0100 Hours
6th November 2012
Somewhere In India
Just like the last time, Chinese President came to the point of interest immediately, “Mr. Angad, I must strongly protest your army’s actions in Aksai Chin and Shaksgam Valley. I thought that we had an agreement on not escalating the violence till we catch and punish the criminals on our side. “
DM Angad shot back, ” Are you that ignorant of what your military is doing right in front of you or are you just playing with us Mr. Peng ? Also, our armed forces are acting under our direct orders and our orders were to not to take any further attack lying down. Your army attacked us without any provocation near Shaksgam Valley, then fired 16 cruise missiles at us. You think that we’ll take all that provocations lying down ? I had warned you earlier against any further misadventure which you ignored.”
“That helicopter of yours was shot down by some over zealous guards when it seemed like it was going to cross over to our side. It was an honest mistake.”
DM grind his teeth in anger, ” Honest mistake ! Your men not only shot down the helicopter which was 10s of KMs away from territory occupied by you, but also ambushed our soldiers who went out to help the survivors. Your men were no ordinary border guards. They were well trained special forces operatives and were under specific instructions to sabotage and harass our military personnel. We have their dead bodies and identity papers to show for it. Don’t you lie with me on this one Mr. Peng. We all know who was responsible for what.”
Seeing uncomfortable the look on other people’s faces present in room, DM took a deep breath to calm himself then continued, “Even if you were not at fault there, who is going to take responsibility for firing off 16 missiles at us ? Was that one of your investigative tactics ? “
Chinese President answered with a menace in his voice, ” I don’t think that you understand what is at stake here. Your country has already suffered one nuclear attack. I don’t even want to imagine what a full fledged nuclear war will do to your beautiful nation. “
This was the last straw for DM who shot up from his chair and hissed in to the mouthpiece, ” If you are blackmailing us with your nuclear toys, then you’ll do well to remember the fate of your Pakistani poodles. They tried playing the same game with us and see what that brought for them.You make one stupid move and I swear that your fate will be worse than Pakis. You must be extremely naive to think that I’m making empty threats.”
All the pretense of diplomatic speech was gone from the conversation.
Seeing the move backfiring, Chinese Pres immediately changed track , ” I hope you understand that we are not fighting over a personal issue here. Lives of one-thirds of the world’s population are at stake here. Any hot-headed decision will be catastrophic for the whole world. “
” Please don’t lecture me on this. It became personal for me and for everybody else when we saw more than thirty thousand fellow Indians burn to death in an instant. What surprises me that you still have the gall to call and threaten us.”
Chinese President’s voice assumed a conciliatory tone, “I completely understand what your country is going through, but you must understand that the attack was a conspiracy between Pakistanis and a few Chinese rogue elements. We can’t let isolated incidents disrupt peace when so much is at stake.”
“I’ll tell you what is at stake for you. If you don’t agree to what we demand, then be ready to say good bye to your China as you know it. With Pakistan, we limited our strikes to military targets. We wouldn’t be so considerate in your case. Every single city of your’s in our range will be burnt to ashes. I’ll personally start the massacre by firing off your two missiles that we captured from Gilgit. I had warned you of what we are capable of in our last conversation and trust me, I’ll do exactly that. “
“We’ll do exactly what we agreed upon in our previous conversation, as soon as you call back your soldiers from our territory.”
DM answered with a twisted smile, ” I’m sorry to say it to you, but Aksai Chin and Shaksgam Valley don’t belong to China anymore. Even as we talk, our soldiers are pushing back yours to reclaim what’s rightfully ours.”
“We don’t have much time to play such games. I’m requesting you to put an end to hostilities and recall your soldiers. Otherwise things will get nasty real quick.”
Ignoring the threat DM continued, “I hear Tibetans and Uighurs are giving you lots of trouble. Also, US is right at your throat over that Taiwanese F-16 incident. I suggest you forget about Aksai Chin and Shaksgam and concentrate on rest of your trouble spots.”
“You must know that we have the capability of doing much worse with your dissidents than what you can do with ours.” was the predictable reply, which most people in the room just shrugged off.
Everyone in the room watched the verbal duel between the two leaders with bated breaths. Indian blitzkrieg in two sectors had routed the Chinese defences. In Aksai Chin, two pronged attack by Indian mountain divisions had over run most of their defensive strongholds and taken control of vital highways that Chinese had constructed. Indians had preferred bypassing Chinese forces and encircling them wherever possible instead of engaging in pitched battles. Shaksgam Valley which had only token military presence too was overrun without much trouble. Guerrilla attacks by Tibetan rebels helped in no less deal by SFF had disrupted Chinese supply lines and thrown most of their battle plans out of order. Even if PLA succeeded in pushing Indians back over the next few days, it’d still be a major embarrassment for much hyped Chinese military might. And as of now, PLA looked too disorganized and disoriented even to put up a decent fight.
