[The conflict shows no sign of abating, and it reflects the swelling ambition – and nationalism — of both countries. Each is governed by a muscular leader eager to bolster his domestic standing while asserting his country’s place on the world stage as the United States recedes from a leading role.]
By
Steven Lee Myers, Ellen Barry and Max Fisher
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By Joe Burgess ( Click the picture for an enlarged view)
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On a remote pass through Himalayan peaks,
China and India, two nuclear-armed nations, have come near the brink of
conflict over an unpaved road. It is one of the worst border disputes between
the regional rivals in more than 30 years.
The road stands on territory at the point
where China, India and Bhutan meet. The standoff began last month when Bhutan,
a close ally of India, discovered Chinese workers trying to extend the road.
India responded by sending troops and equipment to halt the construction.
China, the more powerful of the two, angrily denounced the move and demanded
that India pull back.
Now soldiers from the two powers are squaring
off, separated by only a few hundred feet.
The conflict shows no sign of abating, and it
reflects the swelling ambition – and nationalism — of both countries. Each is
governed by a muscular leader eager to bolster his domestic standing while
asserting his country’s place on the world stage as the United States recedes
from a leading role.
Jeff M. Smith, a scholar at the American
Foreign Policy Council who studies Indian-Chinese relations, said a negotiated
settlement was the likeliest outcome. But asked whether the standoff could
spiral into war, he said, “Yes I do — and I don’t say that lightly.”
Both sides have taken hard-line positions
that make it difficult to back down. “The messaging is eerily similar,” Mr.
Smith said, to the countries’ 1962 slide into a war that was also over border
disputes.
Why the Territory Matters
On the surface, the dispute turns on whether
the land belongs to China or Bhutan. It’s only about 34 square miles, but it’s
pivotal in the growing competition between China and India over Asia’s future.
The dispute dates to contradictory phrases in
an 1890 border agreement between two now-defunct empires, British India and
China’s Qing dynasty, that put the border in different places. One gives Bhutan
control of the area — the position that India supports — and the other China.
“This comes down to both countries having a
reasonable claim,” said Ankit Panda, a senior editor at The Diplomat, an Asian
affairs journal.
Bhutan and India say that China, by extending
its road, is trying to extend its control over an area known as the Dolam
Plateau, part of a larger contested area.
The plateau’s southernmost ridge slopes into
a valley that geographers call the Siliguri Corridor but that Indian strategists
know as the Chicken Neck.
This narrow strip of Indian territory, at
points less than 20 miles wide, connects the country’s central mass to its
northeastern states. India has long feared that in a war, China could bisect
the corridor, cutting off 45 million Indians and an area the size of the United
Kingdom.
India’s Aggressive Response
Few countries have been eager to confront
China’s regional ambitions as directly with military forces, which has made
India’s response to the construction so striking and, according to analysts
from both countries, so fraught with danger.
But in recent months, India’s leader, Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, has shown that he is willing to flout China’s wishes —
and ignore its threats.
In April, a top Indian official accompanied
the Dalai Lama to the border of Tibet, shrugging off China’s public insistence
that the journey be halted. In May, India boycotted the inauguration of
President Xi Jinping’s signature “One Belt, One Road” project, saying the plan
ignored “core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The border skirmish arose even as Mr. Modi
visited Washington to court President Trump’s favor as India vies with China
for influence in Asia.
“I hope the Indian side knows what it’s
doing, because the moment you put your hand in the hornet’s nest, you have to
be prepared for whatever consequence there is going to be,” said Shiv Kunal
Verma, the author of “1962: The War That Wasn’t,” about the bloody border
conflict the two countries fought that year.
Chinese officials say the construction of the
road was an internal affair because, they say, it took place within China’s own
borders. On Tuesday, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, reiterated the
country’s warning to India to withdraw as a precondition for any broader talks.
“The solution to this issue is also very simple,” he said during a visit to
Thailand, addressing the Indians directly. “That is, behave yourself and humbly
retreat.”
Bhutan, Caught in the Middle
Bhutan, which joined the United Nations in
1971, does not have diplomatic relations with China. It has always been closer
to India, particularly after fears stemming from China’s annexation of Tibet,
another Buddhist kingdom, in the middle of the 20th century.
Since then, India has played a central role
in the kingdom’s administration, contributing nearly $1 billion in economic and
military aid annually in recent years. China has sought to woo Bhutan with its
own offers of aid, investments and land swaps to settle border disputes.
Two weeks after the construction began,
Bhutan’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it violated earlier
agreements, and called for a return to the status quo.
“Bhutan has felt uncomfortable from the
start,” said Ajai Shukla, a former army colonel and consulting editor for
strategic affairs at Business Standard, a daily newspaper in India. “It does
not want to be caught in the middle when China and India are taking potshots at
each other. Bhutan does not want to be the bone in a fight between two dogs.”
The confrontation, meantime, has soured
already tense relations.
Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi both attended the recent
Group of 20 meeting in Germany but did not hold a meeting, one on one, that
might have defused tensions. India’s national security adviser is expected to
attend a meeting in Beijing later this week, which analysts say could signal
whether any face-saving compromise is possible.
Mr. Xi is preparing for an important
Communist Party congress in the fall that will inaugurate his second five-year
term as president and consolidate his political pre-eminence. Given the
unbending nature of Chinese statements, few analysts believe he would do
anything that would seem weak in response to India’s moves.
“It may be harder to make concessions until
after that gathering,” Shashank Joshi, an analyst at the Lowy Institute, wrote
in an essay posted on Friday, “while it may even suit Beijing to keep the
crisis simmering through this period.”
Steven Lee Myers reported from Beijing, Ellen
Barry from New Delhi and Max Fisher from Washington.
