The agreement to disengage troops at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China, reached in Kazan on the sidelines of the 16th Annual BRICS Summit, is a commendable forward movement for ensuring tranquility along the borders. The two leaders’ first meeting in five years has given durable peace a chance after the deadly 2020 clash at Galwan in Eastern Ladakh. The disengagement agreement is also remarkable in more ways than one.
First and foremost, the bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping, which took place at Kazan, grabbed worldwide attention since international media was present in force at the summit. Further, certain legacy issues—Depsang and Demchok—that have defied attempts at solutions in 21 military commander-level talks since the Galwan incident have been finally dealt with.
The Eastern Ladakh agreement does indicate the possible start of an India-China attempt to rebuild a reciprocal relationship. In fact, an Al Jazeera report on the agreement dated 22 October 2024 was titled “How India and China pulled back from a border war—and why now.”
While the attention in India was naturally on the bilateral meeting, for the Russian supreme leader Vladimir Putin, BRICS was an all-important event. It has attracted top-rung leaders from 36 countries, including Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and UAE as first-time members. The UN Secretary-General also addressed the summit.
Putin certainly wanted cohesion among core BRICS members to be on display. An agreement between the two prime BRICS players at Kazan, could indeed be viewed as an indication of the growing solidarity of its members.
To recall some of the fundamental issues addressed in the disengagement agreement, it caters for coordinated patrolling by both sides in areas where they have been blocking each other. As a result, Indians will be able to patrol from the Depsang area and visit Patrolling Point (PP) 10 to PP 13, while the Chinese will be able to patrol the area of Burtse.
Patrols will be limited in strength, approximately 15 to 20 each. Such numbers will obviate major confrontations while allowing enough leeway to carry out their tasks.
Meanwhile, the other earmarked buffer zones on the north and south banks of Pangong Tso, Gogra and Hot Springs will remain, with no decision yet on resuming patrolling by either side in these areas.
It’s taken India four and a half years to restore the arrangements that were in place before the Galwan incident.
The Chinese motivation in 2020 was perhaps to test the Indian leadership’s resilience and defence capabilities. With the COVID-19 pandemic having spread globally, the Chinese may have bet that the situation would seriously limit India’s rapid response to its aggression.
Also, with global efforts focused on mitigating the effects of COVID-19, the Chinese may have banked on their perfidy, escaping greater scrutiny. However, India managed to mirror the Chinese deployment, swiftly inducting its additional formations and, at a stage, undertaking an aggressive advance astride the Kailash ranges to force the Chinese to reconsider their strategy along the LAC. The message the Indian manoeuvres delivered reflected both determination and capability to thwart Chinese designs.
It isn’t as if the Chinese have learnt a big lesson and consider the Line of Actual Control inviolable now. On the contrary, they have attempted incursions on a couple of occasions in the interim, the best coordinated being at Yangtse, in Arunachal Pradesh, in December 2022. The Chinese advanced with battalion-strength force but were driven back by Indian troops who had already occupied the dominating ridgeline.
Given the Chinese behaviour in the past, especially after the Galwan incident, the Chinese could well repeat their incursions across the LAC. For them, “border incidents are apparently tactical issues that need not affect the overall relation,” according to Nitin A. Gokhale, Editor-in-Chief, BharatShakti.
It is also interesting to note how the current thaw was initiated. The agreement at Kazan was preceded by India’s National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval meeting Wang Yi, Member of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Political Bureau and Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission. The NSA made it clear to the Chinese side that other aspects of the relationship could not move forward without a resolution of the Depsang and Demchok friction points.
Notwithstanding the agreement reached between the two countries, a huge trust deficit remains, mainly because of the Chinese actions in 2020, which violated all the existing agreements and protocols to manage the border.
The Indian government also had to consider the fact that Indian manufacturing, trade, and commerce are closely linked to Chinese inputs. The reality is that India cannot undertake a broad spectrum of measures to force China to negotiate without hurting its own productivity in multiple sectors.
However, India is in a somewhat unique situation, being a member of QUAD on one hand and that of BRICS and SCO on the other.
Despite QUAD’s repeated assertion that it’s not an anti-China alliance, the Chinese view it as exactly so. Similarly, the West views BRICS and SCO as organisations that are gnawing into their global dominance. India, on its part, asserts it’s guided by its national interests while advocating peaceful resolution of differences through dialogue.
The Chinese approach hereafter will depend on Indian military capabilities and the global geopolitical flux. Indian military capabilities have to be speeded up. China also has to deal with the rising animosity it faces among South China Sea countries. It must also prioritise its quest to grab Taiwan vis-à-vis barren mountains along the LAC. Both options assure no success.
Further, with the US elections just around the bend, India and China may need to navigate some fresh tides and eddies.
Brig SK Chatterji (Retd)
