IASbaba's Flagship Course: Integrated Learning Programme (ILP) - 2024 Read Details
Topic: General Studies 2,3:
- India and its neighborhood- relations
- Challenges in managing the borders
In News: A report was tabled in the US Congress that claims that the Chinese government planned the Galwan incident, where 20 Indian soldiers laid down their lives fighting the Chinese troops.
The Report
In its just-released annual report, the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission says that Beijing scaled up a "coercion campaign" against India. The report says that while the exact reasons for China's motivation to provoke India on the Line of actual control (LAC) is unclear, the proximate cause of the clash appears to be to harm India’s strategic and economic interests.
China has ramped up its “multi-year coercion campaign” against its neighbours, provoking military or paramilitary standoffs with countries — from Japan to India and much of Southeast Asia. The June clash was the first confrontation since 1975 that resulted in loss of lives on either side. It said the CCP employs its armed forces as a coercive tool during peacetime, carrying out large-scale intimidation exercises around Taiwan and in the South China Sea.
The report also noted that just over two weeks before the incident, “in another potential indication of Chinese leaders signaling their intent to escalate tensions”, an editorial in China’s state-owned tabloid Global Times warned that India would suffer a “devastating blow” to its trade and economic ties with China if it got “involved in the US-China rivalry”. It said that China and India have engaged in multiple physical clashes along their border for decades, but “since General Secretary Xi assumed power in 2012, the two countries have seen five major altercations”.
Talking about the Chinese move of bringing 7.5 million residents of Hong Kong under full and direct authoritarian rule with the implementation of a draconian national security law passed in Beijing, the top Congress panel said “this action was one of many in 2020” that demonstrated the Chinese government’s indifference to its reputation abroad.
The other Chinese actions mentioned in the report were border skirmishes with India, military exercises to intimidate Taiwan, and pressure on Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, among others.
It said that while earlier China always spoke about maintaining strategic relations with India and Japan, since General Secretary Xi Jinping’s ascent to power, China has steadily increased military pressure on both countries, leading to a significant deterioration in Sino-Japanese and Sino-Indian ties.
What should India do?
Apart from insisting on a timely and early clarification of the LAC, India should take a long view of its South Asia policy.
Prelims oriented Notes
Where is Galwan Valley?
Source: The Hindu
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