India and China held the 21st round of Corps Commander-level talks at the Chushl-Moldo meeting point on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on February 19, 2024. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, India sought “complete disengagement” in eastern Ladakh. China’s Ministry of Defence said commanders agreed to look for a mutually acceptable solution at the earliest and described the talks as positive, in-depth and constructive. India said the talks were in a friendly and cordial atmosphere. Both sides agreed to keep communicating through the relevant military and diplomatic mechanisms and were committed to maintaining peace on the ground in the interim.

This is the usual diplomatic language which means sweet nothing. A senior Indian security official reportedly told the media, “There was no forward movement during the fresh round of talks as the Chinese army refused to budge from disengaging from the Depsang Plains and Demchok, which are strategically crucial for India.”

The PLA has conveyed many times in the past they will not pull back anymore from newly occupied positions. By asking for more talks, the Indian government wants to show territory lost to China in 2020 is not permanent. Indian officials perhaps feel that the ongoing display of Indo-US camaraderie would make China relent. But China is too perceptive to see through geopolitical relationships.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Defence Secretary Girdhar Aramane are effusive about how the US can help India become a developed country by 2047, how India-US cooperation will act as a force multiplier for a “rules-based world order”, and how the US is geared towards India fending off China.

At the INDUS-X (India-US Defense Acceleration Ecosystem) summit on February 21, Aramane said, “We are standing against a bully (China) in a very determined fashion. And we expect that our friend, the US, will be there with us in case we need their support. It is a must for (India), we have to stand up to China whether we can or we can’t (sic)…We have to have the strong resolve that we will support each other in the face of a common threat, this is going to be of critical importance to us”.

Can US be relied upon?

The defence secretary is the highest ranking non-military official charged with the defence of India and the defence minister is a political appendage but can they explain what technology America has exactly given to India? Why didn’t they seek answers at INDUS-X, why a US carrier group threatened India in 1971, why was the GPS switched off during the Kargil conflict, and  what actions concerning India were discussed with Pakistan’s army chief and DG ISI in Washington recently?  

Why does our national hierarchy fail to perceive that having Europe tied down in Ukraine, Israel in Gaza and forcing conflict in the Red Sea by not supporting the Gaza ceasefire, the next most lucrative market for the US is to get India involved in a conflict with China on land and sea, using India as a proxy in Indo-Pacific? Why not make public all the help India sought from the US in 1962 and what America gave to establish the measure of American friendship? Don’t declassified US documents read the American dictum: “Give them (India) some weapons but make sure India and China never get together”?

India’s Tejas Mk1A production in 2025 is stalled because the delivery of GE F-404 engines is delayed (by design?). Doesn’t the US know how urgently India wants to address the depleting number of fighter squadrons? What about the transfer of technology of the GE F-404 engine being touted as 100 percent? Will transfer include the inner critical core of the engine?

Concurrently, America’s closest ally, Germany, has derailed India’s Arjun MK-1A tank project by delaying the supply of engines by Germany’s MTU. The expected delay is about four years. In 2021, India placed an order for 118 Arjun Mk-1A MBTs worth Rs 7,532 crore ($900 million). The Indian Army’s Future Ready Combat Vehicle (FRCV) may also suffer a similar fate because India’s white elephant, the DRDO, which needs to be wholly privatized, is unable to develop an indigenous engine for the FRCV project, stagnating for decades.

Chinese 'dual-use' border villages

Since 2019, China has been building 628 dual-use military villages (termed ‘Xiaokang’ or ‘well-off’ villages) along the southern border of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), including inside Bhutan and in Arunachal Pradesh, India. American analysts had opined a year back that China’s dual-use villages built inside Bhutan include EW and air defence elements. The same would be the case in Chinese villages in Arunachal Pradesh.

The construction for most of these planned villages has already been completed.  Recent media reports indicate that some of these villages along the LAC, and opposite the Lohit Valley and the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh are now being occupied by the Chinese. China continues to build infrastructure all along the LAC, including in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang region and the Siang Valley. This includes the construction of new roads and bridges to improve connectivity through the passes.

South China Morning Post reported on February 18, 2024, that more Chinese citizens, each carrying a freshly framed portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping, are moving into the three dual-use villages built inside the Doklam Plateau of Bhutan, which China claims as its territory. Satellite imagery by US-based Maxar Technologies showed 147 new houses. Notably, these Chinese actions are despite China and Bhutan signing a "Cooperation Agreement" outlining the Responsibilities and Functions of the Joint Technical Team (JTT) on the Delimitation and Demarcation of the Bhutan-China Boundary in October 2023 at the 25th round of boundary talks held in China.

The West is painting a dismal state of the Chinese economy as if the collapse of the country is imminent. But China had the second-largest total worth of $84.48 trillion in 2022, although China’s economic growth is likely to slow to 4.6 percent in 2024, and 4.5 percent in 2025. Xi Jinping bluntly told President Joe Biden during a summit in San Francisco last December that Beijing would integrate Taiwan with mainland China. 

For Indian policymakers, it would be prudent to prepare for a long war with China, which would be to Washington’s liking, with America not getting directly involved and reaping the bonanza.

(The author is an Indian Army veteran. Views are personal)