Monthly Archives: August 2018

The proposed tunnel in India is going to be very important strategically as it will provide year-long connectivity between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh

और सैम साहब ने खुद ही ब्रीफ़ किया…..

• 1971 भारत युद्ध जीत चुका था, जनरल मानेक शॉ ढाका में थे। आदेश दिया कि पागी को बुलवाओ, डिनर आज उसके साथ करूँगा ! हेलिकॉप्टर भेजा गया। हेलिकॉप्टर पर सवार होते समय पागी की एक थैली नीचे रह गई, जिसे उठाने के लिए हेलिकॉप्टर वापस उतारा गया था। अधिकारियों ने नियमानुसार हेलिकॉप्टर में रखने से पहले थैली खोल कर देखी तो दंग रह गए, क्योंकि उसमें दो रोटी, प्याज और बेसन का एक पकवान (गाठिया) भर था। डिनर में एक रोटी सैम साहब ने खाई और दूसरी पागी ने।

• उत्तर गुजरात के सुईगांव अंतरराष्ट्रीय सीमा क्षेत्र की एक बॉर्डर पोस्ट को रणछोड़दास पोस्ट नाम दिया गया। यह पहली बार हुआ कि किसी आम आदमी के नाम पर सेना की कोई पोस्ट हो साथ ही उनकी मूर्ति भी लगाई गई।

पागी यानी ‘मार्गदर्शक’, वो व्यक्ति जो रेगिस्तान में रास्ता दिखाए । ‘रणछोड़दास रबारी’ को जनरल सैम मानिक शॉ इसी नाम से बुलाते थे।

• गुजरात के बनासकांठा ज़िले के पाकिस्तान सीमा से सटे गाँव पेथापुर गथड़ों के थे रणछोडदास। भेड़ बकरी व ऊँट पालन का काम करते थे। जीवन में बदलाव तब आया जब उन्हें 58 वर्ष की आयु में बनासकांठा के पुलिस अधीक्षक वनराज सिंह झाला ने उन्हें पुलिस के मार्गदर्शक के रूप में रख लिया।

• हुनर इतना कि ऊँट के पैरों के निशान देख कर बता देते थे कि उस पर कितने आदमी सवार हैं। इंसानी पैरों के निशान देख कर वजन से लेकर उम्र तक का अंदाज़ा लगा लेते थे। कितने देर पहले का निशान है और कितनी दूर तक गया होगा सब एकदम सटीक आंकलन जैसे कोई कम्प्यूटर गणना कर रहा हो।

• 1965 युद्ध की शुरुआत में पाकिस्तान सेना ने भारत के गुजरात में कच्छ सीमा स्थित विधकोट पर कब्ज़ा कर लिया, इस मुठभेड़ में लगभग 100 भारतीय सैनिक शहीद ही गये थे और भारतीय सेना की एक 10 हजार सैनिकों वाली टुकड़ी को तीन दिन में छारकोट पहुँचना जरूरी था। तब ज़रूरत पड़ी थी पहली बार रणछोडदास पागी की ! रेगिस्तानी रास्तों पर अपनी पकड़ की बदौलत उन्होंने सेना को तय समय से 12 घंटे पहले मंज़िल तक पहुँचा दिया था । सेना के मार्गदर्शन के लिए उन्हें सैम साहब ने खुद चुना था और सेना में एक विशेष पद सृजित किया गया था ‘पागी’ याने पग अथवा पैरों का जानकार।

• भारतीय सीमा में छिपे 1200 पाकिस्तानी सैनिकों की लोकेशन और अनुमानित संख्या सिर्फ़ उनके पदचिह्नों से पता कर भारतीय सेना को बता दी थी, और इतना काफ़ी था भारतीय सेना के लिए वो मोर्चा फतेह करने के लिए।

• 1971 युद्ध में सेना के मार्गदर्शन के साथ साथ अग्रिम मोर्चे तक गोला बारूद पहुँचवाना भी पागी के काम का हिस्सा था। पाकिस्तान के पालीनगर शहर पर जो भारतीय तिरंगा फहरा था उस जीत में पागी की भूमिका अहम थी। सैम साब ने स्वयं ३०० रूपय का नक़द पुरस्कार अपनी जेब से दिया था।

• पागी को तीन सम्मान भी मिले 65 व 71 युद्ध में उनके योगदान के लिए – संग्राम पदक, पुलिस पदक व समर सेवा पदक !

