UN Mediation
As the UN special envoy arrived in Pakistan, the aircraft carrying Lieutenant General Nilan Pasad1 touched down at Safdarjung military airfield2 in New Delhi. He was deeply anxious, though not because of the escalating border conflict; the fighting along the border was still under control. What worried him was that Singh's Ministry of Defence was spinning out of control. Singh was pulling every lever he had to drive two nuclear-armed nations into all-out war. The lieutenant general had come from the front to the capital to attend the final decision-making conference, hoping to stop this from happening. But the emergency cabinet meeting to which he had been summoned was for military officers only, and he might not be given the floor.
The Ministry's car was already waiting outside the airfield. Without a moment's pause he headed for the Prime Minister's residence. As the car pulled away, the streets were empty; it was six in the morning, and traffic was light. Passing Nehru Park, Pasad saw the ground littered with tattered banners and filthy, shredded leaflets. A stench of burning garbage hung in the air, acrid and choking.
"Corporal, slow down. That's the Chinese embassy on the left?"
"Yes, sir. Students were protesting there all day yesterday. Burned a few flags."
"Protesting?"
"Yes, sir. Protesting China's shielding Pakistan at the United Nations. Protesting their arms sales to Pakistan."
"Did the students go to the American embassy too?"
"Hadn't heard that, sir."
"Hm. A former Democratic president of the United States is in Rawalpindi right now, acting as the UN mediator. And the best equipment in the Pakistan Air Force was sold to them by the Americans."
"Sir, the students; the Home Ministry will handle it."
"The Home Ministry? Just drive, Corporal."
Pasad knew perfectly well that the protests against the Chinese embassy had been orchestrated by the Home Ministry behind the scenes, meant to demonstrate Indian public sentiment. Prime Minister Kahan believed this would deter China from assisting Pakistan. But was it really that simple?
Years ago, when Pasad was still a battalion commander, he and the current Defence Minister, Singh, had served together in an armoured regiment, fighting in East Pakistan, what is now Bangladesh. Pasad knew his combative old comrade very well. On the battlefield, Singh's military adventurism had produced a daring surprise victory, at the cost of over eighty per cent of his tank company. After the war, Singh's bravery and family connections earned him a place at Sandhurst3 to study army tactics. He left the military early and entered politics. In the then-marginal Bharatiya Janata Party he made a name for himself with incisive, if inflammatory, opinions. Under Congress rule he never prospered; he lost repeatedly even in his home state of Gujarat's regional elections. He could only wait for his moment. When the BJP's Kahan became Prime Minister, Singh got his chance. The two were cut from the same cloth; one was a gifted orator, the other a man of action. They were in lockstep on every question concerning Muslims. The second Mumbai massacre inflamed Indian nationalism to unprecedented heights. The BJP treated the UN investigation as bias, and the ruling party rode the wave of populism. Every sign pointed to the current conflict being only the beginning. What came next, the Chief of Army Staff did not dare contemplate.
"Look, the Chinese embassy is raising its flag," the corporal said brightly.
Through a thin stand of trees in the park, a red flag could be seen ascending in the distance. Pasad thought: right about now, on the other side of the Himalayas, they are probably in a meeting too.
Lin Huaisheng's long flight had brought him to the skies above a province deep in China's interior. Although his trip to Pakistan had lasted only seven days, he had managed to draft a substantial report on the plane, preparing to present his observations on the characteristics of this localised conflict at the forthcoming General Staff meeting. He was only an ordinary staff officer and in principle could not venture into strategic judgements, but a premonition nagged at him: this conflict would not end as tidily as the ones in 1998 or 2008. Things would not be so simple. So at the end of his report he added a section with his own views on how the situation might develop. He believed Pakistan was placing too much emphasis on defending the northern mountains, when that terrain was in fact poorly suited to a large-scale offensive.
As the aircraft descended, Lin saw a PLA Air Force Boeing 737 VIP transport parked at the northern end of the base airfield. This was the aircraft used to ferry senior officials. He sensed that the conference at this base might be out of the ordinary; at least one very high-ranking leader would be attending. After the aircraft stopped, Lin closed his laptop and waited for the engineers from a certain defence contractor, laden with bags, to disembark first. They had been in Pakistan to observe the test launch of a new cruise missile from a Mirage V; the missile had deep Chinese technological roots, but the test had been called off at the last minute because of the UN envoy's arrival, since the missile was nuclear-capable and the Pakistani government did not want to appear overly belligerent at this juncture.
When Lin stepped out of the aircraft door, he found Major General Xu Jingzhe4 waiting on the tarmac below. This was unusual; the old man was famously cold in personal matters and had never in his life met a subordinate's plane. They exchanged a brief handshake and a few perfunctory words before the general got straight to the point.
"I hear you went and made trouble for our hosts at the border?"
"More or less, sir. An Indian Jaguar wreck came down on the border, and I happened to be nearby. I went out with a Pakistani patrol. The Pakistanis said there'd be no danger, but we walked straight into a firefight."
"Think before you act. If the Indian side had found a pretext in that, it would have been bad for Sino-Indian relations, especially now that the UN is mediating. It could have hurt Pakistan too."
"But it was the Pakistani side of the Line of Control, so…"
"So you let your guard down? We've obtained intelligence. The Indian commander's report mentions an East Asian in civilian clothing acting as a military adviser with the Pakistani patrol."
Lin stopped walking.
"How is that possible? The firefight was at over three hundred metres. Unless… it's because I don't have a beard?" Lin rubbed his chin.
"Nothing surprising about it. It means the other side is sharper than you. Good judgement on their part. By the way, how was that Indian unit?"
