This month’s clash is not a one-off. Arunachal Pradesh has been the site of regular skirmishes in recent months, even as tensions remain high in the Ladakh region on the western section of the China-India border. Chinese provocations in the east reflect a breakdown of Indian deterrence. New Delhi’s trade with Beijing has increased, diplomatic ties have remained normal, and India has not undertaken local military operations. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reputation for toughness and resolve—essential for deterrence—has been tested and found wanting.
New Delhi blamed Beijing for trying to “ unilaterally change the status quo ,” while the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said it was conducting a regular patrol when its troops were “blocked by the Indian Army illegally crossing” the border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Two days later, local military commanders from both sides agreed to a disengagement that prevents an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation at the ridge , near the edge of the Yangtse plateau. Still, Chinese and Indian soldiers remain separated by just 500 feet .
In the early hours of Dec. 9, a few hundred Chinese soldiers armed with batons, spikes, and other primitive weapons tried to dislodge an Indian Army outpost on a ridge on the disputed border between India’s easternmost state, Arunachal Pradesh, and Tibet, which is governed by China. The Indian Army warded off the attackers, but the clash was fierce, injuring 34 Indian soldiers.
In the early hours of Dec. 9, a few hundred Chinese soldiers armed with batons, spikes, and other primitive weapons tried to dislodge an Indian Army outpost on a ridge on the disputed border between India’s easternmost state, Arunachal Pradesh, and Tibet, which is governed by China. The Indian Army warded off the attackers, but the clash was fierce, injuring 34 Indian soldiers.
New Delhi blamed Beijing for trying to “unilaterally change the status quo,” while the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said it was conducting a regular patrol when its troops were “blocked by the Indian Army illegally crossing” the border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Two days later, local military commanders from both sides agreed to a disengagement that prevents an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation at the ridge, near the edge of the Yangtse plateau. Still, Chinese and Indian soldiers remain separated by just 500 feet.
This month’s clash is not a one-off. Arunachal Pradesh has been the site of regular skirmishes in recent months, even as tensions remain high in the Ladakh region on the western section of the China-India border. Chinese provocations in the east reflect a breakdown of Indian deterrence. New Delhi’s trade with Beijing has increased, diplomatic ties have remained normal, and India has not undertaken local military operations. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reputation for toughness and resolve—essential for deterrence—has been tested and found wanting.
Modi is trapped by his own nationalist rhetoric: Since deadly border clashes in Ladakh in 2020, India’s government has downplayed the border crisis to shield the prime minister’s macho image. China has been quick to exploit this weakness, which has likely emboldened it to put even more pressure on India. This shift has far-reaching consequences for New Delhi’s foreign policy, chief among them how it approaches its partnership with Washington. India fears being boxed into an alliance, but it can no longer wish away the Chinese threat.
The Yangtse plateau lies in India’s Tawang district, which is claimed by China. The sixth Dalai Lama was born in Tawang in the 17th century, and the district is home to the second-largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the world. Dai Bingguo, a Chinese diplomat who led border negotiations with India for a decade, argued in a 2017 interview that the territory that includes Tawang is “inalienable from China’s Tibet.” “Even the British colonialists who drew the illegal ‘McMahon Line’ respected China’s jurisdiction over Tawang,” he said.
The McMahon Line, although not formally accepted by the Chinese, serves as the de facto border between Arunachal Pradesh and Tibet. Henry McMahon, the British foreign secretary of colonial India, drew the line on a map with a thick red pen in 1914 during negotiations over the status of Tibet. In some places, the line violates its own principle of following the highest watershed, creating discrepancies on the ground. Yangtse is one such area of dispute, as established during border talks in the 1990s.
India first occupied the area in 1986, during the seven-year Sumdorung Chu crisis with China—a major standoff over the Yangtse plateau. It’s understandable why the PLA wants to control the 17,000-foot ridge, as military commanders agree on its tactical importance. It offers an unrestricted view of the entire Tawang Valley and Bum La pass, providing a tactical advantage. A Chinese military patrol was pushed back by India there as recently as October 2021; this year, the PLA sealed a road and constructed a camp around 500 feet short of the ridge.
Other reports suggest that clashes such as the one on Dec. 9 have taken place in Arunachal Pradesh two or three times a month on average recently, and that the Indian government has succeeded at keeping the incidents largely under wraps until now. Indian media reports that since the start of summer, the PLA has been “overtly aggressive” at the border with Arunachal Pradesh. Likewise, in the Doklam plateau in Bhutan, the site of a 73-day standoff over a Chinese construction project in 2017, the PLA has built a new bridge.