• 27 जून 2008 को सैम मानिक शॉ की मृत्यु हुई और 2009 में पागी ने भी सेना से ‘स्वैच्छिक सेवानिवृत्ति’ ले ली। तब पागी की उम्र 108 वर्ष थी ! जी हाँ आपने सही पढ़ा….. 108 वर्ष की उम्र में ‘स्वैच्छिक सेवानिवृत्ति’ ! सन् 2013 में 112 वर्ष की आयु में पागी का निधन हो गया

• अब भी वे गुजराती लोकगीतों का हिस्सा हैं। उनकी शौर्य गाथाएँ युगों तक गाई जाएंगी। अपनी देशभक्ति, वीरता, बहादुरी, त्याग, समर्पण और शालीनता के कारण भारतीय सैन्य इतिहास में हमेशा के लिए अमर हो गए रणछोड़दास रबारी यानि हमारे ‘पागी’।

Challenges on the of J&K border

Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK)

Illegal occupation Aksai Chin

China’s forceful occupation of Tibet

Pakistan’s gift of Shaksam Valley to China

Strategic Importance of Siachin Glacier

China’s financial interests in this region…

China’s fear…

China and Pakistan’s Military Game Plan…

Conclusion….

In 1839, China declared war on drugs by impounding over 1,000 tons of opium from British dealers in Canton (modern Guangzhou)

One of the myths that China has sedulously perpetrated about its current pugnaciousness with its neighbours is the ‘century of humiliation’ that it ostensibly endured from the commencement of the First Opium War in 1839 till the establishment of the communist state in 1949.

Xi Jinping, while speaking at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, in 2017 bemoaned the fact that Ancient China, once a great empire, was plumbed into the dimness of domestic turmoil by foreign aggression. Its prosperous people were reduced to penury, torn asunder, and compelled to subsist in destitution and despondency for over 100 years.

A bit of history may just be in order. China’s Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) actively engaged the outside world.  It dispatched huge maritime fleets on expeditions across Asia and right down to the coast of Africa.

However, Ming China later retreated into seclusion for two centuries. Consequently, it missed the great intellectual renaissance and industrialisation that swept Europe and later the America’s.

In 1839, China declared war on drugs by impounding over 1,000 tons of opium from British dealers in Canton (modern Guangzhou). The British drug cartels pressured London into demanding that Beijing recompense them the full street value of these narcotics.

The Chinese emperor naturally snubbed this egregious extortion attempt. In 1840, British warships laid many Chinese coastal towns to waste. British troops slaughtered even non-combatants along the coastline. Thus, commenced the First Opium War.

British traders were also flustered as a grave trade imbalance subsisted between the Qing China and Great Britain due to the latter’s astronomical demands for tea, porcelain, and silk. Tea import alone amounted to over 23 million pounds in 1800.

The annual tab was 3.6 million pounds paid in silver. To offset this imbalance, the British started pushing opium into China that they sourced from India. With their defeat in the First Opium War, the Chinese were compelled to cede Hong Kong to the British and open five other treaty ports to international trade.

They soon had to offer the same terms to the other western imperialists.
During the Second Opium War in 1860, the British chastened the Chinese by raising Beijing’s Summer Palace to the ground.

The ruthless pillage of the palace that contained a gargantuan number of priceless artifacts was to psychologically bludgeon the Chinese into submission.

The decades that followed seared the Chinese ego further. China lost one third of of its territory to invasions  and tens of millions Chinese perished in internal conflict. The second World War left another thirty-five million Chinese dead.

Many scholars hold that the Chinese Communist Party has cynically perpetuated the ‘shame’ narrative to subserve its own ends.

However, the fact is that this ignominy was painfully felt even by the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, who inscribed the words ‘avenge humiliation’ on every page of his diary for twenty long years.

