How China cleverly managed to play both instigator and victim in the Doklam stand-off

Four weeks and running, the India-China standoff at Doklam shows no sign of ending. Yes, this one near the borders of India, China and Bhutan seems different and more menacing. It is the first time that India has engaged China from a third country — a fact that seems to have shocked some layers of the Chinese establishment.
The message from China’s official, quasi-official and non-official sources is the same, the difference being the degree of belligerence: India is at fault, it must back down, withdraw its troops and let Bhutan and China sort out their boundary dispute. In other words, China should have the freedom to coerce a tiny country.

Hidden Tiger
India has maintained a calm but firm stance, kept the temperature low on its side and sent signals it wants to sort the problem with dialogue. The reporting has been sane with none of the hyperbole coming out of various founts of the Chinese media machine. Thankfully, there has been no charge of the Indian TV brigade.

Outside experts have weighed in —deconstructing the developments with keen insights. Lapsed ones like 1962 Sino-Indian war scholar Neville Maxwell have also offered their predictable views based on realities frozen in the past. Interestingly, Maxwell’s diatribe came without any input from the Chinese. He was floundering for information from sources far from Beijing. The rest was bias.

The reasons for China forcing a boundary dispute front and centre are many. China under President Xi Jinping has flapped its wings all around: from the oceans to the Himalayas to test the resolve of targeted countries. This also happens to be an ‘election’ year in China — even though the winner of the game of thrones is already known.

The 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is expected to anoint Xi for a second term. But he is manoeuvring to stay in power beyond the traditional 10 years. At least one prominent rival was put under investigation last week for — what else? —party indiscipline. Xi could be around until 2027.

There was no pressing need for the current confrontation with India. But it is continuation of adversarial politics by other means. The mythology around the closed Chinese system is so exaggerated that Western experts step gingerly around its constant aggressions, almost afraid to call China out as they do Russia.

The Chinese have cleverly managed to play both instigator and victim in the Doklam stand-off. Making a distinction between India and Bhutan, and treating them separately without any cognisance of the India-Bhutan Friendship Treaty, profits the Chinese. It allows Beijing to demand that India unilaterally vacate its positions on China’s terms. The Chinese also chose the time carefully.

Their road-building in Doklam came before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with US President Donald Trump, and after his meeting with Xi in Astana on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.

Earlier, border transgressions, such as the one in Depsang, occurred when Sino-Indian relations were relatively stable — or at least in better shape than they are now. Who bears primary blame for deterioration is a matter of judgement.

After Modi naïvely tried to establish a personal relationship with Xi and failed, the more innate parts of the BJP’s thinking on China appear to have crept in. This may have partly led India to ‘expose’ China on issues related to Pakistan: India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) and efforts to get Pakistani terrorists on the UN sanctions list.

Crouching Dragon
Acycle of action and reaction followed. The Chinese were apoplectic when the Dalai Lama visited Arunachal Pradesh. But why shouldn’t a religious leader travel freely in India? The list of hostile acts by the Chinese against India is long, starting with making Pakistan into a bigger nuisance than it already was by augmenting its nuclear and missile capabilities. They completed the circle by running the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through territory claimed by India.

China’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy of systematically influencing India’s closest neighbours, its forays into the Indian Ocean and the constant border incursions despite management mechanisms laboriously put in place — Beijing has constantly tried to restrict India’s strategic space while slowly gobbling land bit by bit. India’s proximity to the US is deemed suspect and destabilising for Asia. But China can seek a ‘new type of major power relations’ with Washington.

China can violate agreements it signed in the past by simply pleading it was ‘weak’ then, even though it has been courted by different blocs since the middle of the last century. China has successfully kept the Association of South Asian Nations (Asean) divided for years, never allowing a consensus to emerge on a ‘code of conduct’ for settling disputes in the South China Sea.

In China’s worldview, no one has the same rights and privileges it does. Not for nothing does China call itself the Middle Kingdom. It’s not the middle between Left and Right, but the middle around which the world revolves. Those who know the language and Chinese characters say people often miss this nuance.

No one can predict how or when the current stand-off will end. But we know intimidation is a bully’s primary tactic. And if you are not intimidated, the bully normally backs off.