Battle in the Himalayas – The New York Times

China and India have once again stumbled into a bloody showdown over some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth.

A deadly fight last month killed 20 Indian border troops and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers, fueling a decades-long border dispute that has become one of the world’s most intractable geopolitical conflicts. It has increased tensions at a time when the world is consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, and it has reduced recent efforts by the two Asian powers to put aside their historical differences.

In the weeks that followed, the two sides have tried to move away from the limit, with military commanders and senior diplomats quietly negotiating to withdraw. At the end of last week, satellite photographs indicated that Chinese troops had withdrawn from a disputed area where a fight sparked the latest tensions.

Still, the broader dispute between the world’s two most populous nations, both armed with nuclear weapons, remains unresolved and dangerous. It is a region called Ladakh, a sparsely populated area, high in the Himalayas, with close historical and cultural ties to Tibet. It was divided in the years after India’s independence from Great Britain in 1947, and the Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China two years later.

During its invasion of Tibet in 1950, Mao Zedong’s China seized the northern part of Ladakh, called Aksai Chin, and has held it ever since, in large part because a crucial highway connecting Tibet to another restless province, Xinjiang. , goes through it. In 1962, the two countries went to war over the same terrain, but despite an overwhelming Chinese victory, the de facto border, known as the Current Line of Control, remained largely the same.

The fighting this spring and summer stemmed from India’s recent efforts to build the road network on its side of the border, reaching, delayed, critics say, China’s backlog on its side. Last year, India completed an all-weather highway connecting Leh, the capital of Ladakh, to its northernmost outpost at Daulat Beg Oldi. In the past two decades, India has built nearly 5,000 kilometers of roads, allowing it to more easily move military forces along the mountainous border region.

China seemed alarmed by that and by India’s decision last year to impose a direct national government on the Ladakh region.

“China is very sensitive to Indian activity in the western sector,” said M. Taylor Fravel, director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “and goes back to the reasons he decided to fight in 1962: defend that road that connected Xinjiang with Tibet. ”

The Galwan Valley is not the only access point along the border. In late April and early May, Indian troops began to observe an accumulation of Chinese forces at two other points along the Current Control Line: Pangong Lake and the hot springs.

Although there were no clashes in Hot Springs, the Chinese drew significant weapons. About three kilometers from the Current Control Line, companies of towed artillery tanks and batteries appeared in existing Chinese positions north and east of Gogra.

This year’s tensions first spilled over onto the north shore of Pangong Lake, a glacial lake divided by the de facto border.

In early May, troops from both countries fought on disputed territory there. There were a number of injuries, some serious, although there were no deaths. That fight brought both sides to the brink, contributing to the deadly clash in the Galwan Valley a little over a month later. Years ago, the two countries agreed that their troops should not fire on each other during border clashes. But China seems to be testing the limits. In June fighting, Indian commanders said Chinese troops used pickaxe-packed iron sticks.

China’s actions in the Himalayas have reflected similar efforts to assert or strengthen its territorial claims, especially in the South China Sea. Chinese warships this year have threatened fishing and research vessels from Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. In recent weeks, China is reported to have expanded its land claims in Bhutan, which has a close defense relationship with India.

Some analysts have argued that China is acting while the world is distracted by the coronavirus pandemic; Others say that China needs to distract its own population with nationalist propaganda for the defense of Chinese sovereignty. In any case, tensions are unlikely to decrease.