A Future China Strategy for India begins....

If he strikes me once, it is his fault.

If he strikes me again, it is my fault.

Chinese saying (Anonymous)

In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close.

Miyamoto Musashi

‘Si vis pacem, para bellum’

Vegetius

Since Chinese strategy draws so heavily from its own history,

particularly that of the Warring States Period, we can start this chapter

with an analogy from Chinese history, but of a more recent period, the

early medieval. The history of the period of the Jin and Song dynasties

in China (1115-1276 CE) is illuminative.

There are some interesting parallels. The southward offensive of the

Jin can be likened to the Communist PLA’s southward offensive of

1946-1949, which drove the Nationalist Army and the former KMT

government south right out of China to Taiwan.

The humiliating defeat of the Northern Song by the Jin can be

compared to the Chinese PLA’s 1962 defeat of the Indian Army in the

Kameng Division of the erstwhile NEFA. The long-term confrontation

between Jin and Southern Song is more or less the Sino-Indian

relationship from end-November 1962 to February 1976. The only

difference is the PLA's unilateral cease-fire and withdrawal, which saved

India from having to de facto cede the captured territory to them.

To be continued...