China continues to gnaw at India's border. India must bolster its ability to repel the Chinese and advance their own border claims. And prepare for responding to a Chinese escalation when China's subliminal offensive is contested and thwarted.
India revealed that China tried to push the border in China's favor on December 9th:
Rajnath Singh, who addressed lawmakers in Parliament, said the Friday's encounter along the Tawang sector of eastern Arunachal Pradesh state started when Chinese troops “encroached into Indian territory” and “unilaterally tried to change the status quo” along the disputed border near the Yangtze River area.
Singh said no Indian soldiers were seriously hurt and troops from both sides withdrew from the area soon afterward. A statement from the Indian army on Monday said troops on both sides suffered minor injuries.
This is the part of a long-term Chinese strategy of crowding the border.
Can India build a military strong enough to defeat China? After brutal hand-to-hand combat on the disputed India-China border in 2020, India has sobered up about the China threat:
"Following Galwan, China after decades was perceived by the Indian public and policymakers as a clear and present challenge," says Dhruva Jaishankar, executive director of the Observer Research Foundation America, a think-tank. "There was a wider realisation that the military power of China could not be managed by diplomatic agreements alone, and would require India to take its own military and economic steps."
India redeployed 6 divisions from the Pakistan front to the border with China as a result. This marks a continuation of Pakistan's demotion as the pacing threat for India's military.
The threat to India is all across the common border, as the FT article notes:
Yet some analysts believe new clashes with China are likely, and not only in Ladakh. Analysts believe the risk is greatest in the far north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, where India’s troops are more thinly spread and its infrastructure less developed, and the entirety of which China considers part of Tibet and claims as its territory.
But the question of whether India can build a superior military isn't just a China-India equation. And the sub-equations of particular conflict scenarios are more important than the top-line balance.
One, China faces more potential enemies that occupy China's military power than India faces, notwithstanding the FT article's caution for India:
“The Chinese look at the US as their peer competitor,” says Joshi. “That is trouble for India, since the Chinese effort and resources being deployed to take on the US will give them a capability boost that India cannot hope to match.”
That is true enough narrowly. But the bigger picture is that China marks America as its peer competitor not for some abstract reason of promoting Chinese military power. But because the vast majority of China's power must face America and its allies in the western Pacific.
India has to worry about Pakistan. China has to worry about Vietnam, Taiwan, Australia, Indonesia, America, Japan, South Korea, and Russia. Oh, and its own subjects in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong.
This applies to China's superior nuclear arsenal. I imagine India has enough of a nuclear deterrent to keep China's nukes in their silos during a war:
India on Thursday successfully test-fired a long-range “Agni-5” intercontinental nuclear-capable ballistic missile, a government minister said, that is expected to strengthen its deterrence against long-time rival China.
Two, a Chinese invasion of India can't go far. First, Tibet isn't the best power projection platform. China can't mass a lot of its power on the border even if it could afford to ignore other potential enemies. And second, India can afford to reinforce because Pakistan is outclassed as an opponent. And because both India and Pakistan have nukes, decisive conventional gains are likely limited by the threat of escalation.
Assuming India builds up infrastructure there that for a long time was left insufficient as a deliberate policy to slow down Chinese advances into India. As China builds up the infrastructure on its side of the border, India has a lot to do to catch up.
Three, if China goes big even on the limited Himalayan front, India has a trump card at sea that will devastate China's economy. China's navy is superior to India's, but will have problems sustaining a fight in the Indian Ocean to keep sea trade routes open there. China can't afford to lose its seaborne trade for long.
And how much of China's naval power does it want to dispatch toward India when South Korea, Japan, America, Australia, and other countries loom over China's coast?
Indeed, with increased Indian ties to foes of China east of the Strait of Malacca, China may have problems reaching India's first line of defense holding the eastern entry to the Indian Ocean:
India is already building a screen at its Andaman and Nicobar island chain. But Chinese nuclear subs have other paths to reach Indian home waters. Holding the line east of the Malacca Strait line will reduce China's ability to exploit their capability to rain down anti-ship ballistic missiles on Indian ports and home waters.
The result is that India can focus much of their defense efforts on a harder small-scale border defense that resists China's small-scale grab-and-gab strategy, and actually returns the favor to make China pay a price for the tactic in a persistent subliminal war that matches China's aggression, secure in the knowledge that India can act at sea if China escalates on the border too much.
An important part of India holding the northern border (and supporting it's island line of defense at sea) is finally addressing India's longstanding desperate need for modern fighter aircraft. Quality will matter in this kind of low-level running subliminal war along the border. Especially if India has to fight small-but-intense Kargil Wars with China periodically.
The FT article notes that India's choice to prioritize building its own arms industry rather than purchasing arms is a handicap. That's kind of true. But the real problem is India's corrupt and slow-moving defense procurement bureaucracy that undermines domestic design and production as well as delays needed purchases from abroad. A prime example is that fighter plane purchase agony that pretends to be a procurement process.
The FT article notes:
For New Delhi, the objective at least in the short term is to avoid a confrontation that will expose the gulf in capabilities between China and India.
I'm not sure how much of a brake on India's actions that capabilities gulf is for India. India is far weaker than China. But India faces a far weaker Pakistan as a far smaller drain on its military power than China must cope with. Which means India can go toe-to-toe in the small scale subliminal border war that so far China has been winning.
UPDATE: This is downright silly:
With limited and manageable conflict in the Himalayas, the Chinese are testing the will of the United States to check China’s muscle flexing and the strength of burgeoning American partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, especially the one with India.
Jesus, people. Not everything is about America. China has been pushing against India for a long time--long before America and India started moving closer--with no relationship to America.
China's attacks on India are certainly an opportunity for America to help India defend its border and tighten our defense relationships further.
But China isn't testing America by attacking India. China is taking Indian territory and testing India.
However, this is gradually becoming a less valuable tool. As India expands its border infrastructure and strengthens its military, it will become increasingly difficult for China to achieve any significant military gains against India. The Yangtze clash is just one example of the changing dynamics on the Sino-Indian border.
Quite right, I think. China's superiority rested on India choosing not to harden their northern frontier. Which was a problem when Pakistan was the primary military threat to India.
NOTE: Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
