Ladakh Flash Point
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Why does trying to follow, China- Indian treaties always give me a headache?
Two things really spring to mind.
1st, the matter that Swihinny (Force Magazine, sorry if name wrong) keeps mentioning, is that negotiations abandoned talk of Border Demarcation, some years ago and instead talk about the Line of Actual Control, which is a line of military contact and not an International Border.
2nd, What does China actually want? My guess is a) not to have to fight a war and not to have India as an adversary. If they can achieve that for the sake of a few mountains, I would say that was a good result.
Swihinny however states and provides evidence to support, his interpretion of an agreement to make the 1959 contact line, the official LAC.
It occurs to me that irrespective of who has to move where as a result (and I will not pretend to know that), by adopting the 1959 line, both sides can say "we have gone back to starting positions" and as such have a face saving military resolution, which; one would assume, would reopen the doors for proper Border negotiations.
Two things really spring to mind.
1st, the matter that Swihinny (Force Magazine, sorry if name wrong) keeps mentioning, is that negotiations abandoned talk of Border Demarcation, some years ago and instead talk about the Line of Actual Control, which is a line of military contact and not an International Border.
2nd, What does China actually want? My guess is a) not to have to fight a war and not to have India as an adversary. If they can achieve that for the sake of a few mountains, I would say that was a good result.
Swihinny however states and provides evidence to support, his interpretion of an agreement to make the 1959 contact line, the official LAC.
It occurs to me that irrespective of who has to move where as a result (and I will not pretend to know that), by adopting the 1959 line, both sides can say "we have gone back to starting positions" and as such have a face saving military resolution, which; one would assume, would reopen the doors for proper Border negotiations.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Chinese planners and strategists are anything but naive. I seriously doubt any of them hold any illusions that niceties like goodwill would be appreciated or even recognised by the Jai Hind lot in power in Indian right now.
As such, if China is disengaging, it would be for practical reasons, and certainly not because of any fear of Indian capabilities.
I would say keep a careful watch of the east, and Taiwan especially.
If Biden carries on with the set-everything-on-fire-on-the-way-out-the-door poison pill policies the last gasp days and hours of Trump and Fat Pomp’s reign, or even looks to be cementing the new Cold War that went into overdrive under Trump, then I serious worry China will simply decide that enough is enough and retake Taiwan.
Taiwan has always been a dagger pressed to China’s throat. An ace in the hole that the US can play at any time, whereby a quiet promise behind closed doors to Taiwan will see China and America directly at war with China easily cast as the aggressor.
In the past, because of economic co-dependency and responsible adults being in charge in the US, this was largely an academic threat, since the costs of starting such a war would be so ruinous to America and American elites that China can bank on there being no appetite in Washington to actively play that card.
With Trump having stripped away much of the economic linkages throw his stupid trade and tech wars; with a growing consensus in American elite circles on both the need for a Cold War style direct and overtly confrontational relationship with China, and that rapidly ticking clock on the window America has left to fight such a war while it still might have the upper hand militarily; it is possible, likely even, that Chinese strategists have concluded that odds are now unacceptably high that America would look to finally play its Taiwan card after they have recovered from Covid.
There are certainly more than one warning sign that America is already starting to make moves in preparation for such a war, what with its fake genocide publicity drive; Covid lies and mobilising their 5th column forces within European nations to actively damage their relations with China while strengthening ties with Washington etc.
As such, as the saying goes, if you are going to hit a deer, you better speed up. China may have concluded that the best chance to avoid a direct shooting war with the US in the near future is paradoxically to restart its frozen civil war with Taiwan and finish that once and for all and remove that low hanging fruit from American chicken-hawks so that if they really want a war with China, they will have to explicitly push for it instead of trying to backdoor one through Taiwan.
