India and China may have pulled back on the Himalayan frontier, but the bilateral chill is real

quartzindia - One week can be a long time in inter-state relations. In a week’s time, India and China had kissed and made up after their armies stood eyeball to eyeball at the Doklam Plateau for more than two months. The trouble at the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction began on June 16 when Indian soldiers detected construction activity on what is considered disputed territory on the Doklam Plateau. Chinese workers seemed to be building a road that would have allowed China to project power further into the territory claimed by Bhutan, thereby giving Beijing an ability to cut India’s northeast from the mainland.

India’s response was immediate. The government sent troops into Bhutan to halt the road-building, demanding restoration of status quo ante. As the Indian external affairs minister explained in the Indian parliament: “Our (Indian) concerns emanate from Chinese action on the ground which have implications for the determination of the tri-junction boundary point between India, China and Bhutan and the alignment of India-China boundary in the Sikkim sector.” Sushma Swaraj added that “dialogue is the only way out of the Doklam standoff…and this should be seen in the context of the entire bilateral relationship.”

China, for its part, demanded that India withdraw unconditionally from Doklam before any meaningful bilateral talks could be held, and state-owned media launched a shrill campaign, at times threatening war and issuing reminders of the 1962 conflict between the two countries and India’s humiliating defeat. New Delhi was responsible in handling the crisis—refusing to be drawn into escalation by bellicose rhetoric and not losing its nerve. Tensions continued to rise through Aug. 26 when disengagement was announced and an understanding reached with the withdrawal of Indian troops and cessation of Chinese road construction in the area.

Notwithstanding the spin used by both sides to justify disengagement, the BRICS summit played a key role in the final outcome as representatives of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa headed for Xiamen in early September. It would have been difficult for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi to justify his presence at the summit with Indian and Chinese forces facing off each other at the border. And for Chinese president Xi Jinping, keen on presenting himself as a global statesman, India’s absence would have meant the beginning of the end of BRICS, tarnishing Xi’s reputation in the run-up to the critical Communist Party Congress in October.

As the scene shifted to Xiamen for the BRICS summit, India underscored its dissatisfaction with how BRICS member states dealt with the issue of terrorism during the previous summit in Goa. Despite India making terrorism a priority, China not only blocked India’s attempts to include the names of Pakistan-based terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) in the 2016 BRICS declaration, but openly defended Pakistan after the summit, saying it opposed linking any country or religion with terror and asked the world community to acknowledge Pakistan’s “great sacrifices.”

A surprise was in store when this year’s BRICS declaration named LeT and JeM along with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, reiterating agreements arrived at during the 2016 Heart of Asia summit. The agreement was not merely an acknowledgment that BRICS member states face common threats in the form of terrorism, but also a tribute to India’s consistently strong stand on this issue. China warned Modi not to raise bilateral terrorism-related issues at the BRICS summit, but India made sure to put these on the agenda. By listing Pakistan-based terror organisations for the first time, the Xiamen declaration underlined changing regional realities for Pakistan, accustomed to using China as a shield against global pressure on terror.

Modi and Xi signaled efforts to move away from the bitterness engendered by the short-lived Doklam standoff by managing to present a united front at the BRICS summit. They agreed that Doklam-like situations should not be allowed to recur by charting new mechanisms to strengthen border-defence agreements that have held in the past and identified the need for closer communications between defence and security personnel. Both nations also sought convergence at the global level by underscoring their positions resisting economic protectionism of the kind that the Trump administration has been espousing, and the BRICS countries committed to an “open and inclusive” multilateral trading system. (ontinueReading