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China - India

Kirkhill

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I don't know if this one has been started yet or if we have to blend the China and India Superthreads

I remember somebody saying something to the effect that the war after the next would be fought with rocks and clubs.

It appears that the Indians and Chinese have decided to skip the bit in between.  How does drone warfare fit into this?

At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese forces in Ladakh in the disputed Kashmir region, Indian officials say.

The incident follows rising tensions, and is the first deadly clash in the border area in at least 45 years.

The Indian army initially said three of its soldiers had been killed, adding that both sides suffered casualties.

But later on Tuesday, officials said a number of critically injured soldiers had died of their wounds.

India's external affairs ministry accused China of breaking an agreement struck the previous week to respect the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Galwan Valley.

BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins says violence between two armies high up in the Himalayas is very serious, and pressure will grow on the two nuclear powers not to allow a slide into full-scale conflict.

Soutik Biswas: An 'extraordinary escalation' with rocks and clubs

What have both sides said about the incident?
Early on Tuesday the Indian army said three of its soldiers, including an officer, had died in a clash in the area.

Later in the day, it released a statement saying the two sides had disengaged.

It added that "17 Indian troops who were critically injured in the line of duty" and died from their injuries, taking the "total that were killed in action to 20".

China did not confirm any casualties, but accused India in turn of crossing the border onto the Chinese side.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said India had crossed the border twice on Monday, "provoking and attacking Chinese personnel, resulting in serious physical confrontation between border forces on the two sides", AFP news agency reported.

Both sides insist no bullet has been fired in four decades, and the Indian army said on Tuesday that "no shots were fired" in this latest skirmish.

How a clash that did not involve an exchange of fire could prove so lethal is unclear. There are reports that it was fought with rocks and clubs

Local media outlets reported that the Indian soldiers had been "beaten to death".

How tense is the area?
The LAC is poorly demarcated. The presence of rivers, lakes and snowcaps means the line can shift. The soldiers either side - representing two of the world's largest armies - come face to face at many points.

India-China border row explained in 400 words
Why tensions are rising between the neighbours
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But there have been tense confrontations along the border in recent weeks.

India has accused China of sending thousands of troops into Ladakh's Galwan valley and says China occupies 38,000sq km (14,700sq miles) of its territory. Several rounds of talks in the last three decades have failed to resolve the boundary disputes.

The two countries have fought only one war so far, in 1962, when India suffered a humiliating defeat.

In May, dozens of Indian and Chinese soldiers exchanged physical blows on the border in the north-eastern state of Sikkim. And in 2017, the two countries clashed in the region after China tried to extend a border road through a disputed plateau.

Tensions have risen over a road built by India in Ladakh
There are several reasons why tensions are rising now - but competing strategic goals lie at the root, and both sides blame each other.

India has built a new road in what experts say is the most remote and vulnerable area along the LAC in Ladakh. And India's decision to ramp up infrastructure seems to have infuriated Beijing.

The road could boost Delhi's capability to move men and materiel rapidly in case of a conflict.

India also disputes part of Kashmir - an ethnically diverse Himalayan region covering about 140,000sq km - with Pakistan.

Kashmir: Why India and Pakistan fight over it
Over the past week, Indian media have been reporting that troops from both sides had been gradually moving back from their stand-off positions, and that efforts were under way to de-escalate the tensions. So it will come as a surprise to many to hear of a violent clash in which three Indian soldiers were killed.

The last time the two sides exchanged any gunfire along the border was 1975, when four Indian soldiers were killed in a remote pass in north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

The details of the latest skirmish, and the emergency measures being taken to defuse it, are still unclear.

Whatever the result, the latest incident is likely to trigger a fresh wave of anti-China sentiments in India.

It will also present daunting foreign policy and security challenges to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government, which is struggling to contain a surge of Covid-19 infections and revive an economy which looks headed for recession.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53061476
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5NVtni-lDk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsm4MMyp2pI

20 Indians dead including a Lt Colonel - no bullets fired. 

43 Chinese casualties.
 
2 to 1 ratio ain't  great but loosing a LCol is a blow, i am surprised shots were not fired
 
All of this over an area where hardly anybody lives, and nobody that lives there really cares.


