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In the central sector, China claimed some Indian districts but had never moved to capture them. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, a smart politician, had put this dispute on the back burner in 1975. He preferred economic progress to military confrontation.
The new breed of intelligent but confrontation-minded politicians in Beijing wished to teach India a lesson similar to 1962. They were still pained over the humiliating withdrawal of their naval fleet from the Bay of Bengal in the fall of 2035. They wished to continue the fight in the Himalayas. China had been preparing for this for 20 years in Tibet, with the completion of a rail network, additional air bases, new military depots and an improved road network all the way to the India-China border.
The Indians were not sitting idle either. They suffered the disadvantage of working at great heights and building a difficult road network. But they had the advantage of close access to their railways and manufacturing network. This could turn the tide against China once Tibet's link to mainland China via a long rail and road network was cut off. India had never considered this a difficult task, considering the accuracy of its modern missiles. In addition, India's major supply air bases were only 300 miles away, while China's were much further off, except for tactical air bases.
In the spring of 2036, the Chinese shot down an Indian unmanned aerial vehicle in the Ladakh region of Kashmir. Two days later the Chinese fired four missiles at the Chusul airfield where the UAV had originated. The shooting war in the Himalayas had begun. India did not sit back and take the beating. A suitable reply was on the way.
The main thrust of the Indian reply was to wipe out China's defense infrastructure in the southeastern Ladakh area to force the withdrawal of China's forward units. This would allow the Indians to retake the area, which was forcibly taken by the Chinese in 1962. A Chinese supply town stood about 60 kilometers behind the front lines, and was the intersection of a major road network and the forward supply depot. The famous Chinese Aksai Chin road linking Tibet to Xinjiang also passed through it. This area was to be hit with a crippling force, leaving China's southeast positions unsupplied. A strong thrust by the Indian army along this area would force the Chinese to surrender or vacate the posts.
A well-coordinated Indian air force attack on the town was flawlessly executed. First Indian electronic countermeasure planes suppressed all Chinese surveillance, and then fighters and bombers picked out bridges, supply depots, air defenses and troop concentrations. In about 15 minutes the whole town lay in ruins. Remnants of the Chinese army fired their rifles in anger and shot handheld missiles at the attacking aircraft.
No Chinese air force plane came to the rescue, however, as they had been lured into a trap elsewhere. Israeli-supplied AWACS surveillance planes played a major role. The Indian army's forward units recaptured the Pangong Lake area. Indian losses in the air and on the ground were heavy, but they had forced the Chinese line back by 15 kilometers. Then India stopped and waited for China's military reply.
The Chinese had been busy on both the diplomatic and the military fronts. Their diplomats were burning the midnight oil trying to persuade Pakistan to open up a second front in Kashmir. In the meantime China prepared to attack an important Indian air base, which was supporting the AWACS radar planes in the Indian state of Punjab.
Concurrently, the United States intervened diplomatically to prevent Pakistan from doing anything foolish at China's behest.
One day later, the massive Chinese reply to the Indian attack was on the way. A huge armada of airplanes from four different Tibetan airfields began its journey to attack the air and military base of Ambala. The attack plan, if successful, would deal a crippling blow to India's offense capabilities in the air. Unluckily for the Chinese, AWACS planes in the air detected all this Chinese activity. Indian fighters prepared to counter China's moves. The air battles that followed resulted in heavy losses for both sides, but the Chinese never reached Ambala. Not many Chinese pilots were lucky enough to return home with their planes.
A new wave of Chinese planes opened a second front in the central sector. They aimed to attack the Bareili airbase, which was again heavily defended. Unluckily for this town, it did receive several hits and the airstrip and helipad were destroyed. It was a setback that put the airbase out of commission for a week.
The initial enthusiasm on both sides for bloody conflict was declining rapidly with mounting losses. An unofficial hold was placed on further attacks and counterattacks, and the search for a solution began. The United States warned Pakistan strongly against any adventurism and sent the 7th Fleet to its Indian Ocean base, Diego Garcia. The U.S. fleet in the Arabian Sea, on duty to defend the Persian Gulf, also parked at a safe distance from the Pakistani port of Gawadar.
India soon made it clear that it would not withdraw its troops from the recaptured territory in the Aksai Chin Plateau. China made it clear that if a diplomatic solution failed it would pursue the war to its end. Reading between the lines, a nuclear war became a distinct possibility. India had no option but to mate its nuclear weapons with missiles and other delivery vehicles. India was getting ready for the worst. On the other hand the Chinese had all along been in a state of readiness for a nuclear strike. This was their intimidation trump card.
The United States made it clear to China and India that they should both take their hands off the nuclear button. If China or India or even Pakistan moved to activate their long-range nuclear-capable missiles, the United States warned it would intervene to destroy them in their silos. The U.S. argument was heard loud and clear. The world could ill afford a nuclear war and the U.S. position had wide support.
With all their military advantages neutralized, the Chinese began to think carefully. The president of India intervened politically to declare a state of emergency and force a coalition Cabinet of all political parties to reach a consensus on going to war. India was facing the danger of annihilation.
India made the first move on the diplomatic front. A personal emissary of the new Indian prime minister flew to Beijing; India wished to read the Chinese mind. The Chinese supreme leader refused to meet him, but a senior Communist Party official in charge of Indian affairs met him. China's position was clear: It wanted unobstructed trade rights in the Indian Ocean. India wanted the same in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea.
To save the face of the Chinese military in Tibet, India offered to withdraw from the recaptured territory in Aksai Chin provided China did not occupy it.
Chinese officials, looking for a complete victory, rejected this proposal outright. But that did not mean the shooting war would continue. It was already the seventh day of hostilities on land and the seventh month since China sank an Indian naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal. The shooting war could continue unless cooler heads prevailed -- which in the end, they did.
Finally, it was the U.S. action in the Arabian Sea that prevented escalation to nuclear war and Pakistan taking advantage of the situation. An uneasy calm descended at the India-China border. China would never again take India lightly.
(To be continued in Part III: Uneasy Calm)
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(Hari Sud is a retired vice president of C-I-L Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. ©Copyright Hari Sud.)
