Indian Defence Review

Year 2008 will be a special year. It is a leap year and for the first time in modern history, China will organize the Olympic Games. One remembers that in ancient Greece, this was a time for ‘Truce’ (or ‘Ekecheiria’). Established by a treaty in the 9th century BC, the Truce period witnessed athletes, along with artists and pilgrims, often with their entire families, travelling to attend or participate in the Olympic Games before returning in total safety to their respective countries.

Will the leadership in Beijing decide to follow the old tradition? Will this truce apply to the relations between India and China?

Sardar Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out in a letter to Nehru on December 6: “It seems your intention is to recognize China”¦my own feeling is that we do not stand to gain anything by giving a lead.”

Most observers will immediately retort, “But where is the need of truce? The relations have never been so cordial between the giant Asian nations!”

While this may be partially true, it is nevertheless worth having a closer look at some historic instances.

In India, the feeling that Sino-Indian relations are on the right track has always been present in diplomatic circles. Remember the last days of 1949, when India wanted to be the first non-communist nation to recognize Mao’s regime. There was nothing wrong with this principle, but why the hurry? Sardar Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out in a letter to Nehru on December 6: “It seems your intention is to recognize China…my own feeling is that we do not stand to gain anything by giving a lead.”1

The question was not if India should or should not ultimately recognise the Communist regime, but Delhi needed to get some clarifications from Mao’s government, particularly on the status of Tibet, before any Indian move. This had tremendous strategic implications for India.

Harishwar Dayal, the Political Officer in Sikkim had just come back from Lhasa with a specific request for arms and ammunitions from the Tibetan government. However, instead of waiting for the crucial clarifications, Delhi went ahead and officially recognised the People’s Republic on December 31, 1949.

The next morning a broadcast of the New China News Agency proclaimed: “the tasks for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for 1950 are to liberate Taiwan, Hainan and Tibet… Tibet is an integral part of China. Tibet has fallen under the influence of the imperialist.”

Why did Delhi acquiesce so easily to Maos diktat that the Indian routes4 to Central Asia be closed? India had been trading with Kashgar, Yarkand and Central Asia for a millennia.

This was addressed not only to the Western powers but also to India, as subsequent correspondence with Beijing showed. Lloyd Henderson, the US Ambassador to India probably read correctly the great haste of Nehru’s government. He wrote that Pannikar would not “allow the Tibet question further disturb [the] cordial relationship he hopes establish between Indian Government and Chinese Communists.”2 Even though Nehru thought that India should initiate diplomatic talks regarding the status of Tibet after recognizing the Chinese Communist Government, (in his own words, Nehru was “strongly in favour of continuance of Tibetan autonomy to the same extent as has been the case in the past”), nothing happened as India had already given her bargaining chip away.

This example shows that from the start, the most important feature of Indian diplomacy has been not to disturb the ‘cordial relations’ with China. As Henderson put it on another occasion, ‘nobody wants to rock the boat’.

A year later, Tibet was invaded. Delhi only regreted it!

Though the Communists became progressively more aggressive, the same policy continued during the following years. The constant harassment of the Indian Trade Agent in Western Tibet (Rudok) by the Chinese, undoubtedly linked with the work on the Tibet-Xinjiang highway is a case in point. Rudok, located midway between Lhasa and Kashgar was the last small town before entering the Aksai Chin in Ladakh. The presence of an Indian official there in the early fifties embarrassed the Chinese as they had started building a road on Indian soil. Did Nehru understand the implications of these incidents? In the end, Delhi agreed to recall her agent and to close down its Consulate in Kashgar.

Nehru explained: “…when these changes, revolutionary changes took place [in Sinkiang], it is perfectly true that the Chinese Government told us that they intended that they wanted to treat Sinkiang as a closed area.”3

Why did Delhi acquiesce so easily to Mao’s diktat that the Indian routes4 to Central Asia be closed? India had been trading with Kashgar, Yarkand and Central Asia for a millennia. Just because ‘revolutionary changes’ had occurred in China, the Government of India accepted the closure of its trade marts in Sinkiang and Western Tibet as a fait accompli.

