China Retains Levers for Long-Term Territorial Ambitions — Vijay Gokhale on Beijing’s Tactics and India’s Response

The useful part

Majid Maqbool The People's Republic of China has consistently utilized military pressure and gray-zone tactics against regional neighbors and global powers since its founding in 1949. Why do you think China's enhanced military and strategic capacities are a cause of concern for its peripheral and proximate neighbors, even though it has not engaged in a major war since the late 1970s? Indo-Pacific and at the apex in terms of the power hierarchy in this region.

How it works

• In what ways do you think China's past conflicts with India can provide insights into its coercive methods, and how might those lessons shape the way we understand future India-China confrontations?
• You note that "how and when China will deploy force in pursuit of its claims in the future" is a legitimate question in the minds of Indian strategists and thinkers.
• How worried, in your assessment, are India's strategic thinkers and defense community about the possibility of China using military force in future conflicts against India?
• India aspires to have stable and predictable relations with the People's Republic of China.
• How the Chinese Negotiate with India, examines how China uses domestic politics, statecraft, ideological doctrine and information operations to build a diplomatic cover, while also looking at when and why...

What to take from it

China professes a desire to resolve the boundary dispute peaceably, but retains leverages that speak to its possible longer-term objective of seizing territory. They play a long and deceptive game through the careful deployment of historical, legal and psychological methods, such that the changes are subliminal and gradual and the other state hopes to restore the status quo through negotiation without risking an escalation. A number of methods are used by the PRC to delay the resolution of the problem they have created, such as through simultaneous action both on the ground and at the negotiating table, until the ground situation has changed in their favor.

Example or evidence

• It expects other states, big or small, both partners and rivals, to accept the PRC'S dominant position, and to accommodate its concerns and interests without question.
• Consequently, the PRC interprets such actions or activities as a challenge or a threat.
• Its assertive and, some say even aggressive behavior over the past two decades is, therefore, a cause for concern, especially when its comprehensive national power is rapidly outpacing that of other states...

Details worth keeping

Foreign countries that threaten Chinese sovereignty could be framed as adversaries, and the PRC's offensive action could be deemed as necessary and defensive countermeasures, argues a new book on China written by India's former Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale. Since the beginning, the preferred modus operandi of the People's Republic of China to secure its territorial objectives vis-à-vis India has been to create new facts on the ground and to thereafter attempt to legalize the new status quo through negotiation. If, by then, the other state is unwilling to submit, the PRC does not hesitate to use force to pursue its objective.

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