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India-China ties will be reset after LAC stand-off, says former NSA Shivshankar Menon

India-China ties will be reset after LAC stand-off, says former NSA Shivshankar Menon

India-China ties will be reset after LAC stand-off, says former NSA Shivshankar Menon
Jul 11, 2020 3 mins, 56 secs

India and China must fully reset ties, says former National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, cautioning that any move to allow buffer zones, mutual pullouts and suspending patrols at the Line of Actual Control sends out the wrong message that both sides are equally responsible for the aggression.

Well, I think there’s no question that, after this, India-China relations will be reset.

I think there’s no going back to the situation before [Ladakh stand-off].

I do think this has been building up for some time, that India-China relations have been getting more and more adversarial for some years before this.

All this, I think, represents a significant change in Chinese behaviour and actually calls into question the whole structure of agreements and confidence-building measures that were put in place since 1988 and with the 1993 agreement, which had kept the peace on the border for some time.

There’s a lot of spin, a lot of leaks, a lot of motivated articles in the press.

And I am sure that India-China relations will have to be reset after this.

Well, I think it’s actually dangerous, to speak of disengagement pullback, withdrawal, buffer zones.

China stopped us from doing our normal patrols in these areas, which we’ve done for years.

The Chinese have stopped us from doing so at several points since April.

In fact, we are actually teaching the Chinese the wrong lesson.

The Chinese then proceeded to establish a very strong, permanent presence on the plateau, leaving the face-off point itself free.

Before that, they used to visit once or twice a year, patrol and go back, just to signal the claim, but now they’re actually sitting on the plateau.

But I think it’s a political and diplomatic failure to not call them out for changing the status quo, something that China committed to maintain both with Bhutan and with us.

So, frankly, [China] learned the lesson that as long as the Indian [government] could walk away with a propaganda victory, they could actually make gains and change the outcomes on the ground in their favour.

So, there is a risk here that we’re actually you know, reinforcing the wrong lessons.

It’s a much bigger political, diplomatic act by China than just some local military tactical gain, you know, overlooking the DBO road, and they know there will therefore be a reexamination not just of our ties with China.

As a consequence, there will be a strengthening of our ties with other countries with whom China does not have such good relations — whether it’s the U.S.

If they have come to that conclusion, they could be doing this to actually show the U.S.

that, look, they can’t count on India as an ally in dealing with China.

They could also be doing it to show other neighbours that if they want security with China, then there’s no point relying on India, India can’t even take care of its own territory.

And that is why I say that the fundamental basis of India China relations has been brought into question and must be re-examined by us.

congruence actually applies to the maritime domain.

Our problem with China right now is on the land… it’s a continental problem and that problem is not going to be solved by the U.S..

To the extent that there is a broader Chinese challenge to us, and to the extent that China is the greatest challenge that we face, both diplomatically, geopolitically and in other ways, then, yes, certainly, we will work much closer together with others who share our interests and in the Indo Pacific or the Indian Ocean.

I do think that one consequence of what we’ve seen happening in Ladakh and the whole reset of India-China.

Certainly from the Government of India’s point of view, it makes sense to ensure minimal Chinese presence in critical infrastructure, and to try and reduce dependencies in critical sectors, whether it is APIs for pharmaceuticals, whether it’s our telecom sector, whether it’s power, FinTech etc, we’re very dependent on not just Chinese investment in our various companies but Chinese technology.

So, there’s a whole host of steps, which I think will be part of this broader reset of the relationship.

And we ended up with the Rajiv Gandhi visit, and the new understanding the modus vivendi of ‘88, which kept the peace actually for several years, and enabled us both to develop and grow.

They find it very difficult to compromise and to actually to do the bargaining and to evolve a new modus vivendi, which takes into account the new situation, the new balance.

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