India Treads A Fine Line On China's Taiwan Ambitions

Amid mounting international concern that China could attempt to take over Taiwan by force, India and the United States are set to stage major high-altitude war games in the Himalayas this month the closest ever to the Chinese border in a move that has drawn strong objections from Beijing. Some analysts fear a disproportionate response to the drills from China, which remains in a state of heightened military engagement along sections of its Himalayan border with India since tensions there flared into deadly clashes in 2020.

- Shweta Sharma

The world watched with alarm as China responded in dramatic fashion to a US congressional visit to Taiwan, led by House speaker Nancy Pelosi, in August. China fired ballistic missiles over the island as part of its biggest-ever military exercise in the region, an apparent dry run for a full-scale invasion.

Despite its own terse relations with Beijing, India refused to join in with the strong international condemnation at the time of the Taiwan drills, waiting more than a week to urge "restraint” in the crisis. Now, however, New Delhi’s decision to go ahead with the 18th edition of the US-Indian exercises known as Yudh Abhyas war practice), barely 95km from its disputed border with China, is taking on far greater significance in the context of Beijing’s increasingly aggressive stance towards its neighbours.

The drills are to take place at an altitude of 10,000ft in Auli, Uttarakhand, and will last two weeks. Details are scarce, though both sides have talked up the scale and importance of the war games, which will involve the sharing of expertise and technologies relating to high-altitude warfare. Indian defence sources told the PTI news agency that the mega exercise” would encompass a number of different complex drills”.

The exercises also come at a busy time domestically for China, with Xi Jinping set to cement his place as the country’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong, securing an unprecedented third five-year term as Chinese Communist Party leader at the 20th party congress.