When Hambantota port was leased out to China by the Srilankan Govt, it was obvious that sooner or later, China will use it for its naval warships . Now that the Chinese surveillance ship Yuan Wang 5 was docked at the Srilankan port, the fears that many had, have proved right.
The surveillance vessel is being used by Chinese military to track satellite, rocket and intercontinental ballistic missile launches. When the port is less than about 160 kilometers from mainland India, it is natural that even the missile firing range in Odisha can be within its range.
In the South China Sea, China uses maritime militias ; they are like Non State actors, inorder to threaten any activity deemed inimical to Chinese sovereign interests. The Chinese policy in the Indian Ocean also appears to be a typical replica of what they did in South China sea ; a gradual and relentless encroachment to expand China’s tactical space outside its sphere of natural influence. The approach may not necessarily appear to be a threat initially to regional powers, but it gradually would undermine their capacity to compete with China.
India’s worry now is if it does not react, China would use this ship’s visit as a precedence for future and soon we would find more Chinese warships docking in Sri Lanka frequently, citing variety of reasons. It’s a problem that has no easy answers, but India needs to act.
What is China up to?
For some it may appear that the Chinese are just imposing their military supremacy in the region, which every nation does.
Few may suggest that China is not a rival state but is just a competitor and it should be treated as one.
But in both cases we are missing to see what China is trying to achieve through these activities.
This was the same mistake that all successive Govts have been doing, since 1950, after Chinese took over Tibet. We preferred to keep quite, since then. We kept quite on Taiwan issue also, claiming it to be their internal issue, we despite the humiliating defeat in 1962 and numerous anti India activities did not pursue the Tibetan issue, in its right earnest, we once again preferred to be quite after the Galwan violence and rather withdrew our troops from the strategic heights that we captured, and on top that despite the Chinese occupying land across the LAC, we stated that ; NA KOI AAYA THA NAA KOYI AAYA HAI . In addition to above, we have time and again been lackadaisical in our approach towards China, signed a Peace agreement calling it The Line of Actual Control, thereby allowing China to keep changing it, we decided to dismantle in 2018 the designated Mountain Strike Corps(MSC) and when the crisis happened, in 2020, we hurriedly converted 1 Corps to a MSC (which had its operational role elsewhere) , this is sheer adhocism.
16 rounds of negotiation have taken place, since Galwan happened and the Chinese have not budged. Many veterans who are in media and also now Subramanian Swamy a Rajya Sabha member from the ruling party, have said that they are still occupying land on our side of LAC.
So, the successive Indian Govts including the current one have either tried to look the other way, preferred to wait and watch hoping that through diplomatic means the problem would be resolved or ……dissipated the scarce resources, thinking that this will will dissuade Chinese from intruding.
In my opinion, the Chinese are gradually forcing us to Disperse our scarce resources and dissipating them, scattering them all over, right from Indian Ocean to Bay of Bengal, Arabian sea and on a frontier of almost 3500 kms, making it difficult for us to challenge them in future. In 2013 they intruded in DBO sector, then Dokhlam and then Ladakh and now a ship appears in Srilanka. If we keep reacting and scattering our resources all along the wide frontage, we would be making their task easier.
Earlier the land border opposite China, was manned by few thousand troops, it is now being guarded by almost 3-4 times more troops and in addition more number of artillery guns, fighter aircrafts and so on. We may still not be eye ball to eye ball situation like on LC with Pakistan but there is now a similar situation.
The LC between India and Pakistan is thousand kms long and it requires enormous number of troops and equipment to guard it and deter Pakistan from trying any adventurism, so imagine how many would be required to guard the LAC extending to almost 3500 kms, particularly when the fear is that it can be intruded from anywhere.
With the initiative to encroach and intrude into Indian territory lies with China, it can make the LAC active as per its wish in any of the three sectors ; The Eastern sector which spans Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, the Middle sector in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and the Western sector in Ladakh and We will be reacting each time the Chinese troops are sited, like it happened in Dokhlam and then in Ladakh.
The deployment on LC and use of militants enabled Pakistan to extend the war front, deep into India’s territory and now China is also doing the same.
However, the rate at which China is manufacturing attack aircrafts and warships,( it has even surpassed USA), it is unlikely that a conventional approach can ever help us countering the threat imposed by China, on such a wide front ; extending from Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and then to Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian sea, both economically as well as militarily.
We would need colossal amount of resources to do that.
More so, when, in another 5-10 years almost half of Indian army would be comprising of Agniveers whose impact on the operational particularly the offensive capabilities of Indian armed forces cannot be rightfully assessed now, dissipating resources may be detrimental to our security. However, If it does have an impact then this would further compound the problems.
Many security experts like Brig Bhonsle of Security Risks Group, in his article have expressed the similar opinion. He said “For all practical purposes the LAC has been converted into the line of control or LOC with Pakistan, but without the customary exchange of artillery, mortar and small arms fire, at least for now. The permanent deployment of men and material along this long frontier, that too, in that treacherous terrain is going to be economically challenging.”
China has gone so far ahead of India technologically, militarily and economically that India is now going to find difficult to face this challenge, if it allows its resources to be dissipated along this huge frontage, And if it does so, it would only be playing into Chinese hands.
In view of the above, we need to be innovative and create a situation that China is not able to compel us to dissipate our resources.
This can be achieved only when we start thinking with a view to strike back rather than from a defensive frame of mind. The whole approach to a game changes when one team plays to win and the other plays to avoid losing. For instance, in 2013 when we upgraded a landing strip for the Super Hercules Indian Airforce transport plane to land at DBO.
Right now, our entire approach is based on Defending and avoiding to create an unpleasant situation. If China can achieve what it has by docking a Ship at Srilankan port, we also need to think what we can do to achieve the same. This tactics of organizing Dalai Lama’s visit to Ladakh or Arunachal Pradesh is now outdated and will not fetch any result.
A realization, its high time, must come that every inch of such a huge frontage cannot be defended by scattering resources ; aircrafts, warships, guns and troops all along the 4000 km frontage, we must make an endeavor to keep our resources concentrated and compel enemy to dissipate its resources. And this can only happen, if we develop a credible capability to strike at the point of our choosing.