February 18, 2023

India seems headed for war by China

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

India seems headed for war by China, says Pravin Sawhney, Indian defense analyst and author of  'The Last War: How AI Will Shape India’s Final Showdown With China.'

In an analysis on Indo-China relations, Sawhney Saturday explained that there is a possibility of war with China very soon. [Excerpt of the book]

Sawhney argues that it is a matter of time before Chinese President Xi Jinping  decides to launch a war against India. “Xi has capabilities in place in Himalayas, make no mistake about it, for a quick, short and decisive war in China’s favor. I have explained it in my last book – The Last War - which came out six months back.”

So according to China’s well-known strategy of active defense, that means we will pre-empt, and we will fight on enemy’s soil. “What stops them from finishing, from destroying completely the American Indo-Pacific strategy by hitting India. Once India is hit, the whole Indo-Pacific strategy goes down.”

Surrender document

On the current Ladakh standoff, Sawhney said India and China, with the help of Russia signed a joint statement on September 10, 2020. Jai Shankar signed on the Indian side, and his counterpart Wang Yi signed from the Chinese side. This joint statement was to normalize relations both sides had agreed.

“This joint statement was a de facto surrender by India. Why do I say that? Because we accepted on paper  that there will be no status quo ante because the PM has already accepted the Chinese claim line of 1959, so there was no question of PLA going back. So de-escalation and de-induction was totally ruled out.”

As far as disengagement is concerned of course it was to happen on the Chinese terms. So what the Chinese did was that they ruled out de-escalation at critical nodes on Depsonand,  Demchock   and at the other four places at their own terms. A demilitarized zone was created all of it on the Indian side with the PLA not going back an inch. This is how the disengagement was done.

The defense expert argued that Indian External Affairs Minister Jai Shankar says that relations between India and China are not normal, primarily because of the border issue. “And India will not agree to change of LAC unilaterally. The problem is that Jai Shankar is being short on truth because three years back he himself accepted the change of LAC unilaterally. India accepted that.”

Sawhney referred to Indian Prime Minister Modi’s statement made four days after the Galwan clash when 20 Indian soldiers were killed. Prime Minister made a shocking statement to the nation where he said: “Nobody has come inside our territory and nobody is sitting inside our territory.”

China was very thrilled about this statement for two reasons (1) the PM of India has accepted the 1959 claimed line by saying that nobody has come inside our territory and nobody is sitting inside our territory. Because the factual thing on the ground was, as reported by the media, that the PLA in April/May came and occupied something around 2,000 Square KM of Indian territory in Eastern Ladakh. (2) The second thing clear to China was that the PM at the highest level has no determination for fight. In other words the deterrence of India was zero.

Indian Foreign Policy

According to Sawhney, India doesn’t have an independent foreign policy. In October 2020, India and the United States signed BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Cooperation), a document which is most controversial.

Once you signed this agreement, it means you are integrated in the US military power. This agreement was not signed during the normal time. In was signed in panic.

India was rushed to sign this agreement just prior to the 2020 US presidential elections. “By signing BECA India has no longer independent foreign policy, it is aligned with the Americans.”

India has taken steps to align its foreign policy with the US. Moreover there is discussion on how to wean away the Indian military from the Russian platform to the US platform because this is a critical requirement of itraoperability.

The Last War

What Pravin Sawhney says in his book  'The Last War: How AI Will Shape India’s Final Showdown With China?'  Here are some critical observations:

If India and China were to fight a war in the near future, India faces the prospect of losing the war within ten days. China could take Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh with a minimum loss of life, and there is very little that India could do about it. This is because the Indian military is preparing for the wrong war.

China’s war with India will stun the world with the use of artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, multi-domain operations, imaginative war concepts, and collaboration between humans and intelligent robots. China has been preparing for this since the 2017 Doklam crisis after which it permanently augmented its troops across the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The author argues that China’s superpower status will only grow and the ‘capabilities lag’ between the two countries will expand. And if there is outright war, the Indian military will be no match for China’s AI-backed war machines. In such a war, traditional conventional forces will be at a huge disadvantage, nuclear weapons will have no role to play, and the valour of individual soldiers will be of no consequence.

The PLA’s disruption technologies will overwhelm India within the first seventy-two hours of hostilities commencing, and will lead to the quick end of India’s resistance. The primary battleground will not be on land but in cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum.

India should avoid focusing on joint combat with the US, whose power in the region is weakening. Instead, India should seek to make peace with China and Pakistan, its main adversaries at the moment, while simultaneously working to enhance its military and technological strengths in areas that it hasn’t focused its resources on. Only then will the country’s borders be firmly secure, and the region’s future peace and prosperity be assured.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the  Editor -in-Chief of the Journal of America.
 

 

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HEADLINES

 The Journal of America Team:

 Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott

Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab