On Dec. 3, 2024, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar released a statement on “recent developments in the India China border areas and their implications for our overall bilateral relations.” After reviewing the complicated history of the Aksai Chin region (known as eastern Ladakh in India) since 1962, he concluded, “We are clear that the maintenance of peace and tranquility in border areas is a pre-requisite for the development of our ties. In the coming days, we will be discussing both de-escalation as well as effective management of our activities in the border areas.” Though the Chinese government has yet to release its own assessment about the long-disputed area, the United States should encourage both countries to pursue this easing of tensions. Aksai Chin is the only region along China’s periphery where the military situation appears to be shifting from constant escalation to a path of resolution through negotiations.
This ongoing thaw in relations was timed to coincide with the formal meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BRICS meeting in Russia on Oct. 23, their first face-to-face encounter since 2019. A few days prior, the two governments reached an agreement to ease tensions in two sectors of the disputed Aksai Chin border region. This agreement was the result of a series of parallel military and diplomatic negotiations that occurred after an unintentional deadly clash in June 2020 in the Galwan River valley on the Line of Actual Control that resulted in increased political friction between the two countries.
The timing of the Xi-Modi meeting was significant as it took place exactly 62 years after the 1962 Sino-Indian border war. As a result of the recent developments in Aksai Chin, Western military observers and foreign policy analysts can now assess how the People’s Liberation Army has demonstrated its ability to conduct a real-world operation in the land domain on a level of complexity and duration not seen since 1987.
The Aksai Chin region (also known in the Chinese media as the Karakoram plateau), is the westernmost sector along the Line of Actual Control, the 2,100-mile border between the two countries established after the 1962 war. Negotiators agreed on “patrolling arrangements in disputed border areas” to restore the situation to pre-June 2020 conditions in which soldiers from both sides would monitor the region in as unthreatening a manner as possible. But this development is only the first step in what will be a long process, if China and India are sincere about deescalating tensions.
Indeed, the latest Chinese-Indian border development should be viewed through the framework of China’s broader border, coastal, and air defense strategy, not as an isolated case. In recent years, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force and Navy have conducted frequent exercises around Taiwan and operations in the South and East China Seas. Such activities have certainly strengthened their readiness and operational proficiency. The army’s border reinforcement activities in the Chinese-Indian border region since 2020 served a similar purpose of providing the army unique training opportunities in one of the harshest environments on earth, often within range of Indian direct-fire weapons.
Moreover, China has probed both India’s and America’s reaction to its activities in a sensitive area out of the media spotlight, attracting only minimal foreign attention. It likely gathered important intelligence about the scope and depth of U.S.-Indian military cooperation — such as bilateral military exercises in the region and intelligence sharing — as well as insights into the Indian military’s tactics and vulnerabilities in the region. Furthermore, the People’s Liberation Army has tested its ability to sustain large forces in an extreme environment while enhancing its strategic depth and dual-use infrastructure near the Line of Actual Control.
The Situation on the High Ground
Chinese military operations in the Aksai Chin, also called the Western sector of the Line of Actual Control, are the responsibility of the Nanjiang (South Xinjiang) Military District, subordinate to the Xinjiang Military District, which is part of the Western Theater Command. The Tibet Military District is responsible for military operations along the Line of Actual Control in the Central and Eastern Sectors. Under normal circumstances, a border defense regiment from the Hotan prefecture in southern Xinjiang and another border defense regiment in Ngari county occupy permanent facilities and conduct patrols near the Line of Actual Control. Elements of the Hotan border defense regiment were involved in the 2020 Galwan valley incident during a period of increased patrolling in the contested region along the shared border. That clash appears to have been the inadvertent result of an encounter on a steep hillside that turned into a deadly brawl.
Hundreds of miles away from the Line of Actual Control, the Xinjiang Military District commands four combined arms divisions (the 4th, 6th, 8th, and 11th) and numerous supporting brigades. These “mobile operational units” are more heavily armed than border units and may move from one region to another as required.
Following the Galwan skirmish, units from the Xinjiang Military District flowed into the region (probably following existing contingency orders) and were integrated into field positions with the local border defense regiments stationed near the Line of Actual Control in multiple, widely separated sectors from the Depsang Plains in the north to the Galwan valley, Gogra/Hot Springs, and along the Pangong and Spanggur Lakes and to Demchok to the south. The 6th Combined Arms Division from southern Xinjiang was the closest unit and therefore the first out-of-area unit dispatched to reinforce the Line of Actual Control. Over the next six months and subsequent years, these forces were augmented at times by smaller units from other Western Theater formations, including the 76th and 77th Group Armies.
