Its in Modi's character to make highly provocative moves that generate a lot of media clicks but ultimately become untenable. Case in point, The whole Balakot strike that ultimately ended up in Indian humiliation by Pakistan. Even Doklam is even more firmly under Chinese control despite the whole hype making standoff. Indian and Modi's style is to make moves that generate a lot of publicity but ultimately turn out to be hollow.
Its the national character of India to do these things. You will see them hyping themselves with a Space program and trying to portray themselves better than China just cause they have a 40 year old Aircraft Carrier or hyping up buying 30 year old Rafale as some magic weapon. They have been hyping themselves up as a Superpower for many years now, only to get disappointed in every turn. 2-3 years back Indian media was all about hyping how they the "fastest" growing economy and has beaten China with a 7% growth rate. But even that growth rate was doubted by many reputed economists as inflated due to change Indian calculation metric. But Indians were happy as long as they could publicize a "faster" number than China.
Now they are hyping up their big move at night. They will now claim how they have beaten the Chinese and how they are better than China and so on.
The Chinese approach is drip by drip escalation. Whether its against India or US or Hong Kong. They never make big public moves. Even when their opponent makes those big moves, they don't get super agitated and start responding with their own big moves. They make steady solid gains, they build up their advantages and sooner or later the publicity dies down and the opponent can no longer sustain their big moves anymore. Then increasing level Chinese pressure forces them to back down and give up.
This whole Border confrontation was itself a Chinese steady move at putting pressure on India for all the kinetic moves they made in the last few years. Moves such as Balakot strike, Kashmir split, Bombing in Myanmar, Joining the Quad. China's approach is not defined by how many KM of land they can capture or how many so called hand to hand battles they have won. China's approach is about putting India on notice and show that their aggressive strategic moves will have a Chinese response. It is also showing how impotent the so called Quad is for India, and how they will not get any help from their so called allies when push comes to shove.
China will keep putting pressure on India. When the opportunity comes, they will capture more land in some other part of LAC. In the parts they think India is the weakest, they will do more probing action. Even Pangong Hills will be eventually given up by India during the eventual negotiations and deescalation.
The infrastructure China is building is going to stay long after this episode is finished. Indians don't have the money or the organizational capability to make high quality roads, helipads, bases. So, China is using this tension to build up their infrastructure massively without creating extra tension since the tensions are already so high. These long term infrastructure will be giving India nightmares for many decades to come.
China's approach to India is not to win wars. Its to keep them weak, terrified, disorganized, distracted. This will be a long marathon for many decades.
Sounds like weiqi vs american football.
