For more than 20 years the West ignored China’s militarisation of the South China Sea. Until, that is, it was too late. Now, after being artificially expanded and built out with sand, the islands of this crucial maritime space are dotted with Chinese missile systems and runways. The region’s smaller nations, who also lay claim to sections of this sea, can only protest in vain.
Will the Free World learn from the mistakes of history? Beijing is now trying to redraw the map across the Himalayas, most recently in Arunachal Pradesh, a territory in North-eastern India that China claims as ‘South Tibet’.
Last week, Chinese and Indian troops clashed in the Tawang area of the region. While both sides quickly disengaged, the incident suggests that all is not well along the Indo-Chinese border, poorly demarcated along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). More concerning still is the size of the Chinese presence. Reportedly numbering 600 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel, this has led longstanding Indian border watchers to speculate that such incursions are forming an integral part of Beijing’s approach to New Delhi going forward.
Undated footage from 2021 of a previous clash in Arunachal Pradesh which emerged shortly after the latest skirmish encapsulates the way in which this is a struggle for control over territory. Although both sides have modern armies and nuclear weapons, they engaged each other man-to-man in a pushing and shoving showdown. The PLA pressed forward, shields in hand, like a Roman phalanx, while Indian troops batted them away with whatever they could muster (in this case, thick wooden sticks).
The scene is reminiscent of events two years ago along the western portion of the LAC at the Galwan Valley. Here Indian and Chinese soldiers bludgeoned one another with their fists and rocks. Unlike the recent standoff, this hand-to-hand combat resulted in the death of around 20 Indian soldiers. The PLA is estimated to have suffered similar fatalities.
Beijing has demonstrated its belief in the old expression: possession is nine-tenths of the law
It is natural to focus on these clashes – particularly Galwan, given it was the first loss of life along the border since 1975. However, stepping back to look at the larger picture, peace along this mountain range appears even more fragile if you look at all of China’s encroachments across the region, especially the small and seemingly innocuous ones.
For one thing, these stand-offs appear to be far more regular than the Indian government would have the world believe. While, no doubt, New Delhi wishes to broadcast the challenges it faces from its northern neighbour, it also has its population to reassure. Suppose Narendra Modi and his nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government failed to uphold the country’s territorial integrity. Indian voters would be justified then in asking what purpose they serve (it would be like having a Conservative government unable to keep immigration numbers and taxes low).
One senior Indian army officer recently admitted that face-offs with the PLA in Arunachal Pradesh have become more frequent over the past two years, now occurring as often as two or three times a month. Yet, he said, the Indian Army is instructed from on high to keep quiet about these incidents. He speculated this is because ‘the BJP wants to play down the crisis with China’.
But Chinese actions in Arunachal Pradesh are also going beyond military manoeuvring. Beijing is weaponising nomadic herders by sending them deep into Indian territory to establish permanent structures such as stables. It may not sound too shocking, but this is the thin edge of a potentially very thick wedge, as Bhutan’s experience can testify.
In the mid-1990s, Chinese Communist party (CCP) officials from the misleadingly named Tibet Autonomous Region began encouraging Tibetan nomads to settle in Bhutan’s northern valley of Beyul. What started as a minor dispute about nomadic grazing rights has expanded into a more significant problem for the Bhutanese government. In 2016, Beijing began building roads in Beyal and constructing a communication station. Since then, a new village called Gyalaphug has sprung up, with a population of between one to two hundred people, alongside a small hydropower station, two CCP administrative centres, a disaster relief warehouse, and a series of security outposts.
Last year, for the first time in the history of the China-Bhutan border dispute, China claimed 740 square kilometres of territory covering east Bhutan’s Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary. Such an action is undoubtedly designed to force Bhutan to concede strategically important land in the west of the country, near the Doklam plateau. Should this coercion fail to force negotiations into a conclusion, Beijing has a backup plan. It is also building villages in the west, with various military infrastructures, from defensive fighting positions to helicopter landing pads, to accompany them.
From Beyul to the rest of Bhutan to the South China Sea, Beijing has incrementally cast aside international rules and demonstrated its belief in the old expression: possession is nine-tenths of the law. While it may have gotten away with this in Bhutan and the smaller nations of South East Asia, India is unlikely to capitulate to this revisionism of China’s borders.
India’s foreign minister confirmed that, in response to the events in Arunachal Pradesh, the Indian Army has just beefed up its presence there. Meanwhile, Washington has expressed solidarity with New Delhi. The question now, then, is: will the rest of the West follow suit or will they continue to turn a blind eye?
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