Pant, the academic at London’s Kings College, said there would be a swift shift in India’s foreign policies as well as a realignment in the world order.

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“In some ways, this event liberates India’s foreign policy. India has constantly grappled with the dilemma of maintaining equidistance from both China and the United States. Those assumptions no longer hold any basis today,” says Pant.

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The ramifications, Pant says, could include making China pay economic costs. “We can now take 5G [allowing Chinese telecom giant Huawei to build India’s 5G networks] off the table. We are already seeing Chinese companies being disallowed from state tenders and there have also been restrictions on Chinese investments in India. All these things will only be accelerated.”

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New Delhi will now have to consider its geopolitical alignment. Amid rising tensions between the US and China, Washington has indicated it plans to build a global coalition to tackle China in the post-Covid-19 era by expanding the Group of Seven (G7) nations to include India, Australia, Russia and South Korea.

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Monday night’s incident might push India closer to embracing these efforts. It could also encourage India’s participation in the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy, which is aimed at containing China’s expansion and military activity in the South China Sea.

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“The face-off will just give a tremendous fillip to India adopting a more robust posturing. It was happening gradually anyway – from its participation in the Indo-Pacific strategy as well as its role in reviving the Quad,” said Pant, referring to the strategic security grouping of the United States, Japan, Australia and India.

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MORE BORDER TENSIONS

Early on Thursday, India’s External Affairs Ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava said China should not make “exaggerated and untenable claims” to the Galwan Valley, referring to how senior Chinese officials maintained the region was theirs, even though India has stressed that it was never under dispute.

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Both sides have been building infrastructure on either side of the undemarcated border known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and analysts expect increasing militarisation of the area.

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A top Indian military commander, who has served in the region, agreed and said the hostilities were likely to continue.

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“There is tremendous anger among the men, especially because of the way in which the face-off occurred, using medieval methods like stones and clubs. Indian soldiers will look for a time and place of their choosing and pay it back,” said the commander, who did not want to be named as he was not authorised to speak publicly.

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Vinod Bhatia, India’s former director general of military operations and a retired lieutenant general, said the country needed to boost its defence capabilities urgently.

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“Neither of the two countries can afford a war and the situation is unlikely to escalate into war. However, we will have to re-look at all the agreements and protocols that have guided the border management between the two countries and update them.”

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Pant said an all-out military conflict between both nuclear-armed neighbours was untenable. China is a much bigger military power than India – a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute this week estimated China had 320 nuclear warheads to India’s 150, for example.

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This meant that the diplomatic relationship would fray and be marked by face-offs along the LAC, he said.

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“The LAC will continue to be very turbulent in the coming years and months unless you find a permanent solution. It isn’t just that China is becoming more aggressive but that India is becoming better in projecting itself, from building infrastructure to more patrolling,” he said.

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“This is going to be the new normal. It will not become any less aggressive or less confrontational unless there is a permanent solution.”