These Chinese grey zone operations—falling below the threshold of war—have gone on while tensions between the two armies in Ladakh remain high. There, each side still deploys more than 50,000 additional soldiers, Indian soldiers can’t access areas they patrolled in 2020, and border talks have failed to provide a breakthrough. If the PLA can try to dislodge India from a place like Yangtse, where New Delhi has deployed for decades, then it surely can target any place on the LAC at its will. Effective deterrence is a function of visible capacity to inflict unacceptable damage—whether military, economic, or diplomatic. The situation as it stands reflects India’s increasing inability to deter China on the disputed border.
Since the Ladakh crisis began, trade between India and China has reached record highs. India is the biggest recipient of grants from the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. This economic entanglement has further diminished India’s deterrence. Meanwhile, New Delhi has taken few diplomatic steps to dissuade Beijing from incursions. In addition to attending multilateral summits hosted by China and inviting Chinese delegations to India, the Indian military has participated with the PLA in joint exercises. New Delhi has not undertaken any quid pro quo military operations to take control of Chinese territory on the border, which it could use as a bargaining chip to reverse Beijing’s ingresses in Ladakh.
Despite these realities, around 70 percent of Indians now believe the country could defeat China militarily. Modi has avoided any public conversation about China’s border threat. After the Galwan Valley clashes, which killed 20 Indian soldiers, the prime minister said on national television that “no one has intruded into our territory.” In Beijing’s view, New Delhi is reluctant to acknowledge any aggressive Chinese actions to prevent embarrassment to Modi, and hesitant to follow through threats out of fear of further escalation.
Modi’s brief exchange with Chinese President Xi Jinping at this year’s G-20 summit also failed to yield any result in the border dispute. Vijay Gokhale, who previously served as India’s foreign secretary and ambassador to Beijing, recently recommended that India should “convey signals more credibly and transparently.” In Gokhale’s words, the Modi government’s current actions corroborate Beijing’s long-held vision of New Delhi as “unequal as well as untrustworthy.”
The ongoing tensions at the India-China border inevitably shape Modi’s foreign policy. India has so far continued to pursue relationships with regimes shunned by the West, despite U.S. President Joe Biden calling ties with India the “the most important relationship for the United States, into the 21st century.” Before the war in Ukraine, India imported less than 1 percent of its crude oil from Russia; now more than 20 percent of its crude supplies come from Russia. India is collaborating with Iran on an infrastructure project to shorten the supply lines from Russia and engages with the military junta in Myanmar.
Aiming for a multipolar world, New Delhi has rarely backed the West at multilateral forums, but it hasn’t voted with Russia either. India simultaneously wants be part of the global south and have a seat at the global north’s table. But New Delhi can only pursue this independent course if it has the freedom to maneuver. Instead, its immediate and proximate challenge has become its biggest concern, forcing it to view all its foreign-policy choices through that prism. China has compelled India to reconsider choices that it has so far sidestepped, including a closer security and intelligence partnership with the United States and its allies.
The most important decision India currently faces is whether to officially join forces with the United States to counter China. Most observers see the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad (comprising Australia, India, Japan, and the United States), as a potential showcase for that cooperation. Kurt Campbell, the White House Indo-Pacific czar, recently revealed that New Delhi was reluctant to have the Quad hold a leaders’ summit. When the United States explored whether the Quad could develop military teeth, the Indian side restated its discomfort.
More than three years after the United States agreed to have Indian liaison officers at the Indo-Pacific Command and Special Operations Command, the Indian government has not yet nominated one. New Delhi has not responded enthusiastically to the Australian Navy’s request to send an Indian submarine to dock in Perth, Australia; Japan also speaks in whispered tones about the depth or lack thereof of India’s commitment to regional security, including over Taiwan.
Ultimately, New Delhi’s reluctance to fully commit to an anti-China security partnership also reflects its apprehension about provoking Beijing. It is the only member of the Quad that shares a land border with China and recognizes that it must deal with a continental security challenge from China on its own; the United States would not take a risk over Tawang. Nevertheless, Beijing continues to view New Delhi through the prism of its ties with Washington. It does not wish to grant India the status of a regional power to be dealt on its own terms.
The Dec. 9 clash at Tawang underlines again that India cannot escape the Chinese threat on its border. The government’s tactic of staying silent until the crisis blows over has only made the Chinese more belligerent. Since the latest clash followed Modi’s personal overture to Xi, it should be evident that the prime minister’s personality-driven diplomacy has failed. Modi has turned national energy to focus on event management around India’s G-20 presidency next year, but that won’t diminish China’s intimidating stance either.
The status quo has changed, deterrence has broken down, and Beijing’s threat looms larger by the day. Sooner or later, India will have to take more decisive action.
