The legend is that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, during his path-breaking visit to India in 1955, told the Indians that all they had to do to get Russian help was to give a shout across the Himalayas. I don’t know how far this is true but it has an irrepressibly “Khrushchevian” ring about it.

This came to my mind with the news appearing that Beijing had proposed a meeting between the defense ministers of India and China, who happen to be in Moscow to attend the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

One would assume that the Russian hosts had done their part in facilitating this exchange, the first political level meeting since the India-China standoff began in early May. What is absolutely certain is that Moscow is watching the India-China standoff and is aware of its grave implications for regional security and stability.

Having said that, the international environment remains complex and complicated. The tensions in Russia-US relations are at their highest level in the post-Cold War era. On the other hand, Russia-China relations are at their highest level in history.

The Indian government has keenly fostered close relations with the US, especially in the most recent past, while relations with China have touched a historically low point since normalization began in the 1980s.

The two “triangles” – US-Russia-China and the US-India-China – do not necessarily overlap. But in the prevailing calculus, they create synergy. What goes to India’s advantage is that it has excellent relations with both the US and Russia. Meanwhile, China’s relations with both the US and India remain tense, but then Beijing also seeks cooperation with both countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meet at the SCO summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on June 9, 2017. Photo: Sputnik / Alexei Nikolsky / Kremlin

From the Russian viewpoint, it remains a matter of satisfaction that despite India’s deepening ties with the US, and notwithstanding growing pressures lately from Washington on New Delhi to whittle down its relations with Russia, the Russian-Indian relationship continues to be resilient in adapting to newer and newer conditions in a world order in flux.

Neither side is making undue demands on the other. Contradictions could appear if India edges closer to the United States’ “Indo-Pacific strategy” (code for containment of China). Russia has deplored the US strategy. But that is for the future.

Meanwhile, the rising tensions in India-China relations coincide with a significant deepening in Russia-China relations in the most recent period, as Moscow and Beijing have drawn closer to push back at US hegemony.

A high level of coordination and cooperation between Moscow and Beijing is apparent. For example, they worked closely to defeat the US move at the United Nations on “snapback sanctions” against Iran.

The military standoff in Ladakh has necessitated a big buildup of the Indian armed forces, and New Delhi is sourcing Russian weaponry. Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh is currently on his second visit to Moscow in the past two-months.

The Russian connection is crucial for India also for another reason. Russia is the only country that can act as facilitator for any eventual Chinese-Indian rapprochement. Russian diplomacy has shown to be adept at sequestering the country’s respective relationships with India and China.

All in all, in today’s circumstances, Russia has become a uniquely placed indispensable partner for India. Importantly, this is also the finest foreign-policy legacy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, under whose watch the India-Russia relationship has steadily regained its verve.

Nonetheless, one should not overestimate Russia’s capacity to moderate the India-China border standoff. There are severe limitations in wading into boundary disputes between any two countries that impinge on their sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is one thing.

More important, the crux of the matter is that a dangerous situation prevails in eastern Ladakh. Realistically speaking, a restoration of “status quo ante” or an unconditional disengagement by the People’s Liberation Army frontline troops is not to be expected. In the Chinese perception, fundamentally, New Delhi has been pursuing “mission creep” that is not acceptable.

India’s sanctions lack any real bite. Its “Tibet card” and the “Quad” won’t impress the Chinese, either, and if India pushes the envelope, a severe blowback is almost sure to happen that may belie predictions. On the other hand, a prolonged standoff or race of attrition would put an intolerable burden on Indian resources.

The ubiquitous Americans are no longer the top dogs in Asia-Pacific region. In any case, it is unrealistic to expect them to do heavy lifting – deploy force, risk war, expend serious resources and invest America’s prestige and credibility – on issues that don’t relate directly to their vital interests or problems.

Public opinion in the US militates against any entanglement in a military conflict. To be sure, the US faces a conundrum, since it is trapped in this region but can neither transform it nor entirely wash its hands off it – be it Afghanistan and Central Asia or Pakistan and Iran.

Above all, the US’s domestic priorities will and should take precedence over any adventures abroad that are likely to absorb large resources or the president’s time. Evidently, squaring the circle in eastern Ladakh is going to be difficult even if India were to give a shout across the Himalayas.

Last week, the world’s most populous nations, India and China, both nuclear armed, clashed in the high Himalayan region of Ladakh.

At least 20 Indian troops died and 12 were reportedly taken prisoner before a cease-fire went into effect. So far, there were no reports of Chinese casualties.

Ladakh is one of the world’s most remote, obscure and inhospitable places, a plateau averaging 4,200 meters altitude (about 14,000 feet) with frigid temperatures, scant oxygen, little rainfall, and howling winds. This bleak moonscape has long been called ‘Little Tibet’ because of its semi-nomadic ethnic Tibetan yak-herders. China has pretty much crushed the life out of Tibet’s ancient culture while India has helped preserve the Tibetan way of life.

China and India’s confrontation in airless Ladakh reminds me of the ‘bon mot’ about Ethiopia and Eritrea’s battle over the barren Ogaden desert region between them: ‘two bald men fighting over a comb.’

I’ve been over much of Ladakh by jeep, foot and even yak, and atop the world’s highest glacier, Siachen, that overlooks Ladakh. India and Pakistan have been fighting over Siachen for decades, making it the highest war in history and another crazy conflict. As a Pakistani officer told me, ‘we hate one another so much we will fight to prevent them from occupying our part of Hell.’

My book ‘War at the Top of the World’ (available through Amazon) is all about the conflict in the Himalayas and Kashmir between India, Pakistan and China.

So why are China and India at daggers drawn over the Galwan River Valley in Ladakh? Both are busy dealing with the coronavirus epidemic. Delhi and Beijing have conducted off and on diplomacy to ease Himalayan border tensions.

The clash in Ladakh was no accident but clearly a planned offensive act by China – and the biggest military operation since the two Asian giants went to war in the Himalayas in 1962, producing a serious defeat for India. China then said the war was a ‘serious message’ to India to restrain its ambitions in the region.

This time, it appears that the Chinese sent another ‘message’ to India. Part of this problem was due to the British Empire which never properly demarcated its Himalayan borders between the British Indian Raj and then independent Tibet. Some borders were never surveyed; others drawn with thick pens, leaving whole regions with unclear borders. But in those days no one cared about the vast emptiness at 14-17,000 feet. That is, until China moved in an occupied Tibet in 1950-1951, putting it on India’s northern border.

Since then, India and China have been uneasy rivals with both sides laying claims to parts of the Himalayas, Karakorams and the great rivers that course down from the Tibetan Plateau, providing water for much of Southeast Asia’s peoples.

Two recent issues have sparked the latest round of fighting – with threats of a much bigger war between Asia’s two giants. First, India’s new Hindu nationalist government under PM Narendra Modi has made no secret of its growing hostility to both China and its close ally, Pakistan, India’s longtime rival.

Modi’s revoking of Kashmir’s autonomous status and its division into two states has created major new tensions in the region. So have Modi’s plans to fashion a purely Hindu state in India, and China’s growing influence over Burma.

