Both sides reinforced their positions with tens of thousands of troops, as well as tanks and aircraft, and built infrastructure to sustain a long-term presence through the coming winter. How India responds will shape not only its strategic competition with China, but also the interests of likeminded partners including Australia, which depend on an increasingly capable and active India.Д«eginning in May 2020, the PeopleвЂ™s Liberation Army (PLA) launched incursions in several locations in customarily Indian-controlled territory across the Line of Actual Control (LAC). It can manage this challenge by focusing on military strategies of denial rather than punishment, focusing on imposing political rather than material costs on China, and accepting more risk at the LAC in exchange for long-term leverage in the Indian Ocean region. The central policy challenge for India is balancing the heightened Chinese military threat on the northern border with the rapidly growing Chinese military presence in the Indian Ocean. It may have been more concerned by the prospect of an increasingly hostile India, but the disengagement agreement has limited even those modest political costs.

Its better-resourced military could better absorb the material costs of the mobilisation. At the same time, China appears to have escaped significant harm. In the face of unremitting Chinese naval expansion, India risks losing significant political and military leverage in the Indian Ocean. Given this new reality, India is likely to further defer military modernisation and maritime expansion into the Indian Ocean. For India, the political relationship is now defined by hostility and distrust, and the LAC will remain more heavily militarised and violence-prone. Regardless of how disengagement progresses, the crisis poses significant challenges for IndiaвЂ™s long-term strategic competition with China.ДЄs a result of the Ladakh crisis, India faces a new strategic reality in which China is a clear and abiding adversary. An agreement to disengage troops was announced in February 2021, but implementation has been halting. Both sides reinforced their positions with tens of thousands of troops, engaged in a deadly skirmish, and reportedly came close to war. In May 2020, China launched several near-simultaneous incursions across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, into territory hitherto controlled by India.

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