From Mountain to Sea
Figure 1 The border between India and China has been the site of numerous clashes between the two nuclear giants in recent years, echoing tensions in the SCS.
About the Author
Dr. Kumari Mansi is the Deputy Director of the Indo-Pacific Studies Center, an assistant professor at Amity University Haryana, India and is currently researching India-Taiwan relations on an ROC Ministry of Education fellowship.
Introduction
In a deteriorating geopolitical climate marked by two ongoing wars—Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas—with the potential for a third—an invasion of Taiwan by China—India finds itself in a tight spot in the Himalayas. Despite 20 rounds of Corps Commander-level talks, the disengagement at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China remains incomplete, and it seems highly unlikely that the border will be demilitarized to restore the pre-April 2020 status quo ante. What makes matters worse is the diplomatic stalemate between these two nuclear neighbors, which has the potential to plunge the region into armed conflict.
The 3,488 km of unfenced Sino-Indian border has become the most dangerous continental flashpoint in the Indo-Pacific region since the 2020 incident in the Galwan Valley.
Likewise, the South China Sea (SCS) is already considered a dangerous maritime flashpoint, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the primary antagonist seeking to claim almost the entire body of water, enclosing it within its nine-dash-line (now a ten-dash line). Beijing continues to increase its military presence in the sea: The incidents of harassment by the PRC’s maritime militia have ratcheted up in recent years as Beijing’s new self-confidence is leading to more prominent assertiveness. This confidence is derived from the realization that asymmetric power distribution in the region is broadly in China’s favor, and hence Beijing can flex its military muscle, intimidate and infringe upon its neighbors, and simply defy international law with seeming impunity.
This article argues that the playbook employed by China isn’t limited to the maritime aspects of the SCS but is also evident in the continental realm, particularly along the LAC with India in the Himalayas. A closer look at the developments of recent years highlights a clear parallel between the maritime and continental domains of the Indo-Pacific region vis-à-vis Chinese belligerence.
The main element of the PRC’s playbook includes, first and foremost, the land reclamation that it has accomplished through artificial island-building through the dredging of the present structures in the SCS. According to a RAND-produced research primer published in 2022, China has constructed artificial features amounting to 3,200 acres in the SCS. Second, these disputed islands have been heavily militarized. As noted by the US Department of Defense in 2015, China has built airstrips capable of accommodating large transport aircraft, along with significant military installations with advanced antiaccess/area denial (A2/AD) equipment on several of these features.
Third, China’s use of gray-zone operations to confront its regional rivals over competing claims in the strategically important and resource-rich waterway of the SCS has ramped up, in the use of the maritime militia and other examples of the civilian government nexus. As an operational and strategic concept, such operations help Beijing to create uncertainty, ambiguity, and plausible deniability of state involvement in such operations. Furthermore, it keeps the contest below the threshold of military engagement, while at the same time keeping the confrontation at a level high enough to irritate and harass its opponents.
Finally, Beijing has been in breach of international law since it chose to defy the international court ruling, by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which was awarded in favor of the Philippines in 2016. The court dismissed PRC claims of sovereignty over the SCS, especially as those claims were predicated on historical arguments, rather than international law. In particular, the court found that the nine-dash line (to which Beijing has recently added another dash) was without legal foundation. The PRC still uses this imaginary line to delineate what it considers the furthest extent of its territory, using lawfare (or legal warfare) to press its claims.
Figure 2 A combined-arms regiment under the PLA Xinjiang Military Command operate an anti-aircraft artillery system to attack mock targets during a live-fire test.
Leveraging the courts
Lawfare is the process of leveraging existing legal regimes to constrain enemies, confuse legal precedent, and maximize claims, according to Doug Livermore. Writing in the Georgetown Security Studies Review, Livermore points out how lawfare (along with public opinion warfare and psychological warfare) is a key component of the theory and practice of China’s “three warfares” doctrine being applied in the SCS. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) places significant importance on legitimization of its claims and has expended substantial effort in researching and articulating the historical basis to its SCS claims. In fact, China explicitly uses legal warfare in its response to be contested situations where it is increasingly using grey zone operations as a strategy to reinforce its claims. The PRC has formalized and adopted this lawfare doctrine when it revised the “Political Work Guidelines of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)” in 2003 and has applied it to the extent no other country has.
Figure 3: Artillerymen with the PLA Xinjiang Military Command operate an anti-aircraft artillery system to attack mock targets during a live-fire test.
The typical Chinese strategies and approaches in the SCS—land reclamation, militarization, confrontation using gray-zone tactics, and lawfare—also resonate in the Himalayas. In terms of territorial claims and land reclamation, the thousands of kilometers of shared border between India and China—the LAC—is generally divided into three sections. The western section involves Ladakh on the Indian side and Tibet and Xinjiang on the Chinese side. The middle section includes Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh on the Indian side and Tibet on the Chinese side. Finally, the eastern part comprises Arunachal Pradesh on the Indian side, which China claims and refers to as “South Tibet,” alongside Tibet on the Chinese side. The western and eastern sections are the most contested areas along the LAC, having witnessed border clashes and a heightened military presence since 2020. According to media reports, Beijing has constructed 628 villages in 112 Tibetan border towns—part of the CCP’s euphemistically named “Plan for the Construction of Well-off Villages in the Border Areas of the Tibet Autonomous Region.” According to India’s Foreign Ministry, one of these villages lies 4.5 km inside Indian territory, in the eastern section of the LAC. The CCP has relocated nearly 250,000 Tibetans to these villages since 2017, the policy serving as a tactic to reinforce and legitimize China’s territorial assertions. The PLA strategy in the Himalayas is akin to that deployed in the SCS, using a combination of hybrid and salami-slicing tactics. One report revealed that, as of January, India had lost access to 26 of its 65 patrolling points between Chumar and the Karakoram Pass, effectively conceding territory to China. Beijing is creating facts on the ground by building villages and resettling people along the LAC, while at the same time using its salami-slicing approach to gradually and incrementally change ground realities in its favor for strategic gains.
