Posted on 10/17/2009 7:06:19 PM PDT by neverdem
It has often been taken for granted that China and India will rise simultaneously and peacefully in the 21st century. But a recent flare-up challenges that view. Thirty-seven years after the two countries fought a border war and 28 years since they opened settlement negotiations, the entire frontier from Kashmir to Burma remains in question. It would be dangerous to ignore this festering sore any longer.
The dispute stretches back to the British Raj, when colonial official Sir Henry McMahon drew the boundary between India and Tibet at the Shimla Convention in 1913. China has never recognized the McMahon Line, and regards the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as part of its Tibetan Autonomous Region.
Lately the border has been arousing more fervent passions than usual. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited the state of Arunachal Pradesh earlier this month, irking Beijing and prompting New Delhi to assert "Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India." Earlier this year, Beijing attempted to block a $1.3 billion loan to India by the Asian Development Bank, part of which was meant for a watershed project in Arunachal Pradesh. The war of words is likely to escalate as the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama plans to visit Arunachal Pradesh next month. Beijing is pressuring India via diplomatic protests and a media campaign to make the Dalai Lama abandon his planned trip.
The causes for the recent deterioration in relations are complex. China perceives India as the weakest link in an evolving anti-China coalition of democratic and maritime powers (the United States, Japan, Australia and India). Viewing India as a pawn in Western designs to encircle and contain China, Chinese leaders worry about the ramifications of India's power particularly in Tibet, a concern fanned by the March 2008 uprisings there...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I don't think either country will go nuclear. The bottom line is this - neither country has enough nukes to exterminate the other. Even if China manages to wipe out India's nuclear weapons with nuclear strikes, it's a given that India will build new nukes and eventually hit China with a first strike to settle that earlier score. A nuclear strike pretty much has to be concluded with all-out war and physical occupation to prevent a future retaliatory nuclear strike. All out war and physical occupation would cripple the economies of the occupier and occupied alike. China's not going to go that far for any piece of land. Neither is India. Any war will stay strictly conventional, and resemble the border wars China previously fought with Vietnam, India and the Soviet Union.
I think it would be a good idea to plan scenarios in which we provide some logistical support to Indian troops in the event of actual conflict. The area in dispute is pretty remote and might require a lot of airlift. It would certainly buy us some Indian goodwill if we actually end up helping them out.
China has been "a country" for well over 2000 years, although sometimes ruled by more than one regime.
India has only been "a country" since 1948, although most of the subcontinent was briefly united under a single regime several times during the same 2000 years. IOW the basic history of India is one of division, with not even the concept of a common nationality developing until the early 20th century in reaction to British colonization. China's basic history for over 2000 years has been one of unity.
India is far more diverse than China, with multiple languages and ethnic groups and cultures with ancient conflicts. It is really much more like the continent of Europe than it is like "a country" such as China or the USA.
I’m trying to think of worse terrain to fight a war in.
Possibly the Amazon.
And millions of outsourced white males, formerly in technical professions, but now pumping gas or working at Home Depot, are purchasing *record* quantities of Orville Redenbacher and Jiffy Pop. /sarc>
Cheers!
...or the Marianas Trench.
Cheers!
Oh, I get it...
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Since October 17, 2009"
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India would not at all have to “Exterminate” China if attacked by them. Nor even wreck their entire Economy.
An injured China would be at war with Russia in pretty short order.
Where is the vast bulk of the Chinese army deployed, and why do you think that is?
India has no interest in starting anything, but it has zero intention of backing down before the Chinese either.
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When have two nuclear powers ever attacked each other directly? It is too direct, almost honorable - too honorable for the modern style of warfare. Sun Tzu did say that all war is deception.
IMHO, they would attack through a proxy, a.k.a. 2008’s Mumbai attacks. But I doubt whether what transpires as a result would be predictable, or even desirable by either party or the world. IMHO, it would cripple both India and China.
So be it.
