Xi Jinping is an enemy of India and opens Pandora’s Box

Xi Jinping is shrouded in secrets, visiting Tibet from July 21 to 23 For the first time in 30 years, the Chinese President has officially confirmed that he will go to the roof of the politically turbulent world, which helps to focus on the ongoing military confrontation between China and India.

The two nuclear-armed giants have been locked for 15 months, intensifying military standoffs at multiple locations along their long and controversial Himalayan border.

Chinese state media only reported on the visit after Xi Jinping returned, saying that the Chinese leader met with the commanders and officers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) stationed in Tibet and called for greater war preparations. In fact, Xi Jinping began his visit by staying overnight at the PLA forward base just 15 kilometers away from the highly militarized border with India.

Xi Jinping has shown an increasing willingness to take risks. A recent publicly released US intelligence report stated that his regime is seeking to force regional neighbors to acquiesce in Beijing’s preferences. Xi Jinping’s strong revisionism is clearly because he believes that China has a window of strategic opportunity that must be seized before it is closed.

The damage caused by Xi Jinping’s aggressiveness is most obvious in the relationship between China and India, which is now at a low point. Tens of thousands of additional soldiers and new weapons were sent along the desolate Himalayan border this year, which increased the risk of local skirmishes leading to war.

The protracted military confrontation constituted the longest period of military confrontation since China imposed itself as neighbors of India, Bhutan and Nepal by occupying the then autonomous Tibet in the early 1950s. Even the Sino-Indian war in 1962 only lasted 32 days.

The large-scale assembly of India and China is accompanied by, especially China’s frantically building new military infrastructure, including combat facilities, in the border areas. The border that was rarely patrolled will become a persistently fiery border.

The military confrontation began in May 2020, when the thawed ice reopened the passage at the end of the brutal winter in the Himalayas. Shocked India later discovered that China had quietly invaded and occupied several key border areas in the northernmost Indian territory of Ladakh.

This discovery led to the first deadly military conflict between China and India since 1975, including China’s first death in combat in decades, and the ongoing confrontation.

Xi Jinping’s aggression was not only to plunder territory; it was also a colonial gunboat diplomacy aimed at reducing the size of India and demonstrating China’s Asian hegemony. Xi Jinping believes that if China uses deception and accidental means to catch India by surprise and create new fait accompli, it will allow smaller countries in Asia to follow suit.

However, India’s fierce military response exposed Xi Jinping’s strategic misjudgment. India not only matched China’s deployment, but also shifted its border strategy from defensive to potential offensive. In fact, the conflict with the battle-tested Indian army made China realize that since the catastrophic invasion of Vietnam in 1979, the Chinese army has little combat experience and must avoid further close combat.

This leads to a strange paradox: While Xi Jinping is working hard to eliminate Tibetan culture and identity with his tough national assimilation policy, China has been forming a new border force in recent months to counter the Indian Tibetan youth, forcing Tibetan families to let the People’s Liberation Army recruit them. One of his sons. China has also deployed mobile weapons for hit-and-run operations, such as self-propelled mortars.

Xi Jinping may be busy taming Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, and India. However, this is precisely his desire for expansionism, so much so that he secretly plundered the land of Bhutan, one of the smallest countries in the world, thus opening up another front.

However, for India, China finds itself in a tense military deadlock. If Xi Jinping tries to break the deadlock through war, he is unlikely to win a decisive victory. The war itself is more likely to end in a bloody stalemate, with heavy losses on both sides.

Xi Jinping’s aggressive behavior in violation of the bilateral border peace agreement has made the rise of a more hostile and military-powered India inevitable. India now seems more determined than ever to confront China’s power and cooperate with like-minded powers in Asia, North America, and Europe to limit China’s international influence.

Despite Xi Jinping’s severe action in Hong Kong, the city’s South China Morning Post accused China of alienating India in a recent article, saying that if Beijing really does not push New Delhi further, or even make India forever It should first put aside its dissatisfaction with the border issue and end the deadlock.

However, Xi Jinping trapped himself in a corner and had nowhere to go except for a brief visit to the border. He can neither back down nor start an open war.

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and author of nine books, including “Water: A New Battlefield in Asia.” (Georgetown University Press)