Gokhale's experience as an Indian Foreign Service officer, who served in Hong Kong, Taipei and Beijing between 1982 and 2017, helps to provide critical insights for his analysis: China’s strategy in 1949 (after the Communist Party took over) consisted of three key elements that set the template for all future negotiations. First, it aimed to secure India’s official recognition of the People’s Republic of China. Second, it worked to ensure that India did not join the "counter-China camp" led by the United States. Third, China sought to leverage India’s then-international influence to expand its own diplomatic space.
The excerpts below are from the book, republished in June by Penguin Random House and priced at ₹499.
The Chinese negotiators tried a new approach midway by proposing that India could meet China 'half-way’. This is a well-used tactic in which the PRC retains some of its gains by persuading the other side that the only way to resolve matters is by partially accepting the new reality in return for some limited claw-back. The PRC possibly reckoned that India was reeling from the COVID crisis (especially the Delta wave in the summer of 2021) and might be amenable to compromise on a halfway basis. But right through the second phase of the negotiations, which ended with the mutual disengagement in Gogra/Hot Springs in October 2022, the Indian side consistently maintained that there still were 'remaining issues needing resolution', namely Demchok and Depsang. It would be incorrect to say that China gained nothing from the second phase of the negotiation. The 'buffer zones' established in Galwan, Pangong Tso and Gogra/Hot Springs meant that the Indian side could not unilaterally go up to patrol points they had been going to in the past, and that coordinated patrolling would permit the PLA to legitimately come into some areas earlier denied to them. This arrangement, if institutionalized, would also preserve Chinese infrastructure gains just behind the buffer zone, including the new bridge over the Pangong Tso, which provides the PLA with the capability to rapidly mobilize forces in a future crisis in east Ladakh. On balance, however, India's ability to secure substantial restoration of peace and tranquillity in disputed areas in east Ladakh while keeping its demands alive for restoration of patrolling rights in other areas, speaks to its success in the second phase of the negotiations.
The third and final phase of the negotiations, from October 2022 until October 2024, is in some ways the most interesting phase. It revolved around two disputes at Depsang and Demchok. Both were, in one sense, legacy issues because the disputes had arisen prior to 2020, but what was new was the PLA's denial of patrolling rights to the Indian Army and their interdiction of Indian herdsmen who brought their cattle to these traditional grazing grounds. India's demand that these were fresh violations of the LAC in both areas and, thus, also fell within the ambit of the ongoing negotiations was, therefore, legitimate. China's strategy was to still insist that disputes that had arisen in 2020 had already been mutually settled, that there was nothing further to be discussed in terms of disengagement of forces, and that it was time to move to 'regular management and control' in the border areas (i.e. de-escalation or scaling back of military forces along the LAC) and to normalize bilateral relations. This was the 'cold-shelving' tactic that the PRC had followed from the start of the crisis.
During the twenty-sixth meeting of the WMCC on 22 February 2023, these differences became palpable through their respective public statements. Whereas the Indian side spoke about finding ways to mutually disengage in the remaining areas so as to create the proper conditions for restoring normality in bilateral relations, the Chinese side did not mention further disengagement as a pending task, and talked instead about 'consolidation of outcomes', meaning reduction of tension by mutual de-escalation of forces in the areas where the immediate military crisis had already been defused. By using the phrase 'proposals acceptable to both sides' to define the agenda for negotiation, the PRC conveyed that discussion on Depsang and Demchok were not acceptable to them and, hence, not up for negotiation, China's broad approach was to reduce the salience of the situation in east Ladakh by making it a small part of the much larger bilateral relationship, while India's, on the other hand, was to shine the spotlight brightly upon the abnormal situation in east Ladakh as the primary obstacle for the normalization of bilateral relations. These diametrically opposite objectives, then, determined their respective negotiating strategies.
The Indian side continued to follow the earlier playbook. It kept the agenda specific to resolving patrolling issues at Depsang and Demchok, and it kept the public discourse simple and direct by saying that until disengagement was not comprehensive, the bilateral relationship would remain 'abnormal'. This message was reinforced on 27 April 2023 by India's defence minister, who told his Chinese counterpart that disengagement at the border would logically be followed by de-escalation, and that development of bilateral ties is 'premised on the prevalence of peace and tranquility at the borders'. A similar message was also delivered by the Indian national security adviser in July 2023 when he told the Chinese foreign minister that unresolved issues along the LAC since 2020 'had eroded the strategic trust and the public and political basis of the relationship'.
The PRC negotiators tried hard to re-focus attention on de-escalation. Both in the talks and more publicly, the Chinese side maintained that conditions for normalization of bilateral ties had already been created and that the broader interests of both would be better served if the border issues were placed in 'an appropriate position in bilateral relations'. They questioned the logic of India's stand. India did not budge from its stated position.
A possible leaders' meeting at the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg in August 2023 could not materialize. Through 2023, the Chinese negotiators tested their Indian counterparts' resolve but failed to find any deviation in the Indian posture and position. Towards the end of 2023, they appeared to have exhausted their efforts to either persuade India to show flexibility complete and comprehensive disengagement before de-escalation, or to dilute the linkage between the satisfactory resolution of the pending disputes in east Ladakh and the full restoration of normal bilateral ties.
An initial indication of this came at the twenty-eighth WMCC meeting on 30 November 2023, when the Chinese read-out called for 'turn[ing] a new page in the situation of the border areas at an early date’. In February 2024, the Chinese read-out after the meeting of the corps commanders similarly talked of 'turn[ing] over a new leaf for the border situation'. The use of similar language by both the PLA and the foreign ministry hinted at an adjustment in the PRC's position, possibly because they concluded that India's bottom line remained firm. This shift was reflected in their read-out of the twenty-ninth WMCC meeting in March 2024, in which they more or less accepted the Indian demand to address the patrolling issues at Demchok and Depsang. It stated: ‘The two sides agreed to focus on the relevant issues on the ground along the border, reach a solution acceptable to both sides as soon as possible, and promote the transition of border situation into a normalized phase of control and management.’ This was tantamount to accepting India's position that the border situation was abnormal, and the resolution of pending disputes would allow the broader bilateral relationship to transition towards normality. The final settlement leading to the resumption of patrolling by India in Depsang and Demchok took a further six months to complete. It involved a compromise on both sides, with China giving some ground on the LAC in east Ladakh in return for India's flexibility in restoring normal relations. This was done in October 2024 and the leaders of both countries held their first formal meeting in five years during the BRICS Summit in Brazil in November 2024.
The next book that the Blueprint will feature: The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century by Tim Weiner
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