India-China border skirmish flares up

'InCh' impasse: First flag meeting fails, second to be held today

Less than 24 hours before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s arrival, Indian and Chinese troops are locked in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation at Chumar, close to the disputed border in eastern Ladakh with no sign of withdrawal at the moment.

As Monday’s flag meeting at Spanggur Gap failed to resolve the crisis, a second meeting has been convened on Wednesday. But this time, the level of the delegation leader has been upgraded to Major General (two star officer), which is unusual and reflective of the gravity of the situation. More than 100 border guards from the two neighbouring nations are holding to their positions facing each other at Chumar.

A second flashpoint is Demchok, where a group of Chinese nomads have erected tents and are staying there, ignoring India’s objections. The distance between Demchok and Chumar is about 60 km as the crow flies. In the first flag meeting, two delegations, headed by Brigadier-level officers, reiterated their positions but there is barely any change on the ground position so far.

The two armies have also followed a 2005 protocol on “Modalities for the Implementation of Confidence Building Measures in the Military Field Along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China Border Areas” to defuse the tension. They informed the headquarters, did not use force and did not put up signs on the spot where the situation took place.

The troops showed banners to each other seeking claims to the disputed area in Chumar near the Line of Actual Control which acts as de-facto boundary between the two nations in the absence of a mutually accepted boundary.

The border standoff, continuing for the past six days at Chumar and almost 10 days at Demchok, has precipitated a crisis on the eve of the Chinese president’s arrival.

But the government remained tight-lipped with neither the Ministry of Defence nor the Ministry of External Affairs offering any comment.

The face-off is a reminder of the April 2013 intrusion at Depsanag Valley in northern Ladakh, which continued for three weeks necessitating diplomatic intervention. The Chinese troops pulled back few days before Premiere Li Keqiang's maiden visit in May 2013.

While troops from the Indian Army and Indo-Tibetan Border Police showed banners to the People’s Armed Police Force at Chumar asking them to go back, Indian troops could do nothing at Demchok, 300 km from Leh, where Chinese nomads pitched up tents 500 mt inside Indian territory. They are now refusing to vacate the territory. The Demchok dispute involves construction of a canal whereas at Chumar, the Indian Army objected to the construction of a road by China in what is perceived as undisputed Indian territory.

Both of these sectors have witnessed several instances of Chinese transgression in the past in the absence of a mutually accepted boundary line.

Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju informed the Parliament in August that the Chinese Army transgressed the Sino-Indian border 334 times this year and a total of 1,278 times between 2010 and 2013.