At Doklam, India Taught China That We Won’t Be Bullied Like Smaller Nations: Nitin Gokhale
On September 29, a year since the Indian Army conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), defence expert Nitin Gokhale will unveil his new book ‘Securing India The Modi Way: Pathankot, Surgical Strikes and More’.
How does Modi’s outlook towards China differ from his predecessors?
In all cases of border incidents with China, the government has been resolute on the ground but reasonable in diplomacy. When President Xi was in Ahmedabad, 1,500 Chinese troops came into the Chumar sector. In two days, India built up a counter force of 9,000. The Chinese did not expect or anticipate this. Such decisiveness was missing earlier. The signal has to come from the top. In Doklam, they expected a diplomatic response from Bhutan but did not anticipate India’s military response.
Would it be incorrect to say China was the aggressor in Doklam?
If I was Chinese, I would say India was the aggressor. But what China did was violate a diplomatic understanding. India said we will not allow you to unilaterally change status quo. They may get away with bullying smaller nations in the South China Sea but here, India did not allow them to do that. So India displayed both firmness and flexibility.
Is it true that Chinese troops set up loudspeakers at the standoff site and blared expletives and insults at Indian troops, who showed great restraint? Is that also something that percolates from the top?
Yes, it does. But it has been a standard practice with Indian troops. The directive is always that we will not be the ones to open fire.