Therefore, a failure to discern how central the spectre of humiliation is to the whole idea of modern China would entail making strategic and tactical miscalculations.

However, no country can base its present on historical injustices and humiliations, howsoever traumatic they might have been. If China suffered one hundred years of humiliation at the hands of Western imperialists, India experienced 1300 years of dishonour at the hands of foreign invaders, beginning with Muhammad bin Qasim in 705 AD and ending with the British in 1947.

Can or should this become India’s raison d’être in its dealings with its neighbours? The answer is no. India has not even been vociferous in demanding reparations from the British for 200 years of rapaciousness if you take the Battle of Plassey in 1957 as the inflection point.

China needs to come out of its persecution complex. There is another problem of how China perceives itself vis-à-vis India. From 1911 to 1949, China went through a murderous civil war and a brutal conflict with the Japanese before the ‘Communist Shangri-La’ could be established.

Subsequently, it went through the murderous experiments of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural revolution.

Conversely, the establishment of a liberal democracy in India was a relatively less bloody experience. It perhaps makes Chinese strategic planners wrongly assume that they are more resilient as a people in terms of their ability to take punishment as compared to us.

It often makes me wonder what would have been the trajectory of our liberation movement if our overlords were the Japanese rather than the British. Imperial Japan was the most tyrannical power in the first 45 years of the 20th century before two atom bombs tamed them. However, we shall leave that for another day.

Returning to the present: Are there any lessons that we need to draw from China’s self-flagellation narrative to fine tune our border strategy? The foremost is that even a weak China did not except the British overtures in 1899 when C M McDonald attempted to delineate India’s northern and China’s western border respectively.

In 1913, they refused to sign off on the McMahon Line at the Simla Conference. From the Chinese point of view, the borders have remained fuzzy for over a century now. They have the patience to play the long game. We must be tenacious enough to go toe to toe and nose to nose.

In 1993, an attempt was made in the Sino-Indian Peace and Tranquility agreement to establish the concept of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Its non-delineation on the map and non-demarcation on the ground, however, has rendered it virtually useless today.

How then would this impasse substantively end even if the Corps Commander-level talks are temporarily able to arrive at a modus vivendi? It would only recede when the Chinese are made to realize by a concert of Asian powers that there will be no Middle Kingdom in the 21st Century. China cannot rise alone.

The author is a lawyer, Member of Parliament and former Union information and broadcasting minister. The views expressed are personal. Twitter handle @manishtewari

NIMO/LEH:In a quaint little village with tall poplars swinging gently in the summer bloom against the bare lofty mountains, 1962 war veteran Tsering Tashi giggles with exuberance over the thought that Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited his village just a week ago.

“I did not know that he, the Prime Minister of India, was right here in my village, talking to soldiers. Got to know after he left, ” Tashi laughs.

Tashi quickly adds, “His visit to Nimo was really required. It has boosted the morale of our soldiers. He could not have gone to the forward posts but it was very good that he gave a speech here. It uplifted the spirits of the soldiers. I think the Army is happy too.”

The Prime Minister’s visit to Nimo, after India lost 20 soldiers, including a Colonel on June 15 during a violent clash with Chinese troops, has a deep significance for the 80-year-old Tashi.

Even 58 years after India’s defeat in the 1962 war with China, the regret and grief has not faded from the Havildar’s voice as he recalls how India lost the war and territory to the Chinese.

Describing the then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai’s approach to India, prior to the 1962 war, “Muh mein Ram Ram, bhagal mein chhuri” (stabbing someone in the back), Tashi drifts into the memory lane when he had joined the Army in 1959 as a young soldier.

“The war began at night around 1 a.m. (October 20, 1962). Both India and China used to have military posts near DBO (Daulat Beg Oldi), one of the world’s highest airstrip at an altitude of over 16, 600 feet.

“We used to patrol on foot; the Chinese on horses. Our vehicles could not reach our posts but theirs did. They had outnumbered us. We were very few.

“There were only two units of Army at the time — one was at Chushul and the other at DBO. So we airlifted our soldiers of Jat regiment from Pathankot, direct to the DBO airstrip, ” Tashi recalls.

