Tensions Soar at the LAC
Plus, India crosses the four million mark in confirmed cases of COVID-19
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India-China Tensions Reheat
Tensions have shot up dramatically in Ladakh this week after the Indian Army announced on August 31 that:
On the Night of 29/30 August 2020, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo.
The statement went on to read that “Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground.”
In this section, we’ll dive into what we know happened, what we don’t know yet, and where things stand looking forward.
1. The Situation in Eastern Ladakh
As the August 31 statement from the Indian Army stated, the night between the 29th and 30th of August, PLA troops attempted to change the status quo in a new area - the south bank of Pangong Tso - that had not yet seen any friction between Indian and Chinese troops since the latest tensions began around May 5. Reports indicate that Chinese troops had attempted to occupy “the dominating heights” in this area, thereby achieving a tactically advantageous position.
Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said that “Indian troops were the first to have illegally crossed the LAC, made provocations, changed the status quo in the border areas, and violated bilateral agreements and important consensus.”
The specific area of where the transgression took place remains unclear.
Ajai Shukla of Business Standard reports that “hundreds of soldiers of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) crossed into the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) south of Pangong Tso lake, occupied a mountain called Helmet Top and began building fortifications.”
However, Sushant Singh, Nirupama Subramanian, and Krishn Kaushik of The Indian Express have reported that “The area of the new standoff is near Black Top, a ridge on the south bank of Pangong Tso. It is approximately 25 km east of Chushul…. more than 200 PLA troops are massed on the Black Top heights. Black Top is a Chinese observation post.”
A map of the area is available below.
However, the reporting does say that Indian intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) reports from this region suggested that such a move was coming, with troops “seeing movement of vehicles and troops through surveillance equipment.” This allowed the Indian Army to thwart such a move. However, in addition, the reporting also suggests that Indian troops counter-maneuvered and moved in to occupy the dominating heights itself, and therefore occupying a favorable position on the South Bank.
Ajai Shukla has reported that “a secretive Indian commando force called the Special Frontier Force (SFF)” was deployed in this counter-maneuver, with Reuters reporting that a Tibetan member of the SFF - Tenzin Nyima - was killed in action “near the shores of the Pangong Tso lake.”
Reports have also indicated that India’s counter-maneuver was not limited to the south bank of Pangong Tso, but also in the north bank, where tensions between India and China have been high over China’s ingress of 8km inside India’s conception of the LAC to Finger 4. Krishn Kaushik and Shubhajit Roy of The Indian Express reported that “Troops also moved to strengthen positions at Finger 3 on the Pangong north bank, occupying heights west of Finger 4.” Chinese troops continue to occupy the ridgelines above Finger 4, while troops moved back to Finger 5 in mid-July.
However, some open questions still remain, as these paragraphs from a summary of a conversation between Sushant Singh of The Indian Express and Karan Thapar of The Wire, suggests:
Consequently, there is confusion in the reports in different papers about critical matters. For instance, has India got control of all the strategic heights on the south bank of Pangong Lake as the Times of India and Indian Express suggest, or are Black Top and Helmet Top in Chinese hands as the Business Standard has said, or are neither India and China in control of Black Top but the advantage is strongly in India’s favour as the Economic Times suggests?
Indeed, there’s even confusion about whether Black Top and Helmet Top are on the Indian or the Chinese side of the LAC. The Business Standard clearly says it’s on the Indian side but Sushant Singh said that he has been told by reliable army sources that they are on the Chinese side.
There’s similar confusion about whether there have been physical scuffles between Indian and Chinese soldiers on the south bank of Pangong Lake. The Business Standard has clearly said this happened whilst the Indian Express and Economic Times say such scuffles have not happened. Sushant Singh said that he was reliably told by the army that scuffles have not happened. Yet the British paper The Telegraph speaks of a three hour hand-to-hand combat.
The Indian Army’s statement from August 31 also stated that “a Brigade Commander level Flag Meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues.” Those talks were reportedly “stormy,” and continued on September 1 and 2 without any resolution.
