India-China Disengagement: Progress On The Ground, Doubts In The Air – Analysis
The Sino-Indian agreement on patrolling arrangements in eastern Ladakh is a significant achievement for New Delhi. From the outset of the Chinese actions of 2020—the establishment of blockades at six points and massing troops on the border—India has sought to deal with the situation in a measured manner. On the one hand, it confronted the Chinese at the blockade points and also amassed troops on the border, signifying a defensive rather than offensive intent. On the other hand, it pressed Beijing through firm and steady diplomacy to roll back its action.
In this way, and by applying military pressure by occupying the Kailash heights overlooking Spanggur Tso, New Delhi managed to resolve four of the six blockade points by July 2022. These points were transformed into buffer zones, where neither side would patrol. Two blockades, in the Depsang Bulge and the Charding Nala in Demchok, proved more difficult. For two years, talks between military and civilian officials did not yield any results. Then suddenly, a few months ago, things changed, and after a flurry of diplomacy, we have a settlement that goes well beyond the deals that had been arrived at on the other blockade points.
Statements from officials in New Delhi last week signalled that China and India have managed to resolve the issue of the Depsang Bulge and the Charding Nala. The deal announced on 21 October appears to be a multi-layered one which is likely to be rolled out in various phases. As a first step, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, during a summit in New Delhi, said that “the disengagement process with China has been completed”. This has been followed by what Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced at a briefing—“an agreement has been arrived at on patrolling arrangements along the line of actual control in the India-China border areas.” Both said that through this deal, the situation that had arisen in 2020 in eastern Ladakh had been resolved.
Reports quoting sources in the Army say that “a detailed agreement outlining the modalities of disengagement as well as patrolling was concluded at the Corps Commander level on Monday”. As a result, the Chinese blockades will be lifted this week, and the two sides will begin coordinated patrolling in the Depsang Bulge and Demchok. So in Depsang, the Indian side, which had been blocked at the so-called Y-Junction, will now be able to patrol to PP 10, 11, 11A 12 and 13 from which they had been blocked in March 2020. In turn, China will also patrol certain areas, though it is not clear as to which ones.
An important innovation here will be that the patrolling, which will begin at the end of the month, will be coordinated by the two sides to prevent the troops from coming face to face. Sources added that “patrols will be spaced in such a manner that there would be no faceoffs.” Another report said that as soon as the deal was struck, both sides began disengaging by dismantling prefabricated sheds and tents that were being used to house equipment, vehicles, and troops. The report had said that Indian and Chinese troops would now pull back from their forward positions in the two sectors by 28-29 October.
In 2020, China blockaded India at six places—the Pangong Tso north bank, PP17A near Gogra Post, the Gogra-Hotsprings area of PP 15, the Galwan river (PP14), the Y-Junction in the Depsang Bulge and the Charding Nala. Except for the last two, the other issues had been resolved through negotiations between July 2020 (Galwan) and the PP 15 area in July 2022. But in those areas, the two sides created buffer zones varying in depth from 3-10 km in which neither side could send patrols. The current agreement involves both disengagement and patrolling. In other words, in the Depsang Bulge and the Charding Nala, the agreement reversed the situation and the Chinese blockades have been removed. This goes beyond the actions at the other blockade points, which will, for the present, remain as “no patrol” buffer zones.
Throughout the period of diplomatic engagement, India had insisted that the process follow the sequence of “disengagement” followed by “de-escalation” and then by the “de-induction” of additional forces that had been brought into the region. However, this deal is a breakthrough of sorts since it amounts to a restoration of status quo ante as of April 2020 in the Depsang Bulge and Charding Nala area. If a similar process can be put in place for the other areas in question, India and China could resume normal management of the LAC.
However, it will not be that easy to turn the clock back. India and China had broadly managed to maintain peace and tranquillity along the LAC with the help of a series of confidence-building agreements of 1993, 1996, 2005, and 2012 that largely covered their military conduct on the LAC. An example of its success was the fact that the Galwan clash did not involve the use of guns but of sticks and stones since the use of firearms was banned by the 1996 CBM agreement. Yet, important elements of the agreements had been violated by the Chinese.
There are hints in the remarks of officials that elements of the agreement could also be extended to the east to cover areas like Yangtse, where Indian and Chinese troops clashed in December 2022. Further, innovations like coordinated patrolling, which were first tried out in the eastern sector, could now be applied in other areas where India and China have overlapping claims and hence insist that they will patrol them.
The key to the future lies in the restoration of trust. The Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi, in the wake of the announcement of the agreement, said that the bottom line of the agreement is the importance of restoring “trust” between the two armies. Urging a restoration of the status quo as of April 2020, he said that India needed to carefully look at the issue of “disengagement, de-escalation and normal management of the Line of Actual Control” thereafter. This would be done in several phases over some time.
While disengagement, de-escalation, and de-induction may proceed apace, restoring trust will require more time. This may require a restructuring and rewriting of the CBM agreements of the past. An important outcome of the Modi-Xi meeting in Kazan last week was the instructions they have given to their Special Representatives (SR) on the Sino-Indian boundary issue—NSA Ajit Doval and his counterpart Foreign Minister Wang Yi of China—to meet soon. The last meeting of the SRs took place in 2019. It is expected that the SRs will guide the process of Sino-Indian reconciliation, which could see a thaw in their constrained political, military, and economic relations in the coming period.