NewsUSARaja Mohan, geopolitical expert: "Border clashes between China and India are a constant danger"

Raja Mohan, geopolitical expert: “Border clashes between China and India are a constant danger”

Raja Mohan, last Thursday in a hotel in Madrid.bald elm

Tension on the China-India border is dangerously high. On December 9, dozens of soldiers from the two most populous countries on the planet once again clashed with fists in the Himalayas, at more than 4,000 meters of altitude, very close to Bhutan. “The danger of border skirmishes is constant,” says Raja Mohan (Chirala, Andhra Pradesh, 70 years old), an Indian journalist and academic specializing in geopolitics. “And it is not going to decrease in the short term,” adds the analyst at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Clashes with stones and batons between Chinese and Indians have occurred in the last decade in different areas of the 3,440 kilometers that separate the two Asian giants.

Dozens of soldiers had to be treated for bruises, fractures and cuts after this month’s skirmish. A 1996 bilateral agreement establishes that firearms cannot be used in border areas, a pact that has been respected except on a few occasions and that clearly mitigates the risk of a chance encounter leading to a massacre. The most serious incident in the last four decades between the Indian and Chinese armies took place two years ago, when at least twenty Indian soldiers died – some thrown off cliffs – and several Chinese in an icy area near Pakistan. “If Russia triumphs in Ukraine, China will do something similar in Asia,” Mohan commented last Thursday in an interview in Madrid, during a visit to mark the launch of the Spain-India Observatory, an initiative to promote analysis and reflection on the relations between both countries.

Ask. Why do these clashes occur along the border?

Reply. The territorial claims of both countries over disputed areas have always existed, but from the 1980s the border was kept calm and the risk of skirmishes became practically non-existent. Since 2008, and especially after Xi Jinping came to power [en 2013]China began to feel much stronger and try to unilaterally alter the status quo on the border, with the construction of infrastructures around it, and increasing the number of soldiers in the area and their capacities. It is not something that happens only in the Himalayas, it is the same strategy that we see in the South China Sea [donde Pekin se disputa la soberania de unos islotes con Filipinas, Vietnam, Malasia, Taiwan y Brunei] or in the pressures on Japan in the South China Sea.

Q. It is surprising that two atomic powers face each other with clubs and stones.

R. Fortunately, and unlike what happens with Pakistan, the nuclear shadow has never been present in this conflict. Neither of the two countries has deployed atomic weapons near the border or resorted to threatening to use them, but I don’t see a short-term solution or a reduction in tension. There is no sign that China will stop making incursions over the Line of Actual Control [nombre que se utiliza para referirse a la frontera efectiva y sin pactar], and India is going to resist. The situation is really complex; Chinese and Indian troops are operating ever closer, in some of the most remote areas of the world, and the danger of skirmishes is constant. I suspect some skirmishes don’t even make it to the top.

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Q. India is one of the world’s largest arms importers and one of Russia’s main buyers. Is there a certain military dependency on Moscow?

R. In recent years, agreements have been reached with other countries, such as the United States, France or Israel, and modern Russian weapons have not been acquired recently. However, the Indian Armed Forces have so much Russian weaponry from the past decades that we need Moscow to continue to sell us ammunition and parts for maintenance and repairs. And given the current context, with China and Russia proclaiming an alliance without limits, it is key that we can continue buying Russian material, while diversifying imports and boosting domestic production.

Q. What has increased dramatically in recent months are imports of Russian oil at a much cheaper price than the EU countries would have paid.

R. The Indian economy is highly sensitive to inflation and 90% of the oil consumed in the country is imported. If there is cheap crude oil on the market, India will buy it, which also does not depend on any country for energy, unlike what has been shown in Europe. We would be interested in seeing the sanctions against Iran and Venezuela lifted and that there be much more oil on the market.

Q. Chinese and Indian imports are dampening the effects of European sanctions on the Russian economy, and some European capitals are criticizing India for ruling out joining a cap on Russian oil prices.

R. They should not criticize us when even the whole of the EU has not stopped importing Russian oil and gas, and there are still as different positions on how to achieve peace as those represented by France or Poland. There is no doubt that what Russia is doing in Ukraine is absolutely unacceptable, and it is essential that the EU stands together to counter Russian aggression. If Russia ends up winning, Europe will be thrown into chaos and China will do the same in Asia. As the Japanese Prime Minister has said [Fumio Kishida] ‘Ukraine is the future of Asia’, but Indian imports of Russian oil do not harm Europe’s interests. The United States, more pragmatic than some European countries, has realized that if China and India did not buy Russian oil, the West would be paying an even higher price for Middle Eastern crude.

Q. Presidents Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin talk frequently and the Indian government has abstained from voting on resolutions condemning Russia approved at the UN. Do you believe, like some analysts, that India could mediate between Moscow and kyiv?

R. I think they overestimate us. India can try to influence some issues, as it did during the withheld grain export deal, but forcing a lasting peace is not within its reach.

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