Live Encounters Magazine Volume One November-December 2024.
India’s China conundrum: a different war in the gray-zone
guest editorial by Dr. Cauvery Ganapathy.
“This is not an era of war”
Far removed from the carnage in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the tenuous status quo along the Taiwan Straits, there are multiple tensions simmering between nations that do not qualify as war, in the traditional sense. Neither can they be explained adequately under the nomenclature associated with non-traditional security threats anymore. They may, more appropriately, be understood as being part of Gray-zone activities and tactics that a country may systematically direct at another to destabilise it, without resorting to combat operations. These activities remain below the threshold of open warfare while States continue to operate surreptitiously against the interests of another.
There is today an effective blurring of lines through an easy integration of actors, of technologies and of domains across demarcations that were earlier neatly segregated into civilian and military spheres. This enables Gray-zone activities more easily, and empowers States that use them. Such activities exact enormous costs upon the target countries. If intent and ability instead of any direct and immediate use of force or ammunitions were a more significant marker, multiple systematic attempts by countries to destabilize each other and inflict lasting damage, could be counted worldwide today. It may then be worthwhile to consider this era through the prism of the more nuanced calibration of approaches that countries take to one another while aiming to inflict damage. This commentary posits that the Chinese approach to India fits the bill of such Gray- zone activities, disturbingly well, and as a corollary, that we do live in an era of war albeit one largely bereft of actual combat.
This piece comes post the references to possible disengagement announced on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan in October, 2024. While appreciating the choice of diplomatic overtures over any active hostility on the borders, this commentary submits that there ought not to be any illusions about any real change in the status of bilateral ties between the two countries post the Kazan announcement. The issues that resulted in the Chinese misadventure in 2020 persist. The objectives of the Chinese, and the intent that established those objectives persist. It may then be worthwhile to consider why, or if at all, anything on the ground can change despite the separate pronouncements from both sides on the subject post the meeting between PM Modi and President Xi.
Perhaps the more reasonable takeaway from the developments in Kazan is that Beijing has recalibrated its approach due to considerations regarding the timing of the US elections and its anticipated fallouts, domestic economic compulsions, resource allocation and more pressing issues around the Taiwan Straits. An even less generous assessment would be that the Chinese misadventure has served its purpose for the time-being with adequate infrastructural development having been built on their side of the border (something that the Indians have also made impressive progress in), and that the Indians have been forced to allocate scarce resources to the Eastern flank (in addition to the Depsang and Demchok points) while grappling with multiple other stresses along their land and maritime borders presently. So, while the Chinese threat of easy escalation at the border persists, Beijing will find it even easier to prosecute the Gray-zone activities within the Indian borders, and register successes in destabilizing India from within.
The cost of war has a deterrent quality all its own. Which is why conducting Gray-zone warfare combined with a war of attrition along the eastern sector, may be an option the Chinese choose over a direct war with India. China’s choice then represents a low cost high cumulative yield option. The Chinese are choosing a two-pronged approach to their Indian concern- First, to stake claim over areas with no seeming immediate economic value, thereby keeping India engaged for a long-haul along the Eastern sector, and second, to use the uneasy peace meanwhile to gain entry into Indian civilian spaces and industries and hollow them out or leverage access and control over them when the time comes.
On the first issue, the approach is one of making incremental gains through relatively low-cost options.In addition to the presence of their troops (admittedly expected to be lesser in numbers post Kazan’s commitment) and infrastructure along the Eastern sector, the Chinese capture of land inside Bhutan and the takeover of Tibet, and encroaching of land along India’s eastern sector must be looked at through the lens of begetting such long-term payoffs for Beijing. This involves a process of consolidation wherein the captured land may not carry great value in and of itself, but which the aggrieved party cannot redress without triggering a kinetic conflict. It is necessary, in this context, also to consider where resources are being sacrificed for the necessary fortifications in the Eastern sector. India’s defense commitments, needs and focus in the Indo-Pacific may suffer for the investments to be robust enough on the eastern and western flanks of the country. With their continuing presence along the Himalayan sector despite talks of disengagement, the Chinese effectively establish a highly restrictive choice matrix for New Delhi wherein every resource allocated to the land boundary removes it from play in the larger strategic space of the Indian ocean.
