India’s Limited Options on China: The Wire

India failed to anticipate China’s aggression along the shared border and now must respond to a deadly clash that left 20 Indian soldiers dead and, by some reports, twice as many Chinese – along with China’s claim to Galwan Valley. Both sides have engaged in road-building and moved troops in the area. Ashok K. Mehta reviews events since early May and India’s premature assurances that the situation was in control. “All of this was quite the opposite of what PLA had in mind: to maintain and consolidate its multiple intrusions, especially at GRV, to interdict India’s strategic highway from Darbuk-Shyok to DBO, a road which is being built and never objected to by China since work began in 2010,” Mehta writes. “The disengagement process has been suspended even as high tension prevails in confrontational deployments.” Bilateral ties are damaged. China criticizes India’s reorganization of political status for Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh territories along the border, and has fortified positions. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, India’s options are limited. – YaleGlobal