But a more important source of China’s anger has been growing efforts of the Trump administration to build a close military alliance with India to counter-balance China’s increasing military power.

Though seeming counter-intuitive to Trumps’ efforts to secure re-election by getting Beijing to buy more produce from American farmers, the Pentagon is preparing for a future war with China. Trump came close to facing military coup in recent weeks and is trying to avoid angering the Pentagon and Washington’s active and retired military establishment.

Meanwhile, the fiercely anti-Muslim White House has quietly allowed four million Hindu Indians to emigrate to the United States as a way of countering the growing number of Muslims in our nation. Trump even offered to mediate the intractable Kashmir dispute, a proposal scorned by all sides.

ericmargolis.com

The US law requires American diplomats, journalists and tourists to have the same level of access to the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas as their Chinese counterparts enjoy in the US Other Tibetan areas include those former parts of Tibet that were cleaved off from Tibet and annexed to other Chinese provinces. These include Sichuan, Qinghai, Yunnan, and Gansu, which became "Tibetan autonomous areas" within the respective provinces.

Within 90 days of Trump's signature, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is to assess Americans' level of access to Tibet and issue a report to Congress. The report will include the identities of those Chinese officials responsible for banning Americans from Tibet. Pompeo will then issue a ban on US visas for those Chinese officials, barring them from entering the United States. Annually, the State Department must provide Congress with a list of US citizens blocked from entering Tibet.

The act had the strong support of Senator Marco Rubio (Republican-Florida). Rubio is also championing other US sanctions and visa bans for officials of Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. It was also pushed by Trump's Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, former Kansas Republican Governor Sam Brownback.

Brownback has also taken up the cause of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu in Sichuan province. China is concerned about such "charismatic" churches taking hold and serving American right-wing interests, which has already occurred in Brazil, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Vice President Mike Pence, a fundamentalist Christian, who shares many of Brownback’s views, outlined the Trump administration’s aggressive stance with China over Tibet in an October 4, 2018 speech at the neo-conservative Hudson Institute in Washington. Pence criticized China over its treatment of Christians, Tibetans, and Muslim. It was no coincidence that the Hudson Institute followed up Pence’s speech by inviting Lobsang Sangay, the president of the “Tibetan government in-exile” in Dharamsala, to address the organization this past November.

On November 28, Pompeo re-designated China as a "country of particular concern” (CPC), pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act. Pompeo's re-designation cited China's "systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom, including against the Tibetan people." China's treatment of the Muslim Uighurs, who dominate China's Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region in western China, has also come in for sharp criticism by Pompeo's State Department.

China joins as a CPC, other countries similarly designated by the State Department. These include Pakistan, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Supporters of the Tibet access act likened it to the very dubious Magnitsky Act of 2012, which is routinely used by the US to sanction certain Russian leaders with asset freezes and visa bans. The Global Magnitsky Act of 2016 has been applied to, in addition to Russia, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Gambia, Myanmar, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry slammed the act, saying it "interferes in China’s domestic affairs with reckless disregard for facts, and goes against the basic norms of international relations." In response, China said it is prepared to deny visas to American officials.

At a time when China, India, Nepal, and Bhutan were discussing opening rail and road links between Tibet and the Indian sub-continent, the US law on Tibet could not have come at a worse time. For Nepal and Bhutan, Washington's re-ignition of the Cold War, about Tibet, brought back memories of the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret Tibetan guerilla war against China in the 1950s and 60s. The CIA trained Tibetan guerrillas in Nepal, some later parachuted into Tibet, to attack Chinese military targets.

Although Bhutan’s role in the CIA’s operations against China in Tibet have remained obscured, more information has come to light about the US role in plotting against Bhutan’s king, Jigme Dorji Wangchuk, in 1974. A series of plots to kill the Bhutanese king were traced back to the Central Tibetan Authority (CTA) in Dharamsala, India, which operated as a virtual government-in-exile for the Dalai Lama, after his exile from Tibet in 1959. The plots against Bhutan’s king were traced back to the CTA and the Dalai Lama’s older brother, Gyalo Thondup, who was on the CIA’s payroll. With the connivance of the CIA, the CTA hoped to annex Bhutan under its rule as “Free Tibet” territory. In other words, the CIA hoped to establish a “Himalayan Taiwan,” from which it could launch attacks on China.

There is another reason why the Trump administration is immersing itself into Tibetan affairs. Washington has said it will not recognize a Chinese-selected successor to the current 14th Dalai Lama, who is now 83 years old. A major tenet of Tibetan Buddhism is that when the current Dalai Lama dies, he is reincarnated in another person. China said it reserves the right to identify the reincarnated Dalai Lama and many Tibetan Buddhists believe that the selectee will be a person who is loyal to China.

Laura Stone, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs stated during a congressional hearing, that “religious decisions, should be made within religious organizations, that this isn't the role of the state.” The Tibetan cause has been taken up by Senator Cory Gardner (Republican-Colorado). There are old ties between Colorado and Tibet. During the Cold War, the CIA’s ST CIRCUS program saw Tibetan guerrillas trained at Camp Hale in Colorado.

Taking up the cause of Tibet by Washington will not only strain American relations with China but will be viewed as unwanted interference by both Nepal and Bhutan, as they seek closer economic relations with China.

As part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), there are plans to extend the railway between Lhasa and Xigaze in Tibet to the Nepali capital of Kathmandu. The railway would be the first to cross the Nepal-China border.

Nepal, which is landlocked, has historically been forced to rely on India for external trade with the rest of the world. Much of Nepal's trade outside the sub-continent has been routed through Kolkata. A rail link to Lhasa would provide Nepal with more flexibility in its trade relations, opening the Chinese ports of Tianjin, Shenzhen, Lianyungang and Zhanjiang as alternatives.

Nepali relations with China have warmed since Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli of the unified Nepal Communist Party took power in February 2018. Nepal withdrew from a joint military exercise with India in September of this year. However, it did participate in a military exercise with China, dubbed "Sagarmatha Friendship," in Chengdu the same month.

If China is forced to increase security in Tibet as a result of the US Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act, progress on the trans-Himalayan railway linking Lhasa to Kathmandu may be put in jeopardy. China is wary of some 20,000 Tibetan refugees who reside in Nepal, some strongly linked to the Tibetan government-in-exile in India.

Trump and his Republican Party have decided to re-launch a cold war atop the “roof of the world” in the Himalayas. The only victims of this misadventure will be the people of the region who desire unimpeded cross border travel and commerce between Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, and Sikkim.

The doomsday predictions of an impending India-China confrontation in the Himalayas are petering out. The two countries are earnestly exploring a pathway to lead them to a détente.

This is the most obvious meaning of the announcement by Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Sunday that an informal meeting has been scheduled between President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 27-28 in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei province.

Wang was addressing a joint press conference with India’s visiting External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

By making the formal announcement in the presence of Swaraj, Beijing showed respect and high regard for the low-profile, self-effacing Indian minister who had suggested informal meetings between the two leaders to stabilize Sino-Indian ties and launch relations on a higher trajectory during Wang’s visit to Delhi last December.

