by Brig Arun Bajpai

Last month Chinese intruded one km deep in Arunachal Pradesh to build road. They only went back after Indian Army intervened and situation started going out of hand. This happening days after a very conciliatory and full of diplomatist letter from Chinese president Xi Jinping to Prime minster Modi ,saying how China and India together can be real pillars of development for Asia in particular and world in general. With Chinese intrusion in Doklam still fresh in mind, can India believe this country, dreaming of becoming a super power?

On 28 December, a Chinese road building party with necessary road building equipment and protected by Chinese people’s Army, entered Tuting area of Arunachal Pradesh, one km deep. They were adamant in building road there. Only after intervention of Indian Army and when Chinese realised that Situation is turning ugly with Indian Army seizing the entire road building equipment that they went back. On being asked, Chinese foreign office says that they are not aware of any such incident and in any case so called Arunachal Pradesh of India is theirs. Here lays the punch line. The area that China claims as theirs, they just abrogate it to themselves, like South China Sea in Pacific Ocean, 90000 sq km Arunachal Pradesh which they are calling South Tibet and various islands in East China Sea. Time has come now when India must start calling their bluff, whether it is Arunachal Pradesh, Sinkiang or South China Sea. Instead of India acknowledging Nehru’s and Bajpais stupidity of accepting Tibet as part of China, India must openly ask China to grant autonomy to Tibet if not its freedom. Tibet government in exile is located in Dharamshala, India. India has put many restrictions on its activities as not to annoy China. While China cares too hoots whether any of their activity will anger India. Why this asymmetry? Why our Netas always have their tails between their legs when dealing with China?

Let us be clear in our minds that China with its ambitious OBOR project, where in Pakistan alone it is spending 56 billion dollars in CPEC, a part of OBOR, It just cannot afford a war with India. The Doklam draw down by China after 76 days of standoff had amply shown us Chinese intentions. Chinese withdrew in late August 2017 from Doklam because first they had their five yearly Chinese people’s Congress scheduled in October where they could not have depicted Jinpings authority challenged. Second. They realised that unlike previous governments, Modi Government will go to any length to defend Doklam. So they did not want to compromise their OBOR project.

However we will not be lucky every time. Every time there is a tiff with China, Indian media starts counting the Chinese divisions, Chinese tanks, Chinese fighter aircrafts and what not to show to us that we cannot take revenge with China? Then can somebody explain how Pakistan, one eighth our size and no match militarily, continues creating problems for us? Or for that matter North Korea keeps on needling US? In military parlance we must understand that we do not have to match tank to tank or ship to ship with China. What we need is a minimum deterrence force of Army, Navy and air force which is lean and mean and ever ready to strike at minimum notice. To this end we must remove all Babus from MOD .Even Britain from where we brought this concept to India has removed them. We must immediately implement CDS system sanctioned in 2003 but lying in cold storage because of Netas lacking political will and Babus opposed to it since they will lose importance. Let Generals, air Marshals and Admirals work out what is the minimum deterrence force required by India to tackle double threat from china and Pakistan combined. We should then strive to achieve this come what may. Once this happens and our Netas develop the necessary spine to be aggressive, the needling from both China and Pakistan will stop or at least get reduced.

Brig Arun Bajpai (Retd) is a distinguished Defence and Strategic Analyst. Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of IDN. IDN does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same