In 1992 the Dalai Lama asked for an appointment with the Prime Minister for an unpublicised courtesy call. It had been done earlier with previous Prime Ministers. The R&AW advised the Prime Minister that it would be good to inform the Chinese about the meeting; the intelligence agency thought that the Chinese would greatly appreciate the transparency. Narasimha Rao accordingly wrote to Li Peng, the then Chinese Prime Minister.

The same fate befell on a small village/principality called Minsar, which was under the suzerainty of the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir. This principality located near Mount Kailash was supposed to provide the revenues to maintain the temples around the sacred mountain and holy lakes. Being inside the Tibetan territory, Nehru thought that India should renounce her ‘ownership’ as a gesture of goodwill, without counterpart.

Though the Chinese did not officially raise the question, this part of Indian territory was ‘offered’ to China without going through the requisite amendment of the Constitution.

The signature of the Panchsheel Agreement between India and China marked the tail-end of this policy. While the British expedition of 1904 had officialized Tibet as a separate entity, the Agreement put an end to its existence as a distinct nation. The Land of Snows became ‘Tibet’s Region of China’. The circle was closed with incalculable consequences for India and the entire Himalayan region.5

The preamble of the Agreement contains the Five Principles which formed the main pillar of India’s foreign policy for the next few years. They heralded the beginning of the Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai policy. The Agreement opened the door to the Chinese military control of the Roof of the World by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).This translated into building a network of roads and airstrips heading towards the Indian frontiers in NEFA, UP and Ladakh.

India never benefited from her ‘generosity’. On the contrary, she lost a peaceful and friendly neighbour, Tibet. Moreover, the idealistic Five Principles were never followed either in letter or in spirit by China. Chinese intrusions into Indian territory began hardly three months after the treaty was signed in June 1954.6

Another disastrous outcome of the signing of the agreement is the refusal by some of Nehru’s advisors to bargain for a proper delimitation of the border between Tibet and India, against the relinquishment of India’s rights in Tibet.7 These officials considered these advantages as an ‘imperialist’ heritage to be spurned by a newly independent India.

During the talks with Beijing between 1951 and 1954, K.M. Panikkar, the Indian ambassador to China and his colleagues, ‘cleverly’ tried to avoid bringing the border question to the table. Their reasoning was that if the Chinese did not consider the border to be an agreed issue, they would themselves bring it up for discussion. The Indian cleverness backfired, ending in a disaster for India. In his speech after the signature of the agreement, Zhou Enlai congratulated the negotiators for having solved all the matters ‘ripe for settlement.’

This obsession that “China is our friend” continued till October 1962. I was told by a senior Army officer who was on the Taghla Ridge on the fateful morning of October, as the Chinese were descending ‘like ants’ towards the Namkha Chu, that he was instructed by his GOC “not to worry, we are friends with the Chinese and our Defence Minister has received positive assurances from Marshall Chen Yi, his Chinese counterpart”.

Past is past, will say the optimist, but unfortunately the same pattern has a tendency to repeat itself. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to Beijing in June 2003 was said to have opened new vistas in the bilateral relations between the two countries. The main cause for rejoicing was the appointment two negotiators for the border issue between India and China.

First and foremost, if Sino-Indian relations have to change for the better (at least for India), the mindset of the diplomats and bureaucrats has to change. Endlessly repeating, “Chinese are our brothers” like in the fifties, or “Chinese are our friends”, or “we are in perfect harmony with China” does not lead anywhere.

Unfortunately once again, while we were being given to understand that the 50 year-old issue would soon be solved, reports came in that Chinese soldiers trespassed on Indian soil in Arunachal Pradesh. To make things worse, Beijing’s spokesperson declared that China did not acknowledge that the State of Arunachal Pradesh was a part of India. Had not India just established a new friendship with China?

It is not only South Block which is infected by the ‘China is our friend’ virus, it sometimes also contaminates the intelligence agencies. In his book The Kaoboys of the R&AW8, B. Raman recounts a telling story which I find extremely shocking. In 1992 the Dalai Lama asked for an appointment with the Prime Minister for an unpublicised courtesy call. It had been done earlier with previous Prime Ministers. The R&AW advised the Prime Minister that it would be good to inform the Chinese about the meeting; the intelligence agency thought that the Chinese would greatly appreciate the transparency. Narasimha Rao accordingly wrote to Li Peng, the then Chinese Prime Minister. Within a few hours, a strong protest came from Beijing. Rao was rightly upset by the agency’s advice and told them: “If you had expected that the Chinese would protest as you now claim, you should have told me about it and should not have advised me to send that message, which has provoked this reply.” Thereafter, the Prime Minister was hesitant to accept the R&AW’s advice in matters having a bearing on foreign affairs.