Nukes change the whole equation. The only place where India can use nukes without inviting Chinese nuclear retaliation is in India itself (against invading Chinese forces). India's first use of nukes on undisputed Chinese territory would create irresistible popular pressure for the Chinese government to flatten major Indian installations in response. Besides, it would be nuts for India to go nuclear. China has hundreds of nukes (yet another reason why Ogabe's proposed drawdown of nuclear forces is nuts). India might have dozens.
An injured China would be at war with Russia in pretty short order. Where is the vast bulk of the Chinese army deployed, and why do you think that is?
China has always had large chunks of its military in the Northeast. This is why the capital was moved to Peking in the 13th century - so the ruling clique could keep close watch on the military commanders entrusted with these forces, and restrict the amount of political influence these commanders had on succession issues. These forces were in place during China's invasion of India's border area in the 60's, and China's invasion of Vietnam in 1979. Russian forces did exactly nothing to help out their putative allies. (I expect the Russians sought reassurances that the border conflicts would stay within specified border areas, but that's exactly what the Chinese have in mind in Arunachal Pradesh).
My point about the contrasting histories of India and China may have been poorly made.
India has a long history of division. Occasional great empires would rise, but the peak of their power would usually be very short and the area they controlled would quickly fall back into regional and then often local states.
India was one of the most divided areas of the world. Not only by religion, ethnicity and language, but also by caste. Throughout its history the caste system has been elaborating and proliferating. As time goes by, India has become more and more subdivided in this way.
Politically, prior to the British conquest, India was never once completely subdued by a native power or foreign invader. Even today, “India” in its geographic sense is divided among three mutually hostile countries. This is normal for India and is actually much less split up than is normal for its history.
Most critically, prior to the British Raj Indians had never thought of themselves as such. Their self-image was built on their local state, their language, their ethnicity or probably more often their religion or caste. The very idea of “Indian” as a nationality grew out of resistance to British rule.
China, OTOH, has a long history of expansion and assimilation. Initially, “China” was limited to a small portion of the Yellow River plain. Over the millenia this culture spread out in all directions. As it did so, the people already living in the areas it conquered were assimilated and began to think of themselves as Han Chinese. They did indeed become Chinese.
The assimilative nature of Chinese civilization was so powerful that it was able to assimilate groups speaking radically different languages, forming what is the only truly multi-lingual civilization/culture of which I’m aware. They of course shared a written language, but the vast majority were illiterate. Nevertheless they all thought of themselves as Han Chinese.
When Chinese dynasties collapsed into a welter of states, their natural tendency, unlike that of India, was to coalesce back into large regional and then entire national empires.
The parallel to competing ideologies in America society is actually quite interesting. China is historically a melting pot. Other groups get assimilated and become Chinese. India is historically a multi-cultural “salad.” Different groups live alongside each other for centuries without melding.
Parts of Tibet and Manchuria were ruled at various times by empires that incorporated parts of China, and various Chinese empires ruled parts of these “countries.”
Also the history of civilization in the Yellow River of China is almost as old, if indeed not as old, as it is for the Indus River of India.
Possibly. Although so far nobody has shown the slightest interest in fighting over these territories.
This is actually quite interesting. There is every reason to believe Antarctica has massive amounts of various natural resources, yet no real effort is being made to exploit them.
Possibly our more available natural resources aren’t as depleted as the doomsayers state.
As India's quality standards rise to China's levels, and Chinese wages rise, more and more products will be sourced in India. I've spoken to a guy who sourced, several years ago, from China. I asked him - point blank - why China? Why not India? Doesn't India have lower wages? Isn't the average Indian worker easier to train because of superior English language proficiency? He said he and his Indian business partner had looked into India, where his partner had extensive business contacts. Because of Indian labor and regulatory practices, in spite of the fact than Indian salaries were lower, Indian sourced product was both of inferior quality (!) and more expensive. But that was several years ago. I suspect that situation has changed somewhat, because I see more and more Made in India labels in the stores, especially in the area of textiles.
By and large, companies don't source from China because they like the Chinese. They source in China because it provides the right combination of price and quality. When that changes in an unfavorable direction, they'll source from someone else.
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