In his book China’s Wars: The Politics and Diplomacy Behind its Military Coercion, author Vijay Gokhale, former foreign secretary of India, uses select case studies pertaining to China’s previous wars and 'grey-zone' coercion – tactics that deliberately fall short of triggering the conventional thresholds of armed conflict – to synthesise existing information on China’s behaviour to address ‘Beijing’s military coercion’ in the future.

The ‘China Threat’ prognosis shapes the underlying intellectual landscape of the book's six chapters, besides the preface, introduction and endnotes. By the author’s admission, no new sources or facts are employed; however, he devotes a chapter each to the Taiwan Strait crisis (1958), the India-China border war (1962), the Sino-Soviet border conflict (1969) and the China-Vietnam War (1979), and follows-up with discussions on China’s actions involving the Philippines and Taiwan in recent years, along with lessons for India. All this purports to highlight patterns of coercion embedded in China’s behaviour over the years.

The aim of the author is to use the case studies to understand how the People's Republic of China (PRC) uses force as a deterrent. He does admit that China has not engaged in major wars since the late 1970s and has not opted for habitual aggression or protracted conflict, aiming only to intimidate the adversary through psychological deterrence rather than to destroy it. Coercion is seen as a path to diplomacy in order to spare prolonged conflict and such behaviour, according to the author, serves a diversionary purpose, especially to rally Chinese people around the flag in times of domestic distress.

The book is a robust informational source. It employs a levels-of-analysis framework, although Gokhale doesn’t organise it thus, identifying the occurrence of war as his dependent variable and uses the category of ‘grey-zone tactics’ as his set of independent variables, with corresponding variables at the system, national/society and individual levels for each of the wars he catalogues.

The 1958 Taiwan strait crisis

The first chapter covers the 1958 bombardment of the offshore islands of Jinmen and Mazu. The author identifies the seizure of these islands as one of the PRC’s objectives, alongside inducing a reset in US-China relations at a time when the US was overstretched in West Asia, specifically Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. The author asserts that China’s bombardment was aimed at thwarting any Taiwanese ambition of retaking the mainland and to domestically lessen resistance to the Great Leap Forward.

India-China war of 1962

Chapter two deals with the India-China border war of 1962. Building on the context of the Jinmen island bombardment, Gokhale outlines key developments in the run-up to the 1962 war. One interesting facet was US President John F. Kennedy’s assurance to China that the US opposed the use of force by either side in the Taiwan area. This assurance, in effect, eased pressure on China from a two-front war assessment.

Another intriguing element mentioned is the Soviet reassessment of India’s growing proximity to the Kennedy administration, which drew Moscow closer to China’s position on its dispute with India. Taken together, these developments, according to the author, marked a decisive shift in the People's Liberation Army (PLA)'s behaviour, which became increasingly aggressive vis-à-vis border patrolling with India. Domestic factors relating to the Great Leap Forward, including the author's somewhat tenuous claim that the war with India was meant to salvage Mao Zedong’s image, are among the justifications he offers for the 1962 conflict.

At points, the author infers China’s rejection of Indian proposals to restore the status-quo ex-ante by referencing Western scholars such as Allen Whiting, though he carefully avoids a meaningful discussion of the ‘Forward policy,’ mentioning only patrol and frontier post activity as setting the stage for localised armed clashes. Gokhale also largely skips the US role with respect to Tibet, save for a tangential reference to Pal McGarr’s work on how India was unable to prevent border towns from becoming a "nest of intrigues and spies" (p. 31).

There is no discussion of the historical basis of boundary-making between India and China, which remains a persistent source of mistrust, and the focus stays on key timelines in the run-up to the 1962 war. Curiously, major milestones such as meetings between Premier Zhou En Lai, accompanied by Vice Premier and minister of foreign affairs Marshal Chen Yi and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in April 1960 have been overlooked in the book, during which the Chinese side proposed a joint committee to examine the documentary and evidentiary basis of both countries' boundary claims. The possibility of physical surveys to ascertain ground-level facts was included under this.

Sino-Soviet conflict of 1969

In chapter three, the author engages with the Sino-Soviet conflict of 1969. The chapter begins with the premise that Chinese leaders, including Chinese finance minister Bo Yibo and Chairman Mao, had developed a narrative of ‘individual-level' betrayal of the Marxist cause by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in the early 1960s. This played out alongside over four thousand incidents between China and the Soviet Union between 1960 and 1969 over small islands in the Ussuri river – much of which were symptomatic of the broader estrangement in bilateral ties.

The author makes a more believable case for linking the conflict to domestic failure of the Great Leap Forward, whereby confrontation with the Soviet Union served as a diversionary tactic to neutralise civil disturbances from the Cultural Revolution. The ‘Zhenbao Island Counter-interference Struggle Plan’ of March 1969 is seen as having produced its intended effect of reviving negotiations with the Soviet Union.

However, subsequent Soviet counter action in Xinjiang seemed to escalate tensions further, with speculation over a possible Soviet attack on China’s nuclear facilities. The author highlights the latter as a deliberate strategy by China to publicly express fears of a Soviet attack – fears he argues were unfounded, particularly after the Kosygin-Zhou En Lai talks – creating an opening for the US to approach the PRC for a rapprochement.