It is estimated that approximately 20,000 total People’s Liberation Army soldiers were deployed to these sectors along the Line of Actual Control (and about 20 miles to the rear) by early 2021, consisting of approximately 5,000 personnel in the two border defense regiments, roughly 10,000 in the 6th division, and 5,000 from various other out-of-area units. This sum is considerably smaller than the 40,000–60,000 frequently cited in Indian and Western media reporting. The numbers of troops and their locations have fluctuated over the years as units rotated in and out and negotiations have resulted in earlier tactical withdrawals from the Line of Actual Control. Warning shots have been fired on a small number of occasions since 2020, but no casualties have been incurred. The specific current locations of People’s Liberation Army troops still deployed near the Line of Actual Control and their total numbers were not revealed during the October settlement.
In 2021, the 11th division from Urumqi replaced the 6th division. Over the past two years, in a change from full-division rotations, elements from multiple combined-arms divisions (including the 4th and 8th) appear to have been deployed simultaneously in the region. All these units conduct routine training, such as live-fire drills, driver’s training, and political indoctrination, while forward deployed. Additionally, several new border defense companies have been added to the two border defense regiments and their existing facilities expanded and new ones built.
People’s Liberation Army Takeaways from the Aksai Chin Operation
Although the Galwan valley clash apparently was not a pre-meditated event, the People’s Liberation Army exploited the incident to conduct extended operations and training (which lasted for four years) relatively close to a live potential enemy — a critical training gap the People’s Liberation Army seeks to close under Xi’s direct order. These real-world military operations over disputed territories serve as area orientation for units and a “rehearsal” for combat operations, tactics, techniques, and procedures. People’s Liberation Army senior leaders can take away five lessons from the Aksai Chin operation.
First and foremost, the army’s rotational border deployment operations, as with the air and naval forces’ training around Taiwan and in the South China Sea, likely have boosted the morale of service members. Every soldier who served within range of potential enemy fire on the Karakoram plateau will have renewed their “red genes” linking them to their predecessors who fought on the same terrain during the 1962 war. A media campaign has kept the civilian populace informed of the People’s Liberation Army’s hardships and obedience to Chinese Communist Party orders.
Second, military planners have collected useful data to evaluate the efficacy of small unit leadership, organizational and doctrinal reforms, and new weapons fielded to the force. Cognizant of their own lack of modern combat experience, People’s Liberation Army leaders understand these border operations enable units to identify shortcomings in deployment, operations, and sustainment, develop methods to overcome them, and promulgate these lessons across the force.
Third, the People’s Liberation Army has learned critical lessons in executing wartime command and control for geographically dispersed, forward-deployed units in challenging terrain and under degraded communications conditions. This is comparable to the U.S. Air Force’s “agile combat employment” concept, which seeks to adapt airmen to operating in austere locations.
Fourth, the People’s Liberation Army logistics system has proven its ability to deploy, maintain, and sustain a large, dispersed force at extreme altitudes (averaging around 17,000 feet) for multiple years. The logistics demands of the Aksai Chin operation involved small arms and major platforms, ammunition, food and water, shelter, fuel, and even bottled oxygen for individual and collective use. This, however, was accomplished primarily by road and rail transport, unlike the air and sea transportation requirements for operations around Taiwan and in the South China Sea.
Finally, new weapons and technologies have been integrated into the force, including communications, construction engineering, observation/surveillance, and medical support. For example, Type-99A main battle tanks, the new Type-15 light tanks, large CH-4 drones, and many types of prefabricated shelters have been deployed near the Line of Actual Control.
Balancing Fighting and Talking
From 2020 to 2024, the Nanjiang Military District commander held over 20 “high-level military talks” with his Indian counterpart, while the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Indian External Affairs Minister’s office conducted the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination, a parallel dialogue.
In an Oct. 26 interview with Indian media, Jaishankar noted that China and India had reached a negotiated settlement because “the military did its part and diplomacy did its part.” This simple statement accurately characterizes Chinese crisis management behavior. Although details remain sparse, the negotiated settlement made public to coincide with Xi and Modi’s Oct. 23 BRICS meeting showcased meticulous planning and coordination on both sides. It also reminds People’s Liberation Army observers that analysis of military operations should not be divorced from the broader political context.
The easing of the Sino-Indian military confrontation in Aksai Chin resembles the 1987 negotiated settlement that ended the protracted border conflict after China’s 1979 war with Vietnam. From 1980 to 1987, the People’s Liberation Army rotated troop units from all over the country to the border with Vietnam to conduct intermittent artillery bombardments and occasional incursions of division-size units along the border to pressure Hanoi to remove its troops from Cambodia. (Vietnam had invaded the country in December 1978 to overthrow Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime.) Additionally, the Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia became one of China’s “three obstacles to normalization” with the Soviet Union, which finally occurred in 1989, ending decades of mutual animosity. In both the Indian and Vietnamese cases, through lengthy border operations the People’s Liberation Army exhibited China’s willingness to endure until its political objectives were met or satisfied through negotiations. China’s tolerance threshold for protraction is high, even when its goals may seem vague.
