The projection of Colonel Qi Fabao, the PLA regimental commander during June 15, 2020, Galwan clash, as a torchbearer for Beijing Winter Olympics reveals the historic political insensitivity and hubris of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) towards India.
It is also to shore up the morale of PLA, which lost anywhere between 38 to 45 men in the clash with the Indian Army contingent led by redoubtable Col Santosh Babu of 16 Bihar at patrolling point 14 on the banks of frozen Galwan River. According to the Indian Army estimates, based on the evacuation of Galwan PLA casualties by helicopter and road, as many as 80 Chinese soldiers died in the clash.
While showcasing Col Fabao may be domestic chauvinism, it is also a message to India and the world that the entire CCP and the government are behind the PLA, whose leader is President Xi Jinping himself as Chairman of Central Military Commission. Hence, India should be prepared for a long haul on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and live under no illusions of the past that there is a difference between the Chinese leadership and the PLA.
The Narendra Modi government has rightly responded to the Chinese jibe by not sending the Indian Charge de Affairs in Beijing for the opening and closing ceremony of the Olympics. Unlike the past when Indian diplomacy tried its utmost to accommodate the Chinese, the message this time is loud and clear from Lok Kalyan Marg as wolf warriors in Beijing show no signs of either honouring the written or spoken border agreements with India.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted President Xi Jinping at Ahmedabad in September 2014, he went out of the way to make the visiting dignitary comfortable despite the PLA making a transgression in Chumar in East Ladakh during the same time. It was then that PM Modi asked President Xi to investigate the Chumar transgressions as the PLA always became active on the LAC when there were Chinese high-level visits to India. In March 2013, the PLA intruded into Depsang Bulge in Daulet Beg Oldi sector when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was visiting India during the UPA regime. PM Modi also told President Xi to inquire whether Chumar transgressions was a message from the PLA or his own administration. Subsequently, Chumar transgression was rolled back by the PLA due to an Indian Army counter maneuver, but Depsang is still a sticking thorn as PLA constantly places hurdles before Indian Army patrols in the Bulge area.
{{/usCountry}}When Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted President Xi Jinping at Ahmedabad in September 2014, he went out of the way to make the visiting dignitary comfortable despite the PLA making a transgression in Chumar in East Ladakh during the same time. It was then that PM Modi asked President Xi to investigate the Chumar transgressions as the PLA always became active on the LAC when there were Chinese high-level visits to India. In March 2013, the PLA intruded into Depsang Bulge in Daulet Beg Oldi sector when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was visiting India during the UPA regime. PM Modi also told President Xi to inquire whether Chumar transgressions was a message from the PLA or his own administration. Subsequently, Chumar transgression was rolled back by the PLA due to an Indian Army counter maneuver, but Depsang is still a sticking thorn as PLA constantly places hurdles before Indian Army patrols in the Bulge area.
{{/usCountry}}When PM Modi pitched for clarification of the LAC with President Xi at the BRICS summit at UFA in 2015, the latter started talking about global issues as if border dispute was not worth at his level. As if the Chinese Emperor does not get involved in bread-and-butter issues but talks about esoteric concepts like global inter-connectivity and larger good for mankind. It became quite evident that President Xi is not interested in resolving the border and will use it as a permanent pinprick against India.
Although China is more than accommodating towards Russian President Vladimir Putin and tolerant towards client state Pakistan in its bid to challenge the US for global superpower status, the riposte may be equally strong. US President Joe Biden has sent his trusted close political friends as ambassador to India, Japan, and Australia with Eric Garcetti on way to Delhi, Rahm Emanuel going to Tokyo and Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK, to Canberra. This clearly indicates that QUAD grouping will add more muscle and power to the Indo-Pacific alliance.
With Russia showing signs of close defence cooperation with China in military exercises in the East China Sea, the military counter of the Japan-US alliance is already shaping up with many predicting that Tokyo may join the AUKUS group as a deterrent to breast-beating Chinese wolf warriors.
While India will continue to exercise its strategic autonomy, the Modi government is strengthening its land, air and sea-based deterrence with a focus on the Indo-Pacific in collaboration with QUAD and strategic ally France. Time of accommodation of China is over.