Can't the adults just sit down, agree on where the border should be, and move on?  Instead, soldiers are dying over literally nothing because the respective leadership can't just buck up & deal with it for good...  :facepalm:
 
Background:

Why Are India and China Fighting?
Nuclear powers New Delhi and Beijing engage in a skirmish marking the first combat deaths along their border in more than four decades...
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/16/why-are-india-china-fighting-ladakh-skirmish/

Mark
Ottawa
 
Twenty Indian mountain troops were killed and others wounded. This would be snow covered mountains. Pretty unforgiving in Indian controled Kashmir.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/india-officials-say-20-soldiers-killed-in-china-border-fighting/ar-BB15A5nh?ocid=uxbndlbing
 
There's a interesting meme in there somewhere. Two nuclear armed powerS fighting each other with sticks and stones. 
 
More...I sure this will blow over.  China sent their message. What I mean by that it looks like China is pushing hard everywhere to see how far they get. 

https://www.theusaexpress.com/index.php/2020/06/17/modi-warns-of-befitting-reply-from-india-if-china-tensions-worsen/
 
Start and end of a post:

China vs India, or, the Himalayan Military Cockpit, Ladakh Section Part 2

Further to this post, the rumble at 14,000 feet (see here) has just got much worse–a piece at the New Statesman by Prof. Rajesh Rajagopalan (tweets here):

Why China and India are locked in a dangerous stand-off
...

The Chicoms sure do have a way of alienating an awful lot of people these days, what with their “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy amongst many other things.

Meanwhile the Aussies are getting on increasingly well with India while PM Trudeau has managed to ensure that Canada’s relations with the country remain distinctly chilly:

India, Australia Upping Defence, Strategic Cooperation (note Bases) while Canadian Relations with Delhi basically in the Dumps
 
As for the Himalayan imbroglio one imagines our government will try to stay as quiet and anodyne as possible in order to avoid making strained relations with the PRC even worse (more here) while not further offending the Indians.
https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2020/06/17/china-vs-india-or-the-himalayan-military-cockpit-ladakh-section-part-2/

Mark
Ottawa
 
Spencer100 said:
There's a interesting meme in there somewhere. Two nuclear armed powerS fighting each other with sticks and stones.

Can we not send Justin to peacekeep?
 
Spencer100 said:
There's a interesting meme in there somewhere. Two nuclear armed powerS fighting each other with sticks and stones.

When you think about it, despite the atavistic overtones and clearly tragic outcomes, this was an excellent example of restraint in the use of force spectrum, which has likely prevented an even bigger military confrontation. Imagine what might have happened had the two sides kicked off with machine gun fire, mortars and the rest?

I'd love to see their rules of engagement...
 
Update

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53076781

Indian side

https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/decoding-china-s-planned-aggression/story-nDFtE8Du5V3rZd0CQdVF9M.html
 
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/3-separate-brawls-outsider-chinese-troops-more-most-detailed-account-of-the-brutal-june-15-galwan-battle-1691185-2020-06-21?fbclid=IwAR3c7nIAOpporqwsABLHNt__H4OW8tr6KRgfT3cEnvqcFs5MTSGASVQZN00

Three separate brawls divided by time and space. Chinese troops who aren't normally deployed at Patrol Point 14. And, a young Indian Army team that took a decision to cross the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to square things up with the Chinese Army. The contours of the June 15 bloodletting have become cleared.

Plenty has been written so far about the clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh's Galwan Valley. But contradictory claims, and gaps in the narrative have so far left the story bereft of cohesiveness. Several questions have remained unanswered, with individual aspects lending themselves to speculation and guesswork. Now with a series of conversations with Army personnel in the Galwan Valley, Thangtse and Leh, India Today TV pieces together the most detailed account so far of how things played out.  -more at link-
 
India is now saying it's intelligence service believe the most recent deadly encounter that occurred resulting in 20 deaths was ordered by Beijing to happen. Now if they can show to evidence and prove it, that would be an act of war by China.
 
A bit of a thread necromancy but better then a new thread. Below is a recent interview with a former Indian Major, now a member of a policy think tank talking about the Chinese- India dynamics

 
Why the Quad Alarms China

the worst-case scenario from Beijing’s perspective is that the Quad could serve as the foundation of a broader global anti-Chinese coalition. If the Quad were to draw other Asian countries, the EU, and NATO into efforts to confront or undermine China’s international ambitions, it could over time swing the collective balance of power definitively against China. The Quad could also lay the groundwork for a broader allied economic, customs, and standards union, which could reshape everything from global infrastructure funding to supply chains to technology standards.


