Question:
On June 10, 2020, Reuters reported: "...Indian officials explained that hundreds of soldiers had been stationed facing each other in the remote icy Ladakh region since April, in the most serious border escalation between the two sides in years, after Chinese patrols advanced into what India considers its side of the actual border. China claims the territory belongs to it and objected to India’s construction of roads in the area..." The border area between China and India had witnessed skirmishes between the border guards of both countries since the first week of May. Is the motive local, or is America behind it to harass and pressure China? Furthermore, what is the impact of this conflict on the Muslims in occupied Kashmir and Pakistan?
Answer:
The border skirmishes that broke out on May 5th in the Galwan Valley in the high-altitude Ladakh region of northern India, and then three days later at the Nathu La mountain pass (in the Himalayas, connecting the Indian state of Sikkim and the Tibet region), led to a military and diplomatic impasse between the two countries. The history of tension in relations between China and India is long and often appears as a conflict over the borders drawn by the British in 1890 with China in an agreement known as the Sikkim-Tibet Convention. This was when they dominated the region and directly colonized the Islamic Indian subcontinent. Upon their departure, they partitioned it into India and Pakistan, leaving Kashmir as an explosive region between them. They did the same between India and China to ignite conflicts over various border areas. To clarify what has recently occurred, we consider the following:
First: These border skirmishes between India and China are not the first of their kind. The armies of both countries have stood on the brink of war to varying degrees in 2013, 2014, and 2017—this is within the last decade alone. The two countries fought a fierce border war in 1962, in which India was defeated and China occupied the Aksai Chin region north of Kashmir. The conflict between the two countries on the eastern border stems from British colonialism and the annexation of Arunachal Pradesh to India, and the lack of border demarcation with China throughout the period of British colonization of India. As for the conflict on the western border, it is due to the ambitions of both countries in the Islamic regions, especially Kashmir after 1947. Due to the frequency of these border disputes, both countries publish significantly different data, even regarding the length of their shared border, which is approximately four thousand kilometers. Regarding the confrontations on May 5th, they occurred when forces clashed on the banks of the glacial Pangong Tso Lake, at an altitude of 14,000 feet on the Tibetan Plateau, resulting in dozens of soldiers being injured on both sides. Since then, troop reinforcements have continued amidst ongoing confrontations. China has already sent about 5,000 troops and armored vehicles to the disputed border area in Ladakh. (The Business Standard reported that more than 5,000 Chinese People's Liberation Army troops stormed five points in Ladakh—four along the Galwan River, and one near Pangong Lake... www.defense-arabic.co 2020/05/24).
Second: The heat of events between the two countries increased after India separated the Ladakh region from Jammu and Kashmir. China understood from this that the separation of Ladakh from Jammu and Kashmir was for strategic reasons to continue the intensive Indian confrontation against China since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 as the head of the government formed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in response to Amit Shah's announcement on August 5, 2019, regarding India's intention to separate Ladakh: "India's unilateral modification of its domestic law harms China and affects territorial sovereignty, and this is unacceptable." The border disputes that constantly flare up between the two countries are manifested in two central flashpoints: the first on the eastern border, where China demands the annexation of Arunachal Pradesh, which covers an area of 90,000 square kilometers and which China calls South Tibet, something India rejects. The second flashpoint is that India demands the return of territories seized by China in the 1962 war on the western border, specifically in the Islamic region of Kashmir, namely the Aksai Chin area, which covers 38,000 square kilometers and is a sparsely populated semi-desert region—a demand China rejects. In fact, China demands more sovereignty in the Kashmir region, and Chinese demands today on the western border are concentrated on part of the Kashmiri Ladakh region adjacent to the Aksai Chin region, which was part of the ancient Chinese trade routes, the "Silk Road."
Third: The Ladakh region, where the recent Indian-Chinese skirmishes occurred, is an Islamic region and an integral part of Kashmir. It was ruled by Islam for centuries and was part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir until it was severed from it on 10/31/2019 by law! It is a low-population density area but has high strategic value; it is the highest plateau in India and includes the upper Indus River valley. it lies between the Chinese Line of Actual Control (LAC) to the east and the Pakistani Line of Control (LoC) to the west, while the Karakoram Pass lies to the north. The last Indian settlement before the Karakoram Pass is Daulat Beg Oldi, which literally means in the Turkish language "the place where the great and rich man died." It is said to refer to Sultan Said Khan, the ruler of Yarkand, who came on a campaign of conquests in the year 938 AH (autumn of 1531 CE) to open Ladakh and Kashmir to Islam. Upon his return to Yarkand at the end of 939 AH, he fell severely ill and is said to have died in this place. Thus, it is Islamic land, and now India controls it within its areas of control in the Kashmir region—that region with many wounds. Just as India controls Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, and Ladakh, China controls the Aksai Chin region and the Trans-Karakoram Tract. All of these are Islamic areas in the Kashmir region, while Pakistan only controls the area of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, which is perhaps less than one-third of the region's area. Azad Kashmir borders the areas of the region under Indian occupation, while Gilgit borders other areas of the region under the control of the two states, China and India. In light of the current state of weakness of the Islamic countries, and particularly Pakistan, India claims its right to the disputed areas in Ladakh on the grounds that they are part of the Jammu and Kashmir region. In response, China claims its right to those areas because they are part of the Xinjiang region, i.e., East Turkestan. Thus, the two countries dispute rights over these Islamic regions while Pakistan wanders in its subservience to America and the rest of the Muslims remain silent!!