Indians had been bracing up for an attack further south in Arunachal Pradesh, but so far the fight had been limited to artillery duels with neither side committing to a full scale fight, which suited India just fine.
After the successive setbacks, Chinese had at realised their own precarious position and were looking for a way to save their face. Everybody knew that Chinese President was on phone only because he was on the verge of a very embarrassing defeat.
His aggressive posturing was nothing more than false bravado and attempts of intimidation, which had no effect on Indians. Seeing all of his attempts of bullying Indian leadership in to submission, Peng changed tracks.
“Listen Mr Angad. We all realize that a war is not in our interest. We need to end the conflict before it expands and turns nastier. Nuclear weapons have already been used. So far, only military targets have been attacked but you know we have to end this before either of us are forced in to some thing even more destructive. We need to wind all this down”
DM leaned back on his chair and looked around the room at the people surrounding him and spoke, “What are you offering us ?”
0700 Hours
6th November 2012
BREAKING NEWS
India and China have both agreed to a ceasefire to the conflict which was threatening to put the world on brink of a nuclear war. The news has come as a major relief to whole of the world as the battles between two nuclear armed rivals started to escalate and spread to multiple fronts.Both nations have agreed to cease hostilities and hold immediate negotiations to resolve their disputes. A Chinese delegation will land in New Delhi within next few hours to this effect.
As many of our viewers already know, India had accused China of hatching a conspiracy which culminated with 2 nuclear missiles being launched from Pakistan, one of which killed more than 25000 people in Rajasthan. Other missile targeted towards Mumbai was intercepted and destroyed in midair by Indian home grown missile defence system.
In retaliation, India had launched a massive nuclear and conventional weapons based attack on Pakistan which all but wiped out Pakistan from world map, causing millions of causalities. Hours after the attack, Indian military had captured a Chinese nuclear submarine just a few KM south of Gawadar port and two Chinese nuclear tipped ICBMs from a tunnel near Gilgit from Pakistan controlled part of J&K.; Based upon the evidence collected, India had accused one senior member of CPC identified as Admiral (retd) Xedong of masterminding the nuclear attack on Indian soil. China had first rejected Indian demands of handing over Admiral Xedong and 7 other CPC and PLA officers and put Admiral Xedong in custody. Xedong was considered by many to be one of the likely candidates for the chair of Chinese president after Peng’s terms got over next year in August. Massive riots had broken out in many Chinese cities after news of Xedong’s death in custody had leaked out.
Two days after the incident, advancing Indian forces in Pak occupied Kashmir were involved in a conflict with Chinese forces near Shaksgam valley. The small fire fight quickly escalated in to something much worse as China launched more than a dozen cruise missiles at Indian bases in J&K;, causing serious damage to Leh airfield. In retaliation, India attacked dozens of Chinese bases in Aksai Chin and Tibet. Although, both sides are tight lipped about it right now, some reports suggest that India used at least two nuclear tipped missiles in the attack.
Chinese forces in the area which were already battling resurgent Tibetan and Uighur rebels were unable to withstand the subsequent blitzkrieg of Indian air and ground attack and were forced to abandon their positions in Shaksgam Valley and Aksai Chin.
According to experts, Chinese forces were stretched too thin due to their ongoing operations against domestic insurgency which had disrupted their supply lines in the remote and rough terrain. Additionally, Chinese government had came under immense international pressure after another conflict with Taiwan and USA seemed imminent brought upon by downing of Taiwanese F-16 fighter plane by a Chinese warship. After the incident USA had dispatched two of it’s CBGs to help Taiwan defend itself against any further Chinese aggression.
Although no official confirmation has come in yet, it’s believed that Indian, Chinese and US submarines were involved in a shooting match east of Andaman islands which resulted in sinking of at least one Chinese submarine.
All of this has seemed to helped Indian forces in their war with China as they overran Chinese defences in Shaksgam Valley and parts of Aksai Chin, before their advance slowed down due to pressure on their supply lines and fierce Chinese resistance. Before the declaration of ceasefire, Indian forces in Aksai Chin had penetrated up to 110 km in some sectors
Right now, it’s unclear whether India will hand over the captured territory back to China. Although China has agreed to Indian claim on Pakistan controlled part of J&K;, both parties remained tight lipped over the Chinese controlled areas. It’s quite likely that India will drive a hard bargain with China over it and probably try to get a favourable agreement on long standing border disputes. Considering that Indians have a fully weaponised Chinese nuclear submarine and crew along with at least 350 Chinese soldiers and civilians in their custody, it seems that they will have an upper hand during the negotiations. Also under present circumstances, world opinion seems more or less to be on Indian side. Though it remains to be seen how it’ll affect the negotiations .