Pins & needles: China is, time and again, trying to build pressure points on India.

 THE Sino-Indian standoff in the Doklam area, near the tri-junction of the borders of Sikkim, Bhutan and China is assuming a serious dimension. The facts known so far are that on June 16 a PLA construction party entered Bhutanese territory in the Doklam area to construct a road. Bhutan lodged a protest with China that this intrusion was in violation of their agreements of 1988 and 1998. India, in coordination with the Bhutanese government, let its personnel — who were “present at general area Doka La” — help with the interception. The forces are facing-off, not eyeball to eyeball but in close proximity. These facts were revealed by India in a press note of June 30, 2017. On June 26, the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs, answering a question, asserted that because the Sikkim-China border has been delimited by historical agreements i.e. Convention between Great Britain and China Relating to Sikkim and Tibet (1890), the Indian side has “unilaterally stirred trouble”. The Chinese ministry of defence on June 29, more acerbically, called earlier statements of the Indian Army Chief as “extremely irresponsible” while alleging that “Indian border guards” had transgressed Chinese territory. The Indian side underplayed the fracas calculating that India and Bhutan unity and the terrain and deployment in the area favouring India, it was best to allow China to let off steam. The fact that PM Narendra Modi set forth on a leisurely three-day sojourn through Israel prior to the G- 20 meeting in Germany, South Block seems convinced that Chinese rhetoric will blow over. But Chinese ambassador in New Delhi re-stirred the pot calling the situation “grave”. India had to resolve the issue as, he argued, it neither had the right to interfere with China-Bhutan boundary talks nor make territorial claims on behalf of Bhutan. This may be diplomatic bluster and South Block’s unwillingness to speculate on Chinese motives justified, but the events did occur against the background of the Modi-Trump summit on June 26. It is possible that the PLA was routinely attempting to improve its position in the Doklam area as occupation of the plateau and linking it by road would provide deployment advantage. It is equally likely that the Chinese, by intruding into Bhutanese territory, were testing the weaker party of the India-Bhutan alliance to see if it could be browbeaten. Had India not aided the outnumbered Bhutanese, stopping the Chinese ingress, Bhutan would have been entitled to question Indian reliability. Furthermore, it is also possible that the Chinese simply miscalculated the salience of the Trump-Modi summit. The India-US joint statement leaves little scope for doubt that China is the unnamed threat to a rule-based international order, freedom of the seas and Asian security. Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and transactional deal with China at Mar-a-Lago may have erroneously lulled Chinese President Xi Jinping into assuming that the US was no longer willing to wager its military resources to contain China, directly like President Barack Obama or indirectly by joining ranks with “democratic stalwarts” of Asia. Having consolidated its hold on the South China Sea, China may have been looking to build pressure points on India to obtain assurances on curbing the Dalai Lama’s role or Indian objections to the OROB. Unnoticed by China something seems to have turned off Trump’s dalliance with it. It could be Chinese unwillingness or inability to curb the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) in its pursuit of deadlier missile and nuclear weapon capability. A successful test now of an intercontinental ballistic missile by DPRK, with the possibility of reaching the US mainland, would further embarrass Trump. His disappointment earlier emanated from the death of US student Otto Warmbier after repatriation by DPRK in a coma, the cause of which remained mysterious. While before assuming presidency Trump blamed China for DPRK behaviour, he changed that after a 10-minute chat with Chinese President Xi Jinping in April. Some Chinese reports let it be known that Xi was irritated by periodic phone calls from Trump about DPRK as Xi was hardly the desk officer for that country. Trump’s tweet on June 21, after Warmbier’s death, noted that while he appreciated “the efforts of President Xi and China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out”.It is possible that the timing of Modi’s visit worked to India’s advantage as Trump may already have been having a rethink on his China policy. The aggressive patrolling of the South China Sea by US ships partially confirms a modified US approach to China. This may again be a tactical shift to be replaced with equal alacrity by Trump-Xi hand-holding at the G-20. The moral of this story is that with a whimsical US President, India and China would be grievously erring to base border policy on his anticipated conduct. Modi and Xi are attending the G-20 summit in Germany. Xi is preceding it with a swing through Russia and a bilateral Germany visit. Modi arrives there after his three-day Israeli sojourn. If they do not meet, there would be speculation that the Chinese are upset over India stymieing them at Doklam. If they do meet, they would be compelled to address the standoff and seek a solution that allows both to keep face. Xi now finds himself between a reassertive US, just having conducted a joint missile exercise with the Republic of Korea, and a resolute India unwilling to relent on its redlines in the crucial Doklam tri-junction area that abuts India’s vital arterial link to its Eastern states. The two nationalistic leaders need an honourable way out of the crisis. Xi needs moral ascendancy approaching the crucial five-yearly party congress which will decide the leaders to rule China over the next five years and beyond. Modi cannot back-off to maintain his image as defender and protector of ‘Bharat Mata’. It is not the 1962 moment of national shame or the 1987 Operation Falcon opportunity to restore honour lost. It is certainly time for both leaders to reassess the way forward for a safer, securer Asia. But both must remember it took one bullet to trigger World War I. The writer is a former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs