Helping NE rebel groups : A politico-military strategy ?
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 09 2020 -

Just over one month ago in November, a Chinese expert writing for Chinese state-run Global Times warned that Beijing could retaliate India's support for "secessionist forces' in Taiwan by fuelling insurgency in the Northeastern States.

Long Xingchun, a senior research fellow at the Beijing Foreign Studies University and president of the Chengdu Institute of World Affairs, said: "Taiwan secessionist forces and Indian separatists are in the same category. If India plays the Taiwan card, it should be aware that China can also play the Indian separatist card".

"These armed separatist factions in Northeast India have now been weak under the strong crackdown by the Indian military, but they have not been completely wiped out," wrote Xingchun.

Now media reports, quoting Indian officials, have come out saying that China is assisting rebel groups that have stepped up attacks on its border with Myanmar, opening another front in the conflict between the two Nations already engaged in a deadly stand-off in the Himalayas.

The dispute or rather disagreement over the demarcation of their common frontier in the Himalayan foothills, from Kashmir in the West to Arunachal Pradesh in the East, has been a constant source of serious tension between the two neighbouring countries.

It was on June 15, 2020 that the Indian soldiers and the Chinese PLA were engaged in a bloody skirmish at Galwan Valley which claimed 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers.

Since then, both the armies have multiplied their strengths manifold apart from deployment of heavy tanks and artillery on either side of the LAC.

So far, the confrontation has been restricted to Eastern Ladakh and border areas of Sikkim and Tibet.

If the Chinese army is actually helping North East rebel groups, the theatre of conflict can very well expand to the North East region where Arunachal Pradesh or several parts of it are claimed by China.

With both China and India showing no intention to budge from their respective positions since the Galwan clash, the rivalry between the two countries is fast taking the form of sworn enmity.

Any border skirmish at this point of time can lead to a full scale war.

Bhutan will be the first casualty and it can spread to Tibet, Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, the whole North East and the neighbouring provinces of China.

People of these regions have nothing to do with the rivalry or enmity between Beijing and New Delhi.

Yet, they are the ones who would suffer the biggest casualty in the event of a war.

Manipur has had a fair experience of the collateral damages done to her when imperial powers fought against each other on her soil during the Second World War.

But war can never be a solution to any problem in this age of nuclear weaponry.

If at all, a war breaks out, it may not be confined to a single front.

Even a war of limited period will do great harm to the economies of both the countries, particularly in the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Border disputes are there everywhere across the world, between every two neighbouring countries.

It would be sheer political immaturity if such disputes are allowed to spark any full scale war.

Both China and India need to shed all hawkish policies, cast away domineering postures and adopt a win-win strategy of reconciliation.

We don't think there would be any winner in the event of a war.

In case, there is a war between India and China, it will not be confined to the two neighbours alone.

Rather, it has all the potential to spark a regional or continental war.

So the global community and international bodies must intervene wherever possible and no efforts to bring peace must be spared.