Military situation in the sino-indian border

Lethe said:

I did not say that China was at fault in this incident. However, there were clearly failures amongst those who did not anticipate India's response to China's roadworks, however justified those may have been. There were failures of intelligence, or in assessment of that intelligence. Or perhaps there were not, and the current crisis was in fact anticipated and gamed out ahead of time. In which case one can only hope that those representing decision-makers on the Indian side were very good at their job.

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It's a road we are talking about. Not an airbase or fortifications, as the Indians have been building close to their side the boarder, just to name a few.

It has never been acceptable for the unreasonable fears of a neighbour to determine what civilian infrastructure any country could or should build in its own territory.

Would you agree to the reversal of your position, that India should leave its northern territories undeveloped wilderness backwaters if China suddenly developed an irrational fear of Tarmac?

As for intelligence failure, well, that is actually far from as straight forward as you seem to think.

Firstly, this was a few dozen guys walking across a porous broader in a remote and scarcely populated area, not the Korean DMZ.

No-one would devote the vast amount of resources needed to keep such a vast and inhospitable boarder monitored 24/7 never mind manned.

Secondly, if India is so overreacting over road well inside China, just how do you think they will take China putting up a Chinese version on the Trump wall on the boarder instead?

Seems like intellectual nonsense to admonish China for not foreseeing India's paranoid overreaction to a road at the same time as effectively admonishing China for not putting up the worlds best boarder wall in place, never mind how the Indians would react to that!

I was making a broad-spectrum observation about the evolution of Chinese nationalist discourse, and its potential manifestations in policy. To extend my previous post, the key word is empathy: the ability to place yourself in the shoes of another, to understand how he sees himself, why he acts the way he does, what his real priorities are, and therefore how he is likely to respond to your actions. Power tends to diminish the capacity and inclination for such empathetic inclination, but it remains necessary if one is to engage successfully with the real world, rather than -- as has so often been the case in Washington -- the dream world constructed by narrow domestic interests for narrow domestic purposes.

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In my experience, 'broad spectrum' and its ilk might as well be an euphemism for 'I am going to take a few select examples that fits my view and extrapolate that across the entire population'.

China has shown incredible patience and empathy to its smaller neighbours.

However, when those smaller neighbours start taking liberties by grabbing territory and breaking faith with negotiations, China, as any self respecting nation, will harden its position and teach lessons where lessons are due.

To show 'empathy' in the face of aggression and unreasonable demands is appeasement and weakness that is particularly despised in China for historical reasons that those who chose to cross China so should have instead shown some empathy and intelligence about.

manqiangrexue said:

LOL, no I have not watched Indian news. Nor do I watch North Korean news, ISIS news, or Breitbart LOL. Should I?

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Not an experience I am keen on repeating nor would I recommend

manqiangrexue said:

I have never heard of someone describing India as a superpower before, a rising nation, yeah, but superpower? How many countries in this world do you think qualify as superpowers?

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In 2017? One.

By 2060 there will probably be three, including India. There could be more, there could be none. But most likely three.

plawolf said:

It has never been acceptable for the unreasonable fears of a neighbour to determine what civilian infrastructure any country could or should build in its own territory.

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You misunderstand my point. What is morally or legally right, or what is deemed acceptable, has nothing to do with it. International politics especially is about dealing with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. Let us assume, for the moment, that all of China's claims are valid and its activities justified. It would still be a failure of intelligence to fail to anticipate the extent of India's alarm and its actions in response, and the crisis those actions have precipitated in the relationship. And whilst acknowledging the possibility that China did in fact game all this out ahead of time and that all is proceeding as Beijing has foreseen, it is more likely that the chain of events leading to the present did, in fact, involve a failure of Chinese intelligence to anticipate how forcefully India would respond to China's actions.

The Soviet Union was in the right in the Cuban Missile Crisis. What did it matter? The "international community" was in the right in condemning Russia's annexation of Crimea. What did it matter? Again, this is about living in the real world, which requires the earnest and sustained attempt to place oneself in the shoes of the other in order to appreciate their perspective and therefore anticipate how they will react, not how they should react according to one's own conception of law or morality or what is generally acceptable.

Lethe said:

In 2017? One.

By 2060 there will probably be three, including India. There could be more, there could be none. But most likely three.

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Three including Russia I could see but India? It's just getting carried away. A couple short years of modest economic growth in a country with China's population but a third the territory and divided by countless religious ideologies does not point to a superpower future. The only reason to think that India may become a superpower is by the extremely superficial thinking that since it's growth rate is similar to China's now, then it may have a future like China's but the truth is China did not grow at 7% when it was a $2 trillion economy. China easily pounded double digits every year (and not just 10 or 11% either) when it was financially similar to India. Now that China is maturing, it's just growing about as fast as when India is in a heavy growing phase. Those are not similar at all.

Lethe said:

You misunderstand my point. What is morally or legally right, or what is deemed acceptable, has nothing to do with it. International politics especially is about dealing with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. Let us assume, for the moment, that all of China's claims are valid and its activities justified. It would still be a failure of intelligence to fail to anticipate the extent of India's alarm and its actions in response, and the crisis those actions have precipitated in the relationship. And whilst acknowledging the possibility that China did in fact game all this out ahead of time and that all is proceeding as Beijing has foreseen, it is more likely that the chain of events leading to the present did, in fact, involve a failure of Chinese intelligence to anticipate how forcefully India would respond to China's actions.