Figure 4 Indian army soldiers and their US counterparts share information about vehicles and weapons systems at Exercise Yudh Abhyas at the Babina Indian army base
The villages so constructed by Beijing are well equipped with dual-use infrastructure like roads, housing, schools, police stations and even 5G connectivity. Furthermore, PLA military build-up near the LAC has doubled since 2017 to include air bases, heliports, and air-defense sites. In the western section, China is constructing a major highway, the G695, due to be completed by 2035. This highway will connect Tibet and Xinjiang and will pass within 15 kms of the LAC, where forces from both sides are deployed. The construction is set to span the entirety of the contested Aksai Chin region, extending from Pangong Tso Lake to the Galwan Valley, where the CCP has been planning for a substantial and protracted military deployment. Furthermore, the PRC government announced plans to build a second bridge on Pangong Tso lake, around 20 km from the LAC. The aim is to connect both sides of the lake, which would significantly reduce the deployment time for PLA troops and armored vehicles to mobilize to the area in the event of a conflict. These constructions not only provide a means by which China is creating facts on the ground to advance its territorial control, but they also reflect the Chinese policy of civilian-military fusion. Like the fishing boats pressed into service as a maritime militia in the SCS, Tibetan herdsmen are deployed as plainclothes security operatives to work alongside PLA and CCP agents in border patrol teams. This group is responsible for conducting monthly patrols and reporting back to PLA and CCP units with intelligence about local conditions and routes.
Figure 5 A helicopter attached to an army aviation brigade under the PLA Xizang Military Command flies in a mountainous area during reconnaissance training.
In terms of lawfare, China has issued several lists since 2017 renaming the localities in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. This past April, Beijing published a list renaming eleven places in Arunachal, with the regime’s mouthpiece, the Global Times declaring it “a legitimate move and China’s sovereign right.” This followed the publication of China’s “standard map 2023” which continues to show the entire Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin within its territory. The CCP’s Land Borders Law, passed in 2021, is yet another example of lawfare, where the vague language used can be deployed to strengthen and legitimize the disputed claims. This law provides a domestic legal pretext to advance the PRC’s contested claims along the LAC, and it provides significant discretion for use of force to respond to border crossings. It also prohibits border construction without permission, which may include both sides of the
LAC (mainly those claimed by the PRC). It further adds to the potential for hostilities between India and China, as India ramps up its border infrastructure building to counter China.
Rules-based order
While India is not a SCS littoral state, it is deeply committed to upholding the rules-based order and ensuring freedom of navigation in the SCS, which constitutes a complex geopolitical space. At approximately 3.6 million square kilometers in size, it is larger than the area of India and carries almost a third of the world’s shipping. About 55 percent of India’s trade with other Indo-Pacific countries passes through the SCS, which is a critical junction for navigation between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean via the Malacca Strait. About 80 percent of China’s crude oil imports are shipped through this route. The sea lines of communication in the SCS are vital for China’s energy security, just as they are for India’s interests in this region.
At the same time, the SCS is an extension of India’s terrestrial disputes with China, as both countries are vying for influence in the same region. While China tries to react to India’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific by keeping it busy along the LAC, India tries to deny China any leverage by working closely with all the major players in the region and further abroad, including the United States, Japan, Australia, South Korea, France, and the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The SCS forms part of India’s extended neighborhood under its Act East Policy, and recent posturing from New Delhi signals a subtle change in its traditional neutral stance vis-à-vis the SCS, toward perhaps a more proactive role in the SCS within the broader framework of its Indo-Pacific strategy. The revised stance on the international court of arbitration, for example, comes as India increases its security engagement with countries in Southeast Asia, mainly the Philippines and Vietnam.
This can also be seen in the wake of the increased tensions between India and China at the Himalayan border. In December 2021, troops from the two sides clashed along the border in Arunachal Pradesh, in Tawang district. Twenty rounds of the India-China Corps Commander Level Meeting have been conducted so far, but the two sides have not been able to restore the pre-2020 status quo—a demand from the Indian side that China vehemently ignores. It’s a stalemate, both diplomatically and militarily, as India maintains that bilateral relations cannot be normalized until the situation at the border returns to normal.
Figure 6 An Indian Army soldier assigned to the 31st Armored Division fires a javelin missile as part of Exercise Yudh Abhyas with US forces.
Chinese aggression in the SCS and the Himalayas in recent years must be viewed as a by-product of an enhanced sense of comprehensive national power in Beijing, which is fueling its self-perception to consolidate its status as a global power and reshape the existing rules-based international order according to the CCP’s whims and fancies. India is only too aware of this power differential, and hence its goal is to counter the Chinese playbook in its neighbhood by recalibrating its foreign policy and enabling New Delhi to work closely with major players in the Indo-Pacific region. Benign containment, rather than overt confrontation, is the way forward.
This article was first published in Strategic Vision vol, 12, No 59 (December 2023)