Bipartisan resolution in US Senate affirming Arunachal Pradesh as part of India shows New Delhi’s centrality in Washington’s vision
24-03-2023
The burgeoning India – United States (US) relationship is deepening at an unprecedented pace, with Washington, the vagaries of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine notwithstanding, increasingly appearing to be the keen driver behind the dynamics of the process. Two developments, both pertaining to India’s stressed relationship with China, which were reported in the media this past week, have demonstrated and underlined this trend. While reports in the US media revealed that the US had helped the Indian Army successfully thwart the Chinese incursions in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh in December last year by provided New Delhi with crucial intelligence about “Chinese positions and force strength”, another set of articles in the Indian and US media drew attention to the bipartisan resolution that had been introduced in the US Senate on 16 February to recognize Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India and push back against Beijing’s military aggression aimed at forcibly changing the status quo along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China.
The US News report on the critical US assistance to the Indian Army revealed that the US government “for the first time provided real-time details to its Indian counterparts of the Chinese positions and force strength in advance of a PLA incursion”, and this helped the Indian military tackle the Chinese “incursions”. The exclusive news report said that India was able to repel the Chinese military incursion in border territory in the high Himalayas late last year due to “unprecedented intelligence-sharing” with the US military. An unnamed source was quoted by the daily as saying that “They (Indian troops) were waiting. And that’s because the US had given India everything to be fully prepared for this. It demonstrates a test case of the success of how the two militaries are now cooperating and sharing intelligence”. Regarding the nature of the inputs that were shared, the daily revealed that the information included “actionable satellite imagery that was more detailed and delivered more quickly” than anything the US had previously shared with the Indian military. Both the US and the Indian governments, in line with the practice of not revealing any details of intelligence shared between them, have remained tight-lipped on the matter. When asked whether he could confirm the contents of the report, John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for Strategic Communications at the White House, simply responded with “No, I can’t confirm that”.
Meanwhile, a resolution titled ‘Reaffirming the state of Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territory and condemning the People’s Republic of China’s provocations in South Asia’ was introduced in the US Senate on 16 February. The resolution, introduced by three powerful US Senators – Jeff Merkley, Bill Hagerty, and John Cornyn – represented a rare bipartisan signal of unequivocal support to India. Merkley is a progressive Democratic Senator from Oregon, who also serves as the co-chair of the congressional executive commission on China, while Hagerty, who is the Republican Senator from Tennessee, is a former US Ambassador to Japan. Both Merkley and Hagerty are members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC). Cornyn is a Republican from Texas, who is also the co-founder and co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, a former Senate majority whip, as well as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
The resolution reaffirmed the state of Arunachal Pradesh as an “integral part of India” and supported India’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity”, while condemning China for the “use of military force” to change the status quo at the LAC and other similar provocations. It lauded the Indian government for the robust steps it had taken to “defend itself” against the “aggression and security threats” from China. It supported India’s defense modernization and diversification, applauded the development efforts in Arunachal Pradesh, including improving border infrastructure, and committed to deepening US assistance in the region. It also encouraged other like-minded partners to bolster their assistance to the state, and expressed support for the US-India bilateral partnership, including the recent initiative on critical and emerging technologies (ICET).
Going into the background of the issue, the resolution says that since the Sino-India war of 1962, the US has recognized the McMahon Line as the international border between China and the “Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh”, and that the US views the state “not as disputed territory” but as an “integral part of the Republic of India” and this recognition isn’t qualified in any way. The McMahon Line had been agreed upon by Britain and Tibet as part of the 1914 Simla Accord, and is named after Sir Henry McMahon, foreign secretary of the British-run Government of India and the chief negotiator for settling disputes with China. According to the resolution, China has claimed Arunachal Pradesh — which it calls “South Tibet” — as its territory as a part of “its increasingly aggressive and expansionist policies”. It includes as reference a December 2021 map of Arunachal Pradesh published by China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs that assigned names to 15 geographic features in Mandarin, “including eight residential settlements, four mountain peaks, two rivers, and one mountain pass, as well as the names of the administrative regions where each of these are located”.
Referring to the recent clashes in the eastern sector, the resolution points out how in December 2022, Chinese and Indian troops engaged in a skirmish in Arunachal Pradesh along the LAC, which it pointed out was “the biggest clash in the Eastern Sector in six years”. It also stated that China’s People’s Liberation Army had engaged in “provocative moves” in the Western Sector along the LAC in April 2020, “including increasing troop deployments, building new infrastructure in contested areas, and harassing Indian patrols, particularly around the Depsang Plains, Galwan Valley, Hot Springs, and Pangong Lake”. These provocations by China, the resolution says, upended the then improving India-China relations and led to the Galwan Valley clash that resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers.