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had assaulted Indian military posts in Chip Chap valley, Galwan valley and Pangong lake and other numerous small posts. The Chip Chap river flows to the south of Daulat Beg Oldi from east to west.

In October, winter is in full swing in Ladakh, and extremely harsh at high altitude areas like DBO. The temperature dips to freezing point.

“Our troops got no time to acclimatize but they chose to fight. Their hands froze; they lost their limbs. So we had to retreat, ” the war veteran says with a lump in his throat. He repeatedly mentions how the soldiers died in the cold.

As his wrinkles droop at the memory of that night, he remembers that the Army lost another 20 to 30 men at the nearby post. “They (People’s Liberation Army) took some of our soldiers prisoners of war too. One of them, however, escaped; don’t know how he came back, ” he says.

Around 2 a.m., Tashi went from DBO in a Shaktiman truck to bring more soldiers for support.

“I got 30 to 40 soldiers. But our vehicle got stuck in the snow in a frozen stream. Perhaps, our lives got saved because our vehicle got stuck. Once, we were able to move, it was already morning. Since we could see because of the morning light, our commandant was able to move us up the ridge a little bit. I was the guide. But by that time we got there, the PLA troops had occupied our side. So we had to withdraw, ” the ex-serviceman says.

Tashi remembers the martyrdom of Major Shaitan Singh, of the Kumaon Regiment, who had been instrumental in holding on to the Rezang La Ridge, which was important to prevent the airstrip from falling into the Chinese hands.

The 1962 war veteran, who retired from the Ladakh Scouts regiment of the Indian Army in 1975, however, brightens up at the mention of the 1971 war with Pakistan. “That is when we were able to regain Turtuk, Dhothang, Tyakshi and Chalunka of Chorbat valley, ” he says with a certain smugness.

By that time, he adds smilingly, “We had got new arms and weapons, the strength of our units had been hugely increased. We took their top strategic posts; both Pakistani Army and civilians had to flee.”

China, Tashi believes, cannot defeat India now.

“India is very strong. During our time, India was like dust on the ground but now its touching the skies. Now whatever our soldiers ask for, it is immediately fulfilled on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.”

New Delhi: The Indian Air Force has acquired the capability to fly its MiG-29 fighters at night from its Leh base in the future, at a time when India and China are taking steps towards disengagement at the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.

Sources in the IAF said the process of night-flying, which has already begun, would be a “game-changer” because training by night will strengthen its capability to conduct full-spectrum operations at the Line of Actual Control on short notice, given Leh’s proximity to the LAC.

The new capability is fuelled by upgrades to the MiG-29, including advanced avionics, and faster and more extensive training of IAF pilots among other factors.

Leh is not a permanent fighter base, but detachments of aircraft are sent there on a regular basis.

An IAF officer said the MiG-29s are carrying out extensive, round-the-clock flying from Leh, which will also help the force validate geospatial data to enhance its capabilities in night operations.

Fighters such as the Sukhoi Su-30s conduct night operations in the Leh and Ladakh regions, but they come from other bases that have night capabilities. Apache and Chinook helicopters also carry out night-time operations.

Also read: How IAF has played a critical role in the India-China stand-off at Ladakh

Significance of the new capability

Senior IAF officers explained that in modern warfare, most operations are carried out at night, for two reasons.

“The first reason is that there are chances of the enemy being comparatively less alert during the night. Secondly, there is less chance of visual detection of the aircraft, which helps in surprising the enemy,” an IAF officer said.

An aircraft can be detected visually and by radars. Flying at night cuts down the visual spectrum of detection.

A second officer explained that Chinese airfields in the LAC region near Ladakh are at a higher altitude than Leh, and thus, their load carrying capacity is lower, while fighters operating from Leh airbase can have a higher load-carrying capacity.

“This gives India a strategic advantage too, both in day and night flying,” the second officer said.

