US Intel helped India rout China in 2022 border clash

INTERNATIONAL DESK: India was able to repel a Chinese military incursion in contested border territory in the high Himalayas late last year due to unprecedented intelligence-sharing with the U.S. military, U.S. News has learned, an act that caught China’s People’s Liberation Army forces off-guard, enraged Beijing and appears to have forced the Chinese Communist Party to reconsider its approach to land grabs along its borders.

The U.S. 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, says a source familiar with a previously unreported U.S. intelligence review of the encounter into the Arunachal Pradesh region. The information included actionable satellite imagery and was more detailed and delivered more quickly than anything the U.S. had previously shared with the Indian military.

It made a difference.

The subsequent clash on Dec. 9 involving hundreds of troops wielding spiked clubs and Tasers did not result in any deaths as previous encounters have, rather it was limited to a dozen or so injuries and – most conspicuously – a Chinese retreat.

“They were waiting. And that’s because the U.S. had given India everything to be fully prepared for this,” the source says. “It demonstrates a test case of the success of how the two militaries are now cooperating and sharing intelligence.”

Several current and former analysts and officials, some speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed details of the encounter as well as the American role, to include unprecedented support the U.S. military provided to India on the ground – the fruits of a new era of cooperation between the two powers in recognition of their shared ambitions to push back on Chinese expansionism.

And while the new partnership yielded effective results in this relatively obscure and isolated corner of the world, it has vast implications for how the U.S. and its allies can effectively offset Beijing’s ambitions for land grabs there – and elsewhere.

“The PLA is generally in a probing-and-testing phase. They want to know how the Indians can and will respond and to see what the Indians can detect,” says Vikram Singh, a former top official for regional issues at the Pentagon, now with the United States Institute of Peace think tank. “It’s about China preparing for future conflict.”

The source familiar with the assessment of this intelligence – deemed to be highly reliable – says the U.S. government in the weeks before the encounter was fully cognizant that China was carrying out test exercises in the region to see if it could seize a new foothold in the remote mountain passes there or in other territory to which both China and India lay claim.

Several hundred PLA troops operating on the Chinese side planned to see if they could move forward and stay along the part of the border that is not officially demarcated as they have done in the past, most notably in 2020 in the Galwan Valley, several thousand miles to the west, the last time the two militaries clashed. That brawl caused a dozen or more deaths on both sides.

But unlike the previous encounters, the Indian forces identified the Chinese positions using the intelligence provided by the U.S. and maneuvered to intercept them.

The basis for the new intelligence-sharing arrangement stems from an agreement the Indian and U.S. governments signed in 2020 known as the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement on Geospatial Cooperation, or BECA. It was the fourth agreement that secured new levels of integration between the two powers in military, logistics, compatibility and security information exchanges.

Though the BECA itself is public knowledge, the follow-through of actually sharing intelligence to actionable effect has not been previously reported.

It remains unclear why the Chinese chose to move on the contested territory in Arunachal Pradesh at that time. As with previous encounters where its forces did not emerge victorious, its state news services and public officials have remained fairly quiet about the embarrassing encounter. A spokesman for its foreign ministry said days later that the situation at the border was “generally stable.”

The Chinese government declined to respond to several questions about the incident and its aftermath, with a spokesperson telling U.S. News only, “We do not have information on this issue for now.”

However, a separate U.S. intelligence assessment considered of lower reliability than the first suggests the Chinese paid particular attention to several U.S. military activities in another region in the weeks before – all part of unprecedented training exercises the Indian military hosted with the 11th Airborne Division, reactivated in 2022 and based in Alaska, tasked with operations in the Pacific region.

Aside from the exercises themselves, which China considers provocative, the visiting Americans also conducted a promotion ceremony for four of the unit’s officers at a staging area in the shadow of Nanda Devi, the second-tallest peak in India and a source of deep cultural significance to the surrounding communities. They also performed a spontaneous, open-air rock concert at one of the bases with their local counterparts. Public affairs officials publicized both events – which took place in late November and early December, days before the Arunachal Pradesh clash – a move the intelligence assessment says enraged Beijing. Several current and former officials say that appeared to be by design.

“It certainly looked like it was designed to annoy the Chinese, which I completely appreciate,” says Singh. “That was certainly the kind of thing the Chinese would view as a signal, as a message, and that they would potentially want to respond to.”

When asked whether the 11th Airborne sees any connection between the morale-raising events and the subsequent clash, a spokesman declined to comment on any intelligence assessments.

“But we are excited to continue working and training with our counterparts in the Indian army during exercises like Yudh Abhyas,” added the spokesman, John Pennell, referring to the formal name of what will now be annual exercises. “As for the promotions and impromptu music, that was simply a friendly effort to acknowledge the hard work and professionalism of our soldiers and an opportunity to relax with friends after an intense training mission.”

India has traditionally shied away from formal military alliances, preferring to maintain security by courting several patrons as, for example, it continues to do with Russia, capitalizing on a long history of arming its military with Soviet weaponry and equipment.

That began to change in the years leading up to 2020, when several Indian troops died in the Galwan Valley clash and a time when the White House under then-President Donald Trump sought to accelerate cooperation with New Delhi.

Several former officials who worked on the BECA and other agreements said the Galwan Valley clash spurred the Indians to realize the need for more of the kind of geospatial intelligence that the U.S. can deliver.

“The current standoff stems directly from the growing strategic competition between China and India,” private intelligence firm The Soufan Center concluded in an analysis in early February, specifically citing the Arunachal Pradesh brawl.

“China views the strategic partnership between India and the West as a challenge to its influence in the Asia-Pacific region. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated the standoff, as both countries put forth fewer diplomatic resources to resolve the dispute while dealing with pandemic-related crises,” it added. “Indian foreign policy is very likely to pivot around tackling the Chinese security threat and ensuring its own ascent in the Asian power balance.”

New Delhi has irritated the last several U.S. presidential administrations by suddenly pulling out of planned arms purchases of U.S. drones, for example, or insisting on maintaining its economic and energy ties with Russia – a move analysts attribute to the vastness of the resources India must secure for its people, 800 million of whom require government food assistance.

Yet all presidents since Barack Obama have realized that India remains a vital partner for the 21st century, if not the most important one, according to several people who worked in those administrations. The Americans who work with their Indian counterparts on a regular basis know New Delhi is never going to enter into a formal alliance, they say, so they’re not disappointed.

And others point out that the new arrangement has had the desired effect for the Indian government after routing their Chinese counterparts in the Arunachal Pradesh region.

“This will definitely rattle the Chinese because they will have not experienced this before, and they perhaps had a sense of superiority that they were able to do this with different skirmishes in the past,” the source says. “This time they did not hold the advantage like they did before.” (UNS)