"China Routinely Underestimates India’s Concerns About Its Border" - By CWP Alum Manjari Chatterjee Miller
On December 9, 2022, hundreds of Indian and Chinese troops clashed along their disputed border. This recent encounter is emblematic of the continuing tensions between the two nations. Not only does the skirmish itself reflect the increasing strain on the China-India bilateral relationship, but the news coverage in China also demonstrates a critical misjudgment of the depth of India’s concerns about China and its strategic priorities.
The territories along the China-India border have been a point of contention for both nations since their war in 1962. While the Line of Actual Control (LAC) separates the disputed territories, it is not an international boundary, and neither country agrees on its alignment. The bilateral relationship dipped to a new low in June 2020 when a major conflict between Chinese and Indian troops in the Galwan Valley, located along the western sector of the LAC, took the lives of twenty Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers. Despite seventeen rounds of military corps commander-level talks, there has been no breakthrough. The December clashes near Tawang in the eastern sector of the LAC saw troops fighting for the first time in over a year, marking another setback for the relationship.
Blog Post by Manjari Chatterjee Miller and Clare Harris - January 11, 2023 12:47 pm (EST)
Manjari Chatterjee Miller is senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She is also a research associate in the Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies at the University of Oxford. An expert on India, China, South Asia, and rising powers, she is the author of Why Nations Rise: Narratives and the Path to Great Power (2021, shortlisted for the 2022 Hedley Bull Prize in International Relations) and Wronged by Empire: Post-Imperial Ideology and Foreign Policy in India and China (2013). Miller is also the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of China-India Relations (2020), a monthly columnist for the Hindustan Times, and a frequent contributor to policy and media outlets in the United States and Asia.
Photo Credit: By United States. Central Intelligence Agency. - Library of Congress, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91239053
