NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR: Hundreds of Indian and Chinese troops have dug into positions on a high Himalayan plateau, leading India’s army chief to cancel a foreign trip and monitor a standoff that underscores deep differences between the Asian giants as they seek closer ties.
Military officials in New Delhi and Kashmir said yesterday that Chinese troops set up a camp about 3km into territory claimed by India in the Chumar region of the Ladakh plateau more than a week ago. Indian soldiers have set up their own base nearby and have been told not to back down, the officials said.
Asked about the standoff, China’s Ministry of Defence said the two sides’ understanding of the line of the border was not the same. “The two countries’ border, to this day, has not been designated,” the ministry said in a faxed statement, adding that the Chinese military respected pacts signed by both countries.
India has deployed about 1,500 troops in the Chumar area and there are about 800 Chinese soldiers, an Indian government official said. The two sides are not in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation and are well separated from each other, he added.
India’s army chief, General Dalbir Singh, cancelled a three-day visit to neighbouring Bhutan on Monday in order to monitor the border situation, a government official in New Delhi said. Military commanders from both sides were due to hold a meeting in the border area in a fourth such gathering to try and resolve the dispute.
The alleged incursion by Chinese troops into territory claimed by India dominated a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping last week. During Xi’s visit, Modi urged an early border settlement with China. Both sides have held 17 rounds of border talks since the early 1990s, with little progress.
Small incursions are common across the Line of Actual Control between the nations, the de facto border that runs some 4,000km across the Himalayas, but it is rare for either country to set up camp deep within disputed territory.
Reuters