The resolution noted that China had also constructed two Chinese villages close to the LAC near Arunachal Pradesh and expanded its territorial claims in Bhutanese territory in the Eastern Sector. Belittling China’s diplomatic objections to Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama’s visits to the state, and to Beijing’s refusal to grant visas to residents of the Indian state for travel to China, it pointed out that Arunachal Pradesh included Tawang, which was “home to the revered Tawang Monastery” and the “the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso”. On the problems that China’s expansionist designs were causing for the people of Arunachal Pradesh, the resolution asserted that China’s provocations “impeded poverty alleviation and economic development in Arunachal Pradesh, where nearly 25 percent of the population lives in multidimensional poverty according to India’s 2021 National Multidimensional Poverty Index, leading many international donors to be cautious of providing assistance due to the state’s perceived status as disputed territory”.
The resolution also laid out India’s actions to contest the Chinese belligerence, highlighting that New Delhi had “taken steps to defend itself from aggression and security threats, including through securing its telecommunications infrastructure, examining its procurement processes and supply chains, implementing investment screening standards, and expanding its cooperation with Taiwan in public health and other sectors”. The Indian government had also notably increased its funding for border infrastructure, village infrastructure, housing, tourist centers, road connectivity, and decentralized renewable energy production through the Vibrant Villages programme. It applauded India for enhancing its developmental efforts in Arunachal Pradesh.
The resolution stressed that it was in US interest to work with India bilaterally through the comprehensive global strategy partnership and multilaterally through the Quad and the I2U2 (India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the US) groupings. It recognized that there was significant and continuing progress in the US – India Major Defense Partnership, “including ambitions for building an advanced and comprehensive defence partnership in which the armed forces of the United States and India coordinate across all domains”. It committed to deepening US assistance to Arunachal Pradesh, including through the State Department and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), “using funding mechanisms such as the Countering PRC Influence Fund”. It encouraged “like-minded international partners and donors to likewise bolster their assistance efforts to Arunachal Pradesh”. It also supported the strengthening of the US – India bilateral partnership through “enhanced defence interoperability and information-sharing especially for early warning systems”, iCET (initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology), further economic cooperation, broad and long-standing people-to-people ties, as well as multilaterally through the Quad, East Asia summit and other international platforms.
The resolution made it amply clear that the US was eager to keep India on its side on the issues of the Indo-Pacific. It expressed support for the joint vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific, and for the diversification of India’s defense modernization “away from countries that fail to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other nations” – a clear reference to Russia. It appreciated the significant leadership role that India was playing on the global stage, including as G20 President this year.
At the time of introducing the resolution in the US Senate, Senator Merkley asserted that “America’s values supporting freedom and a rules-based order must be at the center of all of our actions and relationships around the world—especially as the PRC government pushes an alternative vision. This resolution makes clear that the United States views the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as part of the Republic of India—not the People’s Republic of China—and commits the US to deepening support and assistance to the region, alongside like-minded international partners and donors”. Senator Hagerty stressed that “At a time when China continues to pose grave and gathering threats to the Free and Open Indo-Pacific, it’s critical for the United States to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our strategic partners in the region—especially India. This bipartisan resolution expresses the Senate’s support for unequivocally recognizing the state of Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India, condemning China’s military aggression to change the status quo along the Line of Actual Control, and further enhancing the US-India strategic partnership and the Quad in support of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific”.
Asked about the resolution, the Indian government said that it was not aware of the details, but had come across some reports that had referred to the development. The spokesperson of India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in response to a question on 16 March that “I haven’t seen any resolution like this. We have seen some reports and are gathering more details about it”. Nevertheless, never before has a comprehensive resolution of this nature, so much in sync with the Indian position on Arunachal Pradesh, been introduced in the US Senate. Not only does it pointedly and strongly condemn China’s actions along the LAC, it unequivocally commends the Indian response to the Chinese aggression. The resolution, diplomatically and strategically, significantly strengthens India’s position.
As for the US, the introduction of the resolution signals the strength of the bipartisan drive to deepen ties with India, and for making it a partnering stakeholder in securing the Indo-Pacific as well as in countering the broader aggressive threat that China represents.
