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Henry Kissinger (who had a huge impact on US foreign policy for many decades with successive US Presidents) had once said that to be an enemy of America can be dangerous but to be a friend is fatal. President Trump with his actions and words has repeatedly proved among all US allies (irrespective of whether or not it is a Treaty ally) like Europe, India etc that one cannot trust the US at all. Recently Trump sided very brazenly with Pakistan, as he hyphenated India to Pakistan by not even mentioning of India’s core concern which is for decades India has faced cross border terrorism from Pakistani State. How can anybody equal the perpetrator of terrorism and the victim of terrorism? But Trump did exactly that. So, in this situation China having ironclad relationship with Pakistan has gained the most, as numerous times China has said we will ensure the sovereignty of Pakistan. This speaks volumes of the fact that in the near future China can go to war with India for taking control over Arunachal Pradesh. This as just after the ceasefire, China a number of times since 2017 has renamed places inside the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh claiming its sovereignty over it. The spokesperson for the Indian Foreign Ministry said “We have noticed that China has persisted with its vain and preposterous attempts to name places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Consistent with our principled position, we reject such attempts categorically. Creative naming will not alter the undeniable reality that Arunachal Pradesh was, is, and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India.” Going to war over Taiwan can be very costly for Xi Jinping as US might intervene tipping the balance of power in support of Taiwanese sovereignty. Also, China would not like to upset the US by invading Taiwan in the near future simply because they recently had a kind of trade agreement were the US was forced to back down from its hard stance against China, as Trump did relax some tariffs due to the American economy hurting so badly (even still it is hurting). So, in the short and intense trade war which lasted a month since 2 April 2025, China eventually won. In this situation, why would China squander its gains by going into Taiwan? So, Xi Jinping planning his next moves over Arunachal Pradesh is a possibility that cannot be completely ruled out. In Ladakh 2020 when China made its moves to reimpose the 1959 claim line, it almost succeeded as it did gain a huge chunk of territory (1000 square kilometres as claimed by India’s most credible newspaper The Hindu in 2020). So, as China did succeed till some extent in capturing key border lands of India’s Ladakh region, the Chinese can put their complete focus on Arunachal Pradesh. As the agreement reached between India and China on 21 October 2024 for disengagement of Armies was attained for Ladakh (China backed Pakistan militarily in a very brazen manner during the recent India-Pakistan war), China did back down also because India did put up a credible border defence while strengthening that grid extensively since May 2020. So, Xi Jinping had to back off till some extent and have an agreement because he knew in a war he cannot repeat the results of 1962. In Arunachal Pradesh too India has made similar robust creation of border defences since 2020 but the problem also lies in the fact that with ouster of Sheikh Hasina (Prime Minister of Bangladesh till 5 August 2024), the eastern flank of India is vulnerable. As currently, Yunus who heads the government of Bangladesh, had made an anti-India speech (while Yunus was on an official visit in China) which was linked to India’s security in the east with the Siliguri Corridor (tiny land piece just north of Bangladesh) that connects India with its part of northeast. During war with Pakistan, India proved its missile prowess, in case of China it has to catch up because the Chinese have a dedicated Rocket Force and this is a gigantic inventory of conventional tipped missiles too in the form of ballistic missile, cruise missile and hypersonic missiles. India is deploying on borders the Pralay ballistic missile. This missile has a quasi-ballistic flight path and it does have Manoeuvrable Re-entry Vehicles (MaRV) in order to overcome ballistic missile defence. Pralay could be mounted with 350 to 700 kg high explosive preformed fragmentation conventional warhead. The range of Pralay is 150-500 kms, so it is a short-range ballistic missile. Pralay has a very good accuracy of 33 feet and it will be extremely useful for very deep strikes inside Tibet. So, it will be an effective war deterrent along with other assets of Army and Air Force.
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