China’s ‘Salami’ Warfare Imperils Himalayan Ecosystem

The planet is being churned; and wherever one looks, there are natural and unnatural (mostly man-made) disasters. It is not only the multiple landslides that occurred in six villages of Wayanad district of Kerala on 30 July, but the entire Himalayan belt that is becoming fragile. In Wayanad, heavy rains triggered the collapse of hillsides, resulting in torrents of mud, water and boulders cascading down. Such incidents have taken place in the Himalayas, too, particularly in Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and/or Arunachal Pradesh.

In most of the cases development activities have resulted in these mishaps. For example, in Himachal Pradesh, some environmental activists told the Down To Earth magazine that “most incidents of natural disasters that occurred during the last one year happened around some power (dams) or national highway project”. In Uttarakhand, wild construction without any consideration about the capacity of the mountains to sustain new infrastructure and tourist footfalls, has been one of the factors triggering one tragedy after another.

One basic fact that has been forgotten is the fragility of the mountains. Flying over the Himalayan range, an impression is created that the snow-covered ranges and high peaks are massive and the mountains are seemingly impenetrable. However, on the ground, the Himalayas are in grave danger. For millennia, the Himalayan passes have been criss-crossed by adventurers, pilgrims, traders, monks or holy men, either in search of a mythical paradise upon earth, or looking for good business. However, the environment remained undisturbed then.

Another factor that needs to be taken into consideration is the militarisation of the Himalayan range, for which, India cannot be held responsible. The finger must be pointed at our northern neighbour. For centuries, life went on as usual, but in 1950 the troops of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) marched into Tibet. From then on, the military balance of the peaceful plateau as well as the ecological equilibrium began to unravel.

In the following years, thousands of Tibetans managed to escape their colonised land and take refuge in India. This included the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s religious and temporal leader, who arrived in India in 1959. Then in October 1962, Chinese troops attacked India on the Himalayan slopes; from the arid Ladakh region in the west to the dense forests in the north-east, the PLA marched into Indian territory. The conflict was short – lasting just one month – but violent. More than 60 years after the event, it remains deeply engraved in the Indian psyche.

The conflict had incalculable consequences for the mountains. The passes were closed, with trade and pilgrimage routes stopped. Communications were cut between northern India and the Tibetan plateau. India now had a bully instead of a friend as a neighbour. At the beginning, very few worried about the environment and even less about climate change. But the Chinese occupation slowly started to have disastrous consequences for the Himalayan ecology.

Today, it is not only India that is under the threat of the Chinese “salami tactics” (taking over a few kilometres of territory at a time). On 23 August 2023, China released a new “standard map” that included Taiwan and parts of the maritime zones of the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia. It added a tenth dash to its existing nine-dash line claim in the South China Sea. Needless to say, there is also Arunachal Pradesh and the Aksai Chin area that China claims with respect to India.

Interestingly, the map included the small Bolshoy Ussuriysky island even though in 2005,Russia and China had agreed that the island would be split in half and the border would run in its centre. In May 2024, the South China Morning Post ran a piece headlined, ‘China must act fast to reclaim “lost territories” from Russia’. A hundred years ago, a treaty between the then USSR and China had abolished the so-called Czarist unequal treaties, and the authors noted, “Now, with Russian President Vladimir Putin bogged down in the Ukraine war, it may be the best time for Beijing”.

More such examples could be provided. India, like several other countries, has no alternative but to defend itself. As a result, the Himalayas have become one of the most militarised regions in the world. Despite several bilateral agreements between India and China, in May 2020, China started practicing “salami” slicing in five different areas of Ladakh, the high plateau in northwestern India.

So, the question is why open new fronts in that arid mountain desert? Many believe that one general, in search of promotion, had suggested some “small” operation to President Xi Jinping. These few kilometres here and there would give strategic depth to the PLA. India reacted swiftly, at the cost of spending four winters at 15,000 feet, often with temperatures at minus 40 degrees Celsius. Each army has today between 60,000 and 70,000 troops posted at the Line of Actual Control (LAC). China and India then began to frenetically develop the infrastructure on their respective sides. The immediate collateral damage was on the environment; which has been compounded by climate change and wild tourism development.

On 25 July, India’s external affairs minister S. Jaishankar met China’s foreign minister Wang Yi. Jaishankar underlined the need for “full respect” of the LAC. Ultimately, both sides agreed on giving “strong guidance for disengagement”. It is, however, doubtful that this will translate into troop reduction on the ground. While the degradation of the Himalayan ecosystem has several factors, the militarisation triggered by China’s hegemonic tendencies has brought incalculable harm to the fragile eco-system.

A solution had been proposed by the Dalai Lama in 1989 in his Five-Point Peace Plan the whole of Tibet, including the eastern provinces of Kham and Amdo, be transformed into a zone of “Ahimsa”, meaning a state of peace and non-violence. Unfortunately, this dream seems much more distant today than 35 years ago. The Dalai Lama had then explained: “The establishment of a peace zone in Tibet would require the withdrawal of Chinese troops and military installations from the country, which would enable India also to withdraw troops and military installations from the Himalayan regions bordering Tibet”. A “Zone of Ahimsa” would be a great boon for the Himalayan environment, but for the moment, it remains a dream.

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This article was originally published as Claude Arpi.2024. 'China’s “salami” warfare big danger to Himalayas’, Deccan Chronicle. 23 August.