Even if all this could be considered as ‘old stuff’, the similarity between the building of the road network on the Tibetan plateau in the fifties and the construction of a railway line to Lhasa9 is ever present and is strategically and militarily worrisome for India’s security.

It is necessary here to point out some apparent changes in the military doctrine in China. A remarkable book, largely unnoticed in India except in specialized circles was published by the Literature and Arts Publishing House in Beijing a few years ago. Unrestricted Warfare was written by Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, two brilliant senior officers of the People’s Liberation Army.

Qiao and Wang’s started their fascinating research with the US’s success against Saddam Hussein’s army during the Gulf War of 1990-1991. Drawing lessons from this conflict, Unrestricted Warfare details how a nation like China, will be able to face a technologically advanced US army, overcome this advantage and eventually defeat the enemy.

This war manual came to the notice of the CIA after the September 11 attacks. The foreword mentions the authors’ “advocacy of a multitude of means, both military and particularly non-military, to strike at the United States during times of conflict.”

Blending the ancient martial arts theory and the knowledge of the high-tech era, the authors explain how the strong can be defeated by the weak through merciless unconventional methods: “the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden.”

They say: “Whether it be the intrusions of hackers, a major explosion at the World Trade Center, or a bombing attack by Bin Laden, all of these greatly exceed the frequency bandwidths understood by the American military… This is because they have never taken into consideration and have even refused to consider means that are contrary to tradition and to select measures of operation other than military means.”

…the USs success against Saddam Husseins army during the Gulf War of 1990-1991. Drawing lessons from this conflict, Unrestricted Warfare details how a nation like China, will be able to face a technologically advanced US army, overcome this advantage and eventually defeat the enemy.

The fact that the bombing of the WTC is mentioned resulted in US security agencies translating the book. A recent Chinese White Paper on Defense mentions also that: “Asymmetrical, non-contiguous and non-linear operations have become important patterns of operations.”

One chapter speaks of “Ten Thousand Methods Combined as One: Combinations That Transcend Boundaries”. It is the art of combining different elements of these various forms of warfare. What are these forms?

Terrorism is often mentioned, but it is just one of the many ways of unconventional warfare identified in Unrestricted Warfare. To cite a few others:

A concrete example is the weather satellite destroyed on January 11 by a medium-range ballistic missile. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman may have stated that “the test was not targeted against any country and does not pose a threat to any country,” but it is clear that this ultra-classified experiment was part of an unrestricted warfare scheme. The test obviously greatly worried the military circles in the US, as well as Russia and Japan.

Should it not worry Delhi? No, because “the Chinese are now our friends”.

More recently, despite the much-publicized “peaceful rise of China” policy, it has been reported that some hackers working for China’s military have attacked the German chancellery and the Pentagon’s computer networks.

According to Federal Computer Week, a technology trade publication, officers at the Norfolk Naval Network Warfare Command stated that attacks from China far exceeded those from elsewhere in “volume, proficiency and sophistication”. This sort of attack can only be part of “asymmetric warfare” tests.11

Peaceful Rise of China

The Chinese are fond of new slogans. Mao had “Let the Hundred Flowers Bloom, Let the Hundred Thoughts Flourish”, Deng “The Four Modernizations”, Jiang Zemin “The Three Represents”. Hu Jintao and his Fourth Generation colleagues coined a new one: “The Peaceful Rise of China”.

A few years ago, when George Fernandes, the former Defence Minister declared that “China is India’s enemy No 1″³, there was a hue and cry in Delhi. He had to eventually withdraw his remark. But he was correct in his assessment, for the simple reason that Pakistan is a failed State, (this grows clearer by the day), while China is not.

In April 2004, Xinhua News Agency explained: “The ‘Peaceful Rise’ notion indicates China has chosen an unprecedented development road different from one ever walked by other countries that rose in the last few centuries.”