"Their helicopter operations in mountain terrain, at minimum, were very proficient. Combat skills: high calibre. I'm inclined to think the unit we ran into was not ordinary mountain infantry."
"That assessment holds up. They were Indian Army paracommandos."5 The general appeared to know more than Lin did.
"Paracommandos?"
"Anyway, how's your report coming?" The general ignored Lin's surprise and moved on.
"Drafted an outline. My preliminary assessment is that if any conflict of any scale occurs in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir after June, it will end in another Pakistani defeat. The Line of Control will be pushed further west, and India will occupy the entire glacier belt."
"Is that so? Well, I'm here to tell you that your report won't be needed today." The general waved a hand.
"Won't be needed?" Lin was baffled. He had not expected that a telegram pulling him home would amount to this.
"The rush to bring you back isn't about the western front. It's about the east. The General Staff read your report from last year and thought it was good. They know you've spent years conducting field research on the forward line at Mêdog.6 That's why they sent for you."
"The Shannan region?"7 Lin was momentarily confused.
"Yes, Shannan. I'll give you the gist. Latest analysis: India may be about to go all in. Right now, the Indian Prime Minister's residence is holding an emergency cabinet session." The general paused and checked his watch.
"So several divisions, possibly an entire corps, may be pulled from the Assam direction to the western front. For us, that could be a real opportunity. You'll know, I'm sure, that an Indian entanglement in the west is the principal precondition of Plan 4157B."8
"Plan 4157B?" Lin's mind stalled for a moment. He slowly dredged up old memories. The plan had been drawn up by the General Staff in the 1960s. Its substance was straightforward: when India was mired in a war with Pakistan from which it could not extricate itself, China would conduct a medium-scale operation to recover territory and simultaneously tie down Indian forces. The plan had never been executed, principally because every Indo-Pakistani war had ended in a swift Indian victory, so the precondition had never materialised. It had been war-gamed on sand tables countless times. In the 1980s the plan was revised once, incorporating an army aviation breakthrough component, and redesignated 4157B.
"Sir… you believe India will get bogged down in a war of attrition? The Pakistan Army is not the Pakistan Air Force. Their combat effectiveness…"
"I've told you a hundred times: that is not your concern. You just brief them on the deployments along that sector. Don't offer personal opinions unless a senior officer asks. Though that's unlikely; it's a video conference, and you won't be able to see the leadership from the podium."
"Right. I'll go and prepare." Lin shook his head. He knew the region's geography intimately and knew the plan was impractical. Infantry operations there were severely constrained by weather and logistics; that was one of the objective reasons the 1962 punitive campaign had voluntarily withdrawn.
"Don't bother preparing today. This morning there's an international policy seminar in the main hall. Well-known South Asia and international politics experts. Rare opportunity. I've arranged an entry pass for you. Sit in the back row and listen. Broadening your international perspective is good for a frontline intelligence officer."
"Sir, do I really have to sit through those academics talking rubbish? It's all the same recycled platitudes. I'd rather—"
"Bullshit. You think counting bunkers and drawing maps is intelligence work? Any scout can do that. I'm telling you to go. So go. And shut up about it."
1. Lieutenant General Pasad (帕斯阿德中将): Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army, the country's senior-most army officer. The Chinese 中将 corresponds to Lieutenant General. His character is established here as a moderate voice within the Indian establishment, opposing Singh's escalation. His shared history with Singh in the 1971 Bangladesh war provides the personal dimension to their political rivalry. ↩
2. Safdarjung (萨福德琼): Safdarjung Airport in central New Delhi, a small military and civil airfield. Its use for VIP military arrivals is consistent with its real function. See C8N2 for the Delhi Cantonment military zone nearby. ↩
3. Sandhurst (桑德赫斯特): The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the British Army's officer training establishment. India has a long tradition of sending select officers to Sandhurst, a practice dating to the colonial period. Singh's attendance establishes him as having both combat credentials and a Western military education. ↩
4. Major General Xu Jingzhe (徐景哲少将): A PLA officer described as Lin Huaisheng's former teacher and superior. His rank 少将 corresponds to Major General. His brusque manner and his insistence that Lin attend the policy seminar establish him as a mentor who values strategic thinking over tactical detail. ↩
5. Paracommandos (伞兵突击队): The Indian Army's Parachute Regiment (Special Forces), an elite unit trained for special operations. Their identification as the force that engaged Lin's patrol in Chapters 9–10 retroactively explains the high level of tactical competence Lin observed. ↩
6. Mêdog (墨脱): Mêdog County in southeastern Tibet, bordering India's Arunachal Pradesh. It is one of the most remote and strategically sensitive areas along the Sino-Indian frontier, accessible only by mule track until a road was completed in 2013. Lin's years of field research there establish him as one of the PLA's foremost specialists on the eastern Sino-Indian border. ↩
7. Shannan (山南): Shannan Prefecture in southern Tibet, bordering India. The Line of Actual Control runs through this region, and it was a principal theatre of the 1962 Sino-Indian War. Lin's confusion reflects the abrupt pivot from the western (Pakistan) front to the eastern (China-India) front. ↩
8. Plan 4157B (四一五七乙计划): A fictional PLA contingency plan for a limited offensive to recover disputed territory along the Sino-Indian border, to be executed when India is committed to a major war with Pakistan. The "乙" (B) suffix indicates the 1980s revision incorporating army aviation. The plan's existence establishes the novel's overarching trajectory: the India-Pakistan conflict is the precondition for Chinese military intervention, transforming a bilateral war into the triangular Sino-Indian confrontation described in the novel's blurb. ↩