The idea of an “informal meeting” is innovative and in the India-China context today it signifies a breakthrough. Xinhua cited Wang as saying that the new format aimed at “strategic communication on the world’s profound changes, and exchange, in an in-depth manner, views on overall, long-term and strategic issues regarding China-India relations.”

Beijing keen to deepen mutual trust

The Chinese side hopes to develop a “big picture” for the relationship from a long-term strategic perspective. The intention is to avoid the past mistake of missing the wood for the trees.

More importantly, Wang underscored that the informal meeting would “help deepen mutual trust between the two leaders, make strategic judgment on world patterns and China-India relations, and guide the two countries to set new goals and open up new prospects for bilateral ties.” He was confident that such a process “not only benefits the two countries and peoples, but will also exert significant and positive influence on regional and world peace and development.”

Wang described China and India as “natural cooperation partners.” He summed up, “The two countries should take the opportunity of the leaders’ meeting to cement strategic trust, deepen substantial cooperation, properly settle disputes and realize common development, therefore contributing to regional and world peace and development.” These are hugely significant remarks underlining China’s expectations. 

Indeed, the new format can be expected to incrementally develop a critical mass of strategic understanding, while being flexible enough to create space for each side to pursue its interests in the international arena. The format presents a novel experience for India, whose diplomacy traditionally moved within structured grooves.

Although Swaraj’s proposal regarding the informal meeting took over four months to germinate on Chinese soil, much has been happening in this period. The turning point was the visit by India’s newly appointed Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale to Beijing in February. Beijing has confidence in Gokhale, a former envoy to China, to bring new thinking into the bilateral relationship. China’s Vice-Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou conveyed the dates for the Wuhan meeting to Gokhale during his “return” visit to Delhi in early April.

Suffice to say, the meeting in Wuhan will be anything but an impromptu encounter. Interestingly, Modi is undertaking an overnight trip and will have several hours of talks with Xi.

Both countries disenchanted with the US

The conversation will be imbued with what wang described as “the world’s profound changes.” Both China and India feel disenchanted with the United States – each for its own reasons – and there is no doubt that the two countries are stakeholders in free trade and globalization. And India has no illusions that President Donald Trump has the trade balance with India in his sights, too.

Despite Modi’s best efforts to draw the US into a relationship that would help in his vision to transform India as an emerging power, all he got was a periodic flow of mellifluous rhetoric pandering to Indian vanities. Modi, a down-to-earth politician with native Indian wisdom, knows that it is empty vessels that make big noise.

The US has been largely focused on penetrating the Indian market for its exports – military exports, in particular. Equally, India understands that there is no such thing as a “Thucydides trap” threatening US-China relations and Washington’s strategy is to negotiate more effectively with China – be it under Barack Obama or Trump.

In the Asian scenario too, Modi places great store in India’s relations with Russia and Iran and will not be stopped on his track by Trump’s policies. Trump placed India on a high pedestal in his so-called South Asia strategy in relation to the Afghan war, but Delhi harbors profound misgivings regarding the war itself and the lack of transparency in the US approach.

A significant outcome of the Wuhan meeting could well be that India and China work together to strengthen regional security. The Wuhan meeting will be taking place just six weeks before the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Qingdao (which Modi is due to attend).

Modi keen for big Chinese investments

The strategic communication aims to harmonize the two countries’ South Asian policies. The effort will be to avoid treading on each other’s toes while pursuing legitimate interests. The bottom line is that Modi is keen to draw big-time Chinese investments into the Indian economy. And on its part, China sees the Indian economy as the last frontier.

But mutual confidence is needed. Nepal becomes a test case with Beijing repeatedly signaling interest in a trans-Himalayan economic corridor to India. Meanwhile, Delhi has visibly toned down its skepticism regarding China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Delhi has reached this point after a long four-year path of confronting China – a tortuous sojourn that eventually proved futile, counter-productive and unsustainable. Modi’s own instincts would have been to create a foreign-policy legacy by transforming India’s relationship with China, and ironically, Beijing also probably saw in him initially a rare forceful Indian leader with whom it could do business.

But Modi ran into strong headwinds from powerful quarters within India, which viewed China’s rise through a prism of envy, suspicion and fear, mixed with an irrational sense of rivalry and paranoia, which was of course steadily fuelled by western think tanks and media. These forces (and affiliated interest groups) still remain very much at large. But, if any Indian leader has the grit and tenacity to put them on a tight leash, only Modi could do that. The Chinese most likely realize that too.

atimes.com

There is no border more in need of a string of buffer states than the mountainous Sino-Indian border that traverses the Himalayan range. Buffer states have traditionally existed between rival super-powers as neutral buffer zones to prevent the outbreak of hostilities between rival powers, including China and India. The former Kingdom of Sikkim, a semi-independent protectorate of India, was invaded and annexed by India in 1975, an act that eliminated a crucial buffer state between India and China. It was also an action that led to the current tensions on the Sino-Indian frontier.

It is no coincidence that China’s recent military foray into the Doklam Pass tri-border area of Bhutan, China, and India is in a region of Sikkim claimed by all three countries. Ever since the incorporation of Sikkim into India as a constituent state, China has been wary of India’s attempts to bring about similar annexations of Bhutan and Nepal. In fact, it is India’s continued influence over Bhutan’s foreign affairs that has prevented Bhutan and China from establishing full diplomatic relations. Similarly, India’s border incursions into the Madhesi area of southern Nepal has brought about increased wariness in Beijing about India’s ultimate strategic aims along the Sino-Indian border.

Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan once served as buffer states between British-ruled India and China, with Tibet, now part of China, serving as an additional buffer state. The change of status of Tibet and Britain’s replacement by India as the protecting power over Sikkim helped bring the 1962 Sino-Indian War. Chinese troops captured Rezang La in Ladakh in the western Himalayas and Tawang, a district of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh in the eastern Himalayas. Tawang and surrounding areas were once part of “Greater Tibet. The 1914 Simla Accord defined as the new border between British India and Tibet the McMahon Line. The treaty was agreed to by British Foreign Secretary Henry McMahon and Tibetan government representative Lonchen Satra. However, Simla was never recognized by China. The presence of a major Tibetan monastery in Tawang resulted in British troops not occupying the town, which continued to pay taxes to the Dalai Lama’s government in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.

After the People’s Republic of China annexed Tibet in 1950, Indian troops of the Assam Rifles moved into Tawang and placed the Tibetan-claimed territory under Indian military control. China never recognized India’s control of the region.

A neutral buffer zone between the two nuclear powers should be extended to the west in Kashmir with the granting of independence to Ladakh, which is presently a part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. To the east, should be granted sovereignty under a neutral and demilitarized Tibetan administration. Whether a neutral and independent buffer state of Tawang answers to the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India should be left to negotiations, with the emphasis on the state being demilitarized, except for a local police force, and strictly neutral. Tawang, Nepal, Ladakh (with its capital in Leh), Gilgit-Baltistan (which was briefly independent in 1947 but eventually taken over by Pakistan), Nepal, Bhutan, and a Sikkim that is restored to independence under the rule of the family of the deposed Chogyal (King) would provide a baseline for a string of buffer states to prevent the outbreak of armed hostilities between the Indian and Chinese armed forces. The seven buffer states should be free to establish diplomatic relations with other nations and join the United Nations and other international organizations as full member states.