During a speech in Hainan province in 2004, President Hu Jintao used the word ‘peace’ 11 times. He said that the ‘peaceful rise’ motto was a way to answer “the people who may be truly worried for genuine reasons and those who may just want to advocate ‘China threat’ for other motives.” Beijing estimated that it may take 40 or 50 years for China to reach the level of development of the United States, therefore its interest is to develop ‘peacefully’. In other words, development is modern China’s only concern.12

However, policies are not always in harmony with slogans in the Middle Kingdom and one of the most ominous developments for India has been the commissioning of a railway line from Golmund in Eastern Tibet (Qinghai province) to Lhasa.

The Railway to Lhasa

In February 2001, China’s Vice Minister of Railways, Sun Yongfu presented the project as a way to “promote the economic development of the Tibet Autonomous Region and to strengthen national defense.”

What does strengthening of national defenses mean?

A good indicator of this fascination with Pakistan is that out of the 13 RAW chiefs since 1968, only one was a China hand (the one who made Prime Minister Rao write to Li Peng).

The Official Report of the 1962 India-China War had commented on the November 22 Chinese unilateral cease-fire: “Strictly in military terms, it was an understandable and logical decision. As winter had already set, the Chinese would have found it extremely difficult to maintain the forces across the snow-bound Himalayan passes…The Chinese were apparently worried about the safety of their forces operating at the end of a tenuous line of communication.”

The fact that the Chinese lines of co-mmunication were extremely long and reinforcements had to come from Sichuan, Yunnan or Qinghai provinces made it practically impossible for the Liberation Army to sustain their advance. The limitations of the road network had become apparent. With the railway line, the situation has greatly changed today.

One of these worrisome changes is the demography on the high plateau. For the millennia, India had very close cultural and religious relations with the Tibetan people, it will be entirely different when a large Han majority settles in Tibet.

The railway makes it also easier to move, at short notice, a ballistic theater in case of a conflict. What was impossible by road due to the difficult terrain will not pose any serious problem by train. Recently, an article published in the Defense News13 in Taipei discussed the New Chinese Missiles at Delingha. The author asked: “Why is China improving its ballistic missile facility at central-north Delingha, and how important is the move?” It stated that according to the Nuclear Information Project (NIP) of the Federation of American Scientists: “Satellite photos displayed by Google Earth appear to indicate that launch pads for older Dong Feng-4 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are undergoing upgrades to fit them for new 10-meter DF-21 medium-range missiles.” It quotes Hans Kristensen, NIP project director: “This means the DF-21s would be able to hold at risk all of northern India, including New Delhi.”

But worse, with the new railway track, the DF-21 missiles can be shifted to the Lhasa region in a very short time, making the Indian cities 1100 km closer from the launching pads.

Water warfare

Another example of asymmetric warfare is the use of Tibet’s waters to threaten India’s security. One remembers that in 2004 an artificial lake was created on the Pareechu river (an affluent of the Sutlej) in Tibet. The official Chinese version was that it was due to seasonal landslides. The lake had 114 million cubic metres of water. It was 60 metres deep and had a total area of 230 hectares.

Himachal and Arunachal had witnessed similar flood havoc. The Tribune in Chandigarh had questioned the origin of the floods: “”¦the mystery of the flashfloods in the Sutlej “¦remains unresolved”¦ Experts are at a loss to understand where the huge mass of water came from.”

While the National Remote Sensing Agency in Hyderabad monitored the water body, a red alert was issued by the Himachal Government. Armed and paramilitary forces were put on war footing with thousands of human and animal lives under threat. The mega Nathpa Jhakri Project which employs more than 1000 people had to be closed.

During Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit in 2005, India and China decided to share hydrological information on the flow of the river Sutlej. But this does not remove the mistrust as the incident can occur again and there is no legal recourse for Delhi, since China never ratified the UN convention on non-navigable use of waters.

Already in 2000, Himachal and Arunachal had witnessed similar flood havoc. The Tribune in Chandigarh had questioned the origin of the floods: “…the mystery of the flashfloods in the Sutlej …remains unresolved… Experts are at a loss to understand where the huge mass of water came from.” Imagine a 50-ft high wall of water descending into the gorges of Kinnaur in Himachal Pradesh! In a few hours, more than 100 persons died, 120 km of a strategic highway (Chini sector) was washed away and 98 bridges destroyed.

