Raising air power violation is China’s mind game. India’s challenge is to call the bluff

Concerns of air power violations in Ladakh entered the doors of military talks between India and China in early August 2022. Both sides blamed each other of violating the 1996 Agreement on Confidence-Building Measures along the Line of Actual Control. The agreement stipulates that combat aircraft, which includes fighter, bomber, reconnaissance, military trainer, armed helicopter and other armed aircraft, shall not fly within 10 km of the LAC. In order to control escalation, establishing a separate hotline or leveraging existing ones is going to be explored as the way forward. However, to expect that a hotline can cope with the speed of fighter aircraft is an illusion. At best, it can serve as a mechanism to exchange information, after the incident.

The Coming Battle for Taiwan

A very good way to get a handle on the geopolitical developments in the Indo Pacific—and the current Taiwan crisis—is to pay attention to what the Communist Party of China’s leaders have been declaring for decades. They want to reunify the country both to recover from two centuries of humiliation by Western powers and to finish the civil war that started nearly a hundred years ago. China will then retake its rightful place as a global power. Presumably, this will be within an international order where it is the peerless Middle Kingdom surrounded by tributaries whose fortunes depend on Beijing’s goodwill.

Heed Napoleon’s words as China fancies its odds of taking Taiwan

The ongoing confrontation between Indian and Chinese troops along the Himalayan frontiers is serious, but pales in comparison with the situation across the Taiwan Strait. Over the weekend of 18-19 September, China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and Navy (PLAN) flew 37 aircraft—including fighters and bombers—across the centre line that has served as the informal boundary between the mainland and Taiwan. One of the intruding pilots declared to Taiwanese defenders on the radio that “there is no median line in the Taiwan Strait." Beijing’s intrusions coincided with and were certainly a reaction to a US state department official’s visit to Taipei. As an intimidatory tactic, China’s move is highly risky. One miscalculation by a pilot or an air defence operator could spark a conflict that could well draw in the United States and its allies into a bigger war.Read more

Arriving at a new normal in India-China relations

This article was first published in The Hindustan Times.The ongoing stand-off between the Indian and Chinese forces in eastern Ladakh is a fork in the road, fundamentally reshaping the direction of the bilateral relationship. Over the last few years, the architects of the gradual thaw and developing partnership between the two sides, which began in 1988, had been warning about the withering of old mechanisms that had kept the peace on the disputed boundary.Despite the pageantry of informal summitry, the strategic guidance provided by the leaders to their respective militaries has clearly not succeeded in stemming incidents. In November 2019, the minister of state for defence, Shripad Naik, told Parliament that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had transgressed into Indian territory 1,025 times between 2016 and 2018. Roughly a third of these incidents took place in 2018. In April that year, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping held the first of their two informal summits. Recent reports suggest that the number of transgressions across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) increased significantly in 2019.

Separating economic and border issues

As we exit the lockdown and resume economic activity, we will have to observe certain protocols. Like social distancing. Or using hand sanitisers in office, public places, or even at home. These sanitisers are alcohol-based and usually come in dispenser pumps. The pump minimises human contact, unlike a tube or bottle. It is made of plastic, has 16 components, and costs less than Rs 20 if produced at scale. Here’s the rub: As reported by an online news outlet, we have not been able to find domestic manufacturers who can produce dispensers at a large scale, at this cost. We are facing a health crisis, and urgently need large quantities of dispenser pumps. There’s no alternative but to import from China.Take pharmaceuticals. We are the world’s leaders in bulk drug formulations, used by leading medicine makers of the world. But these formulations need crucial active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) as inputs. Without APIs, our pharma industry, both domestic and export, will be crippled. And 65 per cent of APIs are imported from China, worth $3.5 billion (i.e. about Rs 25,000 crore). When imports were halted in April and May due to the lockdown and stoppage of the sea and air cargo, there was near panic in the Indian pharma industry. This could threaten even our internal supply situation for medicines. And there is no realistic option of switching to any other supplier, at this cost or scale. Unless we risk rising medical costs.Read More