With American still deep in its Covid crisis, and deeply dependent on China for critical medical and commercial supplies; a brand new administration only just in power still finding its feet; a deeply internally divided America; and Europe both preoccupied with their own Covid crisis as well as being still deeply suspicious of American intentions, it is actually probably the best chance China has ever had to take Taiwan by force without having to directly fight American forces (and maybe American allied forces as well!) in the process.
As such, if China is disengaging, it would be for practical reasons, and certainly not because of any fear of Indian capabilities.
I would say keep a careful watch of the east, and Taiwan especially.
If Biden carries on with the set-everything-on-fire-on-the-way-out-the-door poison pill policies the last gasp days and hours of Trump and Fat Pomp’s reign, or even looks to be cementing the new Cold War that went into overdrive under Trump, then I serious worry China will simply decide that enough is enough and retake Taiwan.
Taiwan has always been a dagger pressed to China’s throat. An ace in the hole that the US can play at any time, whereby a quiet promise behind closed doors to Taiwan will see China and America directly at war with China easily cast as the aggressor.
In the past, because of economic co-dependency and responsible adults being in charge in the US, this was largely an academic threat, since the costs of starting such a war would be so ruinous to America and American elites that China can bank on there being no appetite in Washington to actively play that card.
With Trump having stripped away much of the economic linkages throw his stupid trade and tech wars; with a growing consensus in American elite circles on both the need for a Cold War style direct and overtly confrontational relationship with China, and that rapidly ticking clock on the window America has left to fight such a war while it still might have the upper hand militarily; it is possible, likely even, that Chinese strategists have concluded that odds are now unacceptably high that America would look to finally play its Taiwan card after they have recovered from Covid.
There are certainly more than one warning sign that America is already starting to make moves in preparation for such a war, what with its fake genocide publicity drive; Covid lies and mobilising their 5th column forces within European nations to actively damage their relations with China while strengthening ties with Washington etc.
As such, as the saying goes, if you are going to hit a deer, you better speed up. China may have concluded that the best chance to avoid a direct shooting war with the US in the near future is paradoxically to restart its frozen civil war with Taiwan and finish that once and for all and remove that low hanging fruit from American chicken-hawks so that if they really want a war with China, they will have to explicitly push for it instead of trying to backdoor one through Taiwan.
With American still deep in its Covid crisis, and deeply dependent on China for critical medical and commercial supplies; a brand new administration only just in power still finding its feet; a deeply internally divided America; and Europe both preoccupied with their own Covid crisis as well as being still deeply suspicious of American intentions, it is actually probably the best chance China has ever had to take Taiwan by force without having to directly fight American forces (and maybe American allied forces as well!) in the process.
I disagree with this part though.
No matter what, it's one thing to say "we will go to war". It's completely other thing when you start preparing for one. We fought ours 50 years ago.
The "elites" will never fight a war unless their survival is guaranteed. Certainly they will sacrifice anything in the way to protect their hegemony, but being dead elites don't serve well I think. The terrifying video of people running for lives scared hearing a false North Korean missile alarm is still available, see that if you don't believe me.
America will never be ready for war with China as long as it holds America at risk. What China should do is to make sure that they make Americans understand, if America interferes, then there will be cost.
America couldn't do anything when Russia took Crimea, it can't do a damn thing against North Korea when it fired missile right over Japan.
China is a soft target because it always prefers stability. You want stability & peace by firing long range hgv targeting picture of WH.
Rest will take care of itself.
I think you may have missed the 2nd half of Sawhney's analysis, where he answers that question from a big picture perspective. That's understandable, because the 1st half of the video is kinda boring, it goes into too many details of specific boundary violations etc.
Watch again from 13:50 onwards. The actual cause of the entire Ladakh episode began with the revocation of Article 370, which shocked both China and Pakistan. Neither of them saw that coming. Combined with the continuing integration of US-India in the Pacific Theater, that basically sped up the PLA's increasing focus on India, because India wanted to raise its own threat level to China from a minor annoyance, to a strategic threat when combined with the USN.
We actually discussed this on this thread many months ago in detail, during the opening weeks of Ladakh.
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