But the establishment of neutral buffer states should not be limited to Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, and four new nations. The proposed new federal structure for Nepal, once a feudalistic kingdom, fails to take into consideration the autonomy desires of several of its ethnic groups. The establishment of autonomous states of Kirat and Limbuwan and the restoration of the autonomy status of the former Kingdom of Mustang or Lo, would create further buffers between India and China, as well as between Nepal and China. India is already concerned about a growing Chinese influence in Mustang after the post-royalist government of Nepal abolished, in 2008, the traditional Tibetan kingdom governing a strategic region jutting from Nepal into Tibet. China currently capitalizes on the irredentist pro-Tibetan sentiments among Mustang’s population. Mustang has always been a prize in big power politics. The US Central Intelligence Agency used Mustang as a launching point for anti-Chinese operations in Tibet in the 1960s and 70s. The establishment of an Indian state of Gorkhaland, demanded by the Gorkha inhabitants of northern West Bengal, would also help diffuse regional tensions.

A CIA briefing for the National Security Council, dated April 1, 1959, described Tawang, in what was then part of India’s North-East Frontier Agency, as a natural headquarters for the Dalai Lama after he fled Tibet. The Dalai Lama did stay in Tawang after his trek out of Tibet. The CIA document points out that Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted the Dalai Lama closer to New Delhi where the “two could be in closer touch.” The Indians settled on Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh, north of New Delhi, as the home for the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile. A transfer of the Dalai Lama and his government to an independent Tawang might assuage feelings in Beijing that the Dalai Lama, officially considered a “dangerous splittist” by China, remains too close to the Indian government. The Dalai Lama controlling his own territory in Tawang might also relieve pressure on China by groups supporting the Dalai Lama’s return to power in Tibet.

There is a belief among some political scientists that buffer states, far from preventing war between neighboring rival powers, encourages aggression. However, a CIA report on Bhutan, dated April 2, 1965, found no evidence that China sought to “upset the status quo” in Bhutan, which was, as it remains today, governed by India in certain sectors. The 1949 Indian-Bhutan Treaty of Friendship, amended by a new treaty in 2007, grants India a say in Bhutan’s foreign and defense policies. It was the view by Beijing that Bhutan was a virtual colony of India that prompted China to seize control over several Bhutanese enclaves in Tibet during the Tibetan rebellion of 1959. The Sino-Bhutanese border issue remains unresolved.

Ironically, in 1965, the CIA saw a small Buddhist sect in Bhutan, which was ultimately loyal to the CIA-backed Dalai Lama, as a threat to then-King of Bhutan Jigme Dorji Wangchuk. The sect, known as the Tawang Movement, recognizes as their leader not the King of Bhutan but the head of the Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Tawang. According to the 1965 CIA report, New Delhi saw the Tawang Lama as a threat to the Bhutanese king and a possible pawn of China. If the Dalai Lama were permitted to govern his Buddhist faithful from Tawang, it would certainly help stabilize Buddhist politics in Bhutan, as well as in Sikkim and the state of Arunachal Pradesh. A fact long ignored by policymakers in New Delhi and Beijing is that there are ancient familial ties between the royal and monastic houses of Tibet, Mustang, Bhutan, Sikkim, Tawang, and Ladakh. Recognizing the independence of these houses and their states as neutral buffers should be welcome in India and China as an important insurance policy against all-out war.

An independent Sikkim would also draw down military forces stationed on both sides of the strategic Nathu-La pass that provides a transit route between Sikkim and Tibet. Currently, the pass is the most heavily militarized area in the world. After the Doklam Pass standoff between Indian, Chinese, and Bhutanese troops, the pass has become even more militarized. One misfired bullet could result in a major war between two nuclear-armed nations. A string of buffer states along the Himalayan range might go a long way in separating the military forces of these Asian giants.

An analogy could be that China’s People’s Liberation Army units come down to the Siachen area, which is under India’s control, to advance Pakistan’s territorial claim, which Beijing also considers to be of strategic significance due to its proximity to Karakorum Highway and Xinjiang region. This needs some explanation.

For a start, the location of the standoff is Doklam Plateau, which has been in China’s control on which Bhutan made a territorial claim only in 2000. (India drew Bhutan’s maps in the sixties, including the portion showing Doklam as Bhutanese territory.)

The PLA has been undertaking infrastructure development in Dloklam but Indian military has chosen to contest the latest phase of road-building activity. Notionally, Delhi is acting at the request of Bhutan. (Bhutan says very little on the entire affair.)

The Indian-establishment commentators have claimed that the road under construction in Doklam may improve PLA’s access to the ‘tri-junction’ that separates India’s state of Sikkim, Bhutan and China – in turn, bringing China’s military presence closer to the so-called Siliguri Corridor that connects India’s restive north-eastern states with the Indian ‘mainland’.

There are sub-plots. The delimited border (demarcated with boundary pillars) between the Indian state of Sikkim and Tibet is the only settled segment of the 4000-kilometre long India-China border. Both countries accept the border defined under the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890.

At this point, the fog thickens. The 1890 convention accurately depicts the ‘tri-junction’ between India (Sikkim), Bhutan and China, in terms of which the current arena of standoff (Doklam) comes under China. But then, Bhutan was not party to the 1890 convention.

In sum, there is a China-Bhutan order dispute with regard to Doklam (on the basis of maps prepared in Delhi), and India has now intervened in the dispute physically to stop Chinese road construction activity in the region, apparently at Bhutan’s request.

But India and Bhutan do not have a military pact. Their so-called Friendship Treaty (2007) no longer empowers India to guide Bhutan’s foreign policy and merely commits the two countries «to coordinate on issues relating to national interests».

Suffice to say, India has militarily intervened in the China-Bhutan border dispute over Doklam.

Unsurprisingly, China alleges that by doing so, India has violated the 1890 convention. This is a can of worms, because if the 1890 convention is revisited, Sikkim’s settled border with Tibet may also get re-opened – and, alongside, India’s annexation of Sikkim in 1975 too (something which Beijing accepted grudgingly only in 2003 in the context of an improvement in the overall Sino-Indian ties at that time.)

Beijing insists that any discussions to resolve the current standoff can take place only if India withdrew forces from the Chinese territory (Doklam). It contends that this standoff is fundamentally different because India has violated a key principle by violating an international border (between China and Sikkim under the 1890 agreement), which is not under dispute.

Delhi, which typically resorts to megaphone diplomacy apropos India-China border tensions, is maintaining exemplary reticence. As the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said once, those in Delhi who know do not speak, while those who speak either do not know or are dissimulating.

There could be a range of motivations behind the Indian and Chinese calculus. Delhi could be calculating that:

• Sikkim is the only segment of the border with China where India enjoys military superiority, and PLA should not be allowed to neutralize it, no matter what it takes.

• A road link today and a railway line tomorrow – this could be ‘mission creep’ aimed at PLA gaining proximity to Siliguri Corridor.

• In political terms, Bhutan should remain anchored in Indian orbit. By inserting itself into the China-Bhutan border dispute, India becomes the elephant in the room.

• Bhutan has been the only South Asian country (other than India, of course), which has resisted the invidious charms of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and it must remain so.

• China will blink in the face of India’s ‘muscular diplomacy’, since PLA cannot afford a military confrontation in Sikkim region where India enjoys decisive advantage geographically and militarily.

• China must reckon with new realities – ‘India today is not the India of 1962… Indian Army is prepared for a two and a half front war.’

• The standoff would have resonance within Tibet where security situation remains fragile. (Interestingly, last weekend, Indian authorities allowed the government-in-exile mentored by the Dalai Lama to defiantly post a Tibetan flag of independence in Ladakh region on Chinese border.)

• Strident nationalism works fine in India’s domestic politics. (The opposition parties anticipate a snap poll in 2018.)

As regards Beijing’s motivations, apart from any ‘mission creep’ vis-à-vis Siliguri Corridor, the following leitmotifs may be discerned:

First and foremost, the relations with India have perceptibly deteriorated in the past 2-3 years due to Delhi’s perceived pro-US ‘tilt’. Second, China has a sense of vulnerability vis-à-vis the security situation in Tibet. Doklam forms part of Chumbi Valley, which leads to Lhasa.

Intrinsically, China focuses on the development of the Yadong region of Tibet, which is connected to Lhasa already via a highway and soon with a branch line of the China-Tibet railway. China consistently believed that Tibet’s (or Xinjiang’s) stabilization is best tackled through rapid economic development.

Again, China is surely monitoring the delicate India-Bhutan diplomatic tango and is not willing to believe that there is no daylight possible between Delhi and Thimpu – even if Delhi projects it as an all-weather friendship.

To be sure, if the India-China standoff in Doklam continues, how it would begin to impact Bhutanese national sensitivities remains to be seen. Finally, China factors in that India finds itself in an untenable position with regard to the Anglo-Chinese accord of 1890.

All in all, the important thing today is to manage the narrative in a way that does not lead to war. India has an option to withdraw the troops in Doklam and begin discussions. This need not necessarily mean loss of face, because Beijing remains open to discussing India’s concerns.

But the catch is that, quintessentially, India has to leave it to China and Bhutan to resolve their differences and disputes. India can leverage Bhutan’s stance but cannot assume a ‘hands-on’ role for all time, since the optics of Bhutan being a sovereign country come into play.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative gives an added dimension, if Bhutan at some point chooses to follow Nepal’s footfalls. (Even a ‘regime change’ in Kathmandu failed to dissipate the Nepali elites’ fascination for the ‘Belt and Road’.)

India’s best bet is that China will need time to build up forces in Doklam area. China can open other fronts where it may have vast superiority, but then, China’s preoccupations elsewhere may not allow that – North Korea, Japan, South Korea, South China Sea and the volatility in the China-US relations.

However, India may be setting a precedent in regional security if it intervenes militarily in a dispute between two of its neighbours – on whatever pretext. In a longer term perspective, India-China relations have been severely damaged.

The Modi government mishandled India’s relations with China. There have been a lot of missteps – such as hyping up public campaigns over contentious issues, prioritising inconsequential themes as centre piece of discourse, making Sino-Pakistan ties a litmus test of China’s intentions, trespassing on disputes in South China Sea, flaunting the ‘Dalai Lama’ card, and consorting with Obama administration’s ‘pivot to Asia’.

A potential window of opportunity for the two strong leaderships in Delhi and Beijing to accelerate a border settlement has been slammed shut. And a relationship that was finely poised between competition and cooperation has turned adversarial.

The 1962 conflict was unusual in that it was one of the very few times when the United States and the Soviet Union found themselves generally on the same side in tacitly supporting non-aligned India. But 1962 was a different era, one of bipolar superpower domination. In 2017, without the engagement of the United States foreign policy establishment, as represented chiefly by the State Department, India and China, along with other regional powers, will have to sort out their border differences on their own. That will certainly be a test for the diplomatic skills on both sides of the Himalayan range.

The 1962 border war did not become a wider international conflict thanks to level-headed decisions by President John F. Kennedy, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and Chinese Foreign Minister Chou En-lai. Diplomacy prevailed in 1962. Today, when nationalistic bombast has replaced diplomacy at the White House and a realignment of foreign policies is in full swing, border incidents between China, the world’s most populous nation and, arguably, the world’s strongest economic power, and India, the world’s most populous democracy, are fraught with danger. Both India and China are nuclear powers and their common border remains one of the most militarily fortified in the world.

Some borders in the Himalayan region have names like «lines of control», «lines of actual control», «un-demarcated boundaries», and colonial vestiges like the «McMahon Line», the «Johnson Line», and the Macartney-Macdonald Line.» Many of the borders, including those between India and China, as well as India and Pakistan, have been contested since the end of British colonial rule over the sub-continent. In the rugged and sparsely-populated mountainous range extending from Kashmir in the west to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh in the east, it has been nearly impossible to establish recognizable borders and the countries of the region – India, China, Pakistan, Bhutan, and Nepal – have been contesting borders since the years after World War II. Mapping has been all but impossible and even Google Maps cannot accurately pinpoint some contested areas in the Himalayas.

It is not known whether Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought up the border dispute with China during his recent White House visit, but the American foreign policy apparatus was largely asleep at the wheel as Chinese and Indian troops faced off on the vague border of Indian-occupied Sikkim and Chinese-controlled Tibet. Ominously, China reminded India that it had defeated the Indian army in the 1962 border war. China was also suspicious about Modi's trip to Israel, the first by an Indian prime minister to the Jewish state. China is keenly aware of the influence Israel maintains through the pro-Israel cell led by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner within the White House. China suspects that India may be using Kushner and his Israeli friends to New Delhi’s advantage in the Himalayan border confrontation.

The latest border skirmish between the two Asian powers began when Indian troops blocked the construction by Chinese workers of a road in the tri-border Doka La region of Sikkim, where the borders of India, China, and Bhutan meet. The blocking of the Chinese road crew by the Indian Army resulted in a statement by Beijing that the area, which is claimed by India and Bhutan, was «indisputable sovereign» Chinese territory. China demanded that India withdraw its troops from the Doka La area. Bhutan charged that Beijing violated past agreements between the two countries by building a road that headed toward the Bhutan Army camp at Zompelri.

The Royal Bhutanese Army has been involved in a project demarcating the border between Bhutan and China. It was a Bhutanese Army patrol that first discovered the Chinese construction crew in the disputed zone. The Bhutanese told the Chinese crew that they were violating Bhutanese territory and instructed them to withdraw. When the Chinese refused, the Bhutanese government lodged a formal diplomatic protest with the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, citing Beijing for violating the 1998 «Agreement for the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility in the Bhutan-China Border Area», a pact to maintain the status quo regarding their common border. Bhutan and China do not maintain diplomatic relations. China swiftly rejected Bhutan's complaint.