Contemporary Chinese behavior also is consistent with its tradition in negotiation tactics — with the use of force central to a broader political and economic strategy. Over the past four years of stalemate opposite Indian troops in the Himalayas, People’s Liberation Army engineer units and civilian companies have expanded both military and civilian infrastructure throughout the disputed region. Construction included improving the few existing roads, building new roads, erecting two small bridges over the Pangong Lake, and constructing at least four small military heliports in Tibet and one in the Aksai Chin. (The Indians simultaneously have been improving infrastructure on their side of the Line of Actual Control, as acknowledged in the Dec. 3 Indian statement.) Moreover, albeit with questionable military utility, China has built numerous civilian xiaokang (“well-off”) villages along the Line of Actual Control beyond Aksai Chin. This construction and military activity have created a new set of “facts on the ground” that Chinese negotiators likely have used as leverage or bargaining chips with their Indian counterparts to reach the joint patrol agreement announced around Oct. 21.
At present, the only details of the settlement agreement have come from Indian media. The agreement applies only to the northern Depsang Plains and southern Demchok areas. Troops were reported to have returned to pre-April 2020 positions by the end of October and dismantled temporary structures erected during the last few years. In the future, both sides agreed to conduct patrols composed of about 14–15 personnel in areas they had tread prior to the Galwan incident and coordinate their schedules and movements to avoid confrontation. Military commanders’ meetings will continue.
Nonetheless, neither side has provided a trace of the current front-line situation in the multiple sectors between these two northern and southern extremes. That context matters before tensions can be considered resolved. Several unanswered questions have significant policy implications. Will out-of-area People’s Liberation Army units pull back from the Line of Actual Control to specified areas in the region or leave the area completely — leaving only border defense units to conduct routine patrolling? Will any field camps and fortifications built after June 2020 remain intact? Will a buffer zone between Indian and Chinese lines be established with its trace announced publicly? Will neutral observers be invited to monitor compliance? Will both sides notify the other of exercises in the region involving an influx of out-of-area units?
A Small Step Towards Easing Tensions: Can More Follow?
The incoming Trump administration should evaluate India’s evolving national security interests and economic interactions with China. It appears that New Delhi’s willingness to formally support the U.S. military deterrence initiatives against China will remain limited largely due to Indian economic interests. During the period of increased tension along the Line of Actual Control, trade between India and China was unaffected and continued to grow — suggesting both sides demonstrated an ability to compartmentalize the border dispute to preserve broader national interest. Today, the Modi government actively promotes increasing foreign direct investments from China to help boost India’s exports to the United States and other Western countries.
The U.S. government should support the de-escalation of border tensions between nuclear-armed China and India. A more stable and prosperous Indian subcontinent will be beneficial to U.S. trade and economic interest. Though no foreigners have been involved in monitoring the situation along the Line of Actual Control, the incoming Trump administration could try to experiment with novel ideas — there is very little to lose. The situation in the Aksai Chin is perhaps the only military activity undertaken by China over the past four years that currently is in the process of de-escalation and reducing tensions. Even as military forces play a deterrence role in many situations, the United States should support similar actions that seek solutions to problem areas through negotiations instead of the use of force. In fact, the Philippines, a key U.S. ally in the Indo-Pacific, already is signaling its willingness to emulate the Chinese-Indian border settlement to de-escalate its maritime tension with China.
India is set to host the inaugural Regional Ports and Transportation Conference for Quad countries in 2025. Washington could suggest that India invite one or both of the other Quad countries — Japan or Australia — to serve as observers to monitor the implementation of the border agreement. Concurrently, China should also recommend a neutral third party of their choosing to serve as an observer. Having learned the lessons of operating in such adverse conditions as experienced in Aksai Chin over the past four years, India and China, with the support of the United States, should seize this rare opportunity to build confidence and decrease tensions in a historically sensitive region. Any real progress toward de-escalation along the Line of Actual Control could be a first step toward a so-called cold peace between China, its neighbors, and the United States.
Shanshan Mei, known by the pen name Marcus Clay, is a political scientist at RAND. She previously served as the special assistant to the 22nd chief of staff of the Air Force for China and Indo-Pacific issues.
Dennis J. Blasko is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel with 23 years of service as a military intelligence officer and foreign area officer specializing in China. From 1992 to 1996, he was an Army attaché in Beijing and Hong Kong.
Image: Faraz Frank via WordPress Photo Directory
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