Fourth: China views the Ladakh region under Indian control with a special perspective. In addition to the presence of Buddhists in this region, it contains two ancient trade routes reaching Central Asia. This reality is of great importance in China's new "Silk Road" strategy. Although other routes are available for China to reach Central Asia, the route through Ladakh is shorter for reaching the population centers and markets of Central Asia. What also increases this consideration is that these ancient trade routes would significantly shorten the distances for delivering Chinese goods from its industrial centers in eastern China to northern Pakistan on their way to the Gwadar port, given that this project is an important economic corridor in which China has invested tens of billions of dollars in recent years. Therefore, this conflict is not devoid of this dimension in the Chinese mentality. If China wanted to open the other border dispute between it and India (the eastern border) over the state of Arunachal Pradesh, it would not achieve the benefits of the "economic corridors" it seeks within the framework of the "Silk Road" strategy, which avoids passing through areas of US naval control, especially the Strait of Malacca. What increases Chinese suspicions that India is involved in the US policy to curb China's rise are the following matters:
After the Corona pandemic crisis, America found a new excuse to undermine China under various pretexts. Washington speaks much about the necessity of Beijing taking responsibility for the spread of the virus, dragging other countries with it, including India, toward demanding an investigation, especially into the Wuhan Institute of Virology. On the other hand, the disruption of some supplies from China when the virus first hit and the impact on production in many European and international factories due to the interruption of the parts supply chain from China created demands for the necessity of abandoning supply chains that pass through China. Because of this trend, which is added to the efforts of the US President to return American companies operating in China, or rather to get them out of China, Beijing feels today, as never before, that its economy has come under actual threat and pressure.
What also indicates India's involvement in American policy is its attempt to weaken the Chinese economy: (General Vinod Bhatia, former Director General of Military Operations in India, told Anadolu that China, on a global level, is losing "influence due to the belief that it is the cause of the Corona pandemic." He added: "Industrial companies are looking to leave China; this forces Beijing to try to distract attention from the Corona crisis." He noted that the post-Corona world "will be a great opportunity for India..." Anadolu Turkish Agency, 2020/6/9). It seems that the opportunity the Indians are talking about is the transfer of foreign companies, especially American ones, from China to India. China sees that America stands behind developing Indian capabilities to enable it to confront China; it supported its nuclear program until India became a nuclear state and gave it a distinguished position and priority in trade and economic relations. Likewise, it forced Pakistan to ease tension with India to allow India to move large military sectors that had been stationed for decades on the border with Pakistan and redeploy them on the border with China. This policy is not new for the United States toward India but has extended over many years. Today, the United States adds to it involving India in getting large foreign companies out of China and making India an alternative to them, i.e., involving it in striking the Chinese economy.
It is worth mentioning that from a military perspective, China has managed to develop its army significantly and has become the second country in the world after the United States in military spending, with a military budget of 261 billion dollars for the year 2019. In fact, it spends more than what Russia, Britain, and France spend combined. Although India became the third country after China in terms of military spending in 2019, with a budget reaching 72 billion dollars for the first time, its army's capabilities are still small compared to the military capabilities of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. This reality of the military capabilities of the two armies makes India take a thousand considerations before fighting extensive battles with China, unlike the reality in 1962. All of this is despite India having a significant advantage in conventional weapons in the recent conflict area in Ladakh, especially since many sectors of its army are stationed on the border with Pakistan, i.e., close to the conflict area, unlike China, which has not concentrated its armies in that area until now. This reality in terms of the conventional military capabilities of both countries in the conflict area was confirmed by a study prepared by Harvard University... Arabi Post, 2020/5/31). However, it is noted after those skirmishes that China has begun to mobilize additional forces in the region and increase its military capabilities facing India at the western border.
