The Asian giants accused each other this week of sending soldiers into each other’s territory and fired warning shots for the first time in 45 years, creating the specter of a full-scale military conflict.
His foreign ministers are expected to discuss the dispute in Moscow on Thursday on the sidelines of a regional security and economic meeting.
The high-altitude confrontation along the eastern section of what is known as the Royal Line of Control, a flexible demarcation, risks drastically altering the already strained relationship between nuclear-armed neighbors.
The confrontation began in early May with a fierce brawl before erupting into hand-to-hand combat with clubs, stones and fists on June 15 that left 20 Indian soldiers dead. China is believed to have suffered casualties, but has not provided figures.
DECADES OF DISTRUST
India and China inherited their territorial disputes from the period of British colonial rule.
Three years after India’s independence in 1947 and a year after the communists came to power in China, the new government in Beijing began to assert its claims and repudiate previous treaties that it says were signed under duress, but which India says are fixed.
Beijing’s approach has been strengthened with Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader in decades who has vowed not to give up an inch of territory.
In the 1950s, China began building a strategic highway on the uninhabited Aksai Chin plateau to connect its restless regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. India objected and claimed Aksai Chin as part of Ladakh, belonging to the former principality of Kashmir now divided between India and Pakistan.
Relations became further strained after India allowed Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to establish a self-proclaimed government in exile in the northern Indian city of Dharmsala after he fled his homeland in 1959 during a failed uprising against the Chinese government.
The differences led to a bitter month-long war in 1962. Shootings broke out again in 1967 and 1975, leading to more deaths on both sides. They have since adopted protocols, including an agreement not to use firearms, but those protocols were fractured in clashes this year.
Meanwhile, China began to consolidate its relations with India’s archrival Pakistan and to back it up on the Kashmir issue.
THE ROYAL CONTROL LINE
Fiercely contested LAC separates Chinese and Indian-controlled territories from Ladakh in the west to the eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in full. It is broken in parts where the Himalayan nations of Nepal and Bhutan border China.
According to India, the de facto border is 3,488 kilometers (2,167 miles) long, although China promotes a considerably shorter figure. As its name suggests, it divides areas of physical control rather than territorial claims.
In all, China claims about 90,000 square kilometers (35,000 square miles) of territory in northeast India, including Arunachal Pradesh with its mainly Buddhist population.
India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometers (15,000 square miles) of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau, which India considers part of Ladakh, where the current fighting is taking place.
Despite more than three dozen rounds of talks over the years and multiple meetings between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, they are nowhere near resolving their dispute.
ECONOMIC AND STRATEGIC RIVALITY
Since the 1962 war, both economies have grown substantially, but China has far outpaced India while enjoying a large trade surplus with its neighbor.
Growing economic rivalry has added to territorial and geostrategic differences. India has tried to capitalize on China’s rising labor costs and deteriorating ties with the United States and Europe to become a new base for foreign manufacturers.
India became concerned after China recently built a highway through Pakistani-controlled Kashmir as part of Xi’s signature foreign policy push, the billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, to which India joined. vehemently opposed.
Meanwhile, India’s growing strategic alliance with the United States has ruffled feathers in Beijing, which sees the relationship as a counterweight against China’s rise. Indian fears of Chinese territorial expansion are reinforced by the growing presence of the Chinese navy in the Indian Ocean and Beijing’s efforts to strengthen ties not only with Pakistan, but also with Sri Lanka and Nepal.
India is vying for strategic parity with China, massively increasing its military infrastructure throughout LAC. China, for its part, has been building roads and defensive positions in the disputed Doklam region and in recent weeks has carried out high-altitude parachute drops and stationed strategic bombers in Tibet.
To increase tension, India unilaterally declared Ladakh a federal territory and separated it from disputed Kashmir in August 2019, ending its semi-autonomous status.
Soon after, lawmakers from India’s ruling party began defending control of some areas administered by China, alarming Beijing.
FEARS OF A WIDER CONFLICT
Border tensions have persisted despite talks at the military, diplomatic and political levels. With strong nationalists leading both countries, the border has taken on a prominence not seen in years.
China, which has emerged relatively unscathed from the COVID-19 pandemic, is also perceived regionally as rising military ambitions against its neighbors, notably by using “salami cutting” tactics to gradually gain territory.
While Chinese soldiers remain in what India says is its territory in Ladakh, India occupied at least one unmanned mountain top last week, prompting Beijing to furiously demand that New Delhi leave the area.
Experts warn that if military hostilities are not stopped, war could be next.
“If diplomacy fails, weapons speak. That is the natural culmination of what we have witnessed for the past four months,” said Lt. Gen. DS Hooda, who was head of the Indian Army Northern Command from 2014 to 2016. ” things are fine. ” rapidly escalating out of control unless there is a breakthrough in the talks. ”
Wang Lian of the international relations department at Peking University considers the possibility of a broader conflict less likely, even though both sides are making preparations.
“China has shown restraint in bilateral relations with India, and India can refrain from exaggerating in the future,” Wang said.
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