By Haider Abbas
Until only months back India faced a ‘two-front war’ threat from China-Pakistan, breathing down India’s neck, but the geo-political turns, in recent past has turned the same tide against China-where-in now it faces a US-India conglomerate in Himachal Pradesh and a US-Japan combination over Taiwan. The latest escalation to the Indo-China situation, since the Doklam 76 days ‘face-off’ of 2017, is about India-US joint military drills in Himachal Pradesh, which has made China to accuse India of violating the 1993 and 1996 Line of Actual Control (LAC) agreements.
The voices from China claim, over Vajra Prahar Indo-US Special Forces exercises, an annual practice, that India is breaking border-pacts, which is to affect regional stability. The next of the series is likely to be held in October in Uttarakhand at about 100 kms from China’s border. India has dismissed China’s stand. It has not been that very late when India was skeptical over facing over a two-front war with China and Pakistan, and the whole last around three years have gone with an eyeball to eyeball snarls between China and India, particularly after India’s PM Narendra Modi had abrogated the Special Status accorded to Jammu-Kashmir & Ladakh on August 5, 2019, which made Pakistan and China to carry the Kashmir issue into United Nations Security Council(UNSC) for thrice, in the next one year, had reported TheWire on August 6, 2020.
But now, since the Russian-Ukraine February war, and with a Pro-Russian government of Imran Khan in Pakistan gone, there is a dramatic change into world-polity, as now a Pro-US Shahbaz Sharif government, under the thumb of US, cannot fathom to make a coalition with China against India, no matter how much the ‘jugular-vein’ has been Kashmir for Pakistan existence. China as a matter of fact had staked its claim inside Ladakh and in Arunachal Pradesh, Himanchal Pradesh as well as in Uttarakhand, which India is now to deter with US in its backyard. .
Closely on the anvil are the Indo-US exercises to be organized at Auli in Uttarakhand in the October, and the cries from China are now resonating in world media that , as ‘ China strongly opposed the war games scheduled between India and the US near the disputed Sino-India border in October, saying it’s an interference in the bilateral boundary issue and a violation of agreements between New Delhi and Beijing that no military drill will be held near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto border between the two countries, ’ reported The Hindustan Times on August 25.
Ironically, this China’s accusatory posture comes in the wake of India’s consistent view that China, in the past two years has been relentlessly amassing troops, developing infrastructure etc alongside India’s borders which too were all in stark violations of the various agreements, apart from over two-dozen round table talks which otherwise have yielded no results. China insists that there would be no third-party intervention (read US) near the de-facto borders between India and China. In 2020 China and India had a Galwan Valley ( Ladakh) skirmish in which 20 soldiers from India and four soldiers from China’s side lost their lives.
There is a clear signal that China is jittery over India and US moving close to its borders as Japan too, as a part of QUAD, is to throw its weight behind US which will make India more confident to take-up to any challenge from China. China recently had been triggered to start large scale military drills around Taiwan straits, and had warned US of ‘grave consequences’, after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had visited Taiwan last month, and now, it order to trigger China more, there is a growing chorus that Tibetan exiled leader Dalai Lama is also slated to visit Taiwan. In India too, there are demands, from within the ruling BJP party, that Dalai Lama be accorded with the highest civilian award of India-the Bharat Ratna. China considers Tibet and Taiwan as part of it while both are against China’s regime.
What however is now getting well debated, as The Japan Times article on August 18, 2020 shows, are the prospects of a two-front war on China, as in case there is any trigger point in the Himalayas with India, then surely US is to up the ante in Taiwan, where Japan also is to chip-into, hence, China, with no more likely help expected from Pakistan, is to be left alone to fend against this new evolving camaraderie. India too, in a move to be independent of Russia, voted against Russia and in favour of Ukrainian President V Zelensky, on August 25, during a procedural vote, to address the UNSC, where as expected, there was a verbal spar between Zelensky and the Russian representative.
The Indian stand against Russia can be understood, as a part of India’s strategy to hold-close with US, as it came immediately after the maiden visit of Avril Dancia Haines, the head of US National Intelligence to India on August 21, as US interests are at stake in Taiwan and India’s in its Himalayas against the common adversary-China. India is now firmly ahead with US to contain China globally, where increasingly China is getting isolated and its all weather-ally Pakistan is also no more in its stride.
How will India finally contain China, as China is a growing power, and is locked-with US on practically all fronts, is what is now to unfold. India no doubt is now all-time-high, and it may not surprise that India starts to wrestle-out Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) from Pakistan side of Kashmir, as India was ready to target Pakistan, by January 2020, when the then Indian Army Chief MM Naravane had declared for it. It was then later, on the advice of China that Pakistan had made G-B its fifth province, as China-Pakistan Economic Corridor passes through it. CPEC is what neither India nor US want to see succeed.
Let’s see as to what happens next.
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The writer is a former UP State Information Commissioner and writes on politics.