What's in a Name?
Covering Chinese chatters (discourses, narratives, policies and rhetoric) on external events and actors, military and security issues, economy and technology, and bilateral relations with India.
Greetings to our readers! Welcome to another edition of ‘Eye on China’ - this one covers some developments vis-a-vis India-China relations and training in the PLA.
We apologise that the newsletter has been on sabbatical for two weeks, as the team at Takshashila was engaged in hosting various Indian scholars for a Conference on China studies – the Network for Advanced Study of China (NASC) Fellowship Conference.
More updates later about the upcoming cohort of the Fellowship. Till then, happy reading!
India-China Relations: Re-Naming and Re-Claiming History
By Anushka Saxena
Through its 566th announcement, on March 30, 2024, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs, in conjunction with other relevant departments of the State Council (such as the Ministry of Natural Resources) and in accordance with relevant regulations on the management of geographical names issued by the State Council [such as the ‘Regulations on Geographical Names Management’ (地名管理条例), revised in September 2021], released a new list of standardised names for the region they refer to as “Southern Tibet” – more specifically, ‘Zangnan’, which, by historical and administrative fact, is a state within India called Arunachal Pradesh.
This is the fourth such batch of lists “standardising” names in Arunachal, assigning a name in Chinese characters, pinyin, and Tibetan to 30 county administrative centers, villages, townships, mountain peaks, rivers/lakes, and more. It has come, like its three previous iterations, with a ‘map of the distribution of supplemented publicly-used place names in the southern Tibetan region’ (displayed below):
There is no doubt about the fact that these assertions form a significant pillar of China’s ‘cartographic aggression’, and are an exercise in re-writing history. China believes that it can continue to reiterate that India’s territory is actually its own by assigning names to every small village, hill, and water body in the region, in Chinese characters and pinyin. And with continued reiterating, it hopes that the nomenclature will slowly seep into how countries and officials refer to these areas. These name standardisation notifications also become tools in China’s diplomatic engagements with India, acting as historical proof to support China’s illegal claims over Arunachal.
The interesting bit about these endeavours is also that the frequency/speed of the issuing of such notifications is increasing (the first came in 2017, the second in 2021, and then in quick succession in 2023 and now 2024). It is so because issuing of competing maps to further one’s own territorial claims is one of the most convenient, non-kinetic ways to question a rival’s legitimacy and capabilities.
Moreover, most of these notifications has been a response to India undertaking an activity China may not like. The 2017 notification came, for example, when the Dalai Lama completed a week-long visit in Arunachal. Similarly, the 2023 notification was issued in April that year, when a bunch of negative developments occurred in the India-China relations – the visa spat over Indian journalists staying in China, the announcement that India will surpass China as the most populous country, etc. And now, Indian External Affairs S. Jaishankar’s remarks during his recent visit Manila, supporting Philippines’ claims against China in the South China Sea, may be the trigger for the latest notification.
In addition, China’s cartographic aggression extends beyond issuing “standardised geographical names,” to issuing standard maps of China’s territory annually, that regularly depict Indian territories as its own. For example, in the standard national map of China issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources in August 2023, both Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh were depicted as part of the territory of mainland China. On both instances, the Indian government has taken the tough stance to defend its territorial integrity and oppose Chinese claims.
This method of “sinicising” names also of and within Tibet indicate an attempt to legitimise Chinese authority over the autonomous region. So the reference to Tibet as “Xizang” (meaning ‘treasure of the West’) or even to Eastern Turkestan as “Xinjiang” (meaning ‘new frontier’, since the Manchu-Qing dynasty), become both political and diplomatic tools to solidify the authority of the ruling Chinese government over the provinces. Slowly, the nomenclature has indeed swept into the lingos of countries globally. For interested readers, this report from HRW (2005) on the political identity of Xinjiang is an interesting read.
The practice also extends beyond the border with India, to China’s claims also in the South China Sea, and it is precisely China’s claim that its historical maps of the 9-dash-line contribute to administrative truth, that was shot down in the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling of 2016. The first time the line appeared on a map was in 1947. Over time, as China has realised that reiterating illegal claims on maps across history simply doesn’t work, China has also supplemented its cartographic aggression with more kinetic actions such as blocking access of Indian troops to key patrolling points along the LAC, as well as significantly ramping up bullying tactics against Philippine ships in the SCS, as well as building of artificial islands in the region.
Guarding the Great Wall: The Rocket Force has a List to work on
By Anushka Saxena
Sometime in the second half of March 2024, a brigade of the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF), the service in charge of China’s nuclear arsenal, conducted an “intense firepower assault training” (场火力突击训练紧张进行) exercise. The goal of this exercise was to test the PLARF’s ‘Precision Gap-Filling List Training’ methodology (精准补差清单式组训), which refers to the preparing lists of shortcomings in the force, fine-tuning training to meet the demands of fulfilling these shortcomings, finding new shortcomings during such training exercises, and continuing to evolve the list.
In the report that appeared in the PLA Daily on April 3, 2024, regarding the above-mentioned recent exercise of a PLARF Brigade, commentators say:
At a field tent of a certain launcher company, the company commander is leading the backbone personnel in conducting on-site reviews. Addressing the problems exposed by the gunners during training, they meticulously listed issues such as insufficient mastery of professional theory and imprecise fault diagnosis. They then formulated specific measures on-site, such as theoretical training sessions and mentorship programs for backbone personnel, to help the gunners effectively fill the gaps and strengthen their capabilities.
Over time, these lists have the potential to serve as excellent toolkits for squadrons within a brigade to at least get certain fundamental skills right. And amid recent concerns surrounding the PLARF’s incompetence vis-a-vis management of fuel oil, impropriety in equipment care and acquisition, etc., these shortcoming-oriented training modules are becoming a method to induce discipline and strictness within personnel.
In fact, as per a previous report published by the People's Government of Wudang Township, Zhang County, on March 13, a Rocket Force Brigade explored a “Step-by-Step Group Training Mode” (火箭军某旅探索阶梯式组训模式). This step-by-step routine is actually a means to implement the list-based training model, grouping personnel based on differences in their capabilities, customising goals hierarchically, conducting training in graded and categorised groups, and delivering precise and meticulous training, effectively enhancing training efficiency.
The key pillar of this methodology is making training precise, so that the disparities in capabilities of personnel across the PLARF’s various units, squads, platoons, officers and soldiers can be equalled. If successful, the methodology may also become a pillar of training curricula across services.
Latest from the Indo-Pacific Studies Team:
In this commentary for Stimson Center’s ‘South Asian Voices’, IPSP Research Analyst Anushka Saxena discusses ‘Contemporary Dynamics of an India-Taiwan Partnership’.
The past few weeks saw two key forums being held in China, the China Development Forum and the Boao Forum for Asia Conference. These shed light into China’s economic and foreign policy priorities. In this episode of Takshashila’s ‘All Things Policy’ podcast, Amit Kumar and Manoj Kewalramani decode the messages that Beijing is sending to the world.