The latest stand-off in Ladakh triggered a debate over the reasons for Chinese actions. While many attribute it to India’s decision to change the constitutional status of J&K, the author of this article points to the widening power differential. So, what are the implications of it? Read the article to know…

What is argument from China’s side over growing Chinese assertiveness

•  India’s decision to change the constitutional status of J&K is cited as the reason for Chinesé growing assertiveness in the Ladakh.
• The Chinese arguments proffered on various occasions since last August have been summarised by Wang Shida, a Chinese scholar in Beijing.
• Wang argues that India’s move last August has forced China into the Kashmir dispute.
• The move stimulated China and Pakistan to take counter-actions on the Kashmir issue, and dramatically increased the difficulty in resolving the border issue between China and India.

And what is India’s stand over this explanation

• Official Delhi rejects the argument that India’s action has “posed a challenge to the sovereignty of China and Pakistan”.
• It points out that the constitutional changes altered the nature of the relationship between Delhi and Kashmir within the Indian Union, and that it has no impact on the current territorial disposition with China and Pakistan.
• The government’s renewed claim over Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and China-occupied Aksai Chin is simply a restatement of long-standing Indian positions.

China: Part of Kashmir dispute or not?

• It might be baffling to hear the argument that Delhi has “forced” Beijing into the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan.
• China is very much part of the Kashmir dispute.
• After all, China occupies large parts of Kashmir, including Aksai Chin and parts of Ladakh and sits on the Shaksgam valley ceded to Beijing by Pakistan in 1963.
• It is important to note a nuance in China’s articulation.
• The competing claims of Delhi and Islamabad over Kashmir are rooted in their shared understanding that there was a princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in undivided India.
• For Beijing, the territories it claims have never been part of J&K but belonged to Tibet and Xinjiang.

Pakistan agreeing to China’s claim

• That Pakistan has largely swallowed the Chinese argument is reflected in the 1963 agreement on the boundary between “China’s Sinkiang and the contiguous areas the defence of which is under the actual control of Pakistan”.
• Not entirely surprising, since Pakistan’s primary focus is on getting the Indian-controlled areas of Kashmir rather than claim all the original lands of J&K.

China’s changing approach to the Kashmir question

• While its claim to be outside the dispute has been consistent, China’s approach to the Kashmir question has seen considerable variation over the last seven decades and more.
• Some recent research has delved into Nationalist China’s active efforts to draw the Hunza region of the Gilgit district into a union with China during 1947-48.
• The Mir of Hunza, Jamal Khan, opened negotiations with officials of Xinjiang, but in the end, opted to accede to Pakistan.
• Communist China did not abandon the efforts of the Nationalist government and continued to show Hunza as part of its territory until the early 1960s.
• In the 1950s, at the height of the “Bhai-Bhai” phase, China avoided taking a position on the Kashmir question.
• After the 1962 war, China’s position aligned with Pakistan’s as Beijing called for “self-determination” in Kashmir.
• After the Maoist era came to a close and Deng Xiaoping took charge in the late 1980s, China began to moderate its Kashmir position and find a better balance in its bilateral relations with India and Pakistan.
• In the mid-1990s, in a significant setback to Islamabad, Beijing urged both India and Pakistan to put aside the Kashmir issue and focus on developmental cooperation.
• But China’s position on the boundary dispute in general and the Kashmir question in particular tended to harden against India since the late 2000s.
• That’s when Beijing became more conscious of the widening power differential with all its neighbours, including India.

So, what explains China’s latest move?

•  The ground reality has not been altered by India’s constitutional changes.
• It is being changed by the PLA’s growing military capabilities and the political will to use them.
• India’s constitutional changes might, in the end, look like a minor defensive move amid China’s continuing gains in Kashmir across the India-Pakistan divide.
• Although Beijing has let Pakistan keep Hunza for now, it has not really given up its claims on the region under the 1963 agreement.
• The CPEC, which enters Pakistan through Hunza, has laid the foundation for ever-larger Chinese economic influence in Gilgit-Baltistan.

What is the implication of this in the future?

• China’s ability to nibble away at the LAC in Ladakh will only grow as the military balance continues to shift in the PLA’s favour.
• While India’s significant current military deployment to counter Chinese mobilisation may yet help persuade Beijing to step back, there is no escaping the longer-term trend.
• If Delhi can’t redress the growing military imbalance and as Islamabad becomes even more dependent on Beijing, China will loom larger than ever on the entire Kashmir region.
• That is the real message from the new Chinese affirmation that it is now part of the Kashmir question.

Consider the question “Rather than Indian’s action in its internal matters, it’s China’s widening power differential with India that explains the Chinese assertive actions on the disputed border locations. Comment.

Conclusion

In raking up the issue at the UNSC, raising economic presence in the Northern Areas and probing India’s military and political vulnerabilities, China is highlighting its new salience for Kashmir. This is part of China’s growing geopolitical impact all across the Great Himalayas. And India must prepare itself to face this changing reality.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now