A year later, the weekly India Today commented: “While the satellite images remain classified, officials of the Ministry of Water Resource indicate that these pictures show the presence of huge water bodies or lakes upstream in Sutlej and Siang river basins before the flash floods took place. However, these lakes disappeared soon after the disaster struck Indian territory. This probably means that the Chinese had breached these water bodies.”

It sure looks like ‘asymmetric warfare’!

Incursions?

Another prickly issue are the constant infiltrations in Arunachal Pradesh and even sometimes in the UP sector. In May 2007, Tawang was again in the news when Arunachal MP Kiren Rijiju alleged that the Chinese had intruded up to 20 km in this sector. Though it was denied by the Home Minister Shivraj Patil, the doubt remained. The Army played the ‘friendship’14 card: addressing mediapersons, Brigadier Sanjay Kulkarni said no such move by the Chinese had been reported since 1986 and that “perfect harmony exists between the two nations”. Well, ‘perfect harmony’ is not a proof that incursions are not possible as we have seen earlier. To interpret China’s actions (and reactions) with an Indian mindset has led to disasters in the past.

Some Conclusions

First and foremost, if Sino-Indian relations have to change for the better (at least for India), the mindset of the diplomats and bureaucrats has to change. Endlessly repeating, “Chinese are our brothers” like in the fifties, or “Chinese are our friends”, or “we are in perfect harmony with China” does not lead anywhere. Despite all the claims, does China really care for India’s friendship? In fact, it is irrelevant, Beijing has just geared itself for the worst scenario. Delhi should do the same. India may even gain some respectability in the process. Let us not forget that in the past, the Communist leaders have shown only contempt for weak-kneed attitudes.

With Vajpayees visit to China in 2003, Delhi has decided to engage China, particularly by initiating negotiations on the border issue. There is nothing wrong with “˜engagement, though it is doubtful that a solution fair to India can be found in the border dispute through negotiations.

A few years ago, when George Fernandes, the former Defence Minister declared that “China is India’s enemy No 1″, there was a hue and cry in Delhi. He had to eventually withdraw his remark. But he was correct in his assessment, for the simple reason that Pakistan is a failed State, (this grows clearer by the day), while China is not. The Middle Kingdom is by far the most successful economy in the world and despite the current ‘peaceful rise’ campaign, Beijing does not take any chance for the future.

A second stumbling block is India’s obsession with Pakistan. The day this fixation is out of the Indian leaders’ mind, a great step will be done towards a clearer strategic reading of the region. A good indicator of this fascination with Pakistan is that out of the 13 RAW chiefs since 1968, only one was a China hand (the one who made Prime Minister Rao write to Li Peng).

It has to be re-emphasized again and again that China and India are two different nations and to equate them or analyze their actions or behaviour with the same yardstick can only lead to erroneous analysis. The main difference is obviously that India is the largest democracy in the world, while China is still a totalitarian regime.15 The Communist Party still rules supreme over all the organs of the State and particularly the PLA. Today in China decisions are left to a nomemklatura of Party hierarchy without any accountability towards the people of China and the rest of the world. As we have seen, this has its advantage,16 but in the long run, it makes the State extremely shaky and prone to what the Middle Kingdom’s Emperors used to call ‘chaos’.

With Vajpayee’s visit to China in 2003, Delhi has decided to engage China, particularly by initiating negotiations on the border issue. There is nothing wrong with ‘engagement’, though it is doubtful that a solution fair to India can be found in the border dispute through negotiations.17 Instead of investing energy in trying to sort out the Aksai Chin imbroglio, why not press the Chinese into agreeing to open further border posts for trade and pilgrims. Demchok or the Karakoram Pass in Ladakh come to mind. This would help the millennia-old trade between the subcontinent and Central Asia to restart. Bumla in Arunachal could also be added to the list.

If Beijing is sincere in its ‘friendship’, what is wrong in having local traders (and later on, general public) visit each others as a first stage?18

Before his visit to China in May, Gen. J.J. Singh, the COAS had agreed that both sides could hold joint exercises in the Chengdu military region which oversees most of the Indo-Tibet border. At that time, Singh had declared that “both armies are interested in expanding military-to-military ties.”

