I strongly recommend Satoru Nagao’s brief post at the Hudson Institute, purporting to be advice on what India should be doing in the face of China’s provocations. I think it actually is suggesting what India should not be doing with a soupçon of U. S. and Japanese interest. Here’s the part which I think should impel some reflection:
The first similarity of note is China’s repeated disregard for international law when laying claim to new territory. In the South China Sea, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague rejected China’s claim to sovereignty over much of the South China Sea in 2016. Despite this, China continues to claim and occupy the area. In the East China Sea, China did not claim the Senkaku Islands before the 1970s. China’s attitude has since changed due to the potential existence of oil reserves in the East China Sea. Now, Chinese Coast Guard ships enter Japan’s territorial waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands and pursue Japanese fishing boats to claim sovereignty over this sea. The nonobservance of this international border further demonstrates China’s attitude of territorial entitlement and disrespect for international law. And China is expressing the same attitude at the India-China border. In this case, Dr Lobsang Sangay, the President of the Tibetan exile administration, expressed that the Dalai Lama considers the disputed territories of both Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh (along the LAC) to be a part of India. Thus, there is a high possibility that China’s claim to areas along the India-China border is legally baseless.
A second recurring facet of China’s behaviour is its exploitation of military power vacuums. For example, China occupied half of the Paracel Islands just after France withdrew from Indochina in the 1950s. In 1974, China expanded its presence to all of the Paracel Islands after the US withdrew from South Vietnam. Additionally, China occupied six features of the Spratly Islands after the Soviet Union decreased its military presence in Vietnam in 1988. Again in 1995, China laid claim to Mischief Reef after US troops withdrew from the Philippines.
I hesitate in daring to offer India advice. I think its situation is a difficult one. It is an enormously populous country, it probably is not too much to say that it is home to more people who are poor by just about any standard than there are in the entire balance of the world put together, at least a half billion. Obviously, economic development is much in India’s interest and, at least as things are framed right now, it is hard to see how China and India can prosper simultaneously.
China is cultivating a closer relationship with Pakistan, a country which many people in India consider a mortal enemy. Since the end of colonialism India has tried to steer a neutral path, first through official autarky and more recently through a sort of one-way autarky.
Both China and India are nuclear powers. Both have large, untested armies.
Dr. Nagao’s advice to India is to avoid helping China increase the size and power of its military. Sounds pretty prudent to me.
‘Dr. Nagao’s advice to India is to avoid helping China increase the size and power of its military.’
I see utterly no way for India to do that short of going to a full-fledged war over barren rocks which would spin way way out of control real fast or helping OMB crash China’s economy. Which also might not work, since tyrannies are relatively oblivious to the sufferings of their people but are usually very attentive to keeping their military fat and happy (and under strict control). The Middle Kingdom is gonna do what the Middle Kingdom does when they’re ascendant, threaten, bully, and encroach.
It is hard to understand China’s foreign aggressions, because it could get most or all of the local resources by trade, at essentially the same cost and with much better relations with its neighbors. It could even exploit their common history as victims of American, European, and Japanese colonialism. (Yes, we were in China, too, as well as the Philippines and Viet Nam.) Deng might have taken that path, but Xi seems to be more of an ideologue and nationalist. He might have to be to survive.
The relationship with India is more complicated, especially as the borders were never agreed on, changed in various eras, and reflect such historical curiosities as an independent Tibet. The blooger Moon of Alabama has a nice analysis of the problem. A big part is that the OBOR route from China to Gwadar passes close the the Line of Control in Kashmir between India and Pakistan. The route is of extreme strategic importance to China. Apparently enough to risk a war.
In any event, it would be a war we should stay out of.