Grabbing India’s land became a strategic disaster for China, for Jinping there is a well in front, a ditch behind.
Grabbing Indian land has become a strategic disaster for Chinese President Xi Jinping. In such a situation, Jinping faces the challenge of resolving the ongoing crisis in the Himalayas with India without losing. The ongoing Line of Actual Control (LAC) standoff between India and China is now about to enter its fifth year. In Ladakh alone, 100,000 soldiers of both the countries are deployed facing each other. The military standoff along the long Himalayan border between China and India may not be making international headlines these days, given the ongoing wars elsewhere in the world, but the danger of this confrontation returning to armed conflict cannot be ignored.
China is playing tricks by settling villages on the border
Brahma Chellaney, India’s top strategic expert, wrote in Nikkei Asia that China has settled massive numbers of people in newly militarized border villages, equivalent to artificial islands built in the South China Sea to serve as future military bases. Are being made. India’s Chicken Neck Corridor is under threat due to Chinese encroachment on Bhutan’s south-west border. Chicken Neck is now potentially within striking distance of China’s long-range conventional weapons. Despite facing some criticism domestically over Chinese encroachment, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has continued to try to end the crisis through talks.
Trade continues between India and China
Modi government has banned many Chinese apps. Apart from this, investments by some Chinese companies have also been stopped and Enforcement Directorate action has been initiated against other Chinese companies on alleged tax and foreign exchange violations. However, India has not imposed comprehensive sanctions against its northern neighbor. As a result, China’s annual trade surplus with India has been steadily increasing despite the border conflict. This is now larger than India’s annual defense expenditure.
Indian Army is many times more experienced than China
For the past four years, thousands of Chinese soldiers have been deployed in extremely harsh conditions along the Himalayan border. China relies heavily on PLA soldiers, while India has a special force accustomed to the region, considered the most experienced in mountain warfare in the world. If Xi Jinping somehow reaches an agreement with PM Modi on ending China’s territorial encroachment, he will have to face the question of why he initiated the aggression in the first place.
What is China afraid of?
However, the longer the standoff continues, the greater the risk that Beijing will make India a permanent enemy. This would be an event that would weigh heavily on China’s global and regional ambitions. Xi has already faced a reckoning over his failure to anticipate India’s strong military and strategic response, with the standoff bringing New Delhi closer to Washington.
