The Doklam Dilemma

India’s Intervention in Doklam Sent a Strong Message to China, but Beijing Is Responding With Heavy Military Posturing Across the Line of Actual Control

- Sandeep Unnithan and Ananth Krishnan

Late alert from Arunachal Pradesh triggered alarm bells within the army’s Eastern Command headquarters at Fort William, Kolkata. Tribal hunters in the state’s remote Upper Siang district, abutting Tibet, had spotted a Chinese construction party at work in the Tuting sector near a village within Indian territory. The alert came just three months after the Indian Army and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had retreated from a 73-day face-off on the remote Doklam plateau in Bhutan. The army moved in fast, but it took a patrol an 11-day foot march to access the rugged spot. A road construction crew was indeed laying the foundation for a road passing through Indian territory. The equipment, including two earth movers, was seized and the crew, all civilians, turned back. The army constructed a six-ft-high, 20-ft-wide wall at the spot, to ensure there would be no further road construction.

The incident was devoid of the rancour seen during the previous Himalayan stand-off, particularly since the army defused the situation by returning the construction equipment and the Chinese agreeing not to build the road. Nearly a month later, on January 26, PLA and Indian Army personnel participated in two ceremonial Border Personnel Meetings at Daulat Beg Oldi and Chushul in eastern Ladakh. The meetings, the first since the Doklam stand-off, were held in a convivial atmosphere. The possibility of resuming the annual ‘hand-in-hand’ army exercises between India and China, held each year since 2007, has brightened this year. The 2017 instalment was cancelled due to the stand-off.