Manipur, considered one of India’s most beautiful and serene states from the aesthetic point of view, has been making national and international headlines for almost the past two years for all the wrong reasons. In May 2023, what began as a dispute over a Manipur High Court order giving Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the Meitei ethno-religious community followed by peaceful protests by civil society groups to oppose the decision quickly degenerated into a full-blown civil war marked by ethnic conflict between the Hindu Meitei and the Christian Kuki Zo communities who inhabit the Imphal Valley and plains respectively.
Hundreds have died, public property worth thousands of crores has been destroyed and peace in the valley seems, at best, to be a pipe dream. Recently, the state was brought under the President’s Rule by the Parliament by invoking Article 356 of the Constitution of India to restore peace and tranquility in the turbulent state.
In hindsight, it may seem that the conflict is primarily an ethnic clash between two communities that have had a history of tense relations for the past many decades, a deeper analysis reveals several hidden strands and some actors who have taken advantage of the fragile fluid situation of Manipur to further their devious activities.
Among these actors, the most prominent is China. Despite being one of the largest trade partners of India, China has a rather uneasy relationship with its southern neighbour. With over 3,500 km long border between both countries, the LAC or the Line of Actual Control is one of the most militarised border regions in the world.
China’s strategic objective is to emerge as the undisputed hegemon of Asia, for which it intends to go to any lengths. Under the presidency of Xi Jinping, China intends to revive its dream of the Middle Kingdom wherein China becomes the locus of global civilisation.
In the context of India’s security, it is all the more important to understand China’s role in the north-eastern part of the country.
China’s covert involvement in Manipur via Myanmar is dangerous. Manipur has a 398 km long porous border with Myanmar, and China has taken advantage of the fragile geography to its advantage
Hybrid Warfare
Hybrid warfare is defined as a combination of military, political, economic, diplomatic, and other overt and covert measures to corrode the strength of the adversary. It, however, operates within a permissible threshold that prevents the outbreak of a full-scale war, while not violating international law. The idea of hybrid warfare was proposed by Dr Frank Hoffman, a career army officer in the US Marines and a research fellow at the National Defense University, Washington DC.
As a military concept, hybrid warfare is relatively new, yet its manifestations are seen across the planet, be it Iran’s proxy and diplomatic war against the US-Israel duo, or Pakistan’s hybrid warfare against India in the form of funnelling narco-terrorism in Punjab and plotting terror attacks across India, and reviving militancy in Jammu and Kashmir.
However, China is an altogether different ballgame. To prevent India’s rise, China has been following the doctrine of salami slicing, a foreign policy cum military doctrine that uses a coordinated combination of small actions or offensives that would merge to create a much bigger unrest or conflict that would prove exceedingly difficult to bring under control.
China has been actively courting Bangladesh with economic investments via the Belt & Road Initiative and defence exports to bring Dhaka into its orbit of influence, intending to encircle India
Part of this salami-slicing strategy was the more than four-year standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in Eastern Ladakh near the Pangong Tso. While both have defused the standoff with a combination of intensive diplomatic negotiations and military de-escalation measures, there is no mistaking China’s neo-imperial ambitions.
While the standoff was one of the jigsaw puzzles, the other and more dangerous aspect is China’s covert involvement in Manipur via Myanmar. India shares a 1643 km long border with Myanmar, and Manipur has a long 398 km border with the country, many parts of which are porous. China has taken advantage of the fragile geography to its advantage.
China has been actively funding militant and insurgent groups based out of both India and Myanmar to open a third front of conflict with India, along its strategic north-eastern part of the country. The recovery of sophisticated arms and communication devices like walkie-talkies by the Indian security forces in security operations has revealed that these China-made weapons were funnelled through Myanmar by insurgent groups. Myanmar is currently under military rule and is being used by China as a conduit to wage a hybrid war against India.
At the same time, the dragon has been actively courting Bangladesh with economic investments via the Belt & Road Initiative and defence exports to bring Dhaka into its orbit of influence. The toppling of the Sheikh Hasina government and the ‘installation’ of an interim government led by Muhammed Yunus under the overall charge of the Bangladesh military, which has taken active steps to promote ties with China, shows that China intends to encircle India, one step at a time.
As a part of the hybrid warfare playbook, China has also adopted the doctrine of the String of Pearls. It is a military idea that emphasises encircling the adversaries with a network of military and commercial facilities to prevent them from any room for manoeuvrability.
India’s military and strategic planners must counter China’s hybrid warfare strategy and take active measures to foil its aggressive designs across the northern, eastern and north-eastern parts of India
In India’s case, it is marked by Chinese presence in Sri Lanka via the Hambantota port, in Myanmar via the Sittwe port, in Pakistan via the Gwadar port, and in Bangladesh in the form of its economic largesse in South Asia. In other parts of the world, China’s presence is in the form of the BRI or Belt and Road Initiative.
India’s military and strategic planners must not waste any time in recognising China’s pattern of activity as a part of its hybrid warfare strategy and take active measures in countering and foiling China’s designs across the northern, eastern and north-eastern parts of India.
–The writer is currently working as a Research Associate at Defence Research and Studies (dras.in) and is a columnist. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
