 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. India and China are facing each other off again in what is an unprecedented crisis of late, perhaps since the Sum Dorong Chu incident close to two decades ago and later the standoff on the Dalat Beg Oldi. This incident seems to have escalated already to a point where relations between the two countries are being seriously affected. To talk about this, NewsClick has with us today retired Navy commander Atul Bharadwaj. Welcome Atul. Thank you. Tell our viewers what this standoff is about and how it has reached this stage. You know there is a disputed territory between Bhutan and China. Both Bhutan and China are in talks to resolve the issue. Now the present problem is in an area called Dokalam which is a disputed territory as I said between the two countries. Now India gets involved in it because Bhutan is an ally of India and India has some treaties with it which say that it will basically come in for its help in case it is needed. Now in this particular case it is said that China was building a road and coming right up to Dokalam. Now this particular plateau which China wanted to reach up to basically overlooks our Siliguri corridor which connects the mainland to the northeast. So the Indians feel that if China comes and occupies this disputed territory and reaches up to this place then they will have a strategic advantage that they would be able to you know use their artillery guns and in case of an hostility you know disrupt the entire corridor. So India's interest is that Bhutan's interest is primarily in you know in negotiating with China and reaching a stage where they are able to have a proper demarcation of their boundaries. In this particular case since China had started building a road the sudden news that we heard was that Indian military has moved into the Dokalam and occupied the particular place to prevent any Chinese, further Chinese developments in those areas. So that is primarily the dispute. The Chinese are saying that India has come and come into their sovereign territory over which there is obviously a disagreement over which there is a disagreement because nobody can occupy that territory at the moment neither China can occupy nor Bhutan can occupy nor India of course India is a third party in the whole game. If I recall the first physical clash took place between soldiers of the royal Bhutan army and the Chinese soldiers they were physical pushing of each other and as you know none of the three parties in that valley carry arms with them. So they are just sitting there in their tents no gun barrels pointing at each other. So they just physically are shoving but the first clash took place between the Bhutan army and the Chinese army and that is the situation where Indian forces have intervened. So what we hear basically in the media is you know this is what we primarily hear in the media and we got aware of the entire situation once the Indian forces had actually moved into that particular area and that is where the Chinese began to react and you know the entire issue flared up. Now India has been relatively quiet in this particular issue you know even our media has been generally been subdued on this particular issue. So because we primarily feel that you know we are in a little more advantageous situation at the moment because you know we prevented Chinese from achieving their aims and we are withholding our ground at the moment. You know what we need to ask ourselves is what were those diplomatic moves made prior to India escalating it to military levels. You know we have our military presence there we also see that Chinese are now making some diplomatic moves some using some harsh language but what language did India use what diplomatic language did India use prior to sending its troops there. Now you know how did that happen how did we reach that stage of escalation where militaries got involved and diplomacy took a backseat. Now that answer we are not able to find till now. China is holding virtually press briefings every day in China issuing fairly detailed statements as to what is happening and so on giving its position. India's messaging seems to be far more silent on this issue do you think this is a calculated move on India's part or should they have been more forthcoming and made their position public better. No as I said you know India has been pretty reticent about this entire issue you know they played their cards close to the chest because one reason of obvious is that India is you know it's not the Indian territory which is at stake at the moment nor have the Chinese actually you know infringed on any particular Indian territory. The Indians have actually moved in so Indians are actually holding the cards close to the chest so they feel that they are in an advantageous position let the Chinese make the noise and let the Chinese give the concessions to us you know and the Chinese are saying Indian troops must withdraw as a precondition to any discussions or negotiations. So they want this territory to be vacated before any negotiations to happen. But that also begs the question this territory is a disputed territory and if it is to be vacated is to be vacated by all parties to the dispute. You know what we have not heard is that Chinese military occupying it. Well the reports today in the Indian press says that the field commander locally in the army has said this is now beyond us the army cannot do anything more this is now a matter which has to be resolved by the political leadership. So we are now have no further role