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China has accused the Indian army of crossing into your territory and “lock-down” of their patrol cars and “trying to unilaterally change the status to” on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two countries on Sikkim and Ladakh.
The strongly worded statement made available to the media by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs marks an escalation in the current tensions in the FTA between them and threatens to bring the government of India so far has maintained were “actions on the part of both armies in the land” in a diplomatic face-off between the countries, the most serious such event since the Doklam face-off in 2017.
In the press release published on Tuesday in China, the ministry of foreign affairs in Beijing, referred to the recent skirmish in Sikkim, stating that “the Indian army has crossed the line through the western section of the sino-Indian border and the Sikkim section to enter Chinese territory”.
News analysis | Behind of new incidents, a change in the dynamics along the India-China border
The statement added that the Chinese side had taken up the matter with India, asking the Indian side to “immediately withdraw the personnel through the line to restore the status quo of the relevant areas, strictly restrict the frontline troops, to observe the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries and the agreements signed by the two sides, and jointly maintain peace and stability in the border areas.”
A response from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is expected.
Sikkim is Naku La pass is one of the four areas that have seen aggressive action between China and India troops (like the Army and Indo-Tibetan Border Patrol staff) from mid-April of this year, according to the sources.
Similar skirmishes, including pushing, shoving, and fists among soldiers have been reported along a stretch in the east of Ladakh on three points of Pangong Tso lake, and the Galwan river, nalah, the sources said, adding that both sides have put in more staff to the area and more than a dozen new Chinese ships had been seen in the lake.
Officially, the army said there were two incidents of face-to-face between the troops of India and China, May 5, near Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh and a second face-to-face, on the 9th of May in Naku’s in the north of Sikkim. The incidents were marked by “aggressive behavior on the part of both sides,” which resulted in minor injuries to the troops, after both sides disconnected after the dialogue and engagement at the local level, Indian Army officials said.
However, an article of the The Global Times on May 18, citing Chinese military sources, also spoke of an incident along the “boundary line in the Galwan Valley region”, saying Indian troops had entered “Chinese territory.” It also stated that the Indian side had built up the defense of the fortifications, and obstacles to avoid the patrolling by Chinese troops and “attempt to unilaterally change the current border control of the situation.” Sources in New Delhi have denied the claim, and indicated that the blame lay with the Chinese troops trying to disrupt the construction of a road near the LAC in eastern Ladakh.
“Temporary and short-duration face-to-face between the border guarding troops occur all along the LAC, due to the different perceptions of the alignment of the boundaries that are not resolved,” Army chief Gen. Manoj Naravane said last week in a press release, adding that “the development of the infrastructure of capabilities along our Northern border is on the track.”
The Army chief also denied that the separate incidents in the east of Ladakh, and west of Sikkim, a distance that extends for 1,200 km along the LAC, are “co-related in any way.
In a statement last Thursday, MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava had said India and China attach “the utmost importance to ensure peace and tranquility in all areas of Sino-India border regions”, and referred to the agreements between the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and the President of China, Xi Jinping, in his two informal summits.
“Once in a while, however, on account of differences in the perception of the alignment of the LAC, situations have arisen on the ground that could have been avoided if we had a common perception,” he said, when asked.
(With inputs from Ananth Krishnan)
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