Winter is approaching fast, the northern border with China will go quite but only for a while. Next year, Chinese do not have any pressing international issues to deal with except if the US decide to heighten tension with North Korea. It will be stupid for US to do that. Otherwise Chinese will have a free hand to deal with little powers like India.
Elsewhere, thanks to inaction by Obama, Chinese have already captured all of South China Sea area as their own. The Americans kept watching but did nothing.
Overconfident Chinese came to do the same on India - China border using Doklam as the test case. Well they met an iron fist. No solution was possible until the head of the Chinese Army who was the roadblock was removed from the office and a day later settlement followed. The Chinese media and the Chinese people were shell-shocked at the turn of the events. The hardliners in the Chinese Communist Party hierarchy who precipitated the crisis have not given up yet. They have the party General Congress conference in October/November where they will outline President Xi's shortcomings and demand his head or much stricter action against a minor power like India. President Xi may relent and give into the demand of punitive action against India. All that will happen, if US - North Korea war of words does not heat up into punitive action by the US. That will put a hold on Chinese plans on India-China border. Otherwise, situation at the LAC will heat up.
So what are Chinese options:
1. They may try and retake the Doklam plateau again.
2. They may send lorries full of Chinese soldiers to plains near Daulat Beg Oldi to block Indian movement there. That will remove any Indian threat to CPEC being built via Khunjreb Pass to Pakistan.
3. They can simply threaten Indian position at Chusul airstrip.
4. In Arunachal Pradesh they may threaten Tawang one more time and still use the foot paths over minor passes to appear behind Tawang and cut Indian positions off. This they did very well in 1962 as our bumbling military leadership did not know how to react.
Any of the above, Chinese can do it but it all depends upon how India reacts. If India presents an iron fist just as it did at Doklam then Chinese generals will be obliged to escalate it further. They simply do not wish to look for a face saving formula. But there is a problem here, Chinese have insufficient troops and military hardware in Tibet other road network to meet the Indian iron fist which India may present. That 240,000 Chinese garrison in Tibet after internal security requirements, is far too insufficient to meet the Indian iron fist of comparable troop strength organized in 8 mountain divisions and an aggressive corp being readied at Panagarh in West Bengal. In the east Ladakh is well supplied with troops, tanks and artillery.
Now begins the issues to be thought thru by the Chinese leadership in Peking. If they concur to the additional troops strength asked for by the Chinese generals or ignore general's requests but restart the verbal and media war we witnessed this summer over Dokolam. We do not know yet what is up in the Chinese mind. My guess is additional troops to Tibet to intimidate India will be the policy.
Let us assume that Peking doubles the troop strength in Tibet opposite India. First, on a single rail line from China which is partially built over permafrost, it will be hard to support the additional troops. But let us assume that long range supply is maintained somehow, then how will the unacclamtized troops and hardware will behave in -20C and mountain tops which are not in Tibetan plateau but at 12,000 to 20,000 feet and which are not serviced by much talked about Chinese road network. I see a big supply problem. Troops will have to turn back as overconfident Chinese meet the Indians at well acclamatised Indians positions. Moreover attacking ratio in the mountains of 7 to 1 cannot be met. I only see hardship for the attacking Chinese and victory for India.
It has been confirmed by the Indian Airforce chief that Chinese airfields are inadequately developed at seven thousand feet in Tibet. A big problem for them, advantage India. Hence Chinese will not dare to use the Airforce at all.
As for the Navy, there is nothing in Chinese navy which is war ready after travelling four thousand miles to the Indian Ocean. Their numbers are large but mostly untrained paper tigers. Their submarines are not seen diving deep and do not go any farther than thirty miles from their maintenance trawler. These submarines breakdown more often. The aircraft carrier has not seen the deep sea.
So, minor skirmishes is a possibility next year, but Chinese very much worry about their prestige will not initiate a big confrontation. Even a little one is most unlikely to happen as the little ones escalate into big fights.
Chinese have to remember that India is very much different than what they met before.