Apart from this first approach, the fomenting of trouble in the Indian Ocean in general, and in India’s immediate South Asian neighbourhood in particular, are the most significant parts of Beijing’s toolkit of gray-zone activities. These are, however, excluded from the scope of this commentary, in order to flag 5 other sectors that appear most susceptible to Chinese gray-zone tactics- India’s electricity grids, Data security, Media, Manufacturing, and Defense procurement – that are critical in equal measure but do not invite as much easy outrage as Chinese activities in the neighbourhood do. The 5 that have been included here highlight a mix of India’s vulnerabilities and dilemmas viz a vis the Chinese that are more deeply entrenched in India’s internal security concerns and economic security compulsions.
India’s electricity grids – Chinese attacks on India’s power grids within this decade itself have not received nearly the kind of attention they deserve. 2022 alone saw more than 7 simultaneously. The idea that the electricity of the most populous country in the world with the 2nd largest army in the world and ambitions of becoming the 3rd largest economy in the world, could be so easily compromised by a phishing attack generated more than 2,500km away, without one bullet being fired, should generate far more anxiety than it presently does within India.
The ability of Beijing to impart a devastating blow to India through the power grids are worsened by the possibility of using polymorphic malware which are customizable to specific domains and purposes. The ability to engineer this would basically nullify the need for bad-faith actors such as China to use the older models of malware that leave traceable signatures within the system. This, in turn, would compound and frustrate any efforts of detection, apart from holding India hostage with complete blackouts.
Data is the new currency of power, and the India Stack has done a phenomenal job in leveraging it. India’s ability to use data in the provision of public goods and services in the last decade, has been one of the country’s most remarkable achievements. It is rooted, however, in the process of digitalization, which again carries within itself significant vulnerabilities and is highly susceptible to the kind of Gray-zone attacks that China can engineer in the sphere. The Cybersecurity and Information Technology Examination report, 2023 highlighted the kind of threats that financial institutions, among others, face from potential breaches in this sector. Digital breaches in organizations that serve as data repositories rarely excite the kind of national security concerns they should despite the public knowledge of a malign foreign actor with enormous resources working tirelessly to undermine India’s interests. China’s most recent attack in the sphere has been against India’s largest wearable tech company, thereby compromising the personal data of millions of Indians.
Media – closely tied to the possession of data is the reality of its distribution and dissemination. Media sits at the heart of this social experiment. Never before have the means to dissipate conflicts been so readily available in terms of open and easily accessible channels of communication between the two countries. Yet, never before has so much disinformation potentially plagued every channel of communication. Never before have the two countries, and the world in general, been as interconnected and interdependent as this; but again, never before have so many actors had easy access and owned the tools of disruption with absolutely no accountability. The degree of intractability involved in the sharing of disinformation and half-truths through instruments of the media are mammoth. The propagation of disinformation with no costs involved, has become a feature of the industry, and the Chinese efforts to hold fort in the domain of media sponsorships, data mining through social media platforms and old-school investments in media houses through opaque channels present a very disturbing trend.
Manufacturing and procurement – The Economic Survey of India 2023-24 recommends a recalibration in doing business with China so as to better navigate a challenging international financial and supply chain environment. The recommendation is undoubtedly based on hard facts that emerge from real-time numbers and capacity gaps. The supply chain issues and gaps that flared up during the pandemic have been compounded by the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and FDIs have been lacklustre at best. India’s begrudging dependence on China to become the manufacturing hub it aims to be, is a tragic paradox. The country looks to China even for the electricity grid machinery that it needs to reach those massive growth targets we tout. The dependence on China for the components in the clean energy space, for instance, is highly significant and can be an effective Trojan Horse in the future. Removing this dependence entirely in the near to medium term is unrealistic and a naive expectation. The kind of network blackholes that have plagued the UK since the summary removal of all Huawei equipment from its 5G provision is a case in point to demonstrate what happens when countries act before preparing. So, as long as we continue to prepare, it is only wise to use the economic engagement with China the best we can. Simultaneously, however, it is important to factor in the assumption that Beijing is actively working to induce vulnerabilities into India’s manufacturing base that it can exploit at a later date.
