Maj. Dustin Lawrence, U.S. Army
Chinese and Indian troops clash in the Galwan Valley during a 15 June 2020 incident at the Line of Actual Control—the de facto border between the two countries—in the mountainous Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. (Screenshot from China State Television)
Folded in the wrinkles of the highest plateau on Earth, two battle formations met on opposite sides of a mountain tributary. Armed with clubs, spiked batons, and stones, they drew their battle lines on either side of a mountain stream. The two fought in the thin air for six hours. In the end, blood soaked the valley floor and flowed through the turbulent waters. Both sides claimed prisoners as the battle closed with the onset of the bitterly cold mountain night.1 The brutal scene, characteristic of countless skirmishes throughout the earliest pages of the historical record, was not a medieval bout or gang violence. Rather, it was a clash of two of the modern world’s largest nuclear-armed states, each with a dynamic economic reach extending the world over.
The clash erupted between Chinese and Indian troops on 15 June 2020 over a long-standing border dispute at a key junction in the Galwan Valley. While the event itself marked a significant point in the history of Sino-Indian relations, the context surrounding it sheds light on China’s approach to warfare. Despite the rudimentary weapons used that day, the violence was a component of a sophisticated global system wielded by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers were employed in harmony with China’s other instruments of national power in pursuit of strategic objectives. Even though PLA actions led to bloodshed, the corollary approach was tailored to remain below the threshold of armed conflict. It was a component of China’s strategy in the gray zone.
Many describe gray-zone activities as actions that violate international norms without venturing into the realm of armed conflict. This categorical approach is ambiguous and misses the purpose behind conducting gray-zone activities. Revisionist actors have reasons for breaking with international norms. Hal Brands, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, expands the definition in “Paradoxes of the Gray Zone”: “Gray zone conflict is best understood as activity that is coercive and aggressive in nature, but that is deliberately designed to remain below the threshold of conventional military conflict and open interstate war.”2 Its goal, Brands expanded, “is to reap gains, whether territorial or otherwise, that are normally associated with victory in war.”3 In other words, gray-zone operations offer alternative “ways” for China to accomplish the ends that have conventionally been associated with war.
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