The Quad

Japan
India
Australia
US

Five Eyes - US, Aus, NZ, UK, Can
Five Powers - Australia, NZ, UK, Malaysia, Singapore
ASEAN - Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Vietnam (UK joins as dialogue partner 5 Aug 2021 - following QE strike group in S China Seas and the permanent deployment of two River Class patrol ships to the area)
CPTPP -Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. On 2 June 2021, CPTPP announced that the accession process (for the UK) would begin.

Japan has generally had a soft-spot for the UK seeing a mirror image of itself on the other side of Eurasia. Islands off the continent. WW2 was a bit of an aberration in that sense.

India and America - have a love-hate relationship with the UK sharing some British customs, the English language, Common Law and variants of democratic practices.

The biggest fly in the ointment for the Chinese is The Commonwealth.

While the UK was suborned by the EU and ignored, or separated from, the Commonwealth, those countries became the happy hunting grounds for the Chinese - supplying cheap resources. They were easily bought, corrupted or intimidated.

If the Commonwealth is revived as a Quad entity, together with the Five Eyes, Five Powers, ASEAN, and the CPTPP then China will find itself severely circumscribed.

Coincidentally so will the rest of Eurasia (Russia and the EU).

And George Orwell will be right again - Oceania vs Eurasia.

Countries by region​

Africa​

Asia​

Caribbean and Americas​

Europe​

Pacific​

PS - Ultimately, the biggest question may be what all of this means for Xi,

PPS - When we write The United Kingdom it is often forgotten that that includes not just Scotland, England and Wales on Great Britain and Ulster on Ireland, but also the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands (with their own independent parliaments and tax regimes) and the 14 British Overseas Territories:

The UK Overseas Territories are:​

Many of them strategic outposts and some well known for their independent tax policies.

They too are members of the Commonwealth. If they were to be able to vote in the UN with the rest of the Commonwealth, as a block, then that would really put a spanner in the works.
 
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Bump -

Khalistan.jpg


India has a long running dispute with Pakistan in the Kashmir. China is involved. All the red lines are borders in dispute.
India accused Pakistan of being behind the Mumbai bombings of 2008
India has also accused Pakistan of supporting the Khalistan movement.
Amritsar and the proposed Khalistani state sit adjacent to the disputed pocket and just across the border from Lahore, the capital of the Pakistani Punjab. Amritsar is in Indian Punjab.


China and Pakistan have a close working relation


.....

Who benefits from the Khalistani murder in Canada?

....

We were looking at China. We are not looking at China.
We were engaging with India. We are not engaging with India.
Does China operate on Canadian soil?
Does it have a presence in Vancouver?
 

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2020


2023


 
It's India, by a thin margin...

India Is Pushing Back Against China in South Asia​



Overall, India appears to be winning the strategic competition in South Asia. But there is no guarantee it will stay that way. As we have seen, an election can change a country's geopolitical alignment in the blink of an eye. And China remains a formidable player, not least because its economy is more than five times as large as India's. China's ties to Pakistan are deep and close, its engagements with the Taliban in Afghanistan are growing, and it has a robust economic presence in Bangladesh, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. China can also leverage its strengthening relations with the military regime in Myanmar, which has both a long border with China and a lengthy coastline on the Bay of Bengal. Beijing's interest in developing the port of Kyaukphyu, Myanmar, has potentially significant implications for India's maritime security.

If India fails to prevent Chinese influence from deepening across South Asia, it could seriously jeopardize the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy as well. In this scenario, New Delhi would be intensely focused on strategic competition in its neighborhood and less likely to have bandwidth to support U.S. objectives farther afield, whether in Southeast Asia or the Pacific. India might also prioritize its partnership with Russia in hopes that Moscow might convince Beijing to change its behavior. Finally, if India concludes that China is successfully encircling it, this raises the possibility of war between two nuclear-armed powers. None of these outcomes are desirable, and to avoid them, Washington should look to bolster New Delhi's efforts to not only stay ahead of Beijing in South Asia, but further widen the gap.

Derek Grossman is a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California, and a former daily intelligence briefer to the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs.
This commentary originally appeared on Foreign Policy on August 16, 2023. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.

 
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