If the Indian conflict in 2017 at the eastern border was defused by a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2018 (the two leaders held their first informal summit in Wuhan in April 2018, and during this meeting, Xi accepted Modi's invitation to visit India for a second meeting. Euronews Arabic, 2019/12/9), the current conflict coincides with doubled American efforts to undermine China, which creates additional complications making defusing the conflict more difficult. These new complications that the Trump administration is working to create around China are fully understood in Beijing. Therefore (Chinese President Xi Jinping said today, Tuesday, that "Beijing will intensify its preparations for armed combat and will work to improve its capabilities to carry out military tasks, in light of the significant impact of the Corona pandemic on national security." Sputnik Russian, 2020/5/26). This Chinese statement, although it did not specifically mean India, indicates that Beijing feels great risks surrounding it after seeing American intentions to hold it responsible for the spread of the Coronavirus. Therefore, China might be thinking and planning to show its military capabilities as a way of deterring any American military plan against it that includes American allies in the region, including India. It is as if it is sending a message to its nearby enemies not to cooperate with America, otherwise, the Chinese army is capable of inflicting great harm on them. Perhaps the intelligence report issued by the Ministry of State Security in China in early April 2020, which called on Beijing to prepare for a military confrontation, reveals the seriousness of American plans against China. Perhaps the leaps in Indian military spending, reaching the level of 72 billion dollars for the first time in 2019, and the massive arms deals concluded by the Indian army, all constitute a direct threat to China and create a conviction within it that India represents the spearhead of America against it. India's infrastructure projects in the disputed border areas with China, coupled with its accelerated armament, create more concerns in China regarding the future of its relations with India.
Fifth: As for the American position on the recent conflict between India and China, it was certainly supportive of India. Ambassador Alice Wells, the senior official for South Asian affairs at the US State Department, criticized Chinese actions in Ladakh and linked them to Beijing's provocations in the South China Sea. (NEWS 18, 2020/5/21). Likewise, Representative Eliot Engel, Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued a statement saying: "I am extremely concerned by the ongoing Chinese aggression along the Line of Actual Control on the border between India and China. China is once again proving that it is willing to bully its neighbors rather than resolve disputes according to international law... I strongly urge China to respect norms and use diplomacy and existing mechanisms to resolve border issues with India." (Foreign Affairs, 2020/6/1). This is in addition to the fact that America is trying to exploit these border disputes and employ them as a winning card in its hand against China to pressure it regarding its policy toward it, limit the infiltration of its influence in the region, keep it busy with these skirmishes, and blackmail it in the trade war and interference in China's affairs. For this reason, President Trump offered mediation between India and China after the outbreak of the recent conflict between them, in order to control the solutions between the two parties for his own interest. He wrote on May 27, 2020, on his Twitter page: "We have informed India and China that the United States is ready, willing and able to mediate or arbitrate their now raging border dispute." (Al-Hurra, 2020/5/27). This was rejected by China, (as Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that the two countries do not want the "interference" of a third party to resolve their differences. Anadolu Turkish, 2020/6/9).
Sixth: Despite this, America did not calm down; rather, its activity continued in the region, which it considers one of the most important in the world. Its actions followed in confronting China, from downsizing it to containing it to attempts to confront it directly and indirectly in the South China Sea. However, America can no longer carry out wars everywhere and maintain its extended influence in many regions of the world except by relying on regional and local powers it recruits to work in its favor. The Corona crisis came to expose America as a state that cannot manage the crises that strike it successfully; instead, it appeared failed and helpless before a virus! This escalated after the issue of deep-rooted racial discrimination exploded with the choking of a Black American citizen by a white American police officer, stripping it internationally. This is at a time when China constitutes a major regional power. Therefore, America has begun to rely on using other countries more than before to achieve its interests and maintain its influence. Subsequently, America worked to bring its agents in India to power so that India would be under its thumb, and so that America could ensure that the results are always in its favor and the agents' conduct is disciplined with it. It worked with all its might to bring the pro-American Bharatiya Janata Party to power; this pro-American party reached power for the first time under the leadership of Vajpayee in 1998 until 2004, when elections were held and it lost to the Congress Party, only to return and win in 2014 and remain in power. Thus, America began to exploit India against China. To enable India to play this role, America neutralized Pakistan and made it stay away from the conflict with India to allow the latter to devote itself to the conflict with China. This went so far that the negligence of Pakistan's rulers appeared to the extreme when India announced last year on August 5, 2019, that occupied Kashmir had become part of India. We mentioned in a Q&A dated August 18, 2019: ("America saw that tensions over Kashmir between India and Pakistan affect the weakening of the Indian subcontinent's confrontation against China... To overcome these tensions, the United States began the normalization process between India and Pakistan. The goal of normalization was to neutralize Indian and Pakistani forces from fighting each other over Kashmir and direct efforts toward cooperation with the United States to eventually restrict China's rise. America thought that annexing Kashmir to India and its pressure on the regime in Pakistan to prevent it from reclaiming it militarily and moving the issue to dialogue would kill the cause and prevent military conflict between them, as is the case with the Abbas authority in Palestine and the Arab countries around it without military conflict with the Jewish state while they occupy and annex whatever they want of Palestine!...") The rulers of Pakistan committed to that, declaring as stated by Prime Minister Imran Khan: "His government will respond appropriately to the government of India in the event of it launching an attack on Pakistan"... (Anadolu, 2019/8/30), meaning not to liberate Kashmir! About a month later, he said ("that Army Chief Bajwa reassured him that the Pakistani army is ready to face India in the event of it launching an attack on liberated Kashmir..." Geo News Pakistani Channel, 2019/12/26), meaning on Azad Kashmir and not to liberate Jammu and Kashmir from Indian control!
