China's Stealth Attack

XI Jinping’s game of politico-military coercion in the Himalayas is currently at a stalemate. That india has no means of judging China’s strategic intent is worrying

- Sandeep Unnithan

As the Himalayan stand-off between India and China in eastern Ladakh entered its fourth month, the Indian armed forces remained on high alert. On July 28, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing seemed to signal that the crisis was over when he said that Indian and Chinese troops had “completed disengagement in most parts of the border”, implying that they had pulled back from most of the areas where they had been engaged in an eyeball to eyeball confrontation. However, Indian defence ministry officials say there has been no change in the ground situation. The Chinese have pulled back from the Galwan Valley and Patrol Post 15, but not from the Gogra and Hot Springs region. And the biggest bone of contention—on which commander-level talks between the two militaries have been deadlocked—is the Chinese military presence between Fingers 5 and 8 of Pangong Lake, which the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have refused to withdraw.

Meanwhile, New Delhi has been pulling all the levers— diplomatic, economic and political—to get the Chinese to withdraw and restore the ground position to what it was before May 5. It has invoked the support of like-minded countries such as the United States, Australia and Japan— conducting a naval drill with the USS