A particularly tense phase in India’s relations with China has seemingly come to an end with the somewhat cryptic announcement on October 21 that an agreement had been reached on patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control, leading to disengagement and an eventual resolution of the issues which had arisen in 2020. That a meeting between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi followed almost immediately afterwards appeared to confirm that the tense phase following the clash in Galwan in Ladakh is now in the past.
The significance of the Galwan incident cannot be understated: it was the first time in almost 50 years that clashes on the border area —or the LAC — had led to fatalities. The Galwan crisis led to a military standoff and a new low in the overall India-China relationship. In some accounts, this marked the end of a long period of stability and positive relations that began in the late 1980s and was consolidated with the Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement in 1993. Both sides had then cohered not so much on a common understanding of, or agreement on, the border as on the premise that disputes and differences on the issue should be managed peacefully and should not be allowed to come in the way of overall progress.
This understanding had worked well as for over 25 years a strong trade and economic relationship, augmented by regular, high-level political contacts, had emerged. From the early 2000s, there was also a visible Indian political consensus on dealing positively with China cutting across the first National Democratic Alliance government, the two United Progressive Alliance government tenures and, then, the post-2014 second NDA government.
A basic wariness, however, remained largely intact given the adversarial history from the late 1950s and the 1962 war. It is not as if there were no difficulties: Chinese claims on Arunachal Pradesh; the Dalai Lama; the China-Pakistan strategic nexus; stapled visas; and a very significant imbalance in trade were issues that cropped up regularly. There were also rising concerns about Chinese investments and technology flowing into those sectors of the economy which were strategic — telecommunications or ports, for instance. The number of standoffs in the border areas were also increasing. Partly these were a result of both sides building infrastructure in the border areas but Chinese patrolling had also become more aggressive, leading to prolonged standoffs — for instance, in Depsang in 2013, Demchok in 2014, and Doklam in 2017.
Thus, even though some naysayers had fundamental concerns about the overall positive trajectory of the relationship, these were muted. The view that China was an important neighbour and we had much to gain from a positive relationship developed deep roots. Indeed, the India-China relationship was often held up as a template of how to manage a relationship with difficult legacy issues and unresolved territorial disputes to recalcitrant neighbours such as Pakistan. Regular high-level exchanges, including frequently at summit levels, reinforced this positive trajectory. New areas of cooperation — investments, tourism, education, cultural exchanges — were being identified to supplement this political cordiality and to further minimise the possibilities of friction arising from the territorial disputes.
This smooth projection was interrupted by the Galwan clash, followed by the long standoff in Ladakh. Notwithstanding the tactical reasons that had led to the clash and the subsequent fatalities, the real Indian concern was the scale of the Chinese intrusions across different points. The LAC is not demarcated on the ground and to that extent the Chinese can claim that there were no intrusions by their forces. Yet, what underwrote the 1993 Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement was that both sides understood and respected each other’s perceptions of the LAC. Chinese intrusions in the summer of 2020 decisively breached this understanding. That these intrusions led to fatal casualties made the situation even more difficult.
The Indian position thereafter was that a normal relationship was not compatible with the border transgressions. In many ways, the political relationship was frozen. The ban on direct air flights introduced during the lockdowns thus continued as did general restrictions on visas for Chinese to travel to India. But the overall picture was not black and white. Significantly, trade remained largely immune to the general downturn. India-China trade continued to grow post 2020, powered very substantially by imports from China — almost a kind of contrarian trend to the political relationship but also underlining just how dependent many sectors of the Indian economy are on China.
Does the announcement now presage stability on the border and, correspondingly, a gradual reversion to the pre-2020, pre-Galwan situation? To an extent, yes. The Xi-Modi meeting suggests that the political freeze will now give way to regular, high-level dialogue. That, in turn, will facilitate further relaxations across the board, including perhaps Chinese investments in non-strategic sectors.
Yet, we should be cautious about a projected linear trajectory of speedy normalisation. The agreement announced is only going to be the first of a long process of military disengagement. Many elements in the agreement have not been spelt out. In general terms, given the push to upgrade border infrastructure by both sides, whether eyeball-to-eyeball situations will be recurrent is an issue of concern. This is exacerbated by the fact that the infrastructure on the Indian side is less developed than China’s.
Can the arrangements and agreements of the 1990s work as effectively in the future to ensure a stable and peaceful border even amidst wider geopolitical divergences? In addressing this question, we encounter the more structural features of the India-China relationship, in particular the wide asymmetry that has developed between the two over the past quarter century in economic, technological and military terms. It is outside the realm of foreign policy to reduce this divergence or narrow the asymmetry. But managing it and dealing with its consequences will certainly continue to remain the principal task for Indian diplomacy and foreign policy. Here, as indeed in all our neighbourhood relationships, it is prudent to be guided by pragmatism and a clinical approach instead of sentiment to achieve optimum rather than maximalist or perfect outcomes.
T.C.A. Raghavan is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan and Singapore