Later on, the Ministry of Defence mentioned “the engagement and mutual confidence building mechanism by seeking to hold periodic joint military training exercises between the two armies”

The exercises are not likely to greatly increase the trust between the two nations, but here again there is no harm in knowing each other better if it does not hamper the preparedness of Indian defence forces.

Today, it is irrelevant if China is a friend or a foe; India needs to act as friend, though being prepared for the worst. History cannot and should not be forgotten.

In 1960, when the tension between India and Pakistan was high, the two nations found the wisdom and the courage to sign the Indus Water Treaty. It may not be an ideal document, but at least it has the merit of existing. Why can’t India and China sign a similar comprehensive treaty regarding the Tibet’s waters today?

A small step forward was made in September 2006, with the announcement that India was to build 27 new roads along its 3,225-kilometer border with China over the next six years. This plan to develop infrastructure in the remote frontier areas was expected to cost some 900 crore  rupees.

However, it is unfortunate that when the 1150 km railway to Lhasa took hardly three years to be completed, the Indian projects are constantly delayed.19 Last month, the Lok Sabha was informed that “Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand follow J&K in the number of border road projects delayed due to a lack of clearances from the Environment Ministry.” It is the same for Arunachal! The BRO officials have another excuse, “the limited period of time in carrying out the construction work, since most of the areas covered by snow were also responsible.” Did the Chinese engineers not encounter any snow on the Tibetan high plateau?

Today, it is irrelevant if China is a friend or a foe; India needs to act as friend, though being prepared for the worst. History cannot and should not be forgotten.

A last question: is India ready for an asymmetric warfare? Here again, it is probably a question of change in mindset.

Notes

1. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (later SWJN), Series II, Vol. 14 (1), (New Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, 1992), p. 516.
2. Foreign Relations of the United States (Vol. IX, Year 1949, The Far East: China), 893.00 Tibet/12-3049: Telegram, The Ambassador in India (Henderson) to the Secretary of State, New Delhi, December 30, 1949.
3. SWJN, op. cit., Vol. 24,. p. 579. Also the reply to a debate in the Council of States, 24 December 1953, Parliamentary Debates (Council of States), Official Report, Vol. V, Nos. 18-25, 16 to 24 December 1953, cols. 3590-3599.
4. Via Karakoram pass to Xinjiang or via Demchok to Western Tibet.
5. Ironically, the Tibetans themselves were not informed of the negotiations.
6. In Barahoti, see Ministry of External Affairs, Notes, Memoranda and Letters Exchanged and Agreements signed by the Governments of India and China, White Papers 1, 1954-59, (New Delhi: Publication Division, 1959).
7. Accrued from the Simla Convention in 1914.
8. The Kaoboys of the R&AW, Down Memory Lane (New Delhi, Lancer Publishers, 2007)
9. And in a few years time, to Shigatse and later to the Nepal border.
10. A person from Arunachal recently told me that when you make an ISD call from Tawang, the callee abroad can see the Lhasa region code and not 91 (India’s code followed by the STD code of the Tawang district) on his LCD indicator. Is the Government of India taking any action against this blatant attack on India’s sovereignty?
11. An interesting article was written by Ramananda Sengupta for Rediff.com a few months ago showing the way Beijing is ‘influencing’ its ‘Indian friends’ today. See http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/nov/29ram.htm
12. This campaign was probably prompted by the forthcoming Olympics Games and the image that Beijing tries to project.
13. See The Defense News: http://defensenews.com/story.php?F=2910312&C=asiapac
14. Perhaps because the COAS was visiting China at that time.
15. In anticipation of the Olympic Games, the Chinese government has earmarked 1.3 billion $ to boost the nation’s existing formidable internet police squads. Scores of China’s outspoken websites and blogs have already been closed down.
16. To quickly build railway lines or infrastructure for example.
17. If there was an easy solution, one can presume that it would have been found during the 5 rounds of talks in 1960.
18. As this article is going to the press, the joint exercises have been postponed.
19. Some will say that this is the advantage of being a democracy.