These are very perceptive insights. The chapter would, however, have benefitted from a balanced narrative including the eventual resolution of the Zhenbao island dispute, which came under China’s control through the application of the Thalweg Principle in international law, as part of the diplomatic processes from 1991 to 2005. 

China-Vietnam war of 1979

Chapter four deals with the China-Vietnam war of 1979. Triggers cited for the war include the Soviet-Vietnamese partnership, notably Vietnam joining the Soviet-led Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, against the backdrop of the 1969 Sino-Soviet hostilities; China’s reluctance to continue granting economic assistance to Vietnam; a deterioration of ties from 1974-75 over competing claims to islands in the South China Sea; poor treatment of ethnic Chinese living in southern Vietnam and border clashes which spiralled from 1974 onwards.

The author attributes these cleavages to a ‘patron and client’ dynamic Vietnam resisted. Such inference may seem exaggerated given the overall context of China’s economic assistance extended to Vietnam over a two-decade period, more than any other country offered, during a period of China's own significant political and economic turmoil and against growing anti-China rhetoric within Vietnam. Hanoi's tilt towards Moscow is the more persuasive optic, which the author duly discusses, along with interesting aspects of regional one-upmanship between China and Vietnam. Linking the war to domestic factors, Gokhale assesses the 'do-or-die' rivalry between Deng Xiaoping and Hua Guofeng as having necessitated Deng to make use of an external threat to mobilise the party.

This appears to be a tenuous claim, given that at an expanded Chinese Communist Party Politburo meeting on December 31, 1978, Deng’s proposal to go to war against Vietnam was backed by Hua Guofeng himself. The diversionary relevance is more credibly found in Deng’s efforts to restore the PLA's reputation and war-readiness, which had suffered a decade-long setback during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The author raises this point in his post-war analysis, alongside the PRC's ability to frame Vietnam as the ‘Cuba of the East’ and the Soviet Union as the ‘Polar Bear’ for Western audiences.

Grey-zone tactics in contemporary era

Chapters five and six offer a distillation of the military doctrine of ‘grey-zone’ tactics, drawn from the preceding case studies and mapped onto patterns he sees emerging in recent Chinese actions, along with lessons for India. From the Scarborough Shoal and Mischief Reef confrontation with the Philippines since the mid-1990s, culminating in the 2012 standoff, to the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis and the 2022 crisis triggered by Nancy Pelosi’s Taipei visit, the author highlights patterns of low-intensity, incremental moves over prolonged periods, revealing use of civilian and law enforcement agencies to intimidate neighbours, with questions of principle treated as matters of convenience for China.

On Taiwan the author boldly sticks his neck out to claim that a forcible takeover by mainland China is unlikely because of the attendant risks, though he does not elaborate on what those risks are. The author argues that mitigating China’s grey-zone tactics are vital and nudges countries to gain strategic advantage – a proactive approach which is dynamic enough to respond to new provocations, encompassing narrative creation as well as political, diplomatic, economic and military action. These are far too generic descriptors that fall short on clarity; effective strategies cannot really emerge from generalised advice.

What is missing

One had hoped the author would engage with specific incidents such as Doklam (2017) and Galwan (2020), both of which he avoids despite ‘grey-zone tactics’ being obvious in how these events panned out. Given that soldiers lost lives in Galwan, important questions relating to operational access, physical control of sites and use of non-conventional ‘electromagnetic radiation’ – pivotal aspects of ‘grey-zone tactics’ – are omitted from discussion. Even with respect to Pakistan, the discussion is brief. Drawing a distinction between US support for Pakistan and Chinese support for Pakistan would have been more useful for the reader to understand why China stands out in its potential to challenge India.

An overall assessment

Overall, the book is well referenced with respect to understanding China’s wars and the evolution of its ‘grey-zone coercion,' though the reliance on Western sources stands out. The author’s reading of the Chinese mind as one premised on a hierarchy among nations (p. 109) is very perceptive and the attending assessment that India risks being relegated to subordinate regional status is a nuanced reading that Gokhale captures accurately.

There seems to be some hurriedness, though, in pointing out the sui generis character of China's ‘grey-zone coercion’ without really establishing an exclusive material basis for such purported uniqueness. The author uses huise didai to describe coercive tactics, yet several of the instances he alludes to draw equally on zhenzheng kongzhi, a nuanced 'war control' doctrine built around controlled escalation and de-escalation strategies. These are also relevant to the cases he considers.

The short-to-medium-term prognosis is that China hopes to keep India neutral (vis-à-vis the US) by resorting to coercion from time to time. However, ground realities, including India's participation in the Quad and absence from BRICS military exercises, may present a different trajectory already. The author's suggestion for close monitoring of domestic politics and media in China is something Indian policy makers ought to take up with seriousness, especially in the context of ‘China Studies’ revival across institutions and, hopefully, the reinstating of Mandarin Chinese under the National Education Policy in schools. Without concrete efforts, accumulating meaningful area-studies expertise on our neighbour will remain a pipe dream. Gokhale’s book is a useful contribution in that direction.

The views expressed are personal. Joe Thomas Karackattu is a Professor of International Relations and China Studies at the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.

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