I don't see why the border conflict with India must end in a timely fashion. I feel like the current Indian situation draws a lot in parallel to the Vietnam situation back in 1979.
Here is my reasoning.
1. After winning the Vietnam War, Vietnam became the prominent political and military figure in South East Asia, and they began to expand their influences (like invading Cambodia). Due to historical and geopolitical reasons, Vietnamese harbor deep mistrust to the Chinese, so they quickly became hostile towards the Chinese after the Vietnam war, even though China provided them with a lot of support. This is very much like India today. India wants to become a superpower, they have been actively engaging in border conflicts with all of their neighbors and they have a fixation on China.
The first main point is, much like Vietnam, India today has China as their top one adversary. Furthermore, both India and Vietnam had the aspiration to become the dominant political and military figure in their respective area, this is likely the key reason why they want to challenge and confront China.
2. Vietnam had the audacity to challenge China and the countries nearby because they believe they had Soviet support. Much like India currently, which believes the US and the West will back them up. Both countries believe that their key geopolitical standing grants them this vital importance at a global stage.
The second point is, India and Vietnam, both being weaker countries on all aspects compared to China, dare to seriously challenge China because they felt like they had the backing of a superpower.
3. Like India, Vietnam has had on-going border conflicts with China for many years, and skirmishes have been fought often. This is not only true on land, but also in the sea. China and Vietnam has fought 2 major conflicts in the Sough China sea in the past.
The third point is, Vietnam, very much like India, bet that China's main focus is on developing the economy, so they dare to challenge China on areas that are not of essential focus. Like in remote areas in the South China sea in the 70s and 80s, or borders in Yunnan. They believe little gains and accumulate over time, and as long as they keep the intensity low enough, China will not and can not respond in a serious manner.
How did China deal with Vietnam back in 1979? Well, a month long campaign was fought in 1979. When Vietnam was busy dealing with changing regimes in Cambodia, PLA attacked and obliterated the Vietnamese defense. Within 1 month, the PLA reached about 150km outside of Hanoi then retreated back to China; they devastated all industrial, agricultural, and economic facilities along the way. This is not the end, China then fought a decade long border war with Vietnam, lasting into the 90s. Soviet Union never helped Vietnam by fighting China, they only send supplies and arms to Vietnam. Without Soviet support, Vietnam finally signed peace deals with China and the fighting finally stopped.
Now why would they drag out this conflict for over 10 years? Because Yunnan province, which borders Vietnam, is not of vital economic concern, but Vietnam's Hanoi is close to this border. China can spent minimal effort fighting this war while developing its economy, while placing immense amount of pressure on Vietnam to build its military (Very much like what USSR did to China after Zhenbaodao incident). The end result is that China successfully became the manufacturing hub of the world, but Vietnam was only able to kick-start this process after the wars are finished, which was already too late. Those wars shaped the destiny of modern Vietnam. Today, Vietnam is still very poor, many farmers in Yunnan hire Vietnamese workers to do the harvesting, because no Chinese want to do so much manual labor with so little pay, but Vietnamese people would.
India today is at a very similar situation compared to Vietnam. Tibet is not a economic hub for China, fighting a war in the Himalayan will have even a lesser impact on Chinese economy compared to fighting on the borders of Yunnan. New Delhi is pretty close to the border as well, just like Hanoi, meaning that a long lasting conflict will be of vital concern for India. India's industrial capability is laughable, so a dragged out military conflict will mean that India will have to spend a significantly more amount of GDP buying necessary military equipment, thus straining its economy even more in addition to the pandemic. Finally, I seriously doubt the US will help out India during a war, the most the West will do is to sell expensive second hand military equipment to India when they can't build anything for themselves.
If PLA launches a major assault on Indian positions like 1962 before winter comes and immediately retreats, the front line Indian troops will be devastated, and India will be pressured to spend even more money and resources maintaining a significant military presence should the PLA try the same thing again. Then, the warmongering sentiment from the Indian public will most likely pressure the Modi government to counter attack, and since PLA basically get to control how the war can progress, PLA can just simply decide to keep this low intensity conflict going by never invading into India but keep fighting them in the Himalayan hills and never let them catch a break. If this can keep going for years, India will be bled dry, and if they are smart enough, will come back to the negotiation table to talk.
What do you guys think? (I seriously doubt dealing with India will require the PLA to compromise a significant number of its forces from Taiwan, because from what I've read, in 1979, the best equipped PLA troops were stationed in the North preventing a USSR assault and the 2nd tier units were the ones leading the attack into Vietnam.)
