Ex-diplomats: Need new strategic thinking to handle Doklam crisis

NEW DELHI: Amid the continuing standoff at Doklam between India and China, former top Indian diplomats characterised handling of the situation by New Delhi as mature while suggesting the need for a new strategic understanding and nurturing country’s interest in the neighbourhood.

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 21

Amid the continuing standoff at Doklam between India and China, former top Indian diplomats characterised handling of the situation by New Delhi as mature while suggesting the need for a new strategic understanding and nurturing country’s interest in the neighbourhood.

Assessing the possible reasons for the current development, former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran felt it appeared to be a case of mind game by Beijing and the unexplained reaction could be because the Indian response was not factored in the way it came.

Saran said China came at Doklam bringing in road construction and earthmoving equipment along with a detachment of PLA construction team maybe based on the past when Bhutan would protest and things would go on.

“China was caught on the wrong foot by the unanticipated action by India to confront China’s road building team in Doklam,” he said, elaborating that the Chinese were confident they would not be confronted by Bhutan and had not figured that India would come in.

Delivering the inaugural lecture series organised by ICS-IIC on “Is a China-centric world order inevitable”, on Thursday evening, he said Beijing’s thinking was shaped by its incremental activity in the South China Sea which was successful.

Cautioning against a possible prolonged impasse just as the one in 1986 that went on for several years, Saran said the current situation could be to weaken India’s relations with Bhutan and then China could negotiate with Thimpu on outstanding border issues.

On the other hand, his successor Shiv Shankar Menon felt the position wherein both sides withdraw troops was logical and the signal Beijing was sending was that it wanted India to step back as it perceived the issue was between China and Bhutan.

Endorsing the handling of the situation by the government, Menon said the risk of an accident always remains in such a situation. On the current level of rhetoric from the Chinese side, he felt it was more because of the social media.