Deploying theatrics, hyperbole and implied threats are part of standard Chinese diplomacy, reflecting an authoritarian state. For a structurally insecure regime maintaining national positions, aspirations and narratives requires consistency of pre-planned belligerence, manufactured fears and indoctrination to support the imagined state of affairs.
Facilitating this sovereign effort is the economic success of China that has fuelled dreams of the 21st century as the Chinese century. This also legitimises its questionable international relationships with countries with dubious track records like Pakistan or North Korea, in its quest to realise its widely believed ‘Chinese Dream’.
Therefore, checkmating potential competition from countries like India by blocking its entry into NSG or its rightful permanent seat in the UNSC, tactically supporting terrorists like Hafiz Saeed or even keeping the Sino-Indian border ‘active’, is part of a calibrated game-plan to keep India on its toes.
China regularly invokes its conveniently assumed and often manufactured ‘history’ to buttress its claims of sovereignty. Last year, the International Court of Justice in The Hague had adjudicated in favour of Philippines that China had “no historical rights”, as claimed by Beijing, via its creative interpretation of its ‘nine-dash line’ approach in the South China Sea arbitration case.
Similarly Vietnam has called the bluff on the disputed Paracel and Spratly Islands, which the Chinese readily trace back to its Ming dynasty (overlooking subsequent treaties). The latest stand-off involving the tri-junction of India-Bhutan-China at Doklam, is yet again conveniently cherry-picked from pages of history – citing the ostensible convention between China and Britain relating to Sikkim and Tibet (in 1890).
Amidst these ongoing disputes and expected differences of history, was a loaded statement that was too clever by half – the spokesperson of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Col Wu Qian, suggested, “Indian army could learn from historical lessons,” an unmistakable allusion to the 1962 China-India war. Such classic Chinese one-upmanship hides as much as it suggests: the reality of 2017 is that the nuclear power status of both countries brings its own strategic equanimity.
Unlike China or Pakistan, where armed forces command an extra-constitutional position, the defence forces in India are proudly apolitical and serve as the sword-arm of the nation, at the behest of the democratically elected dispensation of the day. Structurally, this often results in inadequate appreciation of the security imperatives, investments and strategic planning (as exemplified in the 1962 war). Yet this insulation from governance and mass politics (unlike China and Pakistan) has afforded unmatched professionalism, potency and efficacy to the Indian armed forces that have since repeatedly overcome the 1962 experience against multiple challenges, including those emanating from China.
Couched between the drive to Lahore in 1965 and the brilliant dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971, are the lesser known exploits of Nathu La and Cho La clashes with China in 1967. This limited ‘war’ resulted in an estimated 400 Chinese casualties as against around 70 for India – clearly the “historical lessons” of 1962 were not forgotten by the still numerically and materially inferior Indian defence forces in 1967, when they defeated Chinese forces. The exemplary military leadership of Lt General Sagat Singh, the steel and resolve of infantry battalions like 18 Rajput, 2 Grenadiers, 7/11 Gorkha, etc had indeed defied the conventional wisdom and rewritten history for posterity.
Like any other defence force, the PLA too has its own share of history that it needs to internalise and introspect on, from the disastrous performance in the Korean War (1950-53) that resulted in 4,00,000 confirmed fatalities and over 2,00,000 missing PLA soldiers, to the first, second and third ‘Taiwan Strait Crisis’, where the numerically overwhelming PLA’s efforts to “liberate” Taiwan came a cropper.
On the contrary, the Indian armed forces have routinely proved themselves in the multiple insurgencies, besides external involvements like Maldives, IPKF, etc besides delivering Kargil.
Perhaps unknown to the PLA spokesperson, the Indian armed forces don’t disown ‘history’, on the contrary they internalise celebrations and tribulations equally. Battles are studied rigorously and dispassionately, sand models and war games are not an exercise in hagiographic glory.
In that context the Indian army chief’s statement that India is fully ready for a two and a half front war is not idle sabre rattling, but a cold fact that needs to be appreciated without any expansionist import implied – because neither is it the grain of the institution to overstep, nor is it the history of India to disrespect its own or anyone else’s sovereignty.
