WHAT REALLY COMPELLED CHINA TO DE-ESCALATE IN DOKLAM

First the reasons that have been cited in the public domain since the pull-back some weeks ago: After weeks of raising the decibel level the government in Beijing realized that building the road up to the Jampheri Ridge was considered an existential threat by India due to its proximity to the Siliguri corridor and hence India was unlikely to budge; the coming 19th CPC meeting in November 2017 later on in the year; BRICS meeting at Xiamen. In the last case it is possible that Mr. Putin advised his counterpart that without the participation of the Indian Prime Minister the summit would not measure up to expectation, considerably embarrassing the host country. Since Russia had maintained studied silence throughout the Doklam confrontation, the Russian President's advice would have been taken in good faith. Had BRICS become a damp squib it would have hurt the Chinese President's image. A few other allied reasons had also been discussed threadbare in the print and electronic media. Going beyond the confrontation and the peaceful pullback and, with the passage of time, it becomes possible to deduce the deeper reasons for the Chinese backing down, which in the public perception amounted to loss of face. The more cogent reasons are briefly discussed in the ensuing paragraphs.

More than seventy days had already elapsed since the start of the confrontation. There were no signs of India backing down. Overblown rhetoric followed by threats in case India did not pullback had reached such a crescendo that had the confrontation continued much longer the agitated Chinese public would have mounted intense pressure for action that the government would have found it difficult to resist because in confrontations with other countries never had the Chinese gone so far as to tell its adversary that the latter would be taught a lesson that it would not forget. For the countries of the region watching the situation apprehensively China would have appeared to be a paper tiger. On the other hand the masterly way in which India handled the situation not matching the Chinese rhetoric gave the impression of quiet confidence that would normally result from a position of strength.

The perception of 'position of strength', according to informed sources reporting from Beijing led to re-appraisal within the PLA, CMC as well as the top government echelons. The de novo re-assessment led to considerable doubt and misgivings about the outcome in case China went on to physically evict the Indian troops from their positions. It was realized that without military action the Indian side was not going to budge.

Over the years the Chinese government had come to believe, as had the Indian defence establishment, that military asymmetry with China was too formidable for India to risk military confrontation. The asymmetry since China's accelerated growth had already been high enough to cause concern. Added to it was the fact that with much higher GDP and military budget the asymmetry would keep growing. The perception was shared by the countries of ASEAN and East Asia, even beyond.

This was generally the larger picture prior to the confrontation. It led to the belief in corridors of Beijing that beyond a point, with the nature of threats that amounted to an ultimatum, India had no choice but to withdraw from the Doklam Plateau. The deeper analysis mentioned in the previous paragraph when reduced from the macro-perception to the situation on the border in the face of India's intransigence showed up the chinks in the Chinese armour that could have resulted in a debacle for the Chinese forces. An elaboration follows: - The undeniable macro-level asymmetry simply would not work out on any border conflagration with India. China's overall military strength was that of a growing superpower attempting to match the US military power, if not globally, certainly in the South China Sea, East Asia and in the Pacific. Comparatively, over the years India had quietly build up its strength on its vulnerable border to a level that it felt confident of being able to take on anything that the Chinese would field against them. Several mountain divisions had been raised to reinforce the Arunachal Pradesh border that China had begun to claim since 2005, never before that. Simultaneously a mountain strike corps had commenced raising that although not fully operational for another two years or so had the potential for a limited repost of a type that India never had before. In sum India would have successfully blunted any offensive.

To sum it up the situation appears to have ended by considerably discomfiting the Chinese leadership with the attendant loss of face within China and beyond its borders in neighbouring countries. It resulted from a series of miscalculations that need not be gone into in depth in the current paper. Briefly, the Chinese had not anticipated the Indian reaction on Bhutanese territory and the latter's call to India. Over the decades the Chinese leadership had become accustomed to the fact that when pushed very hard the Indian leadership would step back. It had happened so often in recent years that the leaders in Beijing did not give it a second thought. Had they pondered a while before aggravating the crisis - by raising the decibel level that made it difficult for them to de-escalate - they would have realized that India's new Prime Minister Mr.Modi had been cast in a different mould.

A last thought in this episode that must have crossed some minds at the highest level in Beijing would have been India's military position in Sikkim*, which overlooks the Doklam Plateau. It is so formidable that any conventional military misadventure instead of resulting in 1962 could well have resulted in another 1979. That conceivably could have been the end of the Chinese leader's dream of a long tenure at the apex. *(The author had briefly commanded the East Sikkim watershed in 1991).