China is believed to be illegally occupying 154 square miles of Bhutanese territory in west Bhutan. In return for ceding Bhutan’s territory in western Bhutan to China, Beijing has offered to exchange with the tiny kingdom, where the economy is based on «gross national happiness», 347 square miles of territory in northern Bhutan. However, the northern Bhutan territory is already Bhutanese, so the Chinese are trying to exchange illegally occupied territory for illegally claimed territory.

After the Chinese-Bhutanese border confrontation, Indian military personnel joined Bhutanese army units at the Chinese highway construction site. The Indians backed Bhutan's request for the Chinese to withdraw from the region. After the border incidents, Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat visited Indian garrisons along the Sikkim-Tibet border and stressed that India could fight a two-front war against China and Pakistan, while ensuring the stability of restive Indian states in the region. Tensions between New Delhi and Beijing grew rapidly.

China, in retaliation for the Indian Army's moves against its road construction crew, blocked access for religious pilgrims seeking to cross the strategic and heavily-militarized Nathu La pass from Sikkim into Tibet in the annual visitation to Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar, which are sacred to Hindus and Buddhists.

China has indicated that the road construction in Doka La has nothing to do with the Dalai Lama and that it is part of China's «One Belt, One Road» infrastructure project of establishing modern highway and rail links throughout Asia and beyond, including the Nathu-La pass that now serves as a major commercial route from Sikkim to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

There are special interests in both Tibet and India that never approved of the 2003 Sino-Indian agreement that saw India recognize Tibet as the «Tibet Autonomous Region» of China, in return for Beijing recognizing Sikkim as a state of India. Before the 2003 agreement, Chinese maps showed Sikkim as an independent state. The state had been an independent kingdom until 1975, when Indian troops invaded the country and deposed its monarch, who was married to an American, and his government. In November 2008, Chinese troops demolished Indian bunkers built in the disputed Doka La region. Preceding the standoff over the Chinese road crew incident this month was the bulldozing of at least one fortified Indian bunker in the Doka La region by Chinese forces in early June.

There are several flashpoints between India and China along their 2500-mile border. A military conflict at any one of these or a combination of them could swiftly escalate to a wider war and bring in Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Myanmar, as well as Tibetan refugees in India and Nepal. There may be outside pressure for the parties to peacefully resolve their differences but it won’t include a United States that is quickly retreating from international engagement.

Hyperbole and daydreaming have been two distinguishing traits of Indian foreign policy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration.

The government resorts to unreal exaggeration to emphasize the real situation, while the reality gets blurred and is often substituted by a visionary fantasy, especially one of happy thoughts, hopes or ambitions.

Nowhere is this more evident than when it comes to Modi’s policies toward China. It’s time to abandon the three-year-old notion that calibrated moves to create irritants in the bilateral relationship will incrementally compel Beijing to negotiate on India’s terms.

The Modi government gleefully adopted an idea (which was originally handed down by the Obama administration) that India deserved to seek membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) — nations that have agreed to a set of rules to prevent proliferation of materials used to build nuclear weapons.

In all probability, the Obama administration could not have overlooked that China would take a principled opposition to the idea, given India’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Again, the Modi government and the Obama administration embarked on a joint venture to get the Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar included in the UN watchlist. This was even though China’s consent as a veto-holding member of the Security Council would be needed for that, which was unlikely to be forthcoming given the imperatives of China’s own cooperation with the Pakistani military on counter-terrorism.

Modi himself, surprisingly enough, raised both issues – NSG membership and Azhar – with President Xi Jinping in two separate meetings and thereafter Delhi publicized these highly sensitive exchanges that were of a confidential nature. The intention was apparently to corner Beijing.

Meanwhile, a third issue appeared in the nature of India’s opposition to the US$54 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The Modi government blithely resurrected what had been up until two years ago a mere propaganda plank – namely, India’s notional claim to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

The Modi government made it an issue of territorial sovereignty and went on to allege that China had violated Indian sovereignty by implementing the economic corridor.

These irritants and the ensuing steady decline in India-China relations gave a raison d’etre to the pro-US tilt in the Modi government’s foreign policies. The Obama administration happily played along.

The Modi government was confident that under a Hillary Clinton presidency, the US pivot strategy in Asia would get a new cutting edge and that Beijing would eventually have no option but to compromise with India’s tough line.

Incredibly enough, just a fortnight before last November’s US election, the Modi government hosted an unprecedented visit by the then-American ambassador Richard Verma to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, the disputed border region with China. Delhi also taunted Beijing by disclosing six months in advance that an official visit by the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh was also on the cards for April.

Delhi hoisted the petard to signal to Beijing that there was going to be big trouble once Clinton was sworn in as president.

Alas, the calculus has dramatically shifted. Hillary and Verma have gone into retirement. And Trump is jettisoning the pivot strategy and is eagerly planning a meeting with Xi to explore the terms of a brave new Sino-American engagement that boosts his “America First” agenda.

A historic meeting between Trump and Xi that could rewrite the power dynamic in Asia is on the horizon.

To be sure, the Modi government also began a corresponding move to switch to non-belligerent mode vis-à-vis China. Hyperbole of another kind stressing “convergence” with China even where none exists – such as over Afghanistan – has taken over.

But on Friday, the foreign ministry in Beijing drew the red line:

“The Indian side knows very well the seriousness of the Dalai issue and the sensitiveness of the boundary question. Under such circumstances, India’s invitation to the Dalai Lama to the disputed areas between China and India will bring severe damage to peace and stability of the border areas and China-India relations.

“China is firmly opposed to the Dalai Lama’s activities in the disputed areas between China and India and has expressed its concern to the Indian side several times. We urge again the Indian side to honor its commitments on the Tibet-related issues, follow the important agreement between the two sides on the boundary question, refrain from actions that would further complicate the question, not provide a stage for the anti-China separatist activities of the Dalai group, and ensure the sound and steady growth of China-India relationship.”

At the same time, veteran diplomat Dai Bingguo floated a seemingly conciliatory idea that the two countries could be at the “gate” of a final settlement of the border dispute as a whole if only India “takes care of China’s concerns” over Tawang in an overall spirit of “meaningful and mutually acceptable adjustments to their respective positions on the boundary question in order to reach a package settlement.”

How this complex mix pans out remains uncertain. The Dalai Lama could always fall sick and plead inability to travel to Arunachal Pradesh. However, Beijing has thrown the gauntlet at Modi.

Beijing seems to be saying that if Modi is the strong man he claims he is, and can take difficult decisions, why settle for a mere shadow play involving the Dalai Lama? Why not take the bull by its horns and come to the real stuff – the intractable border dispute itself?

Paradoxically, while Modi is indeed a strong man, he is not strong enough to jettison India’s unrealistic, maximalist stance on the border dispute. A “package settlement” demands give-and-take. But if Modi makes concessions, his acolytes in the Hindu nationalist constituency and the Indian security establishment will feel let down.

