Doklam’s unintended consequence: 

Doklam’s unintended consequence: 

Context

• If China makes no room for compromise, India will be forced to think about coping with its power, burying illusions of Asian solidarity.

The eventual outcome

• Whatever the eventual outcome in Doklam, the current stand-off is bound to significantly alter Indian perceptions of China.
• For one, the political goodwill in India towards China that was constructed over the last three decades will be increasingly difficult to sustain in the coming years.
• For another, India, which long resisted the idea of balancing China, is likely to move inevitably in that direction.
• India sees no reason to pick up a needless quarrel with a neighbour and rising power like China.
• But Beijing might be terribly wrong in presuming that Delhi would simply fold up under pressure.
• Pushed to a corner, India has every incentive to simply dig in. If China sees itself as an irresistible force today, India could well turn out to be that immovable object. There will be no happy ending for this confrontation.
• One of the consequences of power asymmetry is the pressure on the weaker power to turn to balancing strategies.
• Until now, India has deeply resisted walking down that road in the expectation that a reasonable accommodation of interests with China is possible.
• If China makes it clear there is no room for compromises, India will have to turn to both internal and external balancing of China.
• One of the unintended consequences for China from the Doklam crisis would be an India that is forced to think far more strategically about coping with China’s power.
• For nearly a century, sentimentalism in Delhi about Asian solidarity and anti-imperialism masked the more structural contradictions with China.