For decades, India believed China did not represent a military threat, saidLieutenant General DS Hooda, who from 2014 to 2016 headed Indian military’sNorthern Command, which controls India-administered Kashmir, includingLadakh.
But that calculus changed in mid-2020 when a clash high in Karakorammountains in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley set off the military tensions.
The deadly border clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers inIndia-administered Kashmir’s Ladakh region caused policy makers in NewDelhi to increasingly turn their focus to Beijing.
This is a marked shift away from its decades-long foreign policy focus onPakistan — with which Delhi is involved in a protracted dispute overKashmir, the achingly beautiful Himalayan territory claimed by bothcountries but divided between them.
Continued tensions
Galwan “helped create a new Indian consensus about the need to reset theentire relationship with China, and not just solve the boundary issue,”said Constantino Xavier, a fellow at the Centre for Social and EconomicProgress, a New Delhi-based policy group.
The fighting came a year after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’sfar-right Hindu nationalist-led government stripped Kashmir of its statehoodlink, scrapped itssemi-autonomy, and clamped down on local politicians, journalists andcommunications.
The government also split the Muslim-majority region into two federallyadministered territories — Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir — and ended inheritedprotections on land and jobs.
Pakistan reacted with fury to India’s changes, asserting that Kashmir wasan international dispute and any unilateral change in its status was aviolation of international law and UN resolutions on the region.
But the main diplomatic challenge to New Delhi’s moves in Kashmir came froman unexpected rival: China.
Read Top Stories
Beijing scathingly criticised New Delhi and raised the issue at the UnitedNations Security Council, where the Kashmir dispute was debated — againinconclusively — for the first time in nearly five decades.
New challenges
Now, New Delhi policymakers face the fundamental challenge of a China thatis exerting more power in Asia and supporting Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir.
China’s rise has also pushed India closer to the US and to the Quad, a newIndo-Pacific strategic alliance among the US, India, Australia and Japanthat accuses Beijing of economic coercion and military manoeuvring in theregion upsetting the status quo.
With the Quad now central to discussions among India’s strategic thinkers,New Delhi has massively ramped up infrastructure along its long,treacherous and un-demarcated border with China.
Beijing views the Quad as an attempt to contain its economic growth andinfluence.
With geopolitical rivalries deepening in the extended region, Kashmirishave been largely silenced, with their civil liberties curbed, as India hasdisplayed zero tolerance for any form of dissent.
Source.link