A 2013 policy brief written by Air Marshal V.K. Bhatia on ‘Air Power Across the Himalayas: A Military Appreciation of Indian and Chinese Air Forces’ noted that if the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) was to operate from its well-established bases at Khotan, Kashgar, Golmud etc., it would have to operate from much greater distances to reach the IAF airfields, resulting in reduced payloads and possible requirement of in-flight refuelling etc.

Bhatia’s brief stated that the IAF could easily reach its airfield targets in Tibet from its main bases strung around the entire Indo-Tibetan boundary without any payload or other penalties.

However, an NDTV report said China had initiated massive construction activity at the high altitude Ngari Gunsa air base — a dual-use airport located at 14,022 feet altitude and serving the town of Shiquanhe, about 200 km from the Pangong lake.

Night flying in the mountains

IAF officers also explained why night flying is difficult in the mountains, as high altitude and rarefied air limit manoeuvrability and capability of an aircraft.

“The undulating and hazardous terrain and rapidly-changing weather conditions at such high altitude are fraught with risks,” an officer explained, adding that the “depth perception” is not there while flying at night. “Also, there is a delayed engine response at high altitudes.”

The officer added: “Take-off, landing and flying in the hills at night would require a combination of both visual flight rules and instrument flight rules, which is a skill set acquired by pilots with extensive training. This has been happening since the IAF has been preparing for a contingency.”

Also read: China ‘deploys’ S-400s, IAF has war gamed the scenario multiple times for air ops

Agenda for the corps commanders meeting will be finalised after India-China Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination meet likely to be held Friday.

14 Corps commander Lieutenant General Harinder Singh and Major General Lin Liu, commander of the South Xinjiang Military District, will take stock of the first round of disengagement, which was completed from Patrol Point (PP) 17 in the Galwan Valley and the Hot Spring Area this Thursday.

“There are no Chinese soldiers now in the Indian side of the Galwan Valley, PP 15 and PP 17 and 17 A in the Hot Spring area. The Chinese have moved back by 1.5-2 km in these areas and are now across into their side of the LAC,” a source in the defence establishment said.

There will also be ground verification of the disengagement process by both sides to make sure the terms of the deal have been met.

Also read: Modi, Xi are strong leaders, but for lasting peace at the LAC both need to make compromises

WMCC meeting tomorrow

Sources said a meeting of the India-China Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination (WMCC) is likely to be held Friday. Following this, the agenda for next week’s corps commander-level talks will be decided.

“There will be a Corps Commander level meeting next week. The points of discussion will be refined based on the WMCC talks on Friday,” a source said

ThePrint had earlier reported that the WMCC meeting will take place virtually between Naveen Srivastava, joint secretary (East Asia), and Wu Jianghao, director general of the Department of Boundary & Oceanic Affairs, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As reported Monday, the disengagement process has been mutual so far, with India also pulling back from the contentious face-off points even though it was the Chinese that had intruded. This has resulted in China being closer to the Line of Actual Control than India.

India moved back a “little less” than China since the Army was anyway in their own territory, sources had said.

Also read: Military talks with the Chinese must not wear India down. Plan B should be ready

Terms of disengagement

The two sides have agreed that for now there will be no patrolling in the areas they pulled back from. Both have also agreed to maintain an equal number of camps and men at various distances from the earlier face-off point, though the Army remained tight-lipped on what the distance was and how many camps/soldiers were being allowed.

“This is not fixed. Let’s assume if the Chinese have to go back by 2 kms and India by 1 km, the tent can be placed only where there is space. It can’t be placed exactly where the 1 kms ends,” a source explained.

The source said that during the earlier Corps Commanders level talks — held on 22 and 30 June — the Chinese had claimed they were in the process of disengagement and the appearance of the Indian patrol team at their location on 15 June caused the delay. The quarrel over this was what had led to the violent face-off by the Shyok river, resulting in 20 soldiers being killed.

To avoid a repeat of such a situation, both sides have agreed to not carry out any patrolling for the time being.

India normally patrols up to PP 14 in Galwan Valley, and PP 15, 17 and 17A in the Hot Spring area.

There have, however, been inputs that the Chinese were challenging the patrolling of PP 11, 12 and 13 in the Depsang area by Indian soldiers.