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Ok, that does make more sense. However I still think it a stretch to suggest China had an intelligence failure in not predicting that India would do something completely batshit crazy.

Because batshit crazy is precisely what this was on India's part.

If China wanted to, it could have used this boarder incursion as a completely legitimate excuse for war, a war that China would have been the overwhelming favourite to win and win big.

Besides, I would contend that while China might not foreseen this particular ill-advised stunt the Indians pulled, enough foresight was put into its SOP of not opening fire unless fired upon first, that it allowed cooler heads in command to decide how far to escalate things rather than risk a hotheaded frontline trooper starting a full scale war China does not want to fight.

The Soviet Union was in the right in the Cuban Missile Crisis. What did it matter? The "international community" was in the right in condemning Russia's annexation of Crimea. What did it matter? Again, this is about living in the real world, which requires the earnest and sustained attempt to place oneself in the shoes of the other in order to appreciate their perspective and therefore anticipate how they will react, not how they should react according to one's own conception of law or morality or what is generally acceptable.

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While all good points, however, Intelligence work needs to rely on certain rules and assumptions to be possible rather than systematically gaming out every possible scenario and getting so overwhelmed with 'what ifs' you don't have time to make sound judgement on the information at hand.

No matter how earnest one places oneself in the other guy's shoes, not assuming the other guy would do something completely stupid and nonsensical would have been a basic pre-requisite.

That is where the issue of reasonableness comes into play, and is part of the process to make scenarios fit better with the real world.

When dealing with unreasonable opfor actions, you only need a few broad categories gamed out, such as:

Ok, they did something stupid, now, how stupid was it?
- are we actively shooting at each other? Y/N
- did we shoot at each other? Y/N
- do we want to start shooting at them? Y/N

With more detailed game plans depending on the answers to the 3 fundamental questions above.

Alot of BS. here, couple Facts needed to keep in mind
1)China will not reach US parity in terms of technology level in next 30 years at present course unless unforseen breakthroughs.

2)Indians are convinced China would not start war jeopardizing its economic development. All the recent drills at Tibet are just for show.They are convinced China is gun shy, which in line with a lot of opinion here as that China keep its cool, and as more time pass by it will become a super power and by then, every one would capitulate to China.That, is total BS. I can easily say, Chinese will not risk large scale war that might endanger their higher living standard even more at that time. That's so freakin true, it's not even funny

I am not saying direct war with India now, but China need to do a lot of things and correct itself. Even if India withdraw its troops.

By the way, a lot of Chinese , not armed with Maoism are out of touch with reality, and they simply delusional. They so look up to US, sending their kids for college in US. Annually tuition plus tuition is 70000 , so they have to sell of their house in China to come up with $300K to send their kids to east coast for a political science degree. I doubt their kid can make 300K even in his job later. Alot of them are doing that, totally delusional. Out of touch with reality.

tidalwave said:

Alot of BS. here, couple Facts needed to keep in mind
1)China will not reach US parity in terms of technology level in next 30 years at present course unless unforseen breakthroughs.

2)Indians are convinced China would not start war jeopardizing its economic development. All the recent drills at Tibet are just for show.They are convinced China is gun shy, which in line with a lot of opinion here as that China keep its cool, and as more time pass by it will become a super power and by then, every one would capitulate to China.That, is total BS. I can easily say, Chinese will not risk large scale war that might endanger their higher living standard even more at that time. That's so freakin true, it's not even funny

I am not saying direct war with India now, but China need to do a lot of things and correct itself. Even if India withdraw its troops.

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China can demonstrate its resolve by taking on much smaller targets, not a country the size of India. It simply costs too much and gains little.

Like you said, even now, China is still far behind the US in military power. Yet, you don't see the US attacking China at will. Back in the days of the Korean War, China was so far behind the US in everything. The gap between the US and China in the 1950's was orders of magnitude larger than the current gap between China and India. Yet, the US did everything it could to NOT to attack China directly, even when it was losing badly on the battlefield. And also keep in mind that, at the time, the US had nukes but China didn't. Amid all the talks of using the nukes, especially from General MacArthur, the US still did not attack China directly.

International politics is a lot more complicated than shooting at each other. China is doing a lot of things behind the curtain to maneuver and strengthen its position. Just because you don't see it, it doesn't mean they are sitting idle.

tidalwave said:

By the way, a lot of Chinese , not armed with Maoism are out of touch with reality, and they simply delusional. They so look up to US, sending their kids for college in US. Annually tuition plus tuition is 70000 , so they have to sell of their house in China to come up with $300K to send their kids to east coast for a political science degree. I doubt their kid can make 300K even in his job later. Alot of them are doing that, totally delusional. Out of touch with reality.

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Well, it's their money and they can spend it in which ever way they want. If they have been smart enough to accumulate such wealth (most likely from dumb idiots like us), they might know something you don't... Who are you to question their intelligence?

vesicles said:

Well, it's their money and they can spend it in which ever way they want. If they have been smart enough to accumulate such wealth (most likely from dumb idiots like us), they might know something you don't... Who are you to question their intelligence?

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They made a lot of money by distributing high end German industrial parts. People in trust Germany parts and willing to pay premium. That's why China not able to catch up anytime soon because they still depend on so much foreign parts in large economic scale

vesicles said:

Well, it's their money and they can spend it in which ever way they want. If they have been smart enough to accumulate such wealth (most likely from dumb idiots like us), they might know something you don't... Who are you to question their intelligence?

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Because I know a degree in US is not worth 300K