It’s clear by now that too much need not be read into China’s release of a new map outlining its borders. The contentious map, about which India reacted strongly at the official levels following a media frenzy, showed Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin as part of the Chinese “sovereign territory.” This was a major provocation to India. But, a clarification from China on Thursday proposed India to refrain from “over-interpreting” the Chinese claims in these respects. With the same wanton obsession, China has also claimed Taiwan, the breakaway republic, and the South China Sea as part of its territories. China had made such claims in the past too and left them at that. Fact is, the Communist nation has a self-induced ‘problem’ with its borders on all sides; and it keeps raking up issues, be it with Japan, India, or Bhutan, not to speak of hapless Tibet which it annexed. China raised territorial issues with Nepal last year. In all, no country has as many territorial disputes as China has; their number being as high as 17, mostly in the south-Asian sector. Salami slicing had been a notorious strategy China adopted in the past at grabbing of the neighbouring territories through covert, nocturnal actions. China grabbed huge swathes of Indian land in the 1962 War. The Galwan Valley clashes –in the form of an unconventional war – between China and India during 2020-21 and the Chinese attempts at grabbing Bhutanese land in Doklam near India’s Chicken’s Neck region in 2017 have all been recent instances.
However, what must be noted is that, faced with stiff resistance, China beat a hasty retreat in these recent instances. The Indian military stopped the Chinese PLA in their tracks in both Doklam and later in Galwan Valley. The situation in both these regions remains tense even now but China has been cautious and avoiding fresh offensives. Clearly, it is in China’s character to make attempts at grabbing others’ territories – an obsession that it took to the maritime sector in recent decades by making claims on the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean etc. The US stepped in with strong resistance in the seas, which keeps China under some control; an endeavour in which India is providing qualified support to the Americans. Notably, the Chinese leadership is not in a mood to engage with the US, India, Taiwan or Japan in a full-scale war. It knows pretty well that it’s not easy for it to win a war. China failed miserably even in Vietnam though it had gained majorly in the 1962 war with an unsuspecting India. Times have now changed.