Simply put, Modi is not strong enough to take bold, visionary decisions. He must, therefore, settle for hyperbole and daydreaming as the stuff of India’s China policy.

atimes.com

With the ouster of the democratically-elected government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych by forces representing neo-Nazi, World Bank, and reactionary Ukrainian nationalist forces, the Russian government is in a position to grant «Captive Nation» status to not only a Ukrainian government-in-exile (GIE) but also to any other progressive government overthrown by street mobs and neo-fascists.

The recognition of GIEs as the true representatives of a nation is a time-honored method for projecting «soft power». The presence of representatives of GIEs at international conferences, international organizations, international sporting events, and the establishment of embassies of such GIEs in various capital cities around the world can sow confusion and internecine diplomatic schisms within the ranks of opponent blocs of nations. For example, if Russia were to grant full diplomatic recognition to the GIE of Ukraine, whether headed by Yanukovych or another exiled Ukrainian government official, there could be a demand that such a GIE participate in all international forums dealing with the resolution of the Ukraine crisis.

Russia has used a similar tactic with regard to the republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which declared themselves independent of Georgia after the government Tbilisi became riddled with Georgian nationalists who threatened the lives and property of minority Abkhaz, Ossetian, and Russians within Georgia’s autonomous republics. The same situation now exists in the autonomous Republic of Crimea within Ukraine. The Russian majority of the small Crimean republic, which is also home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, feels threatened by the radical nationalists and neo-Nazis who now dominate many of Ukraine’s ministries, including the powerful Security Ministry. A declaration of independence by Crimea and its recognition by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and other friendly countries would not only help secure the safety of Crimea’s majority population but further burden the U.S. State Department with diplomatic protocol headaches. U.S. diplomats would be hard pressed to keep track of the activities of government officials from Crimea, let alone those from Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and possibly also the Transnistrian Republic with its large Russian minority that may find itself also squeezed by nationalist Ukrainians intent on causing harm.

During the Cold War, polemicists like Ukrainian-American right-winger and Georgetown professor Dr. Lev Dobriansky, the creator of the «Captive Nations» mantra, derided the «Soviet yoke» imposed over satellite nations. However, Dobriansky let his true feelings become known when, in 1960, he told a Congressional panel that he believed that the «Cold War» against the West was not started by the Soviet Communists but by the Russian Czarist government in «St. Petersburg and Moscow». In a speech on January 30, 1960 in Washington, DC, Dobriansky accused successive Russian leaders of aggression: Czar Nicholas I was accused of putting down the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Czar Alexander I was accused of threatening Europe with «armed might», Czar Nicholas II was accused of using his armed «steamroller» to threaten all of Europe, and «Czar Nikita [Khrushchev] was accused of suppressing Dobriansky’s «captive nations». It was Dobriansky’s hatred for all things Russian that was behind his «captive nations» lunacy. Today, Dobriansky’s actual heir, his neo-conservative daughter Paula Dobriansky of Harvard University, and his ideological heirs in the neo-conservative ranks, have added Russian President Vladimir Putin to the list of the Russian «demons» that only exist in their own minds.

Chief among the Russophobes is Arizona’s aging and decrepit Senator John McCain, who now sees Russians lurking behind every tree. After once proclaiming «we’re all Georgians now», he recently muttered «we’re all Ukrainians now» before calling for tough sanctions on Russia for its policy toward Ukraine. Arizona is the home of a number of native Indian nations that signed bilateral international treaties with Washington only to see them violated time after time. If Mr. McCain is so worried about Ukrainian national aspiration, one can only think of his response to Moscow inviting the Navajo, Hopi, Tohono O’odham, Zuni, and Western Apache nations to establish diplomatic missions in the Russian capital. If the West continues to interfere in the domestic affairs of Russia and Ukraine, perhaps it is past time to entertain a Russian response to U.S. and Canadian government subjugation of the native peoples of North America.

Now, nations like Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Moldova, and even Greece find themselves under the yoke of unelected «Eurocrats» in Brussels; central bankers in Frankfurt, London, and New York; and NATO and Pentagon policy makers. Progressive and popularly-elected governments in Venezuela, Thailand, Ecuador, and Nicaragua find themselves subject to street rioting, secessionist movements, and economy destabilization planned and carried out by the CIA and lackeys like global hedge fund tycoon George Soros.
Moscow could become not only the home to GIEs like that of Ukraine but also future GIEs in the event the CIA and its cronies and lackeys are successful in overturning democracy in countries like Venezuela and Thailand. Moscow hosting a number of democratically-elected GIEs would send a message to the world that would expose the fakery and ambiguity of statements by the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, and other Western countries of their commitment to «democracy». In addition to GIEs, the presence of the current embassies of the nations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and possible future embassies of Crimea, Transnistria, and Nagorno-Karabakh would demonstrate Russia’s, and only Russia’s, commitment to self-determination for peoples suffering under the yoke of neo-colonialism and imperialism, as well as the threat of ethnic cleansing.

GIEs and the embassies of aspirant nations in Moscow, combined with the supporting presence of U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, would be free to state their cases without the incessant propaganda and censorship filters. These censors and filters have been increasingly used as American, British, and other corporate media entities, including the anti-Russian Al Jazeera news network, which is influenced by Britain’s MI6 intelligence service and funded by Qatar’s pro-Muslim Brotherhood royal family, pump out anti-Russian state propaganda masked as «news» reports.

There is little doubt that the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is beset by structural and political problems. With a U.S. Secretary of State more interested in the appearance of his carefully-coifed hair than in affairs of state and a State Department protocol office apt to misspell the names of foreign leaders like former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and refer to Taiwan as a «province of China», the appearance of Moscow as a center for GIEs and embassies and legations of aspirant nations might send the State Department into a diplomatic tail spin.

Such an initiative would not even have to occur in a physical context. In June 2012, President Putin called for new strives in the area of «digital diplomacy» and the use of «new technologies across multiple platforms, including in the social media, to explain the positions of the state». Many U.S. diplomatic missions abroad have become VPPs, or Virtual Presence Posts. The U.S. diplomatic and consular presence in many locations only exists in cyberspace. Either a virtual presence, physical presence, or, ideally, a combination of the two, in Moscow would be a smart use of Russian soft power to combat continuing American and western forays into the domestic affairs of Russia, Ukraine, and other Eurasian nations, including China’s Tibet province. The recent two-day honoring of the Tibetan Dalai Lama by the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC is evidence that the American and western neo-imperialists will not stop with Ukraine and Russia, but complete their goals with the overthrow of China’s government and the dismemberment of the People’s Republic of China.

The world is at a crossroads. It can follow the West into austerity, bankruptcy, and subjugation as a «captive planet». Or it can stand with the Ukrainian government-in-exile, Russia, China, Venezuela, Thailand, and other progressive countries against the rise of neo-fascism and tyranny…

Li, on his first foreign trip as premier, quoted a Chinese proverb in addressing Chinese cooperation with India over border and water issues: «a distant relative may not be useful as a near neighbor». However, when countries with competing national interests find their access to life-sustaining water resources is at stake, neighbors, especially two that have warily eyed one another’s intentions for some six decades, can easily revert to their roles as traditional enemies.