2. The Wider India-China Relationship
The tensions along the LAC also continue to play out in the wider relationship. India, which had previously banned 44 Chinese apps, expanded the ban to include another 118 apps on September 2, including Baidu, PUBG, and Alipay, among others.
Meanwhile, The Indian Express reported that diplomatic and military engagements between the two countries have seen a downturn after an agreement to disengage had been reached following the violent clashes in the Galwan Valley. They reported:
While the initial disengagement took place “quite smoothly” in the 10-15 days after the July 5 conversation between NSA Ajit Doval and Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi, the Indian side noticed towards the second half of July that diplomatic and military-level communication had gone cold.
Phone calls were not returned immediately, meetings were not scheduled within a reasonable time frame, and the turnaround time for responses to India’s note verbale to Chinese counterparts was slower. This raised alarm bells in South Block — something was amiss in Beijing’s behaviour.
In the midst of this downturn, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh met with his Chinese counterpart, General Wei Fenghe, during his visit to Moscow for a meeting of the defense minsters of the member-states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
However, the readout from that meeting saw both countries blamed the other for taking aggressive action and violating the status quo.
The Indian statement following the meeting said:
Raksha Mantri categorically conveyed India’s position on the developments along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) including in the Galwan valley in the Western Sector of the India-China Border Areasin the last few months. He emphasised that the actions of the Chinese troops, including amassing of large number of troops, their aggressive behaviour and attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo were in violation of the bilateral agreements and not in keeping with the understandings reached between the Special Representatives of two sides. Hon’ble RM stated clearly that while the Indian troops had always taken a very responsible approach towards border management, but at the same time there should also be no doubt about our determination to protect India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In contrast, General Wei Fenghe placed the blame entirely on India. As Ananth Krishnan of The Hindu reports, General Wei said:
“The cause and truth of the current tension on the China-India border are very clear, and the responsibility lies entirely with the Indian side… Not an inch of China’s territory can be lost. The Chinese military has the resolve, capability and confidence to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity…
It is hoped that the Indian side will strictly abide by the series of agreements reached by the two sides, effectively strengthen control over front-line troops, refrain from provocations across the current Line of Actual Control or take any actions that may cause the situation to heat up, and not deliberately hype up or spread negative information.”
3. What Might be Next?
With tensions running high, it remains unclear what might come next. Some analysts have raised the specter of more skirmishes in the next few weeks. Indeed, Ajai Shukla of Business Standard has suggested that India remember the lessons from the Yom Kippur war, suggesting that it is time India think hard about military options. He argues that “Military action by India would be painful, but would discourage future trans-LAC incursions by the PLA.” While I have disagreements with parts of his argument, his full piece is worth reading and engaging with here.
However, government officials have continued to stress diplomacy. India’s Minister for External Affairs, Dr. S. Jaishankar, said, in a recent event with the Observer Research Foundation for his new book, that “I am being realistic and am in touch with the ground situation. But I am convinced that the way out is through diplomacy, and that will happen if both sides understand that it is in each of their best interests if the events of this summer are not repeated.”
However, while a diplomatic solution is negotiated, many experts have warned that the current tensions could extend into the winter, with troops manning the border in extreme temperatures, which in Ladakh can fall to -40° Celsius. Experts are also calling into question whether the agreements that India and China have signed in order to maintain “peace and tranquility” at the border remain relevant in this atmosphere of extreme mistrust. India’s former ambassador to China, Gautam Bambawale, told the Financial Times that, “The whole architecture for maintaining peace and tranquility has collapsed and is lying in ruins.”
While what comes next remains unclear, what is clear is that tense times lie ahead in the Sino-Indian relationship.
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COVID-19 Update - Four Million Confirmed Cases
India has crossed four million total confirmed cases of COVID-19, with cases reaching 4,160,493 as of Sunday, September 6.
