Debate I Doklam Standoff Could End Amicably By October

While the Chinese media may speculate on a small-scale military operation, tempers are expected to cool by October.

(With Chinese media speculating that the Doklam standoff may result in a small-scale military operation, The Quint debates whether India and China will engage militarily in coming few weeks. This is the View. You may like to read the Counterview by Abhijit Bhattacharyya here.)

The million-dollar question uppermost in the minds of all India-China watchers, not only in the two countries but also in other parts of the world, is whether the two nuclear-armed Asian giants will enter into some sort of military conflict over the Doklam standoff continuing since 16 June.

Hopefully, the crisis will blow over by October as a face-saving attempt by both sides without a bullet being fired from either, with India and China willing to withdraw troops and restore the status quo. Why October? There’s no special significance for this except that by that time, winter would have set in over the high-altitude Doklam on the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet trijunction, making it difficult for troops of the two sides to stay put.

Thus, neither side would be in a position to claim brownie points and Mother Nature would provide the ideal face-saver.

Also Read: Army Moves Troops of Sukna-Based 33 Corps to India-China Border

Will Doklam Standoff Escalate?

• Doklam crisis likely to claim one ‘bilateral’ casualty in the form of the seventh joint army exercise between India and China due in October
  
• India will participate in BRICS summit, scheduled on 2 September, unless PM Modi’s visit is jeopardised by Chinese aggression
  
• It’s perhaps India’s silence that has enraged China to the extent that it’s using state-run media to build pressure
  
• The objective of threat being issued through Chinese media is to force India to withdraw its troops unilaterally from Doklam
  
• China will avoid military engagement as such a move will imperil its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative
  

Fallout of Doklam Standoff

However, the Doklam crisis is most likely to claim at least one casualty in the bilateral context: the seventh edition of their joint army exercises, due in October. This event is most unlikely to be held this year, squarely because of the Doklam standoff.

But then, it’s a small price to pay if the crisis ends amicably, though the meaningfulness of such an exercise is highly questionable given the acute trust deficit and high degree of mutual suspicion accentuating the hostility between India and China.

Yet, a more important event coming up in the India-China context, though a multilateral one, may not get derailed: the BRICS summit that China is going to host (3-5 September).

As of now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to leave for China on 2 September to attend the BRICS summit unless it is jeopardised by a provocative Chinese act.

Also Read: ‘Learnt Lessons From 1962 China War, Forces Are Prepared’: Jaitley

Situation Remains Tense

As of now, the situation in Doklam remains tense but under control and India continues to maintain the same level of troops – between 300 and 350, with brigade-level troops numbering around 3,000 on standby and deployed close to the Doklam theater.

This is despite China’s official claims that its own troops’ strength in Doklam has been brought down to 40 from 400 and the Indian troops’ strength has been brought down to about 150 from 400. Significantly, India has kept mum on the Chinese official statement, though sources have maintained that there has been no reduction in its troops in the area.

It’s perhaps India’s silence that has enraged China to the extent that it has used its media – often employed by Beijing as an extended arm of its foreign office – to come up with provocative news commentary that China may soon resort to military means to forcibly evacuate Indian soldiers from Doklam.

Last week, China’s Global Times published an article by Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, which said that China will not allow the military standoff in Doklam to last for too long and there may be a small-scale military operation to expel Indian troops within two weeks.

Hu also wrote that the “Chinese side will inform the Indian foreign ministry before its operation”, though he did not elaborate on how he had arrived at the “two-week” time frame.

Also Read: Dalai Lama Terms Doklam Standoff With China As “Not Very Serious”

Intention Behind Chinese Threat

Though the Indian armed forces are leaving nothing to chance and preparing for the worst-case scenario of a military conflict, the recent Chinese threat is meant to bamboozle India’s political and military leadership.

The prime objective of this threat conveyed through the Chinese media is to force India to unilaterally withdraw its troops from Doklam thus conveying Beijing’s military and political clout. However, the unexpectedly strong stand taken by the Modi government has rattled China and put our neighbour in a fix.

While China may say in response to New Delhi’s assertion that it’s not the India of 1962 by countering that it’s not the China of 1962 either, Beijing knows in its heart of hearts that it’s not the world of 1962 and in this era, it’s not easy for the two countries to go to war – and that too when the countries in question are nuclear-armed and as big as China and India.

Also Read: China Asks India: What If We Enter Kalapani or Kashmir?

‘Small-Scale’ Military Operation Not Possible

Moreover, China cannot ignore the fact that a “small-scale” military operation against Indian troops may get out of hand and degenerate into a full-scale war. Such a scenario will be a lose-lose situation for China on two major counts.

• One, China has now become a “chatur Baniya” (clever trader) by rolling out its $90 billion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The entire diplomatic, political and economic initiative would go for a toss if yet another Sino-Indian war were to erupt.
• Two, China has its eyes on taking over leadership of the world – an objective which can hardly be achieved by waging war with a giant neighbour over border disputes!

That’s why China is flummoxed and using its state-owned media to threaten India of military retaliation while fully knowing the high price of such a misadventure.

The Modi government has done well to call China’s bluff and stand up to the muscle-flexing – something the Chinese has not experienced for a long time. India will do well to continue this strategy and exploit to the hilt China’s dilemma of being willing to strike but afraid to wound.

Also Read: View From Bhutan: Indian and Chinese Media Need to Calm Down

(Rajeev Sharma is a strategic analyst and columnist who tweets @Kishkindha. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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