Source: South China Morning Post    Published: 2020-08-06

Pakistan's move to unveil a new political map reasserting its claim to all of Indian-administered Kashmir - minus the parts claimed by China - is fuelling New Delhi's fears of a two-front conflict with its neighbours, despite a lack of evidence that such a move is in the works.

But the release of the map is the latest in a series of conflicts born from cartography which have broken out in the Himalayas since May - from a deadly scuffle between Indian and Chinese soldiers in mid-June to a war of words that began earlier in the summer when Delhi opened a road through territory claimed by Nepal.

Pakistan's new map - unveiled almost exactly a year to the day since India's unilateral decision to strip the part of Kashmir it controls of its semi-autonomy - extends Islamabad's territorial claim north-eastward up to the Chinese-held Karakoram Pass.

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On paper, the map links Pakistan with Chinese-administered territory via the Shaksgam Valley, a part of the Gilgit-Baltistan region ceded to China by Pakistan under their 1963 border settlement. To the east is the Aksai Chin region - the limit of China's claims in Kashmir which it has controlled since a 1962 war with India.

Between the two lies the Siachen Glacier, an undefined area at the northern extreme of the de facto border between Pakistani- and Indian-administered Kashmir known as the Line of Control - not to be confused with the Line of Actual Control, which separates Indian- and Chinese-controlled territory in the region.

India, like Pakistan, claims Kashmir in its entirety and has no interest in pursuing a United Nations-supervised plebiscite, supported by Islamabad, for the region's residents to decide which country they should join.

The recent incursions by China across the disputed Line of Actual Control into Indian-administered Kashmir have given Beijing the ability to impede India's military traffic along roads approaching the Siachen Glacier from the east.

To this extent, Pakistan's new map does hint at the possibility of coordinated operations with China if Islamabad ever attempts to forcibly take the glacier, which would create a land bridge between Gilgit-Baltistan and Chinese-administered Aksai Chin.

© Provided by South China Morning Post A soldier of the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) guards a highway leading to the Ladakh region. Photo: DPA

Since Chinese and Indian forces clashed in the Ladakh region this summer, Indian media have speculated about China's strategic intentions in the area, including the possibility of it seeking to seize territory - fuelling fears of a future war with both China and Pakistan.

"This certainly reinforces the Indian perception of a two-front theatre that its military planners are increasingly taking into account," said Harsh V. Pant, a professor of international relations at King's College London.

But as Ejaz Haider - a Lahore-based South Asian strategic affairs analyst - points out, a highway connecting Tibet to Xinjiang already exists "so the Chinese don't need a route through the Karakoram Pass to reach Xinjiang". That being said, if Pakistan's new map were to become reality, it would represent a "net strategic gain" for both Islamabad and Beijing, the former Ford Scholar with the University of Illinois' programme on arms control, disarmament and international security said.

In a rare four-way dialogue with his counterparts from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal last month, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi again pushed plans for a trans-Himalayan economic corridor connecting Nepal to Pakistan via Tibet and Xinjiang, from where it would join the estimated US$60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) culminating at the Chinese operated port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea. Wang also called for the extension of the CPEC into Afghanistan.

This (map) is presumably meant to be a defence of the Belt and Road Initiative, which India opposes because it runs through disputed territory that it claims

Michael Kugelman, senior South Asia associate at the Washington-based Wilson Centre think tank, said the strategic value of Pakistan's new map, for Beijing, may lie in the additional political cover it provides to belt and road projects being built in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

The new map is significant because "it recognises large areas of Indian territory as Pakistan's", he said. "This is presumably meant to be a defence of the Belt and Road Initiative, which India opposes because it runs through disputed territory that it claims."

In June, Pakistan awarded contracts for the construction of three major hydropower projects along the Neelum River to Chinese state-owned enterprises under the CPEC programme.

The Neelum River marks the divide between Indian- and Pakistani-administered territory in western Kashmir, before it merges with the Jhelum River, a major tributary of the Indus. This in turn supplies water from Himalayan glaciers to an estimated 270 million people in Pakistan and northwest India.

Asma Khan Lone, author of an upcoming book on the history and the geopolitics of the region called The Great Gilgit Game, drew a parallel between Pakistan's new cartographic claim to the Indian-held Siachen Glacier - a huge source of fresh water - and China's efforts to "weaponise water" in Ladakh by building dykes for what she described as "tactical flooding".

Previously vacant because of its extreme altitude, the Siachen Glacier was occupied by Indian forces in 1984, prompting years of intermittent fighting between India and Pakistan at an average elevation of more than 5,400 metres above sea level until a ceasefire was agreed in 2003. The glacier is notorious for killing far more soldiers with its extreme environment than enemy artillery shells ever did: in April 2012, 129 soldiers and 11 civilian contractors were killed after an avalanche buried a Pakistani military base in the nearby Gayari sector.

The huge cost of waging war on the glacier, both in terms of finances and human lives, has so far prevented skirmishes breaking out there in the same way they have done elsewhere along the Line of Control since 2016.

But tensions are on the rise. In February last year, Indian warplanes crossed into Pakistani air space near the glacier. Delhi has also recently started reasserting its claims to Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir by including both in the country's official weather forecasts since May, while Indian military chiefs have declared their forces ready to seize the territory if so ordered.

Kugelman of the Wilson Centre said Pakistan's new political map is "presumably meant to push back" against such threats - but like India's bombast, he said it is driven more by domestic politics than long term strategic plans.

"I don't think we should read too much into this map," he said. "It is just the latest subcontinental case of using cartography to appeal to nationalism at home, while taking a shot at the enemy next door."

'Can China help?' In Kashmir, anti-India militancy continues

Zhou Rong, a senior fellow at Renmin University's Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies who has researched Pakistan and Afghanistan, said the risk of a third war between Delhi and Islamabad over Kashmir was very real.

"India also realises that ties between Pakistan and the US has become less important over the years, and that Washington has stood on its side during its conflicts with Pakistan," he said. "This has enabled India to become even more confident."

He added that "many countries are unwilling to offend India" as they are "increasingly reliant" on it economically. "Many traditionally Islamic countries have also forged better relationships with Dehi, seeing it as an important market for their energy exports," he said.

Zhou Rong is a senior fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China (RDCY).