Indian Defence Review

While India keeps dithering in her resolve to tackle China firmly, her Northern neighbor has been steadfastly moving towards making India a non-entity in global affairs. China has adopted a no non-sense approach and it treats her as a weak and unstable nation. Indian responses are not only poor to Chinese high handedness but smacks of awe and fear. It is not a secret that China strongly opposes India’s membership of UN Security Council.

Further, it had been reported in the media, sometimes back, that Chinese troops had entered Indian border in Laddakh (Demochek village) and threatened the villagers and border road organization persons to stop developmental activities. China is in illegal occupation of a large chunk of Indian territory of Aksai Chin in J&K. China claims entire Arunachal Pradesh of India. Recently China has published a map showing Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin as Part of China. Chinese embassy in India has been issuing stapled visas to residents of J&K and Arunachal Pradesh. Are these acts aimed at generating peace or to create tension in the region? In order to engage India, China has embarked upon a three-pronged strategy:-

No major military conflict with china in the near future other than the exploitation of Indias vulnerabilities by China as part of an “˜Outsourced war

Encirclement and Containment of India. This is to be achieved by creation of hostile neighbors on the land borders and making a ‘Sting of pearls’ around peninsular India to dominate the sea routes in the Indian Ocean. This would not only isolate India but break her links with ASEAN and Africa. It seeks to roll back India’s ‘look East’ policy. To carry out encirclement, China has created a ‘String of Pearls’ around Indian coastline from Gwador in Pakistan to Hambantota in Sri Lanka to Sree Port (ARAKANS) in Myanmar and also in Thailand. This is an attempt to encircle and contain India. It wants to dominate the sea routes of trade in the Indian Ocean and checkmate India in her trade with Africa and ASEAN.

China is helping Myanmar to get nuclear weapons with the help of North Korea. It has been creating a set of hostile nations on the periphery of India, from Pakistan and Nepal to Myanmar and Srilanka. It won over Sri Lanka by supporting her militarily in war against LTTE. Induction of some 7000-11000 troops in POK is towards this end.

Breakup of India through ‘Outsourced War’. Induce internal implosion and create an external attrition. Internal implosion to be affected by exploiting militancy and insurgency, such as ULFA in Assam and Naga insurgency in the Nagaland, along with fast spreading Maoists/ Naxalites in the Centre and South India. External attrition to be caused by Pakistan- sponsored violence and Terrorism in Punjab, Kashmir and entire Northern and Western India. A Chinese defence strategist, Zhong Guo Zhan Lue Gang wrote an article, published in Chinese language on the internet, on August 08, 2009. Though the article was meant for domestic consumption of China but it was linked to Chinese international institute for Strategic studies (IISS). Therefore, it could not be ignored that it was not China’s official thinking. The article was later deleted from the website. The main thrust of the article was to break up India into 20-30 states. To do so, it advocated usage of hostile neighbors such as Pakistan and Maoist Nepal and cultivation of other countries around India. Besides, it sought to support insurgencies, such as ULFA and other North East separatist movements.

Also read: China supports Pakistan’s claim on Kashmir!

Strangely, it also suggested creating separatist movement in West Bengal with the help of Bangla Desh. The Nandigram and Singur events of 2009 in West Bengal must be seen in this context of exploitation of internal dissent by China.

“¦it advocated usage of hostile neighbors such as Pakistan and Maoist Nepal and cultivation of other countries around India. Besides, it sought to support insurgencies, such as ULFA and other North East separatist movements.

In fact, China seeks to use Pakistan as an instrument of ‘asymmetric war’ against India in a similar fashion as it herself seeks to battle it out for supremacy with USA. An ‘asymmetric’ war is the strategy adopted by a weaker nation against her more powerful adversary to curtail the advantages accruing to the powerful opponent. Ross Babbage an Australian defence strategist wrote in ‘The Australian’ that Asymmetric warfare was a tactics adopted by the weaker party in a conflict to inflict crippling costs on the strong party. China was doing this to USA through ‘anti access area denial’ strategy. It seeks to employ means which curtails the strength of stronger party. It therefore lays emphasis on cyber warfare, space warfare, submarines and missiles. No doubts, Pakistan keeps harping about use of nuclear weapons and ‘Good Taliban’ as her ‘Strategic Asset’, primarily to keep away India.

Covert Cyber & Trade War. China has been covertly conducting ‘Cyber Warfare’ against India, aimed at affecting the command and control systems by virus attack on Indian official computers, either to make them dysfunctional or hack them to extract vital information. Towards this end, China has recently demonstrated her capability to shoot a satellite, which can cripple command and control systems based on satellite communications.

Also, China has been carrying out a clandestine trade war to capture markets frequented by Indian goods—like the Nigerian Malaria drug incident, where spurious medicines were being sold under brand name India. We all know that some months back, China had tried to block aid to Arunachal Pradesh from Asian Development Bank. There is a hot debate in the media worldwide about an article, recently published in a Chinese ‘Qiushi Journal’, an official publication of communist party of China, which seemingly threatened her neighbors from Japan, Australia, Philippines to Vietnam and India to stop ganging up against China, which it believed was being orchestrated by USA. In fact, China warned her neighbors of a war, if she found her national interests being threatened. A specific mention was made of use of her economic might to harm the nations.

Also read: China: is it enough to just watch?

In conclusion, I see no major military conflict with china in the near future other than the exploitation of India’s vulnerabilities by China as part of an ‘Outsourced war’ or which I would like to call a “ designer war package” for India. I expect a spurt in the verbal spats as part of the Cold war between two Asian giants—more from China and muted response from India. In fact, this century is the century of a Cold War between two Asian neighbors, which has just begun. India can no more ignore deliberate Chinese acts of sending a contingent of PLA into Gilgit and getting into threatening postures. We have to respond by cultivating nations like Vietnam, Japan, Australia and USA. To counter China’s trump card of Pakistan, India has to pay more attention to Afghanistan.