India's Emerging Grand Strategy after Galwan: Bridging the Power Gap with China

Abstract

Beginning in May 2020, a series of border clashes in eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC, the non-demarcated border between China and India) escalated into a tense stand-off between large Chinese and Indian military deployments. Each side blamed the other for causing the clashes by violating the LAC and entering the other’s territory. The ongoing crisis represents the most serious challenge to India’s security since the war with Pakistan in 1999. As the Indian debate over the alleged Chinese intrusions into Ladakh unfolded, a near-consensus was reached that while Beijing’s motives were unclear and perhaps unknowable, at the very least India needed to confront its enormous power asymmetry with China. For the first time since the 1960s, New Delhi has come to view bilateral negotiations with Beijing – except those to stabilise the border – as more or less unfeasible. Instead, it is determined to narrow the power gap through domestic defence and economic reforms (internal balancing) and by partnering with the United States and other countries (external balancing). The shift to internal and external balancing heralds a shift in Indian foreign policy and in its China policy in particular.