Meanwhile, as reported Wednesday, China’s presence has “thinned down” at Finger 4 in the Pangong Lake area since the start of this week, though the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues to dominate the position.

In Depsang Plains, India and China have both increased deployment, though. The PLA deployed additional tanks and moved them slightly forward from their usual positions, but are still away from the LAC.

Also read: Sumdorong Chu, Ladakh-like India-China face-off which took 9 yrs to end but without violence

Statement also underlines ‘communication gap’ on India-China stand-off from the govt and the military, urges national policy and strategy on neighbours.

The statement, sent to President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Bipin Rawat and the three service chiefs on 2 July, said the Galwan incident could only have happened because of failure at one or more levels in the political, civil and military establishments, especially in continuous intelligence acquisition and dissemination.

“While we accept that failures can happen in any system, in the current instance, either our intelligence system was found wanting, or the intelligence which was obtained did not reach the field units in time,” the veterans stated. “We therefore urge that our nation’s intelligence system be urgently revamped.”

Air Marshal K.C. ‘Nanda’ Cariappa (retd), one of the signatories to the statement, told ThePrint that it was the brainchild of former Navy chief Admiral L. Ramdas (retd).

“I went through the letter and we signed it out of our love for the armed forces and the country,” Cariappa said.

The Galwan incident, Cariappa added, has seen a lot of “twisting of facts”, prompting the veterans to come out with the statement.

‘Nanda’ Cariappa is the son of Field Marshal K. M. Cariappa, the first Indian chief of the Indian Army, and was a prisoner of war in Pakistan in the 1965 war.

Also read: India, China corps commanders to meet next week, will focus on next round of disengagement

Communication gap

The veterans’ statement also highlighted the communication gap from the government and the military during the stand-off with China at the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, and said a formal statement should have been issued by either soon after the Galwan clash, which would have put rumours and guesswork to rest.

“It would have prevented China from taking advantage of contradictions between ambiguous or inaccurate verbal statements needing later clarifications,” the veterans stated, adding that in the event of such future situations, only formal statements be issued to ensure that the Indian public is not confused and the “aggressor nation” does not gain political advantage.

The statement further read that a fact-finding body needs to be immediately instituted regarding the “intrusions, incursions and encroachments by China” in Aksai Chin (Depsang, Galwan, Pangong Tso etc.), and elsewhere along India’s long border with it.

“We request that the report of this fact-finding body be tabled in the Lok Sabha with time-bound framework,” it said.

Also read: India, China look to build on Doval-Wang dialogue, eye ‘long-term settlement plan’ for LAC

National policy and strategy

The veterans went on to say that India urgently needs a national policy and strategy on neighbourhood management, featuring all of India’s immediate and more distant neighbours, especially China and Pakistan.

“Formulation of such national policy and strategy has been neglected by successive governments,” they said.

This should be immediately initiated to safely guide India’s political, military, bureaucratic and diplomatic establishments towards “stable relations with our neighbours, small and large, friendly or inimical”.

“Having an overarching national policy and strategy will reduce casualties among our troops, which occurred due to the heightened risk of being reactive to conflict situations created by China or Pakistan,” the veterans said.

Report on 1962 war be made public

The statement also sought the release of the Henderson Brooks-Bhagat report on the 1962 India-China war into public domain, so that the “military-bureaucratic-political system and the public can learn from the mistakes of the past”.

“We urge that the government should take very early steps towards concluding boundary agreements with all our neighbours, but especially China and Pakistan, by employing all available diplomatic means and pressures, together with the power of India’s membership position for 2021-22 in the UN Security Council,” it said.

“This does not in any manner imply reduction in deployment of our armed forces or let up in our intelligence systems, but it will enable us to better attend to development for our people within our country,” it added.

The veterans’ statement also said proactive steps should be taken to use non-electoral political tools of consultation, discussion and negotiation to resolve all domestic disputes and situations, instead of coercion and force. This, it said, would strengthen the nation’s integrity and resolve to face any and all aggressive designs by inimical and aggressive neighbours.

