China’s superpower ambition is bound to have a long term impact on Asian security. It’s very difficult to deal with an inscrutable, revisionist and rising superpower next door with whom India had a historical rivalry and whose brazen inroads into India’s traditional sphere of influence leaves embittered. Ironically, its trading relationship is important to the economy. The main areas of conflict are
ENCIRCLEMENT FROM EVERY POSSIBLE SIDE
India is contained geopolitically by the longstanding axis between China and Pakistan, involving, among other things, covert nuclear, missile and intelligence cooperation. With serious strains emerging in Beijing’s relationship with North Korea, Pakistan is now clearly China’s only real ally almost 24th Province of China.
Paradoxically, China and Pakistan have little in common, yet boast one of the closest relationships in international diplomacy. Their axis has been built on a shared objective to tie India down, as former state department official Daniel Markey says in his 2013 book. Weapon transfers, loans and infrastructure projects allow China to use Pakistan as a cost-effective counterweight to India. Pakistan, for example, developed nuclear weapons with Chinese aid and US indulgence. Indeed, the more Pakistan has become a jihadist snake pit, the greater has been China’s leeway to increase its strategic penetration of that country.
For India, the implications of the growing nexus are particularly stark because China and Pakistan are hostile, non-status-quo powers bent upon seizing additional Indian territory. Significantly, as China’s strategic intervention in PoK has grown, it has started needling India on J&K, one-fifth of which is under Chinese occupation. It has employed innovative ways to question India’s sovereignty over J&K and stepped up incursions into Ladakh. China is clearly signalling that J&K is where the China-Pakistan nexus can squeeze India. Its military pressure on Arunachal Pradesh appears aimed at distracting from its other designs. PoK serves as the artery of the China-Pakistan nexus. Much of the Chinese funding will be for power projects, including the $1.4-billion Karot Dam, located on the so-called Azad Kashmir’s border with Pakistani Punjab. This dam is the first project to be financed by China’s new $40-billion Silk Road Fund.
China thinks in the long term. Pakistan is now becoming China’s launch-pad for playing a bigger role in the Indian Ocean and West Asia. It will also serve as the lynchpin of China’s India-containment strategy. China’s land corridor to the Arabian Sea will extend India’s encirclement by the PLA from the J&K land borders to the Indian Ocean sea lanes. Insurrection-torn Baluchistan, however, stands out as the Achilles heel of China’s corridor initiative.
China already has the capability of launching a swift border offensive against India in conformity with its principle to 'win local wars (China's latest Defence White Paper). China is also enhancing its extended range force projection capabilities by establishing overseas naval bases in the Indian Ocean. China's rapidly growing military modernisation programme has changed the balance of power in South Asia. China with its asymmetric and fourth-generation warfare and joint operations capabilities and enhanced strategic reach can pose a serious challenge to India both in a border war and the Indian Ocean region.
Chinese maintains strength of five to six divisions on the borders against Indian forces. It is estimated that China can deploy only about 20 divisions in a war because of constraints posed by the Himalayan ranges. However, it has created infrastructure to maintain large reserve forces in Tibet that can be deployed both for defensive and offensive tasks at short notice. China may able to deploy over 32 divisions in an offensive operation supported by an array of Chinese missile forces thus posing a formidable threat to India.