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 As India pushes China back on LAC, PLA’s growing transgressions risk ‘strategic miscalculation’

The December 9 clash along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh following an attempted transgression by more than 600 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops that was pushed back by the Indian Army, has underlined the growing risks of “strategic miscalculation” along the border, a former senior Indian official has said, with China’s increasingly aggressive posture wrongly discounting India’s willingness to respond.

The PLA on Tuesday defended its actions in the Yangtse area of Tawang sector in Arunachal Pradesh, with Senior Colonel Long Shaohua, spokesperson for the Western Theater Command, in a statement saying “a regular patrol in the Dongzhang area” on “the Chinese side of the LAC” was “blocked by the Indian Army illegally crossing” the line.

We ask the Indian side to strictly control and restrain front-line forces and work with the Chinese side to maintain peace and tranquility on the border,” he said. In a separate comment, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a daily briefing said the “current border situation between China and India is generally stable” and “both sides have maintained unimpeded communication on border-related issues through diplomatic and military channels”.

The PLA’s recent LAC transgressions – including at multiple areas starting in April 2020 in the Western Sector in Ladakh – reflected an aggressive posture, seen since 2013, as well as raised the question “whether there is a potential for strategic miscalculation by China after the military standoff in Ladakh”, former Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to China Vijay Gokhale wrote in a new paper published on Tuesday by Carnegie India on China’s India policy.

The PLA attempted to unilaterally change the status quo in the Western Sector, and the latest move has suggested a similar attempt in the East. “Two Chinese assumptions —that India will not intentionally escalate militarily in response to low-level coercion and that India will not form alliances against the coercer — should be weighed against the changes in Indian strategic thinking since 2020,” he said.

“First, the ambiguity that prevailed in India’s decision-making and strategic circles as to whether China is a partner or a rival has been replaced by strategic clarity. China’s behaviour is now perceived as adversarial and few are willing to give it the benefit of the doubt….Second, the idea of strategic restraint has been redefined. This has involved a change in risk-taking appetite among the political class, as a result of which the Snow Leopard counter-operation at Rezang La/Rechin La was carried out in August 2022,” he said, referring to India’s countermoves in the south of Pangong Lake which pushed China to subsequently disengage on the north bank.

“This was an intentional escalation by India that was not anticipated by China,” he noted. “Thus the Chinese assumption that there will be no immediate backlash to low-level coercion on the LAC because India is risk-averse may no longer be valid.”