Seventh: As for Pakistan, which maintains close relations with China, it does not claim any rights at all in the Aksai Chin region that China occupied from India, which is part of Kashmir. Nor does it claim any rights in the Kashmiri Ladakh region under Indian control, part of which China claims! Pakistan, which used to show its joy at Indian conflicts with China on the assumption that China would break the nose of India, Pakistan's arch-enemy, has this time resorted to silence. CNN News-18 expressed surprise on May 26, 2020, at this silence, which also included the Pakistani media, and that it did not weigh in on this conflict contrary to its habit. This can only happen through American pressure; America wants India to feel comfortable in its relations with Pakistan and not feel any threat, such as the Pakistani army lying in wait for it if it enters a war with China. All of this is so that India proceeds to move more of its troops from the Pakistani border to the border with China, thus becoming in a better position to pressure China and scatter the strength of the Chinese army instead of concentrating it in the China Sea region. This weakens China even without war when its military resources become distributed between preparing for a confrontation with India in the southwest and preparing to face the main enemies in the seas: the US Navy and the Japanese army, which is also increasing its strength in facing China.
Eighth: Through all of this, the Muslims in the Kashmir region feel that the lands of their region have become a subject of dispute between two disbelieving states, each wanting to plunder and control it, at a time when Pakistan and the rest of the Muslim rulers take the position of a bystander. In fact, Pakistan has begun to pursue Kashmiri armed groups on its territory to prevent them from harming India. This Pakistani reality and the Sino-Indian conflict significantly weaken the Muslims in Kashmir. After Kashmir was in the face of the Indian occupation and was strongly supported by the Pakistani army, today it finds itself facing two major countries without any support from Pakistan, which is vacating more arenas of conflict with India in submission to America!!
It is painful that the dispute between India and China is over the division of Islamic regions, especially the Kashmir region and its surroundings. India demands the return of territories seized by China in the 1962 war on the western border, which is the Aksai Chin area of the Islamic Kashmir region. China demands a part of the Kashmiri Ladakh region adjacent to the Aksai Chin area and claims its right to those areas because they are part of the Xinjiang region, i.e., Islamic East Turkestan. The two countries are disputing rights in these Islamic regions while Pakistan wanders in its subservience to America and the rest of the Muslims remain silent! The life of Muslims is in distress and their living is miserable because of what their hands have earned. And Allah, the All-Mighty, the All-Powerful, spoke the truth:
وَمَنْ أَعْرَضَ عَنْ ذِكْرِي فَإِنَّ لَهُ مَعِيشَةً ضَنْكاً وَنَحْشُرُهُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ أَعْمَى * قَالَ رَبِّ لِمَ حَشَرْتَنِي أَعْمَى وَقَدْ كُنْتُ بَصِيراً * قَالَ كَذَلِكَ أَتَتْكَ آيَاتُنَا فَنَسِيتَهَا وَكَذَلِكَ الْيَوْمَ تُنْسَى
"But whoever turns away from My Message, for him is a life of hardship, and We shall raise him up blind on the Day of Resurrection. He will say, 'My Lord, why have you raised me up blind, while I used to see?' Allah will say, 'Thus it is; Our signs came to you, but you forgot them, and thus today you will be forgotten.'" (QS. Ta-Ha [20]: 124-126)
This is your salvation, O Muslims: following the verses of Allah (swt) and the Hadith of His Messenger (saw) by establishing the rule of Allah, the Rightly Guided Khilafah. It is the path of guidance and the path of Jihad, the path of honor, strength, and protection from the wicked. The Messenger of Allah (saw) spoke the truth in the agreed-upon Hadith narrated by Abu Hurairah (ra) that the Messenger (saw) said:
الْإِمَامُ جُنَّةٌ يُقَاتَلُ مِنْ وَرَائِهِ وَيُتَّقَى بِهِ
"The Imam is a shield, behind whom you fight and by whom you are protected."
So take heed, O people of vision...
30 Shawwal 1441 AH 21/06/2020 CE