ top leaders — Modi and Xi — were meeting on 25 August and 12 September, respectively, is a grave cause for concern.
Irrespective of the improvement in macro relations, the LAC will remain volatile until the final settlement of the boundary, which is nowhere on the horizon.
It is pertinent to mention that most major incidents and confrontations along the LAC have taken place after a formal agreement — the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement 2013 — was signed in October 2013 to prevent such incidents.
Deterrence by denial
India’s traditional response to Chinese salami slicing has often been reactive. A PLA patrol enters a disputed area, troops are mobilised to confront but not evict it to avoid escalation, commanders meet, diplomatic channels are activated and negotiations from a relative position of disadvantage follow. The end result is a defusing of the situation with concessions in the form of non-military activity buffer zones in territory earlier patrolled and controlled by India. The crisis in Eastern Ladakh 2020-24 is a classic example.
What India has done so far is reactive crisis management bereft of a strategy of deterrence by denial. The objective is not to threaten China with retaliation every time it moves. It is to make the move unlikely to succeed in the first place.
The first requirement is last-mile connectivity. India cannot afford to have frontier regions without road connectivity. It is both a civil administration and a military requirement. Lack of road connectivity deters preventive deployment and response. This is why China, with superior road connectivity, is able to achieve pre-emption. Border infrastructure is itself an element of deterrence. It facilitates territorial security, apart from civil administration, development and tourism.
The second requirement is persistent presence. In high-altitude areas, avenues of approach and tactical features are clearly defined. These must be dotted with Indo-Tibetan Border Police posts. It is pertinent to mention that since Nathu La in 1967, China has never physically attacked an ITBP/Army post and has only exploited unheld areas for pre-emptive intrusions. Per media reports, a total of 195 ITBP posts are deployed along the 3,488-km-long northern border. In my view, this number should be tripled. Where permanent deployment is impractical, technology must fill the gap.
The third requirement is persistent surveillance. The primary reason for repeated pre-emptive Chinese intrusions is the failure of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The LAC cannot be managed with posts and patrols alone. Satellites, long-endurance UAVs, tactical drones, electro-optical and infrared sensors, ground-based surveillance systems and secure communications should provide a continuous common operational picture from the tactical unit to the theatre headquarters. The principle should be simple: there should be no strategically important surveillance vacuum along the LAC.
The fourth requirement is a Rapid Action Reserve. It is not practical to deploy in strength everywhere. But neither can China be allowed to exploit a remote gap or overrun a small post and consolidate before reinforcements arrive. A suitably equipped, forward-positioned and acclimatised reserve, supported by dedicated aviation and persistent ISR, should be available to move rapidly to any threatened sector. The aim would be to combine relatively thin permanent deployment with the ability to rapidly mass combat power.
The fifth requirement is clear red lines. The crisis in Eastern Ladakh has resulted in de facto delineation of the LAC/1959 Claim Line under various agreements since April-May 2020. In Arunachal Pradesh, the McMahon Line is already a benchmark. The difference in perceptions of the LAC is due to the thick marking of the line on small-scale maps, leading to differing perceptions when copied onto large-scale maps. Over a period of time, these areas have become well known.
India should make an earnest endeavour to delineate the LAC through the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs. Failing that, India should unilaterally and formally make a public declaration of the alignment of the LAC. Marked maps should be handed over to China. This would establish the LAC as the territorial red line, a violation of which would invite an appropriate military response. The requisite force for this response should be readily available in the form of a sectoral Rapid Action Reserve. The certainty of a military response is a deterrent even if the application of force is contingent upon the tactical situation.
The sixth requirement is to give impetus to the Vibrant Village Programme along the LAC and open up the border areas for tourism. Settled populations and public footfall act as a check on hostile activity, as highlighted in the 2005 Agreement on the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the India–China Boundary Question: “In reaching a boundary settlement, the two sides shall safeguard due interests of their settled populations in the border areas.”
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India must deny the next fait accompli
A strategy of denial should not be confused with a strategy of confrontation. India must continue negotiations at every level. India cannot choose whether China will eventually accept its boundary claims. Nor can it determine how long negotiations will take.
It can, however, determine whether China is able to exploit gaps in India’s border management.
The objective should not be to occupy every disputed inch, provoke China or seek military escalation. It should be to ensure that neither side can unilaterally alter the status quo and then present the other with a fait accompli.
The experience of eastern Ladakh should have taught India that restoring the status quo after it has been altered is vastly more expensive than preventing its alteration in the first place.
Taksing is a reminder that the lesson has to be applied across the entire LAC, not merely in Ladakh.
Negotiations may eventually settle the boundary. Until then, India must manage the LAC as if the dispute could last indefinitely.
Negotiate the boundary with China as if a settlement is possible tomorrow; manage the LAC as if the settlement may take another generation. The first requires diplomacy. The second requires deterrence by denial.
Lt Gen H S Panag PVSM, AVSM (R) served in the Indian Army for 40 years. He was GOC in C Northern Command and Central Command. Post retirement, he was Member of Armed Forces Tribunal. He tweets @rwac48. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)