“These steps will enable state and central governments to devote more attention and resources towards development of our people within our country,” it said.

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The decision to include Australia in the drills — the first time all members of the regional grouping known as the Quad will be engaged at a military level — comes as Beijing and New Delhi are caught up in their worst border tensions in four decades. The exercise will bring together the navies of India, Japan, Australia and the U.S. in the Bay of Bengal at the end of the year, according to senior Indian officials who asked not to be identified, citing rules.

New Delhi is expected to clear the way next week for a formal invitation to Australia following final government clearance and consultations with the U.S. and Japan, the officials said.

“The timing of India potentially letting Australia into Malabar would be especially significant at this juncture,” said Derek Grossman, researcher at the Washington-based RAND Corporation who worked in the U.S. intelligence community for more than a decade. “It would send a significant message to China that the Quad — U.S., Australia, Japan, and India — are de facto conducting joint naval exercises, even if not technically conducted under the auspices of a Quad event.”

China has been uncomfortable with the informal coalition of four democracies, which was first formed in 2004 to help nations in the Indo-Pacific after the tsunami and revived in 2017. Post the coronavirus pandemic, the grouping has been coordinating efforts every month with Vietnam, South Korea and New Zealand.

Indian Navy Spokesperson Commander Vivek Madhawal declined to comment.

A spokesperson for Australia’s defense department said in an emailed statement on Friday that while the nation was yet to receive an invitation to Exercise Malabar, “Australia sees value in participating in quadrilateral defense activities in order to increase interoperability and advance our collective interests in a free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.”

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Strengthening Ties

While the Malabar exercises between U.S. and Indian navies were instituted in 1992, they have been more regular since 2004 with other Asian nations joining in the annual event. China had objected to the only other time Australia participated in the drills along with India, Japan, U.S. and Singapore in 2007.

India’s inclusion of Australia this year follows a defense agreement and upgrading ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The Mutual Logistics support agreement announced in May by Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Scott Morrison allows access to each other’s bases and ports. India has a similar agreement with the U.S.

Canberra’s inclusion in the games was “only a matter of time” given improving defense and economic ties, according to Biren Nanda, former Indian High Commissioner to Australia and senior fellow at Delhi Policy Group. Australia’s merchandise trade with India for the year ended June 2019 was A$21.1 billion ($14.5 billion), according to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

“There’s no direct relation between inviting Australia and what’s happening at the Sino-Indian border,” said Nanda in a phone interview. “This was a natural progression. Yet the question will be raised: how would the Chinese regard this? And they will react negatively. Just like they had done earlier.”

Weaponized Quad

China objected to Japan’s inclusion in the U.S-India annual Malabar event in 2015 with the then foreign ministry spokesperson Hong Lei warning “relevant countries” to not “provoke confrontation and create tension” in the region. Five years later, with an assertive China pushing neighbors across the Asian seas, Nanda expects a similar response.

Yet, there may be more acceptance to the idea of “like-minded democracies that seek to keep the Indo-Pacific free and open” amid India’s rapidly souring on China ties, purely out of frustration, said Rajeswari Pillai Rajagoplan, distinguished fellow at New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation and author of ‘Clashing Titans: Military Strategy and Insecurity Among Asian Great Powers.’

Although India and China are now in the process of disengaging along their 3,488 kilometer (2,167 mile) unmarked boundary in the Himalayas after high-level military and diplomatic talks, the deadly clashes that followed the months-long standoff in the Galwan valley was a blow to relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

“Especially after Galwan, there’s a growing realization in New Delhi’s elite circles that its increasingly difficult to trust China. They have broken more than four decades of agreements. Good trade ties are no guarantee of peace,” said Rajagoplan. “They have time and again tried to interfere in other nations’ foreign policy. But there’s an agreement in India that China should not have a say in who our friends are.”

With Washington indicating its willingness to back the region through an increased force deployment in Asia, the Malabar exercises may take on more importance.

“The Quad has always been a security platform but didn’t have a military context to it,” said Rajagopalan. “The Malabar exercises may give it just that thanks to China upping its ante and threatening the region’s security.”- Bloomberg

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