India China going for war ?

Is there a war on cards between two Asian giants - India and China?

Is the world going to witness WW-III in 2020?

Are we sitting on a ticking time boom?

Is history (of 1962) going to repeat itself?

Will we see dragon and tiger locking their horns again?

Answers to these questions are hidden under tides of time, which will be unveiled soon.

In this blog, we will try and understand two aspects of Indo-Sino standoff.

The First aspect is why China has switched gears and adopted so aggressive stance.

Secondly how the dragon is trying to achieve its objectives?

Quoted or unquoted there are 5 reasons why China is behaving so aggressively:

 

1. Its internal unrest and issues: due to COVID-19 and it’s after effects, China’s economic situation is not very good. Unemployment is causing unrest among the masses. Companies (foreign) are shutting down their operations and moving out of China, adding further fuel to fire. Drop-in exports post COVID-19 made the things grimmer.

2. India’s initiative to boost infrastructure in border areas: as we all know China was doing developing infrastructure on its southern borders (all along the Indian side) paying almost zero attention to India’s objection and protest. They constructed roads, bridges, military installations, airstrips or helipads, etc. But felt agitated when India started strengthening its infrastructure on its northern borders.  China could not digest this and wants India to immediately stop all such operations so that it can have an upper hand if there is a war with India in the future.

3. Changes introduced by India in Its FDI (Foreign Direct Investment): a few months back Central Bank of China named People’s Bank of China (PBOC) bought a 1.1 % stake in India’s largest private sector bank HDFC. This raised alarm and GOI (Government of India) made some changes to its FDI policy and making it more stringent, especially for the countries sharing borders with India. This move also didn’t go well with China.

4. Support extended by India to the proposal of investigation for reasons behind the spread of COVID-19 and the role of China: At WHO India supported the proposal, seeking a detailed and independent investigation of source, reasons, and role of China in the spread of COVID-19. India is among the 194 nations supporting this proposal.

5. Diverting attention: China has put in a huge amount of resources in CPEC, COVID-19, and president Xi Jinping assuming the president’s office for life with almost absolute authority - but unfortunately, none of these have delivered the desired results. The pressure is mounting on China’s government, especially on President Xi Jinping - to set the things in order and deliver. As per some sources Chines Primier is going through the toughest time of his tenure in office. But the tide can’t be turned in a day. In order to buy some time to set the things right, China is trying to divert the attention of their people in particular and the world at large China is escalating standoff with India.

The above 5 reasons are among some of the reasons underlying the current Indo-Sino standoff. Despite all the efforts by both the governments I don’t see this getting de-escalated in the near future.

Today it was in Galwan valley tomorrow, it can be some other place.

Now let’s spend some time in how China is fighting the Modern war - because it’s an established fact that even though China may appear to have an edge over India in terms of military numbers but as far as experience, dedication and courage matters Indian army is far ahead of China. So China will try and abstain from getting engaged with India in a conventional war. Moreover gone are the days when any country can win a war just by following conventional warfare.

A book was written by two high ranking officials of PLA (People’s Liberation Army) of China, lying the foundation for Army manual for asymmetric warfare and the waging of war, strategically and tactically, using weapons not limited to bullets, bombs, missiles and artillery shells. The PLA officers who advocated the strategy, argue that modern warfare, in ways not too dissimilar from Sun Tzu’s Art of War, is about impeding the enemy’s ability to wage war and to defend itself against a barrage of attacks against its economy, its civil institutions, its government structures and its actual belief system.

This is not a manual for achieving an overnight victory. Rather, it is a recipe for a slow but inexorable assault on an enemy’s institutions, often without the enemy’s knowledge that it is even being attacked. As Sun Tzu once wrote, “If one party is at war with another, and the other party does not realize it is at war, the party who knows it is at war almost always has the advantage and usually wins.” And this is the strategy set forth in Unrestricted Warfare: waging a war on an adversary with methods so covert at first and seemingly so benign that the party being attacked does not realize it’s being attacked.

China has developed a new doctrine of war that is more dangerous and has fatal results than conventional war.

Named as “Unrestricted Warfare” its mixture of conventional warfare, psychological warfare, media warfare, and legal warfare. 

They follow a saying to the T “strangle you with your own system”.  It’s very simple but yet very effective. They observe how your system and society works. Once they understand this they mold it in such a manner that your own system - on which you have pride and honor - starts playing against you. Your own system starts killing you from inside. 

You believe in freedom of speech - they will have protests in your country - resulting in social unrest.

You believe in the free market - they will bring in state-owned companies selling goods at cheaper prices and throwing your companies out of business and gaining control of your own markets.

You believe in freedom of media/ press - they will bring in state-run / owned media houses to run their propaganda.

They will twist and turn your systems to create confusion and chaos leading to complete anarchy and finally your own system killing you.

 How these different war fares work. 

Psychological warfare: It does not necessarily mean lying to someone, it’s more about altering how you interpret information, and so when you see a virus coming out of China and people say this virus coming out of China. If you call it the Chinese virus, they want to use this & twist it around and say it is racist if you talk about the origin of this virus.

Media Warfare: is the manipulation or control of outlets of information, not just news outlets, but say social media, online platforms i.e. any means to speak openly, anything that would allow people to communicate would-be target of media warfare.

Legal warfare: is the manipulation of the international legal system to meet its objectives.

In a recently published editorial in the ruling party in China CCP’s mouthpiece newspaper The Global Times, it was stated that India will have to face the joint forces of China, Pakistan, and Nepal. At this juncture when the tensions are high and both the countries are trying to de-escalate the situation, such an editorial clearly shows that China is trying to provoke India so that, if there is war – China can easily put the entire blame on India for the instability in the region and get its purpose solved.

At this juncture, it is the duty and responsibility of every India to stand for its country - with its army and government. Once we are out of these crises we can fight among ourselves supporting our religion, ideology, political party, language, region, etc. etc., because remember slaves don’t have any say and have to abide by their masters’ wimps and fancies.

Today’s those who are questioning government and army should remember they are in a position to do so only because they are citizens of a free country India, where we all enjoy the fruits of independence – freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom to live the way we want. So if not for the sake of country support the army have trust and faith in them and their capabilities for the sake of your own freedom, as said earlier slaves don’t have any freedom.

Wake-up and join hands together before it’s too late.