Abhijit Bhattacharyya | Beware the October Shock As China Moves Signal Threat

Come October, come China and Pakistan in tandem. On October 22, 1947, a murderous assault on the independent Kashmir state by Pakistani army-supported irregulars paved the way to Srinagar acceding to sovereign India on October 27, within five days. Next, the Chinese annexation of a free and sovereign Tibet between October 6, 1950, and October 24, 1951, shook India’s security system to the core. And, finally, came the worst of all: the naked two-front Chinese invasion of Kashmir and NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh) on October 20, 1962, shattered Prime Minister Nehru’s dream of an enduring India-China bilateral.

Hence, every October, expect the unexpected. India should be prepared to face the October shenanigans of the Dragon not excluding diplomatic harassment. The pattern is so deeply ingrained in the psyche of the rulers of China that it would be surprising to see the recurring failure of India to give due importance to their diabolical designs over more than six decades.

India must not forget that the first assault by the Communist Party of China’s People’s Liberation Army akin to organised crime occurred on the Indian patrol of Thag la ridge when “50 odd men were heavily attacked 5 am Wednesday 10 October 1962 by 800 men supported by heavy mortars” at Tseng-Jong in the remote corner of then NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh). What followed 10 days later on the Saturday of October 20 is part of the most inglorious chapter of India’s history showing the results of misreading the Dragon’s mind. Then PM Nehru continues to be the villain till date. Regrettably, however, none of the successors of Nehru could reverse the losses. China rules the roost and Indians cannot tackle its powers in any way whatsoever.

Now, 64 years after the Tseng-jong assault, along the 15,000-foot snowline, China has once again descended to the sea level on October 10, 2026, tying up a US $335.78 million agreement with Bangladesh to expand and modernise the Mongla port, 80 kilometres from the Indian (West Bengal) border. Make no mistake; its arrival at the eastern door of India through Dhaka is straight out of The Strategy of Indirect Approach by Liddell Hart.

And if that were not enough, the first ever joint Sino-Pakistani army exercise began on the “forbidden” land of Xinjiang, not far from the Karakorum tri-junction with India and Afghanistan within 96 hours. A clear signal of deepening military trust, weapons inter-operability and joint command and control (as last seen in May 2025 during Operation Sindoor) against India. Yet, there’s no Indian reaction. Why? When a free and sovereign Tibet was brutally conquered by the Communist Party of China in 1950, Home minister of India Vallabhbhai Patel did point out the grave threat to India’s sovereignty and security. However, today’s India lacks the Sardar’s wit, wisdom and courage.

Today the Dhaka-Beijing-Islamabad combo has created another October headache for New Delhi without doubt. Nevertheless, a section of India’s ruling class is clearly in “olive branch” mode. On October 14, the Indian minister of commerce and industry, Piyush Goyal, said, “India is working to rebuild its relations with China.” However, the same day, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the electronics and IT minister, said that “India’s critical minerals are among the biggest vulnerabilities in its push for tech sovereignty”. True, the world knows how heavily dependent India is on China in this subject. And the world also is seeing how China takes full advantage of this to keep India on leash.

But the last of the three statements, the one made by the foreign minister, was the clearest in conveying New Delhi’s intent. He said “any disturbance along India-China border will have consequences, as the LAC (Line of Actual Control) has to be stable for normalising relations between two countries”.

This writer, too, has been of same view, that ceaseless territory violation of India by China is non-negotiable. All things, economics, trade, commerce, diplomacy, banking and politics, can continue only if Indian land is intact and not being snatched away by a purported ‘friend’ who says “let’s talk on convergence, divergence can wait”. That’s the classical duplicity of the Dragon the misreading of which led Nehru to become the object of criticism by his successors that continues to this day. But, did Nehru or Indira Gandhi ever invite China to exploit the Indian market to make money in the heartland and massacre our military at the outpost in a one-sided deal?

What makes the task of Indian diplomacy more complicated is the ceaseless undiplomatic, and at times uncouth, unprovoked salvos fired at New Delhi by MAGA-inspired Donald Trump administration officials everywhere. Consequently, India today faces an unprecedented two-front flank assault, from the US from the west and from China from the north and northeast.

But while the United States’ misdemeanours are a comparatively new trend, the Chinese shenanigans have been chronic and unrelenting. Some of these have been proving destructive to Indian industry. One headline will suffice: “Over 36,000 private companies liquidated, dissolved, or struck off last five financial years in Maharashtra, government told Parliament” (The Telegraph, Calcutta, August 12, 2026).

And finally, India today cannot even assign standardised names to her own 28 strategic locations and geographical features in Ladakh land. China calls India’s sovereign act on it as “illegal and invalid”, thereby forgetting its own aggression, murder and bullying across the globe.

One does not have to go far to note the happenings. American colonel Grant Newsham’s book, When China Attacks, says it all. “No matter what China does, threatens US ships in international waters, harasses and sinks other nations’ fishing boats, withholds life-saving medical care from a Nobel Prize winner and lets him die, locks up citizens en-masse in concentration camps, or gets caught red-handed stealing American trade secrets and government secrets, there is an amen chorus of bureaucrats, PhDs, business and financial types, government officials, politicians and pundits telling you why there’s nothing to worry about from the Communist Party-run Chinese state.

“They add, anyone who says otherwise is racist, stupid, a hawk (or even a super-hawk), and anyway, it’s all America’s fault since US treated China like an enemy. And more than a few senior US military officers and their courtiers (colonels who hope to be generals) are willing to say same thing. But there is now a thin ray of hope in darkness. Like a drunkard awakening from stupor, powers that be in US military and department of defence have started to recognise China as growing and major threat. Even some major American businesses are starting to realise that being in China is riskier than they thought. Wall Street and super rich financial class unfortunately, however, remain fully committed to China. After all it is someone else’s money.”

If the world’s number one economy cries itself hoarse on the destruction wrought by the Dragon, can India afford to be blasé when its fire-breath is threatening to knock down all its doors and reduce everything inside to ashes?