How Can India Deftly Handle the Sino-Indian Face-off and More Importantly Avoid A Nuclear War?

Thursday’s statement by the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the US is moving troops from Europe to south east Asia and the Indian ocean in the light of Chinese aggressive posturing with Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and India should be welcomed and endorsed by the Indian leadership.

Pompeo also said that US in consultation with EU is formulating a policy to deal with an increasingly belligerent China should be seen in conjunction with this statement. In the event of the Indo-China faceoff  spinning out of control into a full fledged war, India is perfectly capable of fighting on its own and warding off the Chinese and reclaiming parts of land under Chinese control, but it will strengthen its position if its seen as part of a US-EU-Japan-Australia-led coalition.

Also Read:

https://indiaaccelerating.blogspot.com/2017/01/why-chinas-adventurism-against-india.html

In this context, it must be pointed out that PM Modiji has far outstretched his hug-diplomacy. PM Modi's simple and well-intentioned hugs can be interpreted to mean India's confusion with respect to its foreign policy stance. Modiji might mean well but this is how the world sees the hugs. Hugging your friend (the US) and then on the sidelines hugging your friends adversaries and buying weapon systems from them (Russia and China) is betraying your friend in the first place. The price for betrayal in geopolitics is indeed severe and more than the leader the countrymen will have to pay a heavy price. In the current geopolitical global order, India must take a stand and completely throw its weight behind the US-EU-Quad even if it means letting go off old allies like Russia (the situation in the 70s and 80s doesn't anymore hold true and the world has come a long way since that era) or an intractable adversary like China. Modiji's well-meaning gestures are bound to be misread by cunning states like China. According to their reading: When you try to please everyone, you will have no friends in the end and become isolated---and isolation is dangerous, because the enemy will sense this and move in quickly for the kill.

Also read:

https://indiaaccelerating.blogspot.com/2016/10/international-diplomacy-fence-sitters.html

https://indiaaccelerating.blogspot.com/2014/08/india-must-play-china-card-smartly-and.html

https://indiaaccelerating.blogspot.com/2013/06/china-cant-hold-indias-foreign-policy.html

 

Global geopolitical power play is indeed dark, dinghy and murky in which the leader is the first casualty (history has proved this again and again) and in which decisions are not taken on the basis of personal likes and dislikes, or your ability to get along with a leader, on knee-jerk reactions, on the basis of pecuniary interests or on the basis of your adversary showering praises and adulation on you but on the basis of your accurate assessment of the global order, on time-tested institutional procedures for decision making, on strong and decisive leadership, on being part of an alliance where you share like minded principles, and on the basis of cold, calculating deliberations. Failure to work in this framework will expose your weak points and will jeopardize the country’s interests. It has been proved umpteen number of times that China is an unreliable neighbour. Indian leadership should not patch up with the Chinese or mollycoddle them. And it should certainly not do so out of fear?

Have no fear for we all must die one day. But to die fighting for what you believe is right will bring you glory and bending backwards to please your enemy so as to avoid a war will bring you disgrace. National boundaries have been redrawn and recalibrated several times in the last 2000 years but for current times the boundaries agreed upon some decades back---the Macmohan line---should be respected by China. China cannot say that 600 years ago our map included parts of Tibet. The current India-China face-off  in North Eastern Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh are a case in point. The Chinese have smelt blood. They see India as vacillating in its relationships with key powers. India, at this point should be clear headed, sterile, decisive, willing to give a good fight and come out on the top and it will be better off for the decades ahead.

 If you study a nation’s behaviour for 40-50 years, it is not difficult to predict its trajectory for the next 20-30 years. China’s eyes India’s territory and it wants to subjugate India by all means foul. The Indian leadership should hold its ground and be proactive and fearless. That China, deliberately leaked the coronavirus from its military labs in Wuhan last year is now increasingly being believed with the intention of incapacitating the world and then surreptitiously launching attack measures a year later on neighbouring countries. We should call China’s bluff. In this context, India should withdraw from the BRICS and the NDB. What is BRICS afterall and what is its significance? Its just a term coined by a Goldman Sachs director to identify key emerging markets. India should not get into RIC association but should focus on IBSA as also on the US call for an expanded G7.

Also read:

https://indiaaccelerating.blogspot.com/2020/03/covid-19-chinese-bio-weapons-programme.html

https://indiaaccelerating.blogspot.com/2012/10/world-war-iii-could-happen-in-asia-in.html

https://indiaaccelerating.blogspot.com/2012/04/india-should-strengthen-ibsa-within.html

https://indiaaccelerating.blogspot.com/2011/11/checks-and-balances-best-way-to-ward.html

The GoI under PM Modiji's leadership has done well to identify Chinese investments in India, cancel many Chinese contracts and also the call by the all India traders association to boycott Chinese products. The Indian public too should come out and support this call by buying Indian goods even if they are a bit expensive.