India-China military standoff in Ladakh is over for now

Disengagements between rival armies locked in a tense standoff for months, as the Indian Army (IA) and the People’s Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF) have been in Eastern Ladakh, are never a simple affair. Especially given the lack of trust following the Galwan clash of June 2020 and the intrusions by the Chinese side that preceded it. Nevertheless, New Delhi seems sanguine about the sanctity of the disengagement process currently underway. So much so that it has vacated most of the peaks of the Kailash range occupied by the IA’s ‘readjustments’ of August-September 2020 even before the Chinese have pulled back from the Depsang plains and stopped blocking Indian patrols there.

Perhaps the fact that the disengagement is being implemented pursuant to a written agreement between the two sides to restore status quo ante end-April 2020 has helped make up for some of the trust deficit. Be that as it may, the real test for India lies in the way it will go about border management once this current standoff winds down. Specifically, will New Delhi be willing to expend the resources necessary to address the mobilisation differential that continues to be in the PLAGF’s favour or will it succumb to the comfort of a new set of border protocols that give a false sense of stability? The proof of the pudding will lie in the pacing of India’s border works.

Though various drafts outlining each side’s version of what a disengagement could look like had been exchanged for weeks prior, it was a delegation-level meeting on February 9 that finally broke the impasse between the two sides, and a written agreement with guarantees followed. As per the agreement, the withdrawal is to be implemented in phases, with Phase 1, centred around the North and South banks of Pangong Tso, already underway. This phase began with the withdrawal of most of the armour and artillery deployed by either side from the South bank of the lake by February 11.

At the time of writing, along with the remaining mechanised units and artillery, the pullback of infantry forces from the standoff sites in the Pangong Tso area was also in progress. Notably, the PLAGF has removed the encampments, revetments and other fortifications it had built on Fingers 4-8 on the North bank, even as its infantry units have either pulled back to Finger 6 or have been sent further to the rear, east of Sirijap.

As part of Phase 1 disengagement, the Chinese must completely pull back to their post just east of Finger 8, where they even built a jetty in 2017. They have also pulled back from features such as Helmet Top, Bump and Point 5155 on the Kailash Range that they occupied in August 2020. The IA, meanwhile, has pulled back its infantry units to its main post on the North bank at Finger 3, called the Dhan Singh Thapa Post. It is reliably learnt that India has vacated most of the peaks in the Kailash Range that were occupied by the IA in late August 2020 as a riposte to the Chinese intrusions. In particular, India is also in the process of removing both troop presence and mechanised units from the standoff sites at Rezang La and Rechin La, the occupation of which had served to put considerable pressure on the PLAGF’s Moldo Garrison at Spanggur Tso.

Once disengagement in and around Pangong Tso is verifiably complete, expected to happen today (February 19), both sides will meet for a new border personnel meeting (BPM) to work out disengagement from Patrolling Point 17A (PP-17A) at Gogra, PP-15 at Hot Springs, PP-14 in Galwan and PP-10, PP-11, PP-11A, PP-12 and PP-13 in the Depsang plains. Subsequent to this BPM, the process of disengagement in Gogra-Hot Springs and Galwan is supposed to take place very quickly, while the disengagement at Depsang may take a few more weeks. However, it must be noted that regular patrolling by either side between Finger 4 to Finger 8 may not resume for months. India will eventually return to a small subsidiary post it has long maintained on Finger 4.

Naturally, the question arises as to whether India has conceded the positions it occupied in the Kailash Range a little too early, given that Depsang is yet to be resolved. New Delhi, however, seemed keen to resolve the Pangong Tso issue first since the sheer number of intruding PLAGF troops here was several multiples of what the Chinese have deployed at Depsang. Moreover, Depsang had seen a similar standoff back in 2013 as well, which eventually wound down with the PLAGF realising its futility as it could not advance beyond a place called ‘Nepali Basti’ as the Indian side was occupying certain elevated positions. The same situation obtains even now.

There is also a fear expressed in some quarters that the Chinese may rush to occupy features on the Kailash Range that have been vacated. However, that is unlikely given how the disengagement process is progressing, with even carefully built infrastructure being removed by the Chinese side and the closely monitored de-induction of troops to the rear. In any case, contingency plans would be in place for any such eventuality. Importantly, as a surety, the Indian side is unlikely to vacate one particular peak of great strategic importance in the Kailash Range till the disengagement process across Eastern Ladakh is complete.

In general, the PLAGF has been facing a lot of personnel-related issues in Eastern Ladakh, not the least of which is casualties due to the extreme cold. One estimate puts the number of daily cold injuries suffered by the PLAGF during the past few months at over a hundred. With summer still a couple of months away in Eastern Ladakh, this would have likely contributed to the Chinese willingness to disengage. As it is, with the Indian side having matched the Chinese buildup in Ladakh and demonstrated the ability to move preemptively, the PLAGF would not have been able to guarantee the outcome of any escalation. On the other hand, with forces in such close proximity, the probability of an inadvertent escalation was on the rise. With Indian forces still deployed in depth, this also means that the Chinese are unlikely to spark off a conflict by attempting to occupy the Kailash Range on the sly.

At the moment, neither side seems to have much of an appetite for a major conflagration. Though the Indian military has worked admirably to deploy and sustain very large formations in the field, logistics continues to be a challenge. For instance, the Chinese side had actually proposed the removal of artillery and armour at the beginning of winter itself. But at the time, the Indian side was afraid that it may not be able to re-induct armour to the standoff points in time due to the closure of passes. The PLAGF did not face this constraint.

Indeed, pullbacks of a few score kilometres are not made equal as the mobilisation time for the PLAGF is still superior to that of the IA, as is being demonstrated even during the disengagement. The PLAGF pulled out around 200 tanks in short order from the South bank within a day of the disengagement being agreed upon. These tanks are believed to have retreated to a place called Shandong, some 20 km to the east of Spanggur Tso. In fact, far from being worried about the PLAGF pulling a fast one during the disengagement itself, the Indian military is more concerned about the coming summer, when the PLAGF will again hold regular exercises. Readers would note that it was under the cover of such exercises last year that the PLAGF mounted its intrusions, and the mobilisation differential helped it reinforce these intrusions rapidly, thereby leading to Indian forces finding themselves temporarily outnumbered at various standoff points.

Now, as part of a broader de-escalation, the Chinese may seek to enmesh India in a new set of protocols that would constrain the pace of infrastructure construction by New Delhi, which in any case leaves a lot to be desired. For instance, out of the 61 ‘India-China Border Roads’ entrusted to the Border Roads Organisation, only 28 roads of total length 981 km have been completed thus far, according to a parliamentary committee report. As such, India must resist the lure of a new stability framework based on paper promises and instead expedite border works that can support offensive operations. With the IA currently having created substantive defensive pockets in Eastern Ladakh, mirroring the hardened and redundant buildup by the PLA in the Ngari part of Tibet, summer 2021 in this theatre may not be as tense as summer 2020. But one can never be quite so certain about Eastern Arunachal Pradesh, where the mobilisation differential is firmly stacked in the PLAGF’s favour.

(The writer is Chief Editor, Delhi Defence Review)