The India–China Confrontation: A View from Seawards

Most Indians assumed that India’s humiliating military defeat at China’s hands in 1962 had jolted its political leadership out of its complacency, engendered by naïve beliefs in the commonality of China’s and India’s aims and aspirations. The current tense confrontation between Indian and Chinese forces in the remote Himalayan wastes of Ladakh, climaxing in the June 2020 sanguinary clash, therefore, came as a rude re-awakening for the Indian public. It is now obvious that over the past three decades, India’s politico-diplomatic establishment has been lulled into the false belief that parleys and summit meetings could ensure peace and tranquillity across the undefined ‘line of actual control’. They also seem oblivious of the fact that growing naval pressure from the south, coupled with existing military pressure in the north, could have ominous security implications for India. Amidst the prevailing perplexity, this essay is a modest attempt to cast some light on the rationale and motivation behind China’s actions and its long-term strategic objectives with a focus on its grandiose maritime ambitions.