US-INDIA GLOBAL REVIEW JUL-SEP 2020

7 US-INDIA GLOBAL REVIEW JULY-SEPTEMBER 2020 One path to war may be public pressures - what political scien- tists call "audience costs" - that make it difficult for leaders to de- escalate. Since this current crisis began in early May, the govern- ment of India has been exception- ally vague in official statements about where Chinese troops are, how many of them are involved or even how many clashes have occurred, in an apparent effort to maintain space for negotiations. One location that has been subject to intense scrutiny in press reporting and social media is the Galwan River Valley. India views the LAC near this valley to be undisputed, so Chinese troops crossing there would be an enlargement, in India's view, of the extent of China's claim, though there is evidence that at least some precrisis Chinese maps claimed almost all of the valley as Chinese territory. - The two sides appeared to be backing off Many pro-government analysts in India had argued for weeks that there had never been a substan- tial or sustained incursion in the Galwan River Valley. These same analysts admitted to an incursion along Pangong Lake further south, where there was a known disagreement about the LAC's location. One of these analysts stressed, however, that "China has not 'captured' any Indian terri- tory" - presumably, if China had done so, India would have to do something about it. On June 13, the Indian army signaled that while the standoff at Pangong Lake continued, "both sides" were "disengaging in a phase manner" in other areas, notably in the area of the Galwan River. Then on Tuesday, the Indian army admitted, "During the de- escalation process under way in the Galwan Valley, a violent face- off took place yesterday night with casualties." At least 20 Indian personnel have died, including a colonel, and social media rumors suggest a higher toll is possible. While there were also reports of Chinese casualties, the number or severity are not known. China's People's Liberation Army Western Theater Command issued a state- ment claiming, "The sovereignty of the Galwan River Valley has always been ours," and accused India of "provocative attacks" lead- ing to Monday's clashes. The fact that these fatalities occurred in or near the Galwan River Valley, during the ostensible disengagement process, seems likely to lead to further recrimina- tions about whether the Indian government can be trusted to inform its public about the scope and scale of the Chinese incur- sion. - What happens now? The Indian government's play- book relies heavily on lessons learned in earlier Sino-Indian crises. Former national security adviser Shivshankar Menon observed there was a formula for peaceful outcomes: "keeping pub- lic rhetoric calm and steady, dis- playing strength, and giving the adversary a way out. . . . It was not tweeting or whining in public, brandishing our nuclear weapons, or threatening war." That playbook may no longer be tenable. That would be a worrisome development, because public pressures have exacerbated Sino- Indian conflicts in the past. In 1959, as skirmishes worsened between Indian and Chinese forces along the frontier, the pub- lic criticized the embattled govern- ment of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for having withheld facts about the severity of the dispute. Nehru began releasing all official Indian diplomatic correspondence with China to assuage growing parliamentary criticism. Rather than give Nehru credibility from which to negotiate, as Tanvi Madan observes, "agitated public opinion became a potential veto point in India's decisionmaking on China." Backing down in public - for either side, but especially in dem- ocratic India - is always much harder than making quiet conces- sions in private. Those public pressures led Nehru to pursue a risky "forward policy" of trying to maneuver and push Chinese troops out of the disputed areas, eventually triggering the 1962 Sino-Indian war. With the full scrutiny of the Indian media focused on the dis- pute, and China now having pub- licly stressed its sovereignty over the Galwan River Valley, it's not clear how the two sides will stand down. The deaths of Indian and perhaps Chinese soldiers, though, raised the stakes beyond just fisticuffs and injured pride. Whether countries seek diver- sionary conflicts during times of domestic troubles or instead avoid costly conflicts when facing prob- lems at home remains a topic of debate among by political scien- tists. With both India and China juggling coronavirus pressures and economic recession at home, that proposition will be tested in the high Himalayas. Christopher Clary | Special to The Washington Post