to play. So that effectively basically means you know that India if it has to withdraw from that particular place which could be a solution if India was to occupy it then the whole continue to occupy it militarily then the whole thing escalates to a next level you know the Chinese may take some other military steps and then how to prevent how to de-escalate that entire situation would be a problem because you know the militaries have to go back if we have to find a solution the militaries have to go back from both sides. And since India is in larger number in a territory which is in a foreign territory so you know first probably the steps could be taken that both withdraw at the same time problem. Let me ask a related question we have not seen in India so much if maybe if this had involved Pakistan we would have seen the media reacting far more vigorously. But there is this typical mood which is so common these days of whipping up hyper nationalist sentiments on the Indian side ratcheting up the rhetoric. But this time we have also noticed at least vis-a-vis India a similar kind of hyper nationalist rhetoric in sections of the press and social media in China as well. You know China of course is now you know is projecting itself to be the victim in this particular case and India is probably assuming itself to be the victor. So it is playing the game in a manner that you know it is playing a very subtle game. It is a game of brinkmanship if you actually see in the whole game which is going on. India feels it is in a better position so you know it will behave more maturely it will not it will control the levers of escalation and de-escalation basically. It feels that it has the levers to de-escalate or to escalate the situation. So they are playing the game very you know in a very subtle manner. On the other hand China is feels that it needs to bring in its public opinion into the entire game and you know take the issue to the next level because they've been hurt they are showing that they've been hurt more and India is actually not been hurt in that sense. The problem with India is that you know we are not very clear about what is the strategic importance in this whole game. You know even if suppose we are a victor in this particular game what is the strategic advantages that we are going to gain. One question is that did Indian military you know move in was it afraid that Bhutan could get into some kind of an arrangement with China and give up some other take some other large chunk of territory and give Dokalam and settle the issue with China. China has the economic levers with it in the surrounding areas if you see with Nepal you know and other smaller players in the region they are attracted to China because China has the money China has the economic power and it is reaching out to them. India in that sense cannot match the Chinese you know kind of an economic power it cannot match the amount of money which China can put into another country's economy. So there are there is a kind of an attraction which most of these countries are feeling towards China and India is a little afraid of that India is paranoid about that. If one looks at recent development say over the last decade or so we see that China has upped the ante with India vis-a-vis Arunachal Pradesh vis-a-vis the Dalai Lama his visit to Arunachal. There is a far more strident Chinese position on this and the issue has been escalated with the stapled visas and so on. Why is it do you think that India and China rather than moving forward towards resolution of the boundary issues seem to be actually going backwards? You know if you actually see before this crisis happened both India and the relationship this bilateral relationship what it was at its lowest ebb it had gone down to such an extent you know when India refused to join the Belt and Road Initiative Forum and there was no there is no probably you know I would say and you know aspiration to have good relations with China. I will look at it more from Indian perspective because you know I read India more and I you know meet Indians more on this particular issue so one gets a feeling that there is no initiative coming from India to have good relations or to improve relations with China. A trade which is about 70 odd billion dollars had stood where it was you know even Vietnam a smaller country trades much more with China than what we do then there are constant you know calls in India which say that we must boycott Chinese goods and whole lot of then we use the Laila Ma card also so we don't want a good relationship with China. We are our strategy is not clear as to what is it that we want from China nor are we willing to understand China what kind of a power it is so in that sense to expect the relationships to grow you know is asking for too much three just three years back Xi Jinping when he had come to Delhi he was swinging with Modi but see the the the rate of deterioration of the relationship in three years we've now come to a stage we're talking war now that is you know that represents a failure of diplomacy probably on both parts and why has diplomacy taken a backseat in this entire bilateral relationship and why is military beginning to play a larger role in this game is a question that we need to ask and is it in our interest to let it escalate up to the military level. Thank you Commander Bharatwaj. I hope we don't have occasion to return to this topic soon that the situation does de-escalate and we can get back to talking about improving relations between India and China. Thank you so much.