Defense procurement – In the same vein, entirely insulating India’s defense procurement from even a modicum of Chinese participation is an unreasonable expectation just now. Defense manufacturing’s R&D is a highly capex intensive endeavour. It may be prudent then to approach this by buying what is off-the-shelf so that one may focus on modifying it to the Indian requirements within a more effective timeframe. Reliable and sustainable demand signaling that would propel domestic defense manufacturing industries forward is, therefore, a non-negotiable need in India today. Reducing the leeway the Chinese exporters and investors have in India’s defense procurement, even through ancillary inputs such as the parts that telecom and automobile sectors that supply to defense establishments have, requires systemic national commitments by both the public and private sectors. The balance sheet of defense spending must be read through the lens of the kind of technological advances it underwrites too. It may be the only way to effectively curtail the practical need for allowing dubious Chinese investment and inputs into the sector.
In the Indian context, it is necessary always to invoke the debate on ‘Guns or Butter’ when the issue of increasing spending on something like defense comes up. This becomes more pronounced when there is a dissonance in the degree of newfound engagement in a country’s foreign and national security policy, and the recognition that there is a cost to be paid as an invested citizenry. Yet, it is true that the larger, more incongruous and the most unjust impact of war is sadly felt by those that that would have had no agency in either its start nor in its conduct. The bulk of the share of sacrifices made, unfortunately, always fall on those that had no say in the resource allocations a country makes, to begin with. Despite this, it must be recognized that there can be no economic security much less growth if the physical security of the country is not fool-proofed, and increasing spending on defense manufacturing domestically can be the only answer to this dilemma, however uncomfortable.
There is a shock and awe factor which traditional kinetic warfare invokes quite naturally. The outrage of a people is immediately triggered by the more tangible forms of aggression- such as the capture of territory, the use of weapons against civilian populations, or even overt pronouncements extoling attacks on a population or sections of it. Gray-zone activities and non-kinetic actions, on the other hand, fly under the radar of collective outrage, usually. Such activities are typically conducted under the guise of economic activities which mask themselves effectively, and operate in a manner so as to not overtly violate the laws of the land, thereby avoiding drawing attention to themselves. The assiduous efforts to operate within the remit of the law of the land, allow countries like China to consolidate their penetration within India’s economy with minimal scrutiny. The easy integration of domains and the lowering of the barriers to entry, can have a most chilling impact on the future of a country, and yet not be discovered until it is too late.
In dealing with China, the feints are many. Despite pockets of cooperation and offers of latitude, trusting a revisionist power like China is an unwise enterprise at best. It is not a mistake India must allow itself. Wisdom lies more in working towards the prevention of war by single-mindedly preparing for it, as leaders past professed. It is incumbent to identify the fragility within our system, such as in the 5 sectors this commentary flags, which countries like China can use their gray-zone tactics against.
The Chinese may trace their strategic impulse for the conduct of Gray-zone activities to Sun Tzu’s summation that the supreme art of war is to subdue an enemy without fighting. When faced with a competitor who believes and acts on such a philosophy, India would do well to return to the beginnings of its own strategic thought where Kautilya advocates not taking recourse to armed conflict if the ends could be achieved by intrigue, duplicity and fraud, because it is indeed an era of war, even if the manner of its conduct may have changed.
© Dr Cauvery Ganapathy
Dr. Cauvery Ganapathy is a strategic affairs analyst and currently works as a Strategic Risk Management Consultant. She has been a Research Associate with the Office of Net Assessment under the US Department of Defense previously. As a Fellow of Global India Foundation, she has presented and published at various national and international forums. She has been a recipient of the Pavate Fellowship to the University of Cambridge as Visiting Research Faculty and a recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Fellowship to the University of California, Berkeley.