India has also reportedly overtaken Brazil to become the second-worst hit country in terms of total confirmed cases of COVID-19.
India has also overtaken the United States and Brazil as the country with the highest number of daily confirmed cases.
India recorded 90,600 cases in 24 hours as of Sunday, September 6, making it the the biggest daily figure anywhere in the world since the pandemic began.
At the state-level, Maharashtra continues to be the worst-hit state, registering 19,000 of the 90,600 case number highlighted above.
The rise in cases comes as the National Statistics Office of India announced that India’s GDP for the April-June quarter of the fiscal year 2020-2021 contracted by 23.9% compared to the same quarter last year.
While analysts and economists have blamed the strict nature of the lockdown, it is important to note that India is now suffering from twin crises because the lockdown wasn’t properly announced and implemented.
As previous editions of Indialogue had discussed, the short notice for the lockdown, the lack of attention to testing and other capacity building, and a less-than-ideal stimulus package have all contributed to the severe economic slowdown.
As economist Kaushik Basu wrote in the recent op-ed, “it became clear that no supporting policy action and relief measures that such a major, sudden lockdown needs had been readied.”
All eyes are now on the next fiscal stimulus package, which Chief Economic Advisor says could be announced before the festival season goes into full swing.
However, the rising numbers and the economic slowdown calls into question the government’s broader strategy of plunging headlong into its “Unlock” procedures.
So far, while states were pursuing their own lockdown procedures and creating a patchwork approach to combating the spread of the virus across India, the latest guidelines say “State/ UT Governments shall not impose any local lockdown (State/ District/ sub-division/City/ village level), outside the containment zones, without prior consultation with the Central Government.”
Suspension of Question Hour
The Parliament of India, which has not met since it adjourned on March 23 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will meet for a “monsoon session” from September 14 to October 1. However, the announcement of these dates came with a major change to how Parliament would conduct its business: Question Hour would not be held during this session.
Question hour refers to the one hour period at the beginning of a day’s meeting of Parliament where all MPs, opposition or otherwise, have the opportunity to pose questions to the government and understand how policies are being administered and enacted. The Parliament of India’s website describes Question Hour as having “a special significance in the proceedings of the Parliament,” and that the “asking of questions is an inherent and unfettered parliamentary right of members.”
According to Parliament rules, Members of Parliament (MPs) can ask questions in one of four ways:
(i) Starred Questions- A Starred Question is one to which a member desires an oral answer from the Minister in the House and is required to be distinguished by him/her with an asterisk. Answer to such a question may be followed by supplementary questions by members.
(ii) Unstarred Questions- An Unstarred Question is one to which written answer is desired by the member and is deemed to be laid on the Table of the House by Minister. Thus it is not called for oral answer in the House and no supplementary question can be asked thereon.
(iii) Short Notice Questions- A member may give a notice of question on a matter of public importance and of urgent character for oral answer at a notice less than 10 days prescribed as the minimum period of notice for asking a question in ordinary course. Such a question is known as ‘Short Notice Question’.
(iv) Questions to Private Members- A Question may also be addressed to a Private Member (Under Rule 40 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha), provided that the subject matter of the question relates to some Bill, Resolution or other matter connected with the business of the House for which that Member is responsible. The procedure in regard to such questions is same as that followed in the case of questions addressed to a Minister with such variations as the Speaker may consider necessary.
The government has said that it will not be possible to address Starred Questions under the current circumstances of the pandemic. Defense Minister Rajnath Singh reportedly told his colleagues in the opposition that it would not be possible to schedule the Question Hour because it would require the presence of a large number of officials in Parliament to brief ministers, thereby undermining social distancing requirements.
As a compromise, the government has offered that it would approach the Speaker of the Lok Sabha to allow MPs to submit their “Unstarred Questions,” which government ministers could respond to with a written response. However, as the rules note, such questions do not allow the Member to ask supplementary questions to the response given by the Minister.