There are increasing signs that amid all the niceties exchanged between Li and Singh in New Delhi and considering the fact that the two emerging world economic powers are both members of the Brazil – Russia – India – China – South Africa economic alliance, there is a changing dynamic in the entire Himalayan region that suggests a military confrontation between the world’s two most populous nations is not outside the realm of possibility. In fact, it is a distinct probability.

In the intelligence community, events, some based on intelligence information, are known as «indications and warnings» and are used to predict future events. Some of the events are, by themselves, fairly innocuous, and by themselves, may not amount to much. However, when combined with other information and events these «indications and warnings» or I&Ws paint a larger picture of the forces and interests that are lurking behind the scenes.

In the Himalayan region, the clever use of «scouts» by India and the redeployment of Chinese People’s Liberation Army troops along the massive Himalayan range are I&Ws being monitored by Western intelligence services having a stake in what occurs on the Indian sub-continent.

India is expanding the presence of «scout» units along its Himalayan border with China. However, these scouts are not teenage youth on camping trips looking for merit badges. Rather, these scouts are specialized units fully integrated into the Indian army in a manner reminiscent of India’s British colonial past. 

On May 24, India’s Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, Lt. Gen. S.K. Singh, who also wears the hat of the «chief of the Gurkha Brigade,» presented the new flag of the Sikkim Scouts to the unit’s commander. Over 300 Sikkimese recruits for the Sikkim Scouts were present at the ceremony in Lucknow. Sikkim was once an independent country but it was invaded by Indian troops in 1975 and incorporated into India as a state. China has never fully recognized the incorporation of Sikkim by India. The Sikkim Scouts, after their training, will be deployed to the Sikkimese border with Tibet, already the most heavily-guarded border in the world. 

In 1965, India and China fought a border war after China demanded India withdraw its troops from the Nathu-La and Jele-La passes on the Sikkim-Tibet border. Ever since, both sides have maintained a huge military presence at the passes.

The creation of the Sikkim Scouts is part of the Indian Army’s «Sons of Soils» program, which has created military units composed of peoples native to the Indian border region with China. The idea behind the units is that peoples native to the regions will be supported much more by the local population than outside Indian troops who are often seen as «occupiers». This is especially true in Sikkim where the heavy Indian Army presence is resented by the locals, especially by the Bhutia and Lepcha Buddhist minorities which still harbor nascent loyalty to the ousted Sikkim monarchy.

However, Sikkim’s dominant Nepali majority is also seen by India as a potential problem with calls by some Nepalis in Sikkim for a union with their Nepali brethren to the west in Nepal.

In the western Himalayas, China does not recognize India’s Johnson Line of Control that incorporates Aksai China into India. India, as part of its «Sons of Soils» program has dispatched the Ladakh Scouts, also known as the «Snow Warriors,» the oldest of the scout units and mostly Buddhists who are loyal to the Tibetan Dalai Lama, to maintain India’s presence in the rugged high altitude region. 

On April 15, PLA troops crossed the Johnson «actual line of control» and were first met by India’s first line of defense, the Indo-Tibetan Police Force. Soon, the Indian ranks were supplemented by the Ladakh Scouts.

The Ladakh Scouts are assisted by the primarily Hindu Dogra Scouts of Jammu and Kashmir who keep a wary eye not only on China but also on the forces of China’s traditional ally, Pakistan, which does not recognize India’s incorporation of primarily Muslim Kashmir as an Indian state.

To the east of Kashmir and west of Nepal, lies Uttarakhand, where the Garhwal Scouts and Kumaon Scouts maintain vigilance on the Uttarakhand-Tibetan border. Uttarakhand, like neighboring Nepal, is primarily Hindu but the Indian border state and western Nepal have a significant Muslim majority.

China also rejects India’s eastern Himalayan line of control, known as the McMahon Line. In this region, India has deployed the Arunachal Scouts. 

India is increasingly worried about Chinese intelligence activity among Buddhist monks operating in the border regions. Although many of the Buddhists are loyal to the exiled Dalai Lama of Tibet in Dharamsala, India, China sees some Buddhists as potential Chinese allies in a continuously- fluctuating political situation in the region.

In addition to the «Sons of Soils» operation, India’s Home Affairs Ministry is instructing its Sashastra Seema Bal, the Armed Border Service, to keep an eye on the activities of Buddhist monasteries in the region. In addition, the Home Affairs Ministry’s Border Security Force is being used to supplement the army’s Assam Rifles on the India border with increasingly-restive Myanmar, where Chinese agents have close contact with northern tribes, including the Karen, Kachin, Shan, Chin, Wa, and Mon. India’s Naga Regiment, made up of ethnic Nagas from secessionist Nagaland in eastern India, also maintain tabs on Chinese activities near the Indo-Myanmar border.

India’s Special Frontier Force, which falls under India’s external intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), is made up of Tibetan refugees and is used by RAW to not only keep a watchful eye on Chinese movements along the Indian-Chinese border but is also known to deploy covertly into Nepal to watch the Chinese from the Nepali side of the border with Tibet.

India’s Sunday Standard recently reported that Indian security and intelligence agencies are wary of Chinese activities among Buddhist enclaves, including cave monasteries, in the border region with Chinese Buddhist monks very willing to hand out FM radios, give free Mandarin lessons, and provide food-for-work aid to local Buddhist villagers. There has also been an increase in Tibetan refugees flooding into Nepal through the former princely kingdom of Mustang along the Nepali-Tibetan border. Indian intelligence is suspicious because Nepal, which has been governed sporadically by a Maoist government, is said to have cracked down hard on Tibetan refugees entering Nepal. However, many of the Tibetan «refugees», including those who have joined Buddhist monasteries along the Indian-Bhutan border, are pro-Chinese and speak Mandarin, which has New Delhi on edge. 

India is also wary of calls in an increasingly fractured and Balkanized Nepal for a «Greater Nepal» encompassing current Nepal, Sikkim, and Darjeeling. There are also calls within Sikkim for a «Greater Sikkim,» encompassing the traditional Bhutia-led Kingdom of Sikkim that once included Sikkim and Darjeeling. Adding to the mix, are calls for an independent Gorkhaland, or, at least, a Gorkhaland state that would extend from Darjeeling eastward to include the territory south of the Indian-Bhutan border. Some Indian intelligence analysts fear that the groups calling for new countries, borders, and Indian states are being manipulated behind the scenes by China.

The I&Ws are clear and American intelligence is paying attention. U.S. Special Forces, along with those of Britain, Israel, and France, are increasingly seen at the Indian Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School in Vairengte in Mizoram in eastern India. The CIA is reportedly recruiting agents from among thousands of ethnic Nepali Hindu Lhotshampa refugees originally forced from southern Bhutan to refugee camps in Nepal and subsequently resettled in the United States. These refugee agents are able to integrate themselves into the ethnic stew of the Himalayas and report intelligence to the large CIA station at the U.S. embassy in Kathmandu. And young American men with military-style haircuts have been seen with their American families on the streets of Gangtok, the Sikkimese capital, which is a short drive from the heavily-garrisoned Nathu-La pass…