“Amit Shah left nothing to chance when he said in Parliament that “we will bring back Aksai Chin even at the cost of our lives”. Then, there were the new maps, …. “

https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/shekhar-gupta-the-so-very-predictable-chinese-120053000047_1.html

@shekhargupta nails the reason 4 the crisis in Ladakh. But ducks out of the rest ;-)

Note that in 1967 under Indira Gandhi and then again 1986-87 under Rajiv Gandhi, India rebuffed Chinese adventures on the border, they retreated quietly.

But as @ajaiShukla notes in his tweet, https://twitter.com/ajaishukla/status/1266398081458700288

Our tanks are in garages & mtn. strike forces in cantts.

China gets $60 billion in annual trade surplus from us. Modi ji has been wooing the Han from his #WooHan days to no avail. The Chinese have no incentive whatsoever to settle the LAC 4 us. And Pk has no incentive to settle the LoC since China uses India’s money 2 feed it.

As @shekhargupta notes Dr Singh wisely tried 2 breakout of this triangulation by China-Pk by trying 2 settle things with Pk, which as the weaker party may have some incentive 2 settle.

With China providing duty free to all Pk exports, while denying same 2 India, has bought Pk.

As @PravinSawhney never tires of reminding us, the Chinese don’t play chess. They prefer Wei Qi, which as a strategy, means you begin examination of every problem de nova with a clean slate & weaponise everything.

As Sun Tzu taught, they have us hog-tied without firing a shot.

Please note this strategy costs China NOTHING. In fact I can show India will actually be paying for all of the CPEC/BRI investments that China is making in Pk to keep a client state to needle and drain India.

Duty free access to Chinese markets given to Pk is the key.

Trump & the US have spent quite some time hammering this point home to us; viz. we are taking Dollars earned from them & handing them over to the Chinese & then some.

But our strategic thinkers are either obtuse or something else is in play. We haven’t got the point.

Free trade is a beautiful concept, though part reality, part myth. Free trade assumes it is free. But it also assumes that those with adverse trade balance can finance their deficits with others with no limits on the financing required and without any interest.

Both the key assumptions don’t hold even without introducing power dynamics and hegemony into the game. We cannot fund deficits indefinitely with no limits. & floating bonds abroad or tapping NRIs costs real money.

Free trade is a good myth 2 teach economics 2 undergraduates.

The reality is different as we found out in 90/91 and in the years before the green revolution when our Finance Ministers job was to go around the world with a begging bowl.

We have forgotten those days.

So we need to get real about trade as a strategic weapon.

Not the least because China is already using trade as a strategic weapon against us - draining us & using the surplus to fund Pakistan against us.

Last point …

We can pretend there is no LAC. May be that suits both Modi ji & India at the moment. Our tanks wouldn’t be in garages & mountain strike corps in their cantonments if that weren’t an option.

But if we blink, we will pay a far greater price in Kashmir as Pk steps up terrorism.