These impact of these developments ring far beyond the halls of Parliament, and should concern every Indian citizen. It certainly concerns me, particularly as the author of this newsletter that analyzes - and often questions - policy. This is a time when there are legitimate questions about the government’s policies and positions on a host of issues: the response to COVID-19, additional stimulus and financial support to businesses and individuals, the India-China border tensions, and many more issues. Suspending Question Hour, and denying elected representatives from asking these legitimate questions of the government, undermines a fundamental tenet of any democracy: accountability.
I’ll leave you with this message from a sitting MP:
News Roundup
The Indian Navy participated in the 11th edition of the INDRA naval exercise with the Russia Navy, held in the Bay of Bengal on September 4-5.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman released the fourth and latest edition of the Business Reform Action Plan, which ranks states on their efforts to attract investments and improve the ease of doing business in their jurisdictions. The latest rankings place Andhra Pradesh as the top-ranked state.
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar participated in a virtual meeting of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) foreign ministers, hosted by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal joined his counterparts from Australia and Japan via videoconference to discuss supply chain resilience. The ministers, in a joint statement released after the meeting, “reaffirmed their determination to take a lead in delivering a free, fair, inclusive, non-discriminatory, transparent, predictable and stable trade and investment environment,” and “underscored the necessity and potential to enhance the resiliency of supply chains in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Shri Rajiv Kumar assumed charge as the new Election Commissioner of India on September 1, 2020.
Officials from Facebook testified before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology on September 3, after revelations that the company had chosen not to enforce its hate speech rules on members of the Bharatiya Janata Party who had been flagged internally for violating those rules. The Committee’s Chairman, Dr. Shashi Tharoor, said after the meeting that, “we met for some three & a half hours & unanimously agreed to resume the discussion later.”
Amb. Vijay Thakur Singh, Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs of India, co-chaired the 12th meeting of the Mekong Ganga Cooperation (MGC) Senior Officials' Meeting, which was attended by officials from all six members of the MGC.
Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said, in a speech to the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum, that “on the issue of trade agreement between the US and India, Shri Goyal said India is ready to sign initial limited trade package, and it is up to the US to move ahead.”
Three to Read
From cogent analysis to potentially big news that you should keep an eye on, here are a few commentaries and other pieces of writing that I found particularly enlightening:
Dr. Arvind Subramanian, former Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India, writes: “Without doubt, negotiation on GST compensation will be contentious. But this is a moment when the leaders at the Centre and states must show true leadership for the sake of the country. And it is the top political leaders, not attorney generals or bureaucrats, who should be sitting together and settling this thorny issue of compensation. They can do it, they must do it, for the stakes are immense. Because if a compromise is not reached, one of the major, potentially still path-breaking, reforms of the last 20 years could rapidly come undone. And the country will have gone down that first path of folly and devastating loss.”
Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, Distinguished Fellow & Head, Nuclear & Space Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation, argues: “China’s crude attempts to put pressure on other countries have met with increasingly stiff resistance, of which the Quad is a clear manifestation. In India, there have even been suggestions for the Quad to assume a military role. Thus, whatever minor headwinds the Quad faces are likely to be easily overcome by the rapidly changing attitudes in the region because of China’s unrelenting pressure on others.”
Katherine Hadda, adjunct fellow with the CSIS Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies and a former U.S. Consul General in Hyderabad, writes: “Many U.S. companies as well as the analysts who advise them are cognisant of India’s goal of becoming an alternative supply source and investment destination to China. But based on conversations I have had with a number of different organisations and companies here in Washington, it is fair to say that expectations are tempered… Despite New Delhi’s noted success in attracting Apple suppliers to India, many U.S. companies with experience working with China are not convinced that India has the PRC’s established industrial base and expertise. They also see other Asian countries as more competitive. To change their minds, these sceptics must be convinced that India offers the benefits of China with fewer risks.”
Thanks for reading this latest edition of Indialogue. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or feedback by emailing me at aman@amanthakker.com.