Welcome back to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
China and India:
The two most populous countries on Earth.
And like a scene from the most popular
Indian movie in China, Dangal,
China and India could soon be in the ring,
wrestling it out.
And by “ring,”
I mean the Doklam Plateau.
And by “wrestling,”
I mean shooting.
With guns.
Or nuclear weapons.
But don’t worry.
They’re not going to actually use nuclear weapons.
Probably.
Since June,
China and India have been in
their most serious military stand-off in decades.
Americans know India
as the land of the Taj Mahal,
the birthplace of Buddhism,
and the backdrop of the world’s most influential
nonviolent resistance movement.
I’m just kidding, of course.
Most Americans know India
as the land of the Taj Mahal,
the birthplace of Kwik-E-Mart owners,
and the backdrop of that one
Wes Anderson movie.
This is India.
It has this sort of flap in the northeast
that’s connected by the narrow Siliguri Corridor.
It’s less than 17 miles wide at one point.
It’s sometimes called “the chicken’s neck.”
I’m going to come back to that.
The military stand-off is happening
near the three-way border of China, India,
and the tiny kingdom of Bhutan.
Americans know Bhutan for its archery,
Buddhism,
and being the happiest country on Earth.
Look at how happy they made the British.
I’m just kidding, of course.
Most Americans know...
okay, they’ve never heard of Bhutan.
Anyway, it’s here,
between northeast India and Chinese Tibet.
Bhutan has less than a million citizens.
It’s army is so small,
it relies on India for military support.
Now China and India have had their share
of border disputes over the years.
Most notably, in 1962,
they actually fought a war
over a disputed border.
But that was a different time,
and in a different place.
This border dispute is actually happening...
in Bhutan.
Or in China,
depending on which country you ask.
But not in India.
You see, China’s People’s Liberation Army
has been building a road through part of Bhutan,
or as the Chinese Communist Party calls it,
part of Chinese territory since ancient times.
It’s hard to find accurate maps
of this region online.
Apparently those guys at Google Maps
have more important things to do
than try to correctly draw disputed border lines
in far off lands.
Important things like turning Google Maps
into a Pac-Man game.
Anyway, the dispute seems to be happening
somewhere in this region,
part of the Doklam Plateau.
The thing is,
while this is the map according to India
and Bhutan and Google,
this is the map according to China—
and its Google knockoff, Baidu.
Anyway, Bhutan was obviously
more than a little miffed at the presence
of Chinese troops in its territory.
But from the Chinese Communist Party’s perspective,
they simply sent the army in
to build a road inside China.
That’s why China had a major problem
when Indian soldiers tried to stop
what the Chinese Defense Ministry called
“the normal activity of the Chinese border defense troops.”
To be fair,
for the Chinese regime,
construction in disputed territory
is normal activity.
But from India’s perspective,
Bhutan asked India for help,
so India sent in troops into Bhutan.
An initial scuffle happened on June 16.
Now, both sides have stationed
thousands of troops along the border—
in what’s become a month-long stand-off.
And neither side wants to back down.
“I want to remind India,
don’t leave things to luck
and unrealistic illusions….
shaking a mountain is easy
but shaking the PLA is hard.”
Yes, you don’t shake the PLA.
In disputed territory,
PLA shakes you.
At least according to this India Today video.
“Its personnel were caught on camera
jostling with Indian troops—
some time in second week of June
across the LAC in Sikkim.”
So why is this a big deal for India,
when the PLA is mainly just building roads
in China-slash-Bhutan?
Well, for over a decade,
the Chinese Communist Party has been building
roads deeper into Tibet.
And not just to bring happiness
and prosperity to the locals.
The roads greatly speed up the Chinese regime’s ability
to move troops through the region.
This narrow finger of Tibet
borders India’s Sikkim region to the west,
and Bhutan to the east.
And it’s also of strategic importance.
According to Indian military experts
speaking to the BBC,
“Sikkim is the only area through which India
could make an offensive response
to a Chinese incursion,
and the only stretch of the Himalayan frontier
where Indian troops have a terrain
and tactical advantage.”
Essentially, in the event of war,
that would be the last good place
for India to defend against a Chinese incursion.
And if the Chinese troops were to incur,
well, remember the Siliguri Corridor,
the chicken’s neck?
It’s only half a day’s drive by highway.
So India may be imagining a possible war scenario
where Chinese troops enter India
through this disputed border region,
and then occupy the Siliguri Corridor
— cutting the chicken’s neck.
That would separate the main part of India
from its eight northeastern states.
By the way,
if you’re wondering why the map of India
looks so crazy,
you can thank Prince William’s great grandfather.
Of course, when the map of India
was drawn in 1947,
Tibet was an independent country
ruled by this guy—
but that’s another story.
Anyway, this whole border dispute
between India and China
is basically over maintaining the ability
to fight a future war with the other.
Fortunately, this conflict hasn’t gotten out of control—
besides that Dangal-movie-inspired wrestling,
which is merely off the hook.
No shots have been fired,
as far as we know.
But China has been continually holding
live fire drills in Tibet.
Or as the Chinese military calls them,
“war games.”
The military says they were merely
to “[test] the brigade’s joint strike capability
on plateaus.”
You know, plateaus in general.
Definitely not any particular plateau.
Meanwhile, as I mentioned last week,
the Indian government is preparing weapons
for a short, intense war.
You know, a short intense war in general.
And while it’s always nice to say
no one wants war—
this time, it’s more complicated.
Neither Chinese leader Xi Jinping
nor Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
wants an actual full-scale war.
But neither of them wants to back down, either.
India needs to show Bhutan
it’s capable of supporting them.
After all, Bhutan is India’s only neighbor
that can be called a true ally against China.
But most importantly,
neither Xi nor Modi can afford to look
politically weak.
Modi will be up for Indian re-election in 2019—
or maybe earlier.
So politically,
it can’t look like he’s caving in to China.
Xi Jinping doesn’t exactly face an election,
but the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th Party Congress
is coming up in November.
And he’s going to make some decisions there
that are going to create political enemies.
So Xi can’t afford to look like
he’s caving to India.
And in particular,
my favorite state-run media the Global Times
is really pushing hard for war,
telling India not to forget who won the last war;
that things are going to escalate;
and that China will kill everybody.
So both sides are grandstanding,
and no one wants to back down.
But you know who’s really to blame,
according to the Global Times?
That’s right,
America.
Also any other country like Australia
that calls for de-escalating the situation.
For now, though,
nothing terrible has happened.
But if shots are fired,
and soldiers are killed,
then there will be a lot of political pressure
to respond with Global Times-style violence.
Really, they should just resolve it
by wrestling in the ring like men.
Or, you know,
women.